Atdtda27: Mapping time, 761-762

[Paul Nightingale]

Halfcourt’s memories now include those of Dwight Prance: “Now he could
scarcely be recognized ...” etc. Prance’s appearance (“in some tattered
wreck of a turnout intended ... to be read as Chinese”) is in some contrast
to that of Al Mar-Fuad on 757. Prance is “distracted” (761), unable to keep
track of burning cigarettes as though memory is zero, lighting up a reflex
action separated from what follows, or should follow. In the same way, his
appearance (the same is true of AM-F) is only odd if one considers the past,
how the past is allowed to dictate, if not determine, the present.
Consequently, Prance is taken aback to realise he has “been engaged for the
past--my God! it’s been a year ... more than a year”. Conventional
measurements of time are rendered obsolete.

If his appearance suggests Prance has ‘gone native’, this view is
corroborated by what follows: “... we must think of the entire north
Eurasian land-mass ... in the eyes of those we must eventually face”.
Mapping, the imposition of a colonial perspective, is no longer possible,
“the familiar Powers ... cast in subordinate roles” (762). Cf. Prokladka’s
“[w]e are neither of us mountain fighters” on 758. Prance invokes, in
Halfcourt’s words, an “Asiatic Beerbohm Tree” (762): cf. the earlier
description of the Doosra on 756.

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