The Dark Labyrinth

by Lawrence Durrell

  The British Consul (for it was he) came aboard in his time. He was tired and peevish, and walked like a person of some consequence to the bridge, where he asked smartly for the officer of the watch. “I understand that you have passengers wishing to visit the labyrinth. I have come to inform you that the trip is simply not safe.”

  He was conducted below to see the Captain, to whom he explained his business more clearly, slightly mollified by the excellent coffee and biscuit of the ship.

  “There’s a travel agency run by two young Greeks,” he said. “They advertise tours of the labyrinth. Now, my advice is to dissuade passengers from running the risk. The labyrinth simply isn’t safe. I don’t want to have British subjects lost in the island, it upsets the Embassy; I’ve no doubt your company would also not like to risk the lives of its passengers.”

  The Captain listened to him carefully and decided that his manner was too peremptory for a mere vice-Consul. The company, he pointed out, was exempt from any responsibility in the matter. The Jannadis Agency had merely canvassed visitors to the labyrinth. It was not up to him to stop people enjoying themselves. At any rate, he would post a notice on the board, explaining that the place was considered dangerous by the Consul, and advising passengers not to risk it. “Let me see,” he said, “I think we’ve only a few this time.”

  Over breakfast the six of them read the Captain’s notice with interest not unmixed with excitement. They felt rather bold to be visiting a place considered unsafe by the Consul. Even Miss Dombey, who was not feeling very well, felt that it was up to her to show that she was no coward. “You’re intrepid, that’s what you are,” said Campion to her in his stage-cockney accent, buttering himself a side of toast. “What happens if the Second Coming comes while you’re inside? You might miss the whole thing.” Latterly, Miss Dombey had found that the best way of dealing with Campion was to ignore him. She had not spoken a word to him since the day he had said: “Miss Dombey, if Spot uses my easel for a lamppost once more I’ll cut his legs off and throw him in the sea.” It had been simply outrageous; even Graecen was shocked by his rudeness. Now she simply ignored him. It did not seem to bother Campion, however, who always had something either offensive or comical to say to her when they met.

  Truman met Graecen dragging his grip along to the staircase, and gave him a hand. “Thanks,” panted Graecen. He was very puffed and sat down upon it to exchange a cigarette. “Coming to the labyrinth?” he said. Truman nodded. “I see you are leaving us for good,” he said, with genuine regret. The voyage had been a pleasant one so far. “Not all of us,” said Graecen. “Baird and Campion and I, are going to stay with a friend of mine. But we’re coming up to see the labyrinth with you first.”

  The Truman couple slipped ashore rather earlier than the others. They had observed Miss Dombey taking the dog ashore in the pinnace—and had decided to have a look round on their own. They went for a walk in the meadow hand in hand, exchanging private jokes and banter. “My,” she said, “it is a lovely place. You’d never think it was an island, would you?” Truman swung himself into an olive tree by his wrists, and hung for a second before dropping back to earth. “I feel fine,” he said. “And you look fine.”

  She wore a bright dappled frock of some light summer material, a wide-brimmed straw hat, and shoes with heavy rope soles such as one buys in Spain—espadrilles. She had brought a rucksack and an overcoat, in case the journey proved cold. “I feel fine,” she said, smiling her friendly, innocent smile.

  They could hear the shrill barking of Miss Dombey and her dog over the next hillock. Avoiding her they walked along the flat shore by the jetty. The keen air, the blue sky, the meadows sloping away to the foothills splashed with fruit trees—it was overpowering. “Why don’t we just pick a place like this? Stay here for ever and ever?” She was thinking of Campion sitting under an olive tree, drinking a glass of wine and painting with his small hands. Her husband sniffed. “Don’t mind if I do,” he said. “If you learn the language and do the housekeeping.” They passed several low cottages, whence elderly, wrinkled faces peered out at them. Voices greeted them politely, for Greece is the country where the stranger is honoured like a god, and where hospitality is a domestic art. “I wish I knew how to say good day,” she said as they passed. Farther on they came upon rows of coloured fishing-boats drawn up upon a brown seaweed-covered beach. Tattered fishermen sat cross-legged in a wilderness of nets, darning and sifting them. A small boy offered flowers with the compliments of his uncle. Truman took them in his clumsy British way, blushing as he did so; he felt effeminate in his stupid northern way to be holding a bunch of tinted anemones. “Come on,” he said gruffly, handing them to his wife. “What price Whitby?” said his wife irrelevantly, wondering whether they could go for a row in a boat. They gave the urchin a packet of sweets from the ship’s canteen.

