Pascali's Island (12 page)

'Ah, die Schleusen,' Herr Gesing said. 'Do you know Stefan George?

Auf die Schleusen

Und aus Rusen

Regnen Rosen

Güsse Flüsse

Die begraben'

'Good God,' Mister Bowles said, presumably in some sort of reproof or embarrassment at this public display.

'The irrational isn't outside somewhere, waiting to flood in,' Doctor Hogan said. 'You are doing the same thing as our friend here, creating abstractions.'

'That is true,' Monsieur Chaudan said, inclining his head politely. 'It is not separated. The rational and the irrational, ils habitent le même corps.'

'The same body,' Doctor Hogan said. 'That is somehow a frightening idea. Like running from a demon to your own safe room, and locking the door, and finding the demon locked in with you.'

Mister Bowles cleared his throat. 'Was it a profitable practice?' he said suddenly. 'The one you gave up, I mean.' The question came oddly, at this juncture. At first I interpreted its severely practical tone as a protest against the general nature of the conversation, which he was perhaps finding uncomfortably literary; but I realised almost at once that in fact it marked the degree to which Mister Bowles had been impressed by the sacrifice of material interest the doctor had made by settling here all those years ago.

It took Doctor Hogan, engaged as he was in the conversation with Chaudan, several moments to understand what Mister Bowles was driving at. Then he said, 'Yes, reasonably so. Why do you ask?'

'Well, I am a practical man,' Mister Bowles said. 'These things have to be taken into account when we are making decisions. We can't just throw everything overboard.'

'That depends on the nature of the cargo and the state of the weather.' The doctor looked away from Mister Bowles towards his wife, who was sitting opposite. They smiled at each other.

'Yes, but just a minute,' Mister Bowles said. He was obviously intending to press the matter further, but at this point, quite audibly, though distant, we heard the sound of male voices chanting. It came from somewhere above us, in the main part of the town.

'Now what is that?' Mrs Marchant said.

'Tomorrow is Saint Alexei's Day,' I explained to her. 'He is the Patron Saint of the island. A local saint, you know. They don't bother about him anywhere else. They have the custom here of bearing him in effigy around the town, on the evening before. Then he is left in the church all night.'

'That sounds mighty interesting,' Mrs Marchant said.

With a very unattractive disregard for the present trend of the conversation, and in particular for Mrs Marchant, who was waiting to hear more of Saint Alexei, Herr Gesing now abruptly returned to his former topic. 'No, no,' he said loudly, 'Geist is to Gischt related, the white of the sea. Always moving. Perhaps also it is to Gäscht related, that is in the bread, to make it rise up. Again, you see, the movement, the fermending. Verstehen Sie?'

'Fermenting,' I said.

'The French word does not signify anything of that kind,' Monsieur Chaudan said, looking at Herr Gesing coldly.

The German raised his face of a plump hawk. 'Not surprise,' he said. 'Your language is poor in many ways. Wiedergeburt, for example, you have no word for Wiedergeburt.'

'Rebirth,' I said.

'Rebirth, ja. In French there is not this idea. So, there is not this possibility.'

'What I mean is,' Mister Bowles said to the doctor, totally ignoring Herr Gesing, 'we must keep a firm hold on reality. You know, both feet on the ground. I suppose a lot depends on nationality, really.'

There was a certain crassness in this that made me look quickly at Lydia, but her face reflected no consciousness of it. The doctor smiled at Mister Bowles, but not with great warmth. 'You do not have the look of a realist,' he said, 'if you will forgive my saying so. And I don't think, myself, that the English are such a realistic people as all that. Not like the French, for example.'

'I can't agree with you,' Mister Bowles said stiffly.

'We have no words for stupid abstractions, ca c'est vrai,' Monsieur Chaudan said to Herr Gesing in a tone of anger. 'Stupid and dangerous also. On n'en a pas besoin. We don't need them.'

I heard the chanting again, this time much nearer. Herr Gesing looked down at his plate. He did not reply to the Frenchman. When he looked up again it was on Mister Bowles that he fixed his eyes.

'The researches,' he said. 'They are going well?'

Mister Bowles looked briefly at me. Then he transferred his gaze back to the German. 'Yes,' he said. 'Very well.' His hands, as they lay on the table, and one side of his face, were tinted pale crimson from the lantern over his head. Small moths fluttered against the panes of the lanterns, clung there, or fell back dazed among the vine leaves. 'How did you know about it?' Mister Bowles said.

