The Rain Forest Read online

  A group of women were working near the tree, moving slowly between the canes and pulling out the maidenhair fern that grew as a weed here. They were Indian and had none of the Negro ribaldry. When they noticed the men, they bent lower as though to hide from them. They were followed by children of all ages, the older ones pulling boxes on wheels and the younger loading up the fern roots. The whole concourse worked without urgency but with a singleness of purpose that moved Hugh, who saw them as gentle and patient, like those animals for whom life is work. The children, less inured to their condition than the women, paused to watch the tall, bearded man who was transfixed by the sight of birds in a tree.

  Simon, lifting his head to follow the flight of a gonolex, gave a shout and pointed towards the mountain ridge. A large bird was sailing above the ridge, catching the light on bronze-brown wings.

  ‘An eagle?’

  ‘Yes, a golden eagle: the last of its kind here; an old bird that must fly alone. The first time I came to Al-Bustan less than ten years ago, you might have seen half a dozen of them in a day’s walk. Now . . .’ Simon made a gesture of regret and they stood and watched the lonely bird gliding and banking on the air then, suddenly, drop out of sight: ‘That’s one of the lost, beautiful things of earth, soon to be seen no more.’ He looked down and met the curious stares of the Indian children: ‘But these we have always with us.’

  ‘You don’t like people.’

  ‘I don’t like too many of them. I like six, eight, even ten eagles, but if there were so many of them that they jostled each other and fought and polluted everything about them, I wouldn’t like eagles, either.’

  Hugh was silent, impressed by Simon’s certainty in life and having no argument against it. It was true, he supposed, that he was a sentimental fellow, easily confused and no match for a man like Simon Hobhouse, a man who had both knowledge and reason. Giving a glance at the pale, regular, bearded face beside him, Hugh again saw in it the idealized father image that had attracted him on the boat.

  Remembering the peaks, he asked Simon why they had disappeared.

  ‘They’re hidden by mist. They usually appear, if at all, just before sunset when the air suddenly clears. The Arabs call them Allati Takhtafi al-Mukhtafiyya, the Hills that Disappear, but the Africans call them the Guardians. They guard the pass. It was generally believed that once a slave had got beyond the peaks, he was safe. The Arabs would not follow him.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘Because the other side is a place of ill-omen. There’s a proverb: “Ash-sharr qu’imu wara at-tilal”, meaning “Evil lives on the other side”. It was meant to scare the slaves but it scared the Arabs more.’

  They were coming up to the Medina that, from a distance, had had a visionary splendour. Now, Hugh saw, its domes, minarets and spires were in a state of decay. The plaster was crumbling and the red and gold paint flaking off. The box-shaped houses, rising one behind the other, were shabby and strung with washing. Balconies had broken and fallen. On all the flat roofs rubbish was piled for the wind to blow away.

  ‘But it was glorious in its day,’ Simon said. ‘Magellan wrote that the gleam of its gold could be seen twenty leagues out to sea.’

  ‘Then the English came?’

  ‘Somewhat later. In 1810, to be exact. Napoleon was making trouble and they decided Al-Bustan would be a useful place from which to protect our Indiamen. When we turned up, the Arabs withdrew into the Medina and prepared for a siege. Two gunboat crews were sent ashore and the improvident Arabs were starved out in a fortnight. You could call it a Glorious Victory.’

  ‘We did liberate the slaves.’

  ‘That’s true, but the plantations fell into rack and ruin until the Governor brought in Indian labour. No Arab would do slaves’ work.’

  ‘Who owns the plantations now?’

  Simon gave his shout of laughter: ‘The Arabs of course. Whatever happened, we never lost our respect for private property. The ex-sultan still owns two-thirds of the island.’

  The gates had gone from the archway leading into the city. Through the cracked plaster of the city walls could be seen the grimy dun colour of unbaked brick. There was nothing to halt the two Englishmen as they went under the archway into the dark and narrow street within. The street burrowed like a rabbit run towards a dim interior, rising so steeply that the ground was frequently cut into steps. On either side were high walls that converged at the top to keep out the sun. There was, Simon said, a whole complex of lanes on the city’s south side, designed to confuse an invader. There were doors set in the walls, heavy, iron-bound, dusty as though from lack of use. Hugh, with his old dream-fear of being stifled, disliked the walls and asked what was behind them.

