The Revolt of Aphrodite

by Lawrence Durrell

  We embraced, we parted, almost with disgust. The hideous station with its milling tortoise-faced mob of Turks mercifully precluded speeches of farewell. I stood holding her hands while the carriage was found and the luggage stored in it by the chauffeur. “Or else” she said gravely, in the tones of one continuing an inner monologue “he suddenly learned that he had cancer, or that his wife had a lover, or that his favourite child….” I realised that any explanation would do, and that all would forever remain merely provisional. Was this perhaps true for all of us, for all our actions? Yes, yes. I studied her face again with care, with an almost panic-stricken intentness, realising at last how useless it was to be loving her; she had climbed into the carriage and stood looking down at me from the open window with a hesitant sorrowfulness. We could not have been further apart at this instant; a cloud of anxiety had overshadowed all emotion. I felt my heavy despairs dragging at their moorings. Tomorrow I should return to Athens—I should be free from everyone, free even from Benedicta. My God, the only four letter word that matters! The train had begun to move. I walked beside it for a few paces. She too was looking almost relieved, elated. Or so it seemed to me. Perhaps because she felt sure of me—of her hold over me? She wound up the glass window and then, with a sudden impulse, breathed upon it in order to write the word “Soon” on the little patch of condensation. At once the pain of separation came back.

  I turned away to let my thoughts disperse among those sullen crowds of featureless faces. The car waited to take me back to the hotel. That night I slept alone and for the first time experienced the suffocating sense of loneliness which came over me with the conviction that I should never see Benedicta again. This whole episode would remain in my memory, carefully framed and hung, quite self-subsisting: and quite without relevance or continuity to anything else I had ever done or experienced. An anecdote of Istanbul!

  Nor did this feeling completely leave me even when, from the windy deck-head, I saw the white spars of Sunion come up over the waters. The season had turned, autumn was here, the marbles looked blue with cold: and I had turned a corner in my supposed life. It was baffling, the sense of indecision which beset me; I supposed that the novelty of this new life was what had numbed me—simply that. Simply that.

  Hippolyta met me at the dock with her car, bursting with excitement and jubilation. “We’re saved” she cried as I clambered down the gangway with my suitcase. “O come along do, Charlock; we must celebrate, and it’s all due to you. Graphos! He has swept all the provinces. My darling, he’s changed completely. He is certain to get back into power.” Apparently something had been averted by the resuscitation of the great man’s party and its electoral successes. Well, I sat by her side, letting her babble on to her heart’s content. We headed for the country directly because they were all “waiting to congratulate” me. I was returning like a conquering hero to the hospitable country house. “Moreover” she said, taking my hand and pressing it to her cheek “you have joined the firm. You are one of us now.” In the back of my mind I had a sudden snapshot of Benedicta walking alone in some remote corner of an untended garden, among rare shrubs and flowers which discharged their pollen on her clothes at every step, like silent pistol-shots. In the house great fires blazed and champagne-glasses winked. Caradoc was there and Pulley; and the immaculate spatted form of Banubula. Everyone burst into a torrent of congratulatory rhetoric. I drank away the feelings of the past weeks, lapped around by all this human glow. It was only when, as an afterthought, I said: “By the way, I am going to marry Benedicta Merlin” that the great silence fell. It was the half second of silence at the end of some marvellously executed symphony, the mesmerised rapture which precedes the thunder of applause. Yes. That sort of silence, and lasting only half a second; then the applause, or rather the storm of congratulation in which, to my surprise, I strove suspiciously to detect a false note. But no. It rang out in the most genuine manner; Caradoc indeed seemed rather moved by the news, his bear-hugs hurt. I surrendered myself to my self-congratulation invaded by a new sense of confidence. It was late when at last I gathered my kit and borrowed the car to return to Athens; I was curious to see Number Seven again, to riffle my notebooks. Yet I noted with some curiosity that all of a sudden the absence, not of Benedicta but of Iolanthe, weighed. Some obscure law of association must be at work; I had not give her a thought in Istanbul, she was not appropriate to the place. Nor would Benedicta ever be to Athens. I looked up from under the shaded light and imagined her entering the room as she always did, punctual as a heartbeat. These sentimental polarities of feeling were new to me; I disapproved of them thoroughly. Frowning I returned to my scribbles. I roughed out a schema as a basis for my work for the firm when at last I should be summoned. Then I noticed a letter on the mantelpiece, a letter addressed to me. It was from Julian, written in an exquisite italic hand; it congratulated me most gracefully on the excellent news and told me that I need not move from Athens for the time being; but I should map out a work-scheme and submit it. Did I wish to start with the mechanical end of my research? A limited company called Merlin Devices would be set up as part of a light-engineering subsidiary of the firm. I would find the technicians and the tools ready to hand for whatever I dreamed up. It was a marvellous prospect, and I fell asleep happily that night in the stuffy little room, with my counterpane littered with notes and formulae and diagrams.

