behind the heavy moucharabi in the little dark shop of haboubet of egypt all was song, fête and preparation. additional work, had brought additional hands, and be-tarbouched boys in burnooses, and baskets of blossoms, lay strewn all over the floor.
“sweet is the musk-rose of the land of punt!
sweet are the dates from khorassan ...
but bring me (o wandering djinns) the english rose, the english apple!
o sweet is the land of the princess elsie,
sweet indeed is england——”
bachir’s voice soared, in improvisation, to a long-drawn, strident, wail.
“pass me the scissors, o bachir ben ahmed, for the love of allah,” a young man with large lucent eyes, and an untroubled 181 face, like a flower, exclaimed, extending a slender, keef-stained hand.
“sidi took them,” the superintendent of the duchess of varna replied, turning towards an olive-skinned armenian youth, who, seated on an empty hamper, was reading to a small, rapt group, the kairoulla intelligence aloud.
“‘attended by lady canon-of-noon and by lady bertha chamberlayne (she is a daughter of lord frollo’s9) the princess was seen to alight from her saloon, in a chic toque of primrose paille, stabbed with the quill of a nasturtium-coloured bird, and, darting forward, like the bird of paradise that she is, embraced her future parents-in-law with considerable affection....’”
“scissors, for the love of allah!”
“‘and soon i heard the roll of drums! and saw the bobbing plumes in the jangling browbands of the horses: it was a moment i shall never forget. she passed ... and 182 as our future sovereign turned smiling to bow her acknowledgments to the crowd, i saw a happy tear...!’”
“ah allah.”
“pass me two purple pinks.”
“‘visibly gratified at the cordial ovation to her virgin daughter was queen glory, a striking and impressive figure, all a-glitter in a splendid dark dress of nacre and nigger tissue, her many orders of merit almost bearing her down.’”
“thy scissors, o sidi, for the love of muhammed?”
“‘it seemed as if kairoulla had gone wild with joy. led by the first life-guards and a corps of ladies of great fashion disguised as peasants, the cortège proceeded amid the whole-hearted plaudits of the people towards constitutional square, where, with the sweetest of smiles and thanks the princess received an exquisite sheaf of deflas (they are the hybrids of slipper-orchids crossed with maidens-rue, and are all the mode at present), tendered her by little paula exelmans, the lord mayor’s tiny daughter. driving on, amid showers 183 of confetti, the procession passed up the chausée, which presented a scene of rare animation; boys, and even quite elderly dames swarming up the trees to obtain a better view of their new princess. but it was not until lilianthal street and the cathedral square were reached, that the climax reached its height! here, a short standstill was called, and after an appropriate address from the archbishop of pisuerga, the stirring strains of the national anthem, superbly rendered by madame marguerite astorra of the state theatre (she is in perfect voice this season), arose on the air. at that moment a black cat and its kitties rushed across the road, and i saw the princess smile.’”
“thy scissors, o sidi, in the name of the prophet!”
“‘a touching incident,’” sidi with equanimity pursued, “‘was just before the english tea rooms, where the english colony had mustered together in force....’”
but alack for those interested. owing to the clamour about him much of the recital was lost: “‘cheers and tears.... 184 ... life’s benison.... honiton lace.... if i live to be forty, it was a moment i shall never forget.... panic ... congestion.... police.’”
but it was scarcely needful to peruse the paper, when on the boulevards outside, the festivities were everywhere in full swing. the arrival of the princess for her wedding had brought to kairoulla unprecedented crowds from all parts of the kingdom, as much eager to see the princess, as to catch a glimpse of the fine pack of beagles, that it was said had been brought over with her, and which had taken an half eerie hold of the public mind. gilderoy, beausire, audrey, many of the dogs’ names were known pleasantly to the crowd already; and anecdotes of audrey, picture-postcards of audrey, were sold as rapidly almost as those even of the princess. indeed mothers among the people had begun to threaten their disobedient offspring with audrey, whose silky, thickset frame was supported, it appeared, daily on troublesome little boys and tiresome little girls.... 185
“erri, erri, get on with thy bouquet, oh lazari demitraki!” bachir exclaimed in plaintive tones, addressing a blonde boy with a skin of amber, who was “charming” an earwig with a reed of grass.
