The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [314]
The question hung between them in the still air of the room, quivering like a compass needle. Then he slung his eyes once more
to the cards in his hand. Justine’s face took on a new expression, both bitter and haggard. She lit a cigarette carefully and said: ‘As I told you, he is someone quite out of the ordinary — c’ est un personnage. It would be quite impossible to get a secret out of him. It’s hard to describe.’
She stared at him for a long time, studying those dark averted features with an expression of abstraction. ‘What I am trying to say is this: about the difference between them. Darley is so sentimental and so loyal to me that he constitutes no danger at all. Even if he came into the possession of information which might harm us, he would not use it, he would bury it. Not Pursewarden!’
Now her eyes glittered. ‘He is somehow cold and clever and self-centred. Completely amoral — like an Egyptian! He would not deeply care if we died tomorrow. I simply cannot reach him. But potentially he is an enemy worth reckoning with.’
He raised his eyes to her and they sat for a long moment staring sightlessly into each other’s minds. His eyes were now full of a burning passionate sweetness like the eyes of some strange noble bird of prey. He moistened his lips with his tongue but did not speak. He had been on the point of blurting out the words: ‘I am terrified that you may be falling in love with him.’ But a queer feeling of pudicity restrained him.
‘Nessim.’
‘Yes.’
She stubbed out her cigarette now and, deep in thought, rose to walk up and down the room, her hands hugged in her armpits. As always when she was thinking deeply, she moved in a strange, almost awkward way — a prowling walk which reminded him of some predatory animal. His eye had become vague now, and lustreless. He picked up the cards mechanically and shuffled them once, twice. Then he put them down and raised his palms to his burning cheeks.
At once she was at his side with her warm hand upon his brow.
‘You have a temperature again.’
‘I don’t think so’ he said rapidly, mechanically.
‘Let me take it.’
‘No.’
She sat down opposite him, leaning forward, and stared once more into his eyes. ‘Nessim, what has been happening? Your
health … these temperatures, and you don’t sleep?’ He smiled wearily and pressed the back of her hand to his hot cheek.
‘It is nothing’ he said. ‘Just strain now that everything is coming to an end. Also having to tell Leila the whole truth. It has alarmed her to understand the full extent of our plans. Also it has made her relationship with Mountolive much harder. I think that is the reason she refused to see him at the Carnival meeting, remember?
I had told her everything that morning. Never mind. Another few months and the whole build-up is complete. The rest is up to them. But of course Leila does not like the idea of going away. I knew she wouldn’t. And then, I have other serious problems.’
‘What problems?’
But he shook his head, and getting up started to undress. Once in bed he finished his valerian and lay, hands and feet folded like the effigy of a Crusader. Justine switched off the light and stood in the doorway in silence. At last she said: ‘Nessim. I am afraid that something is happening to you which I don’t understand. These days … are you ill? Please speak to me!’
There was a long silence. Then she said: ‘How is all this going to turn out?’
He raised himself slightly on the pillows and stared at her. ‘By the autumn, when everything is ready, we shall have to take up new dispositions. It may mean a separation of perhaps a year, Justine. I want you to go there and stay there while it all happens. Leila must go to the farm in Kenya. There will certainly be sharp reactions here which I must stay to face.’
‘You talk in your sleep.’
‘I am exhausted’ he cried shortly, angrily.
Justine stood still, motionless in silhouette, in the lighted door-way. ‘What about the others?’ she asked softly, and once more he raised himself on the pillows to answer peevishly.