Daniel Martin

by John Fowles

  They set off again, against the current but with the breeze behind them, down the reach towards Kitchener’s Island. The sun was beginning to decline and high on the sandy dunes that crowned the western cliffs there was a congregation of the kites, some twenty or thirty of them, perched on the sand, dark brown and hieratic. Omar brought them in past the first green walls of the trees of the island; strange flowers, leaves, boughs sweeping the water. There were no houses on this side of the river, the town was lost; and one might, as they came closer still beside the towering wall of sunlit vegetation, with the quiet water, have been on one of the summer Oxford rivers. Some hidden warbler bubbled an out-of-season song. It was delicious, after the arid desert of earlier that day: a profound and liquid, green and eternal peace. Once again Omar moored. They disembarked, and after a few steps up under a huge canopy of bougainvillea, found themselves in one of the island’s walks.

  Though some attempt had been made to maintain the island as the great botanical garden Kitchener had initiated—here and there massive leaden labels with exotic Latin names and distant countries of origin still hung suspended round trunks, and from time to time they saw gardeners at work—the place had a charmingly haphazard and unkempt quality. It had literally run to seed, and bred the pleasing air of a once stern scientific purpose succumbed to the mere existing of shady vistas, countless birds, coolness, simplicity… the simplicity of the finest Islamic architecture, of centuries of folk-knowledge exercised on sanctuaries against the sun. It was an Aihambra composed of vegetation, water, shadow; and perhaps nicest of all, it remained almost exactly as Dan had remembered it—one of the loveliest and most civilized few acres in his knowledge of this world, a tropical bonne vaux. He was careful not to prompt Jane, but she too fell for the place at once. They had strolled hardly a hundred yards before she touched his sleeve.

  ‘I want a house here, Dan. Please.’

  He grinned. ‘That’s what Andrea and I felt.’

  ‘It’s like a Douanier Rousseau version of the Garden of Eden. And how clever of you to think of it for your film.’

  ‘I hope they’ll use it. It’ll make a nice point of return.’

  After a while they sat on a bench in one of the sidewalks. There were other strollers on the main paths, specks of distant colour who idled through the sun-shot shadow like figures not from a Rousseau, but in a Manet or a Renoir. They discussed what they would do those next two days, the other things to see, whether they should fly down to Abu Simbel or not… a number of their fellow-passengers were going to do so, the Hoopers had reported it was worthwhile, or so they’d been told, just for the vast landscapes of Lake Nasser—and the engineering side of it, of course, the ‘fantastic’ raising of the temple from the ancient site. Jane had resisted the idea on the cruise, but now she gave way, one might never have the chance again… the day after next, they decided. Then a band of some dozen or so young Egyptians came by, a mixture of boys and girls, in European clothes. There were looks, things said, as they approached the two foreigners. And as they passed one of the boys cried, as if it were a joke, in English, ‘Good morning!’

  Dan smiled and said, ‘Good evening.’

  ‘Ingleesh?’

  ‘English.’

  ‘Very good. Ingleesh very good.’

  And suddenly the kids gathered round Jane and Dan, in a close little crescent, amused brown eyes, the girls biting their lips.

  ‘You make holiday?’

  ‘Yes. And you too?’

  But the boy didn’t understand the question. A girl beside him spoke; she was pretty, less broad-faced than most Arab women, with long dark hair and finely shaped eyes.

  ‘We have free day today. No work.’

  ‘Speak Ingleesh very good,’ said the first boy.

  She was shy, but she did speak better English. Her father was an engineer at the Dam, a year ago a young sister had had to have some complicated heart operation, and she had spent three months in London with her mother and the sick sister. She was seventeen, she and her friends were from the leading high school in Aswan. She wished she could live in Cairo, they all wanted to live in Cairo, or Alexandria. It was too hot here, too ‘dirty’. Jane asked if it ever rained.

  ‘I live here two year, I never see rain.’

