The Face of the Waters (First Born of Egypt Series)

by Simon Raven

  Having read this through and sighed deeply, at thoughts of his own demonstrable past incompetence and evident future impotence in this whole affair, Leonard had signified to Artemis in basic Italian, the only language in which she appeared able to communicate with him, that he would remove to the Garibaldi in Mestre the following day. Here he had found that a room overlooking the Railway Station had thoughtfully been reserved for him.

  ‘Venice,’ said Fielding Gray, ‘is a great city for unexpected revelations.’

  ‘Let us hope,’ said Piero Caspar, ‘that nothing too tiresome is revealed this time.’

  ‘We had better stay at the Gabrielli, I think. About my mark, these days. And about yours, with that money of Ptoly’s. Something, I hope will be revealed, or else our journey and Ptoly’s money will have been wasted.’

  ‘Jeremy, in one piece, offering a rational explanation of his behaviour… I’ll settle,’ said Piero, ‘for that. No nasty shocks. You remember the revelation we had last time we were both in Venice?’

  Fielding nodded.

  ‘I ought to. I used it, albeit very discreetly, as material for a long novel…which was published while you were still withdrawn from the world.’

  ‘But if you had been less discreet or less loyal, things could have turned very nasty for Lord Canteloupe.’

  ‘I don’t know. To prove, to the satisfaction of a Court of Law, that some idiot boy in the marshes near Oriago is the legitimate descendant of a spy called fitzAvon, who was in fact the eldest son of the man who subsequently became the first Lord Canteloupe, and that therefore the said idiot boy is now the rightful Marquess – even if it could be done it would cost a fortune, and cui bono? Who is even going to try?’

  ‘Still, it must have made Canteloupe uneasy…the knowledge that he now possessed a huge fortune and a magnificent title to neither of which he had any claim whatever…he can’t have cared to have that on his conscience.’

  ‘Canteloupe’s conscience is as tough and malleable as chewing gum. If he’s prepared to pass Sarum off before the world as the true heir of his body, why should he bother about masquerading as Canteloupe? He isn’t the first, after all. Every single so-called Canteloupe who has reigned as Marquess after the birth of fitzAvon’s son – Nicolo he was called if I remember right, born in true wedlock to a peasant girl called Cara in the village of Samuele near Oriago in 1797 – that is every single Marquess Canteloupe except for fitzAvon’s father who was the first – has been phoney.’

  ‘And little Sarum, when and if he inherits, will be doubly phoney,’ Piero remarked.

  ‘What odds does it make?’ said Fielding. ‘Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas. If the coronet fits why not wear it?’

  ‘In the first place,’ said Shamshuddin to Gregory, ‘I was uneasy at the leisurely manner in which you proposed to carry out the revisions to your work. To say that you could do them while drifting round Greece hardly showed a proper sense of urgency.’

  ‘There is plenty of time. The articles I have written are quite enough for your purpose for the time being. Let them sink in before we weigh in with the book…for the printing of which, as you know, very responsible arrangements have been made.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Shamshuddin, ‘that, as I have already told you, was the second matter to bother us. Come and stand by the window and let me show you the view.’

  As Gregory rose, Shamshuddin’s henchman Pontos (a jowly youth in a dark suit and a blue tie) and the girl Artemis rose with him. God knows, thought Gregory, as they crossed with him, one on either side, to the window, what they think I might be planning. To strangle Shamshuddin, who carries a dirk sheathed in the leather lining of his coat? To leap through the window and swim to safety through that marsh?

  ‘This is an abandoned farmhouse which we have partly refurbished,’ said Shamshuddin, ‘on an islet near San Francesco del Deserto in the Lagoon of Venice. If you look to the right you will see the Campanile on Torcello: if you look to the left you will see the Church of San Martino on Burano.’

  ‘So,’ said Gregory, ‘this time you are telling me where I am.’

