The Avignon Quintet

by Lawrence Durrell

  Half-falling, half-subsiding upon the bed beside him she was possessed of a private stupefaction which would soon (like rings widening in water from a thrown stone) become public – or at any rate more public, for this sudden abrupt disappearance from the scene of Affad seemed as unbelievable to everyone as it seemed incomprehensible to her. But by now she was on the way to recognising the handiwork of her most interesting patient. She was stunned and bemused into an incoherence of mind which alarmed Schwarz when he at last arrived, though he did not go as far as opening the black leather suitcase which housed his drugs. It seemed more appropriate that she should cry, should give public expression to her shock – not just sit bereft and stunned and tearless in a chair with blood all over her skirt. Gazing in puzzled silence at his face with its now gigantic reserve, its depth and weight. All the memoranda of past conversations swarmed over her, invaded every corner of her apprehension. She was absent-minded, tongue-tied, shocked into aphasia almost. She said to herself something like, “So the future has arrived! Life will be no longer a waste of breath!” But the dazzling fact of his death still blinded her – like stepping in front of a firing squad and refusing the bandage. Was the death of a heart impossible to accept – it had, after all, been part of the original contract? How deafening was the silence in which they must now communicate with each other!

  Yet the mechanical part of reality still held together like a stage-setting defying an earthquake – once the ambulance with its duty-doctor and team arrived, followed very shortly by her colleague, a rather trembly version of Schwarz. His gestures also were part of the whole stereotype, only they were more efficacious for he knew the flat; and from the cocktail cabinet under the window he extracted the bottle of vodka. The fiery dose he poured out for her made her hesitate; but then she drained the glass and the liquid poured into her like fuel into a furnace bringing heat without joy, without surcease. Nevertheless.

  The intern was making a gingerly examination of the wounds before permitting the parcelling up of the body for the stretcher. “Surprisingly little blood,” he said in a whisper almost, as if talking to himself. “Considering …”

  Considering what, she wondered? Then of course she saw that one of the crew had found a knife which seemed to correspond to the victim’s wounds. It was wrapped up carefully in newspaper for the coroner. It was another of Mnemidis’ little offerings. “Finish your drink,” said Schwarz sternly, “and sit quiet for a moment.” He felt suddenly very angry with her, irrationally angry. He could have smacked her face. This is what came of meddling with other people’s destiny – he did not say it aloud, but that is what he felt. Constance said, “He told me he was leaving his body to the hospital. He said, ‘I like to think that I shall end up in chunks like a pineapple; after all, I was built up that way on the assembly line!’ Easy to say.” Schwarz did not at all like the note of her laugh at this awkward pleasantry so he sat down and put his arm about her shoulders.

  There was some documentation to be completed and here Schwarz was master; he filled in the forms with expert swiftness, talking all the while to the intern. Meanwhile the stretcher was raised and borne away to the waiting ambulance and the flat door closed. The two doctors shook hands; Schwarz had already sketched in the context of the murder. Later on, the next day, he would find a message on his telephone recorder from the Egyptian doctor which would tell him that everything had worked perfectly, and Mnemidis had duly arrived at the airport, ready to embark for Cairo. There was nothing to be done in effect. What would have been the point in trying to get the madman back? He would be judged unfit to plead and locked up once more – to what end?

  SEVEN

  Other Dimensions Surprised

  “OF COURSE THERE MUST BE A SERVICE,” SAID THE Prince with unaccustomed testiness. “Forms must be observed as he would have wished.” She shook her head. “I think he would have been indifferent – however, we shall do what you wish.”

