Free East of Suez by Howard Engel Page B

passing us. Time didn’t add up to much in these latitudes. I was trying to catch a sense of the tempo of the town. When I looked at my watch again, there were more empty bottles on the table. The afternoon had dissolved in drink and platters of salted peanuts. I recognized that this wasn’t my tempo. In Grantham, life moved at a faster pace. Here, I felt like a stone in an old wall, watching the centuries pass by. Many of the people walking in the streets appeared to be just strolling, not heading to the grocer or to the bank. It was a custom, apparently. A promenade following the afternoon siesta, maybe. A chance for casual meetings and schmoozing. I remember hearing years ago that they did something like this in Spain. Half of the town’s elite came out to watch the other half stroll along the main boulevard. Anyway, the priest and I enjoyed the show. Whole families, dressed to the teeth, showed off their sons and daughters. We watched, sipping our drinks, sitting that way for some time without talking.
    At length, he broke the silence. “You’re a curious sort of tourist, Mr Cooperman, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
    “In what way?”
    “This part of the world attracts people in groups or people with an obsession. You belong to neither group. You don’t carry a camera, you’re not loaded down with guidebooks. This is all very odd.”
    “Maybe I came for the waters.”
    “Ha! Another film buff. Wonderful! Father Graham will be happy to meet you. Father Graham has a film club: a thousand members, but only two dozen films. None of them Casablanca . You’ll find him interesting on the French New Wave and the film noir.” I wasn’t sure what sorts of movies he was talking about, but I wrote down the name, Father Graham, in my book and after it the note: “likes movies.”
    “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you dodged my question, Mr Cooperman. I’ll come back to it again when I know you better.”
    “You’ll never succeed in making me into a man of mystery, Father. What I’m looking forward to is a chance to visit one of the reefs offshore. My hobby is underwater swimming. I can’t wait to get out there to see what sort of marine life colonizes the reef. Have you ever done any of that sort of thing?”
    “I am like St Catherine, dear boy: I stay clear of water in all forms. Soon after I arrived out here, I was badly bitten by a piece of septic ice. I nearly died of it. Nowadays I keep to my shower. I may be depended upon to pass out holy water from time to time, but I consume only liquid spirits for pleasure.”
    “Sounds safe enough. But you misunderstand me, Father, if you think I’m some sort of underwater specialist. I just do what the guide tells me and watch my air and depth gauges. But I hope to buy a good underwater camera. Do you know of a reliable store?”
    “Try MacPherson’s, a couple of shops past the Trois Magots. He should be able to fix you up.”
    “Good! I was counting on being able to pick up a good camera here and at a decent price.”
    “Ha! Those days are gone forever. The locals know the value of things today, Mr Cooperman. There’s not much you can buy with cheap tin trays or cowry shells. Do you catch my meaning at all at all?” I couldn’t help laughing at him; his language had wandered so far from Chicago’s Loop.
    “Father, if I may be personal for a moment: you don’t sound like an American most of the time. Am I wrong?”
    “No, dear boy, I’m a bit of a polyglot. True, I was born in Chicago, but my early interests took me to London, where I worked for a few years at Birkbeck College, doing a doctorate in behavioral psychology. I always say that the chief credit for that work belongs to my pigeons. When that was over and done with, I became the apothecary to a group of dropouts on the east coast of Scotland. Quite a famous place for dropouts and ban-the-bombers. I was going through some sort of crisis of faith. I left the colony in a straitjacket. I