THE CITY OF EL J---.
Maurice Rowdon.


Whenever we were together at the riverside restaurant the
prince took me to the very back where we would be hidden.
I always wanted to sit behind the huge plate-glass window
overlooking the street, with the yellow and eddying river of
El J- on the right, and the bridge with modern lamp-standards
at intervals along the parapet; on the other side of the street,
down steps, there was the solitary police guard, his bayonet
shining above the heads of the passing robed crowds. I liked
to sit at one of the tables immediately behind this window and
watch the shoeshine boys opposite squatting on their stools, and
the heavy, despairing face of the Kurdish shopkeeper who leaned
over his tiny counter for hours on end staring in to the streetm
and the long cars, flashing under the lights, swift and almost sil-
ent as they passed.
Sometimes a tidy European or American would go by, fresh and
bewildered from the airport, and with him would go a group of
children, beggars and street-vendors, barefooted and quick, with
artful, black eyes, who kept knocking against him and calling
out in a strangely gutteral whisper, so that the word seemed
dangerous and secret, 'Sahib, sahib!'
But the prince told me this was shameful, to sit where we
were on view, so we always went to the very back, where the bar
was.
He used the word shame' more than anyon e I knew in El
J---. It was just as if he'd got thousands of retainers in the
city, watching us from every corner and every shop, waiting for
us to betray ourselves by drinking alcohol or talking with low-
bred people from outside the city who never wore western clothes.


He was always saying, 'That man's a dog' or 'He's the son d a
whore.' He would say, 'I'd like to take you to the house of
Mohammed S---. But honour prevents me - t He would stop at the
entrance of one of the dabaret-halls and snap his fingers at the
waiters there, calling out to them in a deliberately bullying
voice with mock curses, glowering down at them. Usually they were
quite unexcited by his shouting, even amused, and they came smiling
towards him; unless they were new to El J---. For most of them
he was just a drunk, something of a bragger, rather pitiable;
they knew that later onx hu would have to be helped out to his car,
one man on either side of him while he swore and cleared the spit
from the back of his throat and kicked about with his long legs.
Until roughly nine o'clock each evening the prince was a
quiet, chuckling, chivalrous man a He loved his friends and list-
ened to them with a kind of protective warmth and ease; if I was
present when one of these friends was talking he would turn to me
with a wink as if to say, 'You see what a fine fellow he is?*
But he was terrified of being betrayed.
Every friend was a
possible source of betrayal. He called me his brother but again
and again he stopped and touched my arm, in my own house ar in the
restaurant, or in one of the hotels he owned, and asked me, 'You
are my brother, eh?' Then he would.shake me, peering into ay
eyes and add, 'But truly?'
I spent many evenings with him, and my job as his friend was
to see that he kept out of fights, that his wallet was never
stolen and that he got back home safely, staggering between me and
his. chauffeur Ali, across the ditch in front of his house and up
the cobbled path to the door where his wife W as always waiting.
Just before the hour of his return she would lock up all the
bottles of arak, and the pistols. Sometimes he would rage back


to the house full of suspicions---that his wife was sleeping with
somebody or that an enemy was waiting for him in the garden, to
kill him. Then he would pull open all the cupbaords and drink
glass after glass of arak un' til he couldn't speak or stand up
properly, then he'd take his revolver and shoot dozens of bullets
through the window into the garden where he tl hought he could see
a dark figure.
Hetd introduced me to his wife, a young woman from Cairo.
He told me this was a great privilege: most of his co untrymen,
who were 'lackeys', couldn't be trusted with her. All day, he
said, they sat in the cafés dreaming about other men's wires,
especially his, because she didn't wear the veil; they would
murmur to each other, 'By God, I'd like to be laying my hands on
the fat-and-beautiful thights of the prince's wifet' He kept her
confined to the house during the day and onlyaalowed her a drive
through the city at dusk, behind drawn curtains, with the chauffeur.
He paid his servants to spy on her and every evening he required
from his chauffeur an account of the route he had taken for his
wife's tour; he then compared this account with that given him
by the traffic-police, who knew every car that passed them. He
said that once or twice the accounts had differed, and he intimated
that his wife was also paying Ali, to give him a wrong account.
When he was drunk his easy warmth would disappear. He would
spit on the floor or go in the street and pass water over the
bonnet of someone else's car, roaring with laughter. In his own
hotels he would grab at the serving girls and pinch them between
their legs, under their skirts, so that they soreamed, and call
them daughters-of-pimps, and in the cabaret-halls he would make
an odd offensive bawling noise whenever a woman came on the st age.


