Desertion Read online

  ‘The tomb of Sherif Himidi,’ Frederick announced, waving his pipe at the tomb. ‘People come to make offering here. Take a look inside the tomb.’

  Frederick smiled and nodded, encouraging, confident that Martin would find the invitation gratifying. The walls were too high for Martin to peer over, so Frederick made a step with his two cupped hands and Martin leaped up and sat on the side wall of the tomb. Rough grass grew in the tomb, and lying on it were several packets wrapped in cloth, some blue, some crimson, some cream, and some old and colourless and perished. Some were tied with twine. There was a miniature boat, three or four inches long, with a tiny mast and outriggers. Inside the boat was a round pouch wrapped in a strip of dried banana leaf. At the top end of the rectangular space, the pillar end, a carved piece of dark wood lay in the same alignment as the body might be expected to lie. Martin shifted on the wall and then leaned forward to take a closer look. As he did so, he felt a sharp stab in the side of his left buttock and thought he must have pressed against a broken piece of masonary. The carved piece of wood had some marks on it, crescents and lines, but no shape he recognised.

  He leaped down from the wall and felt his knees give way under him as he landed on the ground. He was still so weak. Frederick looked at him with a suppressed smile, anticipating his surprised report. ‘You thought there’d be some nasty bits of flesh, didn’t you? Disembowelled rodents and crucified crows and that sort of thing. But no, only those bits of things apparently, and people pray to get better and to have sons and for safety at sea, that sort of thing. I’m tempted to purloin one of those packets, in the cause of science, of course, to see what’s in it. But when I came this way before it was with my groom Idris, and he became thoroughly distraught at the idea, as if I proposed to interfere with the whole course of human destiny. What do you think is in them?’

  Martin shrugged. ‘Prayers written on parchment. A piece of quartz. A rosary.’

  ‘Mumbo jumbo,’ Frederick said. ‘Nothing of any value, that’s for certain, and it does no harm, I suppose. Did you know the original mumbo jumbo was bits of cloth tied to branches of trees? Mungo Park brought the phrase back from his travels in West Africa. Mungo Park. What kind of name is that? Mungo sounds like one of our native friends, doesn’t it? Mungo jumbo. He sounds a bit of a wild Jock, old Mungo.’

  It occurred to Martin to wonder how Frederick might describe himself: as a colonial idealist, something of a scholar of poetry, a bit of a rake, perhaps as a man of wit and subtle humour. ‘I thought I saw a pouch of tobacco in a miniature boat,’ Martin said, turning and beginning to walk back. He thought he would return later to try and decipher the writing on the porcelain plate in the wall.

  ‘Perhaps the sherif was fond of snuff,’ Frederick said, grinning. ‘Is a sherif allowed snuff? He was apparently a bit of a poet, our sherif, which I think is a jolly good thing. It’s all devotional chanting, I expect, but you might look into that, Pearce.’

  ‘Yes,’ Martin said.

  ‘It’s remarkable, isn’t it, that these people have got by for centuries without writing anything down,’ Frederick said, bending down to remove burrs from his stockings. ‘Everything is memorised and passed on, and they have to wait until Bishop Steere turns up in Zanzibar in the 1870s before anyone thinks to produce a grammar. I think I’m right in saying that this is true all over Africa, am I not? It’s a staggering thought, that no African language had writing until the missionaries arrived. And I believe that in several languages the only piece of writing that exists is translations from the New Testament. What a thought, eh? They haven’t even invented the wheel yet. It shows what a long way they have to go yet.’

  By the time they reached the house, the pain in Martin’s back and hip was almost unbearable. His face was covered with sweat, and he dragged his left leg slightly. It took Frederick a while to notice Martin’s increasing distress, and when he did they were only a short distance from the house. Frederick put an arm around Martin and helped him hobble the last few steps. They found out that Martin had been bitten. Hamis said it was a kenge, and by the gesture he made with forefinger and thumb to indicate the animal’s jaws, they assumed it was a scorpion. The area around the bite was discoloured and darkening and beginning to swell. Martin lay on his right side while Hamis unhurriedly cleaned the bite with a rag and cold water, seeming untroubled by Frederick’s urgings and questions. Is there an antidote? How dangerous? Pearce, dear fellow, you really have been in the wars, one thing after another. Then the cook came in with a bowl of greenish pap which he had prepared while Hamis cleaned the wound, and applied it as a poultice on the bite. It smelled strongly of mint. The cook propped Martin’s body with cushions so he should not roll over, then Hamis tore a clean piece of rag and wiped Martin’s sweating brow. He sighed with the relief these ministrations gave him and shut his eyes.

