The Color of Evil - The Dark Descent V1 (1991)
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The speaker appeared to be at least seventy-five.
‘‘There have indeed been many changes.”
‘‘But still we worship the old false gods! Still we prostrate
ourselves before the concepts of medieval anthropomorphism.” He looked exactly like a cathedral figure of St. Peter.
“ Life is not easy,” said Mrs. Iblis.
“ But need we therefore rend ourselves like vultures? Can
we not seek the truth each in his own way? Or, of course,
hers? After all, in every heart is an unimaginable arcana:
must we sell out to the money changers of the temple? Evil
is, after all, so very small.”
Mrs. Iblis looked up. “ Is it?”
“ Indeed it is. In how many mythologies the Devil is represented as a little fellow, as Mannikin or Peterkin, and how rightly! It is only the sophisticated theologians who make him
vast and roaring and terrible: in order that we may be afraid
of him and in their power. But pluck up your heart, Mrs.—
er—” He stumbled for the name. “ Only God is vast and
great: that is to say, Good; for they are one and the same.”
“ How convincingly you put it!” Mrs. Iblis said this without the slightest irony. It was merely that the lowering weather was giving her a headache. Even as she passed her hand
across her brow, there was a distant roll of thunder, too faint
to be generally heard above the many voices, the diversities
of business.
“ It is God who speaks through m e,” said the patriarch
modestly. “ Or rather Good, the life spirit of the universe, to
which it is within all of us to hearken.”
Mrs. Iblis wondered whether Sister Nuper could produce
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some aspirin. Somehow it seemed improbable. It also seemed
almost impossible to ask her.
Suddenly, however, the chic but world-worn figure of Mrs.
Coner leaned over the back of the sofa and spoke in Mrs.
Iblis’s ear.
“ Mavis tells me that you are unfortunately not feeling too
good.’’ Mrs. Iblis had not consciously set eyes on Mavis
since her arrival.
“ I have a slight headache, I ’m afraid. It is foolish of me.
The weather, I think.”
“ Take my advice and have a rest on your bed. Mavis is
mixing you a draught.”
With relief, Mrs. Iblis rose to her feet. “ You are very
kind.” She addressed the patriarch: “ Please excuse me. I ’m
not feeling very well, I ’m afraid. I am going to rest for a
little. I expect we shall meet again later.”
He grasped her hand and held it. “ Hold on to the spirit,
Mrs.—er—I shall confidently await your return—purged and
splendid.” It was not quite what was usually said in such
circumstances.
Mrs. Coner came with her upstairs. As they passed the
door to the Louise Room, Mrs. Coner said: “ We’ve been
having some trouble there, I ’m afraid. Mavis thought that
Rabbi Morocco and your friend Mr. Stillman would have a
lot in common. Anyway, she didn’t expect Rabbi Morocco
to mm up at all. But he has. And he and Mr. Stillman seem
to be somehow different kinds of Jews. I don’t really get it.
They always seem to cause some sort of trouble, don’t they?”
She and Mrs. Iblis exchanged glances.
Lying on Sister Nuper’s double bed was a girl in her underclothes and black silk stockings. Her thick black hair was drawn into a ballet dancer’s bun, and she was reading a tome
by Karl Barth.
“ Sorry, Mrs. Coner. I thought Sister Nuper wouldn’t
m ind.” She sat up, staring at Mrs. Iblis.
“ I am sure she won’t, Patacake. But haven’t we given you
a room?”
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“ Can’t stop. Have to get back to the Shelter.’’
“ Oh.” Mrs. Coner didn’t seem to like her very much. But
she did her duty as hostess. “ This is Mrs. Iblis. Lady Cecilia
Capulet.”
“ How do you do?” said Mrs. Iblis. “ Please don’t move.”
But her head was splitting, and she very much hoped that
Lady Cecilia would move.
“ I must go anyway.” With great elegance she crossed to
the window and looked out between the bright Gordon Russel
curtains. “ Oh God, it’s raining .”
Mavis appeared, bearing a large graduated glass filled to
the brim with a blue green liquor, seething and opaque.
“ Vincent’s special,” said Mrs. Coner. “ Drink it down.”
“ You’re really very kind,” said Mrs. Iblis weakly. She
sipped. Mavis, she noticed, had changed her dress and now
wore a flame-colored model, very out of key with her apparent general temperament. Lady Cecilia was washing her hands and forearms with great thoroughness.
“ It’s almost pure peptomycin,” said Mavis encouragingly.
The beverage tasted of liquid candle-grease gone fiat with
the years.
“ Down the hatch,” said Mrs. Coner, displaying for the
first time the slightest hint of impatience.
There was a terrific crash of thunder. The four women
looked at one another momentarily. Mrs. Iblis felt quite
frightened.
“ Christ!” ejaculated Lady Cecilia. “ Can you lend me a
mack, Mavis?”
“ Of course, Patacake—if you’ll give me five minutes.”
