The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [168]
…’ And Melissa would giggle and turn away as we walked to watch the minarets glisten like pearls upon the morning light and the bright children’s kites take the harbour wind.
Scobie usually spent Sundays in bed, and in winter nearly always contrived to have a cold. He would he between the coarse linen sheets after having made Abdul give him what he called ‘a cin-namon rub’ (I never discovered what this was); with some form-ality, too, he would have a brick heated and placed at his feet to
keep them warm. He had a small knitted cap on his head. As he read very little, he carried, like an ancient tribe, all his literature in his head and would, when alone, recite to himself for hours. He had quite an extensive repertoire of ballads which he thundered out with great energy, marking the beat with his hand. ‘The Arab’s Farewell to his Steed’ brought real tears to his good eye, as did
‘The harp that once through Tara’s Halls’; while among the lesser-known pieces was an astonishing poem the metre of which by its gallop ing qua lity virtually enabled him to throw himself out of bed and half-way across the room if recited at full gale force. I once made him write it out for me in order to study its construction closely:
‘ By O’Neil close beleaguered, the spirits might droop Of the Saxon three hundred shut up in their coop
Till Bagnal drew forth his Toledo and swore
On the sword of a soldier to succour Portmore.
His veteran troops in the foreign wars tried,
Their features how bronzed and how haughty their stride, Step’t steadily on; Ah! ’twas thrilling to see
That thunder-cloud brooding o’er Beal-an-atha-Buidh!
Land of Owen Aboo! and the Irish rushed on.
The foe fired one volley — their gunners are gone. Before the bare bosoms the steel coats have fled, Or despite casque and corslet, lie dying or dead.
And the Irish got clothing, coin, colours, great store, Arms, forage, and provender — plunder go leor.
They munched the white manchets, they champed the brown chine,
Fuliluah! for that day how the natives did dine! ’
Disappointingly, he could tell me nothing about it; it had lain there in his memory for half a century like a valuable piece of old silver which is only brought out on ceremonial occasions and put on view. Among the few other such treasures which I recognized was the passage (which he always declaimed with ardour) which ends:
‘ Come the four corners of the world in arms,
We’ll shock ’em.
Trust Joshua Scobie to shock ’em! ’
Melissa was devoted to him and found him extraordinarily quaint in his sayings and mannerisms. He for his part was fond of her — I think chiefly because she always gave him his full rank and title — Bimbashi Scobie — which pleased him and made him feel of consequence to her as a ‘high official’.
But I remember one day when we found him almost in tears. I thought perhaps he had moved himself by a recital of one of his more powerful poems (‘We Are Seven’ was another favourite); but no. ‘I’ve had a quarrel with Abdul — for the first time’ he admitted with a ludicrous blink. ‘You know what, old man, he wants to take up circumcision.’
It was not hard to understand: to become a barber-surgeon rather than a mere cutter and shaver was a normal enough step for someone like Abdul to want to take; it was like getting one ’s Ph.D. But of course, I knew too Scobie’s aversion to circumcision. ‘He’s gone and bought a filthy great pot of leeches’ the old man went on ind ignant ly. ‘ Leeches! Started opening veins, he has. I said to him I said “If you think, my boy, that I set you up in business so as you could spend your time hyphenating young children for a piastre a time you’re wrong,” I said to him I said.’ He paused for breath, obviously deeply affected by this development. ‘But Skipper’ I protested, ‘it seems very natural for him to want to become a barber-surgeon. After all, circumcision is practised everywhere, even in England now.’ Ritual circumcision was such a common part