Lydgate, ill with frustration, once during the morning physically sick with anger, had waited, with his two suit-cases, on the road to the airport. Early, in good time to rage at the Dunia Airways clerk who, at flight-time, entered weights, collected money for excess baggage, made his final check of the manifest. The clerk had sent round a peon that morning to inform Lydgate that he would have to wait at least another week for a flight to Aden, his seat for today's flight having been given to someone travelling on official business. At Dunia Airways office in the town he had found nobody to storm at, plead with. On the hot road, waiting for some private car, some Government Land-Rover to appear, he had been sick once again. At last, very shaky, he had been able to climb into a jeep of the State Information Department, driven by a cynical Sudu who scorned the festive day and said that the Mosque was a load of superstition. The jeep, said the Sudu, was to pick up some fool or other visiting the State, arriving from Naraka at 1350. "Aeroplanes," said the Sudu. "A lot of nonsense. How do they keep up there, eh? You don't know and nor do I. A lot of trickery, if you ask my opinion."
There was no hope at the airport. Regret from the clerk — what could he do? — and no last-minute cancellation. Lydgate felt very ill and had to drink several brandies at the bar. The brandy did its work: nothing to worry about, really. Mudd dead. Bigamy, after all, not an offence that anybody would really want to take up. Only a few more days. A few more days in that fetid hut of a house, Mudd's head everywhere, dripping on a salver like that of the Baptist, black Salome coming with children. But, he thought, with alcoholic sobriety, it takes a fair length of time to prepare a head. As long as it takes to smoke a salmon. He saw a Potok standing by. He asked the Potok. The Potok looked at him strangely and moved away. And then this image of his own head, mummified, black, horrible, like the head of Jeremy Bentham between the feet of the effigy of Jeremy Bentham.
He got a lift back at the back of a Lambretta owned by a junior bank official. He left his luggage at the airport, taking back only the overnight case which held his toilet gear. Let the luggage stay there, earnest of no more frustration. He could buy another shirt in the town. He opened his keyless door, smelling heat and emptiness. He sat down, raking his thin hair with fingers rigid with nerves, and moaned to himself, sorry for the thing that was Francis Burroughs Lydgate, then wondering why he was sorry. Later in the afternoon he went out and, in the empty Kool Kaffi, got slowly drunk. He had a small Chinese meal — spaghetti and prawns, though hardly able to manage the chopsticks. Then he, very slowly, very deliberately, walked back to his house in the circumcising night. He opened the door. Only a few more days, away from it all, nothing to worry about really. The light was on.
"Francis," said the woman, "oh, Francis, Francis, Francis." She held out her hands to him. She was an old woman, about sixty, thin, lined, very brown, dry, hair quite grey, dressed in a costume of striped moygashel, stick-legs planted in mosquito-boots, gold ring on her left ring-finger, fingers like bones. "No," said Lydgate in fear. "No, no, no. I don't know you, what are you doing here, get out."
"Oh, it's been such a long time, Frands. I'm not surprised you don't recognise me." The head could hardly be further shrunken, not even by the most skilled of Potoks skilled in the art of shrinking. But the eyes were sharp blue, the nose Dantesque, the mouth a wide wound, quivering now. The cheeks and forehead were scored and scored, the whole face free of rouge, powder, anything that might show her to be a woman other than her clothes.
"I don't know you," said Lydgate. "I tell you I don't know you. Why don't you get out?"
"And you too, my poor boy. So old-looking, so very old. We're both old, Francis. But thank God I've found you at last. I'm so alone, so all alone. When I think what they did to poor Roderigo." She sobbed and then made a must-be-brave gesture of the head. "I'm punished, punished. I should never have let you go. This is my punishment, but God has turned it into a blessing, perhaps. I've found you. Who would have thought it, me registering at the hotel, then a Chinese telling me there was another Lydgate in the town? Then I knew it was you, Frands. Do you remember your old joke about your initials? You used to say you weren't F.B. but a B.F. And I scolded you for that, because I knew what it meant. But I've learned things, Francis, going about the world, working for our little cause. I've learned to be more tolerant. My poor boy." She came up to him, walking stiffly, gracelessly, her hand ready to smooth his face. "And you're so hot. You're sweating terribly. Have you got fever, my poor boy? Let me feel your forehead."
