Pascali's Island (13 page)

I stood there looking down, concealed among the tamarisk. The sun had freed itself from its bands of mist, giving way to brilliant incontinence. There was a great glittering track over the sea. Everything was as it should be at that hour, white stones of the shore, pale thrift among the stones, plumes of the tamarisk flower, sun-warmed scents of cistus and thyme. Silent among it all, somewhere down there, Lydia and Mister Bowles.

I thought I saw a flash of white, clothing or flesh. I took out my telescope and focussed it. The boulders revealed their pockmarks and blemishes, encrustations that looked like rust or faded blood. Improbably fronded vegetation trembled with my trembling hands. Menacing, I always feel, things brought so much nearer to the human eye. As if they resented it. Quite visible now the gleam and slide of water among the dark rocks. Nothing more than this for some time. Then, with hallucinatory suddenness and distinctness a bare brown arm whisked into the arbitrary frame of the lens, a thin brown arm with a gold circle at the wrist: Lydia 's. In a second it is gone again. She is naked, they are swimming naked together. I picture their limbs below the surface, glimmering, his golden pale, hers darker, the slow refractions of their bodies, touching, coiling in the blue water. Nothing now but the speckling of long dead crustaceans, rust of algae on the higher surfaces of the rocks. Then, lower down, for no more than five seconds, I see them together, the shine of the man's vertebrae, her right shoulder, the soft fold of flesh below the armpit. Gone again.

Nothing more, I saw nothing more, Excellency, but I knew, with immediate sick excitement, what they would be doing there, on the warm shingle, between rock and water, in the glory of the early sun. I saw with my famous imagination every move they made there, I was aware, while I continued to hold the telescope, continued to hold things closer in pulsing violation of natural law, aware of everything they did to each other, I was both of them in conjunction, he and she giving and receiving in my own person what they gave and received, and for a moment or two I experienced marvellous serenity at this equipoise of being, a glimpse of paradise, then the excitement returned, my own poor flesh stirred, demanded, my hands began to tremble violently. I could no longer hold the telescope. Even now, Excellency, that heat returns to me, that helpless stirring, even after my visit to Ali (which I am coming to shortly).

Let me say in extenuation that this was no common lust. Lydia, so long the compliant partner of my fantasy, Mister Bowles, with whom I had felt from the beginning such strong affinity… There was something, some element of beauty, of benediction, in what I felt. If, through the force of imagination I had been able to go step by step with them to the culminating moment, would not my experience have been indistinguishable from his, from theirs?

But I could endure it no longer. I scrambled to my feet, clutching the wretched telescope, turned away from that silence among the rocks, and from the horses patiently cropping. Home, in my shuffling heelless shoes. Home, but the familiarity of my room failed to quieten me. I could, it is true, have ministered to myself, been my own subject and agent, it would not have been the first time my room had been witness to such splendeurs et misères, and on this occasion it would have been apt, almost poetic; but I needed another, Excellency, needed some touch that was not my own. Needed Ali, in short.

I changed into my linen suit, noticing as I did so that there were oil marks on the right lapel. Brown-and-white shoes, straw hat. The sun was higher now, it was beginning to be hot. I kept my head down, looked at no one, exchanged no greetings. Always now, when I go into the town, among the people, I am afraid. A glance misinterpreted, the wrong inflection in a greeting, anything now could be the death of me. I thought I heard a man hiss from a doorway, but I did not look.

The baths are in the Konak, an area of small shops, soup kitchens, kebab stalls, where small traders, day-labourers and artisans live – Turk, Greek, Armenian and Jew living together in conditions of promiscuity and squalor. Effluvium from the houses runs down the open gutters of the sloping streets. Smells of urine, jasmine, burnt charcoal. Smells of my fortnightly indulgence, which I am now, under stress, anticipating by a few days. Today a sharper, more pervasive smell, noticeable here because of the airless closeness of the streets: the fetid smell of captive sheep. Silent now, however, in the heat, listless.

Past the mosque. Down the alley. A thin cat avoids me. The entrance is in the alley, between two streets. Five minutes later I am in my bath. Everything now inflames my need, every familiar sight and sound, beading of steam on the tiles, click of bath slippers on the boards, the coarse white towel on my rail.

Bath, steam room, and at last the massage parlour. A private cubicle, bien entendu.

Ali shows rose-pink underlip in a smile of greeting. 'Merhaba effendim,' he says. 'This is not your usual day.' He notices everything.

