The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [181]
But one side of his mind was still busy with the main problem, so that he now said, not in the tender voice of a hunter wheedling a favourite, but in the tone of a man who carries a dagger: ‘Now you will tell me what I wish to know, will you not?’ The head of the magician still lolled wearily, and he turned his eyes upwards into his skull with what seemed to be a fatigue which almost resembled death. ‘Speak’ he said hoarsely; and quickly Narouz leaped up to reclaim his dagger, and then, kneeling beside him with one hand still laid about his neck, told him what he wanted to know.
‘They will not believe me’ moaned the man. ‘And I have seen it by my own scope. Twice I have told them. I did not touch the child.’ And then with a sudden flashing return in voice and glance to his own lost power, he cried: ‘Shall I show you too? Do you wish to see?’ — but sank back again. ‘Yes’ cried Narouz, who trembled now from the shock of the encounter, ‘yes.’ It was as if an electric current were passing in his legs, making them tremble. ‘Show me.’
The Magzub began to breathe heavily, letting his head fall back on his bosom after every breath. His eyes were closed. It was like watching an engine charge itself, from the air. Then he opened his eyes and said, ‘Look into the ground.’
Kneeling upon that dry baked earth he made a circle in the dust with his index finger, and then smoothed out the sand with the palm of his hand. ‘Here where the light is’ he whispered, touching the dust slowly, purposefully; and then ‘look with your eye into the breast of the earth’ indicating with his finger a certain spot. ‘Here.’
Narouz knelt down awkwardly and obeyed. ‘I see nothing’ he said quietly after a moment. The Magzub blew his breath out slowly in a series of long sighs. ‘ Think to see in the ground’ he insisted. Narouz allowed his eyes to enter the earth and his mind to pour through them into the spot under the magician’s finger. All was still. ‘I conceive’ he admitted at last. Now suddenly, clearly, he saw a corner of the great lake with its interlinking network of canals and the old palm-shaded house of faded bricks where once Arnauti and Justine had lived — where indeed he had started Moeurs and where the child…. ‘I see her’ he said at last. ‘Ah!’ said the Magzub.
‘Look well.’
Narouz felt as if he were subtly drugged by the haze rising from the water of the canals. ‘Playing by the river’ he went on. ‘She has
fallen’; he could hear the breathing of his mentor becoming deeper.
‘She has fallen’ intoned the Magzub. Narouz went on: ‘No-one is near her. She is alone. She is dressed in blue with a butterfly brooch.’ There was a long silence; then the magician groaned softly before saying in a thick, almost gurgling tone: ‘You have seen —
to the very place. Mighty is God. In Him is my scope.’ And he took a pinch of dust and rubbed it upon his forehead as the vision faded. Narouz, deeply impressed by these powers, kissed and em-braced the Magzub, never for one moment doubting the validity of the information he had been granted in the vision. He rose to his feet and shook himself like a dog. They greeted one another now in low whispers and parted. He left the magician sitting there, as if exhausted, upon the ground, and turned his steps once more towards the fair-lights. His body was still shaking with the reaction as if afflicted by pins and needles — or as if an electric current were discharging through his loins and thighs. He had, he realised, been very much afraid. He yawned and shivered as he walked and struck his arms against his legs for warmth — as if to restore a sluggish circulation.
In order to reach the carpenter’s yard where his horse was stabled, he had to traverse the eastern corner of the festiva l ground, where despite the lateness of the hour there was a good deal of hubbub around the swings, and the lights still blazed. It was the time when the prostitutes came into their own, the black, bronze and citron women, impenitent seekers for