The Avignon Quintet

by Lawrence Durrell

  “Avanti,” said Felix, who out of boredom had started to study Italian; and together the two young men crossed the withered garden and advanced among the criss-cross of tenebrous streets and alleys which led them towards Les Balances, that desolate and ruined quarter sloping down towards the rustling Rhône. “I don’t suppose she really gives a damn about me,” said Blanford unexpectedly, throwing his cigarette onto the pavement and stamping it out with petulance. He was dying for Felix to contradict him, to come out with some reassuring remark, but Felix was not going to pander to his mood. “I suppose not,” he said composedly, looking into the deep velvety sky, smiling to himself. Blanford could have strangled him for his composure there and then. He made up his mind to find Livia if they had to walk all night; and when he found her to pick a quarrel with her, to try and make that dry little lizard of a girl cry. Then they would make it up and … here he lost himself in pleasant reveries. But what if she had returned home and was snug in his bed while they were wandering about like a couple of fools? It was amazing how his spirits soared optimistically at one thought and then sagged earthwards at its successor. Somewhere at the bottom end of this keyboard – among the bass notes – there lurked migraine and the ancient neurasthenia. They waited for him. He always carried a couple of loose aspirins in his pocket. He took one now, swallowing it easily. Absit omen. “It is not easy, I have never been in love before. And whores scare me a bit.”

  Felix took on a man-of-the-world tone as he said: “O pouf! I regard them simply as a disagreeable necessity in a puritan age.”

  “I once got clap after a bump supper,” said Blanford gloomily, “and it wasn’t at all gay. It took ages to get itself cured.”

  Felix felt an unexpected wave of admiration for his friend; so he had suffered in some subterranean lavatory decorated by horrific posters depicting all the possible ravages of sexual intercourse indulged in without a rubber sheath? The man was a hero after all! “It must have been dreadful,” he said with a suddenly alerted wave of sympathy and Blanford nodded, not without pride. “It was, Felix.”

  They had started downhill, sloping along a set of streets which straggled from the height of the Hotel de Ville to the actual medieval walls which alone prevented them from seeing the scurrying sweeps of the Rhône. A glimpse of Villeneuve on its great promontory – that was all; and a coffin-like darkness in whose soft shifting exhalations of mist prickled a star or two. Felix had brought a torch, but used it sparingly in the deserted streets. The noise of their footsteps sounded lonely and disembodied in the night. The municipal lighting hereabouts was haphazard and sporadic. The last two streets they crossed to reach Riquiqui were in dense darkness; the pavements had melted away, and occasional cobble-stones lay about ready to trip them up. The quarter was an undrained one and smelt accordingly. Riquiqui’s establishment stood at an angle in a cul de sac and its doors opened into the street. Bundles of old rubbish lay about – broken chairs, bits of marble, sheets of tin, lead pipes and refuse. It stood, the house, like the last remaining molar in a diseased jaw; on either side there was a weed-infested waste land with the remains of low walls. A window gave out into this gloom with a yellow and baleful light. But the hallway of the house seemed to be in darkness, to judge by the blind fanlight over the door.

  There was no sign of the coach either – which Blanford had christened “The Prince’s Pumpkin” – but this could have been dismissed and sent away to the livery stables where its horses were lodged. Or perhaps they had gone to some other establishment of the same category – though there were not many in the town which enjoyed the reputation and indeed the official protection of Riquiqui, for she also lodged people and operated (if such a thing can be believed) as a foster mother to waifs and strays. But she nevertheless remained in a somewhat ambiguous position as one who kept a house of ill-fame and was a friend to the gipsies; they called her “angel maker” for the children confided to her care were unwanted ones and would soon – so the popular gossip went – be on their way to heaven to join the angels. The very fact of her existence was explained by her payment of bribes, in cash and in kind, which was at least plausible; for she was fairly openly frequented by minor officials and the lower echelons of the police force. The two young men trod the streets of this raffish quarter with a certain native circumspection, though Felix once or twice whistled under his breath as if to register confidence.

