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

by Simon Raven

  ‘–But of course he couldn’t find me as I was at the top of the forbidden Campanile, looking out over the Lagoon, having my thoughts.’

  ‘A lira for them.’

  ‘Cui bono? That’s what I thought, Canty. To what conceivable good for what possible person? None. Nobody. There are only negatives – misery, pain, disease and death. This is what the Madonna in the cathedral is weeping for. But somewhere, I thought, there must be another message, some kind of consolation, even perhaps a reason, but if not that at least a rule or a lesson, by which we can live in contentment.’

  ‘But you have always lived in contentment.’

  ‘Excitement, not often contentment. Never in contentment now.’

  ‘But still in excitement?’

  ‘No. That too has gone. It left me one afternoon in the Fens, when I saw what I saw. I thought it might come back but it didn’t. Now I do not think it will ever come again.’

  ‘So no excitement any more…and no contentment. Then why are you so happy now?’

  ‘Though I may appear happy, I am only resigned.’

  ‘And therefore contented, surely.’

  ‘No. Resigned to the negative message which I had today. Contentment can only come with the second message, the message of consolation, the lesson or the rule. I feel that this is near, therefore I appear happy.’

  ‘What makes you think it is near?’

  ‘That little black figure, perhaps, by the house on the tiny island. An illustration, in miniature, of God’s design: a being with a house to live in and just enough land to live off, in the middle of a desolate and polluted lagoon: man on his pathetic ball of earth in the middle of an arid and poisonous universe.’

  ‘A lesson in itself?’

  ‘No. It compares but does not explain or instruct. The message which I am expecting must do at least one of those two things. As it happens, I do not think it will explain.’

  ‘Why should it not?’

  ‘Because the explanation is already evident and is hardly worth the trouble of stating. The explanation, the only possible explanation of the world before us, is the malignancy of God. His Mother in the cathedral knows of this malignancy and pities the creation that both stems and suffers from it. But neither She nor anyone else is going to admit all this openly. Although it is evident, as I say, it is unwise to talk of the Ruler of the Universe in this fashion.’

  ‘You are talking of Him in this fashion.’

  ‘I should not do so if He were my Son.’

  ‘If He is Her Son, can She not intercede with Him?’

  ‘Perhaps She does, but She has achieved nothing. In the two millennia since She bore Him, His creation has merely got fouler and fouler. So what is needed is instruction: we must be told how we are to bear ourselves in these hideous circumstances, and what we are to do. The Madonna in the cathedral offers no lesson of that kind, nor does the black figure by the house on the island. But both offer hope, in a way: hope that there will be instruction if only we long for it enough; and since that afternoon in the Fens I have yearned for it, Canty, and now, after a day at the top of that Campanile, I yearn even more.’

  ‘Can you take me up there? Tomorrow morning, before the ceremony on Burano?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But it shouldn’t be difficult to find your man with the key. A simple enquiry…’

  ‘He left me in the gallery at the top,’ Baby said, ‘then came again at dusk, held up the key, and signed to me to follow him down. When we got to the bottom, he held the door open for me, then slammed and bolted and padlocked it. He raised his right hand to the crown of his head by way of saluting me – he didn’t have a hat – pointed to the gap in the fence, in case I should miss it in the twilight, and moved off round the Campanile…in the rough direction of the backs of those little houses. Ah, I thought, he’s making for his back door. When I was nearly at the Locanda, I remembered I hadn’t tipped him; I went back to the house I’d gone to this morning, knocked on the front door, explained to a woman who answered just what I wanted, and tried to peer inside for my peasant. But she blocked my view, so I assumed he was having his tea or in the loo or something, and I offered her a ten thousand lire note…which she shoved back at me and slammed the door.’

  ‘She was cross because he’d shown you the way up there. It isn’t allowed and he might have got the sack…from whatever job he does here.’

  ‘I expect that’s it.’

  ‘And of course the money would have made things worse if anyone ever found out that she’d accepted it for him.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Baby. ‘I don’t think it would be sensible to look for him again, do you?’

  Carmilla and Theodosia Salinger clumped wearily into the dining room.

  ‘Donald’s girls,’ said Canteloupe.

  He rose and went to them. Carmilla presented her cheek for a kiss: Theodosia offered her lips.

