One afternoon a few days later I decided to pay my return call on him, and stopped to ask my way at the combined post office and inn in the centre of the village. It was a depressing place, dark as a cave and full of some rank, unclassifiable smell, but in spite of its unprepossessingness there were always three of four yokels hanging about there; I suppose because they had nowhere else to meet. These idlers seemed to find something amusing in my request to be directed to Benjo's house. One fellow who had such a hairy face that he might have changed heads with an Ainu burst into loud laughter, exclaiming, She asks us for Benjo's house! She asks! But the proprietor came up and silenced him with what I thought unnecessary roughness, pushing him angrily to one side, and, accompanying me for a few steps, pointed out with his pipe the road I would have to follow. You can't miss it, he said. Just make for those black trees you can see there against the sky. I thanked him, and he nodded his head once or twice in the dour way they have in those parts, before he went back to the others who were watching from the dark mouth of the door.
It only took me a few minutes to walk to the group of firs which showed up conspicuously against the predominant bright green of the chestnut woods. There was no sign of any sort of a dwelling; only a narrow, crazy track that might have been made by rabbits, looping and faltering between the crowded tree-trunks. This trail soon led me to a small clearing in the middle of the plantation. But here there was nothing to be seen either, except what looked like an old weatherbeaten gipsy caravan derelict under the trees. I was just going to turn back to the road when, to my amazement, the upper part of Benjo himself suddenly emerged through the window of the caravan, like a very large snail protruding from a very small shell.
So you found your way here, he called out cheerfully. And how do you like my country residence? He waited for me to approach, laughing as if the whole thing were an excellent joke, and leaning out of the narrow window in which he had the appearance of being tightly wedged. Come up: you'll find it very snug, he went on. But as I put my foot on the lowest of the four steps that led to the door at the back of the caravan, he seemed to alter his mind, saying, Perhaps it's really a bit cramped for the two of us inside, and on such a fine afternoon we'd do better out of doors.
Next moment he opened the door and brought out two folding chairs which he passed to me down the steps. If you'll just take these I'll see if I can find some refreshments, he said. Through the little door I could only get a glimpse of the interior of the caravan littered with books and papers amongst which Benjo's enormous figure was rummaging. Then he came out with some glasses and bottles of beer and the door was banged shut.
I seem to have given you a surprise, he said while the chairs were set up on the slippery brown floor of pine needles. He kept laughing as he poured out the beer, and I could see he was very much tickled by my astonishment.
But is this where you really live? I asked in the stupid way that one falls into when one's thoroughly taken aback. I don't know what sort of a house I'd expected Benjo to have; probably some showy villa in keeping with his style of dress. I noticed that he was just as spick-and-span in his gaudy way as at our previous meeting, and I wondered how he managed to look so dandified when he lived like a gipsy. There didn't seem any room for his clothes or anywhere to keep them in the caravan. And what was the meaning of all those books and papers? Benjo was the last person I should have suspected of studious habits. Could he be conducting some kind of private business out here in the woods? I began to realize then what a dark horse the fellow was.
I come and go, he said, just as he'd said it before. Here to-day and gone to-morrow, you know. Then, as if he guessed my doubts and wanted to banish them, he became serious and went on in a very reasonable tone, Of course, it has its drawbacks, it's not luxurious, it's by no means all that I could wish. But on the other hand there are definite advantages in this style of living. It's cheap and healthy, and convenient for getting about, and I'm able to get through a lot more work than I would if I were living somewhere where people were continually dropping in on me and distracting my attention.
I didn't know what to think. There was certainly something queer and inexplicable about Benjo; and at the same time he was so naif and so anxious to be friendly that it seemed unworthy and even absurd to distrust him. After all, he was more like a big, clumsy, harmless, friendly animal than a man, lolling back there in his seat with a drowsy, good-natured grin. Most likely there was some quite simple explanation of his odd idiosyncrasies.
I stopped with him until we had finished the beer, but without getting a second chance of looking inside the caravan. Feeling that I'd already been guilty of rudeness in displaying so openly my surprise at his living arrangements, I didn't like to ask any questions. Benjo himself did not refer again to his mysterious ‘work’: nor did he again mention his domicile until, just as I was leaving, he remarked, Now you can see why I envy you your cosy quarters up there on the hill.
I've described this interview with Benjo in some detail because, in its way, it was typical of my whole association with him. I suppose ‘association’ is the right word to use about a relationship which always continued superficially cordial without ever remotely approaching intimacy and without ever losing (on my side) a faint element of uneasiness. In spite of my longing for solitude there were days when loneliness overcame me in the strange country and I was glad to see Benjo's massive form loafing along in some garish costume. At other times I would be irritated by him almost unbearably, or filled with a vague, amorphous suspicion that even bordered upon alarm. Living alone in a lonely place one's few human contacts assume disproportionate importance, and so Benjo occupied a larger place in my mind than was warranted by the actual time that we spent together. How often did we see one another? I have the impression that at some periods we met frequently, almost daily. At other times weeks would go by between our encounters. Quite often Benjo would leave the village, and for days on end his caravan would be missing from the clearing among the pines. When this happened, I believe that I experienced a lightening, a sense of relief, of which, however, I myself was hardly aware. Yet I was not displeased when, after a solitary spell, I heard that he had returned. It was almost invariably the old cleaning woman who first gave me the news. Benjo came back last night, she would announce while she was fetching a broom from the corner or starting to wash up the breakfast dishes. Or, Benjo will be with us again before sundown. I didn't ask her, though I often wanted to, how she obtained this information about his movements which she never failed to pass on in a portentous voice as if it had some special personal significance for me.
