Mr Narrator E-Book

Pat Gray

• Herausgeber: Dedalus
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: Dedalus Retro
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 299

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Pat Gray's Kafkaesque fantasy presents a bureaucratic landscape which is both sinister and comic. Mr Narrator leads an obscure neo-colonial existence in Goughly, where he is an export agent for a firm of Rotherham engineers and shares a flat and a mistress with Murphy, a post-modernist writer. An upset to one of his business deals plunges him into a bizarre cross-desert journey to the capital, where, social, political and sexual humiliation descend on him in ever increasing number. Pat Gray's novel portrays with documentary accuracy a Morocco which has never existed but one which has now been colonised by surrealism.

Leseprobe

Dedalus RetroMr Narrator

Pat Gray was born in Belfast. Between 1979 and 1981 he lived and worked in Morocco as a teacher. Since then he has worked extensively in Eastern Europe, but now lives in London.

He is the author of five novels: Mr Narrator (1989/2023), The Political Map of the Heart (2001), The Cat (1997/2015), Dirty Old Tricks (2020) and The Redemption Cut (2022).

Published in the UK by Dedalus Limited

24-26, St Judith’s Lane, Sawtry, Cambs, PE28 5XE

email: [email protected]

www.dedalusbooks.com

ISBN printed book 978 1 915568 02 1

ISBN ebook 978 1 915568 03 8

Dedalus is distributed in the USA & Canada by SCB Distributors

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Dedalus is distributed in Australia by Peribo Pty Ltd

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First Published by Dedalus in 1989

Retro edition in 2023

Mr Narrator copyright © Pat Gray 1989/2023

The right of Pat Gray to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

Printed by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.

Typeset by City Printers

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP Catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

CONTENTS

TUESDAY 31ST SEPTEMBER

WEDNESDAY 1ST OCTOBER. THE MORNING.

WEDNESDAY 1ST OCTOBER. THE AFTERNOON

THURSDAY 2ND OCTOBER

FRIDAY 3RD OCTOBER

SATURDAY 4TH OCTOBER

SUNDAY 5TH OCTOBER

MONDAY 6TH OCTOBER

TUESDAY 7TH OCTOBER

WEDNESDAY 8TH OCTOBER

THURSDAY 9TH OCTOBER

FRIDAY 10TH OCTOBER

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TUESDAY 31ST SEPTEMBER

Another odd letter from Société Herzog this morning, dated 12th September, and postmarked Beni Driss. I can’t work out how it came to be posted from there, since Beni Driss, as far as I know, is nothing more than a waterstop on the main bus route up to Zef from the capital. It is signed by Munton, the head of the service de comptabilité. Try as I may I cannot see him posting anything from there, as it is certainly not his kind of place: it has no trunk dialling, no women, no French coffee, and the fine dust would annoy him, sticking to his one pair of highly polished brown shoes. The heat would bring his neck up in a rash under the soiled white collar.

The letter is short, written hurriedly, the writing unsteady as if composed in the back of a speeding taxi.

‘I am most unhappy about this pump-house deal of yours, and we seem to have got really bogged down at the Ministry of Economic Affairs. There’s some bastard called Zoboti whose been at us all week on the designs, though I’m none too sure who he is, or how he even came to hear about it. Mechti believes clearance will be difficult “at the present time”, and a certain amount of the usual oiling will be necessary.’ There follows some other routine business, neatly typed on a separate sheet, and a reference to some girl in the capital, who had impressed Munton by her “lizard-like qualities”. He has always intrigued me with his choice of metaphors.

