The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea

the examining angels in the Koran as their most repulsive features have blueeyes.’

So the young Mountolive noted and pondered upon the strange ways of the people among whom he had come to live, painstakingly as befitted a student of manners so remote from his own; yet also in a kind of ecstasy to find a sort of poetic correspondence between the reality and the dream-picture of the East which he had constructed from his reading. There was less of a disparity here than between the twin images which Leila appeared to nurse — a poetic image of England and its exemplar the shy and in many ways callow youth she had taken for a lover. But he was not altogether a fool; he was learning the two most important lessons in life: to make love honestly and to reflect.

Yet there were other episodes and scenes which touched and excited him in a different way. One day they all rode out across the plantations to visit the old nurse Halima, now living in honourable retirement. She had been the boys’ chief nurse and companion during their infancy. ‘She even suckled them when my milk dried up’ explained Leila.

Narouz gave a hoarse chuckle. ‘She was our “chewer”’ he explained to Mountolive. ‘Do you know the word?’ In Egypt at this time young children were fed by servants whose duty it was to chew the food up first before spoon-feeding them with it.

Halima was a freed black slave from the Sudan, and she too was ‘making her soul’ now in a little wattle house among the fields of sugar-cane, happily surrounded by innumerable children and grandchildren. It was impossible to judge her age. She was delighted out of all measure at the sight of the Hosnani youths, and Mountolive was touched by the way they both dismounted and raced into her embrace. Nor was Leila less affectionate. And when the old negress had recovered herself she insisted on executing a short dance in honour of their visit; oddly it was not without grace. They all stood around her affectionately clapping their hands in time while she turned first upon one heel and then upon the other; and as she ended her song their embraces and laughter were renewed. This unaffected and spontaneous tenderness delighted Mountolive and he looked upon his mistress with shining eyes in which she could read not only his love but a new respect. He was dying now to be alone with her, to embrace her; but he listened patiently while old Halima told him of the family’s qualities and how they had enabled her to visit the holy city twice as a recognition of her services. She kept one hand tenderly upon Narouz’ sleeve as she spoke, gazing into his face from time to time with the affection of an animal. Then when he unpacked from the dusty old game-bag he always carried all the presents they had brought for her, the smiles and dismays played over her old face successively like eclipses of the moon. She wept.

But there were other scenes, less palatable perhaps, but nonetheless representative of the moeurs of Egypt. One morning early he had witnessed a short incident which took place in the courtyard under his window. A dark youth stood uneasily here before a different Narouz, scowling fiercely yet with ebbing courage into those blue eyes. Mountolive had heard the words ‘Master, it Was no lie’ spoken twice in a low clear voice as he lay reading; he rose and walked to the window in time to see Narouz, who was repeating in a low, obstinate voice, pressed between his teeth into a hiss, the words ‘You lied again’, perform an act whose carnal brutality thrilled him; he was in time to see his host take out a knife from his belt and sever a portion of the boy’s ear-lobe, but slowly, and indeed softly, as one might sever a grape from its stalk with a fruit-knife. A wave of blood flowed down the servant’s neck but he stood still. ‘Now go’ said Narouz in the same diabolical hiss, ‘and tell your father that for every lie I will cut a piece of your flesh until we come to the true part, the part which does not lie.’ The boy suddenly broke into a staggering run and disappeared with a gasp. Narouz wiped his knife-blade on his baggy trousers and walked up the stairs into the house, whistling. Mountolive was spellbound!

And then (the variety of these incidents was the most bewildering thing about them) that very afternoon while out riding with Narouz they had reached the boundaries of the property where the desert began, and had here come upon a huge sacred tree hung with every manner of ex-voto by the childless or afflicted villagers; every twig seemed to have sprouted a hundred fluttering rags of cloth. Nearby was the shrine of some old hermit, long since dead, and whose name even had been forgotten except perhaps by a few aged villagers. The tumbledown tomb, however, was still a place of pilgrimage and intercession to Moslem and Copt alike; and it was here that, dismounting, Narouz said in the most natural manner in the world: ‘I always say a prayer here — let us pray together, eh?’ Mountolive felt somewhat abashed, but he dismounted without a word and they stood side by side at the dusty little tomb of the lost saint, Narouz with his eyes raised to the sky and an expression of demonic meekness upon his face. Mountolive imitated his pose exactly, forming his hands into a cup shape and placing them on his breast. Then they both bowed their heads and prayed for a long moment, after which Narouz expelled his breath in a long slow hiss, as if with relief, and made the gesture of drawing his fingers downwards across his face to absorb the blessing which flowed from the prayer. Mountolive imitated him, deeply touched.

