The Avignon Quintet

by Lawrence Durrell

  Recently, within the last three months, she had had an accidental meeting with someone which she would soon come to regard increasingly as providential; it surprised her that she had not mentioned it to him, since it had involved her in an entirely new programme of personal health, personal endeavour: moreover in a field which she had long regarded as suspect and without much interest for a scientist. Walking one day along the old rue de la Confederation with Felix Chatto, en route for a coffee-shop where they could gossip, they came face to face with a small white-clad figure which at first neither could recognise. It at first looked like an Indian saint, a yogi of some sort. Its mane of white hair flowed down on either side of its dark negroid features. It was clad in white in the manner of an Indian sadu or holy man, and it was walking barefoot on the grubby pavements. This was the figure that spread its arms in a signal of surprised recognition and stood stock still, smiling at them. Who on earth could it be? They peered at the apparition, peered through the tangle of silver hair, as one might peer into the jungle, intent on the identification of some strange animal. The little sage had the advantage of them for he said, “My goodness, Mr Chatto, sir, and Miss Constance, fancy meeting you! What are you doing here?”

  What were they doing there! And slowly piercing the obscurity of the Indian saint’s disguise they gradually found with the help of memory another face emerge, developed like a photograph. “Max!” she cried, and with a short interval of prolonged puzzlement Felix Chatto echoed her with “Max!” Then they were all three shaking hands, embracing, talking at once. It was the old valet-chauffeur of Lord Galen, whom they had last seen during the last summer they had all spent together in Provence; the old negro boxer who used to be Lord Galen’s humble sparring partner on the lawn at daybreak! How was it that he had so completely vanished from their thoughts – the violet chauffeur who often dressed like an Italian admiral? “Max!” she said, “You have changed so much – what has happened?” And in his affectionate excitement he almost reverted to his old Brooklyn-negroid tones. “Doogone it, Miss Constance, everything! Just everything! Ah been in India a while now and ah’ve learned a new science. Better than the old one-two!” He spread his arms and his face took on an angelic expression of bliss and devoutness. They both felt suddenly abashed by Max in this new incarnation, this new disguise – if disguise it was. Still holding their hands in his he explained breathlessly how the transformation had come about. “When Lord Galen went home I decided to go to India. I had received several invitations from an old man who made a lot of sense to me – I met him in Avignon. He came to the boxing booth where I used to drop in for a work-out. But he wasn’t a boxer, he was a wrestler and a yoga-maker. I got to working with him a little, and was intrigued enough to visit him in Bombay. Thanks to him I became a yoga-maker and teacher; when I was through he asked me to run one of his groups right here in Geneva. So here I am!”

  It seemed almost unbelievable; such a transformation of personality in such a short space of time, it seemed almost like witchcraft. They dragged him off to a coffee-shop where they sat him down before a dish of tea and cakes in order to ply him with questions about this new departure. The only one of them who had shown any interest in yoga as a method of health regeneration had been Livia; but perhaps this fact had not been known to Max at that far-off epoch – indeed her own initiation into the science had come about in Germany during her flirtation with National Socialism. But Constance did not mention her name – why should she? The gravity and simplicity with which Max talked about the change of mind involved in developing from a pugilist into a yogi was more than merely interesting – she was struck by the distinctions he drew and the simple vividness with which he enunciated them. How he had changed! India had even improved his English, as well as giving him at times a tiny touch of a Bengali accent. Constance was beside herself with joy, and when Felix Chatto was forced to take himself off to the office she had stayed on for a full hour, profoundly interested in the psychological change which had taken place in this old friend. “Of course our studio yoga isn’t a therapy as such but since I have been here I’ve seen such dramatic changes in people due to its practice that I have begun to wonder jest what in hell it is. Now doctors are sending people to us that they can’t handle. Our classes are full of young people suffering from stress and tension of spirit – on their way to crack-ups we help them to avoid. In India they’d be surprised, since there’s no ego to get mentally stressed up with, so to speak. But why don’t you come and see the studio? My, it’s classy, it’s downright classy. And I’m the boss locally – crazy, isn’t it?”