  ‘What luck you’re here,’ said Canteloupe, at the same time wondering what on earth they could be doing on Torcello in the middle of the Michaelmas Term, ‘you must come to the unveiling tomorrow.’

  ‘The unveiling of what?’ asked Carmilla, greedily seizing the Menu as she sat down.

  Canteloupe told them.

  ‘We’ve only got trousers to wear,’ said Theodosia, who was not as tired as Carmilla (although she had done most of the driving) and remained standing.

  ‘You look marvellous in your trousers. Please come.’

  ‘Yes, please come,’ said Baby, who had joined the group. ‘I’ve a feeling it could be rather a relevant occasion.’

  ‘Relevant to what?’ said Carmilla, and reeled off a very long list of things to eat to the hovering waiter.

  ‘I hope you haven’t ordered too much for me,’ said Theodosia.

  ‘Thea has to think of her training,’ explained Carmilla to the Canteloupes, ‘she plays second string in the Cambridge Royal Tennis team.’

  ‘That’s my girl,’ Canteloupe said, and helped himself once more, uninvited but unhindered, to Theodosia’s lips.

  Meanwhile Carmilla, who was much disordered by hunger, was saying to Baby, ‘A relevant occasion, you said, Lady Canteloupe. Let me ask again: relevant to what?’

  ‘I think,’ said Baby, ‘that Asolano’s picture will give up its true meaning only when it is back in its proper place.’

  ‘Do you now?’ said Carmilla, who thought this was a pretentious remark and in any case now dropped the subject flat, because the waiter had just beckoned her over to the Buffet of Hors d’Oeuvres to make her choice.

  ‘Lord and Lady Canteloupe will come from Torcello to the quayside at Burano in a special barge,’ Sir Jacquiz Helmutt said to Marigold and Balbo in the restaurant of the Danieli.

  ‘The Bucentaur?’ said Balbo.

  ‘They will arrive at eleven fifty-five precisely,’ said Sir Jacquiz, ignoring this silly sarcasm, ‘and by then everyone must be in his place. No one will be admitted after eleven fifty.’

  ‘Goodness, how severe,’ Marigold said.

  ‘They will be greeted by a Captain’s Guard of the Bersaglieri, who will run before them into the Church playing a fanfare on their bugles. At this point, just as the service begins, I have decided that we should, after all, do honour to the name of Asolano.’

  ‘Jacquiz loves the idea of his marrying with a Jewess,’ Marigold said to Balbo.

  ‘Since it is too late,’ said Sir Jacquiz, ‘to insert his name in the final anthem or the epilogue, it will be proclaimed in a special prologue.’

  ‘Proclaimed, by whom?’

  ‘You’ll see,’ Sir Jacquiz said, ‘we’re really doing the old boy rather proud.’

  ‘Can you not hear them?’ said Tom Llewyllyn over the port in the Senior Common Room of Lancaster College.

  ‘Candidly, no,’ said Len.

  ‘Hear what?’ said Jean-Marie Guiscard.

  ‘Shush,’ went Ptolemaeos, ‘don’t encourage him.’

  Ptolemaeos had brought Jean-Marie
in from the Fens to dine at High Table, and now they were having dessert. Ivor Winstanley, the Latinist and Ciceronian, was at the head of the table with Jean-Marie on his left and Ptolemaeos on his right. Next to them were Len and Provost Llewyllyn. Then came a Sociologist and Metallurgist (his guest), of both of whom the less said the better. So far it had been quite a jolly evening, the feature of which had been a description by Ivor of Theodosia Salinger on the one occasion he had managed to get sight of her while she was wearing her badminton shorts (her flannel slacks being presumably at the cleaners) in the Tennis Court. Ivor had been inspired, almost like Betjeman, Ptolemaeos reflected: just what Jean-Marie needed to cheer him up. It would be a pity if Tom was going to throw one of his glooms and spoil everyone’s fun. Jean-Marie must not be allowed to encourage him by asking the wrong sort of question.

  But Tom had heard Jean-Marie’s query and was prompt to answer. ‘The Dryads,’ he said, ‘mourning for their trees, which we have destroyed.’

