Mr. Smetana managed to get out of the State of Dunia without being assaulted by Lydgate. Sitting in the aircraft Mr. Smetana was able to munch sandwiches and reflect that, on the whole, he had not done too badly out of the trip. He had sold all his drawings and half his canvases and cleared something like two thousand bucks (or pieces of eight). There had been things to annoy him – the weather, the food and lack of food, the inevitable colonial philistinism. Also the demand on the part of the State Board of Literary and Film Censors that he give its members a pre-view in the Chin Chin Cinema on the Monday morning. It was all a mistake, of course: the Board had understood that a Frenchman (Frankistani) was bringing in blue films of his own making, and there had been many ad hoc co-options to the Board. The large audience of pure-hearted Moslems that filled the cinema was naturally disappointed when the pictures were found to be static and, moreover, harmless; some members of the Board had become captious and grumbled about naked Sudu bosoms in some of Mr. Smetana's village scenes; Mr. Smetana had shouted back and the morning had become lively. However, a palace officer had, as a member of the Censorship Board, been able to report back to the Caliph that the exhibition would not be without interest, and Mr. Smetana had been paid, for four little drawings, more than he had ever expected to be paid. So everything had gone well. Now for Tanganyika and more black beauties and dripping date palms, more rest-houses and bad food and philistines. Still, one had to suffer for one's art. Then back to Asmara and little golden-skinned Paul, very good Christian boy, waiting shyly in the two-roomed flat, and to the State of Dunia no auf Wiedersehen.
The U.N. Adviser snarled at Lydgate for letting Mr. Smetana into the State. Lydgate had had to point out that, as Controller of Passports, he had a right to exercise his own discretion as far as temporary visitors were concerned. The U.N. Adviser snarled that there must be no more visiting painters, especially Czech ones. Before closing-time on the second day of the exhibition Lydgate went to see what were left of Mr. Smetana's paintings and saw a portrait of a Potok girl nursing a golden-haired boy, price eighty bucks. The Potok girl was, all that was visible of her, naked, and there was a pleasant counterpoint of floating wavy gold and firm round black breasts. Lydgate asked Mr. Smetana where he had met Wajak and Mr. Smetana said that she was a little whore whom he had met in a cabaret in Shurga four months previously, pregnant but ready for superfetation. Lydgate had not been able to hit Mr. Smetana there and then, for the State Education Officer and his wife were present and also the State Marine Officer and three New Zealand stenographers. The next morning Mr. Smetana had gone.
The trouble was, thought Lydgate, sitting in depression in his office, that it might be true. Wajak had left for Shurga ridiculously early, only five months gone, as far as he could reckon, on the plea of a premonition that the child would be born about six months after conception. She argued that this must be so because his, Lydgate's, children had been born after nine months and he, Lydgate, had been about fifty; this new father was only about thirty-five and one had to make a proportionate adjustment in calculating the time for gestation. Lydgate's counter-arguments had made no impression: Wajak was a primitive person, and primitive people take a long time to learn to observe; Wajak was also, though sweet and pleasant to cuddle in bed, not very bright. Still, Wajak ought to learn to tell the truth and not pretend she was living quietly in her native village when in fact she was earning pin-money in a dance-hall. 'Women,' thought Lydgate, 'women.'
Lydgate prepared to look at the mass of official correspondence on his desk, ready for strange syntax, weird spelling, atrocious typing, ambiguity, nonsense – work of ill-trained administrators, executives, clerks of the new post-war breed. But first he comforted himself with looking out of the window at his car, but newly arrived by coastal steamer – parked shining in the sunlight that had returned to the town. He was mobile again, independent of yellow-headed taxis. Then he looked at the opposite wall of his office, whereon a patch of damp was hidden by a Syrian calendar, and thought that the portrait of Wajak and his son George would have graced it. But you can't buy a man's picture and threaten to hit him at the same time. Besides, the real Wajak would be back soon, together with three children. Work for them. Through the glass wall that was an eye on the general office Lydgate could see his subordinates of many races, not working much. Humble folk of the town sought passport renewals, travel permits, identity cards; the black and brown clerks were lordly behind the desks, making the human right to stasis or mobility a costly privilege. Lydgate, incorrupt, looked at his letters.
