Pascali's Island (17 page)

'Why not?'

'He doesn't say. He refuses to go on with the agreement until the soldiers are removed from the site.'

'Allah, Allah,' Izzet said, raising his hands. 'What difference can that make now? He has nothing more to do on the site.'

'He says it is a matter of principle.'

'Principle?' Izzet rose abruptly. His face was bitter with rage. 'Shaitan take his principles,' he said. 'And him, and you. He is playing games with us.'

'I will see him,' I said. 'I will arrange another meeting.'

'I advise you to be quick, arkadeshim. The Vali is not a patient man. It is on your head now.'

'Yes,' I said. 'I will see to it.' With anguish I watched him walk away, carrying my freedom in his bag. What can have happened? What bee has entered Mister Bowles's head? He did not seem to mind so much about the soldiers this morning. He made no conditions then.

All my hopes, Excellency. I can write no more tonight, my misery is too great. I must see Mister Bowles.

He did not return to his hotel last night, or if so, it was very late. I waited, but he did not return. This morning, however, I have seen him. And I still cannot properly absorb what he said to me, the simple enormity of it. I sit here and look at the walls, my familiar possessions, with incredulity. I repeat his words to an imagined third party, trying to make them more accessible to the understanding. 'I'd like to leave it for a day or two, old chap,' was what he said. Nonchalantly. Leaning back in his chair. Right ankle laid over left knee, polished black shoe idly jigging. A day or two! This was in the little café-bar in Saliras Street, near the market.

It was by the merest chance that I was led to him. I knew he had not been back to the hotel. I was walking through the market when I saw three men at a fruit stall, men I had not seen before. I always pause to observe strangers, it is ingrained habit with me.

I took them at first for Greeks, but there was something different about the way they carried themselves, and about their gestures. Besides this, one of them, while deeply tanned, had a lighter colouring than is customary in this region. He was a man of about forty, short but very powerfully built, wearing a blue calico jacket. There were gaps in his teeth when he smiled. The other two were indubitably men of the south, one elderly with a deeply seamed face and a gold ring in one ear, the other much younger, smooth-skinned and serious. I watched them buy aubergines and tomatoes, which the young man put into a cloth bag. Then after a brief conversation they separated, the thickset man walking off along Saliras Street, the other two moving slowly towards the steps that lead down to the lower part of the town.

After hesitating a moment I followed the man in the blue jacket, not too close; but keeping him well in sight. He walked down Saliras Street, almost to the end of it, then turned quickly into the little bar there, called the Agoraki. I had some idea of walking in after him, but fortunately stopped outside and looked through the window, standing against the wall at an angle that made it difficult for me to be seen. I did not see anything of the man I had followed except one of his blue sleeves and a brown hand on the table. But opposite him, full in my view, was Mister Bowles. He was talking, and I could imagine the pauses, the eloquent blurts. Excellency, he was not at the hotel last night, but he was fresh and clean-shaven. He looked like a man that had slept, and breakfasted. I saw him raise his head and laugh.

I crossed the street and waited. After something like half an hour they emerged, shook hands briefly in the doorway, under the blue awning then went different ways, Mister Bowles towards the corner of the street, the other back towards the market. I watched him as he passed opposite to me. There was still some laughter in his face from "the meeting. I noticed his belt, very broad with a heavy brass buckle in the shape of a snake.

Mister Bowles hesitated for a moment or two at the corner, as if making up his mind which way to go. I moved quickly along the street towards him, and called his name. He turned, saw me, and stood there waiting. He did not smile.

'What happened to you last night?' I said. I was panting slightly with the haste of my movements.

'I was held up,' he said. 'You got my note, I suppose?'

'Listen,' I said, 'I must talk to you.'

He looked at me for a moment, then said, indifferently, 'All right, if you like. I've got to go and meet Lydia and Mrs Marchant in about an hour's time. Let's go over to the bar there.' It was the one he had just come out of, but he didn't mention that.

It was cool inside, with the blinds down against the sun. We asked for a bottle of beer and two glasses. 'Who was that man?' I said.

'Which man?'

