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By Root 2709 0

was so airless, he drew the seaward curtains after turning out the light and let what wind there was trickle in from the bay. The moon was rising and the naval depot ship glittered like grey ice. Restlessly he made his way to the other window that looked up the quay towards the sheds and lumber of the native town. He saw Yusef s clerk coming back from there, and he thought how Yusef must have the wharf rats well under control if his clerk could pass alone through their quarters. I came for help, he told himself, and I am being looked after - how, and at whose cost? This was the day of All Saints and he remembered how mechanically, almost without fear or shame, he had knelt at the rail this second time and watched the priest come. Even that act of damnation could become as unimportant as a habit. He thought: my heart has hardened, and he pictured the fossilized shells one picks up On a beach: the stony convolutions like arteries. One can strike God once too often. After that does one care what happens? It seemed to him that he had rotted so far that it was useless to make any effort. God was lodged in his body and his body was corrupting outwards from that seed.

‘It was too hot?’ Yusef’s voice said. ‘Let us leave the room dark. With a friend the darkness is kind.’

‘You have been a very long time.’

Yusef said with what must have been deliberate vagueness, ‘There was much to see to.’ It seemed to Scobie that now or never he must ask what was Yusef s plan, but the weariness of his corruption halted his tongue. ‘Yes, it’s hot,’ he said, ‘let’s try and get a cross-draught,’ and he opened the side window on to the quay. ‘I wonder if Wilson has gone home.’

‘Wilson?’

‘He watched me come here.’

‘You must not worry, Major Scobie. I think your boy can be made quite trustworthy.’

He said with relief and hope, ‘Yon mean you have a hold on him?’

‘Don’t ask questions. You will see.’ The hope and the relief both wilted. He said, ‘Yusef, I must know...’ but Yusef said, ‘I have always dreamed of an evening just like this with two glasses by our side and darkness and time to talk about important things, Major Scobie. God. The family. Poetry. I have great appreciation of Shakespeare. The Royal Ordnance Corps have very fine actors and they have made me appreciate the gems of English literature. I am crazy about Shakespeare. Sometimes because of Shakespeare I would like to be able to read, but I am too old to learn. And I think perhaps I would lose my memory. That would be bad for business, and though I do not live for business I must do business to live. There are so many subjects I would like to talk to you about. I should like to hear the philosophy of your life.’

‘I have none.’

‘The piece of cotton you hold in your hand in the forest’

‘I’ve lost my way.’

‘Not a man like you, Major Scobie. I have such an admiration for your character. You are a just man.’

‘I never was, Yusef. I didn’t know myself that’s all. There’s a proverb, you know, about in the end is the beginning. When I was born I was sitting here with you drinking whisky, knowing...’

‘Knowing what, Major Scobie?’

Scobie emptied his glass. He said, ‘Surely your boy must have got to my house now.’

‘He has a bicycle.’

‘Then they should be on their way back.’

‘We must not be impatient. We may have to sit a long time, Major Scobie. You know what boys are.’

‘I thought I did.’ He found his left hand was trembling on the desk and he put it between his knees to hold it still. He remembered the long trek beside the border: innumerable lunches in the forest shade, with Ali cooking in an old sardine-tin, and again that last drive to Bamba came to mind - the long wait at the ferry, the fever coming down on him, and Ali always at hand. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and he thought for a moment: This is just a sickness, a fever, I shall wake soon. The record of the last six months - the first night in the Nissen hut, the letter which said too much, the smuggled diamonds, the lies, the sacrament taken to put a woman’s mind at ease - seemed as insubstantial as shadows over a