People gaped at us and sometimes sneered at him as he
stumbled past, though he never saw that, especially as he thought
they were- bowing to him. The waiters were rude and cynical when
they spoke to him; worse than that, they humoured him in a
gentle, superior way. When he came into the hall his acquaintances
moved as far away as possible. When he was sober he was terrified
of losing face. but a few seconds after his turning-point in the
evening he would make up for it and more besides. He would
go deliberately to places where they laughed at him, where he'd
be most degraded; even his chauffeur tried to hold him back. He
would. pick the lowest brothel in town where the girls treated him
like a clown.
His chauffeur Ali was a small, quiet. man. He always wore
dark glasses to hide the ugly effect of trachoma in one eye. One
could only see his quiet smile, not the expression of his eyes.
He knew every stage of these eveings-out by heart; first the
restaurant, then the hotel, then the cabaret, then tkx in a last
ttilit descent the brothel.
He often gave me a wise glance,
and sometimes he and I were proud of being 8 ober. The prince
plunged headlong into the street and sometimes gave us a sudden
look that seemed to say, '0h, yes, we're very worthy, aren't we,
we sober people?* That glance made the shopkeepers from the
north, the landlords and pot-bellied, roguish sheikhs look like
priests when they smiled at him nervously in the cabaret-hall,
trying to humour him and hush his voice when he called them
buffaloes and male wl hores. If one of them tried to give him a
helping handas he staggered towards the doorway, he ulways pushed
the hand away or kicked out with his legs, then called for me
quietly, taking my arm with a soft movement in his, to show tham
that however drunk he was he could always tell a friend from a


lackey. In the car sometimes he would frown, his head in his
hands, groaning slightly, and the agony of the night seemed to well
up in him suddenly, and he saw himself clearly for a moment.
The next moming he was always silent and nervous, but never
moody.. He perfumed. .himself lavishly after his morning bath.
Sometimes he sat down and wrote me a gentle note in a large round
hand, apologising for having pissed on the doorstep of my house
the night before, or having tried to put his hand und er my wife's
skirt.
Only in the north, at his country-house where the wind was
always fresh and where there were green fields, was he quiet.
He could go pig-hunting and shooting every day; there were no
lacktes to scoff at him behind his back, no cabarets, no enticing
films with their white-bosomed Western women, no whores, none of
the dry, eeeking air of the city. He had something of the clown,
beaten and thrashed, haunted.
He was only the nephew of a prince, not really a prince him-
self.. It was a polite title; other chiertains used it, lesser
people tha he. But in the oity people smiled at the name and it
was almost never used. Sometimes, in one of the yellow govern-
ment-buildings that seemed to be made of clay, he would stand at
the desk of a minor official and take his ironical bow quite
seriously before signing his neme, Peince Karim. He had a
marvellous nobality of appearance, tall with a narrow, dark
moustache and very light eyes. He was always dressed in well-
cut European suits of pale cloth, and his stride was ing long and
steady. He gave an impression of ease and agility; he had a
way of moving his chin forwards and back as he walked, staring
a little grimly ahead, and this made him look as if he were hunt-
ing samething down, with a slow, prowling assurance. When we


