The Revolt of Aphrodite (13 page)

Banubula nodded like a mandarin. “It is only to prove to you that I have tried everything. I even tried love potions on my spouse, but they made her violently ill. I meant well. That much you will grant me.” I nodded, granting him that much.

“O God” said Banubula, drinking deeply, thirstily. “My sorrow seems bottomless, bottomless.” The choice of phrase seemed to me bizarre, but I did not comment. “Just how would things change if… if all these negotiations were successful?” I asked. At once his large hairless face changed its expression, became animated with a fiery enthusiasm. “Ah then everything would be different, don’t you see? I should be
in
!”

The officious barman started to bang shutter and door and indicate brusquely that the bar was closing; he refused us another drink. “You see?” said the Count. “My whole life is like that—one refusal follows another, everywhere, in everything.” His lower lip dipped steeply towards a self-commiserating burst of tears, but he restrained them manfully. “To bed I think” I said, with as much cheerfulness as I could muster. And I did what I could to steer the yawing bulk of the Count upstairs to bed. “I won’t bother to undress” he said
cheerfully
, falling upon his bed. “Goodnight.”

I turned at the door to find that he was regarding me with one eye open with the air of a highly speculative jackdaw. “I know” he said “you are dying to question me about him. But I know so little.”

“Could Sipple be working for Merlin’s?”

“Certainly. At any rate it was they who cabled and telephoned to Hippolyta asking her, us, to get him over to Polis as swiftly as was humanly possible.”

“What on earth could Sipple do? Spy?”

Banubula yawned and stretched. “As for the boy you said you… found; that has nothing to do with the case. I mean it’s a quite
independent
fact which has nothing to do with the firm. It’s Sipple’s own business.”

“But how do you know about it?”

“Sipple told me. He denied having anything to do with it.”

“There was no mention in the newspapers; somebody
must
have found the body. Who hushed the whole matter up?”

“In the Middle East” said Banubula sighing “a London detective would go out of business; there are so many people with such
unusual
motives…. I mean, look, suppose Sipple’s landlord thought that the discovery of a corpse would prejudice him letting the room to someone else. What would he do? He would put it in a sack and slip it into one of the sewers, or take it to the top of Hymettus and fling it into a crevasse—there are some hundreds of feet deep, sheer falls, never been explored.” Banubula cleared his throat and went on in a shyer tone of voice. “Once I was forced to get rid of a rival for my wife’s hand in somewhat the same fashion; though in my case it was complicated by blackmail and menaces.”

“You killed a man?” I said admiringly.

“Yes … well … rather” said the Count with modesty.

He lay back, closing his eyes and breathing coolly through his nose. Then he said in somewhat oracular fashion: “Haven’t you noticed Charlock that most things in life happen just outside one’s range of vision? One has to see them out of the corner of one’s eye. And any one thing could be the effect of any number of others? I mean there seem to be always a dozen perfectly appropriate explanations to every phenomenon. That is what makes our reasoning minds so
unsatisfactory
; and yet, they are all we’ve got, this shabby piece of equipment.” He would doubtless have had more to say, but sleep gained on him steadily and in a while his mouth fell open and he began to snore. I slipped off the light and closed the door softly.

* * * * *

S
acrapant was as good as his word and appeared next morning on the dot—but this time with a big American car driven by a Turk dressed in a sort of bloodstained butcher’s smock. He was all frail animation and charm as we bumped and careered down towards the waterside sectors of the town, through souks rendered colourless now by the dreadful European reach-me-downs worn by the inhabitants of this artificially modernised land. At the best the Turks of the capital looked opium-ridden, or as if clubbed half insensible; the clothes set off their mental disarray to perfection. Of course I did not voice my sentiments as strongly as this, but my hints were enough to convey the general drift of my thoughts to Mr. Sacrapant. To my surprise he expressed stern disapproval. “They may be ugly” he said. “But thanks to them we brought off one of our biggest
coups.
The firm was in touch with Mustafa’s party when it was still a secret society. It knew his plans, and that when it came to power it would abolish the fez and the Arabic script. It waited. By skilful bribing we made an agreement, and the very day the
firman
was launched, we had six ships full of cloth caps standing by in the roads! We swamped the market. We had also collared the contracts for printing of stamps and the national stationery—we had been importing presses for months. You see what I mean? Doing business in the Levant is rather a special thing.” He bridled, flushed with pride. I could see that all right, O yes.

