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

by Simon Raven

  She stepped from the quayside on to a launch labelled ‘Cipriani’. Jo-Jo followed with Oenone.

  ‘I suppose,’ said Jo-Jo, ‘that in the end he wouldn’t…after all…do what they wanted, and that was their way of punishing him.’

  ‘Something of the kind, and good for Gregory. I always knew my old Jewboy had guts. A grand man – and now a dead one. So if you don’t mind, we’ll say no more about him and discuss the future instead. I claim you and Oenone, Jo-Jo. I need a mate,’ Isobel said, ‘and Oenone needs a mother. I shall be her mother and you shall be my mate.’

  ‘And what shall Jean-Marie be?’

  ‘Whatever he’s told to be. It’s your money, as they say. He’s already made a huge thing of being upper class and eschewing and despising jealousy; now his sincerity will be put to the test. As for me, I don’t mind sharing you with him.’

  ‘That’s very generous of you.’

  ‘Whatever else, he’ll be glad of someone to take proper care of Oenone.’

  ‘Jeremy’s the one she really likes.’

  ‘Well, she can’t have him,’ said Isobel, ‘except now and then, when we’ll ask him to stay. Marius will like that too only I rather think Marius has grown out of him. Where is Jeremy?’

  ‘He stayed behind to look at the Asolano.’

  ‘Ah. This Asolano. What the day is really about. Jeremy has a very proper sense of priorities.’

  Jeremy, examining the now unemcumbered Asolano as it hung over its side altar, was joined by Fielding Gray.

  ‘So there you are,’ said Fielding. ‘Piero and I have been looking for you.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have troubled. Where is Piero?’

  ‘He disappeared during the confusion.’

  ‘Funny,’ said Jeremy, ‘I should have thought he would have stayed to take a look at this painting. Like us.’

  ‘Piero is shrewd but not intelligent. At bottom,’ said Fielding, ‘he has a gutter mentality. He does not understand, as you and I do, that art is important, or why.’

  ‘Well, why?’

  ‘Because it comforts and it explains. It purges and it absolves.’

  ‘Has giving pleasure no place among its functions?’

  ‘Pleasure is too loose a word. What do you make of this effort?’

  Jeremy considered the Asolano.

  ‘It makes my cock twitch,’ he said at length, ‘and it fills me with disgust and a sense of waste. Those beautiful thighs – already diseased and very soon to rot. It explains nothing, but it does suggest a course of action and therefore a possible means of absolution. I hope Baby Canteloupe got the message.’

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘I am now going to Torcello, to have lunch and make sure. To check up, Fielding. Earlier on, I didn’t want Baby to see me because she might have associated me with whatever private horror set her off on that afternoon in the Fens. But now I don’t think it will matter if she does see me, I even think that she may want to see me.’

  ‘Shall I come too? I can give you a lift in my speedboat.’

  ‘Thank you very much. You know,’ said Jeremy as they walked together down the nave, ‘although it was a horrid business about Gregory Stern, it has helped to make the thing clearer.’

  ‘A message of sacrifice? A re-enactment of God’s dying for our sins?’

  ‘No. A re-enactment of God’s dying in repentance for His own sins. A re-enactment of the penance of God for His abominable cruelty to His creatures, which is illustrated rather neatly by the picture beneath today’s crucifixion.’

  ‘God’s cruelty illustrated by Asolano…but not explained, you say?’

  ‘How can it be explained?’

  ‘Very simply,’ Fielding said. ‘God commits cruel acts because God is cruel. However, whatever that picture omits by way of explanation, you indicated just now that it gave you hope – it suggested a course of action, you said, and therefore a possible means of absolution. What action? What absolution?’

  ‘That, as I also said, is what I am going to Torcello to find out – or rather to confirm. The absolution I refer to is, of course, personal – for you and for me. There can be no possible absolution for God.’

  ‘Not even though He had Himself crucified to show His repentance?’

  ‘No. Too little and too late. The agony on the cross was insufficient to pay for a whole eternal Universe of waste and suffering. So no absolution for God, Fielding, but perhaps for humanity…in the way suggested by His Mother in that picture.’

  ‘All she is doing is flapping her hands about.’