  At seven, when the porter brought me my coffee I found that dapper Koepgen had followed hard on his heels and had taken up his usual watchful position in the armchair. Koepgen of the elf-lock and the lustrous eye. For the time of day he looked unnaturally spruce and self-possessed. “Go on” he said with ill-concealed excitement. “Tell me what it is.” For a moment I had forgotten. “Jocas cabled me that he would give you a message for me.” Then I remembered. Sleepily I repeated the message to him. He drew a long hissing breath, his face at once rueful and amused. “What a cunning old dog, what a swine” he said admiringly, and struck his knee. “I only worked a few weeks for them but it was enough for the firm to find my weak point. They are incredible.” He chirped his loudest laugh.

  “What’s it all about?” I asked; there was a small bottle of ouzo on the mantelpiece; Koepgen made a by-your-leave, drew the cork and tilted a dose into a toothmug. He drank it off quite slim and said: “He’s holding me to ransom, the old devil. He wants me to go back to Moscow and deal with some contracts for the firm; I refused, it doesn’t interest me. Now I see I will have to go if I’m ever to get my hands on the bloody thing.”

  “What bloody thing?”

  “The ikon.”

  “What next?” It sounded to me as if the firm were busy doing some elaborate trade in antiques; but no, said Koepgen, no such thing. What they were after were some contracts from the Communist Government for wheat and oil in exchange for machinery. Nothing could be more prosaic. And the ikon—where did that come in? Ah. He burst out laughing again and said with exasperation, “My dear Charlock, that is a piece of Russian folklore which will sound to you quite silly; but nevertheless it has cost me several years and hundreds of miles on foot.” He sat down suddenly with a bump in the chair.

  “But wouldn’t it be dangerous, I mean Communists and all that?”

  “No. One of my uncles is Minister of Trade. No, it isn’t that. I just didn’t want to work for the firm; but I made the mistake of telling them my fairy tale, and of course this is the result. You see, when I started this theological jag I chose one of the great mystics, a big bonze of Russia as a guide. As you know, absolute obedience is required, even if one is set a task that seems an idiocy. I was set a task which turned unwittingly into a pilgrimage on my poor flat feet. There was an ikon once in the private chapel of my mother; when the estate was confiscated it had vanished. I was told to find it or else.”

  “Or else what?”

  Koepgen grinned. “Or else no progress, see? I should be stuck in the lower ranks. Never get my stripes. Don’t laugh.”

  “What fant
asy.”

  “Of course you’d think that; but there is more than one kind of truth, Charlock.”

  “O crikey,” I said “don’t do the theological on me.”

  “Well, anyway, hence this bloody long walk across Russia into Athos. I traced it there. After that I drew a blank for a while. It was a Saint Catherine of a rather special kind. And of course the woods are full of them—Saint Catherines. It might be somewhere in a wayside shrine on Olympus or stuck in some great monastery in Meteora. In spite of all the help I got I drew blank after blank. The Orthodox Church is an odd organisation or perhaps I should say disorganisation; what is the good for example of an encyclical when half the minor clergy are illiterates?”