walked. together in they city he took my arm and shooed the
beggars wway, flatteredcthat they should take him for European
as well. He had a great awe for power. Ho watch the immense
four-engined planes roar along the runway at the airport and say
as they lifted up into the sky, *Look, now, look there;', making
an odd little noise of wonderment like, 'Hai, hai, hai!*
Then I took a house next to his he began sending me all
sorts of gifts---bottles of wine from his country-house, live
chickens and duoks, and newly-boiled rice. This was traditional
in El J-- when you moved to a new house, but his gifts were
unusuallyspaandid. At the end of our first week there he sent
Ali across to bring us to dinner, and he and his wife received ns
in their drawing room. I rémember he built up the log-fire, for
it was in the heart of-the vinter, and talked to us very soberly
about politics and his country-house, But after he'd taken four.
glasses of arak he began swaying and 81 uddenly shouted across to
me with a lop-sided smile, *You sleep with my wife, I sleep with
yours, eh?'; and his wife, c ompletely disgusted, jumped up and
left the room with, *Mais ctest une betet* That was the only
evening the prince and I had at home.
There were three of us in charge of the irrgation project---
Marcelle and me, both Buropean, and Nuri, who had was a native of
El J-m. My wife was also going to join the group, as a kind
of extra secretary, but her hands were tied with the servants at
home ; the Indian cook was always drunk on the floor of the
kitchen, and the maid spat on the floor whenever the Arab house-
boy passed, and so forth.
I took care of the engineering side, working with the land-
lords, and Nuri, who had worked at the ministry of justice, took


care of the legal and political aspects. The prince often came
to my office, which was in one of the narrow, dark lanes dating
from the Turkish occupation, behind the main street. He disliked
it if Nuri the lawyer was there. He would bow slightly to him
but say nothing.
Nuri was dark and rather plump, very dependable-looking, with
a massive, thoughtful head, He was always quick to unders tand and
answered at once. The prince was slow, and again and aga: in he would
ask, sorewing up his face, 'What? What's that?' I remember
Nuri most at the ministry, working over files with a dumb
concentration, the sweat pouring out of his brow.
I call Marcelle a European but in fact she was brought up in
Damascus, the daughter of French officials. She was both my
secretary and my interpreter, and spoke the local Arabic fl uently.
She, Nuri and I worked together during the day, and S ometimes
spent the evening together, at one of the European-style restaur-
ants or at my house.
often the prince would ask me, giving me a side-glance,
'Well, what about this evening?' And when I told him there was
work to discuss with Marcelle and Huri he would no d and grunt,
trying to look nysterious. When he was drunk he would 8 ame -
times grip hold of my jacket and cry out, *Why is Nuri your
friend?* And then, lolling helplessly in the back of the car,
in a sudden fever of disgust, he would say under his breath,
'Marcélle is a - meaning to say 'whore', but the chauffeur
would turn round angrily from the wheel and shout at him, 'La,
lat' before he could get the word in.
n The prince admired her in silence, truthfully. He would
never try to touch her if he came drunk to my house and she
happened to be there. That wasn't hohour. He simply sat,


in front of her raising and lowering his eyebrows ridiculously,
not saying a word; suddenly he. would amile brilliantly, and blow
her a kiss, then the eye-brow raising would start again, while
he swayed from side to side. She had something mysterious his
other women hadn't got; it was in her movements, her quiet, dark,
shrewd gaze; he called it European. His other women were never
madonnas like her. She kept him in a silent spell. And she
gave him the impression that she was completely beyond his grasps
not as my wife was beyond his grasp, because of honour, but
through a personal quality; she hardly looked at him or spoke to
him; she hardly noticed him. And this drew him on. He sent
her gifts every day almost, and she hardly took the trouble to say
thank you; sometimes she sent his servant back without a word.
Or she would scrawl a thank you on some old notepaper, from the
office.
This was why he always asked where she was: because she
showed him no respect. It was like a criticism from Europe.
I often noticed how she was watched in the street, when we were
on the way from our office to the ministry. The women, their
black abbas drawn together over their faces, would stand in the
donrways whispering and staring, and the chauffeurs would lean
over their wheels drowsily gazing at every part of her body as
if it were meat. People called her the amazon, because she feared
nothing. If an official advised her not to go through a certain
di striot on foot she would go out of her way to do so.
As the heat grew my yearning for Europe grew, and my evenings
with the prince tired me more and more. The city was beginning
to frighten me a little, and I spent more time with Marcelle and
Nuri than before; we had them to dinner alone and then sat drink-
ing with them on one of the cool terraces. They often asked
me, *Why are you always with that Karim? He's brainless! But