  ‘The courtyards of houses, once filled with the riches of the east.’

  When they met anyone in the lanes, each party had to press against the walls in order to sidle past. If the other was a man, Simon greeted him enthusiastically, in Arabic; if a woman, Simon looked over her head. The lane ended abruptly and they passed from darkness into a sun-filled market-place that had about it all the main buildings of the Medina. There was an immense tree, a forest relic, at the centre and beside it a drinking fountain. Around about were the mosques, the Catholic church, the Mission school and three Arab hotels.

  After the heat and airless dankness of the lanes, the wind in the square was mountain fresh. It elated Hugh who was roused to excited interest in the city and looked for its people, but all, it seemed, were asleep. They took their siesta beside their merchandise. Some lay beneath market stalls, hands over eyes: others were curled round sacks of lentils or coffee beans. A number lay together under the tree that Simon said was an ebony. The ebony, that had a bark crusted and black as iron, was in flower and the small white flowers, almost hidden by the leaves, gave out a scent that overpowered the market scents of cloves, vanilla, coffee, spice and fruit. Through the sleepy quiet of the square came the sound of bees that clouded about the ebony flowers.

  Without slackening his pace, Simon moved lightly among the stalls, skirting piles of coconuts and breadfruit, bananas and pineapples, and towering displays of pottery decorated in black, brown and terra cotta. He was making for one of the hotels and said:

  ‘We should get a reasonable meal here.’

  Hugh, knowing that Kristy expected him to luncheon at the Daisy, said nothing but followed Simon into the courtyard that, in fine weather, was the hotel’s restaurant. The courtyard was screened from the square by vines trained across lattice and over beams hung with brass lamps. In the middle of the courtyard was a small fountain from which the safragis scooped up water for the kitchen. Simon and Hugh were not asked what they would eat but were brought pork kebabs and beans, that being the day’s menu.

  Charmed by the prettiness and simplicity of the place, Hugh said: ‘We should have stayed here. We were told that no European could stay in an Arab hotel but I’d prefer this to the bourgeoise awfulness of the Daisy.’

  Simon laughed at him. ‘Not for long, you wouldn’t. There’s no running water, the sani-cans stink and I have my doubts about that fountain. If I didn’t have my own flat, I’d stay at the Daisy. That is, if my dear old friend Ambrose didn’t kick me out.’

  ‘I got the impression you’d upset him. What did you do?’

  ‘Nothing much. A joke. I used to pull his leg in a gentle way.’ At the memory of the joke, Simon began to laugh and became so convulsed, he put down his knife and fork. He said at last: ‘It was like this: a poor devil of a lascar was brought into port suffering from smallpox. The hospital couldn’t take him because it has no isolation wing and no one on board knew how to nurse him. I suspect they were too scared to go near him. I heard about the case and went down to the harbour in my Land-Rover and persuaded the harbour master to let me bring him up here to my flat.’

  ‘You weren’t afraid for yourself?’

  ‘Of course not. I keep myself properly inoculated. Anyway, I never catch anything. Well, our Ambrose, not knowin
g what had happened, came to pay me a visit and I took him in to see the patient. Smallpox is not a pretty sight. Ambrose nearly collapsed. I could see his knees shaking. He stuffed a handkerchief into his mouth and ran. I looked out of the window and saw him scuttling down the sk, flapping about like a terrified turtle. Thus we were estranged.’

  ‘I’m not surprised.’

  ‘Yes,’ Simon wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes: ‘It was unkind, I admit: and I was sorry when he refused to speak to me again. I went down to the Daisy to tell him not to be silly but he was very huffy; told me to keep away from him. He should have been vaccinated before he came out, but, like a lot of people, he’d managed to dodge it. Extraordinary fellow. He’s ten years my senior but when I went to Cambridge, they were still talking about him. People said he was the most brilliant man of his year. Apparently it was a toss-up whether he devoted himself to music or to literature. He still hasn’t made up his mind.’