  “Offer a reward.”

  “We did all that. I sorted through hundreds of them big and small; but I couldn’t get the one belonging to my mother. You see? Now the firm has stepped in found it and will tell me where it is on condition….”

  “I have never heard such rubbish in my life” I said. Koepgen nearly burst into tears. “Nor have I,” he said “nor have I.”

  “I should damn well refuse to go.”

  “Perhaps I shall. I must see. On the other hand I suppose it isn’t such an arduous undertaking; it might cost me a month or two in Moscow, and then at least I would have found it and satisfied my staretz old Demetrius. O dear.” He took another swig from the bottle and fell into a heavy melancholy silence, turning over these weird contingencies in his mind. I drew a bath and lay in it awhile, leaving him to brood in the armchair. I had decided, on the strength of my new-found fortune, to move all my belongings today to the best hotel in the town—to take a comfortable suite. I did not need more space but I was most anxious to experiment with the notion of spending a lot of money. Yes, of course the grub would be much better. I was drying myself slowly when Koepgen appeared in the doorway. He was still sunk in a kind of abstraction, and gazed at me with unfocused eye. “You know” he said slowly at last “I have a feeling that I shall have to obey Julian. After all sacrifices have to be made if one’s going to get anywhere in life, eh?”

  “Hum” I said, feeling very sage and judicial, yet indifferent.

  “You will see,” he said “you will see, my boy. Your turn will come. Have you ever met Julian?”

  “No.” I dressed slowly; it was a lovely sunny day, and we walked across Athens on foot, stopping here and there in the shadow of a vine arbour to have a drink and a mézé. Koepgen made no further reference to his ikon and I was glad; the whole thing seemed to me to be a burdensome fairy tale. After all if a man of such sharp intelligence in his forties allowed the firm to play upon these infantile superstitions, well good luck to it. But such reflections filled me with shame when I glanced at his sorrowful and now rather haggard features. I had come to like him very much. As we parted, I to reserve my new quarters and organise the move, he to return to his seminary, he said under his breath: “I fear there is no help for it. I shall have to go. I’ll cable Jocas today.”

  He started to walk down the winding street and then, on a sudden impulse, ran after me and caught my sleeve. He said in a humble, beseeching tone “Charlock, can I leave my notebooks with you if I decide to go?” His manner touched me. “Of course.” And that evening when I got back to my new hotel, rather aware that my shabby wardrobe would have to be replaced if I were ever to match the splendour of such surroundings, I saw the familiar pile of school exercise books on the mantelpiece. A rubber band held them together. But there was no word with them; I must presume that Koepgen had fallen in with the wishes of the firm, perhaps he was already on his way north. I rather envied him the journey in a queer sort of way. My dinner had been left in the alcove to await me. I could not help touching the smooth expensive napery which enveloped it. In Athens such costly and beautiful ironed covers and napkins were quite a rarity. I had decided to work that evening on my crystals, and had set out my white china trays in the bathroom. But the telephone rang and when I picked it up Benedicta stood before me, so to speak; her voice was so clear that I thought she must be calling me from the floor below. But no, she was in Switzerland. “Darling”, the endearment made my heart suddenly turn over in its grave. Every doubt, every hesitation, was puffed away on the instant and I realised with a reviving pang how much I wanted her here, right here. The enormous inadequacy of words belaboured me. “Never have I missed anyone so much. It confirms everything.” So it seemed to me also as I sat, gripping the black telephone, grimacing into it. “We will be married in April. Julian has arranged everything. In London. Do you agree?”

  “Why wait so long, Benedicta?”

  “I have to. I am under orders. I won’t be free to move until then. O how much I miss you, miss you.” The clear magnetic voice took on a note of familiar despair. “Julian is arranging the terms of the settlement, the marriage contract.”

  “What settlement?” I said in perplexity.

