Undeniably the so-called Chancellor was an imposing figure. He wore a light brown beard, a fashion rare among Euro-Africans though common enough among visitors from the Federations of Asia and the Americas. Above it his wide eyes were blue as ocean and as restless. Tunic and trousers were deep purple instead of the pale colours worn by the ordinary citizens, and he was draped in an open black frock coat from shoulder to knees.
The Chancellor acknowledged the presence of the Chief of Police by no more than a formal inclination of the head.
‘Your Excellency! My dear colleague! I am appalled. I cannot express my horror.’
Pretorius rose to meet him, shook the clammy hand and remarked that it was very kind of him to call.
‘And I have come not only to assure you of my own sorrow but of that of all my lambs at this attempt against Your Excellency, and to offer you our heartfelt congratulations on your happy escape.’
‘So it was him she aimed at, not me,’ Pezulu pointed out with satisfaction.
‘I … I assumed … my assumption was perhaps … No, no, I cannot affirm their intentions. The commission of this act of violence –’ the Chancellor recovered his composure ‘– this vicious deed upon the holiday which sanctifies the month of August, this is what shames me. On that holiday no manner of work shall be done. The very foundation of the British creed!’
‘You would describe assassination as work?’ Pretorius asked, partly to restore a conversational tone and partly because he was genuinely interested.
‘No activity but ball play is permitted.’
‘Like that cricket of yours. A most interesting dance. My daughter – she’s studying British folklore for her doctorate, you know – believes that the twenty-two men are celebrating the successful decontamination of a strip of cultivated ground.’
‘We do not know the origin. It is a custom written in the Laws of Nelson and hallowed by the centuries.’
Pezulu remarked that they might obey a few other laws while they were at it.
‘A passing phase. Merely a passing phase,’ the Chancellor replied. ‘When at last my lambs have self-government …’
‘Do you have to call them your lambs?’
‘From the old expression, pasha, to fleece the lambs. That, from time immemorial, has been the duty of the Chancellor of the Exchequer: to love them, to care for their welfare, in fact to fleece them for their good.’
The High Commissioner resumed his official chair and motioned to the two to sit opposite.
‘Chancellor, I am anxious to talk to this Silvia Brown myself. Would you mind very much if I asked you to be present?’
‘I hope and pray that your Excellency does not consider …’
‘Of course not! Innocence, collusion – in politics the words have no precise meaning. What matters is that I’m dealing with bitterness and want to understand it. Tito, ask your Inspector to bring her in!’
The Inspector escorted Silvia Brown from the guard room, remaining by the door with a professionally blank face and abandoning his prisoner to stand alone in this spacious room empty of all but the insignia of power. Pretorius was astonished by her air of defiance, by that gentle face which seemed carved in marble, by her youth. He had never thought much of his own skill as an interrogator. Should he try the stern approach of an offended parent? Oh, nonsense! Then treat the girl as any other, with normal courtesy.
He rose, unhooked a section of that absurd rope which divided him from humanity and asked the Inspector to bring in a chair.
‘Do come closer and sit down, Miss Brown.’
‘I will not.’
‘Well, you have a perfect right to refuse to speak to me. And if you wish to leave this room at once, you are free to do so.’
‘I am not afraid of you.’
As she obviously was, Pretorius smiled at her and sat informally on the corner of his desk.
‘There’s no reason at all why you should be,’ he said.
Silvia ignored him and asked the Chancellor if he was under arrest too.
Pezulu answered for him: ‘Not yet.’
‘I asked the Chancellor to be present so that you would not feel alone among enemies,’ Pretorius said, pointedly ignoring his Chief of Police.
‘I am never alone. The Britons and all their past are in the room with me.’
‘I, too, sometimes have that feeling, Miss Brown. One cannot govern without affection creeping in.’
A perfectly sincere remark without ulterior motive, but it did the trick. She moved closer to him out of the emptiness of the great room, but did not sit down.
‘What do you want to know?’ she asked.
‘Whether I have incurred your personal dislike.’
‘I am the servant of my people. I have no likes or dislikes.’
‘I see. You were – well – shooting at the Federation, shall we say? But suppose you had hit some innocent bystander? Think of the remorse if your bullet had gone through Pezulu Pasha’s head instead of his hat!’
Silvia could not help smiling.
‘He’d do fine to go on with,’ she said.
The Chancellor moaned piously that such an answer was most indecorous.
‘Federation out! Britain for ever!’
‘My dear young lady, keep your slogans for the street!’ Pretorius ordered. ‘The Federation has decided that the British Welfare units shall become free partners in not less than fifty and not more than one hundred years. Violent revolt will not make the slightest difference.’
‘It will!’
‘Against the united power of Euro-Africa? How?’
‘Because there are thousands of us to take my place. I am only one, and what you do to me does not matter.’
‘Miss Brown, I cannot sympathise with pretentious nonsense. What the penal psychiatrists will do to you is probably no more than mate and children would do in any case.’
