As if by Magic

by Angus Wilson

  “Yes, of course. But if you’ll excuse me, Professor Abbegurewadena, for one such fruitful unestablished hypothesis, there are hundreds thrown out by egoists who have neither discipline nor patience enough . . . And the waste of time involved is appalling. No, people speak of scientific philosophy, but they should more properly speak of scientific ethics or even, in my opinion, scientific etiquette . . .”

  “So you would find no place for the increasing concern with the history of science, the discovery of fruitful hypotheses that seemed ridiculous when the chaps put them forward.”

  “The history of science is a very proper occupation for retired professors. And very elegant essays they may produce . . .”

  They were both at once vehement and yet laughing at the familiar patterns of their arguments. It was just such a pas de deux as he liked best, found it most fitting to dance with a colleague after some hours of fruitful detailed discussion and examination of work in progress. And Hamo’s delight was complete, because his faithful Erroll was having an equally good time, for he and the professor’s young technician had set to in a country dance of their own. That was how it should be: everything forgotten except their proper skills.

  “Our trouble, you must understand, Mr. Watson, lies with lack of money. We need an electron microscope. All right. The salesman comes to me. ‘Mr. Fernando, I can promise you a high physical performance from this machine. And the price is not very high.’ But then I begin to ask, can we make use of the microscope for this and for that? Well, this chap tells me, for this perhaps, but not for that. We cannot afford such machines.”

  “All right then. Let me do a little sales talk,” and Erroll assumed the manner of a cocky representative. “Not to worry, Mr. Fernando, we’ve got your answer. The Zeiss E.M.8 offers you not only high physical performance at a low price but also universal applicability.”

  “Oh my goodness!” the Professor intervened, “don’t raise the poor chap’s hopes. We have no money.”

  “No, seriously,” Erroll carried it on, “this is a real proposition. You see . . .”

  But Hamo had to exercise some authority, even at the cost of Erroll’s exuberance. That, too, was like old times. “As to price,” he said, “I feel quite sure that we . . . but it is essential, Erroll, that the microscope should meet their particular problems. Too often, with such a small market, the stereotyping . . .”

  “Yes, and, you see,” Mr. Fernando broke in excitedly, “we have many specimens of a very thick circumference. Now . . .”

  “Ah! This is exactly where the E.M.8 provides the answer.” His audience, except for Hamo who was trying not to laugh at the perfect salesman voice, looked so grave that Erroll assumed an American accent in hope of the smiles that had not yet greeted his parody. “You have problems, Mister. Our unique intermediate accelerator provides the answer. Thiswise . . .”

  But how wise they were not to learn, for the telephone rang. Erroll, answering, said, “No, I’m sorry he can see no one. He’s busy.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Some name or other. Dissawardene.”

  Hamo leapt from his chair at the immediate vision of Muthu; then he sat down again, signalling his agreement to the denial. He had done enough harm to the boy. But almost immediately the dignity, stateliness and simplicity of that old couple amid the confused inferno of international travel that usually marked the hotel lobby restored his sense of courtesy.

  “No. There may be something I can do to make up for . . . Say I’ll be down immediately.”

  “Oh! for Christ’s sake,” said Erroll, then, “Well, it’s your affair.”

  But as Hamo left them, he heard Erroll say, “What a bloke! There isn’t a day he doesn’t land his well-polished brogues in a cow-pat. Then polishes them up again ready for the next. Even if he wasn’t the world’s best geneticist, how could you help loving such a natural for taking his punishment standing up?”

  Hamo hoped that the words were unintelligible to their Asian guests; otherwise they would be embarrassingly personal. He was not even sure that he understood them himself, but he was glad that Erroll had said them.