Anyway, the letter is here, on the Société Herzog’s headed paper, heavily embossed, with the names of the directors crawling in Arabic all over the heading. The crest is a steamship of the old type, with a large red ‘H’ on its yellow funnel. Things are always difficult, especially clearances, though it is unusual for anything to impress Munton enough to require underlining. There is (as far as I am aware) nothing peculiar about the present time to warrant an underlining. Maybe there has been an event at the ministry, some re-shuffle, some re-alignment of forces, perhaps a half-hearted purge of sorts, which has unseated Munton’s usual contacts, leaving the whole business suspended. As for Zoboti, I have no clear idea who he might be. He swims in my consciousness, below the level of reason, faintly threatening, like the first stirrings of an early morning nightmare. His first manifestation is as one of those extraordinarily large Arabs, one who rises to greet me from a wicker chair outside the Café de France. He has a jowly, expressionless face, and a handshake with the palm dry, the muscles of the fingers firm and impossible to avoid. He is the end of business. He blocks out the sun. In fact, if I do have to meet Zoboti, as I am sure I will, I would much rather have a man of the second type; a fumbled tap on the shoulder in some Sky View Lounge of some international hotel, and a figure on patent shoes with a copy of Glamour Girls concealed in the jacket pocket and a digital watch beeping uncontrollably on the wrist. The conversation would be easier, and once the necessary repartee was established, his motives for refusing to approve our plans could be exposed as unfounded. Concessions would be made. Another drink in the Sky View Lounge might be enough, a reminder that he, Zoboti, was at the head of the pack, part of the 20th century, a success.

These two Zobotis are the opposite poles of the possibilities implied in Munton’s note to me. The underoccupied mind endlessly gives form to one’s anxieties and an ill-defined gloom settles on me, the smell of an expensive lounge bar the morning after, as I file the letter with the others, the notes and documents celebrating the marriage in trade of Africa and Europe.

Later, in the evening of the same day, I was interrupted by Murphy, who has the other room. I could hear him coming, the noise of the keys in the security doors below echoing in the stairwell, then the steps, shuffling slightly, and the pause, to light a cigarette. At the summit, at the entrance to the flat, he pulled out another key and apparently dropped a handful of loose change down through the bannisters, because I could hear him swearing, and the tinkling of the money as it fell. The outside door opened. He was talking to someone. I could hear a girl’s voice, speaking in French.

‘Non, je ne veux pas … qu’est-ce qu’il va penser …’ and Murphy, overbearing in his terrible French, arguing back. My door opened and Murphy came in, went out, tried to pull the girl in with him. I could see on her wrist where he had seized it, a gold bracelet.

‘Ecoute …, said Murphy to the girl, ‘Ecoute, il va penser rien …’ and pulled her in, holding her in front of me. The girl was very beautiful, though she held her face away from me, from us both, still struggling.

‘Meet Maria,’ said Murphy.

‘Bonjour Maria,’ I said.

‘Bonjour M’sieur,’ she mumbled, broke free from his grip, and slid out through the door. Murphy raised his eyes to the heavens.

‘Great little girl,’ he said.

‘Will she be all right out there?’

‘Oh, Maria? Yes she’ll be fine. A great girl. A bit shy, that’s all.’

‘Where d’you find her?’

‘Now that’d be telling.’

He grinned, swaying slightly from side to side. His hands gripped the edge of my table. The freckles (the women here find them magnetic) and his eyes behind the pebble spectacles were charismatic in a disturbing way. Then he reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small bundle of papers.

‘I’d like you to read this, Narrator,’ he said. Various other items were unleashed along with those he intended me to read. Some complex illustrated instructions for the use of an experimental contraceptive device, a letter from a cosmologist in Aberdeen, a note from a girl, perhaps the girl he had brought, ‘Tu es la lune et le ciel …’ For days later, I kept finding these items from Murphy’s pockets amongst my documents.

However, the purpose of his visit to me, in addition to any other purpose he might have had, was to reveal his latest work. Murphy is a writer and his works come into my hands at various times during my stay here, through various means, depending on the state of our relationship. There are long periods when there is nothing, either because nothing is being produced, or because Murphy is engaged in ‘honing up’, ‘cutting out’, or ‘sorting down’ something which I have already seen. At other times he will become defensive, secreting pages of script clumsily when I enter the room where he is working. There is a surprising insecurity in much that he does. The text he offered me today gives a fair idea of his style:

‘ “Fuck, it’s hot!”

The day was hot. The buildings were white, almost gleaming. McGuire looked at the clock.

