The Avignon Quintet

by Lawrence Durrell

  With loving penetration Mnemidis continued to hold him and gaze up into his face, now bloodless and somehow serene despite the exhaustion – a serenity which perhaps counterfeited and anticipated the inevitable death which must follow such an exchange. It was a crucial sweetness, and the pallor was highly satisfying to the audior of the assault who stood, holding him upright and scrutinising him so tenderly. At last Mnemidis stepped back and gently posed the teetering giant more snugly in the mass of hanging coats. He must be losing blood rapidly, Pierre, but he remained upright in a pose at once fragile and authoritative, his arms out and his fingers crooked, but no longer on the body of his adversary. His expression suggested that he was all of a sudden deeply introspective, investigating his inmost feelings; to try and determine perhaps the extent of the leak, the volume of blood which was now flowing – he could feel it, soft and quite insidious – flowing down. Losing blood, yes, he was losing blood. He groaned, and as if upon a signal Mnemidis stepped back and shut the closet door, leaving him to stand trembling among the clothes.

  By the grace of the Creator the kitchens were still empty, he had them to himself; he was very thirsty, so he gave himself a long drink from the sink and tenderly wiped the blade of his knife. Then, squaring his shoulders, he went in search of a garment which might hide his nakedness above the waist, or indeed disguise him, for as yet his journey had only begun, there was much to be done. Vaguely stirring in the back of his mind was the idea of perhaps a chef’s cape or a baker’s white coat, or a doctor’s regalia, but what he indeed hit upon was even more impenetrable as a disguise. Some of the nuns engaged in heavy manual labour like washing clothes or swabbing floors, had the habit of hanging up their robes and coifs in one of the adjacent changing-rooms which was open. He could hardly hide his glowing self-satisfaction as he found three or four of these costumes from which to choose; and most particularly the starched and all but spotless coifs. What a disguise! This huge headpiece was shaped like a lily and he slipped one on just to see how such an affair would look. He was amazed by his own face, it looked quite terrifyingly composed with just a trace of human light in the eye, and just a trace of a smile at the corners of the mouth. But he had never noticed before that he had dimples, and the better to study them he allowed his smile to broaden, to overflow as it were; the dimples belonged to someone’s early childhood, as did the face now, whose contours were demarcated by the white helm of the nun. But this one was a trifle too big; he went along the line and out of the three or four available picked one which he snugged down over his head to make a perfect fit. Then he sought out the curtain-like nun’s robes and picked a suitable one. All this happened in a flash; he consciously hurried things along because he could hear, somewhere in the depths of the building, a muffled bumping as if Pierre, half-foundered by the stabbing, had started to react, to fall about among the hanging coats.

  The mirror gave back an elderly nun with a face full of unhealthy confessional secrets, expressions both perverted and hypocritical, but with an uncanny brilliance of eye. A nun of great experience, yet not disabused. A nun ready for anything. He almost chuckled with delight as he crept out of the closet and into the main hall, walking with bent head, as if deep in thought, and very slowly so as not to excite curiosity. He examined the notice-boards, passed them in review, and then just as self-confidently directed himself towards the wood which he traversed every day with Pierre. At once when he was under cover his pace increased, and he arrived at the little villa which housed the psychological unit almost at a run. By great good luck the office of Schwarz was empty, as also was the consulting-room of the woman doctor – the one he was most anxious to see. He sat down suddenly to reflect. Perhaps if he waited they might come, the one or the other? But the woman was more important.

  He sat down in Schwarz’s swivel chair for a long moment and reflected; in his mind he went back along the chain of past events – those of the last hour – in order to evolve a line of action suitable to his case and his intentions. He had retained the addresses of his two Egyptian friends, and once he had finished his scheduled business he intended to call at their hotel and give himself up, put himself in their charge, hoping that it was not too late for them to put the escape plan into operation and waft him back home to Cairo. So he sat, taking stock of himself and fingering the heavy handles of the kitchen knives – for he could not resist taking both. It was somewhat awkward having them, but each had a stout leather sheath and a scabbard, and each was attached by a tough thong so that he could loop it into the belt which held up his trousers. The long cassock-type garment of the nun was most voluminous, and obliterated all contours; it amused and excited him for it brought him back old memories of the carnivals in Alexandria. It was like a black domino. But … he sprang to his feet and chided himself for wasting valuable time here instead of moving on into town to further his plans. The nun’s habit had two great inner pockets, one of which contained a rosary and the other tickets to a fête votive in a lake village. Not to mention a cambric handkerchief, with which he might cover part of his face if necessary. But it was a pity to have missed both the doctors like this. He felt a twinge of regret to leave the consulting-room without having, so to speak, made his mark, left a message of some sort. Yet what? On Schwarz’s desk he saw an apple on a plate – it constituted the modest lunch of the analyst who was dieting and trying to lose weight. With his knife Mnemidis cut it in half, giving a little chuckle of pure mischief.

