The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [197]
When they had started, Justine leaned forward in the car and plucked his sleeve. ‘I want to whisper’ she said hoarsely though there was little need for Nessim and Narouz were discussing some-thing in harsh tones (Narouz’ voice with the characteristic boyish break in it) and Athena was squibbling to Pierre like a flute. ‘Toto
… listen. One great service tonight, if you will. I have put a chalk-mark on your sleeve, here, at the back. Later on in the evening, I want to give you my ring to wear. Shh. I want to disappear for an hour or so on my own. Hush … don’t giggle.’ But there were squeaks from the velvet hood. ‘You will have adventures in my name, dear Toto, while I am gone. Do you agree?’
He threw back his cape to show a delighted face, dancing eyes and that grim little procurer’s smile. ‘Of course’ he whispered back, enraptured by the idea and full of admiration. The feature-less hood at his side from which the voice of Justine had issued like an oracle glowed with a sort of death’s-head beauty of its own, nodding at him in the light from the passing street-lamps. The
conversation and laughter around them sealed them in a conspiracy of private silence. ‘Do you agree?’ she said.
‘Darling, of course.’
The two masked men in the front seats of the car might have been abbots of some medieval monastery, discussing theological niceties. Athena, consumed by her own voice, still babbled away to Pierre. ‘But of course.’
Justine took his arm and turned back the sleeve to show him the chalk-mark she had made. ‘I count on you’ she said, with some of the hoarse imperiousness of her speaking-voice, yet still in a whis-per. ‘Don’t let me down!’ He took her hand and raised it to his Cupid’s lips, kissing the ring from the dead finger of the Byzantine youth as one might kiss the holy picture which had performed a miracle long desired; he was to be turned from a man into a woman. Then he laughed and cried: ‘And my indiscretions will be on your head. You will spend the rest of your days….’
‘Hush.’
‘What is all this?’ cried Athena Trasha, scenting a joke or a scandal worth repetition. ‘What indiscretions?’
‘My own’ cried Toto triumphantly into the darkness. ‘My very own.’ But Justine lay back in the dark car impassively hooded, and did not speak. ‘I can’t wait to get there’ said Athena, and turned back to Pierre. As the car turned into the gate of the Cervoni house, the light caught the intaglio, throwing into relief (colour of burnt milk) a Pan raping a goat, his hands grasping its horns, his head thrown back in ecstasy. ‘Don’t forget’ Justine said once more, for the last time, allowing him to maul her hand with gratitude for such a wonderful idea. ‘Don’t forget’ allow ing her ringed fingers to lie in his, cool and unfeeling as a cow which allows itself to be milked. ‘Only tell me all the interesting conversations you have, won’t you?’ He could only mutter ‘Darling, darling, darling’ as he kissed the ring with the ovarian passion of the sexually dis-possessed. Almost at once, like the Gulf Stream breaking up an iceberg with its warm currents, dispersing it, their party disintegrated as it reached the ballroom and merged with the crowd. Abruptly Athena was dragged screaming into the heart of the press by a giant domino who gobbled and roared incomprehensible blas-phemies in his hood. Nessim, Narouz, Pierre, they suddenly found
themselves turned to ciphers, expelled into a formless world of adventitious meetings, mask to dark mask, like a new form of insect life. Toto’s chalk-mark gave him a few fugitive moments of identity as he was borne away like a cork on a stream, and Justine’s ring as well (for which I myself was hunting all that evening in vain). But everything now settled into the mindless chaotic dance-figures of the black jazz supported only by the grinding drums and saxophones, the voices. The spirits of the darkness had taken over you’d think, disinheriting the daylight hearts and minds of the maskers, plunging them ever deeper into the loneliness of their own irrecoverable identities, setting free