The Flight From the Enchanter

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘Come inside,’ said Mischa, ‘you must be very tired.’ He was completely calm. An Italian youth was unharnessing the horse. Calvin had disappeared.

  Rosa followed him across the courtyard, and as she went, black hens with crests like scarlet flowers scattered on either side. They came into a dark room. For a moment Rosa could see nothing. Then she saw dimly Mischa’s profile close by, and his soft voice said, ‘Your room is just here, on this side of the house. Maria will bring you cool water from the spring. Come back when you are ready. Then we will have a meal.’

  Maria, who seemed to consist of a large white apron and an even larger white cap and two black smiling eyes, showed Rosa into her room, and then returned bringing two jugs, one of hot and the other of very cold water. The room was dark, only a little light filtered through the tightly closed shutters. When Rosa’s eyes became accustomed to the obscurity she saw a stone floor, an iron bedstead with a gay counterpane, a washstand with bright Italian jugs and basin, a gilded settee and a chair to match. This was all the furniture. Then she went to the window. With difficulty she undid the shutters and forced them outwards.

  The square of landscape leapt into being, quivering with light. The intenser illumination of the later evening drew from the pale country the colours which the earlier sun had hidden, gentle browns and golds, while the occasional olive tree displayed a darkening green, ready to turn to black. Before her, framed by the hills, lay the sea, streaked now with golden lines, its blue turning to amethyst, its dazzling surface resolved into an inward light. It glowed like a great window of stained glass. Rosa looked down into its depths. It lay very close to the house, but far below it, and past a curve of the hillside she saw a section of the stone steps which must lead from Mischa’s door down to the beach, of which from here she could see only a tiny yellowish triangle. Directly in front of her window was a wide terrace with a stone parapet which swept round to what she took to be the front of the house, which faced the sea more squarely. Her own room was in a wing which jutted out at an angle to the main building. The terrace was empty. There was a smell of mint and the sound of a spring or fountain falling. Rosa stood there for a long time. Then she turned back and began to pour out the cool water. The warm evening followed her into the little room.

  A little while later Rosa joined Mischa in the room where she had left him. She now made out that this was the central room of the main building, which served both as drawingroom and dining-room. It was simply furnished in an inconsequential style. A table was laid for a meal. The room was still dark and shuttered. Mischa’s darkened face spoke to her again. ‘Maria isn’t quite ready yet. Come out on to the terrace.’

  He pushed open two doors at the end of the room and Rosa followed him out. Then she received the full splendour of the view which she had seen only in part from her bedroom. The sea lay before them between two bare golden hills, and the steps could be seen intermittently, twisting and turning downwards towards a long line of sand where without waves the sea ended, quiet as a lake. The sea circled the horizon, enclosing a bowl of warm air, and on the farther hillside the shadow of the mountains crept slowly up, changing the gold into an obscure brown. They crossed the terrace. A line of slim cypress trees led down towards the valley, which was already dark for the night. Far beneath them a dog was barking. The sound came circling up like a bird to vanish into the wide circumference of the evening sun.

  Rosa looked at Mischa. He was gazing down into the valley, and she had never seen him look so subdued. When he was aware of her eyes he dropped his head still lower. She realized that she would not know his mind until the following morning. He moved away from her towards the far end of the terrace, and there Rosa saw the fountain whose voice had haunted her. Out of a rudimentary lion’s mouth water was pouring into a long grey trough. As Rosa came near she saw that the trough was a stone sarcophagus, on the edge of which figures were carved, marshalled in an irregular line. A depression at the far end of the trough let the water fall again in a second shower to seep away through the gravel at the corner of the terrace.

  Rosa sat down on the edge of the sarcophagus and plunged her hand into the cool water. As she drew it out she could feel the water evaporating at once into the warm air and the last rays of the sun. A few drops remained, and for a moment she still felt them cool upon the collected warmth of her flesh, and then her arm was dry. She plunged it in again. Mischa was standing beside her with a glass of wine. She took it in a dripping hand and he sat down opposite to her on the edge of the sarcophagus.