‘Good. We have prayed now’ said Narouz with finality as they remounted and set off across the fields which lay silent under the sunlight save where the force-pumps sucked and wheezed as they pumped the lake-water into the irrigation channels. At the end of the long shady plantations, they encountered another, more familiar, sound, in the soughing of the wooden water-wheels, the sakkia of Egypt, and Narouz cocked an appreciative ear to the wind. ‘Listen’ he said, ‘listen to the sakkias. Do you know their story? At least, what the villagers say? Alexander the Great had asses’ ears though only one person knew his secret. That was his barber who was a Greek. Difficult to keep a secret if you are Greek! So the barber to relieve his soul went out into the fields and told it to a sakkia; ever since the sakkias are crying sadly to each other “Alexander has asses’ ears.” Is that not strange? Nessim says that in the museum at Alexandria there is a portrait of Alexander wearing the horns of Ammon and perhaps this tale is a survival. Who can tell?’

They rode in silence for a while. ‘I hate to think I shall be leaving you next week’ said Mountolive. ‘It has been a wonderful time.’ A curious expression appeared on Narouz’ face, compounded of doubt and uneasy pleasure, and somewhere in between them a kind of animal resentment which Mountolive told himself was perhaps jealousy — jealousy of his mother? He watched the stern profile curiously, unsure quite how to interpret these matters to himself. After all, Leila’s affairs were her own concern, were they not? Or perhaps their love-affair had somehow impinged upon the family feeling, so tightly were the duties and affections of the Hosnani family bound? He would have liked to speak freely to the brothers. Nessim at least would understand and sympathize with him, but thinking of Narouz he began to doubt. The younger brother — one could not quite trust him somehow. The early atmosphere of gratitude and delight in the visitor had subtly changed — though he could not trace an open hint of animosity or reserve. No, it was more subtle, less definable. Perhaps, thought Mountolive all at once, he had manufactured this feeling entirely out of his own sense of guilt? He wondered, watching the darkly bitter profile of Narouz. He rode beside him, deeply bemused by the thought.

He could not of course identify what it was that preoccupied the younger brother, for indeed it was a little scene which had taken place without his knowledge one night some weeks previously, while the household slept. At certain times the invalid took it into his head to stay up later than usual, to sit on the balcony in his wheel-chair and read late, usually some manual of estate management, or forestry, or whatnot. At such times the dutiful Narouz would settle himself upon a divan in the next room and wait, patiently as a dog, for the signal to help his father away to bed; he himself never read a book or paper if he could help it. But he enjoyed lying in the yellow lamplight, picking his teeth with a match and brooding until he heard the hoarse waspish voice of his father call his name.

On the night in question he must have dozed off, for when he woke he found to his surprise that all was dark. A brilliant moonlight flooded the room and the balcony, but the lights had been extinguished by an unknown hand. He started up. Astonishingly, the balcony was empty. For a moment, Narouz thought he must be dreaming, for never before had his father gone to bed alone. Yet standing there in the moonlight, battling with this sense of incomprehension and doubt, he thought he heard the sound of the wheel-chair’s rubber tyres rolling upon the wooden boards of the invalid’s bedroom. This was an astonishing departure from accepted routine. He crossed the balcony and tiptoed down the corridor in amazement. The door of his father’s room was open. He peered inside. The room was full of moonlight. He heard the bump of the wheels upon the chest of drawers and a scrabble of fingers groping for a knob. Then he heard a drawer pulled open, and a sense of dismay filled him for he remembered