The oldfashioned counting-house, down among the stinking tanneries of the yards, was rather impressive; the interior walls of three large factories had been taken out and replaced by a huge acreage of tile floor. Here, cheek by jowl, worked the Merlin
employees
, their desks brow to brow, practically touching one another. A deep susurrous of noise rose as if from a wasp’s nest, deepened by the throaty echo of electric fans. Here there seemed to be no sleep—I could hardly see one face that did not signal itself as belonging to a Greek, Jew, Armenian, Copt, Italian. A sort of dramatic electrical
current seemed to have generated itself. Sacrapant walked between the desks, bursting with a kind of hallowed civic pride, nodding to right and left. I could see from the way he was greeted that he was much beloved. He walked as a man might show off a garden, stopping here and there to pluck a flower. I was introduced to a few people, a swift sample, so to speak; they all spoke good English and we
exchanged
pleasantries. Also, in one corner—the only screened section —I was presented to three elderly men of Swiss accent and mien: they looked both authoritative and determined. They were dressed in formal oldfashioned tail-coats which must have been stifling to wear in summer. “They speak all our languages” said Mr. Sacrapant, adding: “You see here each man is very much head of his own section. We have decentralised as much as humanely possible. The great variety of our work permits it.” He picked a bundle of ladings and C.I.F. telegrams off a desk and rapidly clipped out the words “Beirut, Mozambique, Aleppo, Cairo, Antananarivo, Lagos.”

I accepted a traditional black coffee of the oriental variety and expressed my approval of all this creditable activity; afterwards we stepped out blinking into the sunlight. Sacrapant had taken the day off in order to show me something of the town and together we walked laterally across it, making clever detours to visit the choicer monuments. In the honeyed gloom of the covered bazaars I bought a few coins and some beaten silver wire of Yemeni origin, with the vague intention of presenting them to Hippolyta on my return. We sauntered through the courtyards of sunbaked mosques, pausing to feed the pigeons from a paper bag full of Indian
gram.
Thence to Al Quat for a really excellent lunch of pigeon and rice. It was late
afternoon
by the time we started to saunter back to the hotel, and by now I had come to see what an immense graveyard Stamboul is, or seems to be. The tombs are sown broadcast, not gathered together in formalised squares and rectangles. Graveyards were spread wherever humanity had scratched up a tombstone behind it, as in a cat-box; here death seemed to be broadcast wholesale in quite arbitrary fashion. A heavy melancholy, a heavy depression seemed to hang over these beautiful empty monuments. Turkey takes time to know.

Truth to tell, I was rather anxious to leave it and get back to the noisy but freer air of Athens. “You have brought your box, of
course?” said Mr. Sacrapant. “I know that Mr. Pehlevi is most anxious to see it.” But of course he would not be available for another twenty-four hours; yes, I had brought my box. Mr. Sacrapant accepted tea and toast and reminisced awhile about the business community of Smyrna where he had learned his English. In parenthesis he added: “By the way, Mr. Pehlevi told me to tell you that there is a commercial counsellor here and he will insist that any contracts we offer you should be seen by him. Just in case you have no business head. He wants everything to be above board and clear. It is part of our policy. I have told Mr. Vibart and he agrees to advise you. So all is in order.” I have no idea why this remark should have seemed slightly ominous to me but it did. He sighed, and with great reluctance excused himself, saying that he had a dinner engagement. For my part, after so long and exhausting a walk, I was glad to go to my room and siesta—which I did to such good effect that it was after dark when I awoke and groped my way distractedly down to dinner. There was no sign of Banubula in the dining room, and there were few other guests whose appearance offered hope of time-killing
conversation
. But later I ran him down in the sunken billiard room
playing
mournful Persian airs on a very tinny cottage piano. Several large whiskies stood before him—a precaution against the barman with his capricious habits of shutting up the bar when drinks were most needed. He was, I should say, a little less drunk than he had been the evening before, though the number of the whiskies boded little good; he allowed me to take one and sit beside him. He was in a morose, cantakerous mood, and was hitting a lot of false notes. At last he desisted, banged the piano shut. “Well,” he said, sucking his teeth “tonight I will be handing over Sipple, and then byebye to Polis.”

“Handing over? Is he in irons?”

“He should be” said Banubula savagely. “They all should be.”

He growled awhile into his waistcoat and then went on. “I suppose you have seen Pehlevi, eh? That swine!” Such an outburst from this mild, courteous and bookish man was astonishing.

