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By Root 14199 0

as they did upon the self-examinations which people transfer to paper only when there is no one to whom they can talk. As when she could write: ‘It was a shock, I mean, to suddenly see Nessim’s naked body floating in the mirror, the slender white back so like yours and the loins. I sat down and, to my own surprise, burst into tears, because I wondered suddenly whether my attachment for you wasn’t lodged here somehow among the feeble incestuous desires of the inner heart, I know so little about the penetralia of sex which they are exploring so laboriously, the doctors. Their find ings fill me with misgivings. Then I also wondered whether there wasn’t a touch of the vampire about me, clinging so close to you for so long, always dragging at your sleeve when by now you must have outgrown me quite. What do you think? Write and reassure me, David, even while you kiss little Grishkin, will you? Look, I am sending you a recent photo so you can judge how much I have aged. Show it to her, and tell her that I fear nothing so much as her unfounded jealousy. But one glance will set her heart at rest. I must not forget to thank you for the telegram on my birthday — it gave me a sudden image of you sitting on the balcony talking to Nessim. He is now so rich and independent that he hardly ever bothers to visit the land. He is too occupied with great affairs in the city. Yet … he feels the depth of my absence as I would wish you to; more strongly than if we were living in each other’s laps. We write often and at length; our minds understudy each other, yet we leave our hearts free to love, to grow. Through him I hope that one day we Copts will regain our place in Egypt — but no more of this now….’

Clear-headed, self-possessed and spirited the words ran on in that tall fluent hand upon different-coloured statione ry, letters that he would open eagerly in some remote Legation garden, reading them

with an answer half-formulated in his mind which must be written and sealed up in time to catch the outgoing bag. He had come to depend on this friendship which still dictated, as a form, the words ‘My dearest love’ at the head of letters concerned solely with, say, art, or love (his love) or life (his life). And for his part, he was scrupulously honest with her — as for instance in writing about his ballerina: ‘It is true that I even considered at one time marrying her. I was certainly very much in love. But she cured me in time. You see, her language which I did not know, effectively hid her commonness from me. Fortunately she once or twice risked a public familiarity which froze me; once when the whole ballet was invited to a reception I got myself seated next to her believing that she would behave with discretion since none of my colleagues knew of our liaison. Imagine their amusement and my horror when all of a sudden while we were seated at supper she passed her hand up the back of my head to ruffle my hair in a gesture of coarse endearment! It served me right. But I realized the truth in time, and even her wretched pregnancy when it came seemed altogether too transparent a ruse. I was cured.’

When at last they parted Grishkin taunted him saying: ‘You are only a diplomat. You have no politics and no religion!’ But it was to Leila that he turned for an elucidation of this telling charge. And it was Leila who discussed it with him with the blithe dis-ciplined tenderness of an old lover. So in her skilful fashion she held him year by year until his youthful awkwardness gave place to a maturity which matched her own. Though it was only a dialect of love they spoke, it sufficed her and absorbed him; yet it remained for him impossible to classify or analyse.

And punctually now as the calendar years succeeded each other, as his posts changed, so the image of Leila was shot through with the colours and experiences of the countries which passed like fictions before his eyes: cherry-starred Japan, hook-nosed Lima. But never Egypt, despite all his entreaties for postings which he knew were falling or had fallen vacant. It seemed that the Foreign