Mavis collected the now empty glass (a sticky bright yellow
sediment occupied the last inch of it), said “ Thank you” to
Mrs. Iblis, and departed. It was now thundering briskly.
“ Well now,” said Mrs. Coner, once more sensibly sympathetic. “ Lie down with your feet up so that the vapors can rise, and get some sleep. When you’re better, come down
again. The Forum will carry on most of the night, I expect,
so you needn’t rush things.” She dragged out the bolster
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from the head of the bed and put it under Mrs. Iblis’s feet.
Mrs. Iblis had cast off her shoes but did not care to remove
her dress, being conscious that her underclothes compared
unfavorably with Lady Cecilia’s. Lady Cecilia was now carefully rubbing under her arms with presumably) Sister Nuper’s Arrid.
“ Bye-bye,” said Mrs. Coner in the idiom of her former
avocation. She went, shutting the door which Mavis had left
open.
“ These clothes do make one stink.” Lady Cecilia was
putting on a plain navy blue skiff: Mrs. Iblis only wished she
would go. Then Lady Cecilia put on a matching tunic, and
Mrs. Iblis realized.
“ I ’ve never actually met a Salvation Army lassie before.”
“ It gives one a standing,” said Lady Cecilia. “ At places
like this and times like the present. Major Barbara was on to
something.” She had buttoned the tunic to the neck. “ It’s a
damned fetching outfit, you know.” She extended one black
silk leg. “ The number it fetches might surprise you.”
“ Are you making it your career?”
“ Until they chuck me out.” There was a tap on the door.
It was Mavis with an emerald-colored silk mackintosh. “ How
frightfully sweet of you! I ’ll be back immediately the Shelter
shuts.”
>
“ Hurry. The Forum will give out if you don’t keep their
glands working.”
“ Your book!” cried Mrs. Iblis. It had obviously been forgotten.
“ You read it,” said Lady Cecilia. "A uf Wiedersehen. ”
Mrs. Iblis had hoped to see Patacake put on her bonnet;
but she was gone with no sign of the object.
“ Shall I lock you in?” inquired Mavis. “ It might be quieter for you, and there’s a bell.”
“ Thank you very much,” said Mrs. Iblis. “ But no.”
When Mrs. Iblis awoke, she felt extremely hungry. Used
to four reasonable meals a day, she had had nothing of the
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kind since an early and rushed luncheon at the London railway terminus. She had turned out the light but could see by the illuminated dial of her wristwatch that it was half past
eleven. Despite Mrs. Coner’s words, surely the party below
might be over? Panic seized Mrs. Iblis, confronted with a
foodless night. Switching on the bedside light, she rose, tried
to smooth her dress, and put on her shoes. If the party were
over, then Sister Nuper would have been with her by now.
The thunder and rain seemed to have stopped, though Mrs.
Iblis did not give the time to making sure. She felt once more
in vigorous health, considering the hour. Mrs. Iblis did what
she could with her hair and hastened downstairs.
There was still a great crowd, but the atmosphere had
changed. There was very little light (Bunhill was supplied by
two separate circuits, one of which had been affected by the
thunderstorm) and astonishingly little noise. People were sitting about in small groups, often on the floor: and the general conversational level rose little above a mutter. Mrs. Iblis recalled a number of the faces, but none in the hall (to her relief) belonged to anyone with whom she had spoken.
To reach the billiard room, it was necessary to pass through
the drawing room and take a passage leading off between the
drawing room and the dining room. In the murky drawing
room (decorated with neutral-colored abstractions screwed in
pale frames to the walls) Mrs. Iblis noticed the unmistakable
figure of Ruth. She was lying on the antique-shop chaise-
lounge, with an entirely blank expression on her round face
and clasped frankly and ruthlessly in the arms of a man whose
back was turned to Mrs. Iblis, but who was wearing a black
suit. Ruth’s moplike hair was in worse disarray than ever.
Mrs. Iblis could not help wondering if Ruth were happy.
From off the passage led an apartment known as the music
room, which Mrs. Iblis had not so far entered. The door of
this room was open, and from it came a loud and cheerful
noise, contrasting with the subdued, almost dead tone which
ruled elsewhere. When Mrs. Iblis reached the door, she could
not but look in. Seated on top of a vast black concert grand
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was the woman she had supposed to be Sister Nuper, in her
silken nurse’s dress and tall stiff collar. She appeared to be
administering some kind of light-hearted “ quiz” to her group
of young men, now apparently increased in number, who
were gathered round her on the floor. They had mostly placed
themselves very close to her. The prevailing attitude among
diem was far from one of relaxation; on the contrary, most
of them were kneeling and leaning eagerly forward. Though
the distance from the door was not great, Mrs. Iblis was
unable to hear the question asked in Sister Nuper’s soft cooing voice; but a number of the young men appeared to answer in unison. Sister Nuper’s position, dangling her beautifully
shaped legs in gray silk stockings from the piano, enabled
Mrs. Iblis to see that, unlike most tenders of the sick, she
was wearing shoes with enormously high heels. In the back
row of the cluster of men, one figure, Mrs. Iblis noticed,
seemed almost hysterically eager to answer the question or to
answer it first. As Sister Nuper asked another question, Mrs.
