by Peter Corris
I was surer than ever then that Basil was deeply mad. The use of the word 'instincts' (I fancied he had toyed with and rejected 'abilities') was an indicator and the set of his head and the burning intensity of his eyes confirmed it. My brother was consumed by some inner passion that he could not control and exterior forces were operating upon him in ways that he could not tolerate. He slammed his fist on the desk. 'They say that I am afraid to go into the Australian desert. Me! Afraid!'
I leaned forward and put my hand on his knee. 'What can I do to help you, Basil?'
'Dick,' he said. 'I just need someone here who believes in me and loves me. I have such important work to do.'
I could not quite understand that. The education of a set of children with interesting heredity did not sound so demanding for one of Basil's abilities, but I nodded as I butted out my cigarette and resolved not to light another.
'Thanks, Dick,' Basil said. 'I knew I could count on you. And you'll be working very closely with Merle Benoit, of course.'
Those words sealed my unspoken compact with Basil all over again. I both loved and hated him as he spoke them in the same say as I love and hate him now when he lies in the dirt with spittle gathering, bubbling in the corners of his cruel mouth.
36
ENTRY SIX
Still the words come as if I am transcribing them or responding to dictation. The cave vanishes from my consciousness and I am back there, on the other side of the world and in another time.
The Craft Clinic was an unorthodox and highly secretive establishment. Its celebrity clients eschewed publicity of all kinds and Basil was happy to oblige them. Not for him the notoriety of being a physician to the rich and famous, not while he was conducting his own eccentric educational investigations. Besides, his rejuvenation techniques were radical and mostly unsupported by medical research. Basil's knowledge of the field, however, was profound and he was easily able to fend off enquiries by the Swiss medical authorities. The more serious threats posed by grasping and corrupt officials he handled with strategems natural to him and perfected over time—bribery and blackmail.
I was involved in all of these operations, other than the medical procedures. The educating of the children, though not without its very disturbing aspects, was a pleasure, totally different from my earlier pedagogic experiences. Merle Benoit and I became lovers and I found great sexual satisfaction and something close to contentment in this relationship. I knew that this wholeness was in Basil's gift, but I had learned to take happiness where I found it. It may sound strange but I was spared one of the pangs of the conventional lover—jealousy. It would have seemed absurd to me to resent the fact that I shared my mistress with my brother.
Far less agreeable were the dealings I had with Zurich bureaucrats, legal representatives of Basil's clients and the occasional functionary from the shadowy organisation Basil and I had served on our desert expeditions. The bureaucrats could mostly be bought off with money but some proved more difficult. They wanted introductions to the celebrities, jobs for their children as chauffeurs or sexual servants and a variety of other favours difficult to arrange. Basil had a system for dealing with difficult cases.
'When one of the swine gets too pressing,' he told me, 'you simply inform Inspector Cane of the police here. He will take care of it. But use him only as a last resort.'
Having by this time handled several of these difficulties for Basil, I could not see this as a way out of the labyrinth. 'What if he becomes too pressing?'
Basil laughed. 'He won't. He wants only political information. This he gets from me.'
'What if he wants information you can't supply?'
'Then I invent it. Don't worry, Dick. I know how this game is played.'
Dealing with the representatives of the blackmailed patients was an exercise in tact and diplomacy which, I confess, I enjoyed. By no means all of Basil's clients were English-speaking, and I had to hone my skills in French and Italian (I was assisted in this by Merle) to negotiate with some of the consigliani and juristes who came to Zurich. Typically, Basil expressed his extortions as fees and his threats as medical responsibilities. Compromises were invariably reached.
At the time, I was surprised that Basil sometimes delegated to me the task of meeting the emissaries of 'our masters'. Later I realised that this was his way of drawing me deeper into the intrigues that shaped our two lives. I always emerged from these meetings, involving the exchange of documents and coded messages, chilled and alarmed. Increasingly, I came to understand that Basil's work was considered unfinished and that, sooner or later, he would be obliged to undertake another expedition. I found the pressure almost intolerable and I believe that Basil suffered under it mightily. So much so that it began to affect his judgment and behaviour, as I shall relate.
Several years after my arrival at the clinic and following one of these meetings, I said, 'Basil, have you no interest in pursuing your genetic investigations further?'
We were drinking brandy at the time, something Basil appeared to be doing more and more. He swilled the spirit in his glass and did not reply.
'Among the Australians?' I said.
His face contorted into an expression of disgust. 'The Australians are either a retarded or a degenerate branch of the human family. I regard the former proposition as the more likely. In either event, they are of no interest to me.'
'I should have thought the desert people would interest you. I have been reading about them. Have you read the works of A. P. Elkin?'
Basil sipped his brandy. 'No.'
'The Aborigines appear to have mastered an incredibly hostile environment and to have achieved considerable sophistication in social organisation, religion and art.'
'Hocus pocus,' Basil said. 'The only aspect of their miserable history that interests me is their extermination on the island of Tasmania.'
'Some survived,' I said.
'I am distressed to hear it.' He was drunk by this point, slurring his words. 'Are you suggesting that I should mate with a baboon? Where would that leave you, Dick?'