  To Frederick’s amazement, Martin was on his feet in time for supper. He called it another miracle: a day or two to recover from sunstroke, and only a few hours to shake off a scorpion bite. ‘But perhaps it simply wasn’t a scorpion bite,’ Martin said as they sat on the veranda after supper. ‘In any case, scorpion bites are not as lethal as their reputation, and the cook’s cold compress was the perfect antidote. I think it was probably a centipede. Anyway, I must find a way of rewarding your servants . . .’

  ‘No need, I’ve given them some coins in your name,’ Frederick said, his hand held up, palm outwards to discourage any protests. Not much you can give them at the moment, is there, shorn as you are of your worldly goods. I told Hamis where we were when you were bitten, or rather where you were sitting. He was shocked. Apparently it’s very bad manners to sit on the sherif’s tomb. And what’s worse for you, my dear Martin, is the prediction that if you are bitten by an insect while so sitting, you will be unable to leave this place. I do hope, for your sake, that the prediction is no more than gentle hocus on Hamis’s part. Incidentally, there are some ruins a few miles south of here which we must visit when you’re better. When you see them you’ll wonder again, I’m sure, about civilisation. How could the people who made this have turned out as they have? I used to think this in India and I’m sure you must’ve thought it in Egypt and in your various travels. How could this chaotic, infantile host have descended from the builders of these magnificent monuments? It seems as if when inspiration deserts you, it deserts you completely.’

  ‘Perhaps we should heed those words ourselves,’ Martin said softly, reluctant to be drawn into Frederick’s pronouncements and summaries.

  ‘Ozymandias,’ Frederick said, nodding. ‘The hubris of empire, that’s what you mean, isn’t it? What seems massive and powerful today will be dust and ruins tomorrow. But Ozymandias was an oriental despot, my dear Martin, quite unlike our good rational selves. Would you not suppose this was what Shelley meant? That in the moment of our greatness we should remain true to our traditions of liberty and not be tempted into despotic hubris. Although when he wrote the poem he would have had no idea how much greatness lay ahead.’

  After some minutes of silence, Frederick recited the whole poem to the cooling night breeze, having spent those few moments refreshing his memory of it. He delivered the final lines with prophetic emphasis:

  Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch away.

  And then he sighed. ‘I don’t think so, you know. I don’t see much knocking our little edifice down. I think this will be the order of things for a long time to come. So don’t visit your doom-mongering on us, my good sir.’

  Martin smiled. ‘Talking of visiting,’ he said, weary now in an uncomplicated way. ‘Tomorrow I would like to go and see the shopkeeper who found me, to thank him and his family for their kindness.’

  Frederick looked doubtful, but nodded none the less. ‘I’m not sure about kindness. They probably hoped for a bit of reward.’

  ‘I would reward them if I could, although I would prefer to think it was kindness,’ Martin said.
/>   ‘There’s a lot to be said for kindness,’ Frederick said amiably. He put his glass down and scratched distractedly at a bite on his wrist. ‘It’s good of you to be so generous. Of course you must go and see them, if you wish. And if you’d like to reward them, I can advance something towards that, though I hardly think it’s necessary. We got there pretty soon after they found you, a moment before one of their witch herbalists was about to start on you, in fact. Do you know what passes for medicine here? Mumbo jumbo pap and cauterisation. Slap the mumbo jumbo on or put a red-hot poker iron on it.’

  ‘I’m happy to go on my own,’ Martin said tetchily. ‘I asked Hamis for directions this morning and it seems quite uncomplicated.’ Hamis, Frederick’s servant, had given him directions in his laconic style. Turn into the lane opposite the big tree near the tomb of the sherif, follow the street until you come to open ground, and there on your left is the shop, on your right is the café and opposite is the mosque. It sounded simple enough, but Frederick would have none of it. ‘My dear Martin, my good fellow, you’ve already had one near miss, and you do seem prone to accidents and mishaps. Maybe more caution is advisable in the interim, at least until you recover your strength. Out of the question to go on your own into that filthy maze. We’ll go together tomorrow morning.’

  Martin would have preferred to make the visit unaccompanied, to stroll through the lanes without hurry until he found the square with the shop, the café and the mosque. ‘I don’t wish to make a ceremony of it,’ he said mildly, too tired to argue.