‘No! I demand my right to die by the rope.’
‘Rope?’
‘It was the custom of our ancestors,’ the Chancellor explained.
‘He’s quite right,’ said Pezulu. ‘I read it in their history somewhere. They took a rope like this, you see,’ – he picked up from the floor the end of the ornamental rope – ‘and made a loop round the neck and another round the ankles and pulled at both ends until something gave. It must have solved a lot of problems.’
‘I cannot believe it was done to mere children like her,’ the High Commissioner exclaimed in horror.
Silvia Brown faced the man of peace with blazing contempt.
‘At the end, seven hundred years ago, it was the children who fought in the last streets!’
‘I cannot understand why. There has never been so impossible a people in all history.’
‘There has!’
‘Your evidence?’
‘A fragment in the religious anthology.’
‘And which, dear lamb, is that?’ the Chancellor asked.
Silvia Brown answered slowly and with tears in her eyes:
‘By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept when we remembered thee, O Sion.’
Pezulu looked at Pretorius for his orders. The High Commissioner shrugged his shoulders helplessly and nodded.
‘Back to her cell for care and protection, Inspector,’ Pezulu directed.
‘Tyrants! Exploiters! Death to Ali Pretorius!’
She threw herself on the floor and went limp. Pezulu made a movement to pull down her skirt which was round her waist, but thought better of it. He beckoned to his Inspector, who dragged her out by the shoulders as gently as possible but with obvious disgust.
‘This is most painful. Most painful,’ the Chancellor lamented. ‘Your Excellency has been very patient.’
‘That is what I’m here for. Could you impress it on your people that they too must be patient?’
‘Alas, my influence is so limited. And now, if you need me no more …’ He bowed himself out with hands folded on his chest in a gesture of humility.
; ‘The place wants disinfecting,’ Pezulu said.
‘A good wash would do. He’s all right on his own subject. Theodosia thinks he was a sort of high priest in the old days.’
‘I believe he invents half their traditions to suit himself.’
‘But he hasn’t invented this damned ideal of patriotism. They have never lost it and are quite capable of spreading it. It’s incredible that a civilised human being can feel any longer as that poor girl did. The children fought in the last streets – my God, does anyone want the nation state ever again?’
‘We might oblige her by reviving that death penalty.’
‘It was useless in the Russian revolt. There was a streak in their character which made them enjoy it. And I must remind you, Tito,’ he added in a less conversational tone, ‘that I carry out policy. I do not make it.’
‘You do – when there is any.’
That was true. The leisurely Federation never interfered, so that he was left unwillingly with the power of a Caesar. He had not sought the job; nobody would in a world which, apart from small and isolated pockets of discontent, had never felt, had even forgotten the mad craving for war. He remembered how casually, ten minutes late, he had obeyed the summons to the President’s office. He had supposed that his advice was wanted on some administrative problem of the North African British; as prefect of their province he was officially presumed to understand their customs. He knew, himself, that he observed rather than understood.
The President had been at his most courteous. One had always to guess from his lengthy, friendly enquiries what his real object was. He referred to a recent pronouncement of the physicists that their science was believed to be now equal to that of the middle twentieth century; he asked after Madam Pretorius’ chronic bronchitis; he begged Ali to congratulate his daughter, Theodosia, on the reviews of her monograph on the underground communities of central Russia. Fatherly pride was somewhat diluted by Ali’s conviction that Thea had tailored the facts to her interpretation of them.
Then the point of the interview had been gradually approached.
‘Ali, what is your considered opinion on the establishment of High Commissions?’
‘A successful innovation, sir. But it has never been tested in an emergency.’
‘What about the new immigrants in Britain? Would a High Commissioner be right for them?’
‘Is one likely to be needed? From all I hear, the elected assembly is a fairly responsible body so far.’
‘But better too early than too late.’
‘Provided you can lay your hands on the right man.’
‘I think I can, my dear Ali. You.’
It was the highest honour. There were only four such High Commissioners in the whole Federation, and those in provinces where the people did not wholly accept the common civilisation and armed Moral Persuasion might have to be used.
The appointment was so unexpected that his mind instantly took refuge in trivialities. His wife ought certainly not to live permanently in those damp Atlantic mists and should limit her visits to short periods; Thea could act as hostess and turn to the obscure forest tribes for her research; he would have to endure a palatial official residence instead of his flowered Moorish villa; police and security thugs would have to be commanded and conciliated though he detested the whole lot of them.
In spite of all this personal reluctance, he heard his voice accepting with the sense of duty proper to a high government servant:
‘It’s a great responsibility, sir. I hope I can handle it.’
‘Of course you can, my dear Ali. We shall depend on your advice and give you full support. The man on the spot knows best.’
‘Yes – provided he also knows his own mind.’
‘In case of trouble, you will find Tito Pezulu a great help. We sent him out with the first wave of immigrants and he has been in Avebury ever since.’