“she dance the boussadilla just like in the street of halfaouine in garda?a my town any ouled nail!” he rapturously gurgled.
“get on with thy work, oh lazari demitraki,” bachir besought him, “and leave the earwigs alone for the clients to find.”
“what with the heat, the smell of the flowers, the noise of you boys, and with filthy earwigs boussadillaing all over one, i feel i could swoon,” the voice, cracked yet cloying, was peter passer’s.
he had come to kairoulla for the “celebrations,” and also, perhaps, aspiring to advance his fortunes, in ways known best to himself. with bachir, his connection dated from long ago, when as a cathedral choir-boy it had been his habit to pin a shoulder, or bosom-blossom to his surplice, destroying it with coquettish, ring-laden 186 fingers in the course of an anthem, and scattering the petals from the choir-loft, leaf by leaf, on to the grey heads of the monsignori below.
“itchiata wa?” bachir grumbled, playing his eyes distractedly around the shop. and it might have been better for the numerous orders there were to attend to had he called fewer of his acquaintance to assist him. sunk in torpor, a cigarette smouldering at his ear, a levantine greek known as “effendi darling” was listening to a dark-cheeked tunisian engaged at the count of tolga’s private hammam baths—a young man, who, as he spoke, would make mazy gestures of the hands as though his master’s ribs, or those of some illustrious guest, lay under him. but by no means all of those assembled in the little shop, bore the seal of islam. an american who had grown too splendid for the copper “ganymede” or soda-fountain of a café bar and had taken to teaching the hectic dance-steps of his native land in the night-halls where bachir sold, was achieving wonders with some wires and eucharist 187 lilies, while discussing with a shy-mannered youth the many difficulties that beset the foreigner in kairoulla.
“young chaps that come out here, don’t know what they’re coming to,” he sapiently remarked, using his incomparable teeth in place of scissors. “gosh! talk of advancement,” he growled.
“there’s few can mix as i can, yet i don’t never get no rise!” the shy youth exclaimed, producing a card that was engraved: harry cummings, salad-dresser to the king: “i expect i’ve arrived,” he murmured, turning to hide a modest blush towards a pale young man who looked on life through heavy horn glasses.
“salad dressing? i’d sooner it was hair! you do get tips there anyway,” the yankee reasoned.
“i wish i were—arrived,” the young man with the glasses, by name guy thin, declared. he had come out but recently from england to establish a “british grocery,” and was the owner of what is sometimes called an expensive voice, his sedulously clear articulation missing out 188 no syllable or letter of anything he might happen to be saying, as though he were tasting each word, like the pure tea, or the pure marmalade, or any other of the so very pure goods he proposed so exclusively to sell.
“if allah wish it then you arrive,” lazari demitraki assured him with a dazzling smile, catching his hand in order to construe the lines.
“finish thy bouquet, o lazari demitraki,” bachir faintly moaned.
“it finished—arranged: it with abou!” he announced, pointing to an aged negro with haunted sin-sick eyes who appeared to be making strange grimaces at the wall. a straw hat of splendid dimensions was on his head, flaunting bravely the insignia of the firm.
but the old man seemed resolved to run no more errands:
“nsa, nsa,” he mumbled: “me walk enough for one day! me no go out any more. old abou too tired to take another single step! as soon would me cross the street again dis night as the sahara!...” 189
and it was only after the promise of a small gift of opium that he consented to leave a débutante’s bouquet at the théatre diana.10
“in future,” bachir rose remarking, “i only employ the women; i keep only girls,” he repeated, for the benefit of “effendi darling” who appeared to be attaining nirvana.
“and next i suppose you keep a harem?” “effendi darling” somnolently returned.
most of the city shops had closed their shutters for the day, when bachir shouldering a pannier bright with blooms, stepped with his companions forth into the street.
along the boulevards thousands were pressing towards the regina gardens to view the fireworks, all agog to witness the pack of beagles wrought in brilliant lights due to course a stag across the sky, and which would change, if newspaper reports might be believed, at the critical moment, 190 into “‘something of the nature of a surprise.’”
pausing before a plate-glass window that adjoined the shop to adjust the flowing folds of his gandourah, and to hoist his flower tray to his small scornful head, bachir allowed his auxiliaries to drift, mostly two by two, away among the crowd. only the royal salad-dresser, harry cummings, expressed a demure inclination (when the pushing young grocer caressed his arm), to “be alone”; but guy thin, who had private designs upon him, was loath to hear of it! he wished to persuade him to buy a bottle of vinegar from his store, when he would print on his paper-bags as supplied to his majesty the king.