“Not as hot as yesterday.”

The girl smiled secretly. Her thin hand ran around the edge of her coffee cup. A faint whistling noise.

“It certainly is hot.”

Steam rose from the pavement. The thin waiter was hosing the tiles again. He looked away. Nothing.

The girl picked at the crumbs of her last croissant, rearranging them. Patterns.

“Maybe we could …, began McGuire.

“Yes?” said the girl, picking her nose.

“Maybe we could …” He stopped and looked at her.

A stork flapped over the street.

“I don’t think so,” she said, before he could finish.’

As I read, he hovered anxiously, his hands idly fondling various items on my desk. I told him I liked it. He nodded, and said ‘Uhuh?’ He looked ill. His hands played with my alarm clock. Then he managed to set the bell ringing and dropped it on the table in surprise, from where it vibrated across a pile of receipts, and crashed to the floor. His hands worked too slowly. He picked the clock up, fumbling various dislodged pieces back together.

‘Jesus, I’m sorry Narrator. Look, I’m genuinely sorry.’

‘It’s OK. Its just a clock.’

‘Shit,’ he said. Then added ‘could you just read it, y’know tell me what you think?’

Then he left the room, suddenly restless, perhaps fearing criticism.

‘Tu as fini?’ I heard the girl’s voice, right outside my door, as if her ear had been pressed against it. ‘Il est Anglais, ton ami?’ she asked. Then the door of Murphy’s room closed, and I returned to his text.

‘He was silent for some time. Another stork crossed over the street and settled on its nest. The Catholic Church. His hands lay idle. The newspaper lay unread. The girl breathed quietly and thought about lunch.

“Let’s fuck,” said McGuire.

“What?”

“Let’s fuck.”

The clock struck uncertainly, scaring the storks.

“I’d like another coffee,” said the girl.

“OK,” said McGuire, snapping his fingers at the empty morning cafe.’

This was a bad sign. I went to bed, with the two Zobotis still there, balanced on the scales of tomorrow’s possibilities.

WEDNESDAY 1ST OCTOBER. THE MORNING.

I began the day with an attempt to unravel the meaning behind Munton’s letter. Who exactly was Zoboti? Where had he emanated from? Why was he interfering with my pump-house? What possible interest could he have in something so essentially uninteresting? Of course, other things hung on it. If you like, the pump-house was pretty well central to a whole strategy of idleness, and if the pump-house got the bureaucratic turn-down then the trunnel joints would get it too. It was therefore with a sense of urgency that I called in on Bicycle Repair Man, not because I had a bicycle to repair but because Repair Man had a cousin who worked at the Ministry of Economic Affairs in the capital, and I had a friendship with him based on some chance events unlikely enough to give us both cause to smile each time we met. The most unexpected people have relatives in unexpectedly high positions, though just how high it is often difficult to judge.

Repair Man inhabited (during daylight hours) a shack at the end of my road, just at that fortunate point where the tarmac petered out, on a corner which the students at the New University cycled past on their way to lectures or demonstrations. As a result, his trade was good, and his shack showed the consequences of each new expansion in learning. When the faculty of law had opened, a new extension had been built, in corrugated perspex. His shop was always encircled by people, as it was an excellent point from which to observe — or prey upon — the passing traffic which converged there from different sections of the town. As I approached, I could hear the bony rattle of dice, the murmurings of gossip, the sounds of mechanical work, the babble of voices. Inside sat Repair Man, at the heart of an invisible but still perceptible web. Above him hung a picture of his cousin in a Chinese plastic frame, and above that another picture, of the King, cyclostyled, in full tribal regalia. The picture of the cousin was a symbol of influence, a reminder to all who entered Repair Man’s door that their words would not be ignored in the capital, while that of the King assured the authorities of Repair Man’s loyalty, on the surface of things at least. Below the picture of the cousin was an illustrated certificate from the course Repair Man had attended in Zef, in the summer of 1937, under the auspices of the Peugeot company. At the very bottom of the planked rear wall was a collection of genuine unused Peugeot inner tubes for bicycles. The combination of all these factors made Repair Man a figure of some influence in the community.

