The Alexandria Quartet

  ‘Let me take it.’

  ‘No.’

  She sat down opposite him, leaning forward, and stared once more into his eyes. ‘Nessim, what has been happening? Your health … these temperatures, and you don’t sleep?’ He smiled wearily and pressed the back of her hand to his hot cheek.

  ‘It is nothing’ he said. ‘Just strain now that everything is coming to an end. Also having to tell Leila the whole truth. It has alarmed her to understand the full extent of our plans. Also it has made her relationship with Mountolive much harder. I think that is the reason she refused to see him at the Carnival meeting, remember? I had told her everything that morning. Never mind. Another few months and the whole build-up is complete. The rest is up to them. But of course Leila does not like the idea of going away. I knew she wouldn’t. And then, I have other serious problems.’

  ‘What problems?’

  But he shook his head, and getting up started to undress. Once in bed he finished his valerian and lay, hands and feet folded like the effigy of a Crusader. Justine switched off the light and stood in the doorway in silence. At last she said: ‘Nessim. I am afraid that something is happening to you which I don’t understand. These days … are you ill? Please speak to me!’

  There was a long silence. Then she said: ‘How is all this going to turn out?’

  He raised himself slightly on the pillows and stared at her. ‘By the autumn, when everything is ready, we shall have to take up new dispositions. It may mean a separation of perhaps a year, Justine. I want you to go there and stay there while it all happens. Leila must go to the farm in Kenya. There will certainly be sharp reactions here which I must stay to face.’

  ‘You talk in your sleep.’

  ‘I am exhausted’ he cried shortly, angrily.

  Justine stood still, motionless in silhouette, in the lighted doorway. ‘What about the others?’ she asked softly, and once more he raised himself on the pillows to answer peevishly. ‘The only one who concerns us at the moment is Da Capo. He must be apparently killed, or must disappear, for he is very much compromised. I have not worked out the details properly. He wants me to claim his insurance, anyway, as he is completely in debt, ruined, so his disappearance would fit in. We will speak of this later. It should be comparatively easy to arrange.’

  She turned thoughtfully back into the lighted room and began to prepare for sleep. She could hear Nessim sighing and turning restlessly in the next room. In the great mirror she studied her own sorrowful, haunted face, stripping it of its colours, and combing her black hair luxuriously. Then she slipped naked between the sheets and snapped out the light, tumbling lightly, effortlessly into sleep in a matter of moments.

  It was almost dawn when Nessim came barefoot into her room. She woke to feel his arms about her shoulders; he was kneeling by the bed, shaken by a paroxysm which at first she took to be a fit of weeping. But he was trembling, as if with a fever, and his teeth were chattering. ‘What is it?’ she began incoherently, but he put a hand over her mouth to silence her. ‘I simply must tell you why I have been acting so strangely. I cannot bear the strain any longer. Justine, I have been brought face to face with another problem. I am faced with the terrible possibility of having to do away with Narouz. That is why I have been feeling half-mad. He has got completely out of hand. And I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do!’

  This conversation took place some little time before the unexpected suicide of Pursewarden in the Mount Vulture Hotel.

  XII

  But it was not only for Mountolive that all the dispositions on But chessboard had been abruptly altered now by Pursewarden’s solitary act of cowardice — and the unexpected discovery which had supplied its motive, the mainspring of his death. Nessim too, so long self-deluded by the same dreams of a perfect finite action, free and heedless as the impulse of a directed will, now found himself, like his friend, a prey to the gravitational forces which lie inherent in the time-spring of our acts, making them spread, ramify and distort themselves; making them spread as a stain will spread upon a white ceiling. Indeed, now the masters were beginning to find that they were, after all, the servants of the very forces which they had set in play, and that nature is inherently ungovernable. They were soon to be drawn along ways not of their choosing, trapped in a magnetic field, as it were, by the same forces which unwind the tides at the moon’s bidding, or propel the glittering forces of salmon up a crowded river — actions curving and swelling into futurity beyond the powers of mortals to harness or divert. Mountolive knew this, vaguely and uneasily, lying in bed watching the lazy spirals of smoke from his cigar rise to the blank ceiling; Nessim and Justine knew it with greater certainty, lying brow to cold brow, eyes wide open in the magnificent darkened bedroom, whispering to each other. Beyond the connivance of the will they knew it, and felt the portents gathering around them — the paradigms of powers unleashed which must fulfil themselves. But how? In what manner? That was not as yet completely clear.