Looking back now, it seems to have been Benjo who visited me far more often than I visited him. In fact, I can't really be certain that I went again more than once or twice to the caravan or that I ever got another glimpse of its interior. Probably one of the reasons for this was that in order to get to the fir plantation one had to walk through the village, and I always avoided the place as much as I could. There was something indefinably depressing to me about the grey little houses and their uncompromising inhabitants. Benjo, on the contrary, was quite at home in the village where he spent a good deal of time drinking and gossiping at the inn, apparently on excellent terms with the habitues. From there it was an easy walk for him to my house, and he acquired the habit of strolling up the hill with a bottle of beer which we would divide between us. His behaviour towards me was always precisely the same. The same lazy, jolly, bantering manner; the same flippant, slightly malicious talk about this trifle or that; the same indolent way of slouching round, hands in pockets and head tilted to one side, staring at everything in sight. As time went on this trick of his got on my nerves more and more acutely. My irritation reached such a pitch that I could hardly restrain myself from bursting out in protest at his inquisitive attitude. Yet all the time I was bothered by the feeling that my annoyance was unjustifiable. Why should I resent a person taking a friendly interest in my activities? Everything I did seemed to int
erest Benjo, whether I was gardening or working indoors, painting a cupboard or putting up shelves or some such odd job in the way of making the place more comfortable. He would lounge near me for hours, not helping actively, but encouraging me with appreciation and sometimes with suggestions of his own, and all the while smiling with the sort of complacent expression that might be worn by a landlord who watches a good tenant improving his property.
When winter came on I expected to see less of him. The winters aren't very severe in that district, but the high winds and heavy rainstorms are quite enough to make a camper's life unattractive. Benjo, however, continued to come and go as usual, although he grumbled about his hardships whenever we met. I simply couldn't understand the man's conduct. His clothes were as expensive and ostentatious as ever, he seemed to have money to bum, for I heard stories of how he would turn up at the inn with his pockets stuffed full of notes and coins and stand treat to the whole village. Why on earth didn't he take himself off to some reasonable dwelling?
But he merely came to my house more frequently on the pretext that his own quarters were so miserable. He made himself very much at home, dropping in at all hours, and almost behaving as if he had some right to be there. I can't explain how it was exactly, but he began to adopt a sort of proprietorial attitude that was inexpressibly aggravating and also somehow disquieting. Once or twice when I came back from a walk I found that he had climbed in through a window and was sitting in front of the fire, and I'm certain that he'd been snooping about the place in my absence. Nothing seemed to have been moved, there was no proof that he'd touched anything; and yet I had the feeling that everything in the house had been closely examined. On another occasion, coming in quietly from the kitchen, I actually caught him peeping through my bedroom door which he had surreptitiously opened. Over and over again I'd tell myself I was a fool to suspect him of anything worse than childish curiosity: wasn't he just as simple and mannerless as a great boobyish boy? Or I would try to think of him as some foolish, unwieldy, well-meaning animal that had attached itself to me and hadn't the sense to realize that it wasn't unreservedly welcome. But all the same I was often uneasy now in his presence, I would feel a nervous antipathy towards him whenever I heard his heavy, dawdling steps that advanced so inexorably to my door.
One day I actually asked him point blank why he didn't buy or rent a decent home of his own. You can be sure I would have done that by now, he answered, if this place of yours hadn't spoilt me for anywhere else. It's a mistake moving into a house in a hurry. Much the best plan is to wait until you find somewhere that really suits you.
You'll have to wait a long time if you're wanting this house, I said, because I've got no intention of leaving.
That was the moment, when we both laughed as if at a joke, that my buried intuition of what was coming took its first step towards consciousness.
In all this time I've never really been able to make up my mind about Benjo. Did he really know that I should be summoned away so soon, so finally, and in such lamentable circumstances? Sometimes I still incline to the idea that he was just a simpleton who played his part accidentally, or, at the worst, was merely an unconscious tool. At other times the weight of evidence seems to cast him for a far more sinister role. His plentiful supply of ready cash, his sudden arrivals and equally abrupt disappearances, the inexplicable presence in his caravan of all those papers and books, even the detail of the embroidered crest he so frequently wore; all these things can be taken as pointers towards some official connection. But against this one is obliged to consider his characteristic laziness, which surely was not assumed and which was quite incompatible with authority: and his doglike quality of friendliness, which, though it could be tiresome enough, was genuinely disarming. I find it hard to believe that he was aware all the time of what was going to happen: but looking at the other side, I find it hard not to believe. However, it's unprofitable to puzzle one's head over these old questions, which now, in any case, no longer seem very important. What I feel now is nothing sharper than a perplexed and melancholy regret when I think that all the time it was for Benjo that I worked away at the house where I was not permitted to reside, and that perhaps to-day Benjo's unappreciative eyes are watching the islands I never visited float like castles on the remote horizon.
