The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [322]
have led him to that fatal name? The utterance of it seemed to electrify Narouz and fill him with a new, almost triumphant desperation.
‘Mountolive’ he shouted the word in a deep groaning voice and ground his teeth together audibly; he seemed as if he were about to go berserk. Yet he did not move, though his hand moved in-voluntarily to the handle of the great whip which lay in his lap.
‘That British swine!’ he brought out with a thunderous vehemence, almost spitting the words.
‘Why do you say that?’
And then another transformation occurred with unexpected suddenness, for Narouz’ whole body relaxed and subsided; he looked up with a sly air now, and said with a little chuckle, in a tone pitched barely above a whisper: ‘ You sold our mother to him, Nessim. You knew it would cause our father’s death.’
This was too much. Nessim fell upon him, nailing at him with his doubled fists, uttering curse after guttural curse in Arabic, beating him. But his blows fell like chaff upon the huge body. Narouz did not move, did not make any attempt to avert or to respond to his brother’s blows — here at least Nessim’s seniority held. He could not bring himself to strike back at his elder brother. But sitting doubled up and chuckling under the futile rain of blows, he repeated venomously over and over again the words:
‘ You sold our mother! ’
Nessim beat him until his own knuckles were bruised and aching. Narouz stooped under this febrile onslaught, bearing it with the same composed smile of maudlin bitterness, repeating the triumphant phrase over and over again in that thrilling whisper. At last Nessim shrieked ‘ Stop’ and himself desisted, falling against the rail of the balustrade and sinking under the weight of his own exhaustion down to the first landing. He was trembling all over. He shook his fist upwards at the dark seated figure and said in-coherently ‘I shall go to Serapamoun myself. You will see who is master.’ Narouz gave a small contemptuous chuckle, but said nothing.
Putting his dishevelled clothes to rights, Nessim tottered down the stairway into the now darkened courtyard. His horse and Ali’s had been tethered to the iron hitching post outside the great front door. As he mounted, still trembling and muttering, the factor
raced out of the arches and unbolted the doors. Narouz was standing up now, visible only against the yellow light of the living-room. Flashes of incoherent rage still stormed Nessim’s mind — and with them irresolution, for he realized that the mission he had set himself was far from completed, indeed, had gone awry. With some half-formulated idea of offering the silent figure another chance to open up a discussion with him or seek a rapprochement,
he rode his horse into the courtyard and sat there, looking up into the darkness. Narouz stirred.
‘Narouz’ said Nessim softly. ‘I have told you once and for all now. You will see who is going to be master. It would be wise for you….’
But the dark figure gave a bray of laughter.
‘Master and servant’ he cried contemptuously. ‘Yes, Nessim. We shall see. And now —’ He leaned over the rail and in the dark-ness Nessim heard the great whip slither along the dry boards like a cobra and then lick the still twilight air of the courtyard. There was a crack and a snap like a giant mousetrap closing, and the bundle of papers in his arm was flicked out peremptorily and scattered over the cobbles. Narouz laughed again, on a more hysterical note. Nessim felt the heat of the whipstroke on his hand though the lash had not touched him.
‘Now go’ cried Narouz, and once more the whip hissed in the air to explode menacingly behind the buttocks of his horse. Nessim rose in his stirrups and shaking his fist once more at his brother, cried ‘We shall see!’
But his voice sounded thin, choked by the imprecations which filled his mind. He drove his heels in the horse’s flanks and twisted suddenly about to gallop abruptly out of the courtyard throwing up sparks from