  Pursewarden, before lying down on that stale earthly bed beside the forgotten muttering images of Melissa or Justine — and whatever private memories besides — had telephoned to Nessim in a new voice, full of a harsh resignation, charged with the approaching splendours of death. ‘It is a matter of life and death, as they say in books. Yes, please, come at once. There is a message for you in an appropriate place: the mirror.’ He rang off with a simple chuckle which frightened the alert, frozen man at the other end of the line; at once Nessim had divined the premonition of a possible disaster. On the mirror of that shabby hotel-room, among the quotations which belonged to the private workshop of the writer’s life, he found the following words written in capitals with a wet shaving-stick:

  NESSIM. COHEN PALESTINE ETC. ALL DISCOVERED AND REPORTED.

  This was the message which he had all but managed to obliterate before there came the sound of voices in the hall and the furtive rapping at the panels of the door; before Balthazar and Justine had tiptoed softly into the room. But the words and the memory of that small parting chuckle (like a sound of some resurrected Pan) were burned forever into his mind. His expression was one of neuralgic vacancy as he repeated all these facts to Justine in later times for the exposure of the act itself had numbed him. It would be impossible to sleep, he had begun to see; it was a message which must be discussed at length, sifted, unravelled where they lay, motionless as the effigies upon Alexandrian tombs, side by side in the dark room, their open eyes staring into each other with the sightlessness of inhuman objects, mirrors made of quartz, dead stars. Hand in hand they sighed and murmured, and even as he whispered: ‘I told you it was Melissa … The way she always looked at me.… I suspected it.’ The other troubling problems of the case interlocked and overlapped in his mind, the problem of Narouz among them.

  He felt as a beleaguered knight must feel in the silence of a fortress who suddenly hears the click of spades and mattocks, the noise of iron feet, and divines that the enemy sappers are burrowing inch by inch beneath the walls. What would Mountolive feel bound to do now, supposing he had been told? (Strange how the very phrase betrayed them both as having moved out of the orbit of human free will.) They were both bound now, tied like bondsmen to the unrolling action which illustrated the personal predispositions of neither. They had embarked on a free exercise of the will only to find themselves shackled, bricked up by the historical process. And a single turn of the kaleidoscope had brought it about. Pursewarden! The writer who was so fond of saying ‘People will realize one day that it is only the artist who can make things really happen; that is why society should be founded upon him.’ A deus ex machinal In his dying he had used them both like … a public convenience, as if to demonstrate the truth of his own aphorism! There would have been many other issues to take without separating them by the art of his death, and setting them at odds by the dispensation of a knowledge which could benefit neither! Now everything hung upon a hair — the thinnest terms of a new probability. Act Mountolive would, but if he
must; and his one word to Memlik Pasha would entrain new forces, new dangers.…

  The city with its obsessive rhythms of death twanged round them in the darkness — the wail of tyres in empty squares, the scudding of liners, the piercing whaup of a tug in the inner harbour; he felt the dusty, deathward drift of the place as never before, settling year by year more firmly into the barren dunes of Mareotis. He turned his mind first this way and then that, like an hourglass; but it was always the same sand which sifted through it, the same questions which followed each other unanswerably at the same leaden pace. Before them stretched the potential of a disaster for which — even though they had evaluated the risk so thoroughly and objectively — they had summoned up no reserves of strength. It was strange. Yet Justine, savagely brooding with her brows drawn down and her knuckle against her teeth, seemed still unmoved, and his heart went out to her, for the dignity of her silence (the unmoved sibyl’s eye) gave him the courage to think on, assess the dilemma. They must continue as if nothing had changed when, in fact, everything had changed. The knowledge of the fact that they must, expressionless as knights nailed into suits of armour, continue upon a predetermined course, constituted both a separation and a new, deeper bond; a more passionate comradeship, such as soldiers enjoy upon the field of battle, aware that they have renounced all thought of human continuity in terms of love, family, friends, home — become servants of an iron will which exhibits itself in the mailed mask of duty. ‘We must prepare for every eventuality’ he said, his lips dry from the cigarettes he had smoked ‘and hold on until things are complete. We may have more time in hand than we imagine; indeed, nothing whatsoever may come of it all. Perhaps Mountolive has not been told.’ But then he added in a smaller voice, full of the weight of realization: ‘But if he has been, we shall know; his manner will show it at once.’

