But I resume. Settled comfortably in my cane armchair, I look a little like an angler who has cast his line out and is waiting for a good bite, holding in a firm grasp—instead of the flexible rod rising towards the skyline—this slender invalid's stick (already described), the tip of which I am using, with a pretence of absent-mindedness, to strike some hard object. . . I've forgotten what . . . a shapeless, unidentifiable piece of refuse left there by the storm, which was powerful enough without any doubt to have blown away the large, light, salmon-pink ball bouncing without a moment's pause, describing a moving triangle subject to constant deformation, between the three players with the graceful bodies (one in particular—as I said—is remarkable) and lifted it so high in the sky that it would now be floating above our heads, an airship keeping watch on the shore, it too now captive and fitted with a nacelle, motionless as a vulture, observing through a telescope the elusive prey that I have designs on myself, biding my time, not taking my eyes off the lithe torso despite its brisk and unpredictable changes of position as it bends to right and left, then backwards all of a sudden in a curving leap that arches the abdomen, depending on the assumed—or alleged, or even feigned—requirements of the game in progress.
At the same time the young virgin is holding in her left palm, gripped between thumb and little finger, an apple into which she has not yet bitten and which seems to hinder her hardly at all in catching the ball with both hands, as though on the contrary it were a source of extra pleasure to her, stemming if not from the exercise of skill at least from this public demonstration of it. Obviously it would be easy enough to entice her on some pretext or other into the shop with the secret back room, for example by announcing that her prowess has just won her first place in a beach contest, this prestigious victory giving her the right to a made-to-measure wedding-dress, or rather by offering her, with all sorts of specious assurances, the job of posing for some fashion photographs to appear in a well-known magazine, introducing a new model. In either case the final scene is the same, as is its setting: the trying-on cubicle with the secret exit, where an adjustment to a tuck below the hip enables the ostensibly clumsy person performing the operation to plunge a specially prepared dressmaker's pin into the top of the buttock, this time with a single movement; the implement in question is of course a hollow needle that discharges beneath the tender skin the powerful narcotic contained in the little red bulb serving as the pinhead, which need only be squeezed smartly between thumb and forefinger to expel the poison. The victim immediately crumples in my arms, and to signal for her to be taken out the other side towards the cruel fate reserved for young goddesses I have only to strike three sharp blows, using a coded rhythm, with the tip of my stick on the . . . (It's the interrogator, interrupting me again.)
You mentioned algae and shell a moment ago. What exactly were you referring to?
The algae—according to what has been reported, even repeated several times—are a metaphor for the long tresses, warm-blond with amber highlights, stirring gently in the swell between the rocks against the blue-green of the deep water. As for the shell, that must be a kind of cowrie, the inside of which is bright pink and the aperture a narrow slit with toothed edges. The overall shape is oval, with the upper part convex; sometimes rays of varying length and sinuosity flare out all around the slit. The object is too familiar to necessitate further description.
Is there a connection (and if so of what kind) between this representation and the sponge, the lemon, the little jug, etc.?
An obvious connection! And of a sacrificial kind, without the slightest hesitation being possible. The sponge soaked in acid is inserted in the aperture of the shell . . . You are surely familiar with the effect that lemon juice has on the flesh of the oyster and the way in which the delicate membranous skirts retract as a result of the burning.
Was it this phenomenon you were alluding to when you mentioned the word “brazier” in your description of the evening at the Opera House?
This phenomenon, if you like, as well as several others of the same type, all having more or less directly to do with the consecration of an adolescent idol destined to be an object of worship. The sacrificial slab has figured in the inventory for a long time, as have the phallic toy, the false voyeur's cigar, the candle, the burning wad, etc.
Is the virginity of the subject indispensable?
In theory, yes. But with choice novices, captured without prior examination, it sometimes happens that earlier faults are passed over in silence (provided they have not left any too-visible traces), though they must be atoned for subsequently by additional humiliations and cruelties in the course of special expiation ceremonies. When on the other hand a prisoner is discharged, for whatever reason, she is delivered to the cannery and sold to the trade, after suitable cutting and preparation, with the label “salmon with spices”. You will recognize the tins without difficulty amid the innumerable piles in the supermarkets by the pretty mermaid figure on them. However, if the word “virgin” shocked you just now you can very easily substitute another term to suit yourself: sea nymph, infanta, bride, schoolgirl, etc. But do avoid the expression “doe-limbed damsel”, which has already been used somewhere else, if I recollect rightly.
What happens to the ones who are chosen?
That question is dealt with in detail elsewhere in the text. Briefly, they become small minor divinities, worshipped by the faithful in the temple of fantasies and lost recollections, the over-elaborate architecture of which constitutes a sort of gigantic replica of the Opera House, a fact that has often led unscrupulous historians to confuse the two buildings. In the entrance hall, on either side of the great spiral staircase (two full revolutions), stand the two monumental statues of the ancient goddess of pleasure in her double guise: Victorious Vanadis and Vanquished Vanadis. Performances take place nightly, both on the huge central stage and in the very large number of chapels set aside for individual use (or private use, or solitary use, or what you will), the imposing or alternatively secret doors of which succeed one another in identical series from end to end of the semicircular passages as well as of the long straight corridors running right through the upper floors, not to mention the labyrinths occupying the various basements.
