The Self-Enchanted

by David Stacton

  But the rain had stopped. The clouds were being pressed out to sea, where they hovered over the harbour on their way down to the roads. Just before dawn the fishing boats put out through the thinning mists, and slowly, to the east, the sun rose above the water, tinting the horizon pale gold and touching feebly the farther hills. And in the bowels of the hotel the cleaning people had begun to stir. In the kitchen the boys pokered up the fires and soon had them roaring.

  The boats reached the channel and pulled out towards the open sea, circled by beady-eyed and hungry gulls. The sun hit the city of Macao, shimmering in the cleansed air, and glanced from the domes of the churches.

  Sally did not wake until ten o’clock. She went at once to Christopher’s room and found him gone. Going to the window she looked down. There was no one in the street. Perhaps he had gone to breakfast. She dressed and went downstairs, but he was not there. She forced herself to eat breakfast, knowing that she needed food. She told herself that he had only gone out on some errand, early, so as not to disturb her. She knew it was not the truth.

  She asked at the desk if there was any message for her, but there was not. She went up the stairs and into their rooms. He was sitting in an armchair.

  “Christopher, you were gone all night,” she said.

  “Was I?” He seemed curiously subdued.

  “I was worried sick. You could at least have left a message.”

  “I’m sorry.” He seemed relaxed and much better. He came over to her and took her in his arms. He began to play with her hair, his fingers tentative and wistful. “Let me undress you,” he said. “I never have. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”

  She let him do it, looking at him anxiously. She was surprised. His flesh felt well again. She felt a great tenderness for him and let him do what he wished.

  “I hope it takes,” she said.

  When it was over, he lay there, propped up on one elbow, stroking her stomach. His face was sad, but young and wistful and cheated.

  “If I had a son,” he said, “I’d want him to live in the house. I want him to have the best of everything. He wouldn’t be like me.”

  “I hope he’ll look like you.”

  “Do you? I’m not much to look at.”

  “You’re handsome.”

  He sat up, reaching for a cigarette beside the bed. She lay there, drowsy and at peace, wondering what had happened inside her, and what it would be like to be pregnant. She prayed that she would be.

  “It’ll be nice having your child,” she said.

  He did not answer, but stroked her hair with those oddly withdrawn, tentative fingers, a touch she had not felt before. She wondered what had so subdued him.

  “You mustn’t be lonely,” he said.

  “Christopher.”

  He puffed on his cigarette. “I think this gold deal will go through,” he said. “You’ll be safe, either way. But I want him to have money. And….” He hesitated and swallowed. “Give him something to believe in. It’s horrible to believe in nothing.”

  For a long time they were alone in the awful anonymity of the hotel. It was a long time since she had felt at peace. With him, just for these few hours, she was, and it made tears come to her eyes. At last she fell asleep. When she woke up into the shadowy light he was not beside her, and the bed was cold. She threw on a robe and went across the salon to his room. He was sitting up in bed, smoking. He was startled, and she saw that he was worried, though he smiled at her.

  “I was restless, so I came in here,” he said. “I think it’s time to wind things up. These Chinese are so damned slow. I want to go back to the valley. It will be almost winter there now, won’t it?” He smiled again. “Would you mind going there in the winter?”

  “You’ll need care.”

  “We’re going back,” he said shortly, and moved to get up. “I’m going to get dressed and go buy you something beautiful. I want to.” He paused. “I want to get out of here. I don’t like it. I want to go home. We’ll fly as soon as I get things straightened out. I’d like to get there before winter starts. And I want to see the spring.” He shivered. “I hate this place. I hate every inch of it.” He glanced at her evasively. “Go get dressed and I’ll meet you downstairs.”

  *

  After breakfast he went into the town. She watched him walk down the driveway and out through the gates, a very trim American in an expensive business suit, and it occurred to her that he was none of the things he pretended to be. She turned back to the hotel.

