Amazir Read online

  Amazir

  by

  Tom Gamble

  To the children of the Atlas

  Si riches avec si peu

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  58

  59

  60

  61

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  1

  Looking back, 1938 was a year which should almost not have existed. It was like the empty, half-way moment in a gathering of people, the hollow time before it kicked back into life. The world was a wait.

  It was the year Wilding’s job took him outside the States, a brief stop over in Europe before setting to work exploring for oil in French and Spanish Mauritania. It was also the year he first met Harry Summerfield, in a bar in Gibraltar, in May.

  As an American, Wilding viewed the whole European scene as practically theatrical. To a large extent, he was shrewd enough to understand that his ideas were shaped by a mix of cultural preconceptions, the satirical cartoons in the US press and Chaplin’s grotesque spoof, the Great Dictator. The film, which he had seen several times back in the States, was more powerful for him than any Hemingway prose or any serious columnist he could have read. The threat of war seemed like an impossible, far off bad joke and in some ways Wilding guessed he was like the vast majority of people: there were just other more important things to be getting on with.

  On the voyage down to Gibraltar from Southampton, Wilding read a whole packet of newspapers and reviews. These he passed on to a British family occupying the adjacent cabin and was very amused to catch the young son and daughter cutting out the various photos. They pasted them into a scrapbook, making a home-made comic strip by pencilling in speech balloons from the politicians’ mouths and, in some cases, with fiendish, uncontrollable giggles, their noses and backsides. The children honoured Wilding with their artwork and duly reading it he noticed they had filled the balloons with mostly infantile remarks but sometimes, in that curious way kids have of hitting the nail on the head, electrifyingly pertinent comment.

  Wilding chuckled—it really did seem as if it were all some big stage act—here the clowns in their outrageously decorated uniforms, elsewhere those in top hat and tails; others dressed in workers’ fatigues, English royalty wearing lopsided sailor caps and Mediterranean leaders with tassels like Broadway curtain cords dangling from their regalia. And the more Wilding looked at these pictures, the more the thought came, until he actually laughed out loud, that it was all down to a pantomime war of outrageous ideological costumes. Who would win the battle? he joked with the family.

  The cargo stopped over in Gibraltar, to Wilding a pokey, bustling little place dominated by a rocky outcrop and British shore batteries. From the beginning of his journey from New York, he’d spent the better part of two weeks cooped up in a ship’s cabin and ached to put foot on dry land once again. The first thing he did was to stroll along the docksides and into town intent upon buying a beer.

  A first bar looked too noisy, too full of ships’ crewmen. A second bar, not so farther along the main street, looked quieter and more genuine. Wilding stepped into the cool interior, momentarily losing his bearings in the dimness, sat down at the first table and ordered.

  As his sight grew accustomed, Wilding saw that the walls and ceiling were a sickly, tannin shade of brown—years of accumulated smoke and nicotine. It was practically empty and Wilding’s eyes took in the silent clientele—a British sailor asleep at the nearest table, head in his hands and a copy of Movie Times covering his cap; a couple of bleary-eyed old locals dressed in cheap cotton suits and finally a fourth man, in his late twenties, probably English, judging from his clothes, and approximately his age—twenty-nine—guessed Wilding.

  He was sitting some ten or so yards away, sweating, waiting. Judging from the expression on his face, it seemed as if his whole life had been just one long wait. Wilding watched him pick up his glass, notice it was nearly empty and measure the amount he drank so that one last mouthful remained. It was then that the Englishman glanced up, his eyes a clear, sharp blue and almost fierce. With an obvious movement of irritation, he returned to the newspaper spread before him. Long seconds passed. He didn’t seem to be reading, but thinking. Wilding decided to go over.

  ‘James—Jim—Wilding,’ said the American, offering his hand.

  The Englishman looked up.

  ‘You’re a Yank.’

  An English voice, dry and matter-of-fact. The man glanced at Wilding’s outstretched hand, frowned and with a reluctant slowness shook it. Perhaps, thought Wilding, it wasn’t a British thing to do.

  ‘Harry Summerfield.’

  The Englishman glanced at the door, then at Wilding who, expecting to be asked to take a seat, stood waiting before the table for the invitation which failed to come. Finally, scraping back a chair, he just sat down.

  ‘Damn hot,’ said Wilding, and made a gesture that suggested the heat was uncomfortable, though to tell the truth, he’d experienced temperatures in his job in the southern states that were on a par, if not higher. Summerfield grinned sheepishly, returned to gazing at the door, glanced once again at his wristwatch and finally exhaled in what Wilding took as a final decision to finish his glass and leave. Instinctively—he didn’t know why—Wilding turned towards the bar and called for another beer. ‘Have one on me,’ he said, raising his glass to the strange Englishman. Summerfield seemed surprised, then embarrassed, worried and finally after one last look in the direction of the entrance, one last swallow of his remaining beer, nodded.

  ‘Thanks, Yank.’