  “It’s easy to talk idly,” said the Prince snappily, “but quite another to deal with a reality like this.” His eyes filled with tears, and seeing that, so did hers. “You can imagine how guilty I feel,” she said, almost whispering, and he took her hand to press it sympathetically. He felt that her heart was still only adolescent, still burning to grow up: and now this dire calamity stood in the way of its natural evolution towards maturity. “There’s another thing,” he said. “You will be quite surprised by the number of people who will be touched by this sudden loss. I think the chapel on the lake will be suitable for becoming a chapelle ardente, and we must publish the fact in the press perhaps – don’t you think?” She was too tired to think. Things were resolving themselves without her intervention. She felt that her mind had gone numb. The little chapel in question was a small architectural vestige standing among mulberry trees on the water almost. It was part of the grandmother’s property. It had not even been ordained for services – indeed had never been used except once for a christening. It would do admirably. But she was unprepared for the number of people who put in an appearance at the ceremony itself, and for the feeling which was generated by the sight of his quiet face, pale now and somewhat drawn, in the big gondola-shaped coffin in which he had been laid. There were so many humble people like office-messengers and filing-clerks and typists, some of whom shed tears of real grief at the sight! One had quite forgotten that he had played a part in the public life of the town, and of the Red Cross; then of course her immediate friends, Sutcliffe wearing a tie, Blanford in his chair, Toby, the Prince, and of course Schwarz – all with their attention oriented towards the Pole Star of his death, of his silence. But he himself seemed detached, almost as if he were listening to distant music – perhaps he was? Fragments of old conversations floated backwards through her mind, as when she once said, “Damn it, I believe that I really do love you!” And he had replied ruefully, “It comes with practice I am sure – but will we have time?” Prophetic question!

  Nor had it been difficult to find a Coptic priest who, together with his youthful novice, chanted the seemingly interminable Egyptian service of the dead, their thin, gnat-like tones stirring quaint echoes among the cobwebbed arches of the upper chapel. Geneva is the capital of cults and movements. Priests of all the denominations abound. The ceremony was at once exotic and fanciful and at the same time highly conventional owing to the soberly clad group of civil servants in their bourgeois clothing.

  She had spent the afternoon lying across the foot of Blanford’s bed; when she arrived at the clinic he was already in the know, for Schwarz had telephoned him. Constance simply marched into the room and said, “Please, Aubrey, I don’t want to talk about it, indeed about anything. Can I just lie here for a few minutes?” She placed her hand in his and gradually swam out into a deep oceanic sleep which was to last a couple of hours. Blanford said nothing – what was there to say? But he felt the stirring of his old passion for the girl and his heart drew encouragement from the soft pressure of her hand in his. He felt that one day she must come to love him. It was something that was to be forged by time and circumstance; it could not be rushed! But it was in the final analysis ineluctable.

  He was terribly happy and moved by the presentiment, by the promise of a future full of happiness. How can one feel so sure, though? And was it wise to encourage such optimism? She lay at his feet sleeping like a young lioness.

  But he too was a prey to new conflicts centring around guilt, for it had suddenly dawned on him that quite possibly he had hated Affad without being fully aware of the fact. It was extraordinary how the news of his friend’s death had brought him a sense, if not of elation, of peace and well-being, of fulfilment almost. He was too curious about the emotion to indulge in self-reproach – moreover, the whole thing was so unexpected. But it seemed unworthy of Constance to accommodate vulgar emotions like jealousy. (“Why vulgar?” he asked himself.) Was his love suffering from the blood-poisoning of over-refinement? Or was it just a coarse plebian growth like everyone’s? He watched he
r sleeping face with attention as if he might perhaps read the answer on it, to master the secret which so far he had never expressed.

  “Cet homme n’avait qu’à ouvrir les bras et elle venait sans efforts, sans attendre, elle venait à lui et ils s’aimaient, ils s’embrassaient …” Yes, he suddenly felt the quiet suppressed fury of Flaubert’s jealousy and recognised it as his own. “A lui toutes les joies, toutes ses delices à lui …” For him all the joys, all the delights for him!. “A lui cette femme toute entière,” for him this woman entire, head, throat, breasts, body, her heart, her smiles, the two arms which enfolded him, ses paroles d’amour. A lui tout, à moi rien! He stirred her sleeping body softly with his foot, almost apologetically for what he deemed an ignoble line of thought. Ah! This power-house of human misery and ecstasy, the cunt! What Sutcliffe called “the great tuck-box of sex”. How much thought, how much science would it need to control its ravages?

