The Avignon Quintet

by Lawrence Durrell

  Indeed the French had arrived; that is to say that representatives of the Press with their cameras had already started to put in an appearance, reassured by the promise offered by the more than adequate buffet which was still only halfway mounted. This creation had been confided to the great chef of Nîmes, Tortoni, who amidst a multiplicity of highly comestible cakes and pâtés had prepared the pedestal for the most important of his creations, a recumbent woman fashioned in butter with trimmings uttered in caviar of several different provenances and helpings of saumon fumé and an archipelago of iced potato salad to round out the offering. Venus rising from a Récamier of Baltic caviar with the smile of a redeemer on her lovely face, just to remind everyone that Tortoni had attended Les Arts before turning aside into a career as a gastronomic chef which had brought him fame and fortune. But all this superlative invention had to be kept chilled and here again great ingenuity came into play, for the whole creation was offered in a disguised thermal showcase upheld by captious looking Cupids with sweet erections and honeyed grins. “I must say,” said Galen proudly, “you really do have good ideas sometimes.” For it was the Prince who had thought up this little gastronomic frolic, as the Préfet’s budget for such a feast was somewhat cheese-paring. “I only hope it wasn’t too expensive,” he added, for the Prince in his lordly way had sent the bill to the company. He shook his head reproachfully and said, “Ah! you and your money! I dreamed last night that you died and were incinerated and that your ashes were scattered over your bank in Geneva by helicopter.” Galen laughed heartily: “And that you built a funerary memorial in the crypt of the bank itself!”

  But Galen’s mirth was superseded by a thoughtful look, as if in afterthought the idea didn’t sound too unreasonable! The Prince continued on his mischievous teasing way: “I remembered Voltaire’s advice to people visiting Geneva and wondered if you knew it.” Galen did not, so the Prince obligingly repeated it: “Voltaire said, ‘When you visit Geneva, if you see a banker jump out of a third-storey window jump after him. There will be three per cent in it!’” This put Galen in a thoroughly good humour. “Old Banquo used to say that if you put your ear to a Geneva bank you could hear it purring just like a Persian cat. The noise was the discreet noise of the interest on capital accruing!” Felix clicked his tongue reprovingly at so much flippancy, but he was only pretending to disapprove. The Prince said, “Admit it, Felix. It’s a Mouton-Rothschild world with far too little merriment in it. As for me I’m dying to plunge my spoon into the buttery buttocks of the Tortoni Venus; but I think we will have to wait for the Préfet, no?”

  Obviously they would have to, in the interests of correct protocol as well as a sense of occasion; but of course it was obvious that the gipsies themselves could only be allowed a limited share in this upper-class celebration. Though it was in their honour they seemed to accept the fact with equanimity. The Préfet’s congratulatory speech had been copied and its distribution to the Press Corps achieved; its actual construction had proved something of a puzzle for he saw that it would have to be written in a manner which suggested that the statue had been in fact found – yet delivered before the fact, so to speak! It contented itself with expressing itself on a warm note of benevolence and goodwill – turns of phrase habitual enough in speeches of an official kind. But the actual gipsy participation was of a limited kind inside the official marquee, though in fact they completely dominated the musical fete which had grown up around the events: already the smoke from the flares and the lights and plangence of the music provided a wild note of romantic colour, a felicity and unbridled expansiveness to the proceedings which was reminiscent of other more important gipsy rejoicings – such as the one in honour of the original Saint Sara at the Saintes Maries de la Mer at the end of May every year. So much colour to delight the eye that Sutcliffe was drunk prematurely, without the ever-present aid of wine. He had asked Sabine if she would consider sleeping with him, and she had looked at him for a long time in a very strange manner. “But I don’t know which one of you is more real – for Aubrey has already asked me that.” To which Rob testily replied, “Is one not permitted a practising alter ego in the modern world? I am the ape-carrier of tradition, for in great houses the Fool customarily carried his Lord’s ape! Why all the mystery? When you are writing from the hither side of a deeply privileged experience a certain hilarity is quite in order if only to express your elation. That is why I love you, for you have realised that as far as individual identity is concerned we only give an illusion of coherence. Your I, me, mine, has about as much consistency as a vapour. Sabine, I am turning into a rainbow! I can feel it. Slowly but gracefully. I am full of love and misgiving for I have learned how to write poems. There comes a struggle, a feeling of suffocation, an agon, a convulsion – before you can take that vital step forward into the unknown! I want to escape from time through the perfect amnesia of the orgasm. Time! Have you not noticed how much one second resembles another? All time is but a uniform flow of process. It is we who age and disappear!”

  “Come to my caravan,” she said. It was an order.

