—Like the king who took poison regularly to make sure it couldn’t kill him, Virgil said with heavy irony.
—Yes, said Jocasta seriously, exactly like that.
Virgil fell back on his pillow. —That’s one thing You’ll never understand, he said. There’s nothing like travelling. Nothing ever invented.
—Forget it, Virgil, said Madame Jocasta. Come here.
XXXVIII
IRINA CHERKASSOVA FLOATED down upon Elfrida, garnishing each of her cheeks with a kiss. —But my dear, she cried, how can you manage to be so good and also so lovely? It is unfair of you to monopolize all the virtues. It leaves the rest of us with nothing but the vices.
Elfrida blushed. —Such nonsense, Irina, she said. You must not overpraise me; Mr Eagle will soon see through that and think me vain.
—Mr Eagle, said Irina Cherkassova, extending a long hand. We have already heard so much about you. How lucky you are that Elfrida has befriended you. She is a saint.
—If appearances are anything to judge by, said Flapping Eagle, bending over the outstretched limb, I am doubly lucky this evening.
Irina Cherkassova laughed merrily, but her eyes, as they caught and held Flapping Eagle’s gaze, were examining, mysterious and grey, holding perhaps the flicker of a promise. To Elfrida she said:
—Two saints, my dear. Two saints together: what may we not accomplish? Her eyes continued to dizzy Flapping Eagle. They were eyes that knew their power. A tiny frown appeared between Elfrida Gribb’s eyebrows.
—Come in, come in then, exclaimed Irina and linking arms with Elfrida led them into the salon. Ignatius Gribb muttered to Flapping Eagle as they followed her:
—A word of advice, Mr Eagle. Be careful.
Irina and Elfrida, two pale, exquisite, china mannequins, sailed on ahead of them. Flapping Eagle pondered on the rapid shift of his circumstances since arriving in K, from the simmering violence of the Elbaroom to the equally simmering beauty of the world of these two women; and wondered if there was, after all, much intrinsic difference between the two worlds.
Count Aleksandr Cherkassov perspired a great deal for a handsome man. He kept a handkerchief tucked in each cuff; one was already sodden, the other was catching up fast. He dabbed often and feverishly at his forehead, that high dome that gave him the appearance of a sensuous genius, an illusion fostered by his curling shock of blond hair and his curling upper lip. But it was an illusion; Aleksandr Cherkassov was a weak, stultified, barren, empty-headed fool, and his beautiful wife was keenly aware of the fact. She held it constantly against him, as a taunt and a humiliation. He never found a riposte: there was none to find.
He stood by the unused fireplace as the quartet entered, in the immemorial pose of indolent aristocracy, lounging with one elbow against the wall. Beside him stood a low table bearing a decanter of wine and a silver cigarette-case. The cigarettes contained no tobacco; but Indian hemp grew on the plains of K in sufficient quantity to make tobacco unnecessary. Cherkassov spent most of his life with a surfeit of marijuana coursing through his bloodstream, accentuating his natural glazed expression. It opened no doors in his lazy mind, serving only to sink him more deeply into the series of anachronistic gestures that made up his life. Aleksandr Cherkassov had never really left his Russian estates.
He discharged his functions in K with an absolute minimum of effort; there was little enough crime in the community, so he rarely performed as a magistrate, and until Flapping Eagle’s arrival, it had been a long time since he had had a prime interest to approve. Mostly he slept, or smoked, or walked around his garden, or ate. Life held few excitements for him, few ambitions; he was the peacock, and was content to strut. He wouldn’t have minded dying in the normal way; it was Irina’s fear of age and need of companionship that led him to take up the offered immortality; and when the society they knew had begun to crumble, Calf Island, where time stood still, had seemed an enticing alternative. And Madame Jocasta’s whores compensated for the sleek antagonism and sexual antipathy his weakness frequently aroused in Irina.
He greeted Elfrida with a kiss, Gribb with a faint mock-salute and Flapping Eagle with a limp-wristed thumbshake.
—So, Ignatius, he murmured, you’ve found a protégé, and such … such an attractive one, too. I shall have to look to my laurels, eh?
—The competitive spirit, said Gribb, not quite you, is it, Count?
