The Avignon Quintet (88 page)

*
See Appendix.

THREE

Into Egypt

T
HE EMBARKATION WENT OFF WITHOUT A HITCH AT DEAD
of night and by morning the royal yacht was well out to sea en route for Egypt.

In his notebook Blanford wrote:

Immortality must feel something like this for a poet. Suppose I were to tell you that here, in perfect peace, we sail eastward under cloudless skies upon a windless cerulean sea with not one Homeric curl in it.… The
Khedive
is the royal yacht which is carrying us into Egypt and safety. No, it is totally unreal to find myself here under an awning of brightly striped duck, lounging beside the calm Prince, drinking a whisky and soda with grave reflective delight. Contemplating the abyss which has opened at our feet – the war. The Prince himself has been transformed into an imposing maritime figure, for he has put on yachting
tenue
complete with white trousers of some magnolia-soft tissue, set off by a blazer and an old heraldic yachting cap bearing the insignia of both the royal house and the Alexandria Yacht Club. The blazer is all Balliol, Oxford.

From time to time, so pure and so encouraging is the air, we doze off for a few moments; then we awake and continue the Arabic lesson which is going to transform me into a linguist If there is world enough and time.

(My darling, these lines, somewhat to my surprise, are written to you and not to Livia. I write them because I feel freed by the probability, nay certainty, of never seeing you and Sam again in this lifetime! I write them from the part of myself which has slowly and secretly turned to you. Typically enough I did not recognise the situation at first. But Livvie did. I noticed her jealousy but not its cause. I did not realise the truth until I was on the very brink of kissing you goodbye. But Livvie did and hated you accordingly – as much as one permits hate for a sister. I simply did not know or did not realise until the train bore you away.)

And so here I am, like a younger version of Tibullus without the sea-sickness. My poetry is crowding on sail. My mother is dead, my friends dispersed, my future uncertain, my solitude a delicious weight. One feels in all this a sort of affirmation for some early promise made by the good fairy. She must have said: “This one will be introspective, cut off from ordinary life, proficient in solitude but subject to enchantments because of his insight.”

The old yacht has been provisioned in the most imaginative way – caviar, champagne, whisky, nothing lacks. We sit down to meals of fervent Frenchness served by great bronze servants with the tones of gongs, clad in booming white and gloved spotlessly to the forearm. Unruffled in their dignity and truth, like great aristocrats, they disburse kindness without servility. It is my first taste of Egypt, the marvellous hieratic servants of the Prince, serving our food on matchless plate. It worries the Prince sometimes. “I suppose that if we were to receive a plebeian torpedo I would be asked to regret the loss of all this stuff – even though it isn’t mine. Farouk would be furious of course. I suppose he is insured.” I had never thought upon the matter. Kings get given everything – do they need to insure? I yawn and stretch like Cleopatra’s pet cat.

The ship’s library is full of Victorian fiction amassed by Farouk’s English nannies. But among a small yet choice Arabic section there is a play which the Prince considers to be an excellent introduction to his country. “It is by a friend of mine,” he says, “and it is entitled
The Death of Cleopatra – Masra Kaliûpâtrâ – it
is very suitable for you, yes.”

It is pleasant to know that Cleo was known as “Kaliûpâtrâ” by her subjects. The collapsing world she knew could not have been vastly different from this one – a question of scale merely. Catastrophe is catastrophe, whatever the magnitude.

All around us, according to that scratchy oracle, Ship’s Radio, a war rages. The fleets of France and England threaten to cross swords. Somewhere lurks an Italian fleet, showing great discretion, thank goodness. Meanwhile (as if at the fabled heart of some great hurricane, the core around which it has moulded itself), we float onwards, serenely, in untroubled silence save for the quiet purring of the motor and the languid plume of smoke from our great funnel. Onwards towards the white cliffs of Crete and then Evnostos, the harbour-home of the Alexandria basin. It is too good to be true.