'The one you were with just now. I saw you talking together.'

'Did you? Oh, he was just someone I bumped into. Mrs Marchant was telling us about that business in the church the other evening.' He looked curiously at me. 'Extraordinary,' he said.

'You mean Saint Alexei biting the dust?' I said. 'Yes, it was gruesome, his head went rolling down the steps. What nationality was he, by the way? The man you were talking to just now.'

'Oh, American, I think. She says you ran off and left her.'

'She was in no danger,' I said. 'None whatever.'

'And you were?'

'Didn't she tell you how they all turned on me and started making the curse sign at me? They blamed me for it, you know, the accident.'

He looked at me with a sort of faintly smiling curiosity. 'She says they were simply crossing themselves,' he said.

'Nonsense,' I said. 'They were about to attack me.'

Mister Bowles hitched his chair back, placed his right ankle over his left knee, and commenced a jigging motion with his shoe. This struck me as uncharacteristic of him, and made me more sharply aware of something I had sensed only half consciously since the beginning of our conversation, some difference in him, some quality of impatience or perhaps excitement that underlay the good-humoured casualness of his manner.

'Listen,' I said, 'you realise, don't you, that they will be absolutely furious with us about last night? They are dangerous people. We must get the thing finished today, this morning.'

Mister Bowles looked towards me without replying. His eyes were vague, remote, not really regarding me at all.

'We'll lose the money at this rate,' I said, annoyed at being thus relegated to the margin of his attention. Annoyed too at my helpless sense of some change in him since our last meeting. 'We'll lose the money and get our throats cut into the bargain,' I said. 'Don't make the mistake of assuming too much rationality in these people. If they suspect us of double-dealing – and they will, if we delay – they are quite capable of having us killed, whatever the consequences. Mahmoud would hope to cover it up, somehow. I know these people.'

He went on jigging his shoe for a moment or two, then he said, quite casually, 'I'd like to leave it for a day or two, old chap.'

'Leave it?' I said. I was bewildered. 'But why?'

'Well, you see, I haven't finished my research yet.'

'Your research? But, please listen to me, time is everything in the matter. They are certain to suspect something.'

'Suspect what?' he said, with assumed hauteur. 'Didn't I make it clear to them that I am writing a book?'

'I don't know,' I said. I was in despair, Excellency, close to tears. 'I don't remember. What if you did? What is your book to them?'

'You thought the whole thing was a fabrication, I suppose?'

Once again, in spite of everything between us, and everything I know, he had me in the thrall of his outraged honesty. 'Do you think,' he said, 'that I am going to let those people come between me and my research?'

My eyes were smarting with the effort to repress tears. My life, the money, everything falling away from me. 'Why did you not make this clear before?' I said.

Mister Bowles saw my distress, I think, for his manner became gentler. 'Listen,' he said, leaning forward with one of his blurts of candour, 'if it will set your mind at rest, you can give them my word.'

'What?' I said.

'You can give them my word of honour that I will not remove any of the treasures on the site.'

His word of honour. He looked at me, leaning forward still, with that engaging eagerness, which was his great charm. The sense he conveyed that we were partners in a great enterprise, something exciting and challenging and thoroughly worthwhile.

'But there are no treasures on the site,' I said.

'True, of course that's true.' He seemed momentarily disabled. 'But they don't know that,' he said, recovering. 'They don't know that, do they? It'll only take a couple of days, you know.'

'A couple of days,' I repeated dully.

'That's all.' He stood up. 'Must be getting along,' he said.

'The soldiers,' I said, 'have they been moved?'

'Oh yes,' he said. 'They're nowhere to be seen. Are you coming?'

'No, I don't think so.' I was not eager to meet Mrs Marchant again, and he knew it. He was smiling as he went out. My God, what am I to do? What am I to do, Excellency?

I went to see Doctor Hogan, the only person I could think of. Izzet caught me on the way back. It was only a question of time, I suppose. He was with another man.

Doctor Hogan's house is up above the town, on the hillside. It is a beautiful house, high-walled and shallow-roofed in the old island style, with an interior courtyard and a fountain. The poet Valaoritou is said to have lived for some years in this house. I do not go there too often and I never stay too long, because I value these visits, and the talks I have with Doctor Hogan. He is kindly and humorous and knows much about the island.

