The Care of Time (29 page)

Inside the room a small bell tinkled. The Chief Secretary opened the door with a flourish. ‘Your Highness,’ he announced, ‘in accordance with your instructions issued to your French purchasing agent in the month of Shawwal, he has brought for your consideration the journalist and television reporter Mr Halliday.’

When I hesitated, wondering if I could make it sideways around the Chief Secretary’s belly, Zander nudged me forward and the Secretary withdrew slightly to let us pass.

‘Be careful of the step,’ he murmured.

There were, in fact, two steps: the curved, ankle-breaking kind. It was a preposterous house, but this one room was the reason for it. At the far end there was a big fireplace: set in the left wall was the entrance to the mine adit. Framed in a massive stone architrave and protected from the outside world by a pair of sheet-steel doors, it dominated the room. The stonework was obviously part of the old house and had been decorated, probably by the monumental mason who had done the local graveyard work, with a simple pattern of scrolls and curlicues. It was chipped here and there and vandals had attempted to gouge initials and other messages for posterity on the more accessible parts, but it had lasted well. The steel doors were clearly a very recent addition with two welded hasps on them and serious-looking modern padlocks.

The Ruler had placed himself to receive us standing between the fireplace and the mine entrance, and he was wearing full Arab dress for the occasion. Both robe and head-dress were all white. However, the light from the two windows was good and it was possible to see the glint of the gold threads that had been woven into the black silk
aqal
resting on his high forehead. To a tall, bearded man with a good posture and not too much flab, the Arab robe made from expensive materials can be very flattering. From the other end of the room, The Ruler looked most impressive. It was only when you drew closer, when you saw the handsome face with its petulant upper lip and its eyes pleading that no one had ever quite understood him that you had the first series of second thoughts.

Psychopaths, of course, can be good playactors and are not easy to evaluate if all you have by way of evidence are the lines they can shoot and the faces they can pull. But, for me, the really strange thing was that someone as shrewd and experienced as Zander should ever have found it hard to believe that the man now standing there looking dignified and gracious could be a treacherous, murderous, unconscionable son-of-a-bitch who intended, at the earliest convenient moment, to have him killed. Even the security-conscious Simone had boggled for a while at the idea. Perhaps, because he had been so easy to despise, they had neglected to remember how dangerous the mad and bad can be. Perhaps Schelm had put his finger on the trouble when he had said that prolonged contact with the Arab world could induce bizarre thought habits in those who came from the west. And perhaps, too, as the outsider who had happened to hit upon the truth because he had known so little about the facts, I was giving myself credits for good thinking and ability to see the obvious that had not really been earned.

As we approached him The Ruler did not even glance at Zander. To me he said: ‘Welcome, Mr Halliday, to the famous Petrucher mine.’ The accent was British, the tone of voice light tenor.

I managed to make the required bow without overdoing it. In The Ruler’s shadow a small man in black – the Financial Counsellor I guessed – snapped his fingers quietly and an off-duty bodyguard came in from the hallway carrying a two-tiered silver tray suspended on thin chains. Both tiers
had little cups of mint tea on them. The Ruler sat down in a high-backed armchair at the head of a long table and indicated with a gesture that the rest of us should also be seated. When we were all at the table and the tea had been served The Ruler gave me a cool nod.

‘Now, Mr Halliday,’ he said, ‘we will hear your request.’

What in hell was he talking about? What request? My eyes went to Zander for help, but he was staring respectfully at the halo space above The Ruler’s head. Obviously, I was being given some sort of test, perhaps to see if I could do mental somersaults without falling over. So, remembering Simone’s advice about ceremony and seriousness, I did the best I could.

‘What I have to say, Your Highness, is offered more in the nature of a suggestion rather than a request. As the Chief Secretary has just reminded you, your order to obtain my services was given several months ago. The idea that there might be a use for them here was clearly already in Your Highness’s mind. My suggestion, or interpretation, is that, in your far-sighted way, you had already anticipated the political difficulties that might arise from your decision to build a clinic here for your subjects’ health and welfare. A television interview exposing the absurdity of the difficulties placed in your path here, a short film made available freely to the Public Service television network in America as well as to the stations of Austria’s neighbours, would have a powerful effect. You would
control
the propaganda situation here.’