  Hugh laughed at Simon’s irony and said: ‘I like him. He’s a sympathetic character. I find it sad, the way he lives here. Surprising he’s never married.’

  ‘Ambrose? Never married? He’s been married at least three times. Strong women have fought over his body for years.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘He’s got a wife somewhere. But look at him! He’s ten stone overweight. Probably impotent.’

  ‘He’s vague about his past. What did he do in England?’

  ‘I don’t know and I’ve never asked. The English here are a dim lot. If you meet anyone with a mind, he’s probably a fugitive.’

  ‘Like me?’

  A safragi came from the hotel and whispered to Simon who shook his head and said: ‘I don’t want to see them.’

  ‘They come with a little one.’

  ‘A little one? You mean a child? God preserve us. All right, bring them out here.’

  The visitors were called and came silently, with a portentous slowness: three young English people, two men and a girl, one of the men carrying a child. They wore kaftans of dirty white cotton. They looked to Hugh much like the young drop-outs he had seen in the London streets but one of the men, greenish pale, with auburn hair and beard, had the startling looks of Rossetti’s Angel of the Annunciation. They were all pale with the moist skin of ill-health and the smell that came from them might have come from a corpse.

  They approached the table and Simon, warding them off with a gesture, said sternly: ‘I have nothing for you.’

  The man with the child said, ‘She made us bring it to you.’

  The girl had remained in the doorway, leaning against the jamb with an air of sensuous abandon. Catching Hugh’s eye, she smiled and the smile remained fixed on her face as though she had forgotten how to remove it.

  Simon took the child, a baby of about three months, and put it down on the table. He sat to examine it. Calling Hugh to observe it, he spoke as to a colleague: ‘This child is not only sick, it’s been shamefully neglected.’

  Hugh looked at the small, grey-faced creature that was rolling its wet, scabby mouth, not having the strength to cry, and turned away, disgusted.

  Simon asked the girl: ‘Is she yours, madam?’

  The girl, still smiling, shook her head and the man who had held the child, mumbled: ‘Not our kid. Left by a couple who came here with two others, then had this one and cleared off; left them all behind.’

  ‘Where did they go?’

  The man seemed baffled but after brooding on it for some time, managed to say: ‘On the boat.’

  Simon looked at Hugh with a despairing lift of the brows then gave his attention to the child. Speaking to the man as though he, too, were a child, Simon said: ‘She had an infection, possibly bronchitis. If I give you a note for the hospital, do you think you could find your way there?’

  The man looked at his friends. When they offered no help, he said: ‘We’ll try.’

  Simon took a note-pad from his hip pocket and said as he wrote: ‘You’re to ask for Dr Dixon. Do you understand? – Dr Dixon.’

  The girl spoke, her tone almost flirtatious: ‘Will she die?’

  ‘Not if she receives proper treatment. But what are your plans? When you move on, what will you do with her?’

  The three stared silently at Simon, confused by his incisive questions and the anger behind his voice. Obviously they had no plans. They could not answer him but they watched, as though hoping he had more to give. Motioning them to pick up the child and go, he turned impatiently away.

  They departed as slowly as they had come. When they were out of hearing, he said: ‘What hope for a child like that? The Mission runs a school but not an orphanage. Poor little brat! They’ll take her off on the heroin trail and she’ll die between here and the Philippines.’

  ‘They’re bombed out. Where do they get the stuff?’

  ‘You can get anything here. All the planters raise patches of hemp or opium poppies. Other drugs are smuggled in. With the connivance of the police, needless to say. There’s a regular traffic in forbidden goods, like DDT, the stuff that wiped out the golden eagle. The government banned it but it’s still coming in.’ He slapped the table in sudden rage then jumped to his feet: ‘Come on. We’ll have coffee at my flat.’

  ‘Is the government aware of what’s going on?’

