The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [154]
‘In his own way’ notes Balthazar ‘I suppose he was only hunting for the truth. Isn’t this becoming rather a ridiculous remark? We should drop it by common consent! It is after all such an odd business. Shall I give you yet another example from another quarter? Your account of Capodistria’s death on the lake is the version which we all of us accepted at the time as likely to be true: in our minds, of course.
‘But in the Police depositions, everyone concerned mentioned one particular thing — namely that when they raised his body from the lake in which it was floating, with the black patch beside it in the water, his false teeth fell into the boat with a clatter, and startled them all. Now listen to this: three months later I was hav-ing dinne r with Pierre Balbz who was his dentist. He assured me that Da Capo had an almost perfect set of teeth and certainly no false teeth which could possibly have fallen out. Who then was it?
I don’t know. And if Da Capo simply disappeared and arranged for some decoy to take his place, he had every reason: leaving behind him debts of over two million. Do you see what I mean?
‘Fact is unstable by its very nature. Narouz once said to me that he loved the desert because there “the wind blew out one’s foot-steps like candle-flames”. So it seems to me does reality. How then can we hunt for the truth?’
* * * * *
Pombal was hovering between diplomatic tact and the low cunning of a provincial public prosecutor; the conflicting emotions played upon his fat face as he sat in his gout-chair with his fingers joined. He had the air of a man in complete agreement with him-self. ‘They say’ he said, watching me keenly ‘that you are now in the British Deuxième. Eh? Don’t tell me, I know you can’t speak. Nor can I if you ask me about myself. You think you know that I am in the French — but I deny the whole thing most strenuously. What I am asking is whether I should have you living in the flat. It seems somehow … how do you say? … Box and Cox. No? I mean, why don’t we sell each other ideas, eh? I know you won’t. Neither will I. Our sense of honour … I mean only if we are in the … ahem. But of course, you deny it and I deny it. So we are not. But you are not too proud to share my women, eh? Autre chose. Have a drink eh? The gin bottle is over there. I hid it from Hamid. Of course. I know that something is going on. I don’t despair of finding out. Something … I wish I knew … Nessim, Capodistria … Well!’
‘What have you done to your face?’ I say to change the subject. He has recently started to grow a moustache. He holds on to it defensively as if my question constituted a threat to shave it off forcibly. ‘My moustache, ah that! Well, recently I have had so many reproofs about work, not attending to it, that I analysed my-self deeply, au fond. Do you know how many man-hours I am losing through women? You will never guess. I thought a mous-tache (isn’t it hideous?) would put them off a bit, but no. It is just the same. It is a tribute, dear boy, not to my charm but to the low standards here. They seem to love me because there is nothing better. They love a well-hung diplomat — how do you say, fais- andé? Why do you laugh? You are losing a lot of woman-hours too. But then you have the British Government behind you — the pound, eh? That girl was here again today. Mon Dieu, so thin and
so uncared for! I offered her some lunch but she would not stay. And the mess in your room! She takes hashish, doesn’t she? Well, when I go to Syria on leave you can have the whole place. Pro-vided you respect my firescreen — isn’t it good as for art, hein? ’
He has had an immense and vivid firescreen made for the flat which bears the legend ‘LEGERETE, FATALITE, MATERNITE’ in poker-work.
‘Ah well’ he continues, ‘so much for art in Alexandria. But as for that