  Under an olive tree she put down the rucksack to search for a handkerchief. Not finding one she blew her nose in a letter, catching her husband’s disapproving eye as she did so. “I knew it,” he said. “No hanky.” It was one of her most irritating traits. Later, of course, she would demand the nice clean one that protruded from the breast pocket of his smart summer suit. Women were like that.

  They sat under an olive tree together arm in arm, and lapsed into silence. Bees hummed. In the middle distance a caravan of hill-ponies moved across towards the wood bearing sacks of charcoal on their backs, driven by men in blue trousers, jackboots and tasselled caps. Behind them the mountains glowed grey below the snowline, and deep green where the rich foothills sent their orchards straggling up them.

  Elsie Truman suddenly felt full of the silence. It had been running noiselessly in her mind like an open tap, and now there came an overflowing, a pause. She sighed, and looked at her face in the pocket mirror she had brought. “Look over there,” said Truman, lazily chewing a grass stalk, and trying to remember the name of a single ancient Greek god or goddess. “It’s old Baird.”

  Baird sat under a tree upon a cane chair, deep in conversation with one of the chauffeurs. Over the brow of the hill there appeared a dilapidated taxi with a functionary of some kind seated behind the wheel. Baird at last had seen someone who recognized him. He was asking news of his guerilla comrades; it was all at once as if time had been telescoped all together, as if he had only been away a few moments. He felt close to Böcklin, closer than he had ever felt before; and close to the obscure dream that had troubled him for so long. He put his questions eagerly, asking where this one lived now, and whether that one’s wound had healed. There were few of the original band left on the island. The Abbot John, however, was thought to be still up at the monastery. Baird could hardly wait for the party to arrive, so close did he seem to the heart of the mystery. It was as if some deeply-troubling enigma were going to be elucidated.

  From the sides of the Europa a white dot broke away and fussed towards the shore. It was the pinnace bearing Fearmax, Campion, Miss Dale and Graecen—the last having said good-bye to everyone including the Captain with an elaborate over-politeness. As he turned back to his companion, Baird’s eye caught sight of the Truman couple, sitting under a tree. He waved to them, and they got to their feet. Miss Dombey was advancing across the middle landscape with strident barks of encouragement to Spot. The dog was a lymphatic animal, neither grateful for a chance to decorate genuine trees instead of stanchions, nor particularly enthusiastic about Crete. It cantered tepidly along by the side of its mistress, who, between barks, exclaimed breathlessly, “Have a good run. There’s a good Spot. Chase him, boy. Chase him. Woof, woof, woof, woof.” She came up considerably puffed and accepted Baird’s chair with faint thanks. “How the English love their four-footed pets,” said Campion admiringly, as the rest of the party gathered round.

  On the knoll, under the olive tree from which hung the inn-sign reading “Kapheneion”, the taxis were drawn up. For some reason there were six of them, and on Graecen’s recommendation they decided that three would be ample, both for
the luggage and for the eight of them. This having been determined upon after considerable debate with the drivers, the guide emerged from the depths of the wineshop cellar, wiping a pair of long mournful moustaches on the backs of both hands. “Please to attend to me one minute,” he said hoarsely. He wore a battered German field-marshal’s hat upon his head, around which the Jannadis Brothers had placed a band upon which the company’s name was inscribed. The hinder end of a British battledress was surmounted by a blue woollen pullover, on the front of which was written “Beach Guard”, and on the back “Property of UNRRA Canteen. Not to be taken away.” He had evidently something impressive to say, but his English was halt, deaf and blind. He was grateful, therefore, when Baird came to his rescue and offered to translate. He caught both his hands in his and began a long conversation, which sounded to the rest—as all Greek conversations do—like a violent quarrel. Baird was interested.