  ‘Oh yes. This time we are old friends. We want you to feel trusted and confident. Let me remind you that your friend, Mr Percival, is not many miles away. You have nothing to fear; you need expect nothing except kindness…Artemis, if instructed, can be very kind indeed…provided only that you sit down and write your revisions, here in this farmhouse, in the substance and style we have required of you during our recent conference, taking, let us say, one week.’

  ‘But what is this sudden rush, Shamshuddin? Salinger & Holbrook will not be expecting the finished typescript for nearly a month. And there is nothing to be gained by such hurry, even if the printers agree to turn it off early.’

  ‘There is our problem, Mr Stern…the second thing that brought uneasiness to us. As I have told you, enquiries in London now reveal that there is, after all, uncertainty about Salinger & Holbrook. The firm may not be prepared to print your work. The Chairman of the Board is being obstructive.’

  ‘I have the promise of the two principal shareholders. The Chairman is a puppet.’

  ‘Even so, there is now doubt…so much doubt that when I heard the news – just before you were to leave Trieste – I at once decided that it would be better, after all, if you remained with us…so that if the arrangements should go wrong, we could all discuss what was to be done, immediately and together. And meanwhile I have provided, as you see, a peaceful and comfortable place for you to do your work undistracted from the world but with such occasional recreation as Artemis will provide on request.’

  ‘She doesn’t look the kind to frolic to order.’

  ‘She knows her duty.’

  ‘In any case,’ said Gregory mildly, ‘I shall not need to trouble her. I have something to tell you, Shamshuddin. I should have preferred to leave it until later, until after I had done my tour of Greece, but I always reckoned that matters might take this kind of a turn, and so I am fully prepared to tell you now.’

  Gregory smiled at Shamshuddin, nodded to Pontos, and bowed very slightly to Artemis.

  ‘Everything, as I have explained, has been responsibly arranged,’ Gregory said, ‘for the revision, the printing and later on the dissemination of my book. This spot of bother at Salinger & Holbrook can only be temporary, in view of the undertakings I have received; the book, when printed and bound, will be distributed by a small private agency which specialises in operations of this kind; the contents of the book, along with my name on the cover, will guarantee a success of scandal and the consequent projection of virulent anti-Jewish propaganda.

  ‘Yet I have to tell you,’ Gregory continued gently, ‘that the book will not now be finished or delivered, that it will never be either printed or distributed. The arrangements I have made are contingent on my personal word to the printer and distributor; this word will never now be given; and neither printer nor distributor will accept the word of anyone else.’

  ‘What exactly are you telling me, Mr Stern?’

  ‘That unless I deliver the typescript to the printer with my own hands, and instruct him to proceed in my own voice, the book will never be printed. I have to tell you now that I shall neither revise nor deliver the typescript, and that in consequence, no matter what anybody else may do or try to do, the book can never appear under the respectable auspices you require for it.’

  ‘We have a copy of the existing text. Even unrevised it could do much for us.’

  ‘If you print that text, my agents have instructions to disown it on my behalf. The world would then realise more or less what has been happening, and your imposture would merely work you discredit and contempt.’

  ‘Mr Stern,’ said Shamshuddin politely, ‘you must know very well what we might do if you make of yourself a nuisance like this.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gregory, ‘and I no longer care. You do what you wish, Shamshuddin. The point is, as far as I am concerned, that I must do what I consider to be dec
ent, what my friends consider to be decent, or at any rate not do what they and I consider to be indecent. If it would interest you to know, I despise the Jews every bit as much as I despise you and your organisation and the Arabs whom (for whatever reason) you support. Between you all you have ruined Lebanon, the land that flows with milk and honey, and bored the civilised world stupid with your mindless and fanatical quarrels. “A plague on both your houses” is the only comment proper in the mouth of any man of understanding. The fact remains that I am a Jew and it is therefore not decent that I should propagate festering lies about the Israelis. If you had only been content with a reasoned and moderate case against them, I should happily have made one out for you, for God knows that would have been easy enough. But you wanted lies, you insisted on factitious hatred, rabble-rousing hysteria. You shall not have them from me, for this simple reason: the men with whom I have grown up in England, the men with whom I have served my country and pursued my profession and passed my leisure, consider what I have been doing to be indecent, to be distasteful and shameful, Shamshuddin, and since I love them I shall do it no more.’