'I could not wait,' I tell him, and he smiles again. Ali is always very cheerful. He is cream coffee-coloured, the product of an irregular and probably forcible union of Arab father and negro mother. From Mersin. He was a ship's boy, and stopped off here to escape a brutal and lascivious captain. He thinks he is fifteen. One day he intends to open his own steam bath and massage parlour, and he is grateful for the little extra money that I and my like give him for his special attentions. Ali will go far, I think. He has a marvellous understanding of the needs of the flesh.

I lie supine on the narrow bench, in total nudity save for the customary towel over the loins. His strong fingers knead the last cramp out of my limbs, work in the cool oil. When I am completely relaxed, almost swooningly passive, the towel of my modesty is gently removed and his hands touch me with intimate knowledge and skill. Touch by touch, with patient judgement, he takes me to the brim, dallies exquisitely with me in this state until my whole body is pleading, then brings me over to spill in protracted throbs and shudders, back to drained peace, acquiescence in man's miserable lot.

I know that by these confessions I will have increased your contempt for me. But they are connected, they are necessary. Besides, you need contempt to sustain your position. God is fed on contempt, they say.

That was, as I say, earlier today. Back in my room I found a note under the door from Mister Bowles, who had called in my absence. He wants me to arrange a further interview with Mahmoud Pasha, though he did not say why.

I was prey for some time to feelings of depression. Partly no doubt due to the hollowing of my being I had experienced under Ali's hands. Triste omne animal. Though this had not been exactly coitus. Then I was conscious of having spent rather a lot while it was still so early in the month. And of course, the blank, tyrannical pages there before me, still waiting to be filled. There is the isolation I live in, the end of my usefulness as an informer, the prefiguring of my death I see in the closed faces of those around me. I find some consolation in Schopenhaeur, in his words about the indestructibility of being. No doubt Your Excellency is acquainted with them. 'This present moment, the sole form of reality, has its source within us, not without… Although when we die the objective world will be lost to us, as will the intellect with which we acknowledge that world, yet our existence will not be affected…'

If only I could picture existence without the world. I must try to sleep for an hour, or at least rest my eyes. Then it will be time to keep my rendezvous with Mrs Marchant.

Excellency, a most extraordinary thing happened in the church tonight, which I must relate to you in all its ugliness and absurdity, while it is still fresh in my mind. Our Saint Alexei fell down, collapsed, disintegrated in full gaze of the congregation; owing to the ineptitude of the decrepit priest, or so I suppose. And I was blamed for it!

I met Mrs Marchant as arranged outside the café Lykis, and we went together to the church. Well, in fact we went into the café first, because Mrs Marchant suggested it and I could think of no pretext for avoiding it. Not that I minded the time with her, on the contrary, but it was unfortunate, because gallantry impelled me to pay, thus further depleting my resources – Mrs Marchant, in addition to coffee, had a slice of chocolate gateau.

I learned that her husband had been dead for two years and she was now fulfilling a lifetime's ambition to travel. She seems genuine enough, and of course American ladies are freer and more independent than their European counterparts. She was wearing a grey silk dress with a lace neck and carrying a white handbag which I surmised was full of money.

We talked mainly about Mrs Marchant's enthusiasm for the ancient Greek world, and how on this island she saw all around her evidence of an unbroken link with the past. 'That sound I heard just now,' she said, 'on my way here – it was an octopus being beaten against a rock, the man was just whipping the rock with it, over and over again. Why do they do that, by the way?'

'To make the meat tender,' I said.

'Oh yes, they eat them, don't they? Well, that sound is the self-same sound they must have been hearing on this island for literally centuries. Don't you think that's wonderful?'

I answered this as best I could. Then I told her something about the ceremony we were about to see. Saint Alexei, I told her, was a man of very holy life and gifted with miraculous powers. He was in his youth dissolute and of loose morals, but underwent conversion near a village well in the interior, and thereafter spent his life in fasting and prayer, living apart from others in a cave not far from the place of his conversion. One day he vanished from there, and was never seen again by mortal eye. Or so it is said. It is believed that he was taken up to heaven. The well, though now dry, is still regarded as a holy place by the people of the island, and it is visited at certain times of the year, and votive offerings left there. In fact most of the stories about the saint relate to his powers of divining water, and his name is often invoked when there is danger of drought. Every year on this day his Assumption is enacted in the church of Aghios Giorgos on the outskirts of the town, a walk of about half a mile from where we were sitting.

