East of Suez (9 page)

“Sounds safe enough. But you misunderstand me, Father, if you think I’m some sort of underwater specialist. I just do what the guide tells me and watch my air and depth gauges. But I hope to buy a good underwater camera. Do you know of a reliable store?”

“Try MacPherson’s, a couple of shops past the Trois Magots. He should be able to fix you up.”

“Good! I was counting on being able to pick up a good camera here and at a decent price.”

“Ha! Those days are gone forever. The locals know the value of things today, Mr Cooperman. There’s not much you can buy with cheap tin trays or cowry shells. Do you catch my meaning at all at all?” I couldn’t help laughing at him; his language had wandered so far from Chicago’s Loop.

“Father, if I may be personal for a moment: you don’t sound like an American most of the time. Am I wrong?”

“No, dear boy, I’m a bit of a polyglot. True, I was born in Chicago, but my early interests took me to London, where I worked for a few years at Birkbeck College, doing a doctorate in behavioral psychology. I always say that the chief credit for that work belongs to my pigeons. When that was over and done with, I became the apothecary to a group of dropouts on the east coast of Scotland. Quite a famous place for dropouts and ban-the-bombers. I was going through some sort of crisis of faith. I left the colony in a straitjacket. I miss the life on that rocky cliff sometimes, dispensing herbs and
simples
I collected myself, like Brother Cadfael in those mystery stories.”

“I’ve read a few of those.”

“So, as they say in the movies, that is my story. How I came to adopt my Roman collar and this place is another chapter. I’ll tell you sometime. In a nutshell, the place picked me, not the other way round.”

“That often makes the most satisfactory fit. I’m just beginning to see some small fraction of what you like about the place.”

“I hoped you would. There’s something almost hypnotic about seeing the same faces day after day. Always the same strained time-ridden faces. But there is a clarity about the life.”

“Tell me, Father, about your friend Mr Savitt. He seems helpful and generous. What brings him here, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Billy? Oh, Billy’s a writer. He’s doing a series of guidebooks for Orthodox tourists. You know: ‘How to Keep Kosher in Jordan,’ ‘How to Buy Meat in China,’ ‘Finding a Meal Near a Synagogue in Prague,’ ‘Purim in Persia,’ ‘High Holidays in Liverpool, Shanghai, or Dunedin.’ That sort of thing. Religious people want to visit the Orient and discover the world as Raffles found it and keep to a familiar diet at the same time. They tell me his books are very successful on the airport book stands. But Billy’s nothing if not intrepid. He goes where no Orthodox tourist has ever gone.” The priest began to shake his head and said, as though to himself: “I’ve never read one of his books myself, dear boy … and you mustn’t tell him that.”

“So long as you don’t tell him that I didn’t come all this way to look at synagogues and Foyers Israelite.”

“You are not ardent in your faith, then?”

“Up to a point, but it stops at the kitchen door.”

“In my experience of the senior religion, that’s where it often
begins
.” We both laughed at that and sipped a little from our glasses. “Poor fellow. You mustn’t judge Billy by his ethnic enthusiasms, though. Without Billy, I wouldn’t know that in Takot you can hear American jazz every night. He told me that Clay Fisher is playing at The Maverick Bar. And he saw to it that I went to a lecture by some archaeologist. Oh, you can’t belittle Billy’s intentions. He can be a very enthusiastic guide. You’ll have to be on your guard when he fails to notice that you can’t take more in without a break.” The priest was looking at me strangely. I wondered whether my face was clean. “You are becoming even more interesting, Mr Cooperman. Will you have another drink?”

The priest drew a well-fed finger down the length of his nose, a gesture I’d noticed he often repeated when he was thinking or abstracted in some way. For a fat man, he had a thin, sharp, aristocratic nose, perhaps the last vestige of the young man who had been putting up a last-ditch defense against the inundation of old age. “You know, Mr Cooperman, there used to be a girl around town who took some serious interest in your sort of thing: going down to spy on the mussels and clams on their own ground. I haven’t seen her in a month or more. Of course, I’ve been away. But I haven’t heard, for what it’s worth, that she’s left the country. She’s the daughter of an old friend, name of Calaghan. Professor A. H. Hallam Calaghan, T.C.D.—Trinity College, Dublin, you know. The girl’s name is Fiona. You may run into her if you spend much time down on the docks. There are young people, too, who hang out down there, too poor to rent equipment or buy passage on an excursion boat. Young Fiona used to swim with them. I suppose I should properly call her a young woman now. These fads in language follow us even down here. If you run into her, tell her to come and see me one of these days. I’ll bet she’s not been to confession in three months. That’s young people, Mr Cooperman … Will you join me in something stronger?”

I joined him and I joined him again. He watched as I gulped down a pill for what was bothering my nether parts. After a time, my friend ordered some small dishes to space out our drinking: whitebait, crab claws, and a few things I didn’t recognize. He gave me a lecture on local fruits: rambutan, mango, water apples, lychee, and sapodilla.

In an hour, the sun was sinking lower in the sky and the people at the tables around began scattering to their hotel rooms or apartments. Even the constant sound of motorized bikes of all kinds began to disappear. To me, an outsider, it seemed like they were escaping something. What did they know that I didn’t? The good reverend father went on telling me about this city and the country beyond. I heard about how it had fared in the war against the Japanese back in the 1940s and how it had alternately given in to and resisted the commercial pressures from France, Britain, Japan, and the United States. When he caught me squelching a yawn, he quickly wound down his oration. Still jet-lagged, both of us were running out of steam. He allowed himself a yawn of his own, muttered something about his need to return to the “fathers’ fort,” and we shook hands. He pointed me in the direction of a taxi stand, then we shook hands again and parted. I could tell you that I did a quarter of my guidebook in the late afternoon, but it would be a lie. I headed for my trusty mattress and invested my time there.