  He might suddenly find himself, at any street corner, face to face with a man armed with a pistol — in any dark corner of the town; or else he might find his food poisoned some day by some suborned servant. Against these eventualities he could at least react, by a study of them, by a close and careful attention to probabilities. Justine lay silent, with wide eyes. ‘And then’ he said ‘tomorrow I must speak to Narouz. He must be made to see.’

  Some weeks before he had walked into his office to find the grave, silver-haired Serapamoun sitting in the visitor’s chair, quietly smoking a cigarette. He was by far the most influential and important of the Coptic cotton-kings, and had played a decisive role in supporting the community movement which Nessim had initiated. They were old friends though the older man was of another generation. His serene mild face and low voice carried the authority of an education and a poise which spoke of Europe. His conversation had the quick pulse of a reflective mind. ‘Nessim’ he said softly, ‘I am here as a representative of our committee, not just as myself. I have a rather disagreeable task to perform. May I speak to you frankly, without heat or rancour? We are very troubled.’

  Nessim closed and locked the door, unplugged his telephone and squeezed Serapamoun’s shoulder affectionately as he passed behind his visitor’s chair to reach his own. ‘I ask nothing better’ he said. ‘Speak.’

  ‘Your brother, Narouz.’

  ‘Well, what of him?’

  ‘Nessim, in starting this community movement you had no idea of initiating a jehad — a holy war of religion — or of doing anything subversive which might unsettle the Egyptian Government? Of course not. That is what we thought, and if we joined you it was from a belief in your convictions that the Copts should unite and seek a larger place in public affairs.’ He smoked in silence for a minute, lost in deep thought. Then he went on: ‘Our community patriotism in no way qualified our patriotism as Egyptians, did it? We were glad to hear Narouz preach the truths of our religion and race, yes, very glad, for these things needed saying, needed feeling. But … you have not been to a meeting for nearly three months. Are you aware what a change has come about? Narouz has been so carried away by his own powers that he is saying things today which could seriously compromise us all. We are most alarmed. He is filled now with some sort of mission. His head is a jumble of strange fragments of knowledge, and when he preaches all sorts of things pour out of him in a torrent which would look bad on paper if they were to reach Memlik Pasha.’ Another long silence. Nessim found himself growing gradually pale with apprehension. Serapamoun continued in his low smoothly waxed voice. ‘To say that the Copts will find a place in the sun is one thing; but to say that they will sweep away the corrupt régime of the pashas who own ninety per cent of the land … to talk of taking over Egypt and setting it to rights.…’

  ‘Does he?’ stammered Nessim, and the grave man nodded.

  ‘Yes. Thank God our meetings are still secret. At the last he started raving like someone melboos (possessed) and shouted that if it was necessary to achieve our ends he would arm the Bedouin. Can you improve on that?’

  Nessim licked his dry lips. ‘I had no idea’ he said.

  ‘We are very troubled and concerned about the fate of the whole movement with such preaching. We are counting on you to act in some way. He should, my dear Nessim, be restrained; or at least given some understanding of our role. He is seeing too much of old Taor — he is always out there in the desert with her. I don’t think she has any political ideas, but he gets religious fervour from these meetings with her. He spoke of her and said that they kneel together for hours in the sand, under the blazing sun, and pray together. “I see her visions now and she sees mine.” That is what he said. Also, he has begun to drink very heavily. It is something which needs urgent attention.’