“Mr. Blanford, I would like to ask you a favour on behalf of myself and the Princess.”

“Certainly, Your Highness.”

“May we call you Aubrey? It simplifies things.”

“But of course.”

“Thank you, Aubrey.”

“Not at all, Your Highness.”

So the Arabic lesson winds slowly on its way, interspersed with a hundred and one interruptions and interpolations by the Prince. Among them he urges upon me a book about Egypt written by his own nanny, a Mrs. Macleod, and entitled
An Englishwoman on the Nile
. He says that it is full of striking observations; it lists many of the queerer things about Egyptian life. I open it as he talks and see that it begins admirably indeed, with the words: “In Egypt one acts upon impulse as there is no rain to make one reflect.”

In the cocoon of this fine warm air it seems a sin to go below, so we order our dinner to be served us upon a tray, and eat it while we are still idling on deck. From time to time a typed news bulletin comes our way with the compliments of the radio operator, but its contents sound mad, inconsequential, out of all proportion to this grave sinking sun and still sea. We had, however, contacted Alexandria and were to expect an escort to join us before midnight in order to see us safely to port. The great harbour with its immobile battleships and cruisers, both French and British, would have been an impressive sight, I suppose, but we were to be spared it; for after dinner the Prince was summoned to the bridge where he was able to make use of the land telephone to call someone who would relay his message directly to the authorities and obtain permission for him to land, rather unorthodoxly, at the Palace of Montaza rather than in the Grand Harbour. He explained that this would lighten the journey a great deal and enable us to get ashore without fussy
douaniers
and security officials. “The English will be obstructive as usual, and won’t like it; but they will have to lump it if Farouk says so, and now he knows he will jolly well say so!”

We retired early to get some rest, leaving everything to these grave brown beadles of servants, who spoke so thrilling deep and smiled like pianos among themselves. And sleep I did, to be woken by a brown hand on my shoulder, shaking me with extreme reverence while a brown voice said, “Master he say you to go uppy stairs now. He waiting.” I dressed and made my sleepy way on deck, where I found the Prince in high good humour presiding over all our baggage. “I was right,” he said joyfully, “the English are most furious with me.”

We went ashore in darkness in a large motor launch belonging to the Egyptian navy and landed at the water-gate of a palace plunged in utter darkness; then, after much chaffering, somewhere a switch was thrown and a sort of combination of Taj Mahal and Eiffel Tower blared out upon the night.

It was my first exposure to Egyptian Baroque, so the simile is surprisingly apt. To blare, to bray – so much light in so many mirrors of so many colours – the effect was polymorphous perverse, so to speak.… I realised that I was going to fall in love with the place – I saw that it was a huge temple of inconsequences. Silently pacing these matchless Shiraz carpets which paved the vast saloons my spirit was intoxicated by scarlet leather, golden studs, lapis lazuli, cat’s eye, and everywhere mirrors spouting light like deserted fountains. For the reception rooms were empty, not a soul was about. The state lavatories were the size of Euston, but the chains clanked on empty cisterns. We hesitated, irresolute.

Then the Princess manifested, coming down the great staircase half-asleep, wrapped in a white kimono of soft feathers like a small, yawning swan. They stood gazing at each other, expressing such a wealth of desire and delight that it was exquisitely moving to the onlooker. Etiquette prevented them from embracing in public after the plebeian style made common by the cinema. They behaved birdfully, like birds, which have no arms to grab hold with; they spread their wings, so to speak, and whispered each other’s names with humble rapture. The Prince kissed the tips of her fingers; then, with a little sob, like an excited child, she rushed away to dress for the journey. While we waited, a sleepy palace servant encouraged us into the vast dining-room where the chandeliers now shone upon tables laid for breakfast with coffee and chocolate and fresh croissants and cream. I felt extraordinarily heartened to see people who could love each other so devoutly; it was so unlike Europe where serious thinking about passion has really come to a standstill.