  There were giggles from her companions as she spoke, murmurs in Arabic, and every now and then her dark eyes would flash sideways reproachfully at whatever taunt she was receiving. She talked mainly to Jane, and the others began to drift away, until only the gazelle-eyed girl and two others were left. They learnt English at school, but they had to learn Russian as well. They didn’t like it, but it was the law. They liked English much better. She wished she could find an English pen-pal.

  Jane smiled. ‘If you give me your name and address, I’ll try to find one for you when I go home.’

  The girl bit her lips, as if set back by this direct response, and said something in Arabic to one of the other girls. Jane reached in her rush-basket and produced a pencil and a pocketbook. The girl hesitated, then urged silently on by one of her friends, sat beside Jane and laboriously printed out a name and address.

  ‘Which would you like—a boy or a girl?’

  ‘A boy?’ Again she bit her lips. ‘You will not forget?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘You are very kind.’ One of the boys called back impatiently from the opening in the main path.

  ‘I must go. We have boat.’ But she stayed sitting a moment. ‘You have daughter?’

  ‘Yes. Two daughters.’

  Impulsively, quite without warning, the girl took the long necklace of beads she was wearing and ducked her head out of it, pulled it free of her long hair, then put it on the bench beside Jane’s basket.

  Jane said, ‘Oh but…’

  The girl was standing and made a bowing gesture, her hands folded one over the other between her breasts.

  ‘Please. Nothing. So you will not forget.’ She bobbed again. ‘I must go now.’

  Jane picked the beads up. ‘But really I…’

  The girl opened her hands as if to tell Jane it was fate, the deed was done, she mustn’t remonstrate—then suddenly she had snatched one of her companion’s hands and they were running away like girls half their age. There was a suppressed shriek of laughter, as if they had done something enormously daring. Their friends gathered round them on the main path to find out what it was all about. There was more laughter, but as they turned away the group waved back through the foliage towards Jane and Dan. She stood, they both waved back. Then she stared at the beads in her hands. They were brown, polished, some kind of seed. Her eyes, amused, still a little aghast, sought Dan’s.

  ‘What an extraordinary thing to do.’

  ‘As long as they aren’t coated in some deadly poison.’ She threw him a look for such an unkind thought, then, as if to contradict him still further, sat and slipped the beads over her head; then cast him another look. He grinned. ‘A nice kid.’

  ‘Wasn’t she pretty?’ She examined the beads again, then lifted them and sniffed. ‘Oh they’ve got some strange scent. Like patchouli.’ Dan bent forward and smelt the end she held out: a musty sweet fragrance.

  ‘Mm.’

  She sniffed at them again herself, then murmured, ‘It’s so sad. All these young people so eager to make contact.’

  ‘I was just thinking—what could any Israeli boy in his senses want to do to a face like that? Except kiss it.’

  ‘I wish Paul was a year or two older.’

  ‘You could always try. She might enjoy the monthly ten pages on medieval English hedge-systems.’

  Jane grinned, still contemplating the beads, but said nothing; and he knew that this trivial gift, they were obviously bazaar beads, of no value, had moved her, penetrated that old openness to, recognition of, right feeling. He left a silence, then said in a lower voice, ‘Are you really happy to be alive again, Jane?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve enjoyed these last few da
ys so much more than I thought I would. Which sounds terribly backhanded. But it’s true.’

  ‘Not fair. You’ve pinched my speech.’

  ‘Writer’s privilege.’

  She still had a slight smile, still looked down; hesitated. ‘You were quite right. I did need something like this.’

  ‘And you’ll leave the past behind now?’

  ‘What I can of it.’

  ‘You’ve done your penance.’

  She made a sideways movement of the head. ‘By Ave Maria standards.’

  ‘Come on. What was that existentialist bit about using the past to build the present?’

  ‘I think that really derived from the famous pre-Sartrean philosopher Samuel Smiles.’

