They Came to Baghdad (10 page)

“I know his secretary slightly,” said Victoria.

“Oh yes, whatshisname Edward Thingummy—nice boy—too good for that long-haired racket—did well in the war, I hear. Still a job's a job, I suppose. Nice-looking boy—those earnest young women are quite fluttered by him, I fancy.”

A pang of devastating jealousy pierced Victoria.

“The Olive Branch,” she said. “Where did you say it was?”

“Up past the turning to the second bridge. One of the turnings off Rashid Street—tucked away rather. Not far from the Copper Bazaar.”

“And how's Mrs. Pauncefoot Jones?” continued Mrs. Cardew Trench. “Coming out soon? I hear she's been in poor health?”

But having got the information she wanted, Victoria was taking no more risks in invention. She glanced at her wristwatch and uttered an exclamation.

“Oh dear—I promised to wake Mrs. Clipp at half past six and help her to prepare for the journey. I must fly.”

The excuse was true enough, though Victoria had substituted half past six for seven o'clock. She hurried upstairs quite exhilarated. Tomorrow she would get in touch with Edward at the Olive Branch. Earnest young women with unwashed necks, indeed! They sounded
most
unattractive…Still, Victoria reflected uneasily that men are less critical of dingy necks than middle-aged hygienic Englishwomen are—especially if the owners of the said necks were gazing with large eyes of admiration and adoration at the male subject in question.

The evening passed rapidly. Victoria had an early meal in the dining room with Mrs. Hamilton Clipp, the latter talking nineteen to the dozen on every subject under the sun. She urged Victoria to come and pay a visit later—and Victoria noted down the address carefully, because, after all, one never knew…She accompanied Mrs. Clipp to Baghdad North Station, saw her safely ensconced in her compartment and was introduced to an acquaintance also travelling to Kirkuk who would assist Mrs. Clipp with her toilet on the following morning.

The engine uttered loud melancholy screams like a soul in distress, Mrs. Clipp thrust a thick envelope into Victoria's hand, said: “Just a little remembrance, Miss Jones, of our very pleasant companionship which I hope you will accept with my
most
grateful thanks.”

Victoria said: “But it's really
too
kind of you, Mrs. Clipp,” in a
delighted voice, the engine gave a fourth and final supreme banshee wail of anguish and the train pulled slowly out of the station.

Victoria took a taxi from the station back to the hotel since she had not the faintest idea how to get back to it any other way and there did not seem anyone about whom she could ask.

On her return to the Tio, she ran up to her room and eagerly opened the envelope. Inside were a couple of pairs of nylon stockings.

Victoria at any other moment would have been enchanted—nylon stockings having been usually beyond the reach of her purse. At the moment, however, hard cash was what she had been hoping for. Mrs. Clipp, however had been far too delicate to think of giving her a five-dinar note. Victoria wished heartily that she had not been quite so delicate.

However, tomorrow there would be Edward. Victoria undressed, got into bed and in five minutes was fast asleep, dreaming that she was waiting at an aerodrome for Edward, but that he was held back from joining her by a spectacled girl who clasped him firmly round the neck while the aeroplane began slowly to move away….

V
ictoria awoke to a morning of vivid sunshine. Having dressed, she went out onto the wide balcony outside her window. Sitting in a chair a little way along with his back to her was a man with curling grey hair growing down onto a muscular red brown neck. When the man turned his head sideways Victoria recognized, with a distinct feeling of surprise, Sir Rupert Crofton Lee.
Why
she should be so surprised she could hardly have said. Perhaps because she had assumed as a matter of course that a VIP such as Sir Rupert would have been staying at the Embassy and not at a hotel. Nevertheless there he was, staring at the Tigris with a kind of concentrated intensity. She noticed, even, that he had a pair of field glasses slung over the side of his chair. Possibly, she thought, he studied birds.

A young man whom Victoria had at one time thought attractive had been a bird enthusiast, and she had accompanied him on
several weekend tramps, to be made to stand as though paralysed in wet woods and icy winds, for what seemed like hours, to be at last told in tones of ecstasy to look through the glasses at some drab-looking bird on a remote twig which in appearance as far as Victoria could see, compared unfavourably in bird appeal with a common robin or chaffinch.

Victoria made her way downstairs, encountering Marcus Tio on the terrace between the two buildings of the hotel.

“I see you've got Sir Rupert Crofton Lee staying here,” she said.

“Oh yes,” said Marcus, beaming, “he is a nice man—a very nice man.”

“Do you know him well?”

“No, this is the first time I see him. Mr. Shrivenham of the British Embassy bring him here last night. Mr. Shrivenham, he is very nice man, too. I know
him very
well.”

Proceeding in to breakfast Victoria wondered if there was anyone whom Marcus would not consider a very nice man. He appeared to exercise a wide charity.

After breakfast, Victoria started forth in search of the Olive Branch.

A London-bred Cockney, she had no idea of the difficulties involved in finding any particular place in a city such as Baghdad until she had started on her quest.

Coming across Marcus again on her way out, she asked him to direct her to the Museum.