As I entered he stood ponderously to greet me, with the special smile reserved for his acquaintances who could afford to travel by train frequently.

‘Aaah, M. Narrator, what a great pleasure. Will you have some tea? How is your business? How is the madman Murphy? Everything is progressing?’ He pulled out a chair from under a brother who was playing patience in the corner of the shack, kicked the legs straight, wiped it with an oily rag, and I sat down. The brother collected his playing cards and moved outside onto the pavement and into the sunlight, where he squatted and resumed his interrupted game. I told him Murphy was writing again, that business prospered, the world turned. He beamed at me, encouragingly, pouring green tea from a slender pot, holding it high so the liquid frothed and bubbled in the glass. We exchanged pleasantries, until at length he said:

‘Why do we have the honour of this visit? I see that your mind is not fixed on the usual regularities.’ I nodded, and he turned to check that the card player was beyond earshot. His face became less affable, greyer in the poor light. It was a pliable face, curiously rubberised, flexible to respond to the calculating emotionality which he saw to be a necessity in business. The strain of this had carved tiny wrinkles in unexpected directions across the skin. It was a foreign face, not unattractive, but written upon by experiences a European maybe could not share. As the conversation became serious, and as I explained the sudden obstructions which had emerged to my business, an air of professionalism, almost like that of a family doctor, came upon him, listening and yet not listening, as if his mind were also hearing the requests of others, from earlier in the day, the week, the month, relayed to him simultaneously with my own enquiries. Outside, I could hear the sound of a bicycle tyre being inflated. By now he had established himself firmly on an empty crate, having wiggled his buttocks energetically to assure the necessary comfort for a truly sympathetic listening pose.

‘You think there is trouble in the capital?’ he asked.

‘Well, I think there may be.’

‘It’s a difficult business.’

‘What is?’

‘The capital. Problems at the political level. You know it is all-pervasive.’

‘But what particularly? Do you know who Zoboti is?’

‘Ah, Monsieur, you are aware that my knowledge of politics is unnaturally limited.’

Bicycle Repair Man glanced at the portrait of his cousin, hanging there in the gloom, as if establishing some link, telepathically, with the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

‘Your cousin? He has said nothing?’ I asked. He smiled, faintly bemused, a slight tremor in the pause before he spoke.

‘When he speaks, I do not necessarily listen.’

‘But I thought you held him in the highest regard.’

‘Did hold. I did hold him in the highest regard, but of course now I see him for what he is. He is a buvard, a bluebottle on the camel’s backside, he is the dregs of the bottle of life!’

His features worked to form themselves into the necessary look of contempt. The torrent of abuse gathered strength.

‘He is not a man. I was mistaken in this. He is a gamin amongst men! It grieves me to think that he is of the same family.’

In the end, his insults began to lose their force, the words became slower, the tongue searched tiredly for new metaphors, and then came a silence, interrupted briefly by the sound of two draughts players arguing outside in the sun. His face sagged, became suddenly morose. Something had indeed happened in the capital, necessitating the breaking of the bonds of family, admiration, and influence.

‘Have you heard anything from him?’ He looked around now, as if the mentioning of the cousin again would bring further ill-defined misfortunes down upon him.

‘Nothing.’

‘He hasn’t written?’

‘Not in three months.’ There was a pause. He clasped and unclasped his big hands, the fingernails dirty and cracked. A heavy lorry rumbled past outside in low gear. His lips moved, but it was not clear if he had spoken or not. The noise of the lorry faded like some passing apocalypse.

‘I am sorry. I am not myself, it is you I should be helping. I promise everyone everything. I promise my brother a free travel warrant to Rigadir. The deputy chief wanted his Mercedes cleared by the Douane. I gave them my word, but since my cousin is gone, who knows? The wheels they do not turn without greasing, you know, and my cousin, well, he was in a unique position, exceptionally well placed. Currency permits, he had access to currency permits. Can you imagine where one must be to get such things?’

