Arctic Summer (26 page)

Morgan walked to the station with him and though he tried to make jolly small talk along the way, a silence had set in. Their parting was polite and the resultant misery immense. On the walk back to the room, Morgan noticed, as he hadn't for some time, the hugeness of the sky overhead, the prominence of the stars. You would never see a sky like this in England, and he experienced anew his dislocation from home.

It was finished; he was certain of it. He'd made a hash of his seduction attempt, and everything was ruined. He thought of Mohammed as superstitious and no doubt the fact that he'd drawn blood would count against him. It remained only to make his apologies and afterwards to keep his distance.

 

* * *

 

But when he climbed onto Mohammed's tram in the morning, there was no trace of last night's heavy emotions. He was greeted with a smile and, once the tram had emptied a little, the conductor came over to sit with him.

“How is your hand?”

“My hand is bruised still, but it will heal. How is your eye?”

He turned his head to show Morgan. The scratch was still visible, but in daylight it didn't look like much.

“I am very sorry I hurt you.”

“It is nothing. Do you want to meet at the Nouzha Gardens on Sunday?”

It was as if no mishap had occurred. Indeed, the agreement between them appeared to have taken root.

Over the weeks that followed, they didn't see each other often. Because of the long shifts that Mohammed worked, at most a couple of hours a week were possible. When they met in public they always travelled separately to and from their rendezvous, and always in civilian clothes. These precautions might not save them, but they minimised the danger of detection. They were both aware of breaking a powerful rule, and it made Morgan feel guilty and excited.

And yet, he wondered in frustration, what were they actually
doing
? Even in their few moments alone, their crimes were not great. Sometimes they caressed each other; occasionally they kissed. For some reason, these demonstrations of affection were acceptable to Mohammed, though the sexual ones were not. But what felt like the most flagrant offence didn't lie in any specific action rather than in what was underneath it. That they cared for one another, that they enjoyed each other's company and spoke openly to one another, without awkwardness or barrier: that was the great sin. No emotion was supposed to cross the great divide of class. Affection could erase all hierarchy; in this was the danger, and the delight.

A moment that moved Morgan deeply, for example, came when Mohammed criticised his clothes. Taking him disdainfully by the sleeve, he turned Morgan around for his inspection, tutting all the time. “You know, Forster, though I am poorer than you, I would never be seen in such a coat. I am not blaming you, no, I praise, but I would never be seen . . . and your hat has a hole and your boot has a hole and your socks have a hole.”

Morgan was thrilled. “I shall try to do better,” he said.

“No, no. Good clothes are an infectious disease. I had much better not care and look like you, and so perhaps I will, but not in Alexandria.”

Why did this admonishment make him so happy? Because it was true—but truer still was the warmth of feeling from whence it sprang. Here at last was the brother for whom he'd longed, finding loving fault with him.

More tryingly, the matter of sex continued to eat at him. He was allowed to caress his friend, but when his hand wandered too low, or too high, it was instantly stopped. “Never! Never!” Morgan was made ashamed by these refusals, because he assumed that Mohammed was nobler than himself.

So he was astonished to find out in casual conversation one day that his friend had engaged in physical relations with men in the past.

“Friendship can make me excited,” he said simply. “Or if I am feeling kind. Usually I do nothing, but if the other person is beautiful, or I start to imagine, then sometimes I do more.” After a moment, he added, “And sometimes I have done it for money.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know very well what I mean. There is no need to explain. Older men will pay for enjoyment. And sometimes, if it is a secret, it is easy to ask for money.”

“You're talking about blackmail.”

“Yes. I did this in my younger years. But for some reason, I started to imagine myself in other people's place. And I addressed myself, saying, ‘you would not like it if such things were done to you.' So I stopped.”

In the silence that followed, Morgan felt mystification, not jealousy. Finally he asked, “But then why will you not, with me . . . ?”