“It is a very nice museum,” said Marcus, beaming. “Yes. Full of interesting, very very old things. Not that I have been there
myself. But I have friends, archaeological friends, who stay here always when they come through Baghdad. Mr. Baker—Mr. Richard Baker, you know him? And Professor Kalzman? And Dr. Pauncefoot Jones—and Mr. and Mrs. McIntyre—they all come to the Tio. They are my friends. And they tell me about what is in the Museum. Very very interesting.”

“Where is it, and how do I get there?”

“You go straight along Rashid Street—a long way—past the turn to the Feisal Bridge and past Bank Street—you know Bank Street?”

“I don't know anything,” said Victoria.

“And then there is another street—also going down to a bridge and it is along there on the right. You ask for Mr. Betoun Evans, he is English Adviser there—very nice man. And his wife, she is very nice, too, she came here as Transport Sergeant during the war. Oh, she is very very nice.”

“I don't really want to go actually to the Museum,” said Victoria. “I want to find a place—a society—a kind of club called the Olive Branch.”

“If you want olives,” said Marcus, “I give you beautiful olives—very fine quality. They keep them especially for me—for the Tio Hotel. You see, I send you some to your table tonight.”

“That's very kind of you,” said Victoria and escaped towards Rashid Street.

“To the left,” Marcus shouted after her, “not to the right. But it is a long way to the Museum. You had better take a taxi.”

“Would a taxi know where the Olive Branch was?”

“No, they do not know where
anything
is! You say to the driver left, right, stop, straight on—just where you want to go.”

“In that case, I might as well walk,” said Victoria.

She reached Rashid Street and turned to the left.

Baghdad was entirely unlike her idea of it. A crowded main thoroughfare thronged with people, cars hooting violently, people shouting, European goods for sale in the shop windows, hearty spitting all round her with prodigious throat clearing as a preliminary. No mysterious Eastern figures, most of the people wore tattered or shabby Western clothes, old army and air force tunics, the occasional shuffling black-robed and veiled figures were almost inconspicuous amongst the hybrid European styles of dress. Whining beggars came up to her—women with dirty babies in their arms. The pavement under her feet was uneven with occasional gaping holes.

She pursued her way feeling suddenly strange and lost and far from home. Here was no glamour of travel, only confusion.

She came at last to the Feisal Bridge, passed it and went on. In spite of herself she was intrigued by the curious mixture of things in the shop windows. Here were babies' shoes and woollies, toothpaste and cosmetics, electric torches and china cups and saucers—all shown together. Slowly a kind of fascination came over her, the fascination of assorted merchandise coming from all over the world to meet the strange and varied wants of a mixed population.

She found the Museum, but not the Olive Branch. To one accustomed to finding her way about London it seemed incredible that here was no one she could
ask.
She knew no Arabic. Those shopkeepers who spoke to her in English as she passed, pressing their wares, presented blank faces when she asked for direction to the Olive Branch.

If one could only “ask a policeman,” but gazing at the police
men actively waving their arms, and blowing their whistles, she realized that here that would be no solution.

She went into a bookshop with English books in the window, but a mention of the Olive Branch drew only a courteous shrug and shake of the head. Regrettably they had no idea at all.

And then, as she walked along the street, a prodigious hammering and clanging came to her ears and peering down a long dim alley, she remembered that Mrs. Cardew Trench had said that the Olive Branch was near the Copper Bazaar. Here, at least, was the Copper Bazaar.

Victoria plunged in, and for the next three-quarters of an hour she forgot the Olive Branch completely. The Copper Bazaar fascinated her. The blow-lamps, the melting metal, the whole business of craftsmanship came like a revelation to the little Cockney used only to finished products stacked up for sale. She wandered at random through the souk, passed out of the Copper Bazaar, came to the gay striped horse blankets, and the cotton quilted bedcovers. Here European merchandise took on a totally different guise, in the arched cool darkness it had the exotic quality of something come from overseas, something strange and rare. Bales of cheap printed cottons in gay colours made a feast for the eyes.

Occasionally with a shout of
Balek, Balek,
a donkey or laden mule pushed past her, or men bearing great loads balanced on their backs. Little boys rushed up to her with trays slung round their necks.

“See, lady, elastic,
good
elastic, English elastic. Comb, English comb?”

The wares were thrust at her, close to her nose, with vehement urgings to buy. Victoria walked in a happy dream. This was
really seeing the world. At every turn of the vast arched cool world of alleyways you came to something totally unexpected—an alley of tailors, sitting stitching, with smart pictures of European men's tailoring; a line of watches and cheap jewellery. Bales of velvets and rich metal embroidered brocades, then a chance turn and you were walking down an alley of cheap and shoddy secondhand European clothes, quaint pathetic little faded jumpers and long straggly vests.

Then every now and then there were glimpses into vast quiet courtyards open to the sky.

She came to a vast vista of men's trouserings, with cross-legged dignified merchants in turbans sitting in the middle of their little square recesses.