We embarked in two dark limousines, leaving the staff to disengage the Prince’s affairs from the yacht; there was some concern, for a fresh wind was springing up and the anchorage was not a sound one. However we got our bags, and I travelled in the second car piled high with them. A vague impression of the Grand Corniche with the sea slapping and the wind knuckling the palms. Then dark ribbons of road across the desert. I fell into a troubled slumber, lulled by the smooth engine and the feeling that time had no joints.

I write these words some days later, seated upon a shady balcony overlooking the Nile which runs as smooth as a razor across the garden’s end; it is sulphurous hot, I trickle as I write. My wrist sticks to the paper, so clammy is it, and I am forced to press it upon a blotter in order not to smudge. But I am happy. A whole new world opens before me. I have fallen on my feet. I was rather dreading the Princess – I felt sure she would instantly divine all my deficiencies. But she took my hand and held it for a long moment while she gazed earnestly, thoughtfully into my eyes, with a deep preoccupation as if she were listening to sacred music. Then she sighed with relief, dropped my hand, and said, “He is all
right
!” Whereupon the Prince gave a small chuckle and said, “She
never
trusts me.”

I am all right! What more does one need to hear about oneself? A wave of confidence swept over me, and I realised that I would certainly make a success of this rather vague assignment as English secretary to the Prince. It is also pleasant to begin to feel part of a family – my upbringing had not accustomed me to such warmth. Nor are my statutory duties very onerous; the correspondence is fairly heavy but will be easy to despatch in a longish morning of work. Remains the social side – I feared this; but here I am treated with great consideration. I am not forced to hand round drop-scones for the English tea parties of the Princess. But I do it. A complete wardrobe was being supplied to me by the centenarian tailor of the house, in beautifully cut mint summer silk.

The town house of the Prince (for they also appear to own an abandoned palace at Rosetta and a summer villa at Helwan) is not exactly a castle. It is the size of a medieval prince’s hunting lodge with extensive dependencies, indeed a sort of nabob’s country seat. Parts have been shored up against ruin, parts have been allowed to subside gracefully and melt back into the primeval mud of Egypt – the black viscous element from which everything seems to be fashioned. One wing is full of corridors boarded up as a safety precaution against floors which have been ravaged by termites. The furnishings are modest compared to those of the palace of our arrival, and all is a bit dusty, decorations, furniture, mirrors, everything; but very faintly, like powder in a wig. Time and neglect and the river-damps have hazed the clear outline of things. On the other hand there is distinction in the quality of the paintings and bibelots, the plaster mouldings. They had not just accumulated, one felt, but had been individually chosen and desired and cherished for their aesthetic feel. Though they were various, not matching in a uniform way, they lived on in harmonious and coherent discord. The whole place felt nice, smelt nice. Extraordinary cats abounded. The dissonant shriek of peacocks made one jump. The Nile smelt old and sad and disabused, turning green like oxidising copper, but imperishably itself, unlike any other river in the world. At dawn I saw a fisherman standing in quiet expectancy by the river bank, as if waiting for the sun to rise; presently it did, and the whole insect world began to buzz and bubble in the warm ray which burned the last mists from the water’s surface. The fisherman took up a mouthful of water and blew it out in a screen of spray against the sunlight, revelling in the prismatic hues of the water-drops.

In the morning I heard moans from an outhouse and the sound of strokes and swearing; I enquired of the Princess what this might be, and she informed me demurely that it was Said, their young major-domo, receiving what she described as a “smart slippering” for some domestic fault. “Ah,” added her husband, “you no doubt recall that the royal sceptre of Egypt was always the rod. And with our servants there is no way to combat the progressive amnesia which comes over them, gradually accumulating until they seem quite mental, quite unable to hold anything in mind. Then they begin to forget things and break things and it is time for a kindly reminder. About every six months I reckon. You will see the difference in Said tomorrow. Today he will sulk because of the insult to his honour, but tomorrow …”