by John Fowles
I said, "Why you?"
He smiled then, a thin, small smile. "Avant la guerre."
I knew he had not been teaching at the school; it must have been at Bourani. I looked down at the desk. "I want to leave at once. Today."
"That is understood. But no more scandals?" He meant, after that at breakfast.
"I'll see. If . . ." I gestured in my turn. "Only because of this."
"Bien." He said it almost warmly, and came round the desk to take my hand; and even shook my shoulder, as Conchis had sometimes done, as if to assure me that he took my word. Then, briskly and sparsely, he went.
* * *
And so I was expelled. As soon as he had gone, I felt angry again, angry that once again I had not used the cat. I did not mind leaving the school; to have dragged through another year, pretending Bourani did not exist, brewing sourly in the past . . . it was unthinkable. But leaving the island, the light, the sea. I stared out over the olive groves. It was suddenly a loss like that of a limb. It was not the meanness of making a scandal, it was the futility. Whatever happened, I was banned from ever living again in Phraxos.
After a while I forced myself to go on packing. The bursar sent a clerk up with my pay check and the address of the travel agency I should go to in Athens about my journey home. By noon I was ready to leave. I deposited my bags with Barba Vassili and then, with a goodbye only to him, and no regrets at all, I walked out of the gate for the last time.
At the village I went first to Patarescu's house. A peasant woman came to the door; the doctor had gone to Rhodes for a month. Then I went to the house on the hill. I knocked on the gate. Hermes came Out to open it.
No, the young lady had not been. He still had the suitcase. Did I want to look at it again? I went back down through the village to the old harbor, to the taverna where I had met old Barba Dimitraki. Georgiou, as I hoped, knew of a room for me in a cottage nearby. I sent a boy back to the school with a fish trolley to get my bags; then ate some bread and olives.
At two, in the fierce afternoon sun, I started to toil up between the hedges of prickly pear towards the central ridge. I was carrying a hurricane lamp, a crowbar and a hacksaw. No scandal was one thing; but no investigation was another.
65
I came to Bourani about half-past three. The gap beside and the top of the gate had been wired, while a new notice covered the salle d'attente sign. It said in Greek, Private property, entrance strictly forbidden. It was still easy enough to climb over. But I had no sooner got inside than I heard a voice coming up through the trees from Moutsa. Hiding the tools and lamp behind a bush, I climbed back.
I went cautiously down the path, tense as a stalking cat, until I could see the beach. A caϊque was at the far end. There were five or six people — not islanders, people in gay beach clothes, a brown girl in a white bikini. As I watched, two of the men picked up the girl, who screamed, and carried her down the shingle and dumped her into the sea. There was the blare of a battery wireless. I walked a few yards inside the fringe of trees, half expecting at any moment to recognize them. But the girl was small and dark, very Greek; two plump women; a man of thirty and two older men. I had never seen any of them before.
There was a sound behind me. A barefoot fisherman in ragged gray trousers, the owner of the caϊque; came from the chapel. I asked him who the people were. They were from Athens, a Mr. Sotiriades and his family, they came every summer to the island.
Did many Athenian people come to the bay in August? Many, very many, he said. He pointed along the beach: In two weeks, ten, fifteen caIques, more people than sea. Bourani was pregnable: and I had my final reason to leave the island.
The house was shuttered and closed, just as I had last seen it. I made my way round over the gulley to the Earth. I admired once again the cunning way its trap door was concealed, then lifted the stone and pulled on the ring. The dark shaft stared up. I climbed down with the lamp and lit it; then climbed back and got the tools. I had to saw halfway through the hasp of the padlock; then, under pressure from the crowbar, it snapped. I picked up the lamp, shot back the bolt, pulled open the massive door, and went in.
I found myself in the northwest corner of a rectangular room. Facing me I could see two embrasures that had evidently been filled in, though little ventilator grilles showed they had some access to the air. Along the north wall opposite, a long built-in wardrobe. By the east wall, two beds, a double and a single. Tables and chairs. Three armchairs. The floor had some kind of rough folkweave carpeting on top of felt, and three of the walls had been whitewashed, so that the place, though windowless, was surprisingly ungloomy. On the west wall, above the bed, was a huge mural of Tyrolean peasants dancing; lederhosen and a girl whose flying skirt showed her legs above her flower-clocked stockings. The colors were still good; or retouched. In the middle of the east wall there was a door. I opened it and found myself in another similarly shaped room. There were five beds in this one, another wardrobe. In a corner, a paraffin stove. The same blockedin embrasure slits. And on a desk in one corner a field telephone. I went back into what had evidently been the girls' room, and started examining it more thoroughly.
There were fifteen or so changes of costume for Lily in the wardrobe, and at least eight of them were duplicated for Rose; several I had not seen. In a set of drawers there were period gloves, handbags, stockings, hats. Even an antiquated linen swimming costume with a lunatic ribboned Tam o' Shanter cap to match.