  The rest of the party stood in a semicircle watching. Finally Baird turned to them with twinkling eyes and an incredulous smile on his face. “Something new to me,” he said, obviously doubtful whether an explanation of his conversation with the guide would justify translation. “He says that there is an animal of some kind in the labyrinth. No one has ever seen it. But they hear it roar—we shall probably hear it too.”

  “A minotaur,” said Graecen excitedly.

  “Extraordinary,” said Fearmax, drawing closer to catch what Baird had to say. “What do they call it?”

  “The man calls it ” said Baird. “It means ‘monster’ or ‘beast’. It’s probably a bear.”

  He did not add to the translation. The guide had told him that once a shepherd, badly mauled, had been found at the mouth of the labyrinth. He had entered the main cave in pursuit of a sheep, and had encountered some animal in the darkness. He had not been able to give any clear account of it.

  They had all managed to bring torches with them, however, so he felt that the party was sufficiently well-equipped to start moving. “A minotaur,” said Graecen, sniffing the cold air from the mountains. “If we could take it back to the British Museum how pleased they would be.”

  “Well, after all these warnings we may expect either to be eaten alive or buried by a fall of rock. Does anyone feel his courage fail? If so, let him speak now or forever hold his peace.” Campion climbed into the nearest taxi as he spoke, with all his possessions. The rest of them followed.

  The Cefalû Road

  The idea at the back of Graecen’s mind was a comparatively simple one; he wanted a chance to see the city in the rock, to get to work with his little bottle of acid, before he visited Axelos. He sat, with Baird, in the back seat of the foremost taxi, and meditated as he saw the pink sun-burned neck of Miss Dale, who had sat beside the driver. Her blonde hair had been gathered into a coloured handkerchief to keep it from the dust, and the bright cloth threw into relief her sad cheek-bones, and the small childish mouth when she turned to exclaim at the scenery or ask a question. Graecen had noticed an increase of his sentimental weakness for blonde women; she had been, indeed, a charming if uncultured companion. And so grateful for his help with her literature paper. They had spent whole afternoons sitting side by side and working; Virginia had loved being read to, and he had loved the sound of his own voice. And now somehow, directly his feet had touched the land again, his old preoccupation with the doctor’s diagnosis had come over him. Life was so beautiful in the sun—how could one forfeit it all of a sudden, like a shutter closing? The girl turned back and gave him a little smile, wrinkling up her nose. She had seen some peasants in bright costumes. “Are you all right, Richard?” she said. She used his name with a delightful timidity. Yes, he was all right. But for how long? That was the question.

  It seemed to him, too, that Virginia herself was perhaps a little sentimentally inclined towards him. “So after tomorrow,” she had said, “I shan’t see you any more?” It seemed to him that her lip trembled ever so slightly; and he blushed to the roots of his—well, not exactly his hair—to the little bald spot on his crown. Now, sitting in the jolting car, he felt suddenly overwhelmed by the depression of his thoughts, and a haunting longing for someone in whom he could confide. Suddenly he was reminded of those illnesses when he was a boy—how he had enjoyed them. The luxury of those long bouts of measles and mumps. He cast a glance sideways at Baird, half afraid that his thoughts might be told from his expression; but Baird was hunched in his corner, his eyes fixed on the crags ahead of them, thinking—who knows what?—thoughts of his past life.

  Graecen returned with pleasure to his own preoccupation with death. He closed his eyes and saw the great white house, set back among the flowering oleanders and the supple green myrtles of Cefalû. The large quiet rooms with their balconies. The chaffer of the fishermen at the mole beyond the clump of cypresses. Did he dare to tell Axelos? And then again, the prospect of keeping his secret filled him with an aching sense of emptiness and gloom. He needed comfort, he needed to be secured against the approaching darkness. What a fool he was, he said to himself, not to have married; to have sacrificed everything for selfish comforts of bachelorhood. Virginia was smiling at him again. At the ball she had danced beautifully—her body had seemed to him so resilient, so warm, so passive; inviting almost. He had felt that subtle correspondence of limbs as he held her lightly against his own body. What had she been thinking? Now, mixed with the desire to re-create the image of his mother through somebody else, there came also the feeling that his life had been worthless, had been untouched at any point except by indifference or gluttony or power. He felt a sudden urge to dedicate himself to something or somebody—to fulfil in patient, indulgent service all that he felt remained in him, seed without flower. Why should he not marry Virginia?

