got hold of a hammer.
He was prepared to admit that he might be prejudiced, but what was one supposed to think of a country where history was either preserved in theme parks by employees wearing mob caps and long skirts over their sneakers, or was torn down—taken apart for the wide-plank lumber?
“Are you all right, darling?” asked Roger. “Turns out Abdul is here at my father’s invitation.”
“Of course he is,” said Sandy. She turned to the Major. “Ernest, you have a lovely home.” She held out her long hand and the Major took it, noting that her nails were now pink with broad white tips. It took him a moment to realize that they had been painted to look like fingernails, and he sighed over the extraordinary range of female vanities. His wife, Nancy, had had lovely oval nails, like filbert nuts, and had never done anything more than buff them with a small manicure tool. She had kept them short, the better to thrust them into the garden soil or to play the piano.
“Thank you,” said the Major.
“You can almost smell the centuries,” said Sandy, who was perfectly dressed for a literary version of the countryside, or perhaps an afternoon in Tunbridge Wells. She wore high-heeled brown shoes, pale, well-pressed slacks, a shirt with autumn leaves printed on it, and a cashmere sweater tied around her shoulders. She did not look ready to climb over a stile and walk through soggy sheep fields to the pub for lunch. A happy maliciousness prompted the Major to suggest just that immediately.
“Let’s celebrate the lovely surprise of your visit, shall we?” he said. “I thought we’d walk down for lunch at the Royal Oak.”
“Actually we brought lunch with us,” said Roger. “Picked up supplies at this great new place in Putney. Everything is flown in from France by overnight mail.”
“I hope you like truffle dust.” Sandy laughed. “Roger had them powder everything but the madeleines.”
“Perhaps you’d like to invite that Abdul chap to join us, by way of apology,” added Roger, as if it were the Major who had created an offense.
“It’s not polite to call him Abdul. It means servant,” said the Major. “Formally, you should use the entire Abdul Wahid. It means Servant of God.”
“Touchy about it, is he?” said Roger. “And his aunt would be Mrs. What’s-Her-Name from the village shop? The one you brought to the cottage to freak out Mrs. Augerspier?”
“Your Mrs. Augerspier is an objectionable woman—”
“That goes without saying, Dad.”
“Just because it goes without saying doesn’t mean one shouldn’t speak up, you know. Or at least refuse to do business with such a person.”
“There’s no point in being confrontational and losing out on something lucrative, is there?” asked Roger. “I mean, it is much more satisfying to beat them by getting the better end of the bargain.”
“On what philosophical basis does that idea rest?” asked the Major. Roger gave a vague wave of the hand and the Major saw him roll his eyes for Sandy’s benefit.
“Oh, it’s simple pragmatism, Dad. It’s called the real world. If we refused to do business with the morally questionable, the deal volume would drop in half and the good guys like us would end up poor. Then where would we all be?”
“On a nice dry spit of land known as the moral high ground?” suggested the Major.
Roger and Sandy went to fetch their hamper and as the Major tried not to think of truffles, which he had always avoided because they stank like sweaty groins, Abdul Wahid came out of the house. As usual he was carrying a couple of dusty religious texts tucked tightly under his armpit partly and was wearing the dour frown which the Major now understood was the result of excessive thinking rather than mere unpleasantness. The Major wished young men wouldn’t think so much. It always seemed to result in absurd revolutionary movements or, as in the case of several of his former pupils, the production of very bad poetry.
“Your son has come to stay,” said Abdul Wahid. “I should leave your home.”
“Oh, no, no,” said the Major, who was growing used to Abdul Wahid’s abrupt style of speaking and no longer found it offensive. “There is no need for you to rush off. I told you, the room is yours as long as you want.”
“He has brought his fiancee with him,” said Abdul Wahid. “I must congratulate you. She is very beautiful.”
“Yes, but on the other hand, she’s an American. There’s surely no reason for you to leave.” He thought it quite ridiculous that this young man should careen away from every unmarried woman he met.
“You will need the guest room,” said Abdul Wahid. “Your son was very clear that they will be staying with you for several weekends, until their cottage is made habitable.”
“Ah, will they?” said the Major. He could think of no immediate response. He doubted that the spare room would be required in this case, but he realized that this information would only hasten Abdul Wahid’s departure while placing himself in the awkward position of having to make direct reference to his son’s sleeping arrangements.
“I should return to the shop, and Amina and George should go back to her auntie in town,” said Abdul Wahid in a firm voice. “This whole idea that we can be together again is just foolish.”
“Many a fool has later been labeled a genius,” said the Major. “There is no hurry to make decisions, is there? Your aunt seems to think the family will come around. And she dotes on little George.”
“My aunt has discussed the matter with you?” asked Abdul Wahid.
“I knew your uncle,” said the Major, but he felt the lie in this and could not look at Abdul Wahid.
“My aunt has always defied the normal and necessary limits of real life. She sees it as a duty, almost,” he said. “But I see only indulgence and if I do not put an end to this confusion, I fear my aunt will break her heart this time.”
“Look, why don’t you stay to lunch and we could walk down together?” asked the Major. He was worried that Abdul Wahid might be right. If Mrs. Ali persisted in investing in George all her dreams of children and grandchildren, she might well get her heart broken. However, he was reluctant to let the young man precipitate some crisis. Moreover he found himself eager to inflict his guest upon Roger—or perhaps to inflict them on each other, in the hope of jolting both out of their moral complacency. “I would really like you to meet my son properly.”
Abdul Wahid gave a strange bleating sound and the Major realized he was actually laughing.
“Major, your son and his fiancee have brought you an entire feast of pates, hams, and other pig-related products. I barely escaped the kitchen with my faith.”
“I’m sure we can make you a cheese sandwich or something,” said the Major. Abdul Wahid shuffled his feet and the Major pressed his invitation home. “I do wish you’d sit around the table with us.”
“I will of course defer to your wishes,” he said. “I will drink a glass of tea if you will allow.”
In the kitchen an unfamiliar cloth of blue-striped burlap had been laid across the table. His best wineglasses, the ones the Major brought out at Christmas, were laid out next to plastic plates in a lurid lime green. A wine bucket he had never used held a bottle of fizzy water chilling in what looked like every last ice cube from the plastic trays. Strange mustards had been decanted into his china finger bowls while an unfamiliar vase like a tree root held a bunch of yellow calla lilies, which had sunk to the tabletop in a low bow. Sandy was tucking more wilting lilies among the bric-a-brac on the mantelpiece. They had kindled an unnecessary but attractive fire in the grate and the Major wondered whether they had purchased firewood in Putney as well. Roger was frying something on the stove.
“Is your jacket smoldering, Roger,” asked the Major, “or are you just cooking something made of tweed?”
“Just a few truffle slices sauteed with foie gras and sorrel,” said Roger. “We had it in a restaurant last week and it was so fabulous I thought I’d try it myself.” He poked at the pan, which was beginning to blacken. “It doesn’t smell quite like the chef made it, though. Perhaps I should have used goose fat instead of lard.”
“How many of us are there for lunch?” asked the Major. “Is there a coach tour about to turn up?”
“Well, Dad, I planned for leftovers,” said Roger. “That way you’ll have some food for the week.” He tipped the contents of the frying pan into a shallow bowl and dumped the black, hissing pan into the sink, where it continued to smoke.
“Ernest, do you have a corkscrew?” asked Sandy and the Major’s indignation at the suggestion that he
