The Magus - John Fowles

by John Fowles

  "He won't let you go out?"

  She shook her head; I had misunderstood.

  "I can't let myself go out. For the same reason. Not being able to lie."

  "You mean he has some way of forcing the truth out of you?"

  "Not forcing. It's more complicated than that." She said, but vaguely as if against her will. "I love him. Please don't force me to explain." She looked as if she was on the point of tears again. I took her hand and pressed it.

  "When shall I see you again?"

  "The next time Maurice asks you here."

  "Next week?"

  "We're going away next week."

  "Where will you be?"

  She got up and moved away down the slope towards the statue into the burning light at the center of the glade. I watched her slim shape for a moment, then joined her. She seemed miserably ill at ease. She sat on the rock pedestal, in the shadow of Poseidon; bent and picked a sprig of oregano and smelt it; would not look up.

  "What does it matter? You're going to Athens."

  I narrowed my eyes and looked down at her blonde head. There was a distinct, too distinct, tinge of jealousy in her voice; of hurtness. I sat down abruptly at her feet and forced her to look me in the eyes. She tried to look away, to look reserved and hurt, but I reached out my hand and turned her cheek back.

  "Why do you do that?"

  "I smell a rat. A rat about five feet eight — nine? — inches long."

  She smiled, at the joke, not at any bluff being called.

  "I didn't know such monsters existed."

  "Neither did I. Till this afternoon."

  Our eyes watched each other in some peculiar zone between teasing, unbelieving, believing, liking; I realized everything with her was in parentheses. What she was outside those parentheses I was no nearer to knowing.

  "We're being watched. Don't look round."

  "Where? Who by? Maurice?"

  "I always know when he's watching. I can feel it."

  "You sound as if you owe him nothing but fear at the moment."

  She gave me a troubled look.

  "It's what I'm trying to say. Sometimes he makes me do things — I don't really want to do."

  "Such as?"

  "He wants me to do what you said. Make you fall in love with me."

  "Wants you to? In love?" She nodded. "But why, for heaven's sake? I mean I'm delighted that he does, but —" I was thinking of his advice about Alison. "God, it just doesn't make sense." "He wants to lead you into a . . . sort of trap."

  "And you're the bait?"

  "Yes."

  "Have to be the bait? Can't say no?" She shook her head. "What is the trap?"

  "I can't tell you."

  I ran my hand over my hair. "I feel as if I've been too well spun in a game of blindman's buff."

  She smiled, but very briefly. She crumbled the oregano leaves between her fingers.

  "Maurice doesn't realize how quick you are. And that I can't really cope this year. I knew as soon as I saw you last night."

  I gripped her knee. "This year?" She gave a little smile of confessed guilt; pushed my hand away.

  "Last year it was . . . easy."

  "Well, well, well. That bastard Mitford."

  "Yes, lie was. What you say."

  "You made him fall in love with you?"

  "No! Ugh. I couldn't. It wasn't necessary."

  "Tell me now."

  "Tell you what?"

  "Your name. Where you come from at home. Who you are."

  She bit her lips as if my fierce interrogation was amusing. "No. I can't. Not yet."

  "But you must. It's ridiculous."

  Her eyes flicked back towards the house. "Please don't look upset. Come and sit beside me. Smile a little. As if we're just teasing and . . . flirting." She put on an insincere smile as if to show me the way. I did as she said. "Now put your arm round my shoulders." Her eyes were down and she looked embarrassed; she drew an unsentimental breath, as if it was all an ordeal.

  "I don't find this too unpleasant."

  "I do. I hate it."

  "You've been hiding it pretty well."

  "You've got to kiss me now. Please do it quickly."

  She turned her head rather desperately and closed her eyes. I Looked round at the trees quickly and then kissed her mouth. But it remained tightly held against mine except for one small tremor of response just as she pushed me away.

  "I must go now. I've told you too much."

  She tipped some dust from her eyelashes with her fingertip; then removed my arm from her shoulders.

  "Lily."

  "I must go. And I wish I could meet you outside Bourani. As if everything was normal."