  It was, as Hamo emerged from the lift, worse than he had feared. The old couple’s visit had coincided with the arrival of a winter package tour of French and Italian tourists. Latin laissez-faire volubility was meeting a match in its Asian equivalent of Singhalese happy inefficiency. Exhausted by their long journey, denied access to their bedrooms, the French and Italian bourgeois, dressed in a Gauguinesque mixture of coloured clothing for the tropics, milled about each other and the staff, falling back upon their last defences of high-pitched shouting and competitive pushing. Mr. and Mrs. Dissawardene, solemn in the darkest of clothing, were the principal victims.

  Hamo said at once, let us go and sit down,” and led them to seats. “Well?” he said.

  “It is not well at all, Mr. Langham,” the matron rebuked. “It is very bad. What can you do with the boy in England? He is a good boy. But he is ignorant. What will he do there? My daughter has forbidden us to see you. As to Muthu, good riddance to bad rubbish, she says. But I am not happy to say this. The boy is good.”

  “Oh, God! What has happened to him?”

  “If you don’t know, nobody does. You said you would take him to England. Leela has told us it . . .”

  “I was upset. I didn’t wish him to come to harm.”

  “He has come to harm, if you don’t know where he is.”

  “It is what I said, Violet. The boy has run away.”

  “Oh my God! You mean he hasn’t gone to his home.”

  “Mr. Langham, the boy has no home. These people are very poor. Once they had a little, now they have nothing. They were going to sell the boy to the fishermen of Negombo. To Roman Catholics.”

  “These are stories, Violet.”

  “They are true stories, Albert. Then a Tamil man, a government servant, is travelling there. He took the boy for a servant to his family in Colombo. It is better than Roman Catholics, but, all the same, these Tamil people are Hindus.”

  “There are many very fine judges and barristers who are Tamils, Violet.”

  “We do not know Tamil people, Albert. Then these people are leaving Colombo, Mr. Langham. What will happen to the boy? My daughter heard it. The other servants are from that village. So she accepts him to our house. She is angry now. But she is a kind mistress to her servants.”

  “Yes, I’m sure she is. But where is the boy? Are you sure he’s not gone to his home village?”

  “Mr. Langmuir, these people have many children. Formerly they could feed them and buy a little more by selling the rice they did not eat. But now, with the new agriculture, they can only feed the very young ones . . .”

  “But what about the government subsidies?”

  “This land is bad. A little soil on rock. The government cannot subsidize such hopeless lands. I think you should know this, Mr. Langmuir.”

  “Mr. Langham, is the boy with you?”

  “No, Mrs. Dissawardene, he is not. But I shall do all I can to help you to find him.”

  “I do not know what you can do. Albert, this palm is very uncomfortable, always brushing upon my face. I think we shall go.”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Dissawardene, you have every reason to be angry with me. But please, before you go, at least let me offer to help. For example, a reward. Suppose we offer a police reward of what? Two hundred pounds?”

  “Police? The boy is not a criminal. Everyone will hide from us. No. We must make our own enquiries.”

  “Well, then, don’t punish me too much. Let me contribute to the expenses. I insist, Mr. Dissawardene, as a matter of justice, let me make out a cheque for a hundred pounds. At least, if you find him, it could help to . . .”

  “I do not know what is the use of this cheque, but if it is a matter of justice . . . Strict account shall be kept. Now, Violet, we must go.”

  But before the couple had reached the still furiously milling crowd through which they mu
st make their way, she so vulnerable and stately a ship, he so chunky and secure a vessel, the old man turned to Hamo.

  “Mr. Langmuir, I will tell you what Mr. Justice Carpenter used to say sometimes in the club after a day’s work in the Court. ‘Dissawardene,’ he would say, ‘you failed today in your duty to your client. You did not master your brief properly. A professional man must always know the details of his job.’ ”

  With pride his wife filled out the rebuke. “Mr. Langford, we are here a small community. You have come among us without respect.”

