The Avignon Quintet (153 page)

From a medical point of view it was practically certifiable. She remembered him saying once, long ago, “Constance! Let’s fall in love and create a disappointment of children!” And simultaneously she recalled Max telling her that “Every girl’s a one-man girl, and every man too. Hence the trouble, for just anybody won’t do – it’s gotta be the him and the her of the fairy tale. Humans were born to live in couples like wild doves or cobras. But then we went and lost periodicity, meat-eating came in with the taste of blood: then sugar, salt, alcohol followed and we lost our hold on the infinite!” She wondered what Max would think of Affad’s gnostic beliefs and obligations. Not so much perhaps, for the true yogi knew the hour of his death, and did not need artificial reminders in order to render it a conscious act.

“What are you thinking so sadly?” he asked.

“Nothing specially sad; just that time is passing; it has become doubly valuable since all this talk about death. Which is anyway impertinent and silly – trying to pre-empt reality when destiny may well be preparing to make an end of us in the next five minutes. We could be run over by a taxi.”

“You are right; we will certainly pay for all these fine sentiments! God, though, it’s marvellous to see you again, feeling all signals register and echo! The strategies of nature may be boundless but
this
thing puts them under the burning-glass.”

“I loathe high-minded people like ourselves. We are just the type I can’t stand.”

“I know. And all this self-caressing sort of talk ruins fucking. Why don’t we shut up and get on with it? I feel quite anorexic-sexanorexic. If you got into my bed I would be seized by paralysis. I would just dribble and swoon. Narcissus beware!”

They reached her flat and mounted the stairs arm-in-arm, still uplifted to the point of subversion by the bad champagne they had drunk; but also now a little afraid, a little withdrawn, because of the coming shock of their first encounter for so long. He looked particularly scared. The flat was spotless, the cleaning woman had been; and in leaving she had drawn the curtains so that they wandered into a half-darkened room. And just stood, quietly breathing, and regarding each other with anxiety, and at the same time so out of their depth.

“Sebastian!” she whispered, more to herself than to him, but he caught the name and took her hands, drawing her softly through the half-opened door towards the familiar cherished bed, reflected three ways by the tall mirrors, taking the hushed light of the window upon their bright skins.

The lovers, she was thinking, belonged to an endangered species and were in need of protection; should perhaps be kept on reservations like specimens of forgotten and outmoded physical strains, wild game? But was there any happiness which was the equal of this? To be blissed-out by the kisses of the correct partner, to make love and fade? Not to squander but to husband – a perilous game, really, for it was changing even while one was in the act of experiencing it. Yet there were so many people, perhaps the most, who arrived at the end of a life of limited usefulness to find the doors of this kind of happiness bolted and barred against them through no fault of their own-just scurvy luck.

Their clothes rustled and fell in a heap like a drift, and slowly, hesitantly they enfolded each other and drifted into the warm bed, to lie for a while breathing shakily, like freshly severed twins. So conscious also that kiss by kiss they would be winding steadily down into the grave. He was remembering some words from a letter: “Nothing can be added or subtracted from what exists, yet inside this wholeness endless change and permutation is possible with the same elements.” Her teeth sank into his lips, he felt the sweet galbe of her flanks and arching back.

And yet, for all the tension, at the heart of their exchanges was a calm sensuality of understanding such as only those lucky enough to feel married in the tantric fashion experience. They were squarely each to each with no fictions of lust needed to ignite them. Embraces were woven like a tissue.

But because he had lost weight she took pity on him and hunted out chocolate from the kitchen – coaxing him with it to sweeten his drowsy kisses; and since he seemed the weaker today she took the dominant role, excited to drain him of every last desire by the authority of her splendid body. She feasted on his flesh and he let her go – though he was only shamming, saving his strength. And as soon as her passion subsided a little he suddenly turned her on her back like a turtle and entered her on a wave of renewal – a conqueror in his turn, but a welcomed one. All his strength had come back in a rush, as if from nowhere. But he knew that she had summoned it, had conjured it up. At last they lay entangled in each other like wrestlers, but immobile, and still mouth to mouth in a pool of ghostly sweat: and as proud of each other as lions, though meek as toys!

The telephone rang in its muted fashion, and she raised her head in drowsy dismay: “What a fool I am! I forgot to turn it off!” She was reluctant to unwind this matchless embrace for a mere professional call from Schwarz or someone. She hung back and hesitated, hoping that the invisible caller might suppose her absent and hang up; but no. The instrument went on and on insisting, and at last she crawled from bed and groped her sleepy way to the salon – only to find that as she picked up the instrument and spoke into it, it went quietly dead on her. She had just time to say “Hullo” twice before Mnemidis (for it was he) replaced the receiver with a quiet smile, having recognised her voice as that of his doctor and tormentor. So she was, after all, at home and not absent on duty as Schwarz had suggested! It was really wonderful how things fell out without any special interference on his part: they just fell into the shape dictated by his desire! Meanwhile an irritated Constance hovered above the phone, wondering whether to switch it off or not – her professional conscience reproached her for the wish. On the phone pad was a phrase which Max had given her, a quotation from a philosopher. She read it drowsily as she debated within herself the rights and wrongs of pushing the switch of the phone. “Everything is conquered by submission, even submission itself, even as matter is conquered by entropy, and truth by its opposite. Even entropy, so apparently absolute in its operation, is capable, if left to itself, of conversion into a regenerative form. The phoenix is no myth!”