Herr Gesing made a small gesture with one hand. 'Somebody was speaking about it,' he said. 'You go there often,' he said. 'Every day. It is interesting for you, yes?' he said.

'Very interesting,' Mister Bowles said. Deliberately he looked away from Herr Gesing, back to Doctor Hogan. 'We have always been known as a practical people,' he said.

'Practical is not the same as realistic,' the doctor said. 'You have ideas of things, always formed beforehand somehow. So you don't look closely. As if you had dreamed it. Then you try to shape things in accordance with the dream. It's all right when it fits, but if the matter proves recalcitrant, you become unreasonable. Very unreasonable.' The doctor paused, looking across at Mister Bowles with his habitual expression, cheerful, sly rather-but without real malice. 'The Irish know that to their cost,' he said. 'Cromwell was a great dreamer.'

Mister Bowles was visibly not pleased by these words, but before he could say anything in reply our attention was distracted by the appearance on to the square to our right of Saint Alexei on his litter, borne by six men and preceded by two priests with censors. They walked in silence now. Oil lamps at either side of the saint's face lit up the yellow composure of his features. His arms in cloth of gold were crossed over his breast. Light from the lamps fell on the faces of the bearers, and they too had a set, waxen appearance, like the saint's mourning offspring. They walked the length of the square and disappeared from view.

'What is he made of?' Mrs Marchant said.

'Wax,' I replied. 'A good seventy years old at that.'

'I really am fascinated by these age-old religious practices,' Mrs Marchant said. 'They seem to embody the whole spirit of a people.'

'Tomorrow evening in the church, they enact his Assumption,' I said. 'Rather an interesting ceremony in its way. If you would like to see it I'll accompany you, with pleasure.'

I suppose it was rash of me to commit myself to a public appearance, but I have a faint hope of something from Mrs Marchant. Love, money, Preferably both. A very faint hope-I am not everybody's beau idéal. Penniless, possessed, pursued Pascali. I need a benefactress if anyone does. Besides, I am beginning to sicken of my fears. I will show my face boldly in the church.

Mrs Marchant at once closed with my offer, the arrangement was made. Shortly afterwards Lydia and she, and Mister Bowles, went off together. The Hogans left. Chaudan, too. I rose with alacrity. I did not want to be left alone with Herr Gesing.

He had seen the look Mister Bowles gave me. He would question me.

'Ah,' he said, as I stood there. 'The great interpreter.'

'Yes,' I said. 'As you say.'

Herr Gesing nodded his head slowly. He was a little drunk. 'The linguist,' he said.

'Yes,' I said. 'Polyglot, perverted, of mixed descent, you behold in me the perfect Ottoman gentleman.'

Nervousness made me flippant, Excellency. He looked at me in silence for a while, then he said, 'This lease, this famous lease, it is not legal, Pascali. It is not valid. It was not for them… He has no right.'

'In that case…' I said.

He raised one broad, short-fingered hand. 'No,' he said. 'There are other interests…'

'Involved?'

'Involved, ja. He must be persuaded, Pascali. Quietly. From the land… removed. It is dangerous for him.'

Herr Gesing moved his hand loosely back and forth several times. 'You do this for me,' he said. 'I will pay you.'

'I'll see what I can do,' I said.

He nodded, but said nothing more. I wished him good-night, and walked away.

Here now in the silence of my room, dawn threatening beyond the shutters, what I chiefly recall are the enmities running below the surface of that conversation, barely kept in check by manners. Traits of character, resources of language, used alike for assertions of national superiority. A little glimpse of the cockpit, Excellency. Then the American lady, taking a moral view. Even our resident Celt, the good doctor, normally so equable, allowed himself to blame Mister Bowles for the misfortunes of Ireland.

All the same there is something in what he said about the English, their capacity for dreaming. Look at their great colony of India, so many diverse races, so many millions, held in thrall. That is a continent in the grip of an alien dream, dream of destiny, dream of glory. How else to explain it? Not like your possessions, Excellency – those are lands of simple conquest, administered by the greatest bureaucracy the world has ever known. Admittedly this bureaucracy has now become petrified at an advanced stage of corruption. But after five hundred years what will theirs be like? It will not last so long. No one can dream so long.

Noon, Excellency. I must write fast if I am to finish my account of this morning before the time arranged for the meeting with Mrs Marchant. Forgive me if the style is slipshod.