  But though they had not advanced upon the food they had started to broach the champagne, and were beginning to enjoy the twinges of elation it brought. Flash bulbs began to pop off and everyone began to feel that he was about to be immortalised. And the music soared together with the general conversation which had reached the pitch of coherence common to cocktail parties – as if a whole collective unconscious had like a wine-bowl been overturned. Galen was saying: “You scared me so much with your talk of serpents and buried treasure – the Egyptian folk stories, remember? – that I bought myself a stout stick with a steel spike atop, and I shall take it with me just in case.” The Prince chuckled: “How typical!” he said, “when the real danger is of stepping on a mine!” New arrivals began to put in an appearance, like the doctor Jourdain and the saturnine Quatrefages and even (surprisingly) Max, looking even more like God-the-Father than ever: it was as if the very spirit of old age had come to nest, to find its apotheosis in his white-haired gravity and beauty. Galen had paid for him to be present, since he also had been created a sleeping partner in the company. “What has happened to Constance?” he wanted to know, and was delighted when Felix replied: “The best and the worst! She has fallen in love with Aubrey and disappeared. But they promised to appear tonight for the ceremony so perhaps we shall see them here before long.” The old man bowed his head. He was thinking to himself, “Love not disembodied must end in despair and forgiveness. One will ask oneself if that is all that life has to offer. But life has its own imperatives and everything must take its turn. So she was perfectly right to behave as she must. The only art to be learned was how to cooperate with reality and the inevitable!” And then immediately he reproached himself for this rather specious formulation, but at the same time he recognised that it came out of his yoga practice – the fidelity to insight and to oxygen! Nevertheless he was dying to see Constance again and hoped that he would be able to stay awake to talk to her; recently (and regretfully) he had fallen into the habit of dropping off to sleep in a quite involuntary manner after dinner, an annoying symptom of old age against which he was quite powerless!

  The Préfet according to his rank was entitled to three kettle-drums for public appearances of importance, but out of modesty he only convoked two for this cultural manifestation. It was almost the only way of subduing a rowdy Mediterranean crowd, of announcing your presence, or making it clear that what you were about to say was supremely important, because official. Kettle-drums create the required hush before a public speech!

  Tonight, however, he was possessed by a pleasant fancy – of descending from his official car and effecting the last few hundred yards to the bridge on foot, preceded by his drummers. And this he succeeded in doing, walking at a calm unhurried pace, clad in his frock-coat with decorations proudly mounted. The drummers walked before him, uttering their deep rallentando to mark the step; and as he advanced the gipsies espied him and made
way for his advent, orienting their music in a manner of speaking towards a welcoming demeanour. Meanwhile the experienced eye of the official ran over the scene taking everything in – above all to see if the leaders of the gipsy tribe were seated correctly in consonance with that invisible and inscrutable element, protocol. He was reassured to see that the old lady, the “Mother” of the tribe, who looked rather the worse for wear already, had been planted firmly at a side table which adjoined the main one, with her implacable bottle of gin before her, and some lighted joss to keep things savoury. Her husband and a whole tribe of sons kept her company, though they were a tiny bit ill at ease because of the light and the signs of “officialdom”: yet manifestly flattered also. The Préfet made a slow official circuit now to shake the hands of the invitees, noting with interest that some of them came from other time-fields or other contingent realities – like Toby and Drexel, who was there with his two charming and juvenile ogres who seemed rather like impersonations of Piers and Sylvie of the past. In fact there was hardly anyone missing except for the two lovers who were still acting out the long detour of their age – the biography of that first look exchanged on the river bank at Lyons so many years ago!

  The official presence now authorised the official arc-lamps of the shrine, and suddenly it was possible to admire the magnificent presence of the whole monument pressed up against the sky and coloured by the white arcs in all its perfectly proportioned grace. No, it was not possible to dismiss it as an adequate piece of Roman plumbing, thought Felix as he gazed at it with newly kindled emotions. It raised once again the old tormenting problem. (Beautiful is valuable against Beautiful is precious – which?) It was a question of market value against aesthetic or spiritual value. Max at his elbow spoke as if he had read his thoughts for he said, “No. It’s full of spirituality; you could do a very good yoga here and it would be appropriate enough!”

  The wine had done its work, the music exercised its charm, the leafy shadow and white light had expressed all the ample beauty of a late spring; and then to crown it all they stood to gain fortunes tonight and to revive the memorable saint who for years now had been forgotten. The roving and curious eye of the Préfet quested about for a moment, he was on the lookout for someone. Presently she came into view and threaded her way through the crowd to his side; it was Sabine, and he was obviously waiting for her. In her deep voice she said, “Monsieur le Préfet, I have made the inquiries you asked of me and the girl is available, and can come to your residence whenever you wish. Her husband has assured me that she is not ill – I appreciate your concern as so many of these folk have venereal troubles. The only trouble is that he wishes somediing from you en contrepartie, and you may not feel like giving him what he asks for …” “Anything, within reason,” said the Préfet, who was blushing with pleasure, as the girl in question was a magnificent young bird of paradise – or perhaps more appropriately a golden pheasant. Sabine went on: “He wants the centre stall for the Avignon fairs, the stall which is to the left under the old bastion – stall G.” The Préfet groaned: “But everyone wants that stall, it is strategically the best in the town. Very well. I shall speak to the placier in that sense and he can take possession of it as from tomorrow. And I hope tomorrow evening the girl will make herself available at about eight o’clock. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for your personal intervention on my behalf. Sometimes these things are so hard to arrange when one is an official. Thank you a thousand times.” Sabine smiled. One is always in a strong position when one is in need of nothing. But she knew that if ever she needed official help with any scheme she could count on her piston with the Préfet, and that was important.