“
Balek!
”

A heavily-laden donkey coming up behind her made Victoria turn aside into a narrow alleyway open to the sky that turned and twisted through tall houses. Walking along it she came, quite by chance, to the object of her search. Through an opening she looked into a small square courtyard and at the farther side of it an open doorway with THE OLIVE BRANCH on a huge sign and a rather impossible looking plaster bird holding an unrecognizable twig in its beak.

Joyously Victoria sped across the courtyard and in at the open door. She found herself in a dimly lit room with tables covered with books and periodicals and more books ranged round on shelves. It looked a little like a bookshop except that there were little groups of chairs arranged together here and there.

Out of the dimness a young woman came up to Victoria and said in careful English:

“What can I do for you, yes, please?”

Victoria looked at her. She wore corduroy trousers and an orange flannel shirt and had black dank hair cut in a kind of depressed bob. So far she would have looked more suited to Bloomsbury, but her face was not Bloomsbury. It was a melancholy Levantine face with great sad dark eyes and a heavy nose.

“This is—is this—is—is Dr. Rathbone here?”

Maddening still not to know Edward's surname! Even Mrs. Cardew Trench had called him Edward Thingummy.

“Yes. Dr. Rathbone. The Olive Branch. You wish to join us? Yes? That will be very nice.”

“Well, perhaps. I'd—can I see Dr. Rathbone, please?”

The young woman smiled in a tired way.

“We do not disturb. I have a form. I tell you all about everything. Then you sign your name. It is two dinars, please.”

“I'm not sure yet that I want to join,” said Victoria, alarmed at the mention of two dinars. “I'd like to see Dr. Rathbone—or his secretary. His secretary would do.”

“I explain. I explain to you everything. We all are friends here, friends together, friends for the future—reading very fine educational books—reciting poems each to other.”

“Dr. Rathbone's secretary,” said Victoria loudly and clearly. “He particularly told me to ask for him.”

A kind of mulish sullenness came into the young woman's face.

“Not today,” she said. “I explain—”

“Why not today? Isn't he here? Isn't Dr. Rathbone here?”

“Yais, Dr. Rathbone is here. He is upstairs. We do not disturb.”

A kind of Anglo-Saxon intolerance of foreigners swept over
Victoria. Regrettably, instead of the Olive Branch creating friendly international feelings, it seemed to be having the opposite effect as far as she was concerned.

“I have just arrived from England,” she said—and her accents were almost those of Mrs. Cardew Trench herself—“and I have a very important message for Dr. Rathbone which I must deliver to him personally. Please take me to him
at once!
I am sorry to disturb him, but I have got to see him.

“
At once!
” she added, to clinch matters.

Before an imperious Briton who means to get his or her own way, barriers nearly always fall. The young woman turned at once and led the way to the back of the room and up a staircase and along a gallery overlooking the courtyard. Here she stopped before a door and knocked. A man's voice said, “Come in.”

Victoria's guide opened the door and motioned to Victoria to pass in.

“It is a lady from En gland for you.”

Victoria walked in.

From behind a large desk covered with papers, a man got up to greet her.

He was an imposing-looking elderly man of about sixty with a high domed forehead and white hair. Benevolence, kindliness and charm were the most apparent qualities of his personality. A producer of plays would have cast him without hesitation for the role of the great philanthropist.

He greeted Victoria with a warm smile and an outstretched hand.

“So you've just come out from England,” he said. “First visit East, eh?”

“Yes.”

“I wonder what you think of it all…You must tell me sometime. Now let me see, have I met you before or not? I'm so shortsighted and you didn't give your name.”

“You don't know me,” said Victoria, “but I'm a friend of Edward's.”

“A friend of Edward's,” said Dr. Rathbone. “Why, that's splendid. Does Edward know you're in Baghdad?”

“Not yet,” said Victoria.

“Well, that will be a pleasant surprise for him when he gets back.”

“Back?” said Victoria, her voice falling.

“Yes, Edward's at Basrah at the moment. I had to send him down there to see about some crates of books that have come out for us. There have been most vexatious delays in the Customs—we simply have not been able to get them cleared. The personal touch is the only thing, and Edward's good at that sort of thing. He knows just when to charm and when to bully, and he won't rest till he's got the thing through. He's a sticker. A fine quality in a young man. I think a lot of Edward.”

His eyes twinkled.

“But I don't suppose I need to sing Edward's praises to you, young lady?”

“When—when will Edward be back from Basrah?” asked Victoria faintly.

“Well—now that I couldn't say, he won't come back till he's finished the job—and you can't hurry things too much in this country. Tell me where you are staying and I'll make sure he gets in touch with you as soon as he gets back.”

“I was wondering—” Victoria spoke desperately, aware of her financial plight. “I was wondering if—if I could do some work here?”

“Now that I do appreciate,” said Dr. Rathbone warmly. “Yes, of course you can. We need all the workers, all the help we can get. And especially English girls. Our work is going splendidly—quite splendidly—but there's lots more to be done. Still, people are keen. I've got thirty voluntary helpers already—
thirty
—all of 'em as keen as mustard! If you're really in earnest, you can be
most
valuable.”