  Mischa was silent. He shook his head several times as if to indicate that he would speak if he could. Rosa tasted the wine. It was harsh but refreshing.

  At last she said, ‘It is a very beautiful landscape.’

  ‘It is a very poor landscape,’ said Mischa. There was no reproach in his voice.

  He was not looking at her, but was gazing at the ground. Rosa looked down too and saw that the gravel surface of the terrace was covered with living creatures. Ants passed by carrying heavy burdens. Poor dried-up beetles walked or staggered on their way. Large green grasshoppers paused immobile and almost invisible and then sprang suddenly out of sight; and here and there were patches of red which were ladybirds, enormous and without spots. As Rosa looked it seemed to her as if the whole scene had been conjured up by Mischa simply for her benefit. If she were to go away, all this would vanish too, and Mischa would be left, haggard and staring, in some place unimaginably stripped and denuded. At the last stroke of the clock all these things would return to their natural shape too.

  Rosa shook herself. She pointed to a pair of grasshoppers. ‘Are these cicadas?’

  ‘No,’ said Mischa, ‘no one ever sees cicadas, they are only voices.’ He spoke sadly, but under their mutual awkwardness Rosa now felt a deep accord.

  A lizard came suddenly on to the parapet near to Mischa. It stood tensely still, and in the horizontal sunlight its small body cast a big shadow. With an easy sweep of the hand Mischa caught it and drew it on to his knee and held it for a moment with both hands cupped. His face lit up with animation and pleasure as he looked down at the panting belly of the lizard. It lay still in his hands.

  ‘Give him to me!’ said Rosa. She stretched out her free hand.

  ‘Be careful how you hold him,’ said Mischa, and he put the lizard into her palm.

  Rosa’s fingers closed upon it maladroitly. In an instant, with a quick twist, the lizard had sprung away from her on to the ground, leaving its writhing tail behind in her grasp. With a cry Rosa dropped the tail upon the gravel. It lay there still twisting and writhing. Mischa picked it up quickly and threw it over the parapet. They looked at each other wide-eyed with a sudden fright and distress.

  ‘He’ll soon grow another one,’ said Mischa, and his voice was trembling. Then he took her wrist and drew her towards him. The wine tilted into the fountain.

  Twenty-Eight

  ON the morning of the next day Rosa woke early. She remembered at once where she was, and remembered how Mischa had shown her to her room at an early hour on the previous evening and had then disappeared. A little later she had heard his feet going away down the steps. She had lingered at the window, looking out into the warm dark, but had been able to see nothing except for one moment when the headlights of a car suddenly showed her in sharp relief a row of trees upon the other side of the valley. After that she slept, grateful to be left alone.

  She sprang out of bed now and threw the shutters wide. The scene of yesterday was quite transformed. The sea was now pale and almost colourless, yet at the same time brilliant, a sea of liquid light. It merged without a boundary into a sky which at the horizon was of an equal pallor, though changing at the zenith to a very pale vibrating blue. Here and there in the far distance, as if suspended motionless between sea and sky, there were small sailing-boats with triangular sails. Rosa stared for some time into the great field of light. Then she looked to each side at the hills, and saw upon them, with the different fall
ing of the sun, great rocks and hollows and contorted trees. Below her she made out the winding channel of a tiny stream, perhaps the same stream which flowed through the stone sarcophagus. At one point, far down, it crossed the steps in a wide sheen of water.

  Rosa told herself that this was the day that would decide her fate. She said this to herself with emotion, but without fear or distress; for it was not, she felt, as if she would have to struggle this day to make her destiny. Her destiny was already made. The day would do no more than announce it to her. She would await the announcement with calmness and with open eyes.