  She gave me a strange look, a moment's gentle, frank smile, and stood up. I caught her hand. "You have me under your spell. You know that?"

  "You have me just as much in your power. If you tell Maurice what I've told you . . . will you seriously, very seriously, promise not to?"

  "I promise, very seriously."

  "Nothing?"

  "Don't worry. Nothing."

  "You will understand tonight."

  Then the wretched bell rang, trisyllabically, for me again. I looked at my watch. It was teatime.

  "You must go now as well."

  "To hell with the bell. Unless you come to tea too."

  "No. I must go. I know he's watching us."

  "He said he would?"

  She gave the slightest of nods, then looked urgently at me. "Please, please, if you like me at all, go away now."

  "Where will you go?"

  "I shall stay here till you've gone."

  "But I'll see you tonight."

  "I don't know. I don't know. It's not for me to —"

  The bell rang peremptorily again.

  "I must see you before next weekend."

  "I can't promise anything."

  "I could meet you here. Not come to the house."

  "No, no. You mustn't. Please. You must go." She looked faintly distraught under the false smiles, and pushed me to make me go.

  "I'll come on Tuesday, no, damn, oh God and Wednesday I've got duties — tomorrow?"

  "No."

  "Thursday."

  "No. Please."

  "Kiss me goodbye."

  She hesitated, then leaning forward rather as she had that morning, she brushed my cheek with her lips; and whispered.

  "The weekend after, I promise."

  She freed her hand almost with violence; but her look countermanded it. I went. At the gulley I waved, and she waved back. I said "Yes?" and she gave a minute nod; on the other side, I waved again. Then I saw Conchis.

  He was some sixty yards away through the trees. His back to us, he appeared to be watching some bird high in the trees beyond him through binoculars. Alter a moment he lowered them, turned, and made as if he had just seen me. I glanced back. Lily was walking slowly to the east. She looked dejected.

  35

  As I walked over the carpet of pine needles to meet him, I decided to be slightly annoyed; and then, when I was close to him, something about his quizzical look made me change tactics. It obviously did not pay at Bourani to look or speak as one felt. I believed, in terms of believing a person's eyes and voice and gestures, that Lily had not been lying to me — at least in regard to some strain, some tension in her relationship with Conchis; but I knew very well that she could have been lying to me.

  "Hello."

  "Good afternoon, Nicholas. I must apologize for that sudden absence. There has been a small scare on Wall Street." Wall Street seemed to be on the other side of the universe; not just of the world. I tried to look concerned.

  "Oh."

  "I had to go to Nauplia to telephone Geneva."

  "I hope you're not bankrupt."

  "Only a fool is ever bankrupt. And he is bankrupt forever. You have been with Lily?"

  "Yes."

  We began to walk back towards the house. I sized him up, and said, "And I've met her twin sister
."

  He touched the powerful glasses around his neck. "I thought I heard a subalpine warbler. It is very late for them to be still on migration." It was not exactly a snub, but a sort of conjuring trick: how to make the subject disappear.

  "Or rather, seen her twin sister."

  He walked several steps on; I had an idea that he was thinking fast.

  "Lily had no sister. Therefore has no sister here."

  "I only meant to say that I've been very well entertained in your absence."

  He did not smile, but inclined his head. We said nothing more. I had the distinct feeling that he was a chess master caught between two moves; immensely rapid calculation of combinations. Once he even turned to say something, but changed his mind.

  We reached the gravel.

  "Did you like my Poseidon?"

  "Wonderful. I was going to —"

  He put his hand on my arm and stopped me, and looked down, almost as if he was at a loss for words.

  "She may be amused. That is what she needs. But not upset. For reasons you of course now realize. I am sorry for all this little mystery we spread around you before." He pressed my arm, and went on.

  "You mean the . . . amnesia?"

  He stopped again; we had just come to the steps.

  "Nothing else about her struck you?"

  "Lots of things."

  "Nothing pathological?"

  "No."

  He raised his eyebrows a fraction as if I surprised him, but went up the steps; put his glasses on the old cane couch, and turned back to the tea table. I stood by my chair, and gave him his own interrogative shake of the head.