Not a creditable morning for me, Excellency. Indeed, in a way, disgraceful. I am reluctant, really, to dwell on it. However, dwell on it I must. Every informer worth his salt must linger over distasteful matter sometimes. Even excrement can provide clues, if expertly prodded and sniffed. It is an obscure form of heroism for which we seldom get credit.

The fact is that I followed Mister Bowles and Lydia along the shore. It was not actually so planned and deliberate as this might sound – I must be careful not to give the wrong impression. They set off on horseback early, soon after the sun had risen, she riding easily on a chestnut mare, Mister Bowles stiff and awkward on a slightly restive grey-and-white gelding. (These horses belong to Cavit Oksuz, whose brother was sent to prison only a month ago for shooting a man on the mainland, at Cismeh – some quarrel over a woman.) She was dressed for riding in jodhpurs and boots. Mister Bowles, however, wore only a grey pullover and grey flannel trousers. He had on a cloth cap also, like those King Edward wears.

They passed along the shore below my window. I was only just awake, after some two or three hours of troubled sleep – I cannot sleep for long these days. No doubt they were intending to ride beside the sea until they reached the rocky parts below the headland, then turn their horses inland, up into the hills, thus following Mister Bowles's normal route. At least this is what I pretended to think, in order to give myself grounds for suspicion.

They rode at the verge of the water, now on the wet shingle, now allowing the horses' hooves to dip and flash in the shallows of the waves – hardly waves, brief grainy flaws in the surface. The sea brimmed with light, light held steady by the slight haze, not shed or split in any glints of brilliance. The sun was clear of the sea, but still trammelled in the dawn mist, not yet streaming off into the sky. Through this soft, luminous light they went, keeping the horses at a walking pace. They looked like conquerors, Excellency. Beyond them, awaiting their pleasure, the peaks and dromedary shapes of the mountains.

I watched them pass along the bay, watched first with my unaided eyes, then with Signor Niccoli's telescope. And when they were no longer visible, when they had dissolved in the fluid distance, I brooded on their passing. My room, scene of my labours over the years, scene of triumphs of a higher order than that mere physical superbia; yet seemed cramped and mean to me, the hole at the end of my burrowing life. I looked at my miserable paraphernalia of pleasure, books, hookah, coffee cup and bowl; at my shabby clothes and unkempt person, still sour from sleep. A kind of rebellious misery rose in me. Why should I sit here, hatching other people's motives and purposes?

In short, Excellency, I decided to follow them, to see what took them out riding so early. Even then, while I was still preparing to go out, even then I knew that I was deceiving myself, knew that I was committing a cardinal sin of informers, acting not out of professional curiosity, at least not mainly, but out of jealousy and pain. I knew what took them out so early. However, the decision once made, I lost no time. My linen suit I thought unsuitable, forgive the pun, too conspicuous against the hillsides. I put on my old jacket and trousers, lamentably crumpled and baggy, and on my head a dark grey headcloth, tied in the Turkish fashion. My shoes with the heels bent down into slippers. Dressed thus I was ready. I took the telescope, inside my jacket.

I followed their route at first, keeping near to the sea. There was no one else walking on the shore but ahead of me four men were pulling in a long net, a new one, lemon-coloured. They had the net almost in, most of it lying piled in a glinting froth beside them, but the catch was still in the shallow water-I could see the swarming gleams of the mackerel as the net came in hand over hand, the men uttering with each heave a single gutteral exclamation which carried clearly to me. I had no wish to approach too near them, even thus disguised, so I went up behind, on to the upper shore, where a sandy track goes through lavender and tamarisk, rising gradually away from the sea. The town was behind me now. Only a few scattered chardaks on the hillsides. There would be people up there, on the rocky terraces, working on their holdings. But at this distance, dressed thus, I would be simply an anonymous passer-by.

I had walked some two kilometres and was feeling tired already with the unaccustomed exercise, fully aware of my folly by this time, but obsessively unable to turn back. Then I saw the horses. They were tethered below me on a level bit of the foreshore, just above the jumble of rocks that cuts the headland off from any approach on foot from this side. There must at one time have been a massive fall of rock here. The sea has licked the rocks smooth, and in their reclinations they enclose pools, some of them deep, quite screened off from the land. Lydia and Mister Bowles would be down there, among the rocks.