  Later that evening she actually did visit it with him and watched a hatha class under the instruction of a young girl. It created a sort of echo in her, a half-formulated desire to become part of it, to learn the ritual. After all, what was her medical practice about if it was not concerned with the problems of stress in its extreme forms? Why should she not study this ancient method for a while and see what bearing it had upon her own formulations?

  Later still, sitting in his tiny office drinking more tea, it seemed to her the most natural thing in the world for him to lean forward and touch her knee as he said, “You know, I believe you could work with us and learn something you could turn to use. Maybe, if you had the patience …”

  She smiled and replied, “I’ve always had the patience to learn something new; but tell me how and where to begin.” And the negro smiled and went on patting her hand as he said, “If you like I’ll step out with you to the ten cent store where you can buy yourself a cheap yoga mat. It’s the first really important act, for you will find it very important for you; you’ll get sort of stuck on it. It’s like all your work and your breathing, and your whole mentality soaked into it while you work on it, or maybe just lie on it and rest. They don’t cost much, they are just little eiderdowns as you saw in class. But it’s good to get a colour you like and keep it always around you – you’ll want to anyway. The thing becomes precious, like your own hymn book. It’s a record of your strivings.” He went on in this vein while conducting her downstairs and across the inner courtyard to the front entrance on the street. They ambled across to a store and she duly bought herself the small eiderdown as required. Then she accompanied him back for her first lesson. The studio was indeed rather a grandiose modern establishment forming part of a flourishing Turkish bath. When they re-entered the main courtyard she was struck by the singular vision of two yoga students diligently burning up their eiderdowns on a lighted brazier. Astonished by this aberrant conduct she stopped and pointed it out to Max. “What on earth …?” she cried, nonplussed. He burst out laughing: “They’ve realised!” he said cryptically.

  She was completely nonplussed. “But after what you have just been saying about yoga mats …” she said in bewilderment, but he only shook his head and laughed at greater length. “Listen,” he said at last, “there is nothing mysterious about what they are doing, but I don’t want to go into merely intellectual explanations. It’s better left – the subject for the time being. Later on you’ll get it for yourself.”

  They resumed their trudge up the stairs and then, as she debated, a sudden intuition flashed upon the screen of her thoughts. She stopped dead and said, “I think I have got it! Attachment!”

  “Yeah,” he said with a grin. “That’s it!”

  She surprised herself by this sudden and quite spontaneous formulation. Where had it come from? Obviously she must have read it somewhere – for after all the whole subject of Eastern metaphysics was quite foreign to her study and indeed her interest. “You know more than you realise,” he said happily. “Now I’m putting you in the beginners class so you can jest learn the alphabet; later on the letters will make words and then the words will make sentences – that is if you don’t get bored and jest drop the whole thing. It does happen and it isn’t important. The science is for those who reely want it and need it and are prepared to make an effort. Like me wanting to become a champ – it was an obsession, a
nd I made sacrifices to get there. However it didn’t work, I didn’t have the class. Then age took a hand and I lost out.”

  “And now?” she asked.

  “Bless you, I’m jest happy without any kind of afterthoughts. They showed me how one could meditate sweetly and gradually harmonise with the goings-on of the whole wide world!”

  “It sounds great!”

  “It certainly is. I’m telling you!”

