The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [287]
‘ “But” the old man protested “no-one will take her, for she has no nose.” He got out of bed in a stained nightshirt and walked right round Amaril, who remained kneeling, studying him as one
might an entomological specimen. (I am quoting.) Then he touched him with his bare foot — as if to see whether he was made of flesh and blood — and repeated: “Who are you to take a woman without a nose?” Amaril replied: “I am a doctor from Europe and I will give her a new nose,” for the idea, the fantastic idea, had been slowly becoming clear in his own mind. At the words, Semira gave a sob and turned her beautiful, horrible face to his, and Amaril thundered out: “Semira, will you be my wife?”
She could hardly articulate her response and seemed little less doubtful of the whole issue than was her father. Amaril stayed and talked to them, convincing them.
‘The next day when he went back, he was received with a message that Semira was not to be seen and that what he proposed was impossible. But Amaril was not to be put off, and once more he forced his way in and bullied the father.
‘This, then, is the fantasy in which he has been living. For Semira, as loving and eager as ever, cannot leave her house for the open world until he fulfils his promise. Amaril offered to marry her at once, but the suspicious old man wants to make sure of the nose. But what nose? First Balthazar was called in and together they examined Semira, and assured themselves that the illness was due neither to leprosy nor syphilis but to a rare form of lupus
— a peculiar skin T.B. of rare kind of which many cases have been recorded from the Damietta region. It had been left untreated over the years and had finally collapsed the nose. I must say, it is horrible — just a slit like the gills of a fish. For I too have been sharing the deliberations of the doctors and have been going regularly to read to Semira in the darkened rooms where she has spent most of her life. She has wonderful dark eyes like an odalisque and a shapely mouth and well-modelled chin: and then the gills of a fish! It is too unfair. And it has taken her ages to actually believe that surgery can restore the defect. Here again Amaril has been brilliant, in getting her interested in her restora-tion, conquering her self-disgust, allowing her to choose the nose from that portfolio, discuss the whole project with him. He has let her choose her nose as one might let one’s mistress choose a valuable bracelet from Pierantoni. It was just the right approach, for she is beginning to conquer her shame, and feel almost proud of being free to choose this valuable gift — the most treasured
feature of a woman’s face which aligns every glance and alters every meaning: and without which good eyes and teeth and hair become useless treasures.
‘But now they have run into other difficulties, for the restoration of the nose itself requires techniques of surgery which are still very new; and Amaril, though a surgeon, does not wish there to be any mistake about the results. You see, he is after all building a woman of his own fancy, a face to a husband’s own specifications; only Pygmalion had such a chance before! He is working on the project as if his life depended on it — which in a way I suppose it does.
‘The operation itself will have to be done in stages, and will take ages to complete. I have heard them discussing it over and over again in such detail that I feel I could almost perform it myself. First you cut off a strip of the costal cartilage, here, where the rib joins the breastbone, and make a graft from it. Then you cut out a triangular flap of skin from the forehead and pull down-wards to cover the nose — the Indian technique, Balthazar calls it; but they are still debating the removal of a section of flesh and skin from inside the thigh…. You can imagine how fascinating this is for a painter and sculptor to think about. But meanwhile Amaril