Idries Shah - The Natives Are Restless

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Fosters sweat-bathed face was agonised. Its those damned drums, Carruthers, he panted, weakly. He slumped back on the makeshift brushwood bed.

Steady on, old chap. The Commissioner suppressed a shudder as the compelling, primitive rhythm thudded in his brain. You know our mission. Headquarters sent us to help these people, no matter what it costs.

He put the water-bottle to the trembling mans lips. Drink this, old fellow. Remember, the natives think that they own this jungle them and the spirits.

The drums continued their hellish pounding. The natives were restless all right. What would tomorrow bring?

Empires Eve by John Stout

I had been away from England for some months, and much of its image seemed to have faded, even to the extent that I was wondering whether some of my experiences there had really happened.

The little gray man in the crumpled suit, sitting next to me in the aircraft, soon put an end to all that.

If the River Thames, he was saying, as the jumbo circled London, hadnt been there, they could have made London much bigger.

But, I said, I thought that London only came into being because of the river. Capital cities do: center of trade and transport routes, defensive line, and so on.

He looked at me blankly; or, rather, with that English look which I knew so well, and which meant that I hadnt a chance. But I dont give up so easily. I tried again. Berlin on the Spree, Paris on the Seine, Cairo on the Nile, you know the idea.

Oh, that old thing! He used the dismissive phrase which marked him as an academic, and laughed, giving the short bark of scholarly insouciance. I automatically read the clues, knew what was coming now, and mimed the words of the next two sentences as he spoke them. Is that old theory still about? Disposed of it myself, years ago. Paper before the Geopsychological Society, back in fifty-three.

Luckily my confusion was covered by the bump of our landing. The Professor was impressed by the pilots skill, and thought that the other passengers applause arose from a similar cause. He had missed the irony, having only boarded the airliner at Frankfurt. All the way from South-East Asia we had had terrible moments whenever the kite took off or landed: shudderings, thumps, grinding noises. The coach-class passengers had even been issued with free glasses of Nigerian Riesling. And our morale had not been raised by the pilots voice from the public-address system. This is your captain speaking. We shall be taking off momentarily, and the next point we hit will be the coast of... English is a tricky language if you dont keep your wits about you.

Still, we were now in good old England once again. The Professor took my hand in his clammy one and pressed a card on me. It read, Professor Emeritus Xylophone Jaberish, MA, PhD, FIGS: Founder-President, International Geopsychological Society, London.

I soon found that I was neither geographically nor psychologically prepared for England; too much had taken place in my life since I last saw it.

A man in overalls caught my arm and said, first in English and then in Urdu, Get moving, dont block the gangway.

That was more like it: recognition of my existence by the terrestrial element. I made my way, pushed by eager tourists, marching stolidly behind the skein of travelers, eventually to arrive at a desk.

Everyone was standing docilely in line. They did not relish my placing myself at the head of the line: a habit Id picked up abroad, where Devil-take-the-hindmost is more current, and I made my way to more congenial company at the back, amid cries of Cheek! and I dont know what things are coming to, do you? invariably addressed by someone to someone else who did not know what things were coming to, either.

I was wearing a large pair of aviator-style dark glasses and a wide-brimmed hat as I shuffled up to the official and offered my passport. He immediately asked me to remove them. Before Id done that, he handed the passport back. I waited to be dismissed. He looked at me and said, Dont hold everybody up, sir: they havent got all day, you know. Consulting my watch, I noted that it was nearly midnight, and so I answered cheerily that nobody at all, himself included, had much of the day left, anyway.

I was sensitive enough to see that that, for some reason, did not please him either.

There had been no car on the tarmac to whisk me through, bypassing customs and immigration: but, of course, there hadnt been any visible tarmac. Now there was nobody to collect my bags from the carousel. I had been spoiled by the cosseting which Id got used to on a world tour. I picked up the cases myself, to carry them past the Customs people. Then one of them stopped me.

Lets be having you, then.

Having me? Oh, yes; English for Ill deal with you now.

I said, Nothing to declare, Officer.

Then why are you going through the Red Channel?

I didnt even know that I was in a channel. How do I get into some other one?

You step over there, and go through the Green Channel.

How do you do that, actually? And how do you mean, Channel? It looks just like the way out: like nothing at all, just space.

He looked at me wearily. I wouldnt try to be a comedian, sir...

Im not going to. Im a writer, you see...

His colleague was more helpful, if less perceptive. Let im go, Bert. E don unnerstan a werd v English, ass aw.

Thank you, I said. And I shall commend you to your superior. His only answer was directed toward his colleague. See worri mean, Bert?

I passed through an open door and found myself in a larger hall, teeming with people. Again there was nobody to take charge of me, no camera flashlights, or gleaming teeth, not a single garlic breath. Only a sense of anticlimax, almost of loss.

Then, suddenly, I was through, and in vociferous demand, as several men, each claiming to be a special cheap taxi service, each looking less like a taximan than the last, descended upon me.