Why are the corridors always deserted, whereas the beach is apparently “deserted” at one point and at another “teeming with people"?
I don't know. In any case it seems to me that the difference is not as clear-cut as it appeared to you. There are occasionally lone strollers walking along right at the water's edge, stooping from time to time to pick up a shell in order to examine it, or smell it, or else gathering round some large object freshly washed up to gaze at it and exchange interminable commentaries on its fate. At moments, too, crowds of people throng the corridors, marking time, halted by some bend or sudden narrowing . . . These are men with big hobnailed boots, soldiers maybe . . .
When you said the twin Vanessa eats the firebird at the end of the show, what did you mean?
It's probably another sexual metaphor, like all the rest. If the passage seems to you unnecessary, all you have to do is cut it out, although it represents an interesting inversion of a previous episode: that of the tinned fish. And then you could finish the report yourself if you think you can do better than I.
Are you tired?
Yes, a bit, inevitably: every day repeating these same old stories . . . for nothing . . . But I still wanted to mention some of the ritual scenes enacted in the palace at night, for instance the one listed as “The Fair Captive”, whose ankles are attached by heavy chains to iron balls, and also the pink crucifixion with the sponge already spoken of . . . already spoken of . . . already spoken of . . . or perhaps even the tableau of the bride stripped bare on a machine, which comes after this beginning that was certainly reported above: the photograph on the red-and-black prie-dieu, hands bound by a rosary, the hat pins, etc. Old phantoms . . . Old phantoms . . . And still the interminable succession of doors, which seem to have further
increased in number since the last time . . . The most urgent course, given the circumstances (fading memory, the constant tapping of the stick, the threatening weather, etc.), the most effective course now seems to me to be to go back to the powerful smell of algae in those corridors. I have always wondered whether it came from the greenish paint on the walls or from somewhere else: the fatigue jackets, for example, whose persistent presence again surrounds me, or the belts, ammunition pouches, and webbing, or the boots themselves . . . Once again there is the confused rush, the commotion, the banging inside the skull, like a hammering in an accelerating rhythm, swelling in intensity to an uproar.
And then, abruptly, nothing more . . . except the faint, gentle, crystalline, barely perceptible sound of isolated drops after the rain, draining through the cracks in the wrecked building to form small, blackish pools here and there in which the rubber soles slide with a hiss. A little farther on a fire burns in the darkness, the crackling of the flames blending with the pattering of the rain on the tin roof, one of those fires that demolition crews light to get rid of a few unwanted planks or boxes and be able afterwards to use the embers to cook their meagre repast of potatoes or fish.
And then it would be morning once again and the trembling of things in the white light of waking. A sleep too short, too disturbed, fragmented by endless interruptions . . . I have a vague recollection of coming in very late, or even at dawn, when the sky is already bright and yet the first windows are lighting up in the silhouettes of the few buildings still standing in this landscape of waste ground, derelict sites, and ruins, looming like scattered rocks on a beach with their four or five disproportionate storeys of formerly opulent residential accommodation, the harmoniously aligned façades of which once formed avenues, side-streets, and squares. At its centre the explosion even destroyed the roadway, leaving a crater that was soon filled by the water flowing from the broken mains; this gutted area, oblong in shape, which had been more or less levelled by the clearance crews, subsequently turned bit by bit into a country lane, too wide, lost, uncertain, winding between the rubble-strewn plots. At this point the black notebook includes several pages of calculations concerning the relative positions of the buildings that were spared—by a miracle, or by chance, or by deliberate skill—as well as a dimensioned drawing of an object with no apparent significance, resembling an egg split along its axis, or it might be an apricot.
The sun would be out this morning, then, and I should be installed with no stick and no moustache on the terrace of the Café Rudolph on the sea-front, having exchanged my dark overcoat and felt hat for a very summery white suit that is more in keeping with the time and place and will therefore make it easier for me to pass unnoticed among the strollers, watching like them, and without a thought in my head, the lively antics of the pretty girls on the as yet deserted beach (why not?) when presently they arrive for their swim in twos and threes and whole parties, running along hand in hand and calling like gulls.
But I wish to take advantage of this moment's respite to read with care the article that ought as every day to figure in the final edition of The Globe, a copy of which I have just purchased from the nearby news-stand. No sooner have I opened the paper at the sex-crimes page than I feel a flush come to my cheeks at seeing, spread over three columns, the photograph of the false doctor's little leather case. I had completely forgotten this object, which now reappears—as should have been expected—just as everything seemed to be sorted out at last in an almost satisfactory if not perfect manner.
