by Francis King
Many months later, in a letter that he either never received or could not be bothered to answer, she wrote: ‘Little did I then realize that you were the angel of the annunciation – the bringer of my destiny.’
Waking early, as she so often did since she had arrived in Bled, she went out on to her balcony and looked out over the lake shimmering mistily in the first light of dawn. A fishing boat, propelled by a single oar manipulated by a man standing in the bows, incised a black line across its grey surface. The air, carrying with it a smell of pine-needles, was cool on her bare arms and forehead. With a sigh of contentment, she went back into the room and began to dress, not with her usual speed but as though every humdrum movement needed to be prolonged for the unexpected pleasure that it brought.
The walk around the lake took about an hour. Shaking her head in refusal when a solitary, somnolent coachman, slumped on a low wall beside his fiacre outside the hotel, scrambled to his feet and called out ‘Oui, madame, oui, oui!’ she set off, parasol resting over shoulder, at a leisurely pace. There were only a few people even in the streets at this end of lake, where most of the hotels, restaurants and shops clustered together up the hillside, and scarcely any on the narrow path encircling it. Two young boys, engrossed in fishing, looked up as she passed and one gave her a dubious ‘Guten morgen.’ An elderly couple, English surely, he in an old-fashioned blue frock-coat, white drill trousers and white stock, and she in a no less old-fashioned poke bonnet and pearl-grey mantle long enough to sweep the ground, approached, arm in arm, at a snail’s pace. They eyed her as though amazed that anyone else should be up as early as they were. Then the man nodded, cleared his throat with a noisy rattle of catarrh, and muttered something inarticulate.
It was at the farthest end of the lake, devoid of any other habitation, that Dr Weiss, the ‘ naturian’, had established what he called now his sanatorium and now his colony. After they had left Addy there, Alexine, Harriet and Nanny Rose had had no further contact with her, even by letter, on Dr Weiss’s strict instruction. In the hotel they had met other people who had similarly abandoned a relative or a friend, and had similarly been forbidden to see or get in touch with them. No doubt it was for the best, these people would tell each other dubiously, that was the way the cure worked, Dr Weiss seemed to be sure of what he was doing.
The colony had once been a farm. A long, single-storey, thatched house stood at its centre, with a white-painted front-door, oddly askew, on either side of which were two white-painted rain-butts. The patients were allowed to wash only in rain-water, collected in these and other butts, and never in water from the lake or from the many springs trickling down the surrounding hillsides. Dotted around the main house, in what had once been a pasture, there were a number of what appeared to be sheds for animals, thatched and connected by winding footpaths, always muddy after even the mildest shower. Each of these sheds housed two, three or even four patients. Capriciously – or did he have some subtle plan? – Dr Weiss would decide who would share with whom. His only discernible rule was that the sexes, even husbands and wives, should be separated.
Set some distance away from these primitive habitations, were two rows of earth privies, one for men and one for women. A former stable provided the washrooms. In them there were no tubs but merely enamel basins and ewers containing cold water, on the top of which floated a detritus of leaves, grass and even dead insects.
Alexine, Harriet and Nanny Rose had been appalled by the conditions in which Addy had doomed herself to live. ‘ Oh, no, madame!’ Nanny Rose had protested, wrinkling up her nose and looking around her in distaste, even though Dr Weiss, a tiny, imperious man, with a tuft of ginger hair on his pointed chin and an oddly metallic voice, was standing with them. ‘This isn’t for you. You can’t possibly live here. Miss Alexine would think twice about allowing one of her dogs to five in a place like this. It’s worse than a kennel.’
Addy, amazing them by her calm, shook her head and smiled. ‘This will be fine for me.’ She looked around the little room, with its three bedsteads covered in straw pallets, at the bottom of each of which there stood a roughly carpentered chest. She laughed. ‘What a change! I’ll be happy here. Yes, I feel it.’
‘If you have any valuable belongings, my dear wife – up at the main house – will take care of them. Also of your clothes.’