"No, no, no," said Lydgate, at bay against the soft woven wall. "Don't touch me."
"It's a strange surprise, isn't it, Francis? Almost like a shock. But we'll both get over it. We're husband and wife, after all, and we have a duty to each other. I will never let you go." she said, her voice suddenly sharp, "Never, never, never. You're going to be mine again. I'm sorry, I'm sorry with all my heart that I went with Roderigo, but I swear, I swear by Almighty God that there was nothing sinful between us. I did wrong to you, Francis, just as you did wrong to me. But I can repent, and I can forgive. Oh, I'm so, so happy." Tears tumbled down the lines of her old leathery cheeks. "I'm going to say a prayer," she said, "here and now. I'm going to thank God for letting me find you again at last, and I'm going to pray that He will always keep us together, teach us to love each other purely and sincerely, give us both the happiness that we've missed for so long." She knelt on the floor, her joined hands on the chair-seat, eyes closed. She opened them suddenly, sharply on Lydgate. "Kneel down with me, my poor, poor boy. Kneel down and pray with me."
"No, no," said Lydgate. "No, no, no." He stumbled, fighting air to get to the door, fumbling at the handle. A man stood outside in moonlight, arms by his side. He was just black bulk, small but broad. He pushed Lydgate in again, gently, apologetically, murmuring.
"All right, Daud," called the woman. "He's not hurting me. He's my husband," she laughed, and the laugh was pure metal. "And, oh, Daud, we'll go down later and get the luggage. Just wait outside." The door closed. "That's Daud," she said, "a Moslem. A very good man. He's been with me for, let me see, nearly fifteen years. He looks after me really well," she said. "He won't let anything bad happen to me. I do believe he'd give his life. That's love," she explained, "devotion. Now, come on, Francis, kneel down with me. Let's start our new life really well, really holily." And she began to pray, while Lydgate stood rigid, clutching the strands of fibre that made the wall. "Oh, Almighty God," she prayed, "thank You for sending my husband back to me. Make me the good wife I never was before. Make him the good husband he never was before. Knit us together into one flesh, one spirit. Teach us to do Thy holy will in all things, in the way we behave, the things we eat. Make our bodies pure by virtue of the pure things that alone shall enter them. Give us pure thoughts, strengthen our love for each other and, through that love, our love for Thee. Forgive all my past sins, forgive all his past sins. Make us truly blessed in Thy love and Thy grace, Thou, O God, Who art all things — " her voice grew louder, it began to whine in sing-song — "All things, O God. The moon in the sky and the dog that bays beneath it, the tamarind and the oak, the sea and the sand, the head and the foot, the heart and the cerebral cortex, the man and the woman, the lock and the key, the maker and the destroyer, time and not-time, what was made and what never could be made. All are Thee, O God, O dear, dear God." She bowed her head deeper, breathing deeply like a sybil. Quietly she said, "Amen."
"No, no," whined Lydgate. "No, no, no."
A deep voice outside prayed, "Amin."
"Roderigo taught me how to pray," she said simply. "Poor, poor, dear Roderigo. Roderigo eaten. Roderigo without a head. But Roderigo with God." She cried briefly into her hands. She got up smiling, bright, and said to Lydgate, "Well, we must do something about getting my luggage. My poor boy, we must make a home out of this charming, simple house. You seem to have so few things. But you have me now, and I shall look after you. I shall help you in any way I can. We're together again, and I shall never, never leave you. And you will never, never, never again leave me."
"Amin," said the voice outside.
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