Season of Migration to the North (17 page)

“Does it not please you the earth is awaking,

That old virgin wine is there for the taking?

Let’s have no excuse, come enjoy this delight;

Its mother is green, its sire black as night.

Make haste, Karkh’s gardens hang heavy with bloom,

Safe and unscathed from War’s blighting doom.”

‘I
also quoted to her the lines:

“Full many a glass clear as the lamp of Heaven did I drink

Over a kiss or in promise of a tryst we’d keep;

So matured it was by time that you would think

Beams of light out of the sky did seep.”

‘Then
I quoted:

“When the man of war his knights for war deploys

And Deaths banner calls alike to grey-beards and to boys,

When fires of destruction rage and battle starts,

We, using our hands as bows with lilies as our darts,

Turn war to revelry and still the best of friends we stay.

When on their drums they beat, we on our lutes do play

To young men who death in pleasure count a sacrifice
divine, 

While fair cup-bearer, subject of our strife, restores to
us the plundered wine,

So insistent he, scarce a glass goes empty than it’s filled
again.

Here a man reels drunkenly, there another by excess is
slain.

This is true war, not a war that between man and man
brings strife;

In it with wine we kill and our dead with wine we bring to
life.”

And
so it was with us: she, moved by poetry and drink, feeding me with sweet lies,
while I wove for her intricate and terrifying threads of fantasy. She would
tell me that in my eyes she saw the shimmer of mirages in hot deserts, that in
my voice she heard the screams of ferocious beasts in the jungles. And I would
tell her that in the blueness of her eyes I saw the faraway shoreless seas of
the North. In London I took her to my house, the den of lethal lies that I had
deliberately built up, lie upon lie: the sandalwood and incense; the ostrich
feathers and ivory and ebony figurines; the paintings and drawings of forests
of palm trees along the shores of the Nile, boats with sails like doves’ wings,
suns setting over the mountains of the Red Sea, camel caravans wending their
way along sand dunes on the borders of the Yemen, baobab trees in Kordofan,
naked girls from the tribes of the Zandi, the Nuer and the Shuluk, fields of
banana and coffee on the Equator, old temples in the district of Nubia; Arabic
books with decorated covers written in ornate Kufic script; Persian carpets,
pink curtains, large mirrors on the walls, and coloured lights in the corners.
She knelt and kissed my feet. “You are Mustafa, my master and my lord,” she
said, "and I am Sausan, your slave girl.” And so, in silence, each one of
us chose his role, she to act the part of the slave girl and I that of the
master. She prepared the bath, then washed me with water in which she had
poured essence of roses. She lit the joss-sticks and the sandalwood in the Maghrabi
brass brazier hanging in the entrance. She put on an aba and head-dress, while
I stretched out on the bed and she massaged my chest, legs, neck and shoulders.
“Come here,” I said to her imperiously “To hear is to obey O master!” she
answered me in a subdued voice. While still in the throes of fantasy,
intoxication and madness, I took her and she accepted, for what happened had
already happened between us a thousand years ago. They found her dead in her
flat in Hampstead, having gassed herself: they also found a note saying: “Mr Sa’eed,
God damn you!”

I put back Ann Hammond’s picture in its place to the left of
the photograph of Mustafa Sa’eed standing between Mrs Robinson and her husband,
on which the dedication at the bottom read, ‘To dear Moozie — Cairo 17/4/ 1913’.
It seems that she used to use ‘Moozie’ as a pet name, for in her letter she
also refers to him by it. Mustafa Sa’eed, though frowning, looks a mere child
in the picture. Mrs Robinson stands to his left, her arm round his shoulders,
while her husband’s arm embraces the two of them, and both he and his wife are
smiling naturally and happily; their faces are those of young people who have
not yet reached their thirties. Despite everything, Mrs Robinson’s love for him
did not waver. She attended the trial from beginning to end and heard every
word, yet in her letter to me she said:

‘I
cannot express the extent of my gratitude to you for having written to me about
dear Moozie. Moozie was, for my husband and me, the dearest of people. Poor Moozie.
He was a tortured child, yet he brought boundless happiness to the hearts of my
husband and me. After that painful business and his leaving London, I lost
touch with him, and though I made every effort to re-establish contact I
failed, Poor Moozie. What slightly lightens the pain of losing him is the
knowledge that he spent the last years of his life happily amongst you and that
he married a good wife and had two sons. Please give my love to Mrs Sa’eed. 
Let her think of me as a mother and if there’s anything I can do for her and
her two dear children, tell her not to hesitate to write to me. How happy I’d
be if they all came and spent the next summer holidays with me. I am living
here alone in the Isle of Wight. Last January I traveled to Cairo and visited
my husband’s grave. Ricky had a great love for Cairo and fate decreed that he
should be buried in the city he loved more than any other in the world.