  She was in her room when the house phone rang. Christopher had been gone for some time, and she was afraid to answer it. It continued to ring, a little tinkle of bad news that filled the whole room. She picked it up.

  The voice at the other end of the phone boomed into her ear. The man must be standing too close to the mouthpiece. It was a Monsignor Parr and he wanted to see her. She frowned, puzzled, and told him to come up. But he preferred that she go downstairs, so she agreed.

  She saw him at once. He was a large man with a red face. He was sitting under a potted palm, and she wondered what he could want. He turned out to be American, and about fifty. She was somewhat reassured.

  “Is it about Christopher?” she asked.

  Monsignor Parr looked at her and seemed satisfied with what he saw. “Yes,” he said. “You remember the night of the storm?” She nodded. “I found him in the church. He was in a pretty bad state.”

  “Yes,” she blinked, wondering what was coming next.

  “I had a long talk with him. He was violent and semi-delirious. I take it he’s dangerously ill.” Monsignor Parr paused. “He’s very disturbed. How long have you been married to him?”

  “For a year.”

  “It appears his mother wished him to enter the priesthood.”

  “I believe so.”

  Monsignor Parr looked embarrassed. “People get disturbed,” he said. “In many ways, if you understand. He needs a great deal of help that I can’t give him.” He glanced at her rapidly. “I’m afraid he wants to kill himself. You have to prevent that.”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “I know he’s upset, but …”

  “It’s not exactly that. He told me a great many things. Call it what you wish, but he’s afraid of God. Oh, not in the Catholic sense. That would be to put the matter too simply. He’s afraid of anyone stronger than himself, and it doesn’t matter what you call God. I can agree to that. But he mustn’t die damned. Take him home. Take him anywhere where it will be easier for him. If it can be easier for him anywhere.”

  Sally realized suddenly that he was old and had only come to help, and didn’t know how. “I’ve been here for thirty years,” he said. “Take him home.” He looked around him diffidently, and then left, and she had the feeling that he had not said what he had come to say. Perhaps he had not known what it was that he had come for.

  She was dressing for dinner, still thinking of him, when she heard Christopher enter his room. He did not come in to see her, and she knew that therefore he must be very tired. She waited for a few minutes, gazing into her mirror without seeing anything, and then went in to him.

  He was sitting in a chair, the expression on his face absent-minded and troubled. He looked up at her.

  “Here’s my something beautiful,” he said, and handed her the box in his lap. She opened it. Inside was a bracelet of silver, from which dangled a thin disk of spinach jade. He told her to put it on. She slipped it on her wrist. It was cold against her skin and large. She fastened the catch and examined it.

  “I wanted to give you something I chose myself,” he said. He looked up at her, and seeing, as though from an immense distance, some furtive terror lurking in his eyes, she remembered Monsignor Parr. “Let’s go down to dinner and show it off,” he asked. “I’m afraid I can’t show off for myself any more.”

  All through dinner she could feel some tension mounting. He insisted upon dancing, and he should not have done so. He was too tired. She could see what an effort it w
as for him. Finally she hurried him across the lobby and up the stairs. She went into the bedroom and rummaged in the drawers until she found the bottle. Then she brought it back to him, with a glass of water. He glared at it, but he took it. She saw pain flash across his face. Brushing past her, he went into the bedroom and lay down on his bed. After a moment she followed him, her dress sweeping the floor.

  “Shut the damn window, will you?” he asked.

  From below came the sounds of the dance band. She went over and closed the window, which met with a sharp click. She stared through the glass.

  “Christopher,” she said. “Monsignor Parr was here.”

  “He had no right to do that.” He tried to get off the bed, but it was too difficult.

  “He only wanted to help. He told me where you went that night.”

  “No doubt he was disturbed over the fate of my soul.” Christopher sounded bitter.

  “He was trying to be kind, I think.”

  “I don’t want his help. I hate the whole damn parsimonious, blood-sucking crew of them. If he comes here again, I’ll throw him out.” He sank back against the pillows. “Damn him.”