  At least they stopped before the door of Riquiqui and Blanford advanced to tap upon it with timorous knuckles. It was not much in the way of a summons and it evoked neither light nor voices in response. They waited for a while in a downcast manner. Then Felix picked up a brick from the gutter and made a more reasonable attempt at a knock – he didn’t like making a noise in the street at this time of night. Supposing that nearby windows were thrown up and exasperated voices urged them to go to hell? They would scamper away like rabbits. But no windows were raised, no voices admonished them; worst of all there was no sound from behind the unyielding front door of the brothel. An exasperated Blanford tried a couple of kicks, but this was not much use either as he was wearing tennis-shoes. They waited and then knocked again, without the slightest result. The silence drained back into the darkness. The only movement was the stirring of large birds in the ragged storks’ nests on the battlements. Somewhere – not really so far, but sounding as if it were situated at the other end of the known world – the Jacquemart struck an hour, though they were not quite certain which hour. “Not a sound,” breathed poor Blanford with a sigh of despair. “There must be someone there.”

  Reluctantly they started to move away when Felix had a brainwave; his torch played among the rubbish heaps which filled the abandoned ruin at one side of the brothel. There were some oil drums in the corner and they gave him an idea. He rolled one over the mossy surface and placed it against the wall under the lighted window, mounting it very slowly, with a thousand precautions; for he did not wish to fall among the foundations and break his back. At last he levelled off, and, holding onto the wall, craned his neck towards the light. “It’s a lavatory,” he said in a low voice. “They’ve left the light on and the door open.” Then he drew a deep breath and said: “Jesus! There they are! Just look at our old Prince!”

  Blanford, consumed with curiosity, hurried to take possession of his own olive oil drum and was soon standing up against the wall beside Felix, gazing into the lavatory and, through it, into the relatively well-lighted hallway leading to an inner courtyard full of divans and potted plants of somewhat decayed aspect. And sure enough there was the Prince, spread out on a sofa, and perfectly at ease; while Quatrefages, clad only in a shirt and red socks, sat by his side sipping whisky and talking with the greatest animation. It took a moment or two to register the more piquant details of this scene which had all the air of taking place in some small theatre – it looked a bit unreal.

  The Prince had divested himself of everything that covered the top half of his grey little body; he sat, so to speak, clad only in his heavy paps, and had a sort of chinless grandeur. His nether half was clad in lightweight Jaeger combinations which stretched to the ankle and through the fly-slit of which depended the royal member with its innocent pink tip. Quatrefages also presented a somewhat equivocal appearance, being clad only in a shirt and socks. He was clearly engaged in a long explanation or exhortation addressed to Riquiqui who stood almost out of range and half in shadow – so that it seemed that the clerk was talking with animation to two outsize breasts bulging out of a dirty shift. Beside them stood a puzzled female dwarf with a hideously rouged face as if ready for the circus; she was clad in white organdie with a marriage veil. Moreover, she was jingling with trinkets and had obviously been dressed against a very special occasion. As a matter of fact she had been specially dressed for the Prince, but now his companion was expressing the Prince’s discontent with her, and indeed his general discomforture, presumably because of her age. Yes, it was not hard to follow the train of the argument. The dwarf was too old a
nd too big to appeal to the Prince. But they were being polite about it and the horrible little creature bobbed her agreement and dipped lovingly into a big box of Turkish Delight which the Prince had pushed towards her. She had huge, discoloured teeth like rotting dice.

  As for Riquiqui she appeared to be at her wits’ end to meet the unusual demand. Languidly the little man extended a hand and indicated that what he desired was much smaller, very much smaller. He lent weight to his argument with flowery little gestures which indicated clearly that there was no question of ill-feeling or bad humour involved. He was asking, not commanding. His tone was civilised and equable. He proffered the box of loucoumi and Riquiqui in her turn dug out a cube of Turkish Delight and wolfed it, licking the powder off her talons, before dusting her shift to remove the last traces of it. Then she held up her finger as one who sees daylight at last and bustled off, leaving them to their whisky. The misshapen little phantom of pleasure followed her, ripping off her bridal veil with an abrupt gesture like an actor quitting a wig as he left the stage.