  ‘You have not understood. Perhaps, when we get to Torcello, you will.’

  As Fielding and Jeremy left the Church, Balbo Blakeney came out from behind the High Altar, walked down to the Asolano, and stood in front of it. The usher approached and tugged his sleeve.

  ‘Church is closing now,’ the usher said.

  ‘Very well. I shall stay here until it is open again.’

  ‘Is not allowed.’

  Balbo turned and looked at the usher. ‘This is my picture,’ he said, ‘I found it. But for me it would never have been given back.’

  ‘You deposit fifty thousand lire with me in case you do damage. Then you stay.’

  ‘Very well.’ Balbo handed over the money. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘can you tell me what they’re going to do with the forged Asolano…the one that hung here before?’

  The usher giggled maliciously.

  ‘When they finish mending it, it come back here. This one real one…too valuable to hang in damp old church for long. So we sell ’im and put up fake again, just like before. Nobody notice. If notice can do nothing. Our picture now.’

  The man spat on the floor.

  ‘Bloody damn English. You still want stay? Church open again at sixteen ’undred.’

  ‘Very well,’ Balbo said. ‘But tell me this before you go: what shall you do with the money you get for this picture? Will the Archbishop of Chioggia decide? Or the Patriarch of Venice?’

  The man laughed outright.

  ‘Bloody damn English mind bloody damn business,’ he chuckled. ‘Me go for pranzo.’

  For a long time Balbo stood in front of ‘La Madonna con i Raggazzi della Peste’.

  After a discreet interval, he thought, that little swine and his friends, including the Parocco, who will have to have his cut, will turn this picture into money for the purchase of the pleasures of the flesh; the pleasures that will, if only temporarily, console them for being the filth they are. Well, and why not? thought Balbo. That, in the end, is what the picture is about: the miseries, the filth, and the consolations of the flesh; the miseries inflicted by God on creatures he made from filth; and the consolations about to be administered by His Mother.

  ‘I must say,’ said Marigold Helmutt to Sir Jacquiz as they disembarked from one of the Cipriani launches on to a private jetty near the Cathedral of Torcello, ‘you got us away from all that fast enough. You might have waited for poor old Balbo.’

  ‘He wanted to stay behind. He hadn’t had a proper look at the picture in its new situation.’

  ‘A pleasure which you forewent readily enough.’

  ‘Little boys’ thighs,’ said Jacquiz, ‘not my thing.’

  ‘I saw some of the Madonna’s face at the top right hand. It was about on a level with Gregory Stern’s. She looked rather intriguing. Silly, but intriguing. Then, just as I was getting interested, that poor woman started to bawl out who it was on the cross and you whisked me away. Won’t they want to ask you any questions?’

  ‘I shall certainly want to ask them questions when the sweat has cooled. It was all their fault that the ceremony was ruined – the usual Italian negligence. How did that thing get under the tapestry? Why didn’t they look there to make sure that everything was in order before the ceremony began?’

  ‘Obviously they had no idea, at any stage, that anything was there. Why should they have had?’

  ‘How did it get there without their kn
owing?’

  ‘I suppose…someone took it into the empty Church last night…and hung it up behind the tapestry.’

  ‘Precisely. There should have been better security.’

  ‘The sort of security we have in England? You know, Burgess and Maclean and that little bugger in the Admiralty and booze-lovers like Philby and Philip Toynbee croaking away about how noble they all are.’

  ‘This is a different kind of thing on a different level.’

  ‘Like the Great Train Robbery? That level? How well did you know Gregory Stern?’

  ‘We’ve had dealings.’

  ‘Did you recognise him when that curtain opened.’

  ‘No. Nobody did, until his wife piped up. I thought it was a carving.’

  Jacquiz paid a man at a table and they went into the Cathedral.

  ‘Why have we come in here?’ Marigold asked.

  ‘Because luncheon won’t be ready yet.’

  ‘I don’t think much of that Madonna under the apse. Cold fish. When did you realise that he wasn’t a carving – Gregory Stern, I mean?’

  ‘When Mrs Stern started up.’

  ‘I think I’d realised just before. Who on earth could have done it?’