  She waited until he sank into unconsciousness, and then she went to her own room. He had no right to destroy himself, but if he wanted to, she did not know how she could stop him.

  *

  It was a bad siege he had. He was under morphine for two days, and he refused to have a nurse. He would not speak to her in those periods between bouts of pain when he was sufficiently conscious to know she was there. But she knew that he realized that this was what it would be like from now on. She could not bear to see him lying there under that sound-proof dome of pain, with those uncertain eyes that saw and yet did not seem to see. Sometimes he was delirious. From what he said then she knew that Monsignor Parr had been right.

  There was also trouble with the management. They were tactful, but they ran a hotel, and they were therefore afraid of illness, should it prove mortal.

  Then there was that sudden change. It was almost as though nothing was wrong with him. He insisted upon going downstairs to breakfast, and she knew better than to disagree. He tried not to show how weak he was. They met on the terrace. The weather was overcast and windy. A tricky gust blew up and down the harbour, bringing with it the decaying harbour smells and the strong odour of iodine.

  “I want a cup of coffee,” he said.

  “You shouldn’t have it.”

  He tapped his cup with his fingers, and lifting the heavy pot before her, she poured him a cup.

  “I like the terrace,” he said. “I wonder how many people would come here if it weren’t for the terrace.”

  “It is nice,” she agreed. She could feel how rigidly he held himself together. Something in his movements betrayed a great effort that he should not have made, and nowadays his eyes had that eternal attitude of watching and listening for some attack. She could understand it, but it was painful to watch.

  “Damn,” he said.

  “What?”

  He nodded behind her, and she half-turned, looking towards the door of the hotel. Standing in the doorway were Mrs. Carter and George Baird. She had never seen Baird looking more dapper, and he seemed extremely pleased with himself. They started across the terrace.

  “Sally, dear,” called Mrs. Carter. “I haven’t seen you in so long.” Christopher did not get up.

  Baird stood there smiling mechanically. “May we sit down?” he asked, and sat.

  “My dear,” cooed Mrs. Carter, “I don’t know how you stand this place. I’m so glad we’re leaving.”

  “Are you leaving?” asked Christopher guardedly.

  “Yes, and you’d never guess where we’re going. To Japan. Colonel Blair has arranged it all.” She turned to Christopher. “You quite upset the Colonel out at that old cemetery,” she said.

  Baird sat quietly, watching both Christopher and Sally. Sally wondered how she had ever liked the man. Mrs. Carter seemed nervous.

  “George thought we should come and say good-bye and see how you were getting on. We can only stay a minute.” She looked round the terrace, and then glanced brightly at Christopher. “I hope you’re feeling better.”

  Baird played indifferently with a knife on the table. “There was quite a do after you left the cemetery,” he said. “It’s a pity you missed the excitement.”

  “What excitement?”

  “Some Chinese raided that funeral. Of course somebody must have tipped them off. They wouldn’t have dared to raid it otherwise. I guess that’s what the guy who organized it figured, anyhow.”

  “It was terribly exciting,” said Mrs. Carter nervously. “It was a regular fight. They dumped out the coffin and it was filled with gold bars.”

  “Whoever arranged it did a bang-up job, with hired mourners and everything,” Baird yawned. “Somebody’s always spoiling somebody’s fun. It’s such an old trick, too, you’d have thought it would’ve worked.” He put down the knife he was fiddling with. “Some poor devil must have lost a helluva lot of money.”

  “They weren’t even police,” said Mrs. Carter. “Just some gang.”

  Christopher stared at Baird. “Is that all?” he asked.

  “Yes, I think so.” Baird was smiling.

  “Then get out.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “Get out and take that bitch with you,” said Christopher.

  “Gladly,” said Baird. He stood up, his hands resting on the table. “By the way,” he said, “you had me thrown out of one of your places in Reno once. I just thought you’d like to know. It makes it nicer.” He took Mrs. Carter’s arm and led her back towards the hotel doorway.