This was the only overt reference Basil ever made to our terrible compact and I left the room then without another word. Until that day I had never spoken to anyone about this matter although I had longed to tell Merle. But how could I? I loved her and yet this would mean nothing if Basil so decreed it. How to explain that to a woman? But I was so shaken by Basil's drunken thrust that I hinted at the matter as Merle and I lay in bed that night. We had made love and I knew she was on the point of falling asleep. Perhaps I wished that she was asleep and that only the walls would hear my shame. But before I finished whispering I felt her cool finger on my lips.
'Hush, darling,' she said. 'Do you think I am blind? I knew this.'
'Do you despise me?'
'I love you and we both love the children. They are more important than either of us, or the Herr Doktor Kontroller.'
The children became the focus of my interest. They were an extraordinary foursome—Fatah, Selim, John and Horatio—Arab, Negro, Asian and American Indian. (Basil told me that the other Arab woman had died in childbirth and that the infant had not survived.) Each one bore some physical resemblance to Basil but each was stamped with the characteristics of the other race from which he or she had been drawn. I say 'drawn' because, in my darker moments, I saw Basil's educational exercise as a ghastly experiment, like a test-tube birth or something equally horrible. Put simply, he was attempting to develop skills in each child which he perceived as being peculiar to its race. Thus, Fatah was taught languages, mathematics, philosophy. Her father's theory was that the Arabic culture was the nursery of the higher mental faculties. This product of that culture, her inheritance bolstered by the injection of Basil's resilient, resourceful Anglo-Saxon genes, could be expected to perform miraculously in those fields appropriate to her breeding.
And so with the others: Selim, the Negro, was raised as an athlete, her grace and strength accentuated, trained and perfected. John, the Asian,
was instructed in law and commerce. Horatio, possibly carrying the blood of Geronimo in his veins, was to be forged like a weapon as a warrior, a killer of men. This is not to say that any of the children were excluded from general instruction appropriate to educated people. All were to be multilingual, numerate and reasonably well-read. It was a matter of emphasis. None was ill-treated except, perhaps, Horatio who was subjected to extreme physical tests—fasts, exposure and endurance trials in rugged country and conditions. The boy appeared to thrive on them.
Naturally, this programmed instruction did not always proceed smoothly. Fatah exhibited an interest and aptitude for music which Basil resisted but eventually managed to accommodate when he convinced himself (and the child) that music was actually a branch of mathematics. John developed a passion for biology. I drew this to Basil's attention and he eventually agreed to augment the scientific element in the boy's education.
'Science is where the money'll be made in the future,' Basil said. 'Nuclear power, technical medicine, fossil fuels, fouling of the planet—that sort of thing.'
I wanted to say, 'I'm not sure that John's interest in science is altogether to do with making money,' but I knew that such a comment would bring on one of his increasingly frequent rages, so I said nothing.
Selim and Horatio seemed content with the way their days were shaped. Perhaps the intense physical effort left them no energy for dissent. As a Swiss, educated in one of the broadest of educational systems, Merle was horrified at the specialisations imposed on the children. 'He will make monsters of them,' she said, 'automatons.' In making my representation to Basil on John's behalf I was acting as Merle's agent. I made other intercessions but Merle went further, into much more dangerous territory—she began to actively countermand Basil's orders, to smuggle books to the children, to incite them to question their tutors and, most subversively of all, to encourage them to play.
As lovers will, I discussed my other functions with Merle. I told her of the meetings with the foreigners, more often than not very cold and hostile affairs, and she formed the view that Basil was under intense pressure and losing his grip. 'He drinks too much,' she said. 'He does not sleep. He rages.'
'Can he still . . .?'
'Oh, yes, cheri. Have no fear. His potency is undiminished.'
I lay beside her, wretched and aroused simultaneously. She knew what to do; she stimulated and aroused me and I found release and joy in the act of sex with her. It tormented me that she would sometimes leave my bed to go directly to Basil's, but there was nothing I could do or say about this. The shackles that had been placed on me that day in the Kent woods remained as tight as ever. Merle, however, also had a power over me and she came inevitably to the point of exercising it.
'Richard,' she said, after a bout of hectic lovemaking, 'I hate him.'
I felt the heat drain from my body and, instead of feeling the accustomed joy and gratitude, I trembled with fear, like a man poised at the edge of a deep, black pit.
'I want to leave,' Merle said.
I clutched at the only thing that could save me. 'The children . . .'
'Yes, the children. I cannot leave them but I can find ways not to go to his bed—disease . . .'
'Merle, no.'
'Darling, I don't wish to hurt you. But I must save the children. They are in terrible danger.'
I recognised the tone in her voice. I had heard it, or something similar, when Basil spoke to me about what he wanted, amounting to an instruction to me. I said nothing, feeling the bed grow cold. I suppose I should have anticipated it—that I would be caught in the conflict between the two people I loved and used by both. It was my destiny. But the pain of the moment was unbearable. Merle put her hand on my penis, which shrank under her touch.
'What do you want?' I said.
'You must help me to get the children away from here.'
'And then what?'
'I do not know. Perhaps I can help you. There may be ways.'