  ‘He’s been writing a lot of very nasty things about Jews and Israelis. Perhaps the Israelis did it…to stop him from writing any more.’

  ‘What did you think about the stuff he wrote? You’re a Jew.’

  ‘A lot of it was true – certainly when he said that the Israelis have no title to Israel. The trouble was that he was hysterical.’

  ‘So now the Jews have punished him for his hysteria?’

  ‘No. For the bits that made sense,’ said Jacquiz. ‘The truth is what they don’t care for.’

  Leonard Percival, who had just come in and was loitering under the ambo, had heard the end of this conversation and wondered whether he should set these people right. Then he realised that everyone would make his own interpretation of the apparition in San Martino and that he couldn’t go round putting right all those millions, who, like this couple, were going to get it wrong. Gregory would just have to take his chance.

  ‘There are those two enormous girls who were there,’ Marigold was saying. ‘I wonder whether Baby Canteloupe has been able to change her knickers yet? I used to carry a spare pair in my handbag, but that was for another reason. What are those birds on that screen?’

  ‘Peacocks. They symbolise wisdom.’

  ‘I thought it was vanity they symbolised. What a lovely little wop that is who’s just come in. Pity about his club foot. What do they actually look like, club feet? Do you think he’d show me his? Hullo there,’ she called to Piero, who was looking at the Last Judgment on the West Wall, ‘Ciao.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake,’ said Sir Jacquiz, ‘let’s see if we can find a drink.’

  ‘God, you are being dreary. I only wanted – Ouch,’ Marigold screeched, ‘you’re hurting,’ as Jacquiz hustled her out of the Cathedral, ‘you filthy pig.’

  Piero, Leonard Percival, Theodosia and Carmilla all turned towards the noises of altercation, saw Jacquiz and Marigold disappear through the south door into the portico and then, a few seconds later and just as they were all about to turn back, saw Fielding Gray and Jeremy Morrison enter from the portico through the south door. Percival left the cover of the ambo, Theodosia and Carmilla came marching down the steps from the throne, and Piero forgot the torments of the damned, as all four converged on the new arrivals.

  After Fielding Gray, the only person present who knew who everybody else was, had explained to the Salingers about Leonard Percival and Piero Caspar, and to Jeremy and Piero about Leonard Percival, and so on and so forth, the business of the congregation by the south door in the cathedral on Torcello was summed up by Piero in one word to Jeremy, ‘Why?’

  ‘If you mean, why am I here,’ Jeremy replied, ‘the answer is that something happened to me which required an explanation – and indeed rather more than that. In any case I could not return to Lancaster until I’d had some sort of enlightenment.’

  ‘So you looked for it here?’ said Theodosia.

  ‘And did you find it?’ said Carmilla.

  ‘That remains to be seen.’

  ‘First things first,’ said Fielding Gray. ‘What exactly happened, that afternoon in the Fens? Baby Canteloupe, we know, had some kind of seizure, and you were so horrified that you took off there and then. But what happened to bring all this on?’

  ‘Piero left me alone with Lady Canteloupe while he went to fetch the backgammon set. In order to make conversation, I…I…’

  ‘…Yes…?’

  ‘I told her that last time I had gone to visit my brother Nicholas at St Bede’s, I saw her mother with–’

  ‘–I see,’ said Fielding, ‘a really cosy topic for a few minutes’ casual conversation.’

  ‘–Don’t interrupt me, God damn your eyes,’ said Jeremy. ‘What I was going to say, the whole point of it all, was that I saw her mother with Nickie, and that she seemed to be taking care of him, and that he seemed to be responding, in so far as he has anything left to respond with.’

  ‘You see?’ said Theodosia hotly to Fielding.

  ‘I see,’ said Fielding. And then, doing his best to make up for his brashness, ‘You felt that it gave you something in common…that Baby would be glad to know that her mother had a useful and affectionate connection…with a relation of somebody whom she knew.’