Ali Pretorius had doubted then how much help Pezulu was likely to be. Chiefs of Police seldom were, in spite of being storehouses of detailed knowledge. So often they could not see the wood for the trees.
He had been right to doubt. Now, two years later, the immediate future of the British experiment was incalculable, reminding him that science still could not claim infallibility in forecasting the island’s weather. He had learned that ‘in trouble’ – by which the president had meant revolt – he could depend only on himself.
To the Federation, nationalism was the unpardonable crime. It led inevitably to war. The occasional severity of Pezulu and his like was justified. But nationalism resembled a genetic abnormality which could not be bred out of generations of absurd flag-wavers. Some policy, some rule of conduct common to both immigrants and the High Commissioner must exist. Perhaps it could be found not in short-lived humanity but in the earth of this mysterious green and empty land into which all – he and they – had been replanted from the hothouse of the Federation.
Chapter II
Theodosia Pretorius walked slowly back through the parks and playgrounds of Avebury, towards the High Commissioner’s residence which dominated the colony. Dominated? The word had slipped into her mind. It was unfair, she thought. The site was slightly higher than its surroundings, but in no way overpowering. The Federation had every reason to be proud of its resettlement of the British, of its grouped houses surrounded by open space, its terraces which mapped the groves and pools, its low factories stretching westwards, their white walls complementing the spaced public buildings in the centre of the city. Could one even call it a city through which she walked? It was a country in miniature, a newborn babe ready to be lifted from the bloodied sheets of the past.
One missed, of course, the great overland transport services of the rest of the Federation, but there was as yet no need for them; the impenetrable wall of the forest was everywhere within sight and walking distance of the colony, its edge a playground for children – their supervision should be improved – who would daringly gather flowers in summer, chestnuts in autumn, and run away.
It was all so well planned for the peace and happiness of the British Welfare Units, yet there was discontent which she could not explain. Her official duties were easy and satisfying, and she was well aware from the eyes which turned towards her that her tawny beauty was admired by the immigrants, prejudiced though they were in favour of blue eyes and colourless hair. Her emotions were untouched and she was consciously glad that there were no eligible and persistent males in her immediate entourage to distract her from ethnology; nor did her recent feeling that two parts of her were not neatly meshed together have anything to do with her work. Of that she was sure. She was fascinated by her research into the culture of the native British, surprisingly homogeneous in spite of the fact that their hidden clearings, scattered obscurely over the island, were connected only by narrow green lanes shaved clean for the stride of couriers and the trotting of shaggy little horses which – disappointingly – did not in the least resemble the noble beasts of old British poetry and romance.
She couldn’t attribute her vague self-questioning to the British Welfare Units through whose midst she had passed for the last hour and a half, genially if a little critically. Their culture and manners were exactly the same as they had been in North Africa, though they puzzled her kindly father rather more than before. Those antique ideals which he had found merely comic he now studied more closely. Now that the exiles had come home, as they called it, there was a risk of nationalism. Theodosia could not believe that it was serious. There was nothing that the immigrants, happy in permanent peace and the warmth of the Federal beehive, could desire that they had not already got.
She passed through the imposing arch which gave access to the Residency, saluted by a policeman with his mouth full; then through the inner gate where an untidy guard also saluted while adjusting his belt with his spare hand. An absurd and pointless tradition! How could one expect smartness when the wearer of the uniform felt that there would never again be war in which smartness was ess
ential?
Seeing that lobbies and anteroom were empty of petitioners, chairmen of committees and other British time-wasters, she entered her father’s hall of audience and found him sitting rather grimly with his detestable Chief of Police.
‘Where have you been?’ he asked as if, wherever it was, it should have been somewhere else.
‘Sitting on a tree trunk and probing Humphrey.’
‘Humphrey?’
‘Humphrey of Middlesex.’
‘Oh, him! Did he give you that licence to enter his tribal reserve?’
‘Of course he did. They’ve just made a landing strip in a forest glade. I shall fly in at the end of the week.’
‘He’s reliable, you think?’ Pretorius asked Tito Pezulu.
‘Charming fellow!’ Pezulu answered heartily. ‘He dislikes the immigrants as much as we do.’
‘Why are they behaving so oddly on the August holiday?’ Theodosia asked. ‘So many of them seemed to be moving on the centre.’
‘A special meeting of their Assembly. Somebody, I’m afraid … er … shot at me.’
‘And hit my hat, by God!’ Pezulu exclaimed.
Theodosia threw her arms round her father and kissed him, crying that they must be quite mad. Pezulu, smiling benevolently on the touching scene as if he had been the rescuer, showed her the holes in his hat.
‘They’ll have to give you another decoration for that,’ Theodosia said.
Pretorius, knowing his daughter, remarked quickly and tactfully that it was long overdue.
‘I wouldn’t like it, sir, just for being at the wrong end of a firearm!’
‘But, my dear Tito,’ Theodosia purred sweetly, ‘it’s impossible for you to receive anything you don’t deserve.’
Arrows of Desire Page 2