  He persisted. ‘But at least the journey hasn’t been quite wasted?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  She half smiled towards him, yet it was only a token acknowledgment; almost a withdrawal, a denial; at any rate, a not wanting to talk about it.

  ‘I don’t want to leave it behind here, Jane. That’s all.’

  She didn’t even answer that, but gave a small nod. She sat with her head bowed, quite unintentionally with something of the shyness of a schoolgirl, as if it had rubbed off on her from the beads she had put on; but now, as if she realized it, she straightened and looked up through the trees before them. What he had taken as embarrassment was perhaps simply thinking along other lines.

  ‘That night… when he killed himself. What upset me so much was the feeling that he’d just turned me into an impediment. A sort of white elephant.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘I’m not defending what I felt, Dan. It wasn’t a gender thing whatever I said afterwards. just that I felt I was relegated to being a burden on other people’s consciences.’

  ‘Which is what they’re for. If it was true.’

  ‘I think what this experience has done has made me see I never tried hard enough with Anthony in the last years. That’s really why I cried this morning. But that in turn’s because I feel better in myself. Less hysterical.’ She gave him another partial side-glance. ‘Whatever unfair demand was made of you in that last unofficial testament, consider it fulfilled.’

  ‘It wasn’t unfair. That was what I was trying to say just now. I’ve also been realizing something here, Jane. How much I lost you both over all those years. The debt goes both ways.’

  She smiled. ‘You should have been a diplomat.’

  ‘The last thing I meant to sound.’

  ‘I think my debt is much larger.’

  ‘Why?’

  She replied very obliquely; answering his declaration of several sentences before.

  ‘I think it’s time I tried the reality of independence. Instead of leaning so much on kind friends and daughters.’

  ‘Perhaps they like being leaned on.’

  ‘Not fair to them. Or to myself.’

  ‘So you must leave it behind here? Otherwise you’ll be back in prison?’

  She said wrily, ‘I’m not putting this very well.’

  ‘Then try again.’

  ‘It’s just that…’

  ‘Just what?’

  ‘Whether in the long run kindness is what I need. What should be prescribed.’

  ‘Is this a theory of your lady doctor friend’s?

  ‘A little. She is quite strong on self-reliance in her female walking wounded. Rather aggressively so at times. But I think she has a point.’

  ‘And all males are to be feared, especially when bringing gifts?’

  ‘I’m giving a wrong impression of her. She doesn’t spread that creed at all. Much more that one should face up to the evidence of one’s own past. That where there’s a wrong man there’s usually a wrong woman as well.’

  ‘Did you consult her about coming?’

  ‘As a friend. Not as a doctor.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘That it was time I learnt to take my own decisions.’ She shook her head, as if that were not quite the truth. ‘And that I did need to get away from things.’

  There was a silence. Through the trees Dan saw the French party from the cruise, with the guide on the set tour, straggling down the main walk to their left; one or two of them looked across to where he and Jane sat. But Alain and the photographer seemed not to be with them; nor the Barge-borne Queen and Carissimo. Already the brief package disintegrated, the illusory togetherness dissolved. He spoke more lightly.

  ‘Then I must learn to be unkind?’

  She smiled. ‘Understanding. To someone who’s much more grateful than she’s managing to sound.’ He said nothing, and after a moment she put her hands in her coat-cardigan pockets and went on. ‘You’ve lived a so much richer life than I have, Dan.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t mean more corrupt?’

  ‘No, not at all. Just… with different values.’

  ‘Which you mistrust?’

  She hesitated. ‘Which I fear a little.’

  ‘Why?’

  She showed a pressed, reluctant mouth, someone trapped in a chess-game, and did not answer for a few moments.

  ‘You’re very successful—sure of what you are. As you have every right to be. In a sense I’m only just facing up to something you did over twenty years ago. Leaving Oxford.’

  ‘What on earth makes you think knowing what you are is the same thing as being sure of it? Or even liking it?’

  Again she was someone cornered; forced to think of a new move—though this time it turned out to be a very old one.