  She turned away, leaving the window wide open. The morning shadows fell like water upon the stone floor. She dressed quickly and was already finished when Maria came to call her. Rosa’s Italian was crude, but she understood that the master had gone down to the sea, and would be glad if the signorina would join him there, at the bottom of the steps, after she had taken her breakfast. This, it seemed to Rosa, was characteristic. She sat down to her bread and coffee in the central living-room, sitting beside the doors, and letting the light from the great scene outside fall upon her face and breast. Soon she would go out on to the terrace and look down to see if she could discover Mischa on the beach. And a little after that she would descend the steps, but very slowly, and walk through the water of the stream. And a little after that. Rosa felt that her breath was coming now with deep slow movements, as if the whole rhythm of her being had been slowed down. Her heart was beating only very gently and lazily. She felt an enormous serenity falling upon her like a blessing. She drank the coffee. She had no desire to eat. Then she went back to her room and did her hair again, very carefully. She came back through the living-room, and pushing open the doors, set foot upon the terrace.

  As she did so she heard someone call ‘Miss Keepe!’ Rosa turned sharply. Standing at the other corner of the terrace, beside the house, was Calvin Blick. Since yesterday she had forgotten his existence. She was reminded of it now with a shock which made her turn cold with an anticipation of ill. She stood motionless staring at him, and her lazy heart gave one jerk and then began to beat with furious speed. She said nothing.

  Calvin came towards her along the edge of the house, trailing his fingers on the wall. ‘Could I have a word with you?’ he said.

  Rosa turned, her heels grinding on the gravel. She nodded, and stepped back into the semi-darkness of the room. There was something in Calvin’s tone which made her suddenly and profoundly sick at heart.

  She drew a chair up to the doorway and seated herself. Calvin stood beside her, half in and half out of the door, looking down. Then he passed by her into the room. Rosa’s breakfast was still there undisturbed. Calvin poured himself out a cupful of warm milk and drank it solemnly, mouthing the liquid roundly, his tongue darting into it like a fish. Then, leaning one hand upon the table, he turned to face Rosa. She thought that he was looking excited. She had never seen him display emotion. She watched him tensely.

  ‘I realize, Miss Keepe,’ said Calvin, ‘that this is a serious moment in your life.’

  A spirit spoke into Rosa’s ear and told her to spring up now before it was too late and run away quickly down the steps. But some stronger power made her stay.

  ‘I believe,’ said Calvin, ‘that at such moments one should have, as far as possible, all the facts before one.’ He spoke as if he were uttering a premeditated speech.

  ‘You will say,’ he went on, ‘quite rightly, that the problem is, what are all the facts? Let me reply at once that I do not presume to know. I am only concerned to help you on one or two very small points without in any way knowing what difference I shall be making to the whole picture as you see it.’

  ‘You don’t want to help me,’ said Rosa. Her voice was very deep with emotion. She did not imagine that anything trivial was at stake. ‘Let us be frank at least.’

  ‘As you will,’ said Calvin. ‘In fact, my state of mind is neither here nor there. It is simply that I cannot allow you to proceed without saying what I want to say and saying it now.’

  It seemed to Rosa that he spoke with a kind of sincerity. She waited, containing her heart with her hand. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘But I can’t promise you any discretion.’

  ‘It won’t be necessary,’ said Calvin, and he smiled a smile which made him look to Rosa more familiar.

  ‘First,’ he said, ‘and without comment, this.’ He drew something from his pocket and handed it to Rosa.

  She tilted it into the light. It was the photograph of herself with the Lusiewicz brothers. For an instant the shock was intense. A whiteness rolled through her head and she dropped the photograph on the floor. Calvin picked it up with a deferential gesture, and gave it back to her.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Rosa mechanically. She laid it on the table.

  ‘Of course,’ said Rosa, ‘that flash of light. I ought to have guessed. Who took this photograph?’

  ‘I did,’ said Calvin, keeping his eyes down.

  ‘Ah — ’ said Rosa, and she shook her head with an air almost of pity. ‘Has he seen it?’

  ‘I have no secrets from him,’ said Calvin.

  ‘Has he seen it?’ she repeated.