  "This obsessive need to assume disguises. To give herself false motivations. That did not strike you?"

  I bit my lips, but his face, as he whisked the muslin covers away, was as straight as a poker.

  "I thought that was rather required of her."

  "Required?" He seemed momentarily puzzled, then clear. "You mean that schizophrenia produces these symptoms?"

  "Schizophrenia?"

  "Did you not mean that?" He gestured to me to sit. "I am sorry. Perhaps you are not familiar with all this psychiatric jargon."

  "Yes I am. But—"

  "Split personality."

  "I know what schizophrenia is. But you said she did everything . . . because you wanted it."

  "Of course. As one says such things to a child. To encourage them to obey."

  "But she isn't a child."

  "I speak metaphorically. As of course I was speaking last night."

  "But she's very intelligent."

  He gave me a professional look. "The correlation between high intelligence and schizophrenia is well known."

  I ate my sandwich, and then grinned at him.

  "Every day I spend here I feel my legs get a little longer. There's so much pulling on them."

  He looked amazed, even a shade irritated. "I am most certainly not pulling your leg at the moment. Far from it."

  "I think you are. But I don't mind."

  He pushed his chair away from the table and made a new gesture; pressing his hands to his temples, as if he had been guilty of some terrible mistake. It was right out of character; and I knew he was acting.

  "I was so sure that you had understood by now."

  "I think I have."

  He gave me a piercing look I was meant to believe, and didn't.

  "There are personal reasons I cannot go into now why I should — even if I did not love her as a daughter — feel the gravest responsibility for the unfortunate creature you have been with today." He poured hot water into the silver teapot. "She is one of the principal, the principal reason why I come to Bourani and its isolation. I thought you had realized that by now."

  "Of course I had . . . in a way."

  "This is the one place where the poor child can roam a little and indulge her fantasies." I was thinking back fast — what had she said . . . I owe him so much . . . I can't explain . . . I can't lie to him. I thought, the cunning little bitch; they're throwing me backwards and forwards like a ball. I felt annoyed again, and at the same time fascinated. I smiled.

  "Are you trying to tell me she's mad?"

  "Mad is a meaningless nonmedical word. She suffers from schizophrenia."

  "So she believes herself to be your long-dead fiancée?"

  "I gave her that role. It was deliberately induced. It is quite harmless and she enjoys playing it. It is in some of her other roles that she is not so harmless."

  "Roles?"

  "Wait." He disappeared indoors and came back a minute later with a book. "This is a standard textbook on psychiatry." He searched for a moment. "Allow me to read a passage. 'One of the defining characteristics of schizophrenia is the formation of delusions which may be elaborate and systematic, or bizarre and incongruous." He looked up at me. "Lily falls into the first category." He went on reading. "They, these delusions, have in common the same tendency to relate always to the patient; they often incorporate elements of popular prejudice against certain groups of activities; and they take the general form of self-glorification or feelings of persecution. One patient may believe she is Cleopatra, and will expect all around her to conform to her belief, while another may believe that her own family have decided to murder her and will therefore make even their most innocent and sympathetic statements and actions conform to her fundamental delusion.' And here. 'There are frequently large areas of consciousness untouched by the delusion. In all that concerns them, the patient may seem, to an observer who knows the full truth, bewilderingly sensible and logical."

  He took a gold pencil from his pocket, marked the passages he had read and passed the open the book over the table to me. I glanced at the book, then still smiling, at him.

  "Her sister?"

  "Another cake?"

  "Thank you." I put the book down. "Mr. Conchis — her sister?"

  He smiled. "Yes, of course, her sister."

  "And —"

  "Yes, yes, and the others. Nicholas — here, Lily is queen. For a month or two we all conform to the needs of her life. Of her happiness."

  And he had that, very rare in him, gentleness, solicitude, which only Lily seemed able to evoke. I realized that I had stopped smiling; I was beginning to lose my sense of total sureness that he was inventing a new explanation of the masque. So I smiled again.

  "And me?"

  "Do children in England still play that game . . ." he put his hand over his eyes, at a loss for the word . . . "cache-cache?"

