The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [219]
spoke to them in their native tongue. Their answers, smilingly given, were a sort of embrace. ‘Shall I?’
‘Of course not’ said Narouz, smiling his ugly smile which was only redeemed by magnificent eyes and a deep voice. Sweat dripped down from the curly black hair with its widow’s peak. And then lest his refusal might seem impolite, he added: ‘The drive will start with darkness. I know what to do; and you must look and see the fish.’ The two little pink frills of flesh which edged his unbasted lip were wet with spittle. He winked lovingly at the English youth.
The darkness was racing towards them now and the light expiring. Narouz suddenly cried: ‘Now is the moment. Look there.’ He clapped his hands loudly and shouted across the water, startling his companion who followed his pointed finger with raised head. ‘What?’ the dull report of a gun from the furtherest boat shook the air and suddenly the skyline was sliced in half by a new flight, rising more slowly and dividing earth from air in a pink travelling wound; like the heart of a pomegranate staring through its skin. Then, turning from pink to scarlet, flushed back into white and fell to the lake-level like a shower of snow to melt as it touched the water — ‘Flamingo’ they both cried and laughed, and the darkness snapped upon them, extinguishing the visible world.
For a long moment now they rested, breathing deeply, to let their eyes grow accustomed to it. Voices and laughter from the distant boats floating across their path. Someone cried ‘Ya Narouz’ and again ‘Ya Narouz’. He only grunted. And now there came the short syncopated tapping of a finger-drum, music whose rhythms copied themselves instantly in Mountolive’s mind so that he felt his own fingers begin to tap upon the boards. The lake was floorless now, the yellow mud had vanished — the soft cracked mud of prehistoric lake-faults, or the bituminous mud which the Nile drove down before it on its course to the sea. All the darkness still smelt of it. ‘Ya Narouz’ came the cry again, and Mountolive recognized the voice of Nessim the elder brother borne upon a sea-breath as it spaced out the words. ‘Time … to
… light … up.’ Narouz yelped an answer and grunted with satisfaction as he fumbled for matches. ‘Now you’ll see’ he said with pride.
The circle of boats had narrowed now to encompass the pans and in the hot dusk matches began to spark, while soon the carbide lamps attached to the prows blossomed into trembling yellow flowers, wobbling up into definition, enabling those who were out of line to correct their trim. Narouz bent over his guest with an apology and groped at the prow. Mountolive smelt the sweat of his strong body as he bent down to test the rubber tube and shake the old bakelite box of the lamp, full of rock-carbide. Then he turned a key, struck a match, and for a moment the dense fumes engulfed them both where they sat, breath held, only to clear swiftly while beneath them also flowered, like some immense coloured crystal, a semicircle of lake water, candent and faithful as a magic lantern to the startled images of fish scattering and re-forming with movements of surprise, curiosity, perhaps even pleasure. Narouz expelled his breath sharply and retired to his place. ‘Look down’ he urged, and added ‘But keep your head well down.’ And as Mountolive, who did not understand this last piece of advice, turned to question him, he said ‘Put a coat around your head. The kingfishers go mad with the fish and they are not night-sighted. Last time I had my cheek cut open; and Sobhi lost an eye. Face forwards and down.’
Mountolive did as he was bidden and lay there floating over the nervous pool of lamplight whose floor was now peerless crystal not mud and alive with water-tortoises and frogs and sliding fish — a whole population disturbed by this intrusion from the overworld. The punt lurched again and moved while the cold bilge came up around his toes. Out of the corner of his