  ‘Oh dear me, Mr Stern,’ said Shamshuddin, ‘you mustn’t go looking for kudos of that kind. It could make you so very annoying.’

  ‘I am not looking for kudos of any kind. I am simply behaving as my friends would expect me to behave…as I should expect them to expect me to behave.’

  ‘Put it how you like, Mr Stern, you know very well that we cannot allow…disaffection…of this nature. So why don’t you decide to be sensible and helpful again? Get on with your revisions, take a little time off with Artemis now and then, and deliver the text for printing when you are ready, giving your personal go-ahead which you say is required. There is, as you observe no particular hurry: but delivered in the proper form it must still be.’

  ‘It shall not be delivered by me; and without such delivery it is disowned.’

  ‘Oh dear. I hardly think that you have considered the consequences. For dereliction such as this, you know, we must exact very spectacular punishments indeed. We cannot have it said that we are mocked.’

  ‘Anything you may do to me, Shamshuddin, will only confirm the impression of all decent men – that you and yours are the lowest kind of scum. Yet not perhaps the lowest of all; for the Jews, or at least the Israelis, are equally low – and sometimes, I must admit, I wonder why I should go to the trouble of refusing you on their behalf.’

  Sir Jacquiz and Lady Helmutt (Marigold) flew to Venice in a privately hired jet, paid for by some Trust or other on which Sir Jacquiz was prominent. The choir of Lancaster College came too, as did Balbo Blakeney who had, after all, found the bloody picture, in Canteloupe’s phrase, and was therefore very properly being carried free to the ceremony at which it would be returned to its rightful place and owners.

  The form of this ceremony Sir Jacquiz was now outlining for the benefit of Lady Helmutt and Balbo.

  ‘There will be a Service of Thanksgiving to start with, to be said and sung in Latin. We have brought our own choir’ – he gestured to the rear of the jet, where twenty little boys in gowns and Eton jackets were romping spitefully and being sick in each others’ top hats – ‘since the Italians are quite incapable of raising anything suitable in that line.’

  ‘How did you persuade them to let it be done in Latin?’ asked Balbo. ‘They usually insist on the vernacular these days sucking up to the proles.’

  ‘Quite easy. Rather a large tip to the Archbishop of Chioggia, who will be taking the service. A pity we couldn’t have one of our own College priests, who would have sung much better, but San Martino, when all is said, is a Catholic Church, and we must make some concessions to our hosts.

  ‘After the sung Epilogue to the Service of Thanksgiving (In copia et divitiis, Domine, nos in aeternum maneamus – let us dwell for ever, O Lord, amidst riches and plenty) Lady Canteloupe will unveil the Asolano, which will be hanging in its original place, over the side altar third from the west door in the south aisle, concealed beneath a curtain of tapestry designed for it, as I surmise, by the first Marquess Canteloupe.’

  ‘I told you that,’ said Balbo, ‘you did no surmising.’

  ‘Let him go on,’ said Marigold. ‘We shall have no peace until he’s finished.’

  ‘As her Ladyship pulls the chord,’ intoned Sir Jacquiz, ‘the choir will break into an anthem, the music for which was composed by the Bulgarian Jeremiah Burphus – Ut Romulum Remumque nutrivit lupus/Ita Virgo illuminationem spargit – “As the she-wolf gave suck to Romulus and Remus, so the Virgin spreads light upon us,” a very neat pun (lupus, Canteloupe), a graceful compliment to the Marchioness, and an elegant reference to the subject matter of Asolano’s picture.’

  ‘How long is all this going to take?’ asked Marigold. ‘Balbo and I want to know whether a single flask will go the distance.’

  ‘There will be ample refreshments after the ceremony in the Locanda Cipriani, five minutes away by boat on Torcello. There is no need to take your own.’

  ‘Says you,’ said Marigold.