—You’re probably right, said Cherkassov. Yes. Probably you are.
—Be that as it may, continued Gribb, it is I who should feel ill-at-ease, the one ugly duckling in a gathering of swans.
Cherkassov laughed and patted Gribb on the head.—You’re worth more than the lot of us Ignatius, he said casually.
Flapping Eagle found their relationship puzzling, the more so since both Irina and Elfrida instantly murmured their agreement, like a reflex response. There was a curious dichotomy between Cherkassov’s respectful words and condescending action, as though Gribb was to him a figure who should be kept on a pedestal—but also at a distance. He forgot this thought as Irina swooped towards him, grey eyes luminous as ever.
—A drink, Mr Eagle, she offered, and handed him a glass of wine, but only after cupping it in her hands for a moment.
—There, she said brightly, now I’ve warmed it for you.
—What better place to chamber a wine? said Flapping Eagle, smiling, and again the tiny frown burgeoned between Elfrida’s brows.
—I’m ravenous, announced Count Cherkassov. Shall we finish our wine as we eat? It was Irina’s turn to look fleetingly irritated; then she dazzled her husband with a huge smile and said: —But naturally, my darling. Excuse me for a moment while I check things. (And, turning to Flapping Eagle:) I make do without a staff nowadays; it creates certain lapses of gentility.
Then she was gone.
Count Aleksandr dominated the conversation. His habitually vacant eyes were at this moment more distant than void. He spoke solely to his wife; the others might have vanished upon entering the dining-room. Irina sat tense and tight-lipped as he spoke, but did not attempt to interrupt, or to involve her guests in what seemed to Flapping Eagle to be some sort of private ritual.
—Good times, Cherkassov was saying. Cavalry charges the morning after the ball. Hunting down Cossacks across the wide plains. The salons of Petersburg, the wit of the men, the beauty of the women, the free flow of wine and intercourse—and not all of it social, eh?
He laughed: shrilly, nervily.
—Aleksandr, said Irina at last; but what had been meant as a reproof sounded more like concern. He ignored her.
—Intercourse, he repeated. It was all we had left. The rabble grew, its cries grew louder, its weapons grew in power. What were we, after all, but dogs who had had their day? Night and the executioner awaited us all.
His voice had acquired a disturbing, rhythmic, pounding quality.
—They hanged us, or shot us, or spilt our guts; a last drink, a last cigarette, a last laugh was all they allowed. But this they could not disallow: that we were friends. That remains for always. This room holds that memory. Let us drink to it.
Eight places had been laid at the large round table. Flapping Eagle sat at Irina’s right. On his right was an empty chair. Then came Ignatius Gribb: an island between two unoccupied seats: another sign, perhaps, of his place in the Cherkassovs’ social pecking-order, since he alone had no immediate neighbour with whom to converse. The sequence around the table was completed by Cherkassov, then Elfrida and finally, between her and Irina, the third vacant place.
Flapping Eagle, listening to Cherkassov’s elegy, wondered whom the Count saw in this room, wondered who filled the empty chairs, what ghosts sat where he himself was sitting; but at that moment Cherkassov started slightly, and his eyes changed; still glazed, they were no longer distant. He smiled around the table a little sheepishly, and Irina visibly relaxed.
—A toast, he said. A toast to the evening and our friendship, which all the tides of history cannot sweep a
way.
The five of them stood and drank.
Flapping Eagle, sitting down again, remembered Virgil Jones’ description of K: Valhalla. He felt a pressure on his thigh. Looking down, he saw a scrap of paper. Without lifting it above the level of the table, he read the Countess’ message.
DO NOT ASK QUESTIONS NOW.
FOLLOW ME TO THE GARDEN LATER.
I.
Irina and Elfrida were making a brave attempt to start a flow of inconsequential chatter when their hopes were dashed by a terrible din, pounding its way through the dining-room wall. It was as though an army of cans, pans and other hollow objects had hurled itself simultaneously to the floor. The horrible crash was followed by the sound of a thin voice raised in incantation—or even song—to the insistent, clamorous accompaniment of a rhythmically-struck gong. The voice said: SVO—BO—DA! SVO—BO—DA!
—Moonshy, said Irina Cherkassova with some resignation.