‘I am keeping myself busy writing a book about our life —
about Ricky, Moozie and me. They were both great men, each in his own way.
Ricky's greatness lay in his ability to bring happiness to others. He was
somebody who was happy in the real sense of the word; he exuded happiness to
everyone he came into contact with. Moozie had the mind of a genius, but he was
unstable; he was incapable of either accepting or giving happiness other than
to those he really loved and was loved by like Ricky and me. I feel that love
and duty require me to tell people the story of those two great men. The book
will actually be about Ricky and Moozie because I did nothing of note. I shall
write of the splendid services Ricky rendered to Arabic culture, such as his
discovery of so many rare manuscripts, the commentaries he wrote on them, and
the way he supervised the printing of them. I shall write about the great part
played by Moozie in drawing attention here to the misery in which his
countrymen live under our colonial mandate, and I shall write in detail about
the trial and shall clear his name of all suspicion. I shall be grateful if
you’d send me anything left behind by Moozie which would be of assistance to me
in writing this book. Perhaps Moozie told you he’d made me trustee of his
affairs in London. A certain amount of money has accumulated from royalties
from some of his books and from translation rights on others, which I shall
forward on directly you let me have the address of the bank to which you want
me to transfer it. In this connection let me thank you very much for accepting
to look after dear Moozie’s family. Please write to me regularly and tell me
their news, also send me a photo of them in your next letter.

Yours sincerely,

 Elizabeth.’

I placed the letter in my pocket and seated myself in the
chair to the right of the fireplace. My glance fell on an issue of The Umar
dated Monday 26 September 1927. Births, Marriages, Deaths. The marriage was
conducted by the Rev Canon Sampson M.A. Funeral service at Stuntney Church, 2 o’clock Wednesday. The Personal Column: Ever beloved. Will it be much longer? ‘Dear
Heart.’ Kenya Colony – Mr … Chartered Surveyor returns to Nairobi October 5th.
Until then communications regarding reports on properties in the Colony should
be addressed to him care of. Advertisement for riding lessons. Blue Persian
cats for sale. Girl (17), refined, of gentle birth, seeks opening. Lady by
birth (30) desires post abroad. Sports news: West Hill beat Burhill. West Ham
Win. The Victory of Gene Tunney. A letter from Zafrullah Khan in which he
refutes the views of Sir Chimanlal Setalvad about the dispute between the
Moslems and the Hindus in the Punjab. A letter saying that jazz is a cheerful
music in a sunless world. Two elephants from Rangoon arrived at the Zoo
yesterday having walked from Tilbury Docks. Cattle breeder was attacked by a
bull on his farm and gored to death. A man who stole four bananas was sentenced
to three years’ penal servitude. Imperial and Foreign News. The New offer from Moscow
to settle the Russian debt to France. Floods in Switzerland.
The Discovery
,
Captain Scott’s ship, has returned from the Southern Seas. Herr Stresemann gave
a speech on disarmament in Geneva on Saturday. Herr Stresemann also made a
statement to the ‘Matin’ paper in which he supported President Von Hindenburg’s
speech at Tannenberg in which he denied that Germany was responsible for the
outbreak of the war. The leading article was about the Treaty of Jeddah which
was signed by Sir Gilbert Clayton on behalf of Great Britain and Prince Feisal
Abdul-Aziz Al Saud on behalf of his father, the King of the Hejaz and of Nejd
and its dependencies. Weather Forecast for England and Wales: Winds mainly
between W and N .W, strong at times in exposed places; considerable fair
intervals, but a few thundery showers and perhaps occasional local rains.

It appeared to be the only newspaper. Was there any significance
in its presence here or was it here by mere chance?