I almost laughed. I knew there were no ways.
She gripped me. 'It will not happen yet,' she said. 'It will take time. He still wants me. I will sleep with him tonight.'
The shackles. The bars. The prison. But she stroked me and I responded. 'I'll help you,' I said.
But I hadn't realised how far Merle was prepared to go. She set about collecting every scrap of information, every slip of paper (and there were few enough of them) she could possibly find to document Basil's medical procedures and financial arrangements. My task was to take notes on my meetings with the officials and emissaries, to record the coded messages and the occasional telephone numbers Basil gave to call. I wrote down the code names, the bank account numbers and addresses where I left messages and sealed envelopes. All of this was directly contary to Basil's instructions and blatantly betrayed his trust.
Merle monitored the drugs that were used at the clinic and attempted to find out the sources of supply. She questioned me intently on my assignments. Was the man I had talked to French or Italian? How old? What sort of accent? What dates, what places, what currencies were mentioned? How had a person travelled? By train or plane? Make an informed guess. What cigarettes were smoked? How did a person smell? Was he prompt or late? How had Basil reacted to this telegram, this code word?
I did her bidding. Basil appeared to change in personality over this period. He drank far more than he used to and I began to suspect that he was using drugs. I reported this to Merle and she confirmed that Basil was using cocaine. 'This makes him even more dangerous,' she said. 'He will experience swings in mood, elation and depression. I worry about what it will mean for the children.'
I worried too—for the children, for Merle and myself, but also for Basil. As he became more erratic and dictatorial, the tasks he set for Horatio became more severe. But the boy always rose to the challenge. Selim's progress disappointed him. She sometimes shirked her exercises and displayed more interest in the horses Horatio was riding and caring for than in her own training. Merle covered up for the children's deviations from Basil's curricula, as she encouraged and fostered them.
In defiance of Basil's strictest orders, Merle arranged for a photograph to be taken of herself, the children and me. She put great store on this strategem. 'Do you realise that there is no independent record of the existence of these children?' she said. 'We have to build up such a record. This is an important step.'
The arrangement with the photographer was made secretly for a time when Merle had ensured that Basil was absent from the clinic and his most trusted minions among the medical and ground staff of the clinic were engaged. We gathered on the shores of the lake and the photograph was taken on a soft autumn day when the water was ruffled by a slight breeze. The main buildings of the clinic were in evidence in the background and Merle instructed the photographer to scratch the date—1 September 1959—on the negative.
The children were excited. Their laughter rang out in the clear air as they squabbled over who would stand in which place. Even dour, determined Horatio giggled as his dark sister poked him in the ribs and told him in fluent, rippling Italian that he was to stand on her left because she was taller and it would look better this way. They had never had their photograph taken before and were agog to see the results. Merle, I later found, had sworn them to secrecy. She had so far detached them from their father's rigorous proscriptions that she felt confident in extracting this pledge. It was a wonderful moment. The children were so full of health and life that it was difficult to believe Merle's dire predictions about their future. But Merle herself glowed with a dark intense beauty that day and I felt an emotion almost entirely foreign to me—pride.
The photograph was taken. The artist of the lens left to complete his work. The children returned to their pursuits. Merle and I went to her room and made passionate love. I had betrayed my brother and felt a traitorous frisson which only added to the intensity of lovemaking. I even entertained the idea, so powerful was my adoration of Merle and so complete our consummation,
that I might be freed of my bondage and be able to do good and save Basil, both.
It was a foolhardy action, dangerous and, if discovered, bound to lead to catastrophic discord. But Merle might have succeeded had it not been for a new force introduced by Basil into the field—a woman named Pamela Marchant.
I must have spoken her name aloud because Basil has stirred beside me and his eyes have opened. I give him some water; he takes no more than a teaspoonful but I fancy a smile touches his parched lips. Or it might be a sneer. I hate him now and wish I could lift one of the ancient rocks in this cave and crush his skull.
37
ENTRY SEVEN
Pamela Marchant was English, about thirty years of age, red-haired and astonishingly beautiful. Or so I thought. Others thought her features too bold and her body overripe, but I was besotted the moment I saw her. This was unusual; normally I felt only mild interest in attractive women until Basil had ploughed the field. Then lust, infatuation and, in the case of Merle Benoit, love, followed. But Basil made it perfectly clear when he introduced Pamela that he had no sexual interest in her whatever. This astonished and distressed me.
To my dismay, I fell violently in love with Pamela Marchant. For a week I went about in a waking dream—unable to perform the simplest of tasks, unable to make conversation, almost unable to eat for thinking of her. She wore severe, dark clothes of a kind I found unbearably erotic. Every movement of her body and note of her voice sent shivers of lust through me. I followed her about the clinic like a dog. Watching her eat and drink caused me to experience dizziness. In my befuddled state I took to playing the peeping Tom. I attempted to see her undressing in the bathing shed or returning from the bathroom in her dressing gown. I was unsuccessful; she was modesty itself at all times. Once I caught sight of her stockinged ankle and foot when she took off a shoe to remove a stone. I experienced an immediate and powerful erection and ejaculated copiously into my underclothes.