chicken kebab with salty pickles. The food was good. Bond had spent three weeks on a tedious job in Beirut in 1960 and in his endless spare time had developed a taste for Lebanese cuisine. The wine list, however, was a joke, given that he had drunk excellent Lebanese wines in Beirut – all that was on offer here was Blue Nun Riesling and a red described as ‘Syrian Burgundy-type’ – so Bond played safe and ordered the local beer, Green Star. It was something of a first for him to drink beer with dinner, but the lager was light and very cold and complemented the strong flavours of the garlic and the pickles. Blessing had a cold lentil soup and a dried-mint omelette.
‘You’re not a vegetarian, are you?’ Bond asked, suspiciously.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Just not very hungry. Would it matter if I was?’
‘It might,’ Bond said, with a smile. ‘I’ve never met a vegetarian I liked, curiously. You might have been the exception, of course.’
‘Ha-ha,’ she remarked, drily. ‘By their food shall ye judge them.’
‘You’d be surprised, it’s not a bad touchstone,’ Bond said, and called for another Green Star. ‘Or so I’ve found in my experience.’
Since he had left her office she had had her hair redone. The plaited rows had gone and it was now oiled flat back against her head almost as if it was painted on. She had a shiny transparent gloss on her lips and was wearing a black silk Nehru jacket over wide flared white cotton trousers, and had some sort of crudely beaten pewter disc hanging round her neck on a leather thong. She looked very futuristic, Bond thought, with her perfect caramel skin, the colour of milky coffee, as if she were an extra from a science-fiction film.
The restaurant was in downtown Sinsikrou, near to the law courts and the barracks. It had a deliberately modest facade with a flickering neon sign that bluntly read ‘El Kebab – Best Lebanon’, but the first-floor dining room was air-conditioned and there were white linen cloths on the tables and waiters in velvet waistcoats and tasselled tarbooshes. Bond had spotted several high-ranking soldiers and also some of the journalists who’d been at the briefing earlier that day. El Kebab was obviously the only place in town.
They chatted idly as they ate, keeping off the subject of their business with each other – the tables were close and it would be easy to overhear or eavesdrop. Blessing told him more about the civil war and its origins from her perspective. Being half-Lowele, she explained, she thought that the Fakassa junta that had provoked and engineered secession were crazy. What did they think the rest of the country was going to do? Sit on their collective hands? Allow themselves to become impoverished? At least the British government had acted quickly, she said. If they hadn’t come down on the side of Zanzarim immediately and refused point-blank to recognise the new republic, perhaps Dahum’s de facto existence might have become a foregone conclusion. Alacrity was not normally a virtue of Her Majesty’s governments, Bond thought – there would be more at stake here than preserving the rule of international law.
‘Do you want a pudding?’ Bond asked, lighting a cigarette.
‘I’d rather have a proper drink somewhere,’ she said.
‘Excellent idea, Ogilvy-Grant. Let’s go back to the Excelsior.’
Blessing drove them to the hotel, Bond looking out of the window at the garish cinema of the night-time city that was Sinsikrou. Blaring high-life music seemed to come from almost every house, and multicoloured neon tubes appeared to be the illumination of choice. Dogs, goats and hens searched the storm drains for titbits; naked children stood in doorways staring at the passing cars, entranced; off-duty soldiers swaggered through the roadside crowds, Kalashnikovs and SLR rifles slung over their shoulders. And every time they stopped at a traffic light or when the gridlock of cars slowed them to walking pace,
‘You’re not a vegetarian, are you?’ Bond asked, suspiciously.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Just not very hungry. Would it matter if I was?’
‘It might,’ Bond said, with a smile. ‘I’ve never met a vegetarian I liked, curiously. You might have been the exception, of course.’
‘Ha-ha,’ she remarked, drily. ‘By their food shall ye judge them.’
‘You’d be surprised, it’s not a bad touchstone,’ Bond said, and called for another Green Star. ‘Or so I’ve found in my experience.’
Since he had left her office she had had her hair redone. The plaited rows had gone and it was now oiled flat back against her head almost as if it was painted on. She had a shiny transparent gloss on her lips and was wearing a black silk Nehru jacket over wide flared white cotton trousers, and had some sort of crudely beaten pewter disc hanging round her neck on a leather thong. She looked very futuristic, Bond thought, with her perfect caramel skin, the colour of milky coffee, as if she were an extra from a science-fiction film.
The restaurant was in downtown Sinsikrou, near to the law courts and the barracks. It had a deliberately modest facade with a flickering neon sign that bluntly read ‘El Kebab – Best Lebanon’, but the first-floor dining room was air-conditioned and there were white linen cloths on the tables and waiters in velvet waistcoats and tasselled tarbooshes. Bond had spotted several high-ranking soldiers and also some of the journalists who’d been at the briefing earlier that day. El Kebab was obviously the only place in town.
They chatted idly as they ate, keeping off the subject of their business with each other – the tables were close and it would be easy to overhear or eavesdrop. Blessing told him more about the civil war and its origins from her perspective. Being half-Lowele, she explained, she thought that the Fakassa junta that had provoked and engineered secession were crazy. What did they think the rest of the country was going to do? Sit on their collective hands? Allow themselves to become impoverished? At least the British government had acted quickly, she said. If they hadn’t come down on the side of Zanzarim immediately and refused point-blank to recognise the new republic, perhaps Dahum’s de facto existence might have become a foregone conclusion. Alacrity was not normally a virtue of Her Majesty’s governments, Bond thought – there would be more at stake here than preserving the rule of international law.
‘Do you want a pudding?’ Bond asked, lighting a cigarette.
‘I’d rather have a proper drink somewhere,’ she said.
‘Excellent idea, Ogilvy-Grant. Let’s go back to the Excelsior.’
Blessing drove them to the hotel, Bond looking out of the window at the garish cinema of the night-time city that was Sinsikrou. Blaring high-life music seemed to come from almost every house, and multicoloured neon tubes appeared to be the illumination of choice. Dogs, goats and hens searched the storm drains for titbits; naked children stood in doorways staring at the passing cars, entranced; off-duty soldiers swaggered through the roadside crowds, Kalashnikovs and SLR rifles slung over their shoulders. And every time they stopped at a traffic light or when the gridlock of cars slowed them to walking pace,
Similar Books
