The Magus - John Fowles

by John Fowles

  45

  Lily glanced at him, then at me, as if it was for me to say something. I half expected to hear a voice calling in Norwegian from Moutsa, or to see some brilliantly contrived pillar of fire rise out of the trees. But there was a long silence: only the crickets cheeping.

  "You never went back there?"

  "Sometimes to return is a vulgarity."

  "But you must have been curious to know how it all ended?"

  "Not at all. Perhaps one day, Nicholas, you will have an experience that means a great deal to you." I could hear no irony in his voice, but it was implicit. "You will then realize what I mean when I say that some experiences so possess you that the one thing you cannot tolerate is the thought of their not being in some way forever present. Seidevarre is a place I do not want time to touch. So I am not interested in what it is now. Or what they are now. If they still are."

  "But you said you would write to Gustav?"

  "So I did. He wrote to me. He wrote for two years with regularity, at least once a season. But he never referred to what interests you — except to say that the situation was unchanged. His letters were full of ornithological notes. They became very dull reading, because I no longer took any interest in the classifying aspects of natural history. Our letters became very infrequent. I think I had a Christmas card from him in 1926 or 1927. Since then, no sound. He is dead now. Henrik is dead, Ragnar is dead. Multa docet fames."

  It was Lily who translated. "Hunger teaches many things."

  "Death starves us of life. So we learn to fabricate our own immortalities."

  "What happened to you when you got back to France?"

  "Something you will not believe. I saw Henrik meet his pillar of fire at about midnight on August 17, 1922. The fire at Givray-le-Duc began at the same hour of the same night."

  "Heavens!"

  "Good Lord."

  Lily and I spoke together, though her voice sounded far more convincingly amazed than mine.

  I said, "You're not suggesting . . ."

  "I am suggesting nothing. There was no connection between the events. No connection is possible. Or rather, I am the connection, I am whatever meaning the coincidence has." There was an unusual shade of vanity in his voice, as if in fact he believed he had in some way precipitated both events and their common timing. I sensed that the coincidence was not literally true, but something he had invented, which held another, metaphorical, meaning: that the two episodes were linked in significance, that I was to use both to interpret him. Just as the story of de Deukans had thrown light on Conchis himself, this threw light on the hypnosis — that image he had used, "reality breaking through the thin net of science" . . . I had myself recalled something too similar from the hypnosis for it to be coincidence. Everywhere in the masque, these interrelationships, threads between circumstance.

  He turned parentally to Lily. "My dear, I think it is your bedtime." I looked at my watch. It was eleven twenty-five. Lily gave a little shrug, as if the matter of bedtime was unimportant. She said, "Do you feel possessed by them? I know I feel some people possess me."

  She looked to me for confirmation, though the question was to Conchis; and the question seemed, oddly, to come out of her real self, reinforcing the impression I had had throughout: that the story of Seidevarre was as new to her as it was to me. It was as if she had become another guest, an older friend of the house than myself, but still a guest; and was trying, just as I was, to assess the meaning of the parable.

  "All that is past possesses our present. Seidevarre possesses Bourani. Whatever happens here now, whatever governs what happens, is partly, no, is essentially, what happened thirty years ago in that Norwegian forest."

  He spoke to her then as he so often spoke to me; he was commencing another shift in our relationships, or the pretenses that ruled them. In some way we were now both his students, his disciples. I remembered that favorite Victorian picture of the bearded Elizabethan seaman pointing to sea and telling a story to two little goggleeyed boys. A look passed between Lily and myself, and I could have sworn that she was feeling slightly the same as I was — that any clandestine meeting between us now involved a fresh element of betrayal.

  "Well. I must go." She slipped the mask of formality back on. We all stood. "Maurice, that was so remarkable and so interesting."

  Conchis kissed her hand, and then she reached it to me, but with the wrist turned, and I shook it. One shadow of conspiracy in her eyes, one minute pressure of her fingers, told me that she was still, in spite of the higher price, prepared to betray. She turned to go; then stopped. "Oh, I am sorry. I did not replace your matches."

  "That's all right. Please."

  Conchis and I were silent. I heard footsteps going rapidly across the gravel towards the sea, and I strained to glimpse her, but without success. I thought, if they put some trick on me now, it will be a proof that she is playing for Conchis and against me; a proof beyond doubt. I smiled across the table at his shadowed face; the pupils of his eyes seemed black in their clear whites; a mask that watched me, watched me.

  "No illustrations to the text tonight?"

  "Does it need illustrations?"

  "No. You told it . . . very well."

  He shrugged dismissively; then waved his arm briefly round: at home, at trees, at sea.

  "This is the illustration. Things as they are. In my small domaine."

  "The masque."

  "The masque is a metaphor. I told you that." His unshifting eyes read mine. "You are never quite sure whether you are my guest or victim. You are neither. You are something else."

  I looked down under his eyes, then up. "What?"

  "If you must speculate, explore other possibilities. But remember. What it is, has no name."

  He stood up, as if he had really only been waiting for a certain time, I presumed the time for Lily to "disappear," to pass.

  As I stood as well I said, "Thank you. Once again. For possessing me.