  ‘We won’t,’ Frederick said cheerfully. ‘Just thank you chaps, and keep up the good work. Then back home for lunch.’ He smiled with generous goodwill, offered Martin another drink, who declined, and filled up his glass. ‘Concerning your affairs at large . . if I may be so bold, dear friend. I’m expecting a mail detail any day now from Mombasa, and I wondered whether you had any post yourself, any arrangements you wished to make. You are welcome to stay here as long as you wish, rest and chat about Swinburne and the Empire to your heart’s delight. I feel contented with your company and am delighted to discover a new friend, if I may be so brash.’ He raised his glass in a salute, genially tipsy.

  ‘Thank you,’ Martin said, and felt his eyes prickle at the ingratitude of his earlier impatience. ‘You have been very kind. I’ll write a letter to the consul in Aden. He knows of the arrangements I made with the luggage and effects I left behind, and he can also arrange to have funds sent to me in Mombasa. If I may impose on you until the funds . . .’

  ‘Don’t mention it. I am grateful for the company. And now it looks to me as if you’re ready for bed,’ Frederick said, then slapped himself irritably on his left ear, spilling some of his drink. Damn them. The bloody mosquitoes are busy tonight. It’s the fault of all that ragamuffin sleeping on the beach, no doubt. They must’ve brought them with them. Their voices irritate me, all that tuneless wailing and shouting, such a racket.’ He relit his pipe from a splinter he kept beside the parrafin lamp, and leaned back with a sigh.

  As it turned out, the mail boat from Mombasa arrived the next morning. The messenger was a neat, courteous Mombasan, in white shirt and khaki trousers, a clerk’s habit, who stood with hands crossed behind his back while Frederick frowned about what to do. In the end he was forced to excuse himself from accompanying Martin in order to complete his paperwork, so that the messenger, who had expressed a wish to return as soon as possible because of the changing winds, could leave early the following day. The messenger offered his thanks and left, smilingly refusing offers of food or bed. Martin had written the letter to the consul in Aden before breakfast and was otherwise unencumbered except by Swinburne, but he was not to be left to his own devices as he had begun to hope. Frederick sent for the wakil who had taken him to the shop the first time.

  ‘I’ve had some more to do with the character,’ Frederick said, smiling wickedly. ‘And I’m beginning to think he might be useful. He has been calling at the office downstairs every day, to enquire after your health and to offer his services. He stands there, hand-wringing and cork-screwing, but with a sharp glint of cunning behind his deferential airs. I liked the no-nonsense manner he dealt with the crowd at the shop when we came to collect you. It was merely display, of course, seeing as the little pest has no authority at all, but I’m beginning to think I can make use of that display for government’s ends. He also speaks some kind of English and is educated up to a fashion and understands the nature of process. He thought himself cunning, but I think I can be even more cunning than him. I hope you won’t think me boastful for saying that, but my experience has been that native cunning only goes so far. And I imagine that the unctuous gentleman will be a useful tool now and then.’

  So, Frederick sent for the wakil and asked him as a favour to the government to accompany Mr Pearce to the dukawallah who had found him several days ago. It was late in the morning by the time they set off. The wakil had had no dealings with Martin, no acknowledgement of his visits to enquire after him, and was not certain of the nature of this visit to Hassanali, so he smiled and led off. Martin could see that he expected to make himself adaptable to whatever was required. It was a hot, bright morning and the wakil had brought an umbrella with him, which he opened and held over Martin’s head like a canopy.

  ‘La la, ma’esh,’ Martin said, stepping away.

  The wakil gave Martin a quick look of surprise, and no doubt made some adjustments. He replied in Arabic, and it was Martin’s turn to be surprised. Yes, he spoke some rough Arabic, a tiny amount of terrible English, and some Swahili. You can’t do business without Arabic here. But how is it that you speak Arabic? the wakil asked. Martin explained that he had lived in Egypt. Ah, the wakil said, Britannia is everywhere in the world.