  ‘If the trees die,’ said Ivor Winstanley firmly, ‘the Dryads die also and do not live long enough to mourn. See Pausanias’ account of the grove which was cut down to make way for an Imperial Villa at Lerna.’

  ‘There are other views,’ said the Metallurgist, to everyone’s surprise. ‘See Valerius Flaccus’ account of the dispossessed but surviving tree nymphs whom Medea sheltered and then employed as messengers.’

  ‘The passage is suspect and excised from most editions,’ said Ptolemaeos, hoping to kill the subject.

  ‘Surely,’ said Jean-Marie, who appeared after all (thought Ptolemaeos), to be enjoying this morbid discussion, ‘we know, on the authority of Periphrastes the Mage, that tree nymphs do indeed die when their trees have been destroyed but take quite a long time expiring.’

  Now that, thought Ptolemaeos, is really going to set Tom off. What in fact happened was that Tom rose, bowed to his assembled Fellows, and went quietly out.

  ‘What will he do?’ said Ptolemaeos to Len.

  ‘He will go down into the Avenue,’ said Len, ‘and ask the tree nymphs to do what they like with him but not to harm his daughter, Tullia.’

  ‘Extraordinary,’ said Ptoly. ‘For years Tom has been a pillar of logic and reason. And now this.’

  ‘Change of life,’ Ivor Winstanley said. ‘Male menopause. It makes for some very peculiar behaviour.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Ptoly. ‘There’s a lot of it about in our set just now. Fielding Gray, chasing that ridiculous truant boy, Morrison, as though he were Sexton Blake with Piero as Tinker, and Gregory Stern, Jew baiting and bashing, verbally at least, like the very daemon of Himmler.’

  ‘Lord, what fools these mortals be,’ said Ivor Winstanley, somehow contriving to fill, drain, refill and pass between the beginning and the end of the quotation.

  The morning after they had arrived in Venice, both Piero and Fielding overslept.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Fielding, ‘we can take a later boat to Massorbo. The eleven fifty-five. Which gives us plenty of time to see if there’s any mail for me at The American Express.’

  There was, as it happened, a letter waiting for him at the American Express, from his accountant. This he could tell, first from the cover, and secondly from the circumstance that his accountant was the only person to whom he had given this address, for use, he had said, in emergencies. He was about to open the envelope and find out just what emergency had arisen (presumably, he thought with a sinking heart, the man had written to confirm that he had under-declared his income and to tell him that he must now immediately etc., etc., etc.) when he saw a notice which announced a ceremony on Burano for the unveiling of some picture which Canteloupe, of all people, was giving back to the Church of San Martino. A limited number of tickets, it appeared, were available at the Information Desk.

  ‘What luck,’ he said to Piero ‘we might never have known.’ At the Information Desk was a long queue of elderly Americans asking cretinous questions. When it was finally Fielding’s turn, he was told that the tickets (a limited number) had run out.

  ‘Perhaps your hotel may still have some, Signor?’

  The Gabrielli hadn’t but the Head Porter thought that perhaps the Gritti had, and it did.

  ‘But we shall never get there by eleven fifty when it says the doors close,’ Piero said, wishing to subvert the expedition before he was swept off into the presence of Baby, ‘and besides, I don’t feel very well.’

  ‘Don’t be so feeble,’ said Fielding, guessing the reason for Piero’s reluctance, ‘you invited yourself on this trip and you can bloody well see the thing out.’

  ‘But this ceremony has nothing to do with Jeremy, and Jeremy is why we are here.’

  ‘If he is in the area, he may well be there. He’s very keen – or was – to see that picture. Anyway, it’s quite obvious that God intends us to attend, otherwise I should never have spotted that notice in the American Express. I see there’s one in here too – which must have been staring us in the face when we booked in last night. Christ, I am getting slow. Why didn’t you see it? You’ve got two eyes.’

  At this stage the speed boat which the Head Porter had summoned for them arrived at the hotel jetty. The driver had collected the tickets from the Gritti on the way, having been intelligently briefed by the Head Porter, and to Piero’s dismay they were able to head straight off for Burano. Fielding too was displeased, despite the saving of time, as the driver was making a surcharge on the tickets of 50 per cent for his trouble in picking them up at the Gritti, and had also announced that he would not go to Burano unless he was paid to wait and bring his passengers back. Since Fielding intended to visit Torcello before returning, the trip would now be very expensive indeed. Was there no end to the drain on his resources? This thought prompted Fielding to take his accountant’s as yet unopened letter from his pocket – to which he had to return it instantly as Piero was being sick all over the cabin.