  She spoke now without opening her eyes so that he could hardly tell whether she was awake or not. “Did you see what the little boy did?” Yes, he had seen. “Yes, I got quite a shock, a sort of shiver ran through me. I felt the significance of his decision, the weight of it. One simple decision like that alters the whole of a life. Am I romancing?” She gave a brief sob and fell silent.

  What had happened was this: in the small chapel they had formed several different groups with the family servants and the grandmother (in all the splendour of her mourning costume – superb garments, for the Egyptians are best at mourning, it has always been so): she stood away to one side with the little boy beside her clad in his eternal sailor suit with its HMS Milton on the hat … while Constance stood far forward on the left so that she could watch the quiet face of her lover who seemed so inexplicably still. All of a sudden she heard the click of small heels on the stone flags and turning her head saw the boy leave the side of the old lady and walk with premeditated decisiveness across the whole width of the chapel to Constance’s side. He did not look at her, but simply took her hand, and together they gazed in the looming shadows at the corpse in its gondola-like coffin. Meanwhile the service nagged onwards towards its benediction. The old lady released him with a half gesture of loving despair, spreading her hands as one who releases a cage-bird. Her eyes filled with tears but she was smiling. She realised the full significance of the act as indeed Constance did. It was hard not to tremble, but she managed an appearance of calm as she pressed the small hand which lay in hers.

  It was a new role which seemed to be now presenting itself – the role of a mother, almost, which was part of the inheritance left her by Affad. It was the most unexpected of gifts, and one which she knew she must not refuse. At the end of the service she walked him back to his grandmother and handed him over without a word exchanged. But both had grasped the finality of the choice and both knew its value and its explicitness. The details could wait upon circumstance. The choice had been made and would be respected. She felt quite shaky with emotion as she joined the others in the garden outside the chapel where there was a little delay while people sought their cars. It was here that Cade came forward with a letter for Schwarz from some refugee centre.

  Schwarz glanced at the printed superscription on the envelope and grumbled as he put the envelope away in his overcoat pocket, to read at leisure. “International Refugee Centre,” he growled, scowling at Cade as he did so. The whole world was a refugee now that the war had at last ended. “How did you get hold of it?” he asked the servant suspiciously, and Cade replied with punctilio, in his sanctimonious whine, “It came in the Red Cross pouch, sir. As I knew I would see you here I brought it along to save time.” The eternal messenger, bearer of the eternal telegram, the poisoned arrow! He was not at first to recognise the death sentence which the envelope contained.

  Constance was woken from sleep by the appearance of yet another unexpected figure – a bronzed young giant of a man in uniform bearing the insignia of the Royal Medical Corps. Blanford greeted him with unusual warmth, almost as a long-lost brother. This was Drexel, the young doctor who had provided welcome medical first aid after the accident in the desert which had cost the life of Constance’s first love. There was a spontaneous warmth and penetration in his regard, and a feeling of familiarity which immediately captivated her. “Bruce Drexel!” So that is who he was; and for his part the young man greeted her as if they had been childhood friends. He was eager to assess the merits of the extensive surgical repairs to Blanford’s poor back and glanced through the dossier of the operations with keen interest. “You were right,” said Aubrey, “to call it the restringing of an old piano, for that is exactly how it felt to me. But from a piano à queue they are gradually turning me into an upright again. There’s a real promise that I may one day walk again, though I think that ballroom dancing won’t ever be possible again. Never mind!”