  Then he set off at a trot through the wood, only slowing his pace when he came to open spaces bordering the main entrance, or trim gardens rich in flowerbeds where he adopted a loitering, contemplative gait, snail-like in fact, most suitable for a nun who tells her beads as she walks, rapt in prayerful union with her Saviour. He had expected by now some sort of spirited pursuit, cries of surprise, running footsteps; it was disappointing, but nevertheless. He was usually chased and pounced upon in such circumstances. But he recognised in all this the hand of fate – for he had as yet not accomplished his mission. He frowned as he walked thoughtfully towards the car park and the main entrance. There was a risk that the alarm had been given, that they had telephoned the front gate to stop all people trying to leave. But apparently not, all was quiet. It would be more than an hour before Pierre fell out of his cupboard on to the floor – under which the pool of blood had traced a path which someone would notice. No, all was normal in the office of the gate warden. Moreover, a further stroke of luck awaited the newly canonised nun, for parked outside the gate and obviously ready to move off was the baker’s van which brought the establishment its daily bread. The driver, a fresh-faced youth, was just shutting down the motor hood after checking the oil. The sight of one of the sisters walking through the gate was not calculated to arouse any particular interest in the guardians of the gate who simply gave Mnemedis a cursory glance as he passed under their window. He held his handkerchief to his mouth as if he had a cold and spoke in a hoarse whisper as he asked the young driver whether he was going into town, and whether he would give him a lift to the lakeside village to the féte votive for which he had now two tickets. The boy agreed most respectfully to take the sister aboard, and Mnemidis climbed in beside him and snuggled down, delighted by the ease with which he had hoodwinked the authorities and broken prison. It was in the best tradition – he had never done a cleverer, smoother break-out in his whole life. He restrained a temptation to whistle a tune, and asked the young man in a hoarse whisper whether he went to church, and if so to which. “Catholic” was the reply.

  Mnemidis was emboldened by the manifest impenetrability of his disguise – he looked every inch an elderly sister with a slightly waggish disposition. He took the wise precaution, however, of talking in a hoarse whisper, as if he had lost his voice, due to a heavy cold. As the nervous youth went on in naïf fashion to outline his religious convictions the sister of mercy put her arm about his shoulders in sacerdotal sympathy. Then she asked if during the night he was not troubled sometimes by un
worthy thoughts or dreams or … wishes? And her hand slid softly down to caress the young man’s thigh. He could not forbear to flush up and draw in his breath – it was sexually exciting to feel this apparently innocent advance. He did not quite know what to make of it. Meanwhile Mnemidis went on talking in his hoarse whisper about the difficulty of sleeping when one was young and pursued by chimeras of experiences one had not as yet tasted. Did not the young man sometimes … But the young man was manifestly excited now and blushing furiously. He had never had an experience of this order, and he had lost all his composure. After all, what could one say to a nun? He too felt that he had lost his voice, while the stealthy advance of the nun’s hand now made clear her intention – of making free with him sexually. But the steady flow of language did not cease as the caresses became more pointed and deliberate. Finally, in a more authoritative fashion, the sister told him to pull his vehicle off the road and into a copse which obligingly presented itself, and here the seduction was consummated. The young man mixed confusion, sexual excitement and shame in equal parts. Then he conducted his passenger to the lakeside road and set her down at the gates of the park in which the fête votive was being held, and for which she held tickets, it would seem. The nun said goodbye with a ghoulish demureness and the young man drove off in something of a hurry, glad to be shot of so strange a customer.

  But this encounter was most valuable to Mnemidis in that it gave him confidence in his disguise. It provoked no curiosity and much respect. He even tested it by going up to the policeman on the park gate and asking the time. The man drew back and saluted respectfully as he conveyed the information. No, it was completely foolproof. With a sigh of relief Mnemidis now abandoned himself to pure pleasure. He walked about the spacious gardens, visited the flower show in the conservatories and helped judge the competition by putting his judgement on to a slip of paper and sliding it into the box at the gate. Then he walked into the other corner and saw a Punch and Judy show which he found completely absorbing. He had forgotten how marvellous the facial expressions of children can be when they are absorbed by a theatrical performance. You can see the adult lodged in the youthful body; if you gaze into the eyes and let your intelligence flow into the child’s face you can divine very clearly what sort of adult it will become in due course. He was delighted by this exercise, involving a thesaurus of young faces in all their moods. And then he went into a concert where gross romantic music was the keynote, and he throbbed and almost swooned to the strains of Strauss and Delibes. Emotion is permitted in a nun. He moved his head from side to side and closed his eyes with each wave of delight. At the same time his fingers caressed the forms of the knives which lay so quietly obedient upon his thighs.

  He had all the time in the world, that is what he had begun to feel. He could afford to take his time. But when he spotted a telephone booth he suddenly remembered that he did not yet know the exact address of Constance’s flat. But he soon found her in the supplement devoted to trades and professions, and reading over the address a couple of times unerringly memorised it.

  This is where he would go when he was good and ready, to exact retribution from the woman who had so misused him both morally and physically. He closed his eyes the better to memorise the address.