I liked this brainless company, and found myself looking forward
to it again without knowing why. He made me feel a sort of
abandon. And the others were, so to speak, workers. They had
no folly. There was the work, and then the relaxation from it
in the evening, with cool, even talk.
As the heat grew, so the city seemed to become stranger.
One day a sack was found by the police caught on the iron supports
of a bridge not far from my house. It contained the body of a
large man out into tiny pieces. The murder had been done by his
wife and her lover, after the man had gone to sleep. They had
dragged the sack to the bridge and tried to throw it into the
water; they heard no splash and didn't remember the iron supports
below.
This crime, reported in all the papers, haunted me for
days afterwards.
For hours every week I seemed to be watching thé princets
lips when they were loose with drink, trying to make words; or
seeing him pull down the window of his car and spit; seeing him
make a quick grab at a passing gypsy dancer in a cabaret-hall;
watching him spill his white arak over the table and floor and
me. I think he knew what an effort it was for me to remain
palite; he knew it with the shrewdness of a drunkard.
But they were legendary evenings. His world was all angels
and monsters, nothing in between. His moods were God's or the
devil's, never quite on the earth. It made me want to avoid him
and be with him, at the same time. He had nothing but his desires
and hopes, no thoughts for the moment.
One evening, in the normal way, he asked me to com to the
riverside restaurant for a feu quiet hours. No drinking tonight;
he'd had enough. That was always the story: we would eat some-


thing and go straight home. of course. Sometimes he really did
yearn to be quiet. ahen he came into my office and found me
reading a book, quite still in my chair, he would look at me with
narrowed eyes for a moment and say, 1 Ah, I envy you.'
As usual he led mé to the very back d the restaurant, near
the bar from which the arak and the food were served. It was a
bare place. The walls were white, the lights unshaded in long,
blinding strips, and the tables and chairs were made of unpaint-
ed chromium, He a sked me his usual question, 1 Where do you bhink
Marcelle is at this moment?', and as always I shrugged and said
I didn't know, just to cover her, though I knew full well she was
with Nuri. He chuckled and stared down at the table, drumming
his fingers on it. Then he sighed and shook his head, and to
console himself.called for his first gtass of arak.
*That son of a dog,' he said.
'How the devil can she like
After we'd been drinking for nearly an hour under the naked
lights he ordered food; he kept the waiter joking with him,
calling him gently a buffalo and a son-of-a-pimp, then suddenty
he leaned forward and dismissed kin wit. a frown. He liked to
do this sort of thing in restaurants, to show me that he was
loved by the ordinary people, yet had.the power as well. They
did love his_generodass; they weren't offended by his rudeness
because there was something patriarchal and fabulous about it,
nothing mean or personal.
*I know they're seeing each other,' he went on. He laid
his hand flat on the table:
'They're lovers, aren't they?*
I shrugged again. He told me that he'd had his spies out,
and that Marcelle and Nuri had had secret meetings, he kne wit;
every week they drove to an empty house in the desert. I


didn't know this, did I? No, I said; which was true.
But at the same time he couldn't bring himself to beliew
his spies. f They are together, aren't they?* he asked me again
and again. He was so horrified by the idea that he tried to
oblige me to contradict it. This I didn't do. He could see
the truth in my eyes. And what disappointed him terribly was
that I wasn't equally horrified; I didn't mind Marcelle being
Nuri's lover. Whereas the prince found it absolutely natur al
and unquestionable that he should have first choice; but no one
had come to him; Marcelle didn't even look at him, but gave her-
self to the son of a dog.
On any other evening I would have calmed him down, turned
his mind to something ebae. But this evening I was helpaess.
I felt too ill to move. The heat, the blinding lights, the
stench from the kitchen, and all the laughing and shouting round
us, made me feel giddy and detached from him. I never gave him
an an swer, only shrugged again and again, almost falling asleep.
The more silent I was the more he asked me, the more he drilled
into me with his loose eyes. I could see how, only two feet
away from me, he was beginning to mistrust me as if I were thous-
ands of miles away. I felt I was actually becoming the betrayer
he always feared.
Vell, the Arabs said that a friend was a
thousand enemies. And I could do nothing about it; I felt
bound and gagged by the noise and heat and the proximi ty of hot,
pushing bodies, the steam rising from the electric al plates be hind
the bar, and the hurrying of waiters with filthy napkins. It
was growing into a dream for me, crowned by the prince hims elf,
who seemed huge, sitting in his chair like a throne, looming near
and then drawing back, ste aring into my eyes and speaking more and
more angrily. He banged the table, trying to get me to answer