Opening a notebook, I read on the first page: ‘My Life Story
— by Mustafa Sa’eed.’ On the next page was the dedication: ‘To those who see
with one eye, speak with one tongue and see things as either black or white,
either Eastern or Western.’ I flicked through the rest of the pages but found
nothing — not a single sentence, not a single word. Did this too have some
significance or was it mere chance? I opened a file and found numerous papers,
sketches and drawings. He was, it seems, trying his hand at writing and
drawing. The drawings were good and revealed real talent. Coloured drawings of
English country scenes in which oak trees, rivers and swans were repeated;
pencil sketches of scenes and people from our village. Despite everything I cannot
but admit his great skill. Bakri, Mahjoub, my grandfather, Wad Rayyes, Hosna,
my uncle Abdul Karim, and others: their faces looked out at me with the
penetrating expressions I had long been aware of but which I had been incapable
of defining. Mustafa Sa’eed had drawn them with a clarity of vision and
sympathy that approached love. Wad Rayyes’s face was more in evidence than the
others — eight drawings of him in different poses. Why was he so interested in
Wad Rayyes?

I looked at some scraps of paper and read, ‘We teach people
in order to open up their minds and release their captive powers. But we cannot
predict the result. Freedom — we free their minds from superstition. We give
the people the keys of the future to act therein as they wish.’ ‘I left London
with Europe having begun to mobilize her armies once again for even more
ferocious violence.’ ‘It was not hatred. It was a love unable to express itself.
I loved her in a twisted manner. She too.’ ‘The roofs of the houses are all wettened
by the drizzle. The cows and sheep in the fields are like white and black
pebbles. The light rain of June. Allow me, Madam. These train journeys are
boring. How do you do? From Birmingham. To London. How do you describe the
scenery? Trees and grass. Haystacks in the middle of the fields. The trees and
the grass are the same everywhere. A book by Ngaio Marsh. She hesitated. She
didn’t say yes or no.’ Was he describing real events or plotting out a story?
‘My lord, I must object to the prosecution’s resorting to a clear dialectical
trick in that he wants to establish the accused’s responsibility for events for
which he was not responsible, basing his argument upon something that did in
fact happen; he then confirms his assumption of what happened on the basis of
his previous assumptions. The accused admits he killed his wife, but this does
not make him responsible for all the incidents of suicide by women in the British
Isles during the past ten years.’ ‘He who breeds good, for him are hatched
young birds that fly with happiness. He who breeds evil, for him there grows a
tree whose thorns are sorrow and whose fruit is regret. May God have mercy on
someone who has turned a blind eye to error and has indulged in the outward
aspect of things.’

I found as well a poem in his handwriting. It seems he was
also dabbling in poetry; and it was clear from all the crossings—out and
changes that he too was somewhat awed when face to face with art. Here it is:

The sighs of the unhappy in the breast do groan

The vicissitudes of Time by silent tears are shown

And love and buried hate the winds away have blown.

Deep silence has embraced the vestiges of prayer

Of moans and supplications and cries of woeful care,

And dust and smoke the travelers path ensnare.

Some, souls content, others in dismay.

Brows submissive, others …

Mustafa Sa’eed had no doubt spent long hours searching for
the right word to tit the metre. The problem intrigued me and I gave it several
minutes’ thought. I did not, though, waste too much time on it, for in any case
it is a very poor poem that relies on antithesis and comparisons; it has no
true feeling, no genuine emotion. This line of mine is no worse than the rest,
so I crossed out the last line of the poem and wrote in its place:

Heads humbly bent and faces turned away.

I went on rummaging among the papers and found some scraps on
which had been written such phrases as ‘Three barrels of oil’, ‘The Committee
will discuss the question of strengthening the base for the pump', and ‘The
surplus cement can be sold immediately? Then I found this passage: ‘It was
inevitable that my star of destiny should come into collision with hers and
that I should spend years in prison and yet more years roaming the face of the
earth chasing her phantom and being chased by it. The sensation that, in an
instant outside the bounds of time, I have bedded the goddess of Death and
gazed out upon Hell from the aperture of her eyes — it’s a feeling no man can
imagine. The taste of that night stays on in my mouth, preventing me from savouring
anything else.’