  And so had begun her insinuation into the mysteries of the craft, and now while she thought back upon it she realised why she had never mentioned it to her colleague. He had once or twice hinted that all such matters whose provenance was Indian were somewhat intellectually disreputable in a scientist of the twentieth century: and she valued his good opinion! If ever asked she had been wont to say that twice a week she took a relaxing Turkish bath in the town. So the yoga had remained a secret between herself and Max. Yet not completely – for later Affad had redeemed this whole field of knowledge by admitting something that neither Max nor Schwarz could have admitted – namely that the heart of all these dissimilar sciences was the same heart. Max knew no science and Schwarz no yogic lore; she felt herself to be intellectually living in a double life between them, each with his claims upon her time and intelligence. If driven to it Schwarz would even quote Kipling on the question of East being East, etc. But thank goodness one day Affad took up the discussion and surprised her by saying quite simply that “Einstein’s non-discrete field, Groddeck’s ‘It’, and Pursewarden’s ‘heraldic universe’ were all one and the same concept and would easily answer to the formulations of Patanjali.” Her heart leaped with joy to hear this, for the whole weight of such tiring speculations had been pressing upon her mind, causing her anxiety and muddle in her thoughts, not to mention doubts about her methods. Of course! And one more reason to love Affad – insight was so much more important than physical beauty. As they sat confronting one another in silence she had the sudden physical feeling of his presence beside her – perhaps at that moment he was thinking of her, desiring her. Trains came and went and the forest of human feet pounded the dark pavements of the quais outside the bar. She drank and listened to her own thoughts as they scurried hither and thither like mice: all thoughts of the past. It was strange how this breach in their relationship had stopped her in her tracks – she felt quite futureless, everything lay in the past and was bathed in the sunshine of reminiscence. O where was Affad now?

  TWO

  The Inquisition

  WHERE INDEED? THEIR PLANE WAS DELAYED IN TURKEY by bad weather – the Prince behaved as if it had happened deliberately in order to annoy him further. Nothing would convince him that the Turks (“they have souls of mud like the Nubians”) had not organised the whole thing from the depths of their anti-Egyptian feeling, even the weather which was so inclement. They spent a sombre weekend watching rain and cloud lying like smoke upon the echoing vistas of the capital – at its best a proud and sinister place. Even the beauties of the Bosphorus were dazzled and rubbed out by the wind and waves, and a racing darkness. The pleasant excursion to Eyoub which they always took was hardly tempting in such frowning weather. Moreover the subject of the journey and that of Constance weighed heavily between them; indeed every time these subjects were touched upon the Prince flew into a vehemence and was so acid that the long-suffering Affad began to wax irritated. They sat among palms in the hotel, where the Prince impatiently read out-of-date newspapers and cracked his finger-joints while Affad played solitaire on a green card table in a self-commiserating sort of manner, swearing from time to time, under his breath and in several languages. The coming Inquisition filled him with guilty gloom and apprehension.

  After one sally by the Prince he turned on him and said, “I implore you to drop the subject – I know your views on it too well! I know that I have to face the enquiry and answer for a gross and lamentable failure of nerve – but let me prepare myself quietly for it and not be chivvied out of my mind …”

  “Who is chivvying who?” growled the scowling Prince, and Affad replied just as testily, “You are. And if you don’t stop I’ll take another plane.”

  The Prince snorted with contempt. “What other plane I’d like to know!”

  It was very much to the point. They had sent a telegram announcing their tardy arrival in Alexandria. The Prince after a moment of silence could not resist a resumption of hostilities. “I hope you’ll have the grace to confess that you have exercised a baleful influence on the poor girl – among other things encouraging all this yogi-bogey stuff she has got interested in.”

  “It’s something you would do well to get interested in yourself before you fall apart, Prince. Those awful attacks of sciatica, for example. You could dispense with all those injections. And then your belly …”

  “What’s wrong with my belly?” said the Prince haughtily, mounting his high horse.

  “The Princess thinks it too protuberant.”

  The little man snorted. “People of my rank cannot be expected to stand about in artificial postures dressed in a loin cloth, nor live on goat’s milk. Who the hell do you think I am, Gandhi? And all this physical stuff, in my walk of life and at my age … it’s preposterous. You have influenced a serious scientist with all this Indian mumbo-jumbo. And you, with a degree in economics and humanities!”