They had already seen that the other patients were all dressed uniformly, men and women, in what looked like long, grey nightshirts made from a rough cotton, with straw sandals on their feet. On their arrival, some of these patients had been seated out on wooden benches, silent for the most part, either reading, drowsing or staring out at the lake. Others had been working at three asymmetrical vegetable patches, hoeing, digging or planting out seedlings.
‘Now I think it would be best if you would leave the patient to my care,’ Dr Weiss had said in his guttural but accurate French. ‘No visits until her departure, no visits at all. You understand that? I have made myself clear?’
‘Perfectly,’ Alexine had said.
Harriet had suddenly rushed to Addy and thrown her arms around her. ‘Oh, Addy, Addy! Do you really want to go through with this? It’s not too late to change your mind. Why not come back with us to the hotel?’
‘Of course I want to go through with it.’ Addy had disengaged herself and then given her sister a little push, hand to shoulder. ‘I’ll see you in three weeks.’
Alexine now stood out on a tottery little jetty, and from there gazed out at the cone-shaped island in the centre of the lake. There had been a Roman shrine there in the past, dedicated to Venus, so she had been told. Now there was a church, dedicated to Mary Magdalene. The day before, she, Harriet and Nanny Rose had taken a boat out to the island. Nanny Rose had sat contentedly in the bows, from time to time addressing the totally uncomprehending boatman in English, while the two other women had climbed up the sheer steps to the church. ‘ Why do we wear these ridiculous clothes?’ Alexine had asked, lifting her skirts high in one hand. ‘They’re only good for staying indoors and doing nothing.’
‘I suppose we should be grateful that our feet were not bound when we were young,’ Harriet turned back to say. On such climbs, although so much older, she never had any difficulty in keeping ahead.
Leaving the jetty, Alexine saw that already the patients were up and about. Like drones leaving and entering a hive, the distant, grey-garbed figures hurried in and out of the main house as though on some urgent errand. Then, some of them carrying walking-sticks, they all assembled, a ragged army, on the slope of yellowing grass before the front door. Eventually Dr Weiss also emerged. He was not wearing one of the shifts, but knickerbockers and mountain boots, with a Tyrolean hat jauntily perched on one side of his head. Alexine hurried nearer. ‘Meine Damen, meine Herren …’ The metallic voice had a penetrating power. He began to give his instructions now in German and now in French. They were to climb that hill, that hill over there. He pointed with his alpenstock. He hoped that they had all observed his instructions not to eat anything since their evening meal. Yes? There was a general assent. Good! In that case, they might as well set off before the day hotted up. He himself would lead and his dear daughter would bring up the rear. There was no need, absolutely no need to hurry. People must climb at the pace that suited them. But one thing he must make clear. There must be no halting. Absolutely no halting.
From where she now stood, half-hidden by a tree, on the path below the colony, Alexine had been able to hear every word that he said.
The group set off. Two women were marching along on either side of Dr Weiss, their unfastened grey hair falling to their shoulders. Behind them were a trio of men, the oldest of whom was frenetically hobbling along, dragging a leg, and then a whole crowd of other people, men and women arbitrarily mingled. Dr Weiss suddenly turned. ‘ No talking, please! No talking!’
At that moment, Alexine realized with astonishment that one of the two women on either side of Dr Weiss was Addy. She was holding her head erect
, chin high, and taking long, firm strides such as Alexine had rarely seen her take before. Her forehead and cheeks, having caught the sun on the previous day, were shiny and flushed. On their arrival in the little town, her complexion had been unattractively sallow. Clearly she was already getting better.
Later Addy described to Harriet and Alexine what happened each morning after the party had reached the summit of the hill. Awaiting them there, set out on a trestle table outside a small hut, were tall earth-enware beakers of milk, still warm from the cow, hunks of rough peasant bread, and vast slices of the hard, extremely salty goat’s cheese of the area. Parched and ravenous from their climb, the patients would snatch at drink and food, pushing each other unceremoniously, all manners forgotten. Sometimes acrimonious arguments broke out, to be severely terminated by Dr Weiss.