Blankets were piled on each mattress. I smelt one of the pillows, but couldn't detect Lily's characteristic scent. Over a table between the old gun slits there was a bookshelf. I pulled down one of the books. The Perfect Hostess. A Little Symposium on the Principles and Laws of Etiquette as Observed and Practised in the Best Society. London. 1901. I flicked through it. How to make an elegant billet. A note folded into a star.
There were a dozen or so Edwardian novels. Someone had penciled notes on the flyleaves. Good dialogue, or Useful cliche's at 98 and 164. See scene at 203, said one. "Are you asking me to commit osculation?' laughed the ever-playful Fanny."
There was a chest, but it was empty. In fact the whole room was disappointingly empty of anything personal. I searched next door. The desk was empty. In the wardrobe there I found the horn that the Apollo figure had called with; the Robert Foulkes costume; a chef's white overall and drum hat; a Lapp smock; and the entire uniform of a First World War captain with Rifle Brigade badges.
I began to go more carefully through the drawers, pockets, to see if I could find something. At last I came back to the shelf of books. In irritation I pulled down the whole lot and out of one of the books, an old bound copy of Punch, 1914 (in which various pictures had been ticked in red crayon), spilled a little folded pile of what I thought at first were letters. But they were not. They were pieces of paper used by Lily to scribble on. They had apparently originally been orders. None was dated.
1. The Drowned Italian Airman
We have decided to omit this episode.
2. Norway
We have decided to omit the visits with this episode.
3. Hirondelle
Has arrived. Treat with caution. Still tender.
4. If Subject discovers Earth
Please be sure you know the new procedure for this
eventuality by next weekend. Lily considers the
subject likely to force such a situation on us.
I wondered why they had bothered to keep up the pretense of the false name.
5. Hirondelle
Avoid all mention with the subject.
6. New Phase
Termination by end of July for all except nucleus.
7. State of subject
Maurice considers that the subject has now reached
the malleable stage. Remember that for the subject
any play is now better than no play. Change modes,
intensify withdrawals.
The eighth sheet was a typewritten copy of the Frog verses Lily had recite
d to me.
Finally, on different paper, a scrawled message: Tell Bo not to forget the unmentionables and the books. Oh and tissues, please. Each of these nine pieces of paper had writing on the back, obviously (or obviously intended to look like) Lily's rough drafts.
1.
What is it?
If you were told its name
You would not understand.
Why is it?
If you were told its reasons
You would not understand.
Is it?
You are not even sure of that,
Poor footsteps in an empty room.
2.
Love is the course of the experiment.
Is to the limit of imagination.
Love is your manhood in my orchards.
The nigger lurks my thin green leaves;
The white bitch wanders all your jungle.
Love is your dark face reading this.
Your dark, your gentle face and hands.
Did Desdemona
This was evidently unfinished.
3.
The Choice
Spare him till he dies.
Torment him till he lives.
4.
ominus dominus
Nicholas
homullus est
ridiculus
igitur meus
parvus pediculus
multo vult dare
sine morari
in culus illius
ridiculus
Nicholas
colossicus ciculus
5.
Mr. von Masoch sat on a pin;
Then sat again, to push it in.
"How exquisite," cried Plato,
"The idea of a baked potato."
But exquisiter to some
Is potato in the tum.
"My dear, you must often be frightened,"
Said a friend to Madame de Sade.
"Oh not exactly frightened,
But just a little bit scarred."
Give me my cardigan,
Let me think hardigan.
This was evidently a game between the sisters; alternate different handwritings.
6.
Mystery enough at noon.
The blinding unfrequented paths
Above the too frequented sea
Hold labyrinth and mask enough.
No need to twist beneath the moon
Or multiply the midnight rite.
Here on the rising secret cliff
In this white fury of the light
Is mystery enough at noon.
The last three sheets had a fairy story on them.
THE PRINCE AND THE MAGICIAN
Once upon a time there was a young prince, who believed in all things but three. He did not believe in princesses, he did not believe in islands, he did not believe in God. His father, the king, told him that such things did not exist. As there were no princesses or islands in his father's domains, and no sign of God, the young prince believed his father.
But then, one day, the prince ran away from his palace. He came to the next land. There, to his astonishment, from every coast he saw islands, and on these islands, strange and troubling creatures whom he dared not name. As he was searching for a boat, a man in full evening dress approached him along the shore.
"Are those real islands?" asked the young prince.
"Of course they are real islands," said the man in evening dress.
"And those strange and troubling creatures?"
"They are all genuine and authentic princesses."
"Then God also must exist!" cried the prince.
"I am God," replied the man in full evening dress, with a bow.
The young prince returned home as quickly as he could.
"So you are back," said his father, the king.
"I have seen islands, I have seen princesses, I have seen God," said the prince reproachfully.
The king was unmoved.
"Neither real islands, nor neat princesses, nor a real God, exist."
"I saw them!"
"Tell me how God was dressed."
"God was in full evening dress."
"Were the sleeves of his coat rolled back?"
The prince remembered that they had been. The king smiled.