Ouf! Her bones felt full to overflowing with electricity; she was outraged to find him snugly asleep instead of awaiting her! That was men for you! Yet to tell the truth she herself was not far off the same state, and enfolding him in her arms once more she fell quietly asleep, pacing him with her heartbeats! He could not guess how long this state of felicity had lasted when at last he awoke to find her lying wide-eyed and silent beside him. “What is it?” he whispered. “Did I wake you, did I snore?” But she shook her head and whispered back, “I was woken by an idea, a marvellous idea, and quite realisable unless you have any special plans for spending your time. Why don’t we go away together for a few months, to really discover each other – supposing you
have
a few months at your disposal? Why waste the precious day? I have accumulated a lot of leave. Provence is cleared of Germans. I have an old house which we could open up, very primitive but comfortable and in a beautiful corner near Avignon …”

“How funny,” he said, “for I was going to suggest something like that; I even borrowed Galen’s house for the occasion. Yes, we shouldn’t sit about waiting for time to catch up with us. We should act boldly like people with forever in their pockets. Perhaps this time I might actually …” But she covered his mouth with her hand.

She dared not think of becoming pregnant by him, with so many outstanding issues confronting their love. No, they must advance a step at a time, like blind people tapping a way with their white sticks. Paradoxically her very elation was terrifying. With him she might even dare to utter the words “
Je t’aime!
” which had always represented to her a wholly unrealisable territory of the feelings, of the heart. But then everyone alive is waiting for this experience, with impatience and with despair. Everyone alive!

They slept again, then woke, and drowsed their way slowly towards the late afternoon when the unexpected fever awoke in him – an onslaught so sudden that the symptoms for her seemed instantly recognisable as a rogue attack of malaria. But at first she was startled at its violent onset, to see him jumping and shivering with such violence, while he could hardly speak, his teeth chattered so in his head. “I brought it back from the desert – they have been planting rice like fools, and now you get anopheles right up to the gates of Alexandria!” But if his temperature had gone through the ceiling his pulse had sunk through the floor. He hovered now on the very edges of consciousness, but without undue alarm, for he knew that it would pass. Only with fury and self-disgust, for he was dying to make love to her again. And he had broken out into a torment of sweat. She found a thick towelling dressing-gown with a hood – indeed, they had stolen it from the hotel he had last occupied when in Geneva. An ideal thing for such a state, though it took quite an effort to get him into it, for he almost could not stand because of these paroxysms of trembling. He almost dropped on all-fours under the attacks. The sudden change was quite alarming, for he was ashen-white and all curled up. Malignant malaria is well known for its sudden paroxysms of fever which arrive or depart with incredible suddenness. But here was a temporary end of their love-making: he would simply have to sweat his way through the bout until the fever left him. She heaped him with blankets while he obediently turned his face to the wall and quivered his way into a half-sleep with a temperature so high that he was all but delirious. She did not even take his temperature in order not to alarm herself! Of course there were drugs which, administered in the night, might help to bring the fever down on the morrow. But of course he would be as limp as a cat afterwards … Damn!

Damn also because the telephone rang at that moment, and this time it was the voice of Schwarz, sounding preternaturally grave, as if he were trying to master a concern or an anxiety. “I have been trying to reach you everywhere to tell you that your pet patient has broken out and escaped. Yes, Mnemidis!”

She thought for a long moment and then said, “Isn’t our security foolproof? What about Pierre?” Schwarz replied, “He has stabbed him quite severely with a carving knife from the kitchens. But he has clearly got away because he made a phone call to his doctor friend from Alexandria and was most excited by their news. You know they were trying to take him back home? Well, they have succeeded in getting a
laisser-passer
for him from the Swiss, and there is nothing to prevent him just meeting them and being airlifted in a private plane – which is standing by at the airport. That is why I am not proposing to get unduly alarmed by the break-out; but I have moved into a hotel and asked a carpenter to change the locks on my flat. I think you should do the same. Until we get the all clear. The Alexandrian doctor has promised to signal me when he is safely in their custody so that they can escort him back to Cairo. What a bore it is! I hope you are feeling a bit chastened for having insisted on keeping him under treatment? No? Well, you should. At any rate, Constance, don’t take any chances. For the moment he is somewhere in town, and nobody knows exactly where. So … Be on the
qui-vive
please, will you?’

“Very well,” she said, though without conviction.

SIX

The Dying Fall

M
NEMIDIS WAS MAKING THE MOST OF HIS FREEDOM
, He was filled with elation at the excellence of his disguise and the anonymity it conferred, though he looked a somewhat able-bodied nun. But he revelled in the unfamiliar beauties of the old town. As for the
fête votive
, it was so very touching and innocent that he was almost compelled to brush away a tear. It was very affecting. He laughed heartily and sincerely at the vastly correct jokes, careful not to boom, however. The squeaky exchanges of Punch and Judy and the rapt enthusiasm of the children filled him with an emotion close to dread. Once in Cairo long ago a little child had come to him, perhaps ten years old, doubtless a Bedouin and lost in the city … he had a fit of harsh coughing. It was time to be moving on. He was waiting for the evening to arrive but he had not as yet actually located the situation of the apartment he planned to visit. But there was a most convenient tourist map of the city outside the gardens at the bus stop. There was also a list of the principal avenues and a marker to help find one. He spent a long moment doing so and verifying his own position vis-à-vis the street in question. He had all the time in the world. He had already been astute enough to phone to the hotel of his two Cairo associates, and the doctor had given him the good news of his successful
démarches
, of the Swiss
laisser-passer
, and of the private plane waiting for him. Mnemidis was overjoyed, but asked for a little time before joining his associates; he had something to do in the town first, but he thought that it might be possible to meet them at the airport late in the evening, say at dinner time or just after … All this in a fine colloquial Arabic with its reassuring gutturals. “Above all,” said the doctor, “do not commit any indiscretions, for you will be locked up for good, and we will never be able to release you. Take care!” Mnemidis chuckled and said that he would take care.