  “So that’s that,” said Christopher.

  “What is?”

  “It was my gold.” He stood up, pushing back his chair. “I’m going for a walk.”

  She made as though to follow him.

  “No,” he said. “Leave me alone for a while.” He stared at her, and then walked rapidly along the terrace and down the stairs which led to the beach.

  It was evening before he came back. He was dishevelled and he had been drinking.

  “No goddam bastard is going to get the better of me,” he said.

  “He’s done it, Christopher. You said yourself we’d have plenty left. And you shouldn’t drink.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “You know perfectly well why not. You could kill yourself.”

  “Would that matter so much?”

  “It matters to me.”

  “Why?” he asked. “I haven’t got much left.”

  “Christopher, please!” She sat down and began to cry.

  “Stop that!”

  “I can’t stop it. You’ve got me worried sick.”

  “Why the hell should you worry? There’s nothing wrong with you.”

  “That’s not fair, Christopher.”

  “I’m getting out of here,” he shouted. He made a bolt for the door and rushed out, slamming it after him. She stood there blinking, and then ran after him. When she reached the head of the stairs, he was already vanishing across the lobby, walking in a peculiar fashion, half-limp and half-shuffle.

  “Christopher,” she called, but he did not answer, and she saw the people in the lobby look up with startled but indifferent faces. She rushed down the stairs after him. She began to run. She thought she had lost him, trying to push her way through the indignant crowds. Then, far ahead, she saw him again, lighted for a moment under a street lamp, looking jerkily around him. She pushed forward desperately, avoiding a cart, struggling to catch up. This, she realized, must be the way he had run on the night of the storm. There was no storm now, but the weather was clammy. She could not see the stars.

  People crowded around her in a nightmare of leering faces. Someone called out to her, she did not know what or who. Again she caught sight of him, far ahead, twisting like a rabbit in a maze. He had gone into the native quarter. She knew now where he was going, but she
did not know where it was. She could run no more. She slowed down painfully, gasping for breath. She went down an alley, only to discover it was a dead end. Sobbing, she turned back and found another. It was empty, but it seemed to her that far ahead of her she could hear the sound of someone running. She hurried along and came out into a small desrted square with the church in front of her. It rose an ambiguous bulk into the night air, strangely quiet in the midst of so much uproar.

  She stood watching it, feeling her shoulders heave with the difficulty of breathing. Then she went up the steps She tried the main doors, found them locked, and went to the one on the extreme left. It gave. As quietly as she could she slipped inside and stopped in the half-darkness, trying to get her bearings. The church was cold and still. A little light came from a window on her left, but it only intensified the darkness. She stood there, frightened, waiting for her eyes to grow accustomed to the pale light. Then she saw the doors to the nave, and feeling her way through the obscurity, she got one of them open. A draught of clammy air came out, making her flinch, and she went into the nave.

  In the half-light it seemed immense. She stood on the tiles, staring into the darkness. At last, in the distance, she saw the dim glow of the altar, almost extinguished, and the long ghostly radiance of the tiles, scattered with chairs.

  Subdued, she went forward into that quiet gloom. She lost the wall behind her and stopped. Then she heard someone moving. The sound came from in front of her, to the left. She could hear someone crying. She crept forward until she came on a line with the side altar, before which one or two candles burned fitfully. Then she heard him, his voice tortured and anguished, and saw him drooped over the altar rail.

  “Damn you,” he shouted. “Damn you. Help me!” He stood up for a moment, looking at the altar. Suddenly, with his arm, he swept all the altar candles from their tiers. They fell with a screaming crash, plunging the altar into darkness. She heard him cry out, and then he ran to the other side altar, where he did the same, and to the high altar, while the glass shattered and the candles hissed on the tiles. She ran forward, bumping against a chair and stumbling in terror. She felt her way, trying to find him, reaching out for him in the dark. At last she touched him, crouched against a column.