“Tomorrow.” Banubula sighed and shook his head with a gloomy star-crossed expression.

“Tomorrow you will be
in,
over my head.”

It was my turn to get annoyed by this repetitive and meaningless
reiteration—this eternal
mélop
é
e.
“Listen to me” I said poking his waistcoat. “I am not in, not out, and will not be. This might be a commercial agreement over a small toy which may make me some money, that is all. Do you hear?”

“You will see” he grunted.

“Moreover any contracts will be vetted by the commercial
consul
” I added primly.

“Ha ha.”

“Why ha ha?”

“Over whose dead body?” said Banubula inconsequentially. “Over mine, my boy. In you go and out I shall stay.” He drained a tumbler and set it down with exaggerated care. Then all of a sudden the cloud seemed to lift a little. He smiled complacently and stroked his chin for awhile, looking at me sideways. “Caradoc does not spare our infirmities” he said.

“Is
he
in?”

Banubula looked at me incredulously. “Of course” he said with disgust. “Has always
been
in; but he wants to get
out
!
”

“It’s like a bloody girls’ school” said I.

“Yes” he said with resignation. “You are right. But let us talk about something pleasanter. If I had not been on duty here I might have shown you some of the sights of the capital. Things that most people don’t see. In one of the kiosks of the Seraglio, for example, is Abdul Hamid’s collection of dildoes, brought together from all over the world; all carefully labelled and dusted. He was impotent, they say, and this was one of his few pleasures.”

“Is old Merlin still alive?” I asked suddenly. Banubula shot me a glance and sat up straight for a moment. Ignoring my remark he went on: “They were kept in a long row of pipe-racks presented by the British Government in a vain attempt to curry favour with him. The names were so beautiful—
passiatempo
in Italian,
godemiche
or
bientateur
in French. No? They illustrate national attitudes better than anything else, the names. The German one was called the
phallus
phantom
—a ghostly metaphysical machine covered with death-dew. Alas, my boy, I have not the time to show you this and other treasures.”

“It’s a great pity.”

Banubula consulted his watch with pursed lips. “In another half hour they will take over and I shall be free. But I think I should just make sure that Sipple is all right. Do you want to come with me?”

“No.”

“It won’t involve us in anything, you know.”

I looked and felt somewhat doubtful; depressed as I was at the thought of spending another evening here alone I did not want to become involved in any of the Count’s escapades. On the other hand I was a bit anxious for his own safety. It seemed unwise to leave him alone. I must have looked as confused as I felt for he said, cajolingly, “Come on. It will take me a quarter of an hour. I will just peep through the curtain at the Seamen’s Relief Club, and then we can return happy in the thought of duty well and faithfully done.”

“Very well” I said. “First let me see that you can walk straight.” Banubula looked wounded in his self-esteem. He rose heavily to his feet and took a very creditable turn or two up and down the room. His own steadiness rather surprised him. He looked somewhat
incredulous
to find himself navigating with such ease. “You see?” he said. “I’m perfectly all right. Anyway we will take a cab. I’ll send these remaining whiskies up to my room for safety and we can go. Eh?”

He pressed the bell for the waiter, and gave his instructions in faultless Turkish which I envied him.

Once more we slanted down the ill-lit streets where the occasional tram squealed like a stuck pig. Banubula consulted a pocket
notebook
which appeared to have a rough plan pencilled into it. Why not a compass? I wondered. So like an explorer did he behave. We left the taxi on a street corner and set off in an easterly direction, skirting the bazaars. The Count walked in what I can only describe as a
precautionary
way, stopping from time to time, and looking behind, as if to see whether we were being trailed or not. Perhaps he was
showing
off? The town smelt heavily of tannin and garbage. We crossed a series of small squares and skirted the walled exterior of mosques. The city seemed to become more and more deserted and somewhat sinister. Finally however we reached a corner where light and noise abounded, where spits hissed and bagpipes skirled. A section of the sky had been cut out by the flares. There can be no mistake about the
Greek quarter of any town. An infernal industry and gaiety reigns. Here we entered a large café the interior of which was full of mirrors and birdcages, and domino players, and crossing it reached a
courtyard
where, in the dimness, a notice could just be discerned which read “Seamen’s Relief Club”. Banubula grunted as he addressed himself to a flight of creaky stairs. “How does one relieve a
seaman
?” I asked, but the Count did not reply.