Barnes. Pdf

 
Chapters 
15
husband in the garment business, some master cutter who had set up on his own; but a conversation on Paros had revealed him 
to be a recently retired professor of philosophy from the mid-West. As the couple passed Franklin's table on their way to the 
American quarter, Zimmermann muttered lightly, `Separating the clean from the unclean.' 
When they were all present, Franklin was taken off to the purser's office, where the leader was installed. He found himself 
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wondering if the slightly bulbous nose and the moustache were by any chance attached to the glasses; perhaps they all came off 
together. 
`Ah, Mr Hughes. You seem to be their spokesman. At any event, now your position is official. You will explain to them the 
following. We are doing our best to make them comfortable, but they must realize that there are certain difficulties. They will 
be allowed to talk to one another for five minutes at each hour. At the same time those who wish to go to the toilet will be 
allowed to do so. One person at a time. I can see that they are all sensible people and would not like them to decide not to be 
sensible. There is one man who says he cannot find his passport. He says he is called Talbot.' 
`Mr Talbot, yes.' A vague, elderly Englishman who tended to ask questions about religion in the Ancient World. A mild 
fellow with no theories of his own, thank God. 
`He is to sit with the Americans.' 
'But he's British. He comes from Kidderminster.' 
'If he remembers where his passport is and he is British he can sit with the British.' 
'You can tell he's British. I can vouch for him being British.' The Arab looked unimpressed. `He doesn't talk like an 
American, does he?' 
'I have not talked to him. Still, talking is not proof, is it? You, I think, talk like a British but your passport says you are not a 
British.' Franklin nodded slowly. 'So we will wait for the passport.' 
`Why are you separating us like this?' 
'We think you will like to sit with one another.' The Arab made a sign for him to go. 
'There's one other thing. My wife. Can she sit with me?'
'Your wife?' The man looked at a list of passengers in front of him. `You have no wife.' 
`Yes I do. She's travelling as Tricia Maitland. It's her maiden name. We were married three weeks ago.' Franklin paused, 
then added in a confessional tone, `My third wife, actually.' 
But the Arab seemed unimpressed by Franklin's harem. `You 
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were married three weeks ago? And yet it seems you do not share the same cabin. Are things going so badly?' 
`No, I have a separate cabin for my work, you see. The lecturing. It's a luxury, having another cabin, a privilege.'
`She is your wife?' The tone gave nothing away. 
`Yes she is,' he replied, mildly indignant.
`But she has a British passport.' 
`She's Irish. You become Irish if you marry an Irishman. It's Irish law.' . 
`Mr Hughes, she has a British passport.' He shrugged as if the dilemma were insoluble, then found a solution. `But if you 
wish to sit with your wife, then you may go and sit with her at the British table.' 
Franklin smiled awkwardly. `If I'm the passengers' spokesman, how do I get to see you to pass on the passengers' 
demands?' 
`The passengers' demands? No, you have not understood. The passengers do not have demands. You do not see me unless I 
want to see you.' 
After Franklin had relayed the new orders, he sat at his table by himself and thought about the position. The good part was 
that so far they had been treated with reasonable civility; no-one had yet been beaten up or shot, and their captors didn't seem 
to be the hysterical butchers they might have expected. On the other hand, the bad part lay quite close to the good part: being 
unhysterical, the visitors might also prove reliable, efficient, hard to divert from their purpose. And what was their purpose? 
Why had they hijacked the Santa Euphemia? Who were they negotiating with? And who was steering the sodding ship, which 
as far as Franklin could tell was going round in large, slow circles? 
From time to time, he would nod encouragingly to the Japanese at the next table. Passengers at the far end of the dining-
room, he couldn't help noting, would occasionally look up in his direction, as if checking that he was still there. He'd become 
the liaison man, perhaps even the leader. That Knossos lecture, in the circumstances, had been little short of brilliant; a 
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lot more balky than he'd imagined possible. It was the sitting alone like this that got him down; it made him brood. His initial 
burst of emotion - something close to exhilaration - was seeping away; in its place came lethargy and apprehension. Perhaps he 
should go and sit with Tricia and the Brits. But then they might take his citizenship away from him. This dividing-up of the 
passengers: did it mean what he feared it might mean? 
Late that afternoon they heard a plane fly over, quite low. There was a muted cheer from the American section of the 
dining-room; then the plane went away. At six o'clock one of the Greek stewards appeared with a large tray of sandwiches; 
Franklin noted the effect of fear on hunger. At seven, as he went for a pee, an American voice whispered, `Keep up the good 
work.' Back at his table, he tried to look soberly confident. The trouble was, the more he reflected, the less cheerful he felt. In 
recent years Western governments had been noisy about terrorism, about standing tall and facing down the threat; but the 

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J
ULIAN 
B
ARNES
: A History of the World in 10 ½