Alexine strolled on. Then, coming on a bench, she sat down on it and once more stared across the tranquil water at the church. From it, a bell had begun to toll, on two reiterated notes, a semitone apart. Some boats were approaching the island, laden with men, women and children, all in their Sunday best although it was not Sunday. Their voices drifted across the water and then echoed back, a vague susurration, from the hills behind her. Clearly some ceremony was about to take place. As she was wondering whether it was a confirmation, a baptism or something else, a capricious gust of wind snatched at her wide-brimmed straw hat and blew it into the water. She waved and shouted to the far-off boatmen but, absorbed in helping the older of their passengers to step ashore, they neither saw nor heard her.
Then, all at once, the stranger from the dining-room was hurrying down the grassy incline from the path to the bench. Without a word to her, he stretched out an arm and grabbed at the lowest branch, clearly dead, of one of the many willows leaning over the water. He struggled with it for a few seconds, swaying from side to side, until there was a pistol-like crack and the branch came away in his hand. He hurried to the water’s edge and, bending forward, extended the branch across it. The end of the branch touched the hat, which at once began to dance round in a circle. Again he bent forward. Gently he coaxed the hat towards him. Twice it eluded him, then veered closer and closer.
‘There you are!’ He held out the dripping hat. ‘ I hope it’s not damaged.’
Alexine laughed. ‘ No, I’m sure it’s all right. That was quick of you. And kind.’
‘You’re out very early.’
‘And so are you.’
‘I can never sleep after five or so. I’ve got used to waking at that hour. Are you English?’
She shook her head. ‘Dutch.’
‘You speak perfect English.’
‘And you’re American?’ She had assumed that from his accent.
He shook his head. ‘No. I was born in Wales. But I emigrated to America. There was nothing else for a poor orphan to do.’ He laughed, neither embarrassed nor self-pitying.
As though by mutual consent, they began to walk together round the lake back to the hotel.
It was only when they had reached the entrance that he said to her: ‘I’m still ignorant of your name, mademoiselle. May I know it?’
‘I’m Alexine Thinne.’
He took her hand and bowed over it, as though they had now, at this very moment, been introduced to each other. His hand in hers was slithery with sweat. There was also sweat on his forehead. It was not yet all that hot, their pace had been leisurely. Already she had noticed the yellowness not merely of his skin but at the corners of his eyes. Was he ill?
‘And you?’ she prompted. He hesitated. ‘Scott. Mark Scott. Colonel Mark Scott. At your
service, mademoiselle.’
He gave her a deep bow.
Abruptly he would accost her, as she sat reading on a bench by the lake, as she played with a litter of mongrel puppies in the dusty and usually deserted public garden, or as she once again took her leisurely, early morning walk round the lake. No less abruptly he would leave her, with no reason given, sometimes even without a goodbye.
He was here to recuperate, he told her, taking the waters which bubbled up, ammoniac and brackish, from a spring in the basement of the hotel. The cure was doing him so little good that perhaps he ought to become one of Dr Weiss’s patients. But he hated to obey other people’s orders. He liked people to obey his.
What was he recuperating from?
‘Oh, a multitude of things. Africa has done for me, I’m afraid.’
‘Africa?’
They were seated by the lake. He nodded moodily. ‘A terrible place. Far worse than you can ever imagine. And yet – fascinating.’
There was a long silence. Then suddenly he turned to her and demanded: ‘Can you imagine people eating worms, living worms – amphistomoid worms they’re called – which they’ve grubbed for among the half-digested contents of the stomachs of cattle they have slaughtered? How about that? Or rats? Or termites? Snakes?’
He had hoped to shock her. He admired her coolness, as she replied: ‘Well, if there’s nothing else to eat …’
Soon, when they met, it was seldom of any subject other than Africa that they spoke. He described how, dying of cerebral malaria, his most trusted black servant had barked like a mad dog, endlessly for hours and then days on end; how, tormented by tooth-ache, he had himself eventually gouged out one of his wisdom teeth with a penknife, since none of his companions had had the courage to do that for him; how he had handed a tribal chieftain a gun as a present and the chieftain, having told him to load it, had then laughingly passed it to his son, a child of five or six, and ordered him to go out into the courtyard and shoot somebody – which the boy had promptly done, killing another child.
