They Came to Baghdad

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 England 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 short-sighted 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.’

The word voluntary struck unpleasantly on Victoria ’s ear.

‘I really wanted a paid position,’ she said.

‘Oh dear!’ Dr Rathbone’s face fell. ‘That’s rather more difficult. Our paid staff is very small – and for the moment, with the voluntary help, it’s quite adequate.’

‘I can’t afford not to take a job,’ explained Victoria. ‘I’m a competent shorthand typist,’ she added without a blush.

‘I’m sure you’re competent, my dear young lady, you radiate competence, if I may say so. But with us it’s a question of Ј.s.d. But even if you take a job elsewhere, I hope you’ll help us in your spare time. Most of our workers have their own regular jobs. I’m sure you’ll find helping us really inspiring. There must be an end of all the savagery in the world, the wars, the misunderstandings, the suspicions. A common meeting ground, that’s what we all need. Drama, art, poetry – the great things of the spirit – no room there for petty jealousies or hatreds.’

‘N-no,’ said Victoria doubtfully, recalling friends of hers who were actresses and artists and whose lives seemed to be obsessed by jealousy of the most trivial kind, and by hatreds of a peculiarly virulent intensity.

‘I’ve had A Midsummer Night’s Dream translated into forty different languages,’ said Dr Rathbone. ‘Forty different sets of young people all reacting to the same wonderful piece of literature. Young people – that’s the secret. I’ve no use for anybody but the young. Once the mind and spirit are muscle-bound, it’s too late. No, it’s the young who must get together. Take that girl downstairs, Catherine, the one who showed you up here. She’s a Syrian from Damascus. You and she are probably about the same age. Normally you’d never come together, you’d have nothing in common. But at the Olive Branch you and she and many many others, Russians, Jewesses, Iraqis, Turkish girls, Armenians, Egyptians, Persians, all meet and like each other and read the same books and discuss pictures and music (we have excellent lecturers who come out) all of you finding out and being excited by encountering a different point of view – why, that’s what the world is meant to be.’

Victoria could not help thinking that Dr Rathbone was slightly over-optimistic in assuming that all those divergent elements who were coming together would necessarily like each other. She and Catherine, for instance, had not liked each other at all. And Victoria strongly suspected that the more they saw of each other the greater their dislike would grow.

‘Edward’s splendid,’ said Dr Rathbone. ‘Gets on with everybody. Better perhaps, with the girls than with the young men. The men students out here are apt to be difficult at first – suspicious – almost hostile. But the girls adore Edward, they’ll do anything for him. He and Catherine get on particularly well.’

‘Indeed,’ said Victoria coldly. Her dislike of Catherine grew even more intense.

‘Well,’ said Dr Rathbone, smiling, ‘come and help us if you can.’

It was a dismissal. He pressed her hand warmly. Victoria went out of the room and down the stairs. Catherine was standing near the door talking to a girl who had just come in with a small suitcase in her hand. She was a good-looking dark girl, and just for a moment Victoria fancied that she had seen her before somewhere. But the girl looked at her without any sign of recognition. The two young women had been talking eagerly together in some language Victoria did not know. They stopped when she appeared and remained silent, staring at her. She walked past them to the door, forcing herself to say ‘Goodbye’ politely to Catherine as she went out.

She found her way out from the winding alley into Rashid Street and made her way slowly back to the hotel, her eyes unseeing of the throngs around her. She tried to keep her mind from dwelling on her own predicament (penniless in Baghdad ) by fixing her mind on Dr Rathbone and the general set-up of the Olive Branch. Edward had had an idea in London that there was something ‘fishy’ about his job. What was fishy? Dr Rathbone? Or the Olive Branch itself?

Victoria could hardly believe that there was anything fishy about Dr Rathbone. He appeared to her to be one of those misguided enthusiasts who insist on seeing the world in their own idealistic manner, regardless of realities.

What had Edward meant by fishy? He’d been very vague. Perhaps he didn’t really know himself.

Could Dr Rathbone be some kind of colossal fraud?

Victoria, fresh from the soothing charm of his manner, shook her head. His manner had certainly changed, ever so slightly, at the idea of paying her a salary. He clearly preferred people to work for nothing.

But that, thought Victoria, was a sign of common sense.

Mr Greenholtz, for instance, would have felt just the same.

Chapter 12

I

Victoria arrived back at the Tio, rather footsore, to be hailed enthusiastically by Marcus who was sitting out on the grass terrace overlooking the river and talking to a thin rather shabby middle-aged man.