  The most striking feature about Summerfield, noticed Wilding, was his eyebrows—or lack of them. Instead, the arcades of his eyes were marked by a prominent brow and this effect deflected attention to his eyes which were blue, fierce, lighter than Wilding’s and somewhat bloodshot. This Wilding took for a sign of prolonged and uncomfortable travel. He started.

  ‘So what are you up to in Gibraltar?’ Summerfield had said, unexpectedly.

  ‘I’ve just arrived from Southampton—a cargo ship called the Wader,’ he answered.

  ‘Good name,’ interrupted Summerfield, ironically.

  Wilding pursed his lips then relaxed. ‘I’m catching a ferry across the Straight to Morocco and there on south to Mauritania.’

  ‘So you’re not going onto Spain?’ The Englishman looked mildly surprised. ‘I thought perhaps …’

  ‘I’m not a writer or a journalist,’ said Wilding, grinning. ‘Not like all the other Americans around here seem to be. My company, Southern Star Petroleum, thinks there’s oil down there.’

  ‘Where there’s money …’ murmured Summ
erfield, returning to the ironical.

  ‘There’s life,’ continued Wilding, deciding to play his game. ‘Sometimes business can bring people together.’

  ‘And sometimes tear them apart,’ added the Englishman.

  While Summerfield pretended to return to his newspaper, Wilding was beginning to regret having offered the sour Limey a beer. He could at least make the effort to communicate correctly, he heard himself thinking. Asshole—you’re wasting my time. Suddenly Wilding found himself wanting to bring the meeting to an end.

  ‘Well, tell me what you’re up to Harry, and then I’ll leave you in peace,’ he said, bluntly.

  ‘Waiting,’ said Summerfield, glancing curiously at him.

  ‘Is that right?’ answered Wilding with a smile.

  ‘For a contact,’ added Summerfield, aware of the American’s sudden aggressiveness and attempting at last to make amends. ‘To go over there,’ he added, nodding in the direction of the Spanish border. ‘Bloody Spanish—so undependable. You’d think they didn’t care.’

  Wilding showed surprise. ‘So you’re a journalist?’

  ‘God, no,’ said Summerfield, ‘Though I suppose you couldsay I write. I used to be a copywriter for ads—a word alchemist, lies to sell dreams. Soap, tins of corned beef, cigarettes, loo paper—you name it, I wrote it. No,’ he continued, returning to Wilding’s question. ‘I was hoping to join in the mess across the frontier. I’ve been waiting in this hole for three days for the contact to show up.’

  ‘You mean you want to fight?’ asked Wilding, instantly feeling somewhat stupid and consequently lowering his voice. ‘You’re waiting to go to the front? You know it’s a lost war.’

  ‘I don’t see what else I’d be doing in this place,’ replied Summerfield, seeming not to notice Wilding’s remark. ‘All in all, I’ve been on the continent a month. I tried getting into Spain from the north, but the frontier is shut tight on either side—stopping people getting out. Someone gave me a name and said I could get a boat that’d drop me off up the coast.’

  ‘There must be a thousand ways,’ added Wilding. ‘What about via Portugal? They can’t control the entire border—not everywhere. It’s too long.’

  Summerfield suddenly grew cold again. ‘Are you questioning my conviction, Wilding?’

  Wilding stared at him, perplexed by the Englishman’s sensitivity. ‘Hell, no—I was just trying to offer an alternative idea,’ he defended. The Englishman seemed to think about it and Wilding saw the tenseness go out of his body. The poor guy looked exhausted. ‘I imagine you’re quite tired,’ he offered.

  ‘It’s the climate,’ returned Summerfield, apologetically. ‘I can stand the travel and the discomfort—I’m used to that—just that I hadn’t quite expected this bloody heat. I’m afraid I haven’t what they call the gumption that certain people have.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘I didn’t go to the right school,’ added Summerfield, sourly—‘I’m not of proper ilk.’ Seeing Wilding’s continuing incomprehension, he added: ‘I wasn’t brought up to cope with what is expected of a real gentleman.’

  Wilding guffawed. ‘Oh, come on, Harry! That stuff is so old-fashioned!’

  ‘Not where I come from,’ said Summerfield, reddening slightly as though he realised he might have sounded strange.

  ‘Who cares?’ shrugged Wilding. ‘This isn’t England—even if the Union Jack is flying from the top of the rock, it isn’t. Drink your beer Harry. I need to walk and by the sound of you, you need a change of atmosphere.’

  Over the next two days, Wilding and Summerfield explored most of the colony, stopping frequently in various bars to quench their thirst and watch, amused, the odd little piece of Britain passing by. Wilding learnt how Summerfield came to believe in the necessity of taking part in the civil war in Spain. He said he’d listened to Orwell give a speech in London the year before and that the writer had managed to spark off what he’d always felt but had been unable to express: the need to take part in a just cause.

  Strangely, Summerfield gave Wilding the impression of someone who hadn’t yet managed to find the adult in himself. It was as though the Englishman believed in fairy tales, the fight between good and evil, the prince coming to save the damsel that was democracy. On several occasions Wilding very nearly told him he thought it was a crusade of self-discovery more than anything else; that there were other ways in which to find oneself rather than shooting at people with different views. But then again, the little remaining idealistic side to Wilding—or maybe even creative side, for several family generations of scientists and five years of geology studies at Princeton had all but erased any artist in him—told him that both great and mad-hat achievements were often born of the child in us rather than the adult. That naïve belief that things could change through dreams and heroism—that childish disrespect for reason—seemed to be characteristic of Harry Summerfield.