  ‘I shall see him at once’ Nessim had said, and now, turning to stare once more into the dark, untroubled gaze of a Justine he knew to be much stronger than himself, he repeated the phrase softly, trying it with his mind as one might try the blade of a knife to test its keenness. He had put off the meeting on one pretext or another, though he knew that sooner or later it would have to be, he would have to assert himself over Narouz — but over a different Narouz to the one he had always known.

  And now Pursewarden had clumsily intervened, interpolated his death and betrayal, to load him still more fully with the preoccupations with all that concerned affairs about which Narpuz himself knew nothing; setting his fevered mind to run upon i parallel tracks towards an infinity.… He had the sensation of I things closing in upon him, of himself beginning slowly to suffocate; under the weight of the cares he had himself invented. It had all begun to happen suddenly — within a matter of weeks. Helplessness began to creep over him, for every decision now seemed no longer a product of his will but a response to pressures built up outside him; the exigencies of the historical process in which he himself was being sucked as if into a quicksand.

  But if he could no longer control events, it was necessary that he should take control of himself, his own nerves. Sedatives had for weeks now taken the place of self-control, though they only exorcized the twitchings of the subconscious temporarily; pistol-practice, so useless and childish a training against assassination, offered little surcease. He was possessed, assailed by the dreams of his childhood, erupting now without reason or consequence, almost taking over his waking life. He consulted Balthazar, but was of course unable to let him share the true preoccupations which burdened him, so that his wily friend suggested that he should record the dreams whenever possible on paper, and this also was done. But psychic pressures are not lifted unless one faces them squarely and masters them, does battle with the perils of the quivering reason.…

  He had put off the interview with Narouz until he should feel stronger and better able to endure it. Fortunately the meetings of the group were infrequent. But daily he felt less and less equal to confronting his brother and it was in fact Justine who, with a word spoken in season at last, drove him out to Karm Abu Girg. Holding the lapels of his coat she said slowly and distinctly: ‘I would offer to go out and kill him myself, if I did not know that it would se
parate us forever. But if you have decided that it must be done, I have the courage to give the orders for you.’ She did not mean it, of course. It was a trick to bring him to his senses and in a trice his mind cleared, the mist of his irresolution dissolved. These words, so terrible and yet so quietly spoken, with not even the pride of resolution in them, reawakened his passionate love for her, so that the tears almost started to his eyes. He gazed upon her like a religious fanatic gazing upon an ikon — and in truth her own features, sullen now and immobile, her smouldering eyes, were those of some ancient Byzantine painting.

  ‘Justine’ he said with trembling hands.

  ‘Nessim’ she said hoarsely, licking her dry lips, but with a barbaric resolution gleaming in her eyes. It was almost exultantly (for the impediment had gone) that he said: ‘I shall be going out this evening, never fear. Everything will be settled one way or the other.’ He was all of a sudden flooded with power, determined to bring his brother to his senses and avert the danger of a second compromising order to his people, the Copts.

  Nor had the new resolute mood deserted him that afternoon when he set off in the great car, driving with speed and deliberation along the dusty causeways of the canals to where the horses for which he had telephoned would be waiting for him. He was positively eager to see his brother, now, to outface him, to reassert himself, restore himself in his own eyes. Ali the factor met him at the ford with the customary politeness which seemed comfortably to reaffirm this new mood of resolution. He was after all the elder son. The man had brought Narouz’ own white Arab and they cantered along the edge of the canals at great speed, with their reflections racing beside them in the tumbled water. He had asked only if his brother were now at home and had received a taciturn admission of the fact that he was. They exchanged no further word on the ride. The violet light of dusk was already in the air and the earth-vapours were rising from the lake. The gnats rose into the eye of the dying sun in silver streams, to store the last memories of the warmth upon their wings. The birds were collecting their families. How peaceful it all seemed! The bats had begun to stitch and stitch slowly across the darker spaces. The bats!