  “You are lucky to be here at all!” said Drexel reproachfully, and then stopped abruptly as he thought of the dead man, and recalled that he had been, after all, the husband of Constance. She rose to set her hair to rights in the pier glass while Drexel went on, though talking in a lower key, as if what he had to say might interest only Blanford. “You know something? Now the war is over, or almost over bar the shouting, the ogres are going to break free from diplomacy and return to Verfeuille once more – you remember the old dream we spoke of on the boat? The dream of après la guerre? Well, it is slowly coming true, I think. The old chateau is in pretty ruinous shape but we can fix that up slowly; and though it sounds romantic wouldn’t you retire from the world if you could? Anyway I am going on down into Provence as an advance guard to take soundings for the two ogres. They think that by next spring we can put our plan into action for a permanent ménage à trois …” He hesitated, for Constance had turned back from the mirror and showed a disposition to re-enter the flow of the conversation once more. She sensed his reticence and hastened to say, “I know all about your plan, because Aubrey told me about it; and then I was delighted for you would be neighbours. But isn’t it a little early as yet?”

  “The Germans have gone, and things will slowly come back into true. The ogres propose to live very modestly on his pension while I have a tiny income of my own.” He smiled and stretched and stood up. “Why don’t you come down around Christmas and spend it with us? It’s far enough off as yet to dream about.”

  It was curious how this casual suggestion set up an echo, a vibration in the consciousness of Constance. It was as if a door had opened somewhere in the further end of her thoughts and memories. Provence! She had been talking of going on leave ever since her return from the long gruelling spell she had spent there during the war. Why not inaugurate the peace there with a Christmas visit? “It sounds crazy,” she said automatically, and the young man sighed and shrugged. “In any case,” he said to Blanford, “your novel about the matter is finished: it only remains for you to see if we are going to live it according to your fiction or according to new fact, no?”

  EIGHT

  After the Fireworks

  AND SO AT LAST THE CLOCKS RAN DOWN AND GENEVA, capital of human dissent, realised that it must formally fête the ending of the most murderous war in human history. Yet, despite everything, a war which had made her rich and confirmed her liberties as well as her boundaries. A particular day was agreed upon by the nations which would bear the brunt of the victory – celebrations seemed onerous in the prevailing exhaustion, yet it was appropriate that they should mark the event, however half-hearted, however reserved. A day of lamentation for humanity might have been nearer the mark, for to the work of Hitler and Stalin the Allies had added their own rider in the ominous word Yalta, thus completing the circle of doom which hovered over European history. Nevertheless a victory celebration had been accepted by all, and for something like a week the Swiss had been industriously transforming their lake frontage into a wilderness of medieval towers and gates and keeps which would supply a stage backcloth for the mammoth firework display which they had planned. And
the new fad in town was to walk the lakeside after dinner each night to study the progress of the work, to watch the army of soldiers and civilians at work on the project, operating from a fleet of anchored pontoons over a length of several kilometres. Nothing had been seen like this since the Great Exhibition: nothing since Paris had transformed itself into fairyland for a spell just before the war broke out.

  Constance walked the whole length of the lake with her colleague Schwarz several times a week now when returning from the clinic at night, or after dinner in town. It was always full of variety and interest, the slow progress of this one-dimensional project upon which the fires would burn, the lights flicker. Obscure scenes from medieval Swiss history were to be pictured here against the screen of fireworks, scenes which extolled the grandeurs of freedom and independence: perhaps, as Schwarz said ironically, also scenes which extolled banking and secret credit accounts … who can say? But their statutory walk was much enlivened by the occasion and they planned to dine together on Victory Night and to follow the progress of the display on the spot. “Après la guerre!” mused the old man as they progressed. “What can it mean? For war never really ends, like birth and death, perpetual motion … Before one can get to the end of one set of wishes or hopes along comes another. The options have changed! History makes a rightabout turn. I used to see much more sense in things when I was younger, consequently I was prepared to fight for them. Now it’s all hollow, all empty, and I am ready to turn on the gas.”