  He grinned then, his monkey grin, and took my elbow as we walked towards the door of his room. The Bonnards glowed gently from the inner wall. On the landing outside, I came to a decision.

  "I think I'll go for a stroll, Mr. Conchis. I don't feel very sleepy. Just down to Moutsa."

  I knew he might say that he would come with me and so make it impossible to be at the statue at midnight; but it was a countertrap for him, an insurance for me. If he let me go out alone, then it would be that he wanted me to walk into the trap, if there was a trap; and if he was genuinely innocent of the assignation, I could still — if discovered and then accused — pretend that I had assumed he was not.

  "As you wish."

  He put out his hand in his foreign way and clasped mine with unusual warmth, and watched me for a moment as I went downstairs. But before I had reached the bottom I heard his door close. He might be out on the terrace listening, so I crunched noisily over the gravel to the track out of Bourani. But at the gate instead of turning down to Moutsa I went on up the hill for fifty yards or so and sat down against a tree trunk, from where I could watch the entrance and the track. It was a dark night, no moon, but the stars diffused a very faint luminescence over everything, a light like the softest sound, touch of fur on ebony.

  My heart was beating faster than it should. It was partly at the thought of meeting Lily, partly at something far more mysterious, the sense that I was now deep in the strangest maze in Europe. I remembered the feeling I had had one morning walking back to the school; of being Odysseus or Theseus. Now I was Theseus in the maze; somewhere in the darkness Ariadne waited; and the Minotaur.

  I sat there for quarter of an hour, smoking but shielding the red tip from view, ears alert and eyes alert. Nobody came; and nobody went.

  * * *

  At five to twelve I slipped back through the gate and struck off eastwards through the trees to the gulley. I moved slowly, stopping frequently. I reached the gulley, waited, then crossed it and walked as silently as I could up the path to the clearing with th
e statue. It came, majestic shadow, into sight. The seat under the almond tree was deserted. I stood in the starlight at the edge of the clearing, very tense, certain that something was about to happen, straining to see if there was anyone in the dense black background. I had an idea it might be a man with blue eyes and an axe.

  There was a loud ching. Someone had thrown a stone and hit the statue. I stepped into the darkness of the pine tree beside me. Then I saw a movement, and an instant later another stone, a pebble, rolled across the ground in front of me. The movement showed a gleam of white, and it came from behind a tree on my side of the clearing, higher up. I knew it was Lily.

  I ran up the steep slope, stumbled once, then stood. She was standing beside the tree, in the thickest shadow. I could see her white dress inside the opened cloak, her blonde hair, and suddenly she reached forward with both hands. In four long strides I got to her and her arms went round me, the cloak fell, and we were kissing, one long wild kiss that lasted, with one or two gulps for air, for a fevered readjustment of the embrace, and lasted . . . in that time I thought I 'finally knew her. She had abandoned all pretense, she was hot, passionate, she kissed with her tongue as prim 1915 could never have kissed. She let me have her body; met mine. I murmured one or two torn endearments, but she stopped my mouth. A torrent of feelings rushed through me; the knowledge that I was hopelessly in love with her. I had wanted other girls. Alison. But for the first time in my life I wanted desperately to be wanted in return.

  She stroked the side of my face, and I turned to kiss her hand; caught it; and brushed my lips down its side and round the wrist to the scar on the back.

  A second later I had let go of her and was reaching in my pocket for the matches. I struck one and lifted her left hand. It was scarless. I raised the match. The eyes, the mouth, the shape of the chin, everything about her was like Lily. But she was not Lily. There were little puckers at the corner of her mouth, a slight over-alertness in the look, a sort of calculated impudence; a much more modern face, though it could belong only to a twin sister. She sustained my stare, then looked down, then up again under her eyelashes; she had Lily's mischievousness, but not her cool gentleness.

  "Damn." I flicked the match away, and struck another. She promptly blew it out.

  "Nicholas." A low, reproachful — and strange — voice.

  "There must be some mistake. Nicholas is my twin brother."

  "I thought midnight would never come."

  "Where is she?"

  I spoke angrily, and I was angry, but not quite as much as I sounded. It was so neat a modulation into the world of Beaumarchais, of Restoration comedy; and I knew the height the dupe has fallen is measured by his anger.

  "She?"

  "You forgot your scar."

  "How clever of you to see it was makeup before."

  "And your voice."

  "It's the night air." She coughed.

  I caught hold of her hand and pulled her roughly over to the seat under the almond tree. Lily had never intended to meet me; it was not the kind of trap I had been expecting, but it was still a trap, with all the same implications for Lily's honesty of intention.

  "Now. Where is she?"

  "She couldn't come. And don't be so rough."

  "Well where is she?" The girl was silent. "In bed with Maurice?"

  "Shame on you."

  "I don't think you're very sensitive to shame."

  "I thought it was rather exciting." She glanced sideways at me. "And so did you."

  "For Christ sake I thought you . . ." but I didn't bother to finish the sentence.

  "Perhaps you ought to kiss me again."

  She sat as Lily had sat that other afternoon, in a deliberate parody of the same position.