‘Control? How?’

‘The Austrian public looks at German and German-Swiss television as well as Austrian. ORF would not dare to refuse your interview prime air time, nor to edit out the parts they didn’t happen to like. And, in case you should think that American audiences are not interested in Austrian clinics, permit me to draw Your Highness’s attention to a factor in this equation that your modesty may have concealed from you. Today, the Arabian Gulf is of unique world importance.
Yet, who from the Gulf states do they see and hear as spokesmen? Low-voiced and pro-west Saudis nominated by factions within OPEC. When, they must ask, do we get to hear from a man with an independent voice? What sort of men are they who rule these distant desert lands? Let them see and hear
you
, Your Highness.’

He was silent, and for several moments I thought that I had laid it on too thick. After all, I was there simply as a cover story invented by Zander and he knew it. So what was all this heavy-handed stuff about independent voice from the desert? The two men he really wanted to talk to and get down to business with were still cooling their heels outside.

Then he nodded curtly. ‘Yes, Mr Halliday, what you say makes sense. I agree with it. Unfortunately, I have other, and quite unexpected, business to attend to at this very moment.’

Zander decided that it was time now for him to lend a hand.

‘If I may be so bold, Your Highness. The unexpected business is, as you reminded us, urgent. But need the two conflict? Mr Halliday’s unit is arriving now I understand. But they will have their technical preparations to make. That will take time. And another thing. Mindful of the impact the film is certain to have on Austrian government opinion, Mr Halliday has requested that the interview should actually take place in the upper gallery of the mine itself.’

‘He could do this?’ The Ruler turned to me. ‘You could film me in the upper gallery? Actually in the mine?’

‘If there is mains electricity there, Your Highness,’ I said, ‘we can film the interview there. I can also promise you that if, while you transact your urgent business, someone responsible in your entourage can give me and the technicians access to the upper gallery so that lighting and other preparations can all be made in advance, we shall be waiting for you whenever you are ready to make your person available.’

There was another long silence before he began to give orders in Arabic. I knew just enough to know that they were
orders, but could not follow the meaning. Then, suddenly, he stood up and sailed out of the room without another glance at me.

Of course, the moment he had risen there had been a quick scramble around the table to get up and follow. ‘What’s gone wrong?’ I asked Zander. ‘We seemed to be moving along quite nicely.’

‘Nothing’s gone wrong, so far,’ he said. ‘You’re just not used to the way autocracy works. He liked your pitch, so the orders have been changed. Now, he will receive the strangers I have brought with me in another room. After that little ceremony the Chief Secretary and the Financial Counsellor will be at your disposal with keys to the mine. Just stay here a few minutes and they’ll come back for you. Tell them what you want done and, as soon as you can, get that Dutch unit busy. You promised instant service. You’d better be ready to deliver it. See you later.’

I sipped lukewarm mint tea as I watched the next moves from a window.

After a brief interval Zander and the Chief Secretary came out. The latter then summoned the General and Schelm to an audience with His Highness using the same stentorian tones he had employed earlier. The bodyguards stood aside to admit them, but became tense again when the dogs set up another commotion beyond the car-park. I assumed that Dick Kluvers and the Viser-Damrak outfit had arrived. After another wait I saw them climb up the hill. They parked alongside the Ortofilm vehicles. They had a slightly bigger van and a smaller car. Both were a lot dirtier than our stuff. A man with a lot of greyish-blond hair and an old track suit – Kluvers obviously – got out of the car and stared at the Ortofilm truck with Jean-Pierre and the young people in it. I was glad to see Simone slide out of the station-wagon to intercept him. Jean-Pierre would have put his back up and the last thing I needed was a bad-tempered director. I didn’t see any more of the encounter because, just then, the Chief
Secretary and the Financial Counsellor returned from the meeting in the other room to put themselves at my disposal.