  ‘I told you I wasn’t well,’ he gasped between splatters, ‘we must go back.’

  ‘Nonsense. Get out into the stern.’

  The stern, to the immediate rear of the cabin, was in the open air. Piero did as he was told. The driver seemed not to have noticed what had happened, and in fact a careful inspection showed Fielding that virtually nothing had happened: the whole eruption must have been wind and spit and a little spare bile, carefully coaxed. Fielding looked at his watch: 11.30: they were just going to make it. He joined Piero in the stern.

  ‘Why the performance?’ he said.

  ‘I was afraid of being seen by Miss Baby. She has a devil, and the sight of me may rouse it.’

  ‘Good. Anything odd in her behaviour may help us to understand what happened between her and Jeremy.’

  ‘There will be a horrible public scene.’

  ‘The bigger the better. Particularly if Jeremy too is there.’

  ‘If there is violence and I am conspicuous, there may be enquiry. Then someone may remember me from my time in Venice and say that I am not whom my passport says I am.’

  ‘Too late to worry about that now. Anyway, Res Unius, Res Omnium.’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘It means…that in our set…mine and Canteloupe’s…we see each other through. One way and another, you now belong in our set. Only on the edge, but in it.’

  ‘And so you and Canteloupe will see me through if anything goes wrong?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I should like that. I hope no trouble will happen, but I should like…being seen through it…by you and Canteloupe.’

  They returned to the cabin. 11.30. Res Unius, Res Omnium, thought Fielding bitterly: and here he was getting ready to blackmail Canteloupe…into seeing him through. But of course Canteloupe, if deftly and tactfully approached, might consent to help Fielding, or ensure that Stern & Detterling helped him, without any pressure other than Fielding’s plea of need. £20,000 without pressure? Tell me another one, do, darling, Res Unius and all. Anyhow, whatever was to be done ’twere best ’twere
quickly done, so what a bit of luck that Canteloupe was here in Venice. When should Fielding approach him? This afternoon after the ceremony? Tomorrow? Or should he, after all, leave it till they were both back in England, where financial arrangements would be much more easily and accurately completed? Whatever else, timing was important. He must catch Canteloupe when he was likely to be euphoric. Immediately after the ceremony, then, when he was still glowing with his own generosity and the importance it had conferred on him? Or would he be suffering from let-down, from a kind of Tristitia post Gloriam? Well, thought Fielding, a lot must depend on how urgent the matter actually was. 11.37: just time: once more he took his accountant’s letter from his pocket.

  The first person to arrive in the Church of San Martino was Leonard Percival. He wanted to have a good look round. However, the usher who had taken his ticket and shown him to a place on the right near the front of the nave became fretful when Leonard started to go walkabout, and then officious. It was made plain to Leonard that he had been given his seat in order that he should sit in it, so sit (as a good-mannered guest) he now did.

  At first he had been flattered at being placed so near the front; but then he realised that of course the climax of the ceremony would occur where the picture was unveiled, that the picture would be unveiled where it was hanging, and that it must surely be hanging over the closely guarded and highly decorated side altar behind him in the south wall, in order to see which he would be compelled to turn. In fact he had been given one of the very worst seats…as he now confirmed by trying to look at the side altar in question. This he could do by turning, as he had surmised, but the turn was one of nearly 180 degrees, and it was also necessary, if he were to get any sort of view at all, that he should crane agonisingly to the right. What he saw when he did so was a curtain of tapestry which was embroidered with Gentle Jesus and a crowd of drippy children, many of them maimed. This hung under a canopy which protruded perhaps a yard from the wall, and from the right hand end of which a cord was dangling. This, Leonard imagined, would be pulled by Lady Canteloupe at the moment designated. On either flank of the side altar beneath the tapestry were sentinels, cloaked, booted and spurred policemen (an order of dress which he had thought to be obsolete) who were leaning on drawn and dirty sabres. A strong whiff of the Green Room here, thought Leonard, God, these wops.