“So I see.” Graham cursed the steward silently.
“On the other hand,” Haller continued, breaking his bread, “you may find the situation humorous. I do myself. Perhaps I am not as patriotic as I should be. No doubt I should insult you before you insult me; but, quite apart from the unfair differences in our ages, I can think of no effective way of insulting you. One must understand a person thoroughly before one can insult him effectively. The French lady, for example, called me a filthy Bosche. I am unmoved. I bathed this morning and I have no unpleasant habits.”
“I see your point. But …”
“But there is a matter of etiquette involved. Quite so. Fortunately, I must leave that to you. Move or not, as you choose. Your presence here would not embarrass me. If it were understood that we were to exclude international politics from our conversation we might even pass the next half-hour in a civilised manner. However, as the newcomer on the scene, it is for you to decide.”
Graham picked up the menu. “I believe it is the custom for belligerents on neutral ground to ignore each other if possible and in any case to avoid embarrassing the neutrals in question. Thanks to the steward, we cannot ignore each other. There seems to be no reason why we should make a difficult situation unpleasant. No doubt we can rearrange the seating before the next meal.”
Haller nodded approval. “Very sensible. I must admit that I am glad of your company to-night. My wife suffers from the sea and will stay in her cabin this evening. I think that Italian cooking is very monotonous without conversation.”
“I am inclined to agree with you.” Graham smiled intentionally and heard a rustle from the next table. He also heard an exclamation of disgust from the Frenchwoman. He was annoyed to find that the sound made him feel guilty.
“You seem,” said Haller, “to have earned some disapproval. It is partly my fault. I am sorry. Perhaps it is that I am old, but I find it extremely difficult to identify men with their ideas. I can dislike, even hate an idea, but the man who has it seems to be still a man.”
“Have you been long in Turkey?”
“A few weeks. I came there from Persia.”
“Oil?”
“No, Mr. Graham, archeology. I was investigating the early pre-Islamic cultures. The little I have been able to discover seems to suggest that some of the tribes who moved westward to the plains of Iran about four thousand years ago assimilated the Sumerian culture and preserved it almost intact until long after the fall of Babylon. The form of perpetuation of the Adonis myth alone was instructive. The weeping for Tammuz was always a focal point of the pre-historic religions-the cult of the dying and risen god. Tammuz, Osiris and Adonis are the same Sumerian deity personified by three different races. But the Sumerians called this god Dumuzida. So did some of the pre-Islamic tribes of Iran! And they had a most interesting variation of the Sumerian epic of Gilgamish and Enkidu which I had not heard about before. But forgive me, I am boring you already.”
“Not at all,” said Graham politely. “Were you in Persia for long?”
“Two years only. I would have stayed another year but for the war.”
“Did it make so much difference?”
Haller pursed his lips. “There was a financial question. But even without that I think that I might not have stayed. We can learn only in the expectation of life. Europe is too preoccupied with its destruction to concern itself with such things: a condemned man is interested only in himself, the passage of hours and such intimations of immortality as he can conjure from the recesses of his mind.”
“I should have thought that a preoccupation with the past.…”
“Ah yes, I know. The scholar in his study can ignore the noise in the market place. Perhaps-if he is a theologian or a biologist or an antiquarian. I am none of those things. I helped in the search for a logic of history. We should have made of the past a mirror with which to see round the corner that separates us from the future. Unfortunately, it no longer matters what we could have seen. We are returning the way we came. Human understanding is re-entering the monastery.”
“Forgive me but I thought you said that you were a good German.”
He chuckled. “I am old. I can afford the luxury of despair.”
“Still, in your place, I think that I should have stayed in Persia and luxuriated at a distance.”
“The climate, unfortunately, is not suitable for any sort of luxuriating. It is either very hot or very cold. My wife found it particularly trying. Are you a soldier, Mr. Graham?”
“No, an engineer.”
“That is much the same thing. I have a son in the army. He has always been a soldier. I have never understood why he should be my son. As a lad of fourteen he disapproved of me because I had no duelling scars. He disapproved of the English, too, I am afraid. We lived for some time in Oxford while I was doing some work there. A beautiful city! Do you live in London?”
“No, in the North.”
“I have visited Manchester and Leeds. I preferred Oxford. I live in Berlin myself. I don’t think it is any uglier than London.” He glanced at Graham’s hand. “You seem to have had an accident.”
“Yes. Fortunately it’s just as easy to eat ravioli with the left hand.”
“There is that to be said for it, I suppose. Will you have some of this wine?”
“I don’t think so, thank you.”
“Yes, you’re wise. The best Italian wines never leave Italy.” He dropped his voice. “Ah! Here are the other two passengers.”
They looked like mother and son. The woman was about fifty and unmistakably Italian. Her face was very hollow and pale and she carried herself as if she had been seriously ill. Her son, a handsome lad of eighteen or so, was very attentive to her and glared defensively at Graham, who had risen to draw back her chair for her. They both wore black.
Haller greeted them in Italian to which the boy replied briefly. The woman inclined her head to them but did not speak. It was obvious that they wished to be left to themselves. They conferred in whispers over the menu. Graham could hear José talking at the next table.
“War!” he was saying in thick, glutinous French; “it makes it very difficult for all to earn money. Let Germany have all the territory she desires. Let her choke herself with territory. Then let us go to Berlin and enjoy ourselves. It is ridiculous to fight. It is not businesslike.”
“Ha!” said the Frenchman. “You, a Spaniard, say that! Ha! That is very good. Magnificent!”
“In the civil war,” said José, “I took no sides. I had my work to do, my living to earn. It was madness. I did not go to Spain.”
“War is terrible,” said Mr. Kuvetli.
“But if the Reds had won …” began the Frenchman.
“Ah yes!” exclaimed his wife. “If the Reds had won.… They were anti-Christ. They burnt churches and broke sacred images and relics. They violated nuns and murdered priests.”
“It was all very bad for business,” repeated José obstinately. “I know a man in Bilbao who had a big business. It was all finished by the war. War is very stupid.”
“The voice of the fool,” murmured Haller, “with the tongue of the wise. I think that I will go and see how my wife is. Will you excuse me, please?”
Graham finished his meal virtually alone. Haller did not return. The mother and son opposite to him ate with their heads bent over their plates. They seemed to be in communion over some private sorrow. He felt as if he were intruding. As soon as he had finished he left the saloon, put on his overcoat and went out on deck to get some air before going to bed.
The lights on the land were distant now, and the ship was rustling through the sea before the wind. He found the companionway up to the boat deck and stood for a time in the lee of a ventilator idly watching a man with a lamp on the well deck below tapping the wedges which secured the hatch tarpaulins. Soon the man finished his task, and Graham was left to wonder how he was going to pass the time on the boat. He made up his mind to get some books in Athens the following day. According to Kopeikin, they would dock at the Piræus at about two o’clock in the afternoon, and sail again at five. He would have plenty of time to take the tram into Athens, buy some English cigarettes and books, send a telegram to Stephanie and get back to the dock.