  ‘Aware? Of course it’s aware!’ Simon dodged angrily among the market stalls, making for the northern end of the square: ‘It wrings its hands and occasionally sacks the worst offenders, then others take over. The present chief of police, Culbertson, was brought out to reform the force from top to bottom, and for a few weeks he went round like God’s Good Man, then you could see him flagging. He’d realized he could do nothing. The system defeated him: now he’s part of it.’

  ‘You mean: he’s as corrupt as the rest of them?’

  ‘No. I mean he shuts his eyes to what’s going on. He has to. It’s the only way to get anything done in a place like this.’

  They passed from the square into the northern lanes that were wide enough to take small shops on either side. The shops were opening up and people coming out. Simon pushed his way through the crowd with an energy that seemed to amuse the Arabs. He lived above a shop that sold spices. The flat comprised two small rooms full of the noise of the sk and the smells that came up from it. Sniffing the spice smell, Hugh felt again that by settling into the Daisy, they had shown a dismal lack of enterprise.

  ‘Could we get a flat like this?’

  ‘Would your wife like to live without a bathroom and get her water from the spice seller’s pump and defecate in a communal privy where there’s nothing but a hole in the floor?’

  ‘I admit those are disadvantages, but, still, it’s very pleasant.’

  The small rooms, one of which was a kitchen, were clean and ordered with extreme neatness. Simon went about making coffee and setting out the cups and saucers with the economical movements of a man who could expect to find things exactly where he had placed them. He was, Hugh felt, a self-sufficent man, a man who chose to live alone.

  The furniture in the living-room was practical rather than comfortable. Simon offered Hugh the only chair and took his coffee standing. He went to the window, cup in hand, and stared intently out then beckoned Hugh and pointed. Below were the three young people who had visited him at the hotel. The child, held up like an exhibit, was still with them and the men and girl were accosting people, not aggressively but with persistence, each holding out a hand and smiling and waiting for what would come to them. The Arabs laughed back at them as though they were a popular show and, more often than not, put something into one of the outstretched hands. Whatever was given went to the girl who hid it in the pockets of her kaftan.

  ‘They haven’t tried to find the hospital.’ Frowning, Simon watched them as they drifted past, holding up the grey-faced child with its rolling, helpless mouth. ‘They’ll probably consult a witch-doctor.’

  ‘Are there witch-doctors here?’

  ‘Certainly. Down in
the Dobo they do a thriving trade in death-potions, love-potions, cures and the like.’

  ‘They’re doing pretty well,’ Hugh said.

  ‘Yes. The Arabs are charitable, but there’s more to it than that. They see these drop-outs as proof of our decadence and they encourage them. They are regarded as the last ragged remnants of a once great nation: proof that we’re down the drain.’

  ‘What does the government do about them?’

  ‘The Medina’s a separate world. If the kids go on the rampage, which happens sometimes, the police round them up and put them on the boat. But usually, being restless as well as lethargic, they move themselves on.’

  ‘I meant: does no one try to rehabilitate them?’

  ‘No. There’s no centre here. Besides, they’re on the run from rehabilitation. They only come to me because they know I’m not a medical missionary. I don’t interfere with them.’

  ‘But surely one should interfere. If you saw a man taking his own life, you’d interfere.’

  Simon laughed: ‘Not me. If any man wants to opt out of this overcrowded planet, I’d say “Go ahead. We’re grateful to you.”’

  ‘You’re joking, of course?’

  Simon, looking into Hugh’s serious face, gave an ironical grin and, lifting the tray, took it into the kitchen. He poured water from a jug into a basin and washed each cup and saucer scrupulously then put it away. Hugh, watching him, said: ‘That auburn-haired boy: with his looks he could get anything he wanted and all he wants is to destroy himself. The waste. How can you bear it?’

  ‘There’s always been waste. Before the war, he’d have died of TB. He’s a typical TB subject. And here, in the graveyard, lie handsome young Englishmen wiped out by all the diseases of Africa: typhus, plague, yellow fever, smallpox, to say nothing of dysentery and malaria. Now they die of despair.’