  *

  They drove in an old open car. Mr. Subramanian, that is, drove—well and cautiously, seldom turning his eyes from the road, so that Hamo in their conversation had to guess at the degree of courteous irony, of proud assurance from his profile—from the patterns of the little wrinkles at the side of his flashing eyes, and by the creasing of the high smooth dark-chocolate forehead beneath his elegant grey hair. It was all so different from the giggling, the laughter, the nervous appealing of eyes and body that he had come to expect from his Singhalese hosts. He liked it. It seemed more English. But he did not voice this; partly because this very Tamil reserve, thank heaven, checked the impulsive intimacy into which he had fallen lately and because to involve himself in the island’s racial tensions was his very last wish.

  Behind them rode only Erroll, for Mr. Subramanian had quickly disposed of the Colombo official as soon as they had arrived at Jaffna and had suggested definitively that the smaller number of visitors who descended on the paddy-fields the better. Now, as they returned from their day’s inspection of the agriculture of the canal-criss-crossed flat peninsula along a causeway between two wind-ruffled lagoons, Erroll was happily engaged, leaning back across the lowered hood, in recording the jade and turquoise swoops and dives of the rollers who crossed and recrossed the dusty road behind them in intense pursuit of insects.

  “So, you see, Mr. Langmuir, your Magic has worked.”

  Hamo gave no answer. He did not want fulsome praise to break the image he had formed of this civilized Tamil government official.

  “Oh, yes it has, you know. A very considerable increase in yield, less tillering, therefore fewer pests, and so on. It wasn’t the miracle here that I am sure it has been in so many parts of Asia. But then we didn’t need miracles. We’re very lucky with our soil. Mr. Watton, I see a pied kingfisher ahead, on that flood-level post, if you are quick you will catch its dive as we pass.” He spoke without turning his head . . . And there a moment later a revelatory streak of shining black and white hit the water with a splashless thud.

  “Did you get him? Isn’t it superb? And then to have made your journey by car all the way up through that endless scrub jungle! I hope the green manuring we were making from the jungle saplings and liana growth today made you feel less haunted by those endless hours of dusty scrub. It does serve man a little. Not just the hornbill or our famous loris. I’ve never seen a loris, by the way, or met anyone who had.”

  “Doesn’t the jungle cut you off very seriously from the central Singhalese world though?”

  “I hope so. No, no, don’t mistake me. I am no lover of communal strife. But I had enough of Colombo in six years there.”

  “I understand that. It’s so beautiful here. And then, although as you say it’s very Dutch, it seems to be somehow more English.”

  “Ah! The British always loved us Tamils. Unfortunately that hasn’t been of the greatest help now that we must live under Singhalese rule. But then look how private we are, how discreet.” And he indicated the high hedges of hibiscus and corrugated iron which marked the beginning of the properties of Jaffna. Over the top of the hedges broad leaves told of tobacco cultivation. “Our homes are our castles! And gardens so well cultivated Such pride in hard work! The British liked all that.”

  Hamo could almost feel his limbs relax in the decent distancing that the man’s civilized irony provided. He felt a familiar very faint smile, such as he had sadly missed almost since London Airport, twitching at his lips. Erroll, too, in his own way, clearly felt an equal relief.

  “That’s what I can’t get over,” he had turned towards the front seat now as he changed reels, “the way you speak English. I mean, you know, after Colombo, it’s like having come away from a novel by that bloke Wodehouse.”

  Hamo looked at the closely hidden farmsteads, gazed towards the distant, fortressed island of Kayts across the shimmering waters. He agreed, but the observation was one he would have left unspoken.

  Mr. Subramanian said, “Ah! Jeeves!” Then he remained silent for a moment or two. “You mean ‘the old chaps’ and ‘the old fellows’.”

  “Yeh, ghastly, isn’t it?” Erroll said.

  “I never cared for it with the British, certainly. It seemed patronizing and yet insecure. But that was mostly the planters and engineers and so on. I was luckier in my associates. I mixed mainly with . . .”

  He broke off, as if embarrassed. Hamo, understanding this, said, looking towards the massive curtain wall, “The Dutch castle alone, of course, gives a dignity that Colombo lacks.”