  Her eyes shut, her mouth slightly thrust forward, as if waiting to be kissed. I ignored her, leant forward, and tried to be lighter.

  "Why must I be tormented like this?"

  "Is kissing me torment?"

  I turned and smiled; as if I admitted being the fool.

  "Have a cigarette?"

  I fished out a packet of Papastratos and she took one; screwed it into a long black cigarette holder she carried in a little silver wrist bag. I gave her a good look in the match flare; and she examined me, as if she was not feeling so frivolous as she pretended. She inhaled expertly. Her face had, under the soubrette part she was playing, the same intelligence as Lily's; and for a moment I had a mad feeling that after all it was Lily. But I clung to the moment I had seen her on the terrace; when Lily had had to have a twin sister. Finally she gave a little embarrassed smile, avoided my stare; as if at a loss.

  "How was Beirut?"

  She was taken by surprise; abruptly cautious. "Who told you about that?"

  "Your sister."

  "It was nice. And she didn't."

  Her face was suspicious; all the lightness had gone.

  "All right. She didn't. Maurice did."

  "I see." Her voice was cold, still inexplicably wary of something.

  "Is there some crime in asking you how Beirut was?"

  For answer she reached out and took the box of matches I still had in my hand; struck one.

  I received a second prolonged scrutiny. I smiled, to show her I was totally unfooled; but prepared to play a part in this new variation.

  "What are you looking for?"

  "Treachery. Or trustworthiness."

  "I'm not sure you can be much of a judge of that, either."

  "I know. If you are trustworthy you must think we're treacherous. And vice versa. It's very neat."

  She stood up and walked behind the seat. I looked round, and she was staring down at me. But then she came and sat down again, close, elbows on knees like myself. "Look, Nicholas, I'm sorry about the teasing. Which was really testing. I do believe you." A quick, bright-sincere look.

  "Could we get back to your sister?"

  "She couldn't come. And anyway."

  "Anyway what?"

  "You know."

  "I know nothing."

  It was agreeable, pretending to be disagreeable.

  She leant backward and stretched her arm along the seat back, and contemplated me. "Of course I know you know this is a trick, something my sister must have helped to play. But it might not all be a trick." She pulled my shoulder gently, to make me sit back as well. When I did so, with bad grace, she moved away a little and began to trace a line along the top rail with her forefinger, as if she was feeling her way into my confidence. "This is nothing to do with Maurice. Just us."

  "Who is us?"

  "She and me."

  "And your other friends?"

  She looked at the back of her hand. "They aren't our friends."

  "I want to know who you are, your real names, where you're from, what you're doing here, when —"

  "My sister wants me to inspect you."

  "Well. Why not open my mouth and start with the teeth?"

  She laughed. "But it is horse-trading. Really, isn't it? Even between the best and the nicest and most intelligent people. To begin with."

  "I prefer to deal direct. No agents."

  "I'm a twin sister. Not an agent."

  "Twin sister to a schizophrenic."

  She smiled. "Did you believe that for a moment?"

  "No. And will you answer my questions?"

  She said, "May I have another cigarette?" I gave her one and lit it for her, and she took advantage of the light to give me a direct look and ask her own astounding question. "Is there really a school on the other side of the island?"

  I narrowed my eyes.

  "There is?" Her voice was sharp again.

  I blew out the match and said, "I think we've lost the ball."

  "I know this sounds silly, but I suppose you haven't . . . any means of identification on you?" I laughed. "Seriously. Please."

  I fished in my back pocket and produced my wallet; then struck three or four matches while she looked at my Greek permis de séjour. It gave my address and professio
n. "Thank you. That was kind of you."

  But she was silent; at a loss.

  "Well come on. Next development."

  She hesitated; then amazed me again.

  "We thought you might be working for Maurice."

  "Working for him!"

  A circumspect voice. "Yes. Working for him."

  "Good God."

  "You solemnly swear that you're not working for him?"

  "Of course I'm not."

  "That you never met him before you came here?"

  I stood up impatiently. "I feel I'm going mad."

  Her face had grown very serious. She looked away and said, "I can't tell you anything now. It's for my sister to decide."

  "Why? And decide what?"

  "Because that's what we've agreed. Because she's seen more of you. And because she's much closer to Maurice than I am. Much closer."

  "What does that mean?"

  "What do you think it means?"

  "I'm wondering."

  "She said she felt the other day that you half believed she was his mistress or something. Perhaps you think we both are."

  "Perhaps I do."

  She was cool. "In terms of what at least you must begin to suspect my sister really is . . . do you honestly think she could ever . .

  "No."

  "And Maurice. For all his peculiarities, is he that sort of person?" I said nothing, remembering the books, the objects. "Well if he was, would he introduce a young man — and a rather nice-looking young man, into his . . . harem?"

  "That has occurred to me." I sat down again. "All right. So? She is closer to Maurice than you."

  "She simply doesn't want to betray him."

  "And you do?"

  She answered obliquely. "The only thing we're all sure of is that we're all three English. Yes? The only three English people in this fantastic place. And my sister and I are sort of . . . well, committed to making a fool of you by our contracts —"

  She broke off abruptly, hand to mouth, aghast.