Iblis passed on. She was far from sure that she agreed with
Mavis’s view that no better person than Sister Nuper could
be found with whom to share her bedroom.
The billiard room, still illuminated from the defective strip,
looked exacdy as before, except that there was now only one
surviving waiter, the toiler behind the buffet, the other two
having cut the cloth to bits and then gone back to London
together, leaving the damaged table littered with colored balls
and cubes of chalk. As before, there were about a dozen
guests eating and drinking. The tone of their hushed conversations suggested that they were complaining of one another to confidential friends.
Mrs. Iblis asked what there was to eat. Little seemed visible on the buffet but ddbris.
“ There’s only lobster salad.” The waiter had had enough.
It was not at all what Mrs. Iblis wanted. “ That will be
delicious.” She recognized that it was late.
The waiter shoved up from under the buffet a plateful assembled many hours earlier.
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“ Cider? No beer.”
“ I ’d love a glass of cider.”
It was drawn from a plywood cask and was a product of a
local industries group which Coner fostered. The smell and
flavor were unusual, but Mrs. Iblis almost at once recognized
that the brew was potent.
She was so hungry that the lobster salad was soon gone,
though normally she avoided tinned shellfish.
“ There’s some cake.”
“ Thank you. I ’d love some cake.” Again, however, she
felt that there were at the moment more desirable foods.
The waiter gave her two large pieces, as the buffet was
soon to close. The plate was too small for its load, but the
cake was cake, not good, not bad, not indifferent.
This time no one came near Mrs. Iblis, or enforced conversation. This time she would almost have been glad for someone to do so (though not, for choice, any single one of
the day’s previous new acquaintances).
“ Could I possibly have some coffee if there’s any left?”
She had not yet finished the cider.
The waiter glared at her, then went to the other end of the
buffet, produced a full cup from under it, and returned to her
without a word. He had slopped much of the contents into
the saucer. The coffee was far from hot and contained insufficient sugar. When it was finished, Mrs. Iblis was unsure what to do next. She stood sipping the remains of the peculiar
amateur cider. To the waiter she might not have existed. To
her fellow guests, as they finished their scraps of food and
drink, she might have been a hostile object.
In the end she was almost alone and contemplating a return
to bed, when Coner entered. Mrs. Iblis identified him at once
as the overanxious figure in the back row round Sister Nuper.
He advanced upon the buffet. His face was strained and his
gait slightly shambling.
“ Got any Scotch?”
“ Only cider left, Mr. Coner.”
Encountering her host thus for the first time, Mrs. Iblis
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wondered whether good manners enjoined that she should
speak to Him. On the whole, she thought it would be simpler
to do nothing. Coner, however, took the initiative. Glancing
round the room before departing to unlock his spirit store,
his eye lighted upon her isolated figure, still holding the glass.
He stared at her for several moments, then advanced.
“ Who are y o u T '
“ I ’m Mrs. Iblis. I ’ve no business here, really. My invitation was postponed on account of the Forum. But your wife asked me to stay as I didn’t get the letter of postponement.’’
“ I ’m glad she did.’’ Coner was still staring hard. The flesh
on his face was like a loose mask covering another face beneath. “ I hope they’re looking after you properly.”
“ Perfectly, thank you. I ’m having a lovely tim e.”
“ What d ’you think of the Forum? We’ve got pretty well
everyone who carries weight, don’t you think?”
“ I ’m afraid some of it’s rather above my head.”
Though continuing to stare at her in a way which Mrs.
Iblis was beginning to find odd, Coner seemed hardly to be
attending.
“ No real synthesis has emerged,” he said. “ Nothing beyond the separate individual arguments and experiences. ’ ’ He spoke like a defeated general referring to reinforcements.
“ Pity about Rabbi Morocco having to go home. He could
have helped a lot.”
“ How?” Mrs. Iblis wanted to enter into the spirit of it.
“ The A. G. S. is making headway all the time, you know.”
“ I ’m sure I ’ve no business not to know, but what is the
A. G. S .?”
“ The Avant Garde Synagogue. Something entirely new.
It’s a great mistake to ignore what the Jews are doing.”
“ I am told that the Salvation Army are doing a lot too,”
said Mrs. Iblis, greatly venturing.
“ Of course Patacake’s utterly irreplaceable. One just
wouldn’t try.” His eyes were now wandering up and down
her body in a way to which she was unaccustomed; but he
sank into silence.
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“ Will you be writing about the Forum in your papers?”
inquired Mrs. Iblis, in order to say something.
“ The whole of the next issue in each case except for a
slaughterhouse feature in Roundabout. But I doubt whether