I ought to have been on my guard, though, when it came to that idle discussion about the supposed virginity of the missing girls. What might such a case contain? Not apples, obviously! Nor sandwiches for the journey (filled with chloroform, presumably!). But I am wrong to laugh: unless I'm careful I shall soon find this sandwich business, which is pretty pointless, coming home to roost just when I am least expecting it. The doctor, on the other hand, will have been recognized without difficulty, even though the passage dealing with him has disappeared from the report for a reason as yet unexplained: this is certainly the character encountered right at the start of the investigation in the long corridor of the hydropathic. After we had passed each other, having exchanged a brief, anonymous greeting as we did so, I glanced back at him without thinking and discovered to my surprise that he too had turned round and had even come to a halt in order to scrutinize me more at his leisure. Possibly some detail missing from his own account had suddenly come back to him? I likewise stopped dead, my body frozen in that awkward twisted posture (one shoulder hidden) that had not been meant to last more than a few seconds, as a movement, but that was now in danger of lasting forever if I could not find a pretext for ending it. And we did indeed remain in that position, not saying a word, for appreciably too long.
Then he asked me in what seemed to me an affectedly pleasant voice whether I wanted anything. I replied that I was looking for a way out. He did not appear to understand the meaning of my remark, simple though this was, and he continued to gaze at me in silence from behind his close-set steel-rimmed spectacles with what seemed to me astonishment or even solicitude: it was as if he was worried about me, puzzled as to what fate held in store for me, or in some way preoccupied by a question concerning me; probably he would have liked to be of some service to me, had he been able. In the middle of his motionless, silent misgivings he suddenly moved, as if the possibility of a solution had occurred to him at last: using his free hand, he unbuttoned his black coat, then his jacket, and pulled from the little pocket of his waistcoat a large, old-fashioned watch on a gold chain. But what he then discovered, on consulting the dial with a brief glance, no doubt made him immediately abandon the plan that had just taken shape in his mind, because he made an abrupt about-turn; putting the watch back in his pocket and setting off again at a brisk stride, he moved away towards the far end of the interminable corridor. Or else the gesture, together with the easy alibi of the time, served no other purpose than that of plausibly interrupting our awkward tête-à-tête.
And yet I thought at the time that the man must quite simply be one of the members of the orchestra on the way to his dressing-room, and that he might very well be afraid of being late for the beginning of the rehearsal; so the black-leather case contained a wind instrument of some sort, probably dismantled. In fact one could already hear in the distance the intermittent sounds of a large formation tuning up: flute scales or horn calls against a shifting background of muted strings and percussion, while at regular intervals a soprano voice repeats the same short fragment of the singer's great aria. I thus have no trouble in identifying the opera being performed this evening in the great Italianate auditorium of the Casino. It is called The Golden Fleece, but despite its title all it is is yet another new version of the myth of the burning bird, which confirms my suspicions regarding the real drama brewing up behind the scenes. Nevertheless it is hard for me now to go on my own way from room to room in search of the one with the wide-open window overlooking the rocks, the sand, and the sea. A wooden, straw-bottomed chair, standing right beside me though I had not noticed it before, happens to supply the face-saver I was searching for: I sit down on it naturally with the intention of giving the situation some sober thought.
It was only then that I noticed the blood, a broad band of red liquid flowing thick and shiny out of the gap of approximately half a centimetre between the floor and the closed door of one of the nearby rooms and across to the middle of the passage to terminate very soon in a little pool of irregular outline, the presence of which reveals a slight depression in the floor at this point that would have been hardly noticeable otherwise. A woman's shoe of fine white leather decorated with probably artificial gem-stones has its high heel lying sideways and partially immersed in this puddle of viscous, deep-vermilion fluid. Such a shoe must have gone—together, perhaps, with a tiny strass bag and a tiara—with a particularly provocative evening gown of the kind seen at important first nights at the Opera House.
Then the flat, impersonal voice, sounding like a machine for imitating speech, says: Resume reading. I reopen the black notebook and continue from where I left off: this is the passage in which the masked criminal returns, holding a rose, to the three-quarters destroyed city with the intention of recovering the precious case left behind on the premises. But he no longer remembers either where the flower came from or what he was to have done with it. He eventually throws it into the river, which floodwater has rendered unrecognizable, over the granite balustrade of the old bridge. A large bird passes slowly overhead, flying upstream in the direction from which the muddy water is washing down an odd assortment of flotsam.
A little farther on the man picks up a black stone, apparently of volcanic origin, marked by two small depressions rather like a pair of eyes linked by a shiny groove, lighter in colour, in the shape of a V. The whole resembles the pattern on the head of a cobra, or a sort of scar left in the flesh by a deep gash shaped like a shark's jaw. As for the male hand holding out the object as the photograph was taken, that probably belonged to a policeman or to some prison-service employee.
Recollections of the Golden Triangle Page 5