  But as yet neither had spoken of what was uppermost in their minds – the question of Julio’s embalmed legs. It invested their silence with a kind of pregnant significance for on neither side was the conversation broken off, it simply tapered off into silence, into a pause. She left the official with the onus of referring to the subject. “Of course,” he said at last, “I am fully aware of the political significance to the tribe of finding the shrine untouched and in working order. In a sense I am as much concerned as you must be – for my job is to see that nothing troubles good civic order.”

  “Indeed,” she said, looking down at her hands as if the answer to the secret might be hidden in them. “Indeed!”

  The official drew a deep breath and plunged. “Have you thought any more about my suggestion concerning the legs?”

  “Of course I have.”

  “I am having repeated offers from the Musée de l’Homme; as you know they want to add the originals to their collection. It seems to be a matter of vital interest to them and I am sure the matter could be arranged without anyone knowing. After all with a pair of plastic copies who would be any the wiser?”

  “That is not the question. I quoted them a price for the whole transaction. Will they meet it or not? If they will then I agree from my side. If not, not!” The Préfet coughed behind his hand. “They have agreed to your price,” he said and his face broke into a smile. But not hers, there was no corresponding smile on her face. So this was the discreditable act she must perform according to the cards – for of course plastic copies could not, would not, conduct the lightning flashes of healing to suppliants! She took the proffered cheque and stared at it with puzzled amaze, dazed by her own behaviour. It was a ritual sacrifice of something, though she did not know of what. And it would lead, as the cards had warned her, to her murder by the tribe – ritual murder by stoning. She shook herself like a sheepdog with sheer disbelief. “What rubbish it all is!” she exclaimed. “Rubbish?” said the Préfet. “It seems a fair price to me for such a thing. It’s all superstition anyway, so what are the odds?”

  He moved slowly on and left her standing there in amazement wondering if she should tear up the cheque but knowing she would not.

  Everything was unrolling in the most satisfactory fashion; an unruffled optimism reigned. It was time now to broach the food, and the official approached the gallant spread with all the ardour and enthusiasm of a true Frenchman who is confronted with something good to eat. It is practically a religious duty to do justice to the fare. And by now everyone had caught the mood, and started to follow suit. Fragments of thoughts and snatches of conversation floated about in the breezy darkness of the Roman treasure. Old relationships between acquaintances who had not met for years renewed themselves. Glasses were raised to Saint Sara, and “trinc” became once more the password!

  “As for Saint Sara, I don’t suppose we shall ever know for certain who she was: the repudiated wife of Pilate, the servant of the Virgin, or some forgotten queen of Egypt, reincarnation of Isis, who once ruled over the Camargue. Perhaps it does not matter except to these swarthy children who so reverently kiss her belly button during the fête.” Thus the Prince who was enchanted by the excellence of the food and drink and the manner in which things were shaping.

  Twinkling with love-bites Cleopatra came,

  Saint Sara had resolved her of all shame,

  The belly-button of a virgin’s kiss

  Transformed her very breathing into bliss.

  In the unwinking gold of the candlelight all the brasswork in the little caravan twinkled and flashed. Sabine gazed at the two palms of Rob Sutcliffe, allowing her concentration to sink into them, to founder in them until they seemed to her as transparent as glass. “We will be saved if at all by the Jews coming into a new heritage; the persecuted make mistakes and they once made a false identification of interest on capital with safety; this translated into blood as a kind of alchemical investment plus material usury. There will be other ways of stabilising the finances of state and they will show us a new road.” Sutcliffe was clad only in his shirt. In his notebook he had written: “The untouchable dreams of licit caresses.” He had asked her to marry him, as he had asked so many people to do, and like so many people she had refused. (Can you (ex)change lives? Can you (ex)change deaths?)

  Lord Galen was d
iscoursing upon dreams. “Sometimes,” he said, “I want prophetic dreams, lucrative dreams which come without warning. Last year, for example, I woke with a cry of astonishment to hear a voice say: ‘The obvious thing at the end of a war as wasteful as this last one is a contract for scrap metal.’ It was a revelation – the obvious always is! Within ten days I was negotiating with ten governments to take over their deserted battlefields!”

  “Yes, I also used to be scared of snakes,” Max was saying, “until I went to India to study. In the ashram there was a king cobra with a mate and they were quite tame; they came out at dusk and drank milk from a saucer with little flickering tongues. You could describe them as good-humoured when not alarmed and quite unaggressive. But in another part of India they killed snakes and there I noticed how faithful the female was and how deadly. She always returns to avenge her mate, and for days after a male has been killed the whole place is in a state of acute anxiety waiting for her certain reappearance. Usually she comes three or four days after the killing of her mate. They say that this is the better to plan her ambush because she is careful to execute her retaliation according to a set plan. She lies in wait in some place where people are bound to pass – on a thoroughfare or pathway, in a kitchen or at a shrine. If any unwary person approaches she strikes with all her might. But I was very impressed by the anxiety with which the whole household awaited her coming. My teachers used this as a metaphor. The state of watchfulness as if for this second coming!”