Atdtda27: Could be heard, 753-756

[Paul Nightingale]

Kit is “heard to mutter more than once ...” etc, speech confirmed by the
audience: this construction will feature again in the current section. On
repetition here in the opening lines, cf. Reef immediately post-shootout,
“repeating, like a sort of prayer in time of defeat” (744). Also cf. Kit’s
own earlier mantra, “[f]irst thing up in the morning, last thing before
climbing into bed at night ...” etc (318). Here, Kit plays (perhaps
re-plays) Stanley to Halfcourt’s Livingstone, slipping into his role, aware
that his actions are a quotation, as much a performance as the “routine”
exchanges between Halfcourt and Mushtaq (754).

Auberon Halfcourt is introduced as being quite at ease with his
surroundings, “comfortably settled” (753), and doubled by “his Russian
opposite number, Colonel Yevgeny Prokladka” (754). Another “Russian opposite
number”, of course, would be Yashmeen’s father, for whom Halfcourt is a
stand in. Nowhere in this section is the letter mentioned: no reason why it
should be, of course, although it does mean that Yashmeen--represented by
Kit, taking the form of Kit--is silenced in favour of “voices ... raised in
dispute ...” etc, “one of the routine weekly rows between Halfcourt and
Mushtaq, his colleague of many years” (cf. the bickering that characterised
Cyprian’s relationship with Theign, eg, on 706: “... cosily, all but
domestically, established in a pensione ...”), or even “... from Colonel
Prokladka’s establishment could be heard the sound of massed local
instruments, and a laughter whose loudness and constancy did not quite make
up for an all-but-complete absence of merriment” (755). The reader is
positioned by “... could be heard ...” here as earlier: “... voices from the
British side of the courtyard ... could be heard all over the establishment”
(754). Cf. the opening lines: “... Kit was heard to mutter ...” (753).

As the section ends, Yashmeen’s letter perhaps is echoed by “Feodora’s
letter”, apparently one that makes a significant impression on Klopski: his
vengeance on “that cavalry rogue Putyanin” recalls the duel that Kit almost
fought with Gunther (599-601).

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