Atdtda27: Exile of the present tense, 759-761

[Paul Nightingale]

Halfcourt and Mushtaq discuss history. Halfcourt is stationed at the margins
of empire, yet “quite comfortably settled into a high-European mode of
residence at the palatial Hotel Tarim” (753). A home from home, the
transformation of place. Hence, “the exile of the present tense” (759)
highlights both a denial of movement, the erasure of colonial strategy, and
also the presence, somewhere, of a “no-longer-accessible homeland”.
Previously, Halfcourt has tested Prokladka by suggesting they “share what
[they] know” (758), raising the possibility that, as operatives in the
field, in the here-&-now, they have more in common with each other than
either has with their respective political masters. Or: raising the
possibility that this is what Prokladka himself actually believes (which, it
transpires, is far from being the case).

Introspective, Halfcourt recalls Yashmeen, a first acknowledgement of sorts
that he has received the letter Kit brought him. Recollection invokes the
ambiguity of his feelings (“... awkwardly, two creatures resident within the
same life”, 759). Mushtaq (“discover[ing] the advantages of absence”, 760)
projects a role for Halfcourt, one the latter rejects. Earlier, action was
repeatedly overheard: here, the Russians “[look] on with sorrowful
amusement”, the “program of mischief” they contemplate matching Halfcourt’s
own attempt to trap Prokladka on 758.

Yashmeen and the harem (761): cf. the exchange between the Ns on 489, eg
“that harem mentality”. Here, “a subaltern or two had been reported for
unauthorized peeping” (761). Cf. the bathing scene, “... Yashmeen, among her
handmaidens” on 490.

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