  Left alone, the two occupants of the centre of the stage – the suggestion of intimate theatre was irresistible because of the severely framed scene and the brilliantly stagey lighting – reloaded their glasses and conversed in low tones. The clerk was flushed and jovial-looking in his somewhat unclean shirt. The Prince in his long combinations looked quite regal still in an attenuated sort of way. He scratched his small decoration and exuded amiability. They had not long to wait, for at last Riquiqui burst in, flushed with success, hand in hand with two little girls dressed in a manner appropriate to a First Communion. Their faces were heavily rouged, which gave them the appearance of wearing painted masks through which they peered with unafraid but puzzled wonder. She paused, the huge woman, for dramatic effect as she entered, presenting her charges boldly but hesitantly. Eureka! She had remembered the existence of a couple of “angels”, no doubt.

  The result was a foregone conclusion. The Prince’s radiant features expressed his delight and relief; he looked like a small boy who was turning cartwheels from sheer elation. Quatrefages folded his arms after setting down his glass and beamed upon the lady while the Prince extended his hands to take hers and move them half-way to his lips in a simulated kiss of congratulation. The two little children stood mum-chance, but with a kindly air. They were sucking sweets. The Prince stood up and embraced them warmly; then he waved his arms and muttered something in Arabic and his major-domo (who must have been waiting in the shadows, the wings, so to speak) entered the lighted stage leading two large and beautifully groomed Afghan hounds on a gold leash.

  The Prince clapped his hands in ecstasy and gave a little crow of laughter; he beamed round on the assembled company. Clearly everything was in order now. The next stage.…

  Riquiqui threw open a side door which gave on to a bedroom of the house which had been decorated in the most extravagant fashion; a vast damascened bed lay under a lozenge-shaped pier-glass. It was covered in a gold cloth, and the shelf above it was full of children’s dolls clad in folklore costumes. The walls themselves were draped with scarlet shawls and the whole context suggested a scene from The Phantom of the Opera. The little manikins looked as if they were the shrunken bodies of real children which had been patiently and fastidiously pickled before being dressed as harlequins, Arlésiennes, Catalans and Basques. Into this décor she ushered the Prince, now amiably holding the hands of the two children. The dogs, now off the leash, followed at his heels like well-drilled servants who knew their duty. The stage-set was so piquant and the actors so unaware that they were being observed that the two eavesdroppers almost forgot to feel the anxious disgust which had started to seize them.

  But it was at this moment that Quatrefages entered the lavatory right under their noses and closed the door on this equivocal spectacle. He sat himself down on the throne and proceeded to more primitive business. They soon could hear his grunts and sighs right under their chins. It was quite a dilemma – they did not wish to be discovered in this spying posture. And they were suddenly aware of the precariousness of their station, for they could not simply jump down and run away. In the darkness one could have broken an ankle. So they stayed on, mentally swearing at the wretched clerk, and hoping that he would soon finish and restore them the lighted stage and the grotesque Egyptian. On the other hand, they could hardly pass the rest of the night standing up there on the oil drum watching the sexual evolutions of this Mecca-blessed libertine. A wild indecision reigned which matched their general situation; neither spoke because neither could think.

  No doubt their frustration and gradually mounting discomfort would have sooner or later forced them to take a decision, but fate determined otherwise, for Quatrefages completed his business to his own satisfaction and pulled the chain; and as if by the same token the door was thrown open and the brightly lit stage once more revealed to them. There was a slight change of disposition – the door of the inner room was almost closed and even by craning the neck it would not have been possible to see with any clarity exactly what the Prince and his livestock were up to. Riquiqui was sitting down in a manner so relaxed as to suggest the puncture of an inner tube; and she was profiting by the absence of the Prince to renew her attack on the box of gummy sweets.

