The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [324]
He reached the house, abandoned the car at the gate, and raced up the staircase, taking the steps three at a time. He had been suddenly assailed by one of the customary attacks of diarrhoea and vomiting which had become all too frequent in recent weeks. He brushed past Justine who lay wide-eyed upon the bed with the reading-lamp on and the piano-score of a concerto spread upon her breast. She did not stir, but smoked thoughtfully, saying only, under her breath, ‘You are back so soon.’ Nessim rushed into the bathroom, turning on the taps of the washbasin and the shower at the same time to drown his retching. Then he stripped his clothes off with disgust, like dirty bandages, and climbed under the hail of boiling water to wash away all the indignities which flooded his thoughts. He knew she would be listening thoughtfully, smoking thoughtfully, her motions as regular as a pendulum, waiting for him to speak, lying at length under the shelf of books with the mask smiling down ironically at her from the wall. Then the water
was turned off and she heard him scrubbing himself vigorously with a towel.
‘Nessim’ she called softly.
‘It was a failure’ he cried at once. ‘He is quite mad, Justine, I could get nothing out of him. It was ghastly.’
Justine continued to smoke on silently, with her eyes fixed upon the curtains. The room was full of the scent of the pastels burning in the great rose-bowl by the telephone. She placed her score beside the bed. ‘Nessim’ she said in the hoarse voice which he had come to love so much.
‘Yes.’
‘I am thinking.’
He came out at once, his hair wet and straggly, his feet bare, wearing the yellow silk dressing-gown, his hands thrust deep into the pockets, a lighted cigarette smouldering in the corner of his mouth. He walked slowly up and down at the foot of her bed. He said with an air of considered precision: ‘All this unease comes from my fear that we may have to do him harm. But, even if we are endangered by him, we must never harm him, never. I have told myself that. I have thought the whole thing out. It will seem a failure of duty, but we must be clear about it. Only then can I become calm again. Are you with me?’
He looked at her once more with longing, with the eyes of his imagination. She lay there, as if afloat upon the dark damas-cened bed-spread, her feet and hands crossed in the manner of an effigy, her dark eyes upon him. A lock of dark hair curled upon her forehead. She lay in the silence of a room which had housed (if walls have ears) their most secret deliberations, under a Tibetan mask with lighted eyeballs. Behind her gleamed the shelves of books which she had gathered though not all of which she had read. (She used their texts as omens for the future, riffling the pages to place her finger at hazard upon a quotation — ‘bibliomancy’ the art is called.) Schopenhauer, Hume, Spengler, and oddly enough some novels, including three of Pursewarden’s. Their polished bindings reflected the light of the candles. She cleared her throat, extinguished her cigarette, and said in a calm voice: ‘I can be resigned to whatever you say. At the moment, this weakness of yours is a danger to both of us. And besides, your health is troubling us all, Balthazar not least. Even unobservant people like Darley
are beginning to notice. That is not good.’ Her voice was cold and toneless.
‘Justine’ his admiration overflowed. He came and sat down beside her on the bed, putting his arms around her to embrace her fiercely. His eyes glittered with a new elation, a new gratitude.
‘I am so weak’ he said.
He extended himself beside her, put his arms behind his head, and lay silent, thinking. For