—How awful for you, said Elfrida automatically. Flapping Eagle once more had the impression that he was watching some ill-understood ritual, unfolding tonight as it had done for all time and would continue to do for all time to come. Perhaps it was the total absence of surprise that created the impression, but it was swiftly confirmed by the countess, who explained:
—Mr Moonshy shares this house with us, Mr Eagle. Not content with being the town quartermaster, a powerful enough platform for enforcing his ridiculously egalitarian views, he feels the need to disrupt our evenings with his clamourings. I believe the intent is to make us understand that we belong to the oppressor-classes. We tolerate his outbursts: they are harmless if somewhat ennuyeux.
Count Cherkassov was standing now. —Excuse me, he said, I’d better go to the door. Please continue with your meal.
—It’s the inevitable next stage, said Irina. He’ll come to the door and deliver his harangue. I sometimes think he raids his wine-stores. Don’t you think that would be a true poetic irony, the demagogue given dutch courage by breaking his own principles? She essayed a laugh.
—But what was he shouting? asked Flapping Eagle.
—SVOBODA, said Irina Cherkassova. In Russian, it means LIBERTY. A ludicrously unnecessary request, in the circumstances.
Mr Moonshy’s thin but penetrating voice made its presence felt at the door.
—Liberty, it cried, Liberty is herself in chains!
—Good evening, said the voice of Aleksandr Cherkassov.
—It is the eve of liberation, said Moonshy. The twilight-time of the bosses. For that reason alone it is a good evening.
—Would you like a glass of wine? asked the Count.
—Thank you, said Moonshy normally and then burst out: Too many martyrs have spilt too much blood! The transgressors shall face a terrible vengeance! It is the eve, I tell you. The eve of destruction!
Irina whispered to Flapping Eagle: —It has been for several centuries. Then she continued, a shade too loud: —I was reading a fascinating story only the other day. Would you like to hear it?
Elfrida said: —Oh, please.
Irina pursed her lips and placed the tips of her fingers against each other in a pose of great concentration. —It’s rather a serious tale, she said. It is about the Angel of Death. In the story, he is sent out by God to collect the dead souls; but he finds a frightening thing happening to him, for as he swallows each soul it becomes a part of him. And so Death is changed, metamorphosed as it were, by each dying creature. The poor Angel finds it a bigger and bigger strain, and also begins to have doubts about whether he even exists as an independent being with all these people inside him; so he returns to God and asks to be relieved of his function. And what do you think he finds? This: that God too, is tired of his job, and wants to die. God asks the Angel to swallow him and of course the Angel cannot refuse. So he does, and God dies; but the effort of swallowing him breaks the heart of the Angel. And there is a very sad ending, when he realizes that Death cannot die, for there is no-one to swallow him. Don’t you think that a very pretty, neat tale?
Ignatius Gribb spoke after a silence. —My dear Irina, he said, for such a bright exterior, your mind is very dark.
But Elfrida was looking absorbed. Flapping Eagle, immersed in the two strange, pale women, forgot the harangue in the next room.
—I don’t like it, said Elfrida. It’s too pretty, too neat. I do not care for stories that are so, so tight. Stories should be like life, slightly frayed at the edges, full of loose ends and lives juxtaposed by accident rather than some grand design. Most of life has no meaning—so it must surely be a distortion of life to tell tales in which every single element is meaningful? And for a story to distort life is nothing short of criminal, for it may then distort one’s own view of life. How terrible to have to see a meaning or a great import in everything around one, everything one does, everything that happens to one!
She paused, looking slightly ashamed of her speech which was after all, a direct antithesis to the neatness of her own life. Irina answered, with a mischievous smile:
—Darling, you put too much store by my tale. It’s only a tale, after all. Tales are really very unimportant things. So why should they not bring us a little innocent pleasure by being well-shaped? Give me shapeliness over the lumpen face of life, every time. What do you say, Mr Eagle?
—I’m not sure, said Flapping Eagle. It depends whether you believe that all the small circles of the world are linked together in some way, or not.