“Oh, Forster, Forster. Do you not understand?” Mohammed turned his head away. His voice became very soft. “I want to ask you a question. Do you never consider that your wish has led you to know a tram conductor? And do you not think that a pity for you and a disgrace? While answering my questions you are not to look at me.”

Morgan turned his head away. He did, finally, understand. Mohammed respected him, and his physical desires made him abject in his Egyptian friend's eyes.

The two men lay next to each other, gazing in different directions.

“I don't care that you are a tram conductor.”

“Do you only like me because I am a boy?”

“I like you because you are Mohammed.”

 

* * *

 

There was no point in deluding oneself. Mohammed wasn't a minorite, but he was open to the possibility of romance, in a way that no Englishman could ever be. And though he argued the body's case with his friend, Morgan was hardly indifferent to romance. From that first evening in the Home of Misery, what he remembered more strongly than his excitement was the soft sensation of Mohammed's arm under his head as they sank down onto the bed. Yes, when he thought back on their meetings, it was the embraces and caresses that stayed with him, not his lust, which was like a question without an answer.

It was only now, he realised, that some form of equality had really opened up between them. They had only been playing at it before, shouting across a gulf that there was no gulf between them. But now he had begun to experience the Egyptian world through the skin of his friend, and it didn't resemble the one he lived in. Distantly, imperfectly, he thought he grasped a little of how it might feel to be an Egyptian working under English control, and the flashes of humiliation and anger it might involve. When Mohammed was hit in the jaw by a drunken sergeant-major, or whacked on the leg with a cane by an irate officer, it was as if the blows had landed on Morgan's own flesh. And he was outraged on Mohammed's behalf at the salary he received: only two bob a day, barely enough to get by on. To say nothing of his hours of work, which left him with almost no leisure time.

“And I am always in a temper,” Mohammed added, “which is bad for my health.”

Despite all this, he wasn't sorry for himself, which had the effect of making Morgan more sorry for him. But there wasn't a lot that could be done. This wasn't England in peacetime, where friends and opportunity were plentiful.

A little desperately, he sent Mohammed with a letter to the lady who ran the Government Employment Bureau. There was no job on offer at the time, but she wrote a warm appraisal of him, and promised that she would call him up soon to be a clerk. At five shillings a day!

“As your income increases,” Morgan told him, “so will your wants.”

“To have wants is to understand life.”

“That is unsound thinking, even though it's true.”

The job never came, and he continued to fret over Mohammed's circumstances. The more he came to know the young man, the more threadbare his wardrobe seemed, the more limited his prospects. By now Morgan felt acutely the difference between their stations. There was simply no way to close up the gap. It was a quirk of destiny, nothing more, that had decreed Mohammed to be poor and unskilled, a tram conductor, while Morgan was a well-fed fellow with uncalloused hands. He would have changed places if he could, but the most that he could do was try to utilise his power.

That meant Furness again. After their previous conversation, Morgan was abashed to approach him a second time, but he could see no other way to do it. “It's that young man I spoke about before, the one who works on the trams . . . ”

“Him again! I thought you weren't going to see him any more. What's he got up to this time?”

“It isn't like that. He hasn't done anything. I was just wondering whether some position might not be found for him, a job that offers a better salary.”

Robin sighed. “Morgan,” he said, “will you not listen to reason?”

“Is it unreasonable to try to help a friend?”

“No, of course not. But how much of a friend can he truly be? He's a native after all, and I did try to tell you . . . ” He shrugged his bony shoulders and threw up his hands. “You will get yourself into trouble, you know.”

“No doubt. But not over him. Please trust me a little, Robin, I'm not an utter fool.”

“I'm not so sure about that.” He shook his head in exasperation, but there was amusement in his disapproval. “I'll ask around,” he said at last, “and see what I can do. I make no promises.”

 

* * *

 

In recent weeks, there had been news from home that he couldn't ignore: Maimie Aylward, his mother's old and dear friend, was dying and Aunt Laura, his father's sister, was very sick. He was roiled with notions of duty and obligation. Should he give up Egypt and return?