  The little hunchback crossed the stage – now nude – and seated herself at what appeared to be a small upright piano covered in coloured shawls. She began to pick out monotonous little tunes on it with one finger. Quatrefages firmly retrieved his drink and spread himself over a divan with a relaxed and gluttonous air. The conversation flagged. There were a few indistinct sounds from the direction of the Prince’s room but nothing very concrete that might be interpreted. The whole atmosphere had become now slack and humdrum, lacking in great interest, and Blanford began to find his toes going to sleep. It was clearly time to get down and go home. He was about to express this thought to his friend when there was a sudden irruption onto the little stage which all at once reinjected vitality into the drama, brought everything alive again.

  The major-domo burst clucking and chattering into the room once more (apparently through the front door, for they heard the bolts shriek) and demanded the presence of his master at once. When he was advised to be patient his voice jumped a whole octave and his hysteria mounted to the ceiling. Greatly daring (so they thought) he threw open the door of the bedroom and revealed a scene of almost domestic tranquillity – the Prince on the bed surrounded by children and dogs and himself wearing a communion veil at which the children were both laughing heartily. He shot up indignantly, forgetting to remove the veil, and let fly a stream of Arabic oaths at the head of his servant, who, however, continued to babble and gesticulate. Apparently the gravity of what he had to relate alone justified this intrusion. After a moment of wild rage the truth dawned on the Prince and he sat up to listen to what the excited man was actually saying. Whatever he at last began to comprehend had an altogether electrifying effect upon him for he leaped out of bed with commendable agility and dashed into the next room, heading for the direction of the front door and crying in a high bird-like tone and in the English of Cairo, “They have pinched the bloody coach.”

  Such was the excitement of the two men, such was the velocity of their movements, that everyone took fire, everyone was sucked into the procession in spite of themselves, whirled into the drama by the sheer momentum of the Prince’s dramatic dash. The two young men balanced on the oil drums outside also gave way to a wave of panic as they realised that the whole of this sudden surge led towards the open street, where they might be discovered in this ignominious posture. They jumped down and by the beam of the torch picked their way through the shattered detritus of the old foundations walls.

  But the Prince and his servant, with the trajectory of comets, had rushed into the street, and as if quite mesmerised, so had the rest of them – Riquiqui, Quatrefages, the little naked dwarf, the dogs and the communicating children. They all stood gazing about them in a daze of wonder
and confusion and anger, for the coach which had apparently been standing before the front door, had disappeared. The Prince stamped his naked foot on the pavement with a gesture of febrile vexation, while his servant, as if to make quite sure, ran to the corner of the street and quested about generally like a gun-dog trying for a scent. Then he came back shaking his head and muttering. The Prince gazed around him, his regard travelling from face to face as if for sympathy. “Who could have done it—” he said, and Riquiqui, who had shown less surprise and consternation than the others, replied, “It’s the gipsies. Leave it to me. Tomorrow I will find them.”

  The company was so absorbed in this little drama that they greeted the appearance of Felix and Blanford in an almost absent-minded way, hardly greeting them; but when they brought evidence to suggest that the coach had been stolen some good time ago (for it had not been there when they arrived) they managed to kindle a little interest. They were, after all, potential clients – so thought the little dwarf, who tried to link her arm in that of Felix, to his pained horror. “I will call the police,” said the Prince in a sudden burst of childish petulance. “I will telephone to Farouk.” It carried little conviction, for there he was with his little member protruding from his long woollen combinations.

  Quatrefages, after a moment of reflection, led him muttering back into the house of pleasure and this time Blanford and Felix followed them in order to have a drink and to reassure themselves about the absence of Livia. Quatrefages, overcome by a sudden pudicity, became aware of his naked condition and hunted for his trousers before pouring out more whisky; the Prince retired haughtily to the inner room with his dogs and children and banged the door, leaving instructions that he was not to be disturbed for at least an hour. Blanford sipped his drink and heard the tinny piano tinkle. He felt suddenly terribly sleepy. Quatrefages said with a malicious grin: “Livia has gone to the gipsies.”