  ‘Now, after the unveiling–’

  ‘–There you are, you see, I knew the bloody thing was going on even longer–’

  ‘–After the unveiling, and by special dispensation of His Holiness the Pope, the Anglican Bishop of Glastonbury will utter a special blessing. He insists, I’m sorry to say, on speaking it in English, as he and his wife are enthusiastic members of the Religion for the People group, whose avowed aim is to eliminate what they call superfluous decoration or obscurity from all liturgies. Mungo Avallon, as the Bishop is allowed to style himself, will be totally out of place at an occasion of this kind, but he is an old wartime friend of Canteloupe, who insists on his taking part. After he has blessed the picture, there will be a final anthem–’

  ‘–Sweet Jesus Christ–’

  ‘–No, Marigold, not “Sweet Jesus Christ” but a new one for which I have written the words to accompany the dulcet tones of Psthyst – Domine, tibi gratiam agamus/Cum pro pictis tabulis/Tum pro egregiis et fidelibus custodibus eorum – “Lord, let us give thanks for works of painting and their dedicated and distinguished curators.”’

  ‘i.e. for you and your gang. Not a word about the painters themselves, I notice.’

  ‘Their reward is in their vocation. Anyway, most of them are men of dissolute habit, quite unfit to be mentioned in a sacred building.’

  ‘Was that true of Asolano?’ Marigold asked.

  ‘We don’t know much about him,’ said Balbo. ‘He is reputed to have abducted and married a Jewess.’

  ‘There you are, darling,’ said Marigold to Jacquiz, ‘Asolano liked Jews. So won’t you squeeze him into your anthem after all? He’s rather sensitive about all that just now,’ she confided in Balbo, ‘as he’s been reading Gregory Stern’s anti-Jewish pieces in the Scrutator, and keeps carrying on as if the whole thing were personal and Stern were running a one-man pogrom to turn him, Jacquiz Helmutt, into scrubbing soap. Paranoia isn’t in it. Do you suppose that wop Archbishop will mind having him in the Church of San Martino when he sees he’s a Jew?’

  ‘I can’t imagine so. Anyway he can always say he isn’t.’

  ‘That’s the trouble. He hates being one but he’ll never deny that he is one. He’s even talking about having our boy barmitzvahed when the time comes.’

  ‘How is your boy? And his twin sister?’

  ‘Healthy. Otherwise impossible to say. Do you remember a science fiction novel,’ said Marigold, ‘called The Midwich Cuckoos? I think they made a film of it, with George Sanders.’

  ‘I remember it vividly. It was about children begotten on human females by some agent from outer space. They all have identical faces and absolutely blank eyes.’

  ‘Well that,’ said Marigold, ‘is what’s growing up in my house. Only two of them, but two too many if you ask me. It’ll be interesting to see what the Rabbi makes of him when he’s being prepared for his barmitzvah…though of course there’s anothe
r ten years to go till then, and anything could happen in the meantime.’

  ‘His children are well guarded,’ said Shamshuddin, ‘he saw to that quietly and efficiently before he left. In any case, to retaliate through the children is inappropriate here and would not convey to the world the message that we wish to convey.’

  ‘His wife?’ said Pontos.

  ‘No,’ said Artemis, ‘if possible, please not.’

  Shamshuddin raised his eyebrows. ‘So she went beneath your skin?’ he said. ‘You need not worry. No one knows, just now, where his wife is, and in any case she too would be an inappropriate target.’

  ‘Then what?’ said Pontos.

  ‘Something must be done…not unworthy of the man himself (whom we must in a fashion respect, despite and indeed because of the nuisance he is causing us) and at the same time carrying suitable retribution for his disobedience and broken word. We must make an example to all those that may be tempted to think or act like him, and in particular to those friends of his whose attitudes, as he says, have persuaded him to defy and disoblige us. So this is what we shall do,’ Shamshuddin said, crossing to the window from which he could see the Campaniles both on Torcello and on Burano; and looking steadily out of it he told them.