SIX

IT CAME IN A NOISY TORRENT
. When it started I was sleeping off the afternoon’s heat under a light sheet, and far more drink than I could comfortably carry. The mosquito netting obscured my bleary view of the window. Slowly, I became aware of the sound of the rain. It buried the racket from the electric fan along with all the other house noises. When I opened my eyes again and pulled my sweaty body over to the window, I saw it for the first time: the late-afternoon rain. Just like the guidebook said. Now some of the things I had seen earlier in the streets made sense to me: the sudden clearing of the café terraces; the tall curbstones at street corners, which were built high enough to accommodate the daily flood roaring downhill; the flattened look of the grass in front of the big church. Judging from the torrent running down my windows I could see that rain was the normal condition in Takot. Dry weather was a welcome exception. I tried to think whether I’d brought anything to fend off this deluge.

At the bottom of my bag I found a plastic groundsheet that also doubled as a poncho. Folded in with it was a plastic hat, like a smaller version of a sou’wester. I fished them out and threw them on the bed, then I spent five minutes in the socalled shower. I splashed water about in what seemed a useful way, remembering this time to bring a bar of my own soap with me. The dinky packages provided by the management dissolved in my hand, leaving a gummy muck for the breeding of parasites, no doubt. After drying off and leaving the damp towel on the bed, the way my mother warned me not to, I got into a fresh set of everything.

The boy at the desk pointed the way to a restaurant across the street. Because he recommended the excellence of the chef, I braved the blast of weather and made my way through the torrents running in the gutters to the shelter of the awning bearing the name Roi René. King Somebody, back home under the
tricouleur
. Or before it.

When I asked for a chopped-egg sandwich (I’m such an optimist!), the waiter shrugged his shoulders and handed me a printed menu. Names like
bami goring
and
nasi goring
looked good on the page, but even though they were in English lettering I couldn’t figure out what the words meant. I popped another pill, just in case, managed a deep breath, and took a chance. The result was a plate full of vegetables, cut-up chicken, and noodles. I don’t remember whether it was
nasi
or
pami
I ordered, but it turned out fine. They were unable to serve me a glass of milk. I asked for
two percent, homo
, and finally
skim
in turn, but the waiter wasn’t able to help me. I had to settle for beer.

When I looked up from my empty plate, the setting sun was reflected in the puddles in the gutters, and the streets were, for a moment, cool. I made my way to the photography store, where I bought a camera that would fit into a clear glass-andplastic container for use underwater. The clerk knew his stock and enough English to ease the pressure on my French. I found a very professional-looking bag to put my loot in, then faced up to the clerk, who behaved like he was keeping the shop open for me after his regular closing time. I bought the whole kit and instructions in the care and maintenance of digital cameras. In the end, the clerk rounded out my purchase with a handsome book of local photographs. To take the weight off the load I put on my credit card, I concentrated on the fact that the purchase was pursuant to my inquiries: I could sleep soundly knowing I could pass the expense along to the client. The bill, presented in the local currency, made little financial sense because I was ignorant of the real cost of this photographic arsenal. When the clerk told me the price in U.S. dollars, I was suddenly a big spender. Next thing, I’d be walking into a casino wearing a white tuxedo like Bogie in my Saturday matinée past.

At an inside table in another coffee shop, I discarded the boxes and wrappings from my purchases, inserted the straps, put the camera in a carrying case, and figured out the waterproof container. For about twenty minutes, I tried to read the operating instructions. This was hard reading—from a number of angles: first, it took me more than a minute to locate the English instructions among a United Nations of languages; second, the words were printed in such tiny letters that I could hardly make out a
mot
in French, Spanish, or German; third, my old reading problem stood as a wall between me and the text in all the languages. Luckily, some cutaway drawings illustrated the whole process. I made the exposure times and aperture openings my new credo. I was lucky that the manufacturer hadn’t omitted my familiar language of pictures. Then I stuck a maple leaf decal where it could be spotted. I added a few strips of adhesive tape with my name written in big letters, just to take the newness off the ensemble. It seemed to me that professional photographers always had bits of tape stuck to things. It took them out of the hobby class. Maybe there was someplace in Takot where I could have rented the same stuff, but not in time for my coming trip to the reef.

On the way out of the café, with my camera things slung over my shoulder, I was mugged! That’s right! I was waylaid, ambushed, accosted,
mugged
by a lean man in a blurred white outfit who snatched at the swinging bag. He grabbed at it with both hands. In doing so, he tripped over my feet and started rolling on the sidewalk in front of the café. I pinned him with my knee, while a pedestrian started shouting. At first, I took my assailant for a youngster: he was thin enough to be a teenager. A second look showed graying hair and a face that resembled a relief map of the Himalayan Mountains. He buried his face, shrouded in his hands, deep down into the pavement. My first thought was that this was the first athletic thing I’d ever carried off without pulling a tendon. I was overjoyed. I’d nailed him. And who would have ever thought … I looked down at him. He was shivering and it made me feel like hell. I’d heard that punishment for minor crimes was severe in these places. I began pulling my leg off the old thief; he began to move again, and put his weight on one knee. I stood back, giving him air. He made another snatch at my bag, missing this time, and took off. What the hell, I thought. He didn’t get away with the camera.

In fact, he didn’t get away at all. He ran straight into the arms of a policeman standing in the crowd that had started to gather. The first uniform held him firmly and passed him along to a second uniformed man standing next to him. I hadn’t seen the policeman at first, not until he started speaking to the citizen who had done all the hollering. I tried to catch my breath and wondered whether I had put my passport in my pocket. When he spoke to me, he tried French first, then, after tasting my response, switched to English.