  The wakil was right, it was a very hot still morning, but since Martin refused to have the umbrella held over his head, the wakil did not protect himself either, out of politeness. It was cooler when they turned into the lanes, and Martin stopped for a moment in this comparative gloom to get accustomed to the light. He walked slowly after the wakil, who had stridden ahead several paces before realising that Martin was not hurrying. There was an unusual but familiar smell in the alleys, the smell of age and human paltriness: the open gutters, the blackened streams of waste, the dilapidated houses tumbled over each other and penetrated with decades of condensed sweat and human breath. It was a smell of something like healing flesh, drying mud, a smell about to turn to illness and decay, to bubble up a balloon of dead gas. It was malarial air. People sat in the midst of it, and lived and traded, and suckled their young and sang them to sleep. So Martin took a deep breath and bid himself to become accustomed to it. Children smiled shyly at him and called him mzungu. He smiled back. Older men looked him up and down without saying anything, at his sandals, his baggy clothes, his cropped hair, and could not restrain a smile. Mzungu hafifu, one of them called out. A feeble European. Everyone laughed, and so did Martin, which made them laugh even more, because they assumed he had no idea they were laughing at him. Other shouts followed, ugly names which made everyone chortle and splutter: kelb, sheitan, majnoon, punda. Dog, devil, madman, donkey. Most of the words were borrowings from Arabic.

  ‘Anafahamu,’ the wakil shouted out, waving his umbrella at the nearest revellers. He understands. There was more laughter, and people came to the doors of their houses to look at the mzungu who understood. There were more shouts and more laughter, but the ribaldry was now beyond both of them, Martin guessed. Certainly he could not understand more than a word now and then. The merriment sounded as if it was still good-natured so he shrugged to show his bewilderment and waved, the village idiot pretending not to take offence in order to disarm his tormentors. One or two waved back, and then suddenly the children turned their attention to the wakil. Kumbaro, they shouted. Martin did not know the word, but he saw the wakil take firm hold of his umbrella and glare at the children. Kumbaro, kumbaro, anakumba uharo, they chanted, dancing out of the reach of the
wakil’s umbrella. A woman came out of a doorway, took hold of one of the children and gave him a mighty slap on his cheek. You don’t have any manners, she yelled, and gave the boy another mighty slap on the same cheek. The boy burst into a heart-broken wail and ran in the other direction, stumbling and slipping in the rutted path, blinded by tears. The woman ran after him, calling him by name, herself distraught.

  They stepped into the square and Martin glanced at the wakil to see if he shared his sense of relief. It was as if they had walked through a large house and witnessed its domestic intimacies. So for a moment he did not take in the openness and orderliness of the square, the proper and fitting dimensions of the mosque in one corner, its blue doors open now in mid-morning, the fields beyond, the café with marble-topped tables, the neat houses and the billowing curtains that screened the doorways. When he did, he made a small noise of pleasure, a hum through his nostrils that was both recognition and approval. This is what we mean by beauty, he thought, this composure, this balance, and he felt his eyes smart with homesickness even though nothing in front of him looked like England.

  The wakil pointed to their left with his busy umbrella, then waggled his head gently and smiled. Even before they reached the shop, Martin saw that their approach was causing consternation. One of the men sitting on the bench rose to his feet and looked towards the shop, shouting a warning, and some of the children who had followed them out of the alleys raced ahead to find a good place to view the forthcoming spectacle. The other men on the bench were also on their feet when they reached the shop. They shook hands with the wakil and then with Martin, who had no choice but to give himself up to the melee of greeting and hand-shaking, as if he was an honoured guest at a wedding. He turned towards the shop, with its display of baskets and chests of goods arranged in a cascade of rice and beans and twists of ginger and lumps of salt and gouts of tamarind, and when his eyes became used to the gloom, he saw the shopkeeper on his feet, shoulders hunched, braced for misuse. Martin raised his hand in greeting and the shopkeeper saluted back. The crowd had now formed a tight arc around him, despite the wakil’s best efforts with his umbrella. Martin reached across the merchandise and offered his hand, and he saw a smile appear on the shopkeeper’s face before he reached forward and grasped it. The shopkeeper climbed down from his platform and opened the side door to his shop and stepped out. The crowd loosened and spread out, the tension in them beginning to slacken, and Martin realised that they had all expected him to arrive with hauteur and demands, a repetition, perhaps, of Frederick’s earlier visit. The shopkeeper shook hands again, smiling with a kind of modesty, relieved. But Martin saw that even as he smiled and shook his hand, his eyes were distracted by the closeness of the crowd to his unguarded merchandise, so he turned towards the crowd and waved to them to leave, asking them to show favour, please. Anafahamu, the wakil explained, and waved his umbrella at the crowd as if it was a magic broom that would sweep them all away. After a few such sallies the crowd retreated reluctantly but refused to disperse. The three old men returned to their bench and the shopkeeper was able to turn to Martin with a less troubled smile.