We sat in the courtyard for an hour or two, in the shade of the lemon trees, talking of general things. I asked for news of his children – he has a son at the English School at Bebek, and a married daughter in England.

It was pleasant there in the courtyard with the wisteria, and the dark lemon leaves, and the water playing. Maria, the doctor's wife, brought some sweet red Samos wine and fresh figs-the figs are ripening now, Excellency. Pleasant, yes, but I could not relax, my fears refused to leave me. The doctor's presence, the kindly irony of his glance, the amiable dishevelment he always exhibits, the order and tranquillity of his whole establishment; all this failed to have its usual calming effect.

However, I learned from the doctor the identity of the man Mister Bowles was with today. I described him – the thick body, the gaps in the teeth. 'That's Smith,' the doctor said at once. 'The American. He was here only a few days ago.'

'What, here in the house?'

'Yes, he brought one of his crew, an Italian. Fellow had cut his hand very badly.'

'That's the man with the caique, isn't it? The one who is fishing for sponges.'

'Yes, that's right.'

Here was a piece of news. Had their meeting been planned or accidental? They shook hands at parting…

'He's leaving soon, apparently,' the doctor said. 'Or so Lydia says. I looked in on her today and we gossiped a bit.'

How does Lydia know that, Excellency? Obviously she is in touch with the American. Or did Mister Smith tell Mister Bowles today that he was leaving, when they met in the bar? In that case Mister Bowles must have passed on the information to Lydia in the course of the afternoon.

'When was that?' I said. 'When did you see Lydia?'

'Round about noon. Why do you ask?'

'I wondered if Mister Bowles was there. At the studio I mean.'

'Bowles? No, he wasn't there.'

It must be Lydia, then, who knows the American's movements. Perhaps it was she who introduced him to Mister Bowles. If my theory of the gun-running is correct, and if Lydia knows about it, knows who the contracts are, she may have used this knowledge to put pressure on the American. For Mister Bowles's sake, of course. What story can he have told her? Is he trying to arrange a passage on the American's boat? Is he planning to leave in a hurry and to cheat me out of my share…? The thought brought me out in a cold sweat.

'We don't see much of you these days, Basil,' Doctor Hogan said.

'I have been spending a lot of time at home lately,' I said. ' Reading, that kind of thing.'

I felt his eyes on me, but he asked me no questions. 'The news from Constantinople is very bad, so Lydia tells me,' he said. 'I don't know how she knows these things. I've had no letters for a month. The postal service now seems to have broken down completely.'

'Why?' I said. 'The news has been bad for years, but things go on much as before. What's wrong now?'

'Just about everything, as far as I can make out. They are proclaiming a republic in the north. The Sultanate, the Caliphate, the whole structure – it is all toppling over, Basil. Abdul Hamid never leaves the palace now. He lives behind locked doors with no one to rely on but the women of his harem and his Albanian guard – and how far he can rely on them is doubtful. No, it's all up with him this time. I'm going myself, the day after tomorrow, to bring my boy back here.'

I am merely reporting what he said about you, Excellency. I am not saying that I believe it. You have ruled for more than thirty years, and in that time there have been many crises.

All the same, I was depressed. When I stood up to go, I was attacked by a slight fit of dizziness. I did not speak of this to the doctor, but his eyes were on me, and he must have seen something change in my face, for he said, 'You must take things easy, Basil. I don't like your colour much.'

'Oh, I'm all right,' I said. I was touched by his concern, but any intention I had had of confiding in him had quite gone by now. He is kind, he is even good, but his life is too different from mine, too settled and secure. I need an outcast to confide in – a powerful outcast. Perhaps that is what you are, Excellency. The atmosphere of peace in the house, the sense of an ordered life, of family affection, reciprocal duties and ties, all the things that I have never had, can never have now, all this puts distance between us.

'By the way,' I said, as I was leaving, 'does the name Mannfeldt mean anything to you? It's a firm of some kind.'