‘Do you know where he has gone?’

‘Nothing. I do not know. I am ruined. It is ruination here not to keep faith. I can hear them laughing already. Every time I hear merriment, I imagine it is at my own downfall.’

‘But is your cousin all right?’

‘I don’t know. Every time I think of him, I think of my own ruin. I promised the wife of the director of the cement works a passport for her sister. As for where he might be, well that is another problem. Mohammed went to the capital last week, travelled up in the big Berliet to the very gates of the Ministry, but they wouldn’t even let him in through the door. At one point they attempted to arrest him for aggravated loitering, and in the end it all got him down so much that he swapped his return ticket for some cheap woman, and had to come back by bus. Everything about this affair is terrible. Now you say there is some Zoboti who has taken over! I have a bad feeling on this. I think there will be more trouble. I put people off you know? I put them off by saying my cousin is busy on important projects, planning an electric pumping system for the vineyards, but excuses come to an end, there is not a great deal of repetition in them.’

‘He cannot just vanish,’ I said, more to raise his spirits than for anything else.

‘Can’t he?’ Repair Man fumbled vaguely amongst the folds of his djellaba, emerging finally with a greasy but once official looking slip of paper. The sight of it seemed to disturb him, as if it gave off a harmful light, because he averted his eyes, only to have them rest for a moment on the photograph of the cousin, there behind the glass, smiling. He thrust the paper at me, refusing to look at it. It was in the last stages of disintegration, and had, at some stage, been crumpled and uncrumpled several times. It was a tax demand.

‘You see,’ he said. ‘It cannot be an error. It is something systematic. Errors one can suffer, because they do not continue in the same path, they have no ultimate purpose. This, however, this proves that there is a purpose in what they are doing. Only a man disgraced, or the relative of one, receives a tax demand. A tax demand is a sure sign that one is no longer as consequential as one thought.’

His head sagged lower. I noticed for the first time a bald patch, with an ugly scar running across it, jagged at the edges; as if a zip opened into his brain.

‘Have you seen anyone about this?’ I asked.

‘There is no point. Stupidity cannot be evaded, it follows along inexorably, like a limping dog, never giving up. The cleverer you are the less easy it is to escape, because the less you can imagine the kind of stupidity that gives rise to these kind of acts, and hence you cannot even begin to predict what will happen next.’

His head nodded from side to side loosely, as if in conversation with himself, a hidden mechanism of self-justification whispering restoring phrases.

‘Look at that,’ he said suddenly, pointing to a small photo that stood beside the spirit stove he used for brewing tea. The photo showed him astride a large motorcycle, squat, black, and with a big old-fashioned headlight.

‘That day I went from here to Jerada in eight minutes.’

Behind him in the photo stood his entire family, holding various trophies: a casette recorder, certificates, a musket. The photo was yellow, curled at the edges, the figures vague and ghostly, caught in a fading moment of success.

‘Maybe it is all a mistake.’

‘Tax demands are not mistakes.’

I felt drawn in, sucked down, and found myself somehow wishing for a revival of his initial affability.

‘You must not let them see you like this,’ I said.

‘Keep up the good face?’

‘You must keep it up, yes. Maybe there is something that I can do?’ He looked up, seized the words with his hands as they floated through the air.

‘My friend, if only you could!’ He said, an arm around my shoulders. ‘We could … I could see to it that you got …’ Then, remembering how little he had to offer he stopped. There was a silence for a moment.

‘If you could make it soon, very soon Monsieur. There are matters of the greatest urgency. If you, with your friends, your other contacts, you know with Europeans things are frequently different.’ He was interrupted by a gentle insistent tapping on the door.

‘Ahmed, the wife of the director is here,’ said the voice of the brother outside. Repair Man’s smile came through weakly. He opened the door.

‘Madame, what a great pleasure it is to see you.’ He chivied away two boys who were betting on a draughts game on the pavement.

‘You know I deplore all forms of gambling,’ he cried, squeezing my shoulder as he guided me out, to remind me of our agreement.