him, but I simply shook my head and he gave up.
Through the blaring radio I could hear the call-to-prayer
outside, like a screech in the night. 1 I was sweating promtsely,
despite the fans, and my fingers were trembling for some reaso n.
I closed my eyes several times and woke with a jump after a few
seconds, sitting erect at the table. 'I'm sorry," I said, 'I'll
have to go home. I feel 111.":
At once all his usual daytime chivalry returned, and le caapped
his hands for Ali, who came after a few minutes, shuffling along
between the tables, having been called by one of the waiters.
The prince told him to drive me back home and then return. That
was that. I shook his hand, terrifically relieved, and went off
behind Ali. I looked back as we passed the restaurant wind ow,
walking to the parking lot, and saw the prince lolling in his
chair with other friends round him, snapping his fingers above his
head in a kind of sitting dance as hé often did When he was drunk.
le drove through the shoddy main street to the cool district
outside, and the noise and lights fell behind us as we drew near
the bridge where the awful orime had taken place. It made little
impression on me, I was so reliéved to be out of the restaurant
and alone. There was a marvellous hush inside the car as it
throbbed along. Al was leaning over the wheal humming. We
turned the corner into the road where my house was and I noticed
drowsily that ahead of us a Small car was parked. It was out-
side my door. Ali turned and looked at me in the darkness.
I didn't move. I felt he was about to ask me some thing strange.
lawyer's
'Is that the aingertx car?' I heard him say.
I was so surprised at this sort of question from Ali that
I made him repeat it. And again he said, 'Is that Nuri the
lawyers car?*


I was annoyed and said lazily, 'Perhaps!'
We came nearer and drew up just behind it; there was a
light in the drawing room, and the curtains were closed. I
told Ali, 'You may go back to the restaurant.' Then I watched him
turn the car round and drive off again. of course, in the drawing
room I found Nauri end Marcelle with my wife, sitting under the fan
talking. Tre dim russet light of the room made everything look
wonderfully enclosed and hushed, and I felt heppyto he there. I
ruffled Nuri's hair with my hand as I passed and threw myself down
on one of the divans. We began laughing and talking quietly in
our usual way, my wife telling a witty, half-sad story about the
servants; and after a time I felt well again, not even tired,
without trembling fingers.
ie were silent for a time, then suddenly we heard a car
rumbling over the pot-holes in the. road outside, recklessly, and
for some reason my heart began beating fast as it approached,
my body was tense and I held my breath, waiting for the car to
stop outside our door. Marcelle started forward, too. We
felt caught. The car did stop outside, and at once its doors
opened and slammed to again. There were heavy and plundering
footsteps on the gravelpath and we heard the prince's voice,
thick and high-pitched, calling out, 'Open up!' He began hammer-
ing on our door with his fist. He hammered three times, th en
paused, hammered three times and paused again, the noise echo-
ing through the silent, stone-floored house. We sat quite still.
Nuri looked at me, then at Marcelle. At last I got up and
opened the front door. Seeming huger, the prince pushed pa st
me, almost knocking me again st the wall. And he staggered
forward into the drawing room, followed by the quiet Ali, who
gave me a quick, vengeful look. The prince was saaying about,