The first thing, I said, was for me to be shown the upper gallery of the mine. No problem. The Chief Secretary had keys and proceeded to unlock the steel doors. Beyond them was a sort of vestibule with a sizeable switchboard on one wall and a lot of plans and drawings on the other. The Secretary began flipping switches and then unlocked the door beyond. He opened it with something of a showman’s flourish.

There was a blaze of lights coming from below, but the thing of which I was most immediately conscious was a complicated tangle of steel scaffolding and girders. Then, as I moved forward following the Secretary, I began to see the shape of it all. At the entrance we were in a cave, the floor of which was covered with ridged steel plates and more or less level. Then, the cave became a largish cavern with a ceiling of rock. This ceiling was supported by slanting girders all grouted into the rock with mortar. The next thing you came to was the mine shaft. It wasn’t vertical but zigzagged down through a cage-like arrangement of rock-face supports which also carried flight after flight of steel stairs.

‘This was all done by His Highness,’ the Chief Secretary said proudly.

‘But with a little help, I guess. Is this the upper gallery that was spoken about as a location for the interview?’

‘Oh no, Mr Halliday. That is down the stairs. There are one hundred and ten of them. That is where the pure, clean air is.’

‘I see.’ I thought for a moment. Where we were standing there was quite a bit of echo. Down below there might be even more. There was also an almost continuous sound of dripping water, the kind that drove sound recordists into deep depressions. Suddenly, another sound was added – a high-pitched howling that seemed to come from the centre of the earth.

‘What’s that?’ I had to yell to make myself heard.

‘The special pumps below,’ he shouted in my ear. ‘They switch on automatically when the deep sumps become full from the springs below.’

‘Can they be switched off for an hour or two or is that impossible?’

He beckoned me back to the vestibule and pulled a couple of circuit-breakers on the switchboard. The howling stopped instantly. ‘Those pumps keep the deep sumps dry,’ he explained, ‘but they can be switched off for days before any harm is done.’

‘All the same,’ I said, ‘that may not be the only problem we have shooting down there in the upper gallery. Just now I saw the film unit arrive with Mr Kluvers in charge. I would like him and his technicians with us when we go down to the gallery. It is they who will have to decide in the end what is technically possible and that way we will save time.’

‘I will see that they are brought,’ the Financial Counsellor said promptly and hurried off to do so. I had already noticed that he did not share the Chief Secretary’s enthusiasm for the mine. Why, I could not be certain, but I could well understand. Claustrophobia and fear of deep holes in the ground were only two of the many valid reasons a person might have for disliking the Petrucher. My own reason, at that stage, was the immediate prospect of having to persuade Kluvers and his crew, tired from a rough assignment in Yugoslavia, that it was going to be worthwhile, in order to interview The Ruler effectively, for them to toil up and down one hundred and ten slippery steel stairs carrying lamps, cables, tripods and all the rest of their equipment instead of using the museum.

While we waited, the Chief Secretary entertained me by explaining the principal features of the mine workings in their modern form. He used the charts and plans on the vestibule wall to illustrate the various points. I didn’t listen as carefully as I should have done. I was wondering how to make the museum look more interesting. I was still wondering when Dick Kluvers arrived with his camera and sound
men. All three spoke good English. Kluvers was agreeably businesslike.

‘I don’t understand any of this,’ he said. ‘When we check in at Velden, as instructed, there’s a guide and a guy named Rainer waiting there for us. Rainer’s from Austrian television and going to process the film. But he’s not paying us. And New York’s not paying us. A bank in Munich is paying us, in cash. Is that the deal you have?’

‘No. I’m being paid by Syncom-Sentinel and by cheque.’

‘My deal’s better then.’

‘Yes, I guess it is. Right now, though, we don’t have too much time to talk deals. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to see if we can shoot this interview down the mine in a place they call the upper gallery. I think there may be too many problems, but I’d like you to see it before we start on the alternatives.’

‘What kind of problems?’

‘Dripping water noises and echo mainly, but there may be others. There’s mains voltage power down there.’