It was only when I was outside that I realised I had no clear notion of how I could assist him without implicating myself in his decline. Still later, as the taxi I hailed swept me away, I wondered if I should even try. The taxi wandered epileptically down Boulevard de Nada, eventually dropping me before the newstand on Rue Mujdib, where I resumed my quest for information on the capital by buying a copy of Le Matin du Sahara, a flabby, featureless paper, like uncooked pastry to the touch. Only at moments of grave crisis would reference be made in it to real and important events, when a point was reached where everyone in the country could not fail to notice that something was amiss, and to refuse to acknowledge it could only be attributed to total blindness on the part of the government, rather than the merely partial blindness to which the people were accustomed.

Today, the paper lay limp and uninspiring in my hands, as I lounged under the pineapple plant in the Cafe Rubric. There appeared to be no exciting news at all. The lead story concerned the conference of co-operative orange growers in Gouger, and consisted mainly of lists of figures for orange production. There was an underexposed photograph of a man’s face, dominated by teeth and a pair of curious spectacles. He was reading from a text, and the caption was immensely long: ‘Monsieur Boujloud, le nouveau secretaire général de la société coopérative des commerçants d’oranges délivrant son discours à l’occasion de la vingt-neuvième conférence à Gouger.’ I found myself thinking of Repair Man again. Somehow, he had worked on my conscience absurdly. I could not concentrate on the newspaper. Boujloud swam in front of my unfocused eyes, his spectacles like goggles. Maybe they were part of the orange grower’s equipment, and the new secretary general was making some obscure populist statement? A stork flapped its way over the street, the creaking of its wings suddenly audible during a pause in the passing traffic.

On the inside pages, the King was again meeting a delegation from Upper Volta. There were details of a new scheme to develop irrigation in the mountains, and a picture of another serious man reading from a paper. In fact he looked suspiciously like Monsieur Boujloud from the front page, even down to the curious spectacles. ‘Monsieur Zoboti, a l’occasion de …’ began the caption, then degenerated into an impressively smudged misprint the shape of a salamander. I looked carefully at the misprint, but could discern no meaning in it. The man, however, was Zoboti, and it is by no means a common name. Maybe, to be more correct, he was a Zoboti, rather than the particular one I was looking for. Naturally there was always an outside chance that he was the actual individual, the one who had stamped annulé in big red letters across the Société Herzog’s request for import clearance, and sent Repair Man’s cousin from his swivel chair in the Ministry of Economic Affairs. In the photo he addressed the crowd, his mouth like a dash in a hurriedly typed and angry text. He was spitting out some word at the end of a sentence, probably ‘interdit’ or ‘absolument interdit’. It was difficult to tell behind the goggles, with thick tinted lenses, as the eyes were invisible, like sharks imagined below the surface of water. The rest of the face was fairly formless, a sort of administrative face with substantial muscles under the pink flab, muscles to clamp down on words and draw in gulps of air, so denunciations could be made without pausing for breath. He could well be the man. Not content with removing Repair Man’s cousin, he had had sufficient energy to move against Repair Man’s family, root and branch. Maybe the Monsieur Boujloud was a cousin of Zoboti’s, and a new appointee? They both looked the kind of men who would launch new and dangerous initiatives after lunch, with only a cursory consideration of consequences. I examined the damaged caption again, and the photo. On the lapel there was some kind of mark — a curious shape — perhaps an enamel badge of some sort, resembling nothing so much as a parrot or macaw.

I clapped my hands for the waiter.

‘Ahmed, could you get me another copy of Le Matin?’

‘But Monsieur, you have one already.’

‘I know, but the print is damaged on this one.’

‘That is extraordinary! Why not give it to me and I will exchange it!’

‘Well, I’d rather not. There are things still to be studied.’

‘But if it is badly printed, how can you study it? You will only damage your eyes trying to read it.’

‘No. It’s all right. Can you just fetch me another one?’

‘As you say,’ he replied, limping away in his carpet slippers, to return with a fresh copy of Le Matin.