  “Oh, the Singhalese had that symbol of conquest, too, you know, at Galle. Like the Welsh. But still, the Singhalese are making a profit out of it now, with the tourists. It’s all a matter of time before injustice is righted.”

  He began to hoot a little irritably as, from behind a line of nearly collapsed buses, juddering and spluttering as they halted like drunken derelicts dying of the shakes, there poured crowds of villagers come to market with squawking baskets of hens and beasts tied by their legs, a cacophony of bleating and squealing and shrieking. Straight-backed, silent, impassive, unheeding men and women, even children, moved randomly, uncaringly before the car’s demands.

  “In Colombo,” Mr. Subramanian said, “they would be chattering and shouting, making a hell of a row. But they would scatter. Here they don’t. The British liked the Tamil dignity. But it’s inconvenient. I shall take you to my home now. The residence is like a charming English rectory in its own park. Not the local Palmyra palms, you know, but great trees like oaks. They aren’t, of course, but it makes us feel as though at home in England. And we’re all supposed to want that. Even those of us who only stayed in South London digs. No, really,” he cried as two boys rolling ancient tyres passed within inches of the front wheels. “I think we must go round by the esplanade. The roadway is part of the market and must be respected as such. The weak, you know. My wife will have a civilized meal ready for us. Or we like to think so. Out in the wilds here, you know. Not Colombo 7. We have very good lobster. Is that all right for you?”

  Hamo now fully smiled his pleasure at the whole of the man’s tone.

  Erroll said, “Do you dress for dinner?”

  “Well, on this occasion, since you’ve come so far, we’ll excuse you.”

  Hamo felt a bit shut out by their laughter.

  “Oh, God!” cried Mr. Subramanian, “What the hell’s this?” For the broad esplanade was blocked by a huge crowd that spilled over from the water’s edge. “It must be a turtle catch . . . Well, it might amuse you, Mr. Watton, to photograph those melancholy creatures.”

  When the crowd parted before Mr. Subramanian’s authority and they found themselves beside the deep tank, they looked down to see no lugubrious turtle beak or sadly waving flippers; instead there looked up at them two round surprised eyes coming from a brownish-grey furred body so flat that it seemed two-dimensional. Turtles, by their slow bewildered grief, command our tears, but this creature, by its human eyes in a body drawn by a child, wrings our hearts. And Hamo’s more than most, for each side of its nostrils—holes in a cardboard model—above a blubbery upper lip, were suggested whiskers. A dugong is a dugong. But this to Hamo was Old Bill. Old Bill of the trenches, Bairnsfather’s Old Bill—a sacred figure, for had not his father in distant childhood days when Hitler was only “this German chap who’s probably what they need there”, when Arnhem was a name unknown, shown him, a small boy perched o
n a tweed-clad knee, the Old Bill drawings—“If you knows a better ’ole, go to it”—and said with a special voice, “We must hope this sort of laughter will never be needed again,” thinking, no doubt, of his own father, killed at Loos?

  Mr. Subramanian, shocked into Wodehouse by the unusual spectacle, said, “By Jove! A dugong! That’s a pretty rare chap in these parts I can tell you. He seldom comes north of Mannar.”

  He peered down at the too-shallow water in the tank too narrow to allow the creature to move.

  “It’s not a he, it’s a she.” He spoke to two proprietary men who stood by (but they were not, Hamo saw to his relief for his own sanity, uncles, skinny not fat, dead-eyed not grinning). “Yes, it’s as I thought. They’re selling it to the Moslems here. They eat them. Their flesh is said to taste like pork. And again the blubber has properties. Magical, medical. I don’t know. It’s all the same. Of course, I ought to forbid it. If the wild-life people knew . . . but these religious differences. The last thing one wants to do in a small community is to upset the minority groups.”

  Erroll said, “You’re not going to let them kill that, are you?”

  Hamo cried, “But they’re so rare. Look, let me buy it from them and . . .”