—No, no, no, no, no, expostulated Gribb. You miss the point entirely. The crux is this: the word importance means “having import”. That is to say, having meaning. Now Elfrida, who believes tales to be important things, says she would prefer them to be less full of meaning, that is to say, less important. Whereas the Countess, for whom these same tales are very unimportant things, likes them to be well-made, that is to say, meaningful selections from the “lumpen face of life”, that is to say, importful selections, or important. Thus both ladies contradict themselves. A simple matter of semantics, you follow. If tales are important, they must be well-shaped. If they are not, they cannot be. And vice versa.
He subsided into silence. Flapping Eagle had lost the thread of his argument early in his outburst; he suspected Elfrida and Irina had, too. He looked up to find Cherkassov and Moonshy standing in the doorway. Moonshy’s appearance surprised him; he was quite unlike his voice, a stocky bearded man of middle height.
—Mr Moonshy has come to pay his respects, said Cherkassov. He’s just leaving.
Moonshy said: —I have come to say I am leaving, not to pay my respects. Particularly not to him, he said, nodding towards Ignatius Gribb. Self-important hypocrite that he is. It is your ideas, Mr Gribb, that are chiefly responsible for our bondage. I am leaving now, he said sharply, turned on his heel, and marched out.
—Well, said Elfrida.
—What could he mean? asked Irina. Surely he cannot be saying that Ignatius’ rejection of the, the myths of Calf Island is in some way wrong?
—I’d always thought, said Ignatius, that it was superstition that was supposed to provide the opiate of the masses.
Flapping Eagle was watching Irina and Elfrida. Neither of them seemed at their ease. Cherkassov was mopping his brow even more feverishly than usual.
—Ignore him, said Cherkassov hurriedly. He’s a confused man.
Flapping Eagle thought: Unless the superstitions are grounded in fact. In which case, to deny them would indeed be a form of bondage.
The clattering began again next door.
Irina Cherkassova rose to her feet. —If we have all finished, she said, I think we may be more comfortable next door. Elfrida? The two ladies retired. Ignatius, Count Cherkassov and Flapping Eagle moved into a third room, which doubled as Cherkassov’s library and bedroom. The dining-room, deserted by the diners, was filled by the cacophony which clamoured through the wall.
Flapping Eagle had given careful thought to the question of how he should best position his choice of prime inter
est; and this, together with Gribb’s support, helped to make the discussion little more than a formality: especially, Flapping Eagle suspected, since Aleksandr Cherkassov wasn’t really interested in being more than a rubber-stamp.
—I think of it, said Flapping Eagle, as a way of exploring the history of Calf Island. You must understand that I have been rootless for a very long time now; and if I am to put down roots here it would be a great help to me to find out as much as possible about the town, and the island, and the mountain.
—Quite, quite, said Cherkassov.
—Besides, added Flapping Eagle, I’m good with my hands, you know. Mending things, building things. One picks up a lot of knowledge while travelling. So I’d be glad to offer my services to anyone in K who might need anything built or repaired. For one thing it would help me get to know people.
—Fine, fine, said Cherkassov.
He conferred briefly in a corner with Ignatius Gribb. In these matters Gribb did carry some weight, even if he was rather slighted socially by the Russian aristocrats.
—Mr Eagle, said Cherkassov, I approve. If Ignatius feels the exercise would do no harm, then I concur. We owe him a great deal, you know. He has helped us set up a … bearable … community. Thanks to his acute, demystifying intelligence.
—Thank you both, said Flapping Eagle.
—Welcome to K, said Aleksandr Cherkassov, extending his thumb.
Flapping Eagle thought: I’ve arrived.
They had rejoined the ladies. Elfrida came across to her husband and said:
—Ignatius, I was just telling Irina about this curious thing last night. Were you awake? Did you feel it?
—What, my dear, asked Ignatius, with an air of patient tolerance.
—Why, the … the sort of blink. As though for a moment one wasn’t there.
—Ridiculous, said Gribb.
—No, said Flapping Eagle, Mrs Gribb is quite right. It was like a hiatus … a break in time.
—Look, look, look, said Gribb impatiently, the thing is a logical impossibility. If you’re saying there was a moment when everything ceased to be, you’re contradicting yourselves. When everything ceases to be, so does time; thus there cannot be a moment of non-existence, or indeed any time-period of non-being.