‘I hope the print is satisfactory,’ he said as he handed it over. I flicked hurriedly to the inside page. No Zoboti. A large picture of a Berliet lorry full of youths waving the national flag, and a dog in the foreground. It was the same edition, but Zoboti had disappeared, been sucked away. I turned again to the original photo. ‘Monsieur Zoboti à l’occasion de …’ What occasion was it? I scanned the crowd that listened there in the photograph, like a school assembly, struggling to look one way while thinking in another, quite different way. On the left, incredibly, was Munton. The thin nose, head held to the right so the blue vein would not be visible to the photographer, and that civilised face, the pointy shoes.

Then I glanced up to see a large Arab holding some small object out to me.

‘Monsieur, you may borrow my magnifying glass if you wish. It may help you to find that which you are seeking.’ He spoke classical Arabic beautifully.

‘Is it a friend of yours?’ he enquired, indicating the picture in the open paper, and seating himself in the vacant chair beside me. The smell of aftershave came up disconcertingly from beneath his turban. I explained my problem.

‘Ahh, with this you will discover everything,’ he said, unfolding a gleaming glass from a tortoiseshell holder with a silver rivet in it. The sunlight bounced around inside the lense. He handled the glass like a magician.

‘Here, with your permission I will show you. It is sometimes difficult to get the range correct.’

He took my newspaper and the only photo of Zoboti gently in his hands, and set to it with the magnifying glass with delicate precision. The face, the lapel, loomed up distorted in the frame, looking out at us for a brief moment. On the lapel was an enamel parrot, upside down. I held the magician’s hand over the spot, but they were held rigid, as if bolted to some steel structure beneath his all-concealing djellaba. The parrot browned, curled, flamed. The big Arab was smiling distantly, looking out into the street, in apparent reverie.

‘Hey, Monsieur, you’re burning the paper!’ I cried.

Then the flames took hold, blazing up the page, through Munton, through Zoboti’s audience, through the other trash in the newspaper. The Arab turned slowly and a look of realisation came upon him, his face filling with an expression of exquisite embarrassment . He flung the paper away, and it described a sizzling parabola out over the flowerbeds and into the road beyond.

‘Monsieur, how dreadful, what an awful accident! You must allow me to buy you another. Ahmed! Please, a paper for Monsieur. Really, this is terrible! May I get you a coffee?’

WEDNESDAY 1ST OCTOBER. THE AFTERNOON

After the accident with the newspaper, events resumed a more predictable course: I had a minor scene with Murphy. I had returned home for lunch, and found him there in the kitchen with the girl. They were cooking something together, the marble work top strewn with aubergines, the girl whipping up eggs and Murphy whistling. As I entered, the girl turned her back on me, and began some careful slicing actions, secretively, as if denying to herself that she was actually there.

‘Say hullo to Narrator, Maria,’ said Murphy. She ignored him.

‘C’mon. He’s not going to do you any harm.’ She snapped something at him, and continued slicing with her back to us both.

‘Pretty shy,’ said Murphy, and tossed the aubergines into the pan, where they sizzled angrily. The girl turned towards him, but with her face still turned away from me. She wore a thin silk shirt, her skin was very dark against the white cloth. She had a pair of gold slippers on her feet.

‘Va-t-en! Ton ami ne vas pas vouloir cuisiner avec moi, your friend will not want to cook with me,’ she said.

‘You want to bet?’ said Murphy, and winked sideways.

‘Go and talk to him about your famous book.’ She pushed him gently towards me.

‘What does he know about literature?’

‘About as much as you know about cooking, perhaps.’

‘Well, they’re much the same.’

‘Art and life, much the same altogether.’

‘Now that depends.’

‘Ça dépend. Always depending on something, you Europeans. This depends on that. That depends on this. I would do that if I wasn’t doing this. If I do that I won’t be able to do the other. Always some kind of interminable calculus!’ As she talked the girl became more agitated, shook her head up and down. Her long hair, blue black, fell over her eyes. Suddenly she stopped, and let out a small embarrassed laugh, as if conscious of a minor indiscretion.