  There was also the writer in Summerfield that seemed to lead him on: the writer and the rebel. For Wilding noted that the Englishman often referred to himself as one who hadn’t followed the usual path. Most of the time, Wilding understood it was a cynical reflection on the British class system, and Summerfield’s particular trouble in fitting in. Other times he was sure that Summerfield had a damned big inferiority complex: Summerfield, the boy from a modest background who’d gone through the grammar school system, meeting with the invisible barriers at a later stage during university—language studies apparently. Although he didn’t say it, Wilding guessed that Summerfield had flunked, hadn’t continued. In fact, he understood the Englishman was largely self-taught. He certainly knew a lot—maybe more than his peers who’d followed through and gained degrees. But there lacked the veneer. There lacked the accent. There lacked the annoyingly smug self-confidence that exuded from that type of Englishman who naturally and unquestionably was the best in this world and any other.

  It was probably because of this last point that Wilding got to liking him. Summerfield was an Englishman apart, a doubter and a rebel, more Yankee than Brit. Strolling in the narrow streets of the colony, often half-drunk from the heat and beer, Summerfield played games, cockily saluting military officers whenever they crossed them, mimicking their peculiarly nonchalant and sloppy style. The goal of his game—that made Wilding almost cringe with embarrassment—was to receive the most salutes in return. It was like a kind of test to see if they could see through him. Sometimes, judging his victim as a particularly acute case of thoroughbred officer stock, Summerfield would let fly such an outlandish salute that it was difficult for anyone to decide if it was a blatant insult. The looks on the faces of his poor victims ranged from shock, distaste and scorn to—funniest of all for Wilding—sheer snobbish refusal to acknowledge his existence.

  On the evening of his second night in Gibraltar and due to leave the following morning, Wilding took Summerfield to get drunk in the waterfront pubs. At 2 a.m., mulling over a double whisky in The HMS Vengeance, they found themselves pondering over the destiny of the world when Wilding blurted out an invitation for Summerfield to accompany him to Africa. Wilding told him the war could wait and that his artistic flair would be far better nourished by the cultures of this unknown continent than Spain. Summerfield replied, after some trouble in raising himself from his chair, glass in hand, that there would be other, bigger wars to fight in any case. How right Summerfield was to be.

  The next morning saw Wilding and Summerfield on the ferry, chugging across the Straight to Tangiers. On the subsequent journey through the Spanish enclave on the northern coast to Casablanca—a gruelling train ride of forty-two stops, a public whipping and numerous hold ups due to herds of goats invading the tracks—Summerfield showed Wilding some of his journals in which he wrote and sketched. Wilding whistled through his clenched teeth. Summerfield’s command of style was impressive—at least, impressive for him, a scientist by nature. He was able to write the driest of descriptive prose and the most soaring of verse; the funniest and most caustic o
f satire and the flattest, most cynical parody to beauty. The content, however, was less impressive, though Wilding didn’t tell him. ‘The idea will come,’ said Wilding instead, ‘most maybe on this journey.’

  They stopped off at the Southern Star Petroleum offices in Casablanca; a bustling, buzzing, almost European city crammed with military presence, and then caught a train southbound the next day.

  It was in Marrakesh that they parted, Summerfield saying that the name of the place seemed interesting. They sat in the lobby of Wilding’s hotel and drank tea. A large, whirring ventilator sent a blessing of cool air upon them and then, with an obtrusive click, broke down.

  ‘I’ll be back in six months,’ Wilding told him. ‘Ten days’ leave and then another stint, back to geological surveys and prospecting.’ He mopped his forehead. ‘If we strike oil, I suppose it would only be natural for me to move base permanently south. What about you, Harry?’

  In a mirror gesture, Summerfield too wiped his forehead then blew air into his face. ‘I think I’ll stay on in Marrakesh, Jim—even if it is damn hotter than Gibraltar. I suppose it’s a question of time—getting used to it, that’s all,’ he added. ‘I’ve got some savings. And when I run out of money, I’m counting on my French and Spanish to land me a job.’

  ‘How about a job at Southern Star?’ suggested Wilding, raising a speculative eyebrow.

  Summerfield shook his head, looking adamant. ‘No thanks.’ He hesitated, pondered for an instant and on an afterthought, changed his mind: ‘But who knows, Jim. Perhaps I’ll come back to that in the future. Thanks for the offer.’

  Wilding scribbled down an address and handed it across, though Summerfield was unable to give him one in return.

  ‘I’ll wire you with news once I’ve found a place to stay.’

  At seven-forty—the train an hour late—they shook hands on the station platform. Wilding hoisted himself up into his compartment as the locomotive tugged and whistled away.

  ‘Hey, Harry!’ Wilding shouted from his window. ‘Hope you don’t regret me asking you here.’