Lawrence Durrell - The Alexandria Quartet

…’ 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 cinnamon rub’ (I never discovered what this was); with some formality, 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 lesserknown pieces was an astonishing poem the metre of which by its galloping quality virtually enabled him to throw himself out of bed and halfway 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 thundercloud 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 indignantly. ‘ 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 of the Egyptian scene that I could not understand why he should be so obviously upset by the thought. He pouted, tucked his head down, and ground his false teeth noisily. ‘No’ he said obstinately. ‘I won’t have it.’ Then he suddenly looked up. and said

‘D’you know what? He’s actually going to study under Mahmoud Enayet Allah — that old butcher!’ I could not understand his concern; at every festival or mulid the circumcision booth was a regular part of the festivities. Huge coloured pictures, heavily beflagged with the national colours, depicting barber-surgeons with pen-knives at work upon wretched youths spread out in dentists’ chairs were a normal if bizarre feature of the sideshows. The doyen of the guild was Mahmoud himself, a large oval man, with a long oiled moustache, always dressed in full fig and apart from his red tarbush conveying the vague impression of some French country practitioner on French leave. He always made a resounding speech in classical Arabic offering circumcision free to the faithful who were too poor to meet the cost of it. Then, when a few candidates were forthcoming, pushed forward by eager parents, his two negro clowns with painted faces and grotesque clothes used to gambol out to amuse and distract the boys, inveigling them by this means into the fatal chair where they were, in Scobie’s picturesque phrase, ‘hyphenated’, their screams being drowned by the noise of the crowd, almost before they knew what was happening.

I could not see what was amiss in Abdul’s wanting to learn all he could from this don, so to speak, of hyphenation. Then I suddenly understood as Scobie said ‘It’s not the boy — they can do him for all I care. It’s the girl, old man. I can’t bear to think of that little creature being mutilated. I’m an Englishman, old man, you’ll understand my feelings. i won’t have it.’ Exhausted by the force of his own voice, he sank back upon his pillow and went on. ‘And what’s more, I told Abdul so in no uncertain terms. “Lay a finger on the girl” I said “and I’ll get you run in — see if I don’t.” But of course, it’s heartbreaking, old man, ‘cause they’ve been such friends, and the poor coon doesn’t understand. He thinks I’m mad!’ He sighed heavily twice. ‘Their friendship was the best I ever had with anyone except Budgie, and I’m not exaggerating, old man. It really was. And now they’re puzzled. They don’t understand an Englishman’s feelings. And I hate using the Influence of My Position.’ I wondered what this exactly meant. He went on.

‘Only last month we ran Abdel Latif in and got him closed down, with six months in chokey for unclean razors. He was spreading syphilis, old man. I had to do it, even though he was a friend. My duty. I warned him countless times to dip his razor. No, he wouldn’t do it. They’ve got a very poor sense of disinfection here, old man.

You know, they use styptic — shaving styptic for the circumcisions. It’s considered more modern than the old mixture of black gunpowder and lemon-juice. Ugh! No sense of disinfection. I don’t know how they don’t all die of things, really I don’t. But they were quite scared when we ran Abdel Latif in and Abdul has taken it to heart. I could see him watching me while I was telling him off. Measuring my words, like.’ But the influence of company always cheered the old man up and banished his phantoms, and it was not long before he was talking in his splendid discursive vein about the life history of Toby Mannering. ‘It was he who put me on to Holy Writ, old man, and I was looking at The Book yesterday when I found a lot about circumcision in it. You know? The Amalekites used to collect foreskins like we collect stamps. Funny, isn’t it?’ He gave a sudden snort of a chuckle like a bull-frog. ‘I must say they were ones! I suppose they had dealers, assorted packets, a regular trade, eh?