  “Well, about my share in the firm. We must have perfect equality in love, my darling.” All of a sudden the line went dead and a thousand other voices came up, trying to restore the broken communication. “Benedicta” I cried, and I could still hear her voice, though what she was saying was indistinct. An operator squashed her out and promised to call me back. I went and lay on my bed in a confused frame of mind—a mixture of rage and euphoria.

  Gentlemen of the jury, now I can tell you that I have loved a woman who sat on numberless committees for the emancipation of other women, never speaking, and with the bitten nails of her left hand sheathed in a glove. Actually what women need is to be beaten almost to death, enslaved, raped, and forced to cook meals when they are heavy with child. Bite through the nape of the neck, Wilkinson, stick her with a bayonet, and she’s yours forever. A bottomless masochism is all they seek to indulge; the penis is too kind a weapon by far. No, the emancipation of this creature is a joke. (Benedicta, look into my eyes.) They are waveborn, slaveborn; and yet somewhere among them may be one, just one, who is different, who fills the bill. But what bill, Felix? Love! We never had before nor never since, seen it, I mean. Burp! Pardon my parahelion.

  Perfect equality in love, I thought. God! Tomorrow I would go out and buy the most expensive microscope in the world and a Stradivarius and some strawberries and a car…. But in love there is never enough equality to go round. We will have to settle for equity among men and women—a humbler target. Benedicta ached on. After half an hour of futile suspense I tried to restore the broken communication from my own end, but this proved impossible. They could not trace the number from which she had called me. The hall porter brought me a bottle of whisky and a siphon. I tried to resume the precious train of thought about crystals—the fragile line of reasoning which, after so many years, has given Merlin’s a near monopoly in the field of lasers. Benedicta kept intruding among my scribbles. (“The ordering of their atoms is never quite perfect or they would not be able to form, to grow.”)

  Then the phone did ring again and I leaped at it. But it was only Caradoc, rather drunk and indistinct, calling me from the Nube, his gruff voice framed in a background of mandolin music. “Charlock,” he said in his usual growling vein “we are waiting for you down here. Why don’t you come?” But Benedicta had covered me in a sheath, a caul of discontent. I could not think of the sweaty Nube, the dust-filled curtains, without distaste. “I am waiting for a phone-call, and doing some work” I said, fearful lest our own conversation might be holding up a long-distance contact. Caradoc growled on reproachfully. “Ah you scientists in love! Soon you will be accusing nature of a moral order. Push!”

  “Push to you” I said. “Now for godsake hang up and leave me alone will you?”

  He did so, but with evident reluctance. “Well, hard cheese” he said as a parting shot, and I had the sudden vivid image of Mr. Sacrapant leaning over a desk looking gravely at me and saying “You are right to be precautionate, Mr. Charlock.” And what was the other expression? Yes, “I have inaccurised the document, sir.” Presumably he m
eant that he had been through it for inaccuracies. Ah, pale Sacrapant, falling out of the air like these autumn leaves tumbling into the parks. Again the phone rang and this time Hippolyta’s clear youthful voice sprang from the mouthpiece as if from the ear of a goddess. “Charlock, I heard you’d moved. How does it feel to be really loved?”

  “O leave me alone” I cried in anguish, much to her surprise. “Hang up. I’m waiting for a call.”

  But Benedicta did not ring again.

  Indeed I had no word from her throughout the months which lay ahead. However, filled with the gai savoir I buckled down to my plans for the little Merlin subsidiary which I should virtually run single handed from London. Or so I thought. Two members of its hypothetical board flew out to meet me, Denison and Broad, and I was glad to find them both accomplished and experienced men. Needless to say I knew nothing about company law, patent claims, and similar esoteric subjects, and was glad to delegate this side of things to them; when everything was ready I should transfer myself to London with a basketful of preliminary ideas. This little respite was useful; it enabled me to map out my own objectives more clearly and to get them down on paper. Moreover I had nothing to fear from the Athens winter while I was lodged in such warm and comfortable quarters.