He was under no illusions about what this meant. If he left, this golden moment would be lost to him. There would be no coming back to Mohammed and to this time. And it was a choice he had to make almost alone: he couldn't explain any of it to Lily or to Aunt Laura.

Whom could he tell about his love? He wrote about it to a handful of people at home, but he was aware of how absurd, how ridiculous, it sounded. Certainly nobody in Egypt would understand. Nevertheless, that it was love was no longer in question. There had been no definite defining moment, as with Masood in Paris. It was more as if he'd fallen
into
love through Mohammed: into a small circular space in the very centre of his life, where almost nothing threw a shadow.

A failure to decide is a sort of decision. While he hesitated, time fell away, and the resulting fugue was not unpleasant. But his crisis was put into proper perspective when a message came that Mohammed's mother had taken ill and died.

Morgan had experienced before how it felt when somebody close to him suffered. But with one's English friends, there were social rituals to demonstrate one's concern. That didn't apply here. He couldn't accompany Mohammed to the funeral; he couldn't share with him the difficulty of facing his father and his second family. He could only hear an account of it from afar, in the form of a brief letter, and wait for Mohammed to come back. When he did, he seemed to have taken on more weight and substance; sadness had made him heavy. He had loved his mother very much.

He felt both nearer to Mohammed through this event and further away. He understood his friend better, but had been reminded of how separate their lives were. And that separation was deepened by a new presence in the Home of Misery: Mohammed's half-brother had returned with him after the funeral and squatted now in the corner with glowering, mute malevolence when Morgan visited.

At the same time, there was a setback at his own rooms. When Mohammed came there one Sunday, to talk and play chess, Irene unexpectedly put her head around his door and gave an involuntary little shriek when she saw the two of them on the bed.

He spoke to her about it afterwards, of course. “He is somebody I met through Robin Furness,” he told her untruthfully. “A very decent young man, I promise you. I am giving him English lessons.”

“But you cannot trust them! Even when you think you can. No, you must not be gullible! I have many valuables at home . . . ”

“I will be answerable for your valuables,” he told her, and eventually she was pacified. But he thought it best not to bring Mohammed there again.

Their life together had always been small, made of spare, left-over moments. But even this tiny island was shrinking. There was nowhere to meet in private and the public opportunities were dangerous. Mohammed—more used to intrusion—was philosophical, but Morgan felt despondent. So that when an offer came that changed everything, it didn't seem too terrible.

Furness hadn't forgotten his request and had been making enquiries on his behalf. Within a few weeks, he told Morgan that he might have found something.

“It's with military intelligence,” he said. “Work connected with the War, you know. But there is a drawback, at least from your point of view. It's in the Canal Zone, so your chap will have to leave Alexandria.”

Just a few weeks before, Morgan might have hesitated, but he didn't now. The salary was more than double what Mohammed got on the tram.

“I am very grateful to you, Robin.”

“Does that mean he'll take the job?”

“Yes, of course he'll take the job.”

Mohammed was pleased and excited, as Morgan knew he would be, but he had one minor reservation. “Am I to be a spy?”

“I don't know. Perhaps. Is that beastly?”

“Yes, of course.” He considered it for a while, then smiled archly. “But not very.”

There were several weeks still before he had to leave, in which his papers were finalised and his security pass prepared. By now a quiet resignation, very near to peacefulness, had come down over both of them. It was understood that their closeness had always been an interlude, and that separation inevitably lurked in the future somewhere.

This newfound serenity took concrete form one night, not long before they had to say goodbye. Mohammed's brother had gone away somewhere and they had the Home of Misery to themselves. Yet there seemed nothing to do that was out of the ordinary. Now, like castaways washed up on a beach, they lay gently twined together on the bed, staring upward at the ceiling, idly caressing each other. Morgan's hand wandered, as it sometimes did, but instead of the usual refusal, Mohammed went perceptibly slack. There was a tiny moment of deliberation, before he leaned back, untying his linen drawers.