trying to make us out in the dim light. Also I noticed he was
trembling and his expression was - that of a hurt child.
Nuri got up at once, very calmly, and took hold of the prince's
jacket, murmuring, 'wuietly, quietly now.' It was strange to see
them together, the prince like a huge bedraggled creature from the
mountains
meuntiEs and at his side, hugging him, small, plump, dark, so much
more collected, Nuri the lawyer.
'Why do you come here?' the prince asked him, intimately,
looking close into his eyes. His lips were white an d thin as he
spoke.
Nuri, with an amused glance at Marcelle as if he were dealing
with a clown, answered, 'I don't un derstand that!' At the same
time he was disturbed and intimidated bybthe prince, and sweat was
forming on his upper lip in tiny drops.
The prince pointed to Marcelle, 'Is that your whore now?'
Nuri looked up at once, his eyes suddenly alight. He
clenched his fists over the prince's jacket and was just about
to shake him violently when he lowered his arm again in a tired
way. Then the prince began shouting furiously in quick Arabic
which I couldn't understand. He shouted so that the veins stood
out on his brow. Yet he didn't seem to be speaking directly to
either Nuri or Marcelle. He was so stricken with rage that he
looked like a puppet being shaken about thoughtlessly from above.
I could see his kre es quivering as he shouted, and his arms were
jerking about loosely.,
When he'd finished Nuri turned away from him with a shrug
and walked close to Marcelle, murmuring, 'He says I defile you.
That I'm not a prince. He Bays he'll shoot at my tyres if I
bring my car this way again.'
And while he sp oke the prince
nodded, breathing heavily, his shoulders bowed, as if to say,


Yes, yes, he knows very well the truth of what I'm saying!
Ve all watched Nuri go to the divan and take up his jacke et
in a sad way. He put it.on sl orly, then turned to me ard said,
'It's better I go. See Marcelle home, pléase.' He walked past
the prince and murmured to him, f Do you always perform in front of
your servants?'
'Servants!
This was a terrific slight on his honour an d in reply he
simply turned round to Ali the chauffeur and gave him a staggering
blow on the shoulder thet sent him flying to the other side of the
room---'That's what I give to servants!' And he added to Ali,
who lay on the floor, "Get out, son of a dog!'
Nuri walked past the cringing chauffeur, and the prince
followed him out without a glance at Marcelle. We heard the
lawyer's
daxkerks car start axi up and move away. There was some shouting
outside in the garden, probably between the prince and Ali, then
everything was silent for a time.
I went to the front door and was just about to close it when
I heard a revolver-shot. I pushed the door quickly to and ran
back into the room. I had the idea that he was going to attack
the house, and, feeling the absurdity of it, I made my wife and
Marcelle crouch down under the windows, as the safest place from
flying bullets.
There followed five more shots, and we could
hear the princets wife shouting inside the other house. My wife
had her hands up to her cheeks, more frightened by the bangs than
the danger, wh ile Marcelle sat quite still on the floor, the sweat
pouring out of her face.
When everything was silent again I went out into the dark
roadway towards the prince's house and saw him standing in the
porch, under the light, a great figure. His head was high, he


stood quite still, and he was staring into the darkness, quite
calm now, like someone after an act of heroism.
'Who were you shooting at?' I asked qui ietly.
'Oh, the stars!'
'Not Nuri?'
He made a soft mocking noise, *Paht* He seemed to be think-
ing for a few moments, his head bowed, then he peered at me and
whispered, 'Your friend!' He turned to go back into his house,
but stopped suddenly.
'You weren't il1,' he said, 'oh, no,
you weren't ill!'
He left me standing on the porch. I noticed he was st ill
carrying his revolver, and after the door had closed I heard call
out to Ali to bring down some blankets. I waited a few minutes.
Then Ali came to the door with soft footsteps and bolted it slowly,
making hardly a sound with the catch. The lights on the first
floor went out, and the house was in utter si lence.
I walked back to my own house, under the still sky, between
the palm trees that never moved the ir leaves except on stormy
nights.
There seemed to stretoh in front of me an extraordinery
unfathomed silence, quite endless. I realised I was numb W ith
shame, and felt completely estranged from the city of El J---.
It took me a day of solitude, in my room upstairs, to find out
what this shame was. I really did feel I'd chosen wrong.
I'd chosen Nuri, whereas I should have chosen the clown. I
belonged to the clown. And I should have made that clear at the
beginning e
The fact that I really had be en ill that night had
been forgotten.
A few days later a gentle note came, asking me and especially
my wife for forgiveness. However, he said, he would still shoot


at the lawyer's tyres. Honour demanded that.