  ‘That’s it, more or less,’ Jeremy said. ‘And at first it looked as if I had got the thing right. She went rather quiet and thoughtful, and said that her mother had always liked boys, having never had a son of her own. So I said that Nickie wasn’t exactly a boy any more, but that she seemed to be treating him as one and that in the circumstances it was rather a happy arrangement, I thought. “Oh did you,” she said, and started shaking all over, “well, did you know what had happened to the last boy she had fancied, before she went into St Bede’s?” “No, I didn’t know,” I said, which wasn’t true as I’d heard rumours, but I thought this was the best reply, so, “No,” I said, “I didn’t know, I’m sorry,” but by then she was no longer hearing, she was crouching on the bed, hissing. Hissing. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know,” and by this time what I meant was that I didn’t know this conversation could possibly bring about such ghastliness or why; but as I say, she was way past hearing or understanding, just crouching there hissing like some devil in a hell by Bosch.’

  ‘But why hissing?’ Carmilla Salinger said.

  ‘A very good question,’ said Baby Canteloupe’s voice.

  The congregation turned towards it. Baby was standing under the Last Judgment, where Piero had been a few minutes before.

  ‘Come over here,’ said Baby, ‘and we shall have judgment. On ourselves – and on God.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Jeremy, as if he had long been waiting for something of the kind.

  ‘But first,’ said Baby, ‘there is a message for Leonard Percival. Canteloupe is looking for you to say that on no account should you reveal that you were watching over Gregory Stern.’

  ‘I lost him,’ said Leonard pathetically, ‘some days ago. I can’t tell them anything…except that he was taken off by a woman from the organisation with which he was treating. I don’t know whether that would help them.’

  ‘Whether it would or not,’ said Baby, ‘you’re to tell them nothing, Canteloupe says. Gregory’s dead and there’s nothing more to be done about it. If you try to help them, they’ll simply keep you here and ask you silly questions for ever. Forget it. And don’t think any of it was your fault. Obviously Gregory turned obstinate at last and finally dug his toes in, and he must have known what was coming to him.’

  ‘The trouble is,’ said Leonard, ‘that a lot of people are going to think that the Israelis did it, to shut his mouth and give warning to others. It would be nice if the truth could be generally known – that it was he himself who shut his mouth, that he refused to go on betrayin
g his own people.’

  Carmilla and Theodosia exchanged looks.

  ‘I think we can take care of that,’ Theodosia said.

  ‘How?’

  ‘We know an honest man,’ said Carmilla, ‘whose evidence will be believed.’

  ‘What evidence?’ said Percival.

  ‘Simple and conclusive,’ said Theodosia, ‘please just leave it at that.’ And to Baby, ‘We shall have judgment, you said.’

  ‘But first,’ said Baby, ‘you shall have a little history. My mother had no son. I was a surrogate. She told me things…taught me things…showed me things…which, she said, she would have told, taught and shown to me if I’d been a boy. She used to make me lie on her bed, then she’d crouch over me, fully dressed and covering much of me with her skirt, showing me what she would have shown her son, though neither of us could actually see what she was doing because it happened under her skirt. I always told my father, who suspected that something of the kind was going on, that she only told me things and did nothing. But all the time she was showing me things about my anatomy – or rather, the anatomy which I would have had if only I’d been a boy. I had a little toy snake. She used this for her demonstrations. A little toy snake of rubber. She used to put it into me, very gently, and then she caressed it – all this unseen, under her skirt – saying that this was how I must ease myself if I got tense, rid myself of any tension or strain that might trouble me. As she caressed and fondled the snake, the snake caressed and fondled me. And it disgusted me, too, this great woman crouching over me on the bed, with her sweaty, flabby thighs, unseen but so close to me. Yes, it disgusted me. And yet the excitement was so great that I longed for it. One day, while she was playing with the snake, she began to talk of a young lover she’d had. He’d compared her breasts, which were long and sagging and droopy, to snakes, slipping and sliding snakes. After she told me this, she began to hiss, not for the first time, because she often hissed gently as she rubbed the snake, but this time she hissed more fiercely, and I realised…from the movement of her arm where it disappeared under her skirt…that she was putting the snake into herself, so that now it was in both of us. Her eyes had gone absolutely blank: she hissed more and more violently, then trembled and heaved and shuddered. After this had stopped, she got off the bed, saying nothing but taking the snake with her, and went away, leaving me there alone with legs still spread on the eiderdown.