"That is the uniform of a magician. You have been deceived."
At this, the prince returned to the next land, and went to the same shore, where once again he came upon the man in full evening dress.
"My father the king has told me who you are," said the young prince indignantly. "You deceived me last time, but not again. Now I know that those are not real islands and real princesses, because you are a magician."
The man on the shore smiled.
"It is you who are deceived, my boy. In your father's kingdom there are many islands and many princesses. But you are under your father's spell, so you cannot see them."
The prince returned pensively home. When he saw his father, he looked him in the eyes.
"Father, is it true that you are not a real king, but only a magician?"
The king smiled, and rolled back his sleeves.
"Yes, my son, I am only a magician."
"Then the man on the shore was God."
"The man on the shore was another magician."
"I must know the real truth, the truth beyond magic."
"There is no truth beyond magic," said the king.
The prince was full of sadness.
He said, "I will kill myself."
The king by magic caused death to appear. Death stood in the door and beckoned to the prince. The prince shuddered. He remembered the beautiful but unreal islands and the unreal but beautiful princesses.
"Very well," he said. "I can bear it."
"You see, my son," said the king, "you too now begin to be a magician."
The "orders" looked as if they had all been typed out at the same time, just as the poems were all scribbled in the same pencil with the same pressure, as if they had been written ad hoc in one sitting. Nor did I believe such "orders" could ever have been sent; what else was the telephone for? I puzzled over Hirondelle . . . still tender; must not be mentioned to me; some surprise, some episode I was never shown. The poems and the little epistemological fable were easier to understand; had clear applications. Obviously they could not have been sure that I would break into the Earth. Perhaps there were such clues littered all over the place, it being accepted on their side that I would find only a very small proportion of them. But what I did find would come to me in a different way from the blatantly planted clue — with more conviction; and yet might be as misleading as all the other clues I had been given.
I was wasting my time at Bourani; all I might appear to find there would confuse confusion.
That was the meaning of the fable. By searching so fanatically I was making a detective story out of the summer's events, and to view life as a detective story, as something that could be deduced, hunted and arrested, was no more realistic (let alone poetic) than to view the detective story as the most important literary genre, instead of what it really was, one of the least. On Moutsa, at that first sight of the party, I had felt, in spite of everything, a shock of excitement; and an equally revealing disappointment when I realized they were nothing: mere tourists. Perhaps that was my deepest resentment of all against Conchis. Not that he had done what he did, but that he had stopped doing it.
I had intended to break into the house as well, to wreak some kind of revenge there. But suddenly that seemed petty and mean; and insufficient; because it was not that I still did not intend to have my revenge. Only now I saw quite clearly how I would have it. The school could dismiss me. But nothing could prevent my coming to the island the following summer. And then we would see who had the last laugh.
I got up and left the Earth, and went to the house; walked one last time under the colonnade. The chairs were gone, even the bell. In the vegetable garden the cucumber plants lay yellowed and dying; the Priapus had b
een removed.
I was full of a multiple sadness, for the past, for the present, for the future. Even then I was not waiting only to say, to feel, goodbye, but fractionally in the hope that a figure might appear. I did not know what I would have done if one did, any more than I knew what I was going to do when I got to Athens. If I wanted to live in England; what I wanted to do. I was in the same state as when I came down from Oxford. I only knew what I didn't want to do; and all I had gained, in the matter of choosing a career, was a violent determination never again to be a teacher of any sort. I'd empty dustbins rather than that.
An emotional desert lay in front of me, an inability ever to fall in love again that was compounded of the virtual death of Lily and the actual death of Alison. I was disintoxicated of Lily; but my disappointment at failing to match her had become in part a disappointment at my own character; an unwanted yet inevitable feeling that she would vitiate or haunt any relationship I might form with another woman; stand as a ghost behind every lack of taste, every stupidity. Only Alison could have exorcized her. I remembered those moments of relief at Monemvasia and on the ship coming back to Phraxos, moments when the most ordinary things seemed beautiful and lovable — possessors of a magnificent quotidaneity. I could have found that in Alison. Her special genius, or uniqueness, was her normality, her reality, her predictability; her crystal core of nonbetrayal; her attachment to all that Lily was not.
I was marooned; wingless and leaden, as if I had been momentarily surrounded, then abandoned, by a flock of strange winged creatures; emancipated, mysterious, departing, as singing birds pass on overhead; leaving a silence spent with voices.
* * *
Only too ordinary voices, screams, came faintly up from the bay. More horseplay. The present eroded the past. The sun slanted through the pines, and I walked one last time to the statue.
Poseidon, perfect majesty because perfect control, perfect health, perfect adjustment, stood flexed to his divine sea; Greece the eternal, the never-fathomed, the bravest because the clearest, the mystery-at-noon land. Perhaps this statue was the center of Bourani, its omphalos — not the house or the Earth or Conchis or Lily, but this still figure, benign, all-powerful, yet unable to intervene or speak; able simply to be and to constitute.