  FIVE

  The Return Journey

  WITHIN THE SPACE OF THIS RELATIVELY SHORT absence from the town Constance found that the dispositions had somewhat changed, been reshuffled. The mid-morning “elevenses” of Toby and Sutcliffe had remained the only constant, but the company of the billiardaires, as Sutcliffe had christened what threatened now to become an informal club, had been increased by new arrivals. Blanford had graduated to a wheel-chair with a movable back which he could adjust to correspond to his waves of fatigue, or desire for a cat-nap. He found the atmosphere most congenial for his work, and he found that Sutcliffe argued best when he was allowed to be slightly absent-minded, half-concentrated on a tricky shot. He had his best thoughts paradoxically when he was occupied with something else – it was as if they were completely involuntary, arriving from nowhere: but every artist has this unique experience, of receiving throbs from outer space as pure gifts. Another member of the company was Max, who in a curious way felt a little lonely in Geneva and was anxious to take up old friendships; he played an excellent game of pool, and despite his new avocation as a yogi was still very much his old self, easy to tease in an affectionate way for he was so very humble, had always been despite the gaudy uniforms provided by Lord Galen. The gloomy and deteriorate old bar took on a new life; the moribund old man who ran it so very inexpertly invoked the aid of a niece or a daughter-in-law who started to produce eatable comestibles and superior brands of whisky and gin to meet the new custom. And this general disposition towards improvement had borne fruit, for among the new members of this confraternity were two of the secretaries who worked for Toby, and even Ryder, Sutcliffe’s head of section, who since his wife’s accident had taken to drinking rather heavily. Moreover, he was somewhat intimidated, or so he professed, by frequenting “sort of artist chaps”, because he was simply “an ordinary lowbrow service mind”. His misgivings were rudely set to rest by Sutcliffe.

  “The word is a misnomer, it should be autist. I know that the animal is short of manners and lacks true refinement, but then he is tolerably happy with his vulgar streak. There are advantages in being a parvenu: one is shunned by people dying of the slow blood-poisoning of over-refinement. The poor artist is a fartist, and he belongs to an endangered species and needs the protection of the reservation. His compensations are secret ones. He belongs to the Floppy Few!”

  “O Christ!” said the soldier in despair. “If ever there was someone in need of subtitles …”

  But it was not always as bad as this, and he solaced himself with the more worldly company of Felix Chatto who had smelt out this informal morning gathering and graced it with his company several times a week. Geneva was short on really good company combined with complete informality, and that is what the smoky little bar had to offer, despite its impersonality and general ugliness. And the general relaxation of the atmosphere was also a sign that the long suppurating war was drawing to an end. New sorts of agency were beginning to make their appearance in the town – agencies for peace and reconstruction, not for war, espionage, subversion. The faintest shadow of a new atmosphere had begun to flower among the ruins of the epoch. Yet how exhausted they all were. (These thoughts are those of Constance.) Yes, even those who had apparently done nothing were worn down by the invisible moral attrition of war. In her own case she felt its separate weight added to the weight of the human experiences through which she had found her way with such difficulty, with so many hesitations. And now once more changes were in the air, the structure of things was shifting, disintegrating around her. Soon, she supposed dumbly, she would be on the move again, heading for some distant country, some new project. Only the thought that Affad was coming back halted her.

  “Halted her” is not true either, for at the very heart of her emotion, the seat of her loving awareness of him as a man, she was aware that something had gone wrong and that she did not know how it could be put right; it was like a break in an electrical circuit, it would need mending by both sides. But if they were not together? There was the rub. To still her sense of overwhelming boredom she had begun to spend more time with Blanford, indeed whole afternoons talking to him on his balcony or lying beside his bed. Not infrequently they were joined by the massive figure of Sutcliffe, tired of pacing the waterfront on misty afternoons. It was curious, too, to hear them discussing the interminable sequences of the “double concerto” as Blanford called their novel now. He took the concerns of form very seriously and reacted with annoyance to Sutcliffe’s jocose suggestions, namely that the whole thing would be much tidier as an exchange of letters. “We could have fun, spelling God backwards! You could sign yourself OREPSORP and I could sign myself NABILAC. It’s the other side of the moon for Prospero and Caliban – between
us we could really control things. I mean Reality or YTILAER. With many an involuntary chuckle and lots of spicy new dialogue like: ‘A stab of grog, Podsnap – I mean Pansdop? Don’t mind if I do, mate. Couldn’t care less if I did!’ In this way enanteiodromion, everything would be seen to be turning into its opposite, even our book which would take on a mighty shifty strangeness, become an enticement for sterile linguists to parse in their sleep.”

  “But hard on the reader, surely,” pleaded Constance. “And of an unhealthy schizoid cast of mind.”

  Aubrey said, “I am deliberately turning the novel inside out like a sleeve.”

  “Then back,” said Sutcliffe.

  “Yes, then back.”

  “I have treated people like you, sometimes even much worse. But with no success, alas. And I was brought up on rigorous fare like Ivanhoe and Proust which enjoyed classical exactitude as to form …”