The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [183]
he whispered hoarsely, ‘speak while I do it. Speak.’ Expressing from this great white caterpillar-form one rare and marvellous image, rare perhaps as an Emperor moth, the beauty of Clea. Oh, but how horrible and beautiful to lie there at last, squeezed out like an old paint-tube among the weeping ruins of intestate desires: himself, his own inner man, thrown finally back into the isolation of a personal dream, transitory as childhood, and not less heartbreaking: Clea!
But he was interrupted, yes; for now as I refashion these scenes in the light of the Interlinear, my memory revives something which it had forgotten; memories of a dirty booth with a man and woman lying together in a bed and myself looking down at them, half-drunk, waiting my turn. I have described the whole scene in another place — only then I took the man to be Mnemjian. I now wonder if it was Narouz. ‘They lay there like the victims of some terrible accident, clumsily engaged, as if in some incoherent ex-perimental fashion they were the first partners in the history of the human race to think out this peculiar means of communication.’
And this woman, with her ‘black spokes of toiling hair’, that lay in Narouz’ arms — would Clea or Justine recognize themselves in a mother-image of themselves woven out of moneyed flesh? Narouz was drinking Clea thirstily out of this old body hired for pleasure, just as I myself wished only to drink Justine. Once again
‘the austere, mindless primeval face of Aphrodite!’
Yes, but thirst can be quenched like this, by inviting a succubus to one’s bed; and Narouz later wandered about in the darkness,
incoherent as a madman, swollen with a relief he could barely stand. He felt like singing. Indeed, if one cannot say that he had completely forgotten Clea at this moment, one can at least assert that the act had delivered him from her image. He was wholly purged of her — and indeed would have had at this moment even the courage to hate her. Such is the polarity of love. ‘True’ love. He went back slowly, by winding ways, to his carpenter friend and claimed his horse, after first rousing the family to reassure them that it was not a thief who was making a noise in the stable at this hour.
Then he rode back to his lands, the happiest young man alive, and reached the manor as the first streaks of dawn were in the sky. As no-one was about he wrapped himself in a cloak and rested on the balcony until the sun should wake him up. He wanted to tell his brother the news.
But Nessim listened quietly and seriously to his whole story the next morning, wondering that the human heart makes no sound when the blood drains out of it drop by drop — for he thought he saw in this piece of information a vital check to the growth of the confidence he wished to foster in his wife. ‘I do not suppose’ said Narouz ‘that after so long we could find the body but I’ll go over with Faraj and some grapnels and see — there can be no harm in trying. Shall I?’ Nessim’s shoulders had contracted. His brother paused for a moment and then went on in the same level tone: ‘Now I did not know anything before about how the child was dressed. But I will describe what I saw in the ground. She had a blue frock with a brooch in the shape of a butterfly.’ Nessim said, almost impatient ly: ‘Yes. Perfectly true. It was the description Justine gave to the Parquet. I remember the description. So, well, Narouz
… what can I say? It is true. I want to thank you. But as for the dragging — it has been done at least a dozen times by the Parquet. Yes, without result. There is a cut there in the canal and a runaway with a strong undercurrent.’
‘I see’ said Narouz, cast down.
‘It is difficult to know.’ But Nessim’s voice sharpened its edge as he added: ‘But one thing, promise me. She must never know the truth from your lips. Promise.’
‘I promise you that’ said his brother as Nessim turned aside from the hall telephone and came face to face with his wife. Her
face was pale and her great eyes searched his with suspense