  "Hide-and-seek? Yes, of course."

  "Some hide?" He looked at me to guess the rest.

  "And I seek?"

  "The hiders must have a seeker. That is the game. A seeker who is not too cruel. Not too observant."

  Once again I was made to feel tactless, and to ask myself why. He had provoked this new explanation.

  He went on. "Lily's real name is Julie Holmes. You must in no circumstance reveal to her that I have told you this." His eyes bored gravely into me. "Four or five years ago her case attracted a great deal of medical attention. It is one of the best documented in recent psychiatric history."

  "Could I read about it?"

  "Not now. It would not help her — and it would be merely to satisfy your curiosity. Which can wait." He went on. "She was in danger of becoming, like many such very unusual cases, a monster in a psychiatric freak show. That is what I am now trying to guard against."

  "Why exactly are you telling me these things now?"

  "It is a decision I took coming back from Nauplia. Nicholas, I made a foolish miscalculation when I invited you here last weekend."

  "Oh?"

  "Yes. You are — quite simply — more intelligent than I realized. A good deal more so. And too much intelligence can spoil our little . . . amusements here."

  I had the now familiar feeling that came in conversations at Bourani; of ambiguity; of not knowing quite what statements applied to — in this case, whether to the assumption that Lily really was
a schizophrenic or to the assumption that of course I knew that her "schizophrenia" was simply a new hiding place in the masque.

  "I'm sorry." He raised his hand, kind man; I was not to excuse myself. I became the dupe again. "This is why you won't let her go outside Bourani?"

  "Of course."

  "Couldn't she go out . . . " I looked at the tip of my cigarette . . . "under supervision?"

  "She is, in law, certifiable. And incurable. That is the personal responsibility I have undertaken. To ensure that she never enters an asylum, or a clinic, again."

  "But you let her wander around. She could easily escape."

  He raised his head in sharp contradiction. "Never. Her nurse never leaves her."

  "Her nurse!"

  "He is very discreet. It distresses her to have him always by her, especially here, so he keeps well in the background. One day you will see him."

  I thought, yeah, with his jackal-head on. It would not wash; but the extraordinary thing was that I knew, and more than half suspected that Conchis knew that I knew, it would not wash. I hadn't played chess for years; but I remembered that the better you got, the more it became a game of false sacrifices. He was testing not my powers of belief, but my powers of unbelief; assaying my incredulity. I kept my face innocent.

  "This is why you keep her on the yacht?"

  "Yacht?"

  "I thought you kept her on a yacht."

  "That is her little secret. Allow her to keep it."

  I smiled. "So this is why my two predecessors came here. And were so quiet about it."

  "John was an excellent . . . seeker. But Mitford was a disaster. You see, Nicholas, he was totally tricked by Lily. In one of her persecution phases. As usual I, who devote my life to her, became the persecutor. And Mitford attempted one night — in the crudest and most harmful way - - to, as he put it, rescue her. Of course her nurse stepped in. There was a most disagreeable fracas. It upset her deeply. If I sometimes seem irritable to you, it is because I am so anxious not to see any repetition of last year." He raised his hand. "I mean nothing personal. You are very intelligent, and you are a gentleman; they are both qualities that Mitford was without."

  I rubbed my nose. I thought of other awkward questions I could ask, and decided not to ask them; to play the dupe. The constant harping on my intelligence made me as suspicious as a crow. There are three types of intelligent person: the first so intelligent that being called very intelligent must seem natural and obvious; the second sufficiently intelligent to see that he is being flattered, not described; the third so little intelligent that he will believe anything. I knew I belonged to the second kind. I could not absolutely disbelieve Conchis; all he said could — just — be true. I supposed there were still poor little rich psychotics kept out of institutions by their doting relations; but Conchis was the least doting person I had ever met. It didn't wash, it didn't wash. There were various things about Lily, looks, emotional non sequiturs, those sudden tears, that in retrospect seemed to confirm his story. They proved nothing. Her schizophrenia apart, though, his new explanation of what went on at Bourani made more sense; a group of idle people, talented and bored international rich, and a man like Conchis and a place like Bourani . . .