Mrs Marchant listened. She expressed herself eager to see it all. The light was fading when we left the café. We walked through the streets together and Mrs Marchant remarked on the quantity of flat unleavened loaves in some of the shops. I explained that it was the custom, among Moslems, to eat such bread at the time of the Sacrifice Bayram. I also pointed out to her the number of little stalls, offering knives and cleavers for sale. She was struck by the great variety of these as to size and shape. I told her that they were for the cutting of the sheep's throats. Knife-makers do a great trade during this Bayram because the Turks, though possessing knives already, feel impelled to buy some new cutting weapon at this time of the year. Rather in the same way, I said, as you might buy a new dress for a party.

'I see, yes,' Mrs Marchant said. However, her interest in local customs, hitherto so determined, seemed to falter a little at this point. 'Perhaps,' she said, after a pause, and without much conviction, 'a new knife gives them a specially reverent sacrificial feeling?'

I agreed that this might be so. As you can imagine, Excellency, I did not feel very comfortable during this conversation. My own voice began to sound in my ears like a sacrificial bleat. In order to change the subject I pointed out to her the long crest of Mt Laris, which the Turks call Alti Dag, that fluid line which God made with his finger in a moment of joy, the Greeks say. The rose-gold suffusions of sunset were ebbing from the crest, warmth and colour fading from moment to moment, as from the rim of a long crucible – the alchemical process reversed, gold into baser metal.

The church is built on a rocky eminence, behind the town and somewhat above it. A good number of people were going in the same direction as we were, the women in black, the men with clean shirts buttoned up to the neck. There were some sidelong glances, but nobody appeared to take much notice of us-rather surprisingly, I thought. Lamps had been hung along the way, and lamplight fell on the thick, pale blades of cactus that grew beside the steps. Above us, the church bells had started ringing. We stopped once, halfway up, to look back at the town. The white walls of the houses had on them the bloom of dying light, a kind of incandescence. Beyond them the sea lay glimmering and still. Far out in the bay a cluster of pale red lights – the lanterns of fishing boats working their circular entrapment.

We went on to the top of the steps. The bells stopped abruptly and we heard chanting. The church was already full, but people stood aside for the foreign woman, and so we were able to get near the front. Here, in this public place, surrounded by Greeks, exposed and vulnerable, I felt a return of that exhilaration I had experienced with Dranas, Excellency. I had an urge to stand before them, declare myself. Fortunately for the rest of this report I did not do so. (Indeed, as you will see, I gave way to craven fear not long after.)

The litter stood at the top of the nave, just below the chancel, with the effigy of the saint lying on it, dressed still in his gold vestments. The lamps burning at the four corners threw light on to his sharp chin, and the holes of his nostrils. I recognised these features as I would those of an old acquaintance – after all, I have seen him thus often before. In his composure he looks corpse-like indeed. The priests are intoning, one on either side of him and one beyond.

'It is very life-like, isn't it?' Mrs Marchant whispered to me. She means death-like I think, really. She seems troubled. Disturbed perhaps in her reticent Protestantism, that so much more abstract religion. It is rather strong stuff for her, the incessant deep incantation, the wavering light of the candles playing on the gilt of the bier, the saint's waxen immobility, which expresses nothing of martyrdom, no hint of violence or wounds: nothing but death.

The crowd maintains an unbroken silence. Their faces are heavy and sad, their hands thick, clumsy-looking. They seem to be waiting for something other than the apotheosis of Alexei. The priests' chanting grows louder. Their vestments, faces and hands are devotional and powerful in the gloom. Four men from the congretation move forward, all men I know. They take up the bier and move with it up the steps, into the chancel. They deposit it there and file down again, into the body of the congregation. The priests go slowly up the steps, still chanting. They pass into the chancel, drawing behind them a white curtain, which shuts them off from the view of the people. The chanting ceases. All eyes are fixed on the curtain, behind which the priests are busy stripping the saint of his panoply, dressing the attenuated form in its Assumption robe, getting it to its feet. For some moments more there is silence, deep, expectant. Then a quick, running peal of bells. The curtain is drawn back, and the saint, in a blaze of light from the altar candles, stands upright before the congregation, dressed now in his long white robe. How the priests manage this bit of stage-craft, how they get the saint to stand on his own feet, so to speak, I have never discovered. Perhaps his feet are weighted, or some wedge is used, concealed by the robes. Whatever the method, Excellency, on this occasion something went badly wrong.