  The thought brought him up with a jerk. The suggestion was completely unexpected. Virginia, the pallid little cockney waif—why should he not marry her? Devote himself to her; try and give her life a little meaning, a little form, from his own experience? Share some of his gifts with her? Above all, confide in her, look after her, until such a time as … But he averted his mind from that suddenly closing shutter which was to come down over this sunny world, and concentrated his gaze upon the childish contours of that face in front, whose excitement was manifest in every feature. Poor child, he said to himself, over and over again, thinking of her cockney accent. He had come to enjoy it almost. He had found her errors and defects almost an added charm. Why should he not marry Virginia?

  But the whole thing was preposterous. Graecen was one of those hopelessly self-divided people who are so often made the victims of their own whims. Idly he would get an idea, as idly play with it; and then, all of a sudden, find himself dragged protesting towards it. He recognized this as one of those momentous ideas which would, if he did not act, enslave him utterly.

  Damn the girl, she was smiling at him again. Apologetically he leaned forward and patted her arm. Virginia’s face melted sympathetically into a kind of smiling sadness. Graecen began calling himself names, but underneath he heard the systematic echo of the idea vibrating in the hollows of his consciousness. Why should he not marry Virginia? “Don’t be a fool,” he said aloud.

  “Eh?” said Baird, coming out of his reverie.

  “Sorry,” said Graecen with confusion. “I was thinking of something. I was miles away.”

  Baird looked tired all of a sudden, and excited. His hand shook as he lit a cigarette. “I think”, he said, “I’ll not come directly to the labyrinth with you. I’ve got some other business to do first.” His effort to make it sound a business transaction was a palpable failure. He averted his eyes and added: “I know where the house is. If you’d be good enough to send on my bag, Graecen, I’ll come in to dinner.” He caught sight of the perplexity on his companion’s face and said: “Oh, it’s nothing serious. Perhaps I’ll be able to explain a little later.”

  Graecen primmed his lips and nodded. Baird had already hinted at an official mission. No doubt this had something to
do with it.

  Canea had gone spinning away southwards with its orange trees and powdery houses of red and white. Painted into the hard blue frame of the horizon lay the unruffled cobalt of the sea, yellow and green where it touched the coastline. The three taxis rumbled across the verdant valleys, trailing behind them a great cloud of soft dust. The queer noise of their klaxons woke the uplands towards which they headed, and curious ink-spot jays dropped down from the trees to watch their progress.

  Never had Elsie Truman dreamed of such scenery; flawless in their purity the valleys were picked out in rectangles and squares of colour by the sunlight. It was better, she told her husband, than the best Technicolor film. Riding down the winding roads she pressed his hand under the decent privacy of the rug, and handed him boiled sweets to suck.

  Miss Dombey sat beside them, finding the dust very trying. She repeated the charge several times, as if to express her disapproval of a world in which one had to make long journeys in deep dust—and in such company. The implication was not lost on Mrs. Truman. She smiled as she saw Miss Dombey wind her face in a veil and lie back against the moth-eaten hood of the car, closing her eyes. The dog lay quietly at their feet.

  Something of her irritation must have been communicated to the guide, who sat in front beside the driver. He removed his arm from its position round the neck of the latter and leaned back to ask a question. His conversation was rendered unintelligible by the wind, however, and he was forced to shout until Miss Dombey winced with pain. Was she ill, he asked? No? He gave an imitation of Miss Dombey in a veil, which the Trumans found delightfully comic. When they smiled at him he roared with laughter. If she was not ill, then why?—and he made the gesture of wrapping himself in a veil once more. Miss Dombey was so revolted by his performance that she told him to shut up and turn round. The guide’s hurt feelings were only partly assuaged by Mrs Truman’s offer of an acid-drop. He sucked it for a moment with a sad and pouting air of wounded amour-propre. Then, to return the courtesy, he removed his hat, and taking a cigarette-end from inside it, solemnly pressed it upon Mr. Truman who found himself forced to accept the object with thanks. Miss Dombey’s lips were compressed into a thimble-top of disapproval. Truman muttered angrily to his wife: “There you go again. Can’t let people be.” And she laughed until she nearly swallowed her sweet, then coughed until he had to thump her on the back.