  It was Affad’s turn to pass into a vehemence. He drew a breath and said, “It is quite gratuitous and you are behaving like a Philistine, which you are not. I have already explained to you exactly what yoga is about in scientific terms. There is nothing in it that contradicts western science at any point. It is simply spine-culture intended to restore the original suppleness of the muscle schemes of the body and to feed them on oxygen with the help of the lungs. You treat the whole body as a keyboard and muscle by muscle get it back into optimum condition, as supple as a snake or a cat, ideally. The asanas are breathing codes. They teach the muscles their role and finally the movements become sort of mental acts. The muscles are oxygen-filled and get to become almost mental acts when they move.”

  “Rigmarole!” said the Prince firmly. “Mere rigmarole!” Affad produced a characteristic grunt of indignation. After all, he had not known in any detail the extent of Constance’s preoccupation with these new lessons she had started taking – nor indeed did it much concern him, except that they were valuable: for he himself had followed courses in the science long ago and had profited from them. He had in fact cured a recurrent spinal complaint in a period of two years of methodical practice. “Mental acts!” he went on heatedly. “And once informed the muscle stays in trim eternally, or until decrepitude sets in, or illness. I fully approve of her investigations, for that is what they are. And philosophically speaking the whole process is one of progressive cosmic helplessness. It relinquishes its resistance to entropy, and the basic realisation which meditation brings is really n-dimensional. You could do with a bit of that yourself. After all your own sexual follies foisted on you by that idiot house-doctor of yours! Involving children and dogs and so on, just because you began to fear impotence and were scared to talk to the Princess about it.”

  This was beginning to be extremely unfair, and the Prince clenched his fists for all the world as if he were about to punch Affad in the eye. He inflated his lungs fully, as if about to launch into a tirade or utter a shout, but he did neither; he remained poised, as it were, for a long moment, and then burst into a prolonged chuckle. “You brute!” he said, and aimed a make-believe blow at Affad’s abdomen. “What an unfair thing to say!” Affad shook his head: “Au contraire, a moment of yoga would have set your doubts at rest in the matter and avoided all sorts of compromising and ridiculous situations – for a man of your rank, I mean, since you keep bringing it up!”

  The Prince reflected deeply, nodding as he thought. “It was a terrible period,” he admitted, thinking back no doubt to the brothel in Avignon where he had once organised what he was wont to describe as a “little spree”. The thought gave him cold
shudders now. Thank goodness he had confided everything in the Princess and with her help recovered his balance, as well (to his surprised relief) as his virility. Now when he thought back upon that period he had cold shudders, for it was clear that if the Princess had left him it would have been not because of his sexual misdemeanours so much as his lack of confidence in her as a confidante. She was keen on her role as wife and helpmeet. He sighed. “Thank God all that is over.” And now all of a sudden his evil humour deserted him and was replaced by an affectionate concern for his friend and for the reception he must get from the small committee in Alexandria who awaited the sinner’s return. The executive arm of the fellowship was limited to three members who operated with a formal anonymity on behalf of the whole group; but as they were rotated with great regularity every year it was not possible to guess in detail at their composition. Thus the Prince, who would have loved to try and intervene on his friend’s behalf, or to use his influence to secure some sort of favourable view of his crime – the word is not too strong – was checked by the fact that he did not know whether he had a personal friend among the three to whom he might appeal.… The very idea was of course immoral and unthinkable in the gnostic context, but then it was not for nothing that the Prince was a man of the Orient and impregnated with its labyrinthine strategies!

  The night drew on and the thunder rumbled. Affad relinquished his solitaire for some sleepy general conversation before suggesting that they should go to bed and not wait for a summons from the airport which would never come because of the wind and pelting rain.

  They shambled up to bed like sleepy bears, and were woken at three o’clock with the intelligence that the plane was ready to leave within the hour, and would touch down at Alexandria – an unusual concession to the Prince’s eminence and also to his wire-pulling which was, as always, inspired.