The first one was not ill-spelled, not ill-typed, and this was unusual for a letter from the U.N. Adviser's office. Under a glory of crest and embossed titles the rubber- stamp U.N. Adviser informed the Controller of Passports that the decision to refuse entry to Mr. M. Bastians had been revoked: he would be allowed to remain in Dunia for twenty-four hours. At the bottom of the curt but literate page was typed "Copy to Chief Police Officer". Lydgate was surprised but approved the wisdom of the U.N. Adviser's change of mind: Patu, sponsoring Bastians, had a fair and dangerous following. Or perhaps the U.N. Adviser had decided that politicians were less dangerous than artists. The second letter was from Mudd's office: it gave a list of quasi-permanent immigrants who would be working in government departments, together with expected dates of arrival. Lydgate reached in a desk drawer for a small flask of brandy he kept for stomach upsets: prominent was the name of Mrs. Lydia Lydgate. She would be arriving by air in, Lydgate checked by the calendar, less than a week. He swigged some brandy shakily. Taking a hold on himself, he reflected that he was mobile, had a fast car, never went to the Club, was rarely invited out, need never meet her, could always flee her. But what a damnable thing. His body and nerves seemed to tauten under the blow of the brandy; he seemed to foresee an annihilation of the space that would separate them, the full bulk of her hip pressing against his through a mile of air, her un-Australian actress's voice striking an ear that had become a radio receiver incapable of being switched off – "He's living with one of the abo women. How many bastards has he got? Whisky ginger ale, please." He threw her full body, her clear voice, her ridiculous name into the in-tray.
The next letter was again from the U.N. Adviser's office but, unlike the first, so clumsy in diction and orthography that Lydgate doubted for a moment if it were genuine. It stressed the need, especially during the period preceding the opening of the Mosque, for strict observance of the Immigration Enactment. The regulation concerning sponsorship of intending immigrants applied, Lydgate was reminded, to re-entrants as much as to original applicants for entry into the State. Sponsorship for previous entry was not automatically valid for re-entry. The time-quota for immigrants who were not employed by the Government was two years, but, even if unexpired, it was deemed to have expired if a period of intended temporary absence from the State were prolonged beyond three months, no matter what the cause. In view of the impending shortage of accommodation which would be occasioned by the arrival of the visitors who were to assist at the opening of the Mosque, along with their entourages, it was obviously necessary to limit the number of temporary entrants coming even on bona fide business. As for intending entrants whose business was not bona fide – let it be remembered that the State would soon be crawling with holy men who would be informed – in a handout prepared by the Information Department – that Dunia's secondary title (conventional Arabic epistolary) was Daru'r-ridzwan – the Abode of Grace. What grace could there be (the letter clumsily implied) where the reek of opium, of pork-seller's stalls, of whore's perfumes rose to choke the calling muezzin?
Lydgate smoked and thought. He saw, and did not see, through the glass wall by the tail of his right eye, urgent bargaining proceeding over the right of identity. Clearly on the wall opposite he saw Wajak, in full black, projected, along with a golden-haired child, a gold-bodied child, and a child whose colour he had yet to see. So she was not to be allowed to return. Status? Not wife. Occupation? Mistress, not to be found in the schedule of government posts. Or perhaps servant, keeper of his house, suckler of one child he must call his, groundnut-boiler for the two perhaps certainly his. "Madam I may not call you, mistress I am ashamed to call you." So Queen Elizabeth I had greeted the wife of the Archbishop. But, whatever she was, she was heartily welcome. For Wajak, however, there was no welcome.
In a flash, in the lighting of a fresh match, Lydgate betrayed Wajak. If she could not enter Dunia, was that his fault? The Controller of Passports, of all officials, should be above suspicion. It would be the foulest sort of corruption to take advantage of his position, would it not? Besides, was his house really big enough for a mistress and three children?
Sex. Did he really need that now? He thought, tested his reactions to various images, tried to be honest with his glands. Yes, he did need it. Occasionally. He again saw Paolo Tasca and the wife of Forbes of Marmion in the street lighting that shot thin shafts through the cracks of the workmen's hut. Disgusting, ridiculous, when other people did it. Still, it was there, if he wanted. Next door too, everything laid on. Forbes of Marmion had learned nothing: the poor little kiddy had been taken advantage of by men who should have known better. Nightly she was allowed to go to town while he nursed the children at home. And nursed the back of his skull, still sore.
Lydgate felt, for some reason, virtuous. He was being faithful to something, if only the Immigration Enactment. And, before he sank into the sleep of his routine work, he caught an image of Lydia Lydgate, the barrack-room beauty, dream of home, not now able to sneer at abo keeps and chocolate-coloured bastards.
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