  ‘Yes,’ said Calvin. ‘After all, I was instructed to take it.’ He looked at Rosa, and his face glowed now with a purposeful look that was almost like gaiety. His eyes opened wide and sparkled as he looked down at her very intently.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ said Rosa. Her gentle smile was frozen with anxiety. She spoke still in a low voice, like a voice of compassion.

  ‘Your family is hard to convince!’ said Calvin. He began to move to and fro behind the table. It was as if he wanted to dance. He kept looking delightedly about the room and then looking back at Rosa. ‘That little photo has done a lot of work!’ He said.

  Rosa stared at him and the smile faded from her. After a moment she said, ‘Did you — show that picture to Hunter?’

  Calvin nodded, his eyebrows going up and down and his teeth glistening. ‘Hunter was anxious that a certain person should not see it!’

  Rosa looked at him. She was maintaining her detachment ‘You astonish me,’ she said. ‘You not only attempt to blackmail me with one story and Hunter with the opposite story but you have the insolence to admit it.’

  ‘Yes, yes!’ said Calvin. He was looking at her eagerly. He could not keep still. ‘Exactly, exactly!’ He seemed delighted.

  Rosa put her hand to her head. ‘It isn’t possible — ’ she said.

  ‘Why not?’ cried Calvin. ‘You will never know the truth, and you will read the signs in accordance with your deepest wishes. That is what we humans always have to do. Reality is a cipher with many solutions, all of them right ones.’

  ‘By boasting in this way,’ said Rosa, ‘you surrender your power.’

  ‘Power!’ said Calvin. He was speaking very fast. ‘Do you imagine that any real power lies in these mechanical devices? I have done nothing for you and your brother but provide you with rather grotesque pretexts for doing what you really want to do. The truth lies deeper, deeper. It is always so!’ He spoke with enthusiasm, leaning towards her across the table.

  ‘You are completely mad!’ said Rosa. ‘And I don’t believe you. And in any case it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. I can’t think why you should imagine that we cannot know the truth. And I can’t think why you should imagine that it matters.’ She covered her face with her hands. She could feel Calvin’s glance penetrating her, like a sharp tool that searches for a weak place which it can prise apart.

  ‘Is that all you have to say?’ said Rosa. Her voice was beginning to tremble.

  ‘No!’ said Calvin. He was calming himself. He now had the deft exultant look of one who is the master of a still difficult game. ‘No! This was just the overture designed, shall I say, to put us into the proper mood. Let us indeed agree that it doesn’t matter. My function, dear Miss Keepe, is merely to bring one or two small facts to your notice. I have no wish to discuss or to
persuade. So may we now, under your permission, proceed to exhibit number two.’

  He produced from inside his coat a copy of the Evening News, which he unfolded carefully and spread out before Rosa on the table. It carried on the front page the story of Nina’s suicide.

  Rosa drew the paper towards her. ‘I didn’t know — about this,’ she said.

  The newspaper attributed Nina’s death to the publicity given recently to the position of a certain category of aliens, of whom, it appeared, Nina was one.

  ‘Very sad, isn’t it!’ said Calvin.

  Partly for her own sake Rosa needed to read his face at this moment. She lifted her eyes; but the effort was too great, and she saw his head hazy and distorted in a cloud of tears.

  ‘But,’ said Rosa, and after the first words her voice came quite clearly, although the tears were coursing down her face, ‘surely they wouldn’t have done anything to Nina?’

  ‘That’s the sad thing,’ said Calvin. ‘Of course they wouldn’t. After all, it’s England. It’s like the Duchess in Alice. No one really gets beheaded. Someone writes to The Times or to their M.P. long before that happens. None of these people will be deported. One or two individuals, who had bad consciences for other reasons, may find it prudent to disappear — but no one else will be interfered with. Nothing would have happened to Nina, except that she would have had to fill in a few more forms. Someone ought to have explained all this to her.’

  ‘Who would have believed,’ said Rosa, with a wail in her voice, wiping the tears away with the back of her hand, ‘that Nina would have been so foolish — ’