NOW I KNOW WHERE MY PLACE IS
VERY soon after I arrived in the southland I began hearing about the hotel. I don't mean that it was notorious in any way, it was never mentioned in the sensational press like some of the gambling places and so-called country clubs, but somehow or other its name always seemed to be cropping up. Like everybody else the friends with whom I was staying spent a good deal of time swimming and playing tennis, and while I was with them on the beach or perhaps walking off the courts after a game, I would hear someone near by casually mention that they had lunched at the hotel the previous day or that they were going to dance there that evening.
Curiously enough, it was never one of my own friends who made a remark about the hotel. In fact, in some obscure way which I don't attempt to explain, I got the impression that they deliberately refrained from referring to it in my presence, that they would actually have preferred me to remain unaware of the proximity of the place.
Of course, when I first heard it mentioned it meant nothing more to me than a name; it might just have been any southern hotel that was being discussed. But is that the exact truth? Looking back now from this distance of time it seems to me that even then, on that very first occasion when a girl in a green swimming suit, strolling along the beach and swinging a straw hat in her hand, spoke about the hotel to her companion as they passed; even then, in the level and unequivocal shore light, something stirred in me, the little hyacinth that blooms inside my heart quietly unfurled a new petal.
Was it really the same place that they were talking about? The place that for so many years lingered like a half memory on the horizons of my consciousness? How often through the slow school terms, and afterwards when life conducted me into quite different situations, did the tenuous picture appear before me in that vague twilight between sleep and waking! How well my imagination was acquainted with the peculiar tower, rounded like the keep of an innocuous fairy-tale stronghold. How intimately I seemed to have experienced those balconies, those light-crowns in the great hall, those tropical gardens with their palms and flowering shrubs and tall beds of succulent cannas. All these things I had been accustomed to accept as part of the queer dream-plasma which flows along like a sub-life, contemporaneous with but completely independent of the main current of one's existence.
Did I ever really visit the hotel when I was a child? You may think it strange that I am in doubt about such a simple question. But life is so uncertain these days, everything that happens makes me more and more unsure of myself or of anything else, so that I really can't speak positively about events that took place so long ago. Practically each day one is confronted by some manifestation of precariousness, some proof of the unreliability of one's judgment and senses, so that it becomes impossible to make a definite statement about anything that one sees or hears. And if this is true of contemporary happenings how much truer it is of things belonging to the remote past which are in any case subject to distortion through the mere accumulation of hours. Why, I could cite endless examples of deceptive appearances, of perplexing, dubious and enigmatic events, inexplicable and disturbing discrepancies by which one is continuously surrounded and with which one is expected to cope, heaven knows how.
One seems to be living in a perpetual fog; and it's because of all this obscurity that I feel in doubt about the hotel. Perhaps I did sit, a small, serious and rather lonely figure with straight fair hair, under the electric brilliance of those enormous crowns illuminating the dining-hall. Perhaps I did occupy myself with mysterious and solitary pursuits, too grave to come into the category of games, among the speary cannas that towered over my head like a fabulous jungle growth bursting aloft into an orange and vermilion fire.
br /> Or perhaps it was really only a picture of the hotel that I saw in an album of photographs at my old home. I remember so well the album bound in some very soft leather and embroidered in coloured beads with an Indian symbol. Is it really the soft roughness of the leather, not unlike velvet, that comes back to me along with the slim elegance of satinwood furniture and the stippled scentless rain of hydrangeas? Or is this, too, just an illusion and the blue-tinted photograph, round which constellations seem to be wheeling, no more than a shadow in an old dream?
I'm no nearer to knowing the answers to these questions than I was when I first saw in one of the southern shops a postcard with a picture of the hotel. The sight on the prosaic card of that curious rounded tower had a violent effect on me. I immediately made up my mind to visit the place and at the first opportunity I asked my friends to drive me there in their car. At first they hesitated, disconcerted, I could see, by my direct request, and displaying the same unaccountable resistance that I had previously noticed in regard to their attitude towards the hotel.
At last I persuaded them to do as I asked. It would have been difficult for them to refuse without actual rudeness for I was not to be shaken in any way from my determination.
An afternoon was decided upon for the expedition and we set out. I was excited and gay. My companions, as if making the best of a bad job, now that they were irrevocably committed to the undertaking, started off cheerfully enough. But as the drive continued their mood changed: long pauses punctuated the talk and it seemed to me that I could detect in their manner and in the looks which they exchanged traces of reluctance and even of anxiety. When I tried to discover the reason for their disquietude, asking them if they disliked the hotel, if it were too expensive, if the road to it were bad and so on, they returned evasive replies, forced themselves to talk carelessly for a while, but soon lapsed into silence.