‘Does nothing shock you or surprise you?’
She shook her head.
‘Then you’re the right person for Africa. Perhaps I should take you with me when – if – I ever go back.’
He was joking, but she took him seriously. ‘Oh, do! Please! I can be your photographer. And I know a lot about botany and biology.’
‘I think your mother would have something to say about that.’
‘Oh, she could come too. She’s strong, very strong. Far stronger than I am.’
For a while that afternoon Alexine sat with a handful of other residents in the music-room of the hotel and listened to Harriet playing on a piano that, because of the damp from the lake, from time to time produced a disagreeably rancid note. Harriet frowned each time that it did so, but none of her audience seemed to notice. Then overcome by the restlessness from which she had been suffering all that day, Alexine got to her feet when a round of applause greeted the end of a Chopin Berceuse, and slipped out. As a variation to her early morning circling of the lake, she instead took a narrow path up the hillside at the back of the hotel. She was wearing no hat and she did not have her parasol with her; but she welcomed the blaze of the sun on her face, even though she knew that her usually pale complexion, so often an object of admiring comment, would have an unfashionable glow that evening.
The path led into a wood, zigzagging erratically between high ferns, brambles and saplings. It was cool now, since the sun hardly penetrated the thick vegetation. She began to think of how to realize the plan that was already coalescing in her mind. Soon she would have to tell her mother. She would have to set about reading what others had written. She would have to learn Arabic, and the rudiments of medicine. She would also have to discuss money – something which she had never understood and which, since her father’s death, her two half-brothers had handled for her – with John, preferably, since of the two he was the more capable, likeable and accessible.
A shot, its sound ricocheting back and forth between the hill up which she was trudging and the one opposite to it, roused her from her reverie. It was followed by a loud beating of wings, as startled birds bounced up into a sky visible to her only in rare patches between the thickly planted trees. Again a shot reverberated and again there was that tumultuous beating of wings. She felt a momentary panic. Might n
ot a stray shot hit her? Then, as she rounded a clump of bushes, she saw Scott, rifle in hand, with his constantly scurrying, gabbling Cockney manservant, Jennings, in attendance.
He stared at her, amazed, clearly not pleased. ‘How did you find me here?’
‘By accident. I decided to vary my usual walk. What are you shooting?’
‘Wood pigeon. Or anything else that moves.’ He laughed. ‘I might have shot you. You were moving.’
He raised the rifle that he was holding and fired it off twice in rapid succession. At the first shot, a cloud of birds clattered up into the sky and then began to whirl away at a tangent. At the second, a single bird plummeted downward. Like an eager retriever, Jennings at once plunged into the undergrowth and, except for a distant rustling, was lost. ‘He has the nose of a dog. Remarkable. You’ll see. He’ll find it.’
Eventually, grinning at his master but never gazing in the direction of Alexine much less looking her in the face, Jennings emerged from the undergrowth clutching the pigeon. There was a dark red stain on his white shirt. He held the bird out to his master. ‘ Nice,’ he said. ‘ Plump. Just feel that breast.’
Scott inspected the pigeon without touching it. ‘Take it with the others to the kitchens.’ He turned to Alexine. ‘ I’ve never much cared for pigeon. On my travels, I’d eat anything. But now that I’m back in civilization, it’s odd how my civilized preferences have begun to return.’
She extended a hand. ‘ I’ve never seen a gun like that.’
He held it out to her. ‘New. It’s what called a revolving rifle. Made by a famous English gunmaker. G. William Tranter. Ever heard of him?’ She shook her head. ‘No, of course not. Why should a woman have heard of him? Basically it has the same action as a percussion revolver. The difference lies in the butt and the long barrel. On pressing the lower trigger’ – he demonstrated – ‘I rotate the five-shot cylinder and the action is cocked. If I press the top trigger – here – inside the trigger guard’ – he indicated but did not press the trigger – ‘then the shot is fired.’