  ‘It’s probably something to do with male and female minds. You said at Thorncombe—I understand how you feel about your work. But I don’t even have that. A direction ahead.’

  ‘You have a political one.’

  She took a breath. ‘My feelings there change every day. It seems like every hour sometimes.’ She stared at the gravel on the other side of the path. ‘I think the curse of my life is having been born with a small gift for acting. Hating being able to pretend I’m someone else. Then using what I hate to be it.’ He had reached an arm along the bench, was turned towards her; quite deliberately, so that she would know he was scrutinizing her; and as deliberately said nothing, exactly as he might have written it in a film scenario letting the place speak for him, really. Its peace, its presentness; almost its unspoken wondering why she was so deaf to it. In the end she said, ‘I don’t know quite know how we got into all this.’

  ‘For a very simple reason. I don’t want you to think I shall breathe a huge sigh of relief as soon as we land at Rome.’ She looked down, as if she were unconvinced. He took his arm from the back of the bench and leant forward with his elbows on his knees. ‘Jenny’s very young, Jane. With her I have to live very much in the present. In today. The past becomes like an infidelity, something one has no right to remember or refer to… like a past mistress. You’ve given me a quite marvellous relief from all that.’ He left a pause. ‘That’s my debt.’ He added, ‘And I won’t have a perfect travelling companion going independent on me like this.’

  A moment, then she shifted slightly forward, gathered the handles of her basket; quick, too quick, to seize this opportunity to restore them to normality.

  ‘Not quite perfect. Actually she must have a wee before she goes sailing again.’

  Dan allowed himself one small rueful smile; in check, just as he was about to claim victory; then gave in and stood up.

  ‘There’s a place at the end.’

  They walked down towards it, more briskly. It was cooler now. He held her basket while she went into the lavatory; and stared across a stretch of gravel at the silent river and the shadowed cliffs beyond. In some way the conversation had gone wrong from the start, it was like a scene one knew at the first rereading was no good; simply chasing its own tail. He felt a distinct irritation, with himself as well as with Jane. He thought of Jenny, of a letter he had written her, in his cabin, nearly ready to post. He had already lied in it, claiming he had tried t
o telephone her from Luxor, but had been unable to get a line.

  Lies: not really saying what one felt.

  Uncannily there came to him a faint echo of his experience outside the rock-tombs of an hour or two before. This time it was more with a sense of truancy: he had no right to be standing there, in this remote corner of an unknown country, he had forgotten what he was doing, the afternoon was somehow spellbound… he felt strangely purposeless, and he almost shook himself physically. It had also something to do with that little Egyptian girl, with her liquid almond eyes, the tight jumper she had been wearing. Watching her talk to Jane, he had approved her sexually, even jumped on to finding some tiny part for her in the film, in his early days Kitchener must have been offered such creatures… and he also knew, it had been building up, that the real scenario that was haunting him was not Kitchener’s, but his own. He was approaching a fork, the kind of situation some modern novelists met by writing both roads. For days now he had been split, internally if not outwardly, between a known past and an unknown future. That was where his disturbing feeling of not being his own master, of being a character in someone else’s play, came from. The past wrote him; and hatred of change, of burning boats.

  Jane came beside him and took her basket back, and they returned to the felucca. This time they went south, heading for the old Cataract, where Dan wanted to confirm their room bookings. The breeze had dropped and they drifted slowly through the islets, rocky and green, oddly Nordic, in the middle of the Nile. There was an obscure distant wail from the town, floating mournfully on the still evening air: the muezzin, relayed through loudspeakers. Omar asked Dan to take the tiller, then he and the boy knelt in the bows, facing Mecca, muttering, touching their foreheads to the deck. Jane and Dan sat in silence in the stern, embarrassed, like all intellectuals presented point-blank with simple faith. But when the helm was restored to the boatman, Jane murmured, ‘I may not have my house yet, but at least I’ve picked my chauffeur.’