“grant us, o allah, each good fortunes,” bachir beseeched, looking up through his eyelashes towards the moon, that drooped like a silver amulet in the firmament above: in the blue nocturnal air he looked like a purple poppy. “a toute à l’heure mes amis!” he murmured as he moved away.
and in the little closed shop behind the heavy moucharabi, now that they all had 191 gone, the exhalations of the flowers arose; pungent, concerted odours, expressive of natural antipathies and feuds, suave alliances, suffering, pride, and joy.... only the shining moon through the moucharabi, illumining here a lily, there a leaf, may have guessed what they were saying:
“my wires are hurting me: my wires are hurting me.”
“i have no water. i cannot reach the water.”
“they have pushed me head down into the bottom of the bowl.”
“i’m glad i’m in a basket! no one will hurl me from a window to be bruised under foot by the callous crowd.”
“it’s uncomfy, isn’t it, without one’s roots?”
“you weed you! you, you, you ... buttercup! how dare you to an orchid!”
“i shouldn’t object to sharing the same water with him, dear.... ordinary as he is! if only he wouldn’t smell....”
“she’s nothing but a piece of common grass and so i tell her!” 192
when upon the tense pent atmosphere surged a breath of cooler air, and through the street-door slipped the duchess of varna.
overturning a jar of great heavy-headed gladioli with a crash, she sailed, with a purposeful step, towards the till.
garbed in black and sleepy citrons, she seemed, indeed, to be equipped for a long, long voyage, and was clutching, in her arms, a pet poodle dog, and a levant-covered case, in which, doubtless, reposed her jewels.
since her rupture with madame wetme (both the king and queen had refused to receive her), the money ennuis of the duchess had become increasingly acute. tormented by tradespeople, dunned and bullied by creditors, menaced, mortified, insulted—an offer to “star” in the r?le of a society thief for the cinematograph had particularly shocked her—the inevitable hour to quit the court so long foreseen had come. and now with her departure definitely determined upon, the duchess experienced an insouciance of heart unknown to her assuredly for many a year. replenishing her reticule with quite a 193 welcome sheaf of the elegant little banknotes of pisuerga, one thing only remained to do, and taking pen and paper, she addressed to the editor of the intelligence the supreme announcement:—“the duchess of varna has left for dateland.”
eight light words! but enough to set tout kairoulla in a rustle.
“i only so regret i didn’t go sooner,” she murmured to herself aloud, breaking herself a rose to match her gown from an arrangement in the window.
many of the flowers had been newly christened, “elsie,” “audrey,” “london-madonnas” (black arums these), while the roses from the “land of punt” had been renamed “mrs lloyd george”—and priced accordingly. a basket of odontoglossums eked out with gypsophila seemed to anticipate the end, when supplies from punt must necessarily cease. however, bright boys, like bachir, seldom lacked patrons, and the duchess recalled glimpsing him one evening from her private sitting-room at the ritz hotel, seated on a garden bench in the regina gardens beside the 194 prime minister himself; both, to all seeming, on the most cordial terms, and to have reached a perfect understanding as regards the eastern question. ah, the eastern question! it was said that, in the land of dates, one might study it well. in djezira, the chief town, beneath the great golden sun, people, they said, might grow wise. in the simoon that scatters the silver sand, in the words of the nomads, in the fairy mornings beneath the palms, society with its foolish cliché ... the duchess smiled.
“but for that poisonous woman, i should have, gone last year,” she told herself, interrupted in her cogitations by the appearance of her maid.
“the train your grace we shall miss it....”
“nonsense!” the duchess answered following, leaving the flowers alone again to their subtle exhalations.
“i’m glad i’m in a basket!”
“i have no water. i cannot reach the water.”
“life’s bound to be uncertain when you haven’t got your roots!”
