The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [384]
He lay back in his chair, exhausted by this exposition, and yawned heavily before consulting his watch. ‘I suppose’ he went on with resignation ‘that you will find it all very strange, these new aspects of people; but then everything sounds strange here, eh?
Pursewarden’s sister, Liza, for example — you don’t know her?
She is stone blind. It seems to us all that Mountolive is madly in love with her. She came out originally to collect his papers and also to find materials for a book about him. Allegedly. Anyway she has stayed on at the Embassy ever since. When he is in Cairo on duty he visits her every weekend! He looks somehow unhappy now — perhaps I do too?’ He once more consulted the mirror and shook his head decisively. Apparently he did not. ‘Well any-way’ he conceded ‘I am probably wrong.’
The clock on the mantelpiece struck and he started up. ‘I must get back to the office for a conference’ he said. ‘What about you?’
I told him of my projected trip to Karm Abu Girg. He whistled and looked at me keenly. ‘You will see Justine again, eh?’ He thought for a moment and then shrugged his shoulders doubtfully.
‘A recluse now, isn’t she? Put under house arrest by Memlik. Nobody has seen her for ages. I don’t know what’s going on with Nessim either. They’ve quite broken with Mountolive and as an official I have to take his line, so we would never even try to meet: even if it were allowed, I mean. Clea sees him sometimes. I’m sorry for Nessim. When he was in hospital she could not get per-mission to visit him. It is all a merry-go-round, isn’t it? Like a Paul Jones. New partners until the music stops! But you’ll come back, won’t you, and share this place? Good. Then I’ll tell Hamid. I must be off. Good luck.’
I had only intended to lie down for a brief siesta before the car came, but such was my fatigue that I plunged into a heavy sleep the moment my head touched the pillow; perhaps I should have slept the clock round had not the chauffeur awakened me. Half-dazed as yet I sat in the familiar car and watched the unreal lakelands grow up around with their palms and water-wheels —
the Egypt which lives outside the cities, ancient, pastoral and veiled by mists and mirages. Old memories stirred now, some bland and pleasing, others rough as old cicatrices. Scar-tissue of old emotions which I should soon be shedding. The first momentous step would be to encounter Justine again. Would she help or hinder me in the task of controlling and evaluating these precious
‘reliques of sensation’ as Coleridge calls them? It was hard to know. With every succeeding mile I felt anxiety and expectation running neck and neck. The Past!
* * * * *
II
ncient lands, in all their prehistoric intactness: lake-solitudes hardly brushed by the hurrying feet of the centuries where A
the uninterrupted pedigrees of pelican and ibis and
heron evolve their slow destinies in complete seclusion. Clover-patches of green baize swarming with snakes and clouds of mosquitoes. A landscape devoid of songbirds yet full of owls, hoopoes and kingfishers hunting by day, pluming themselves on the banks of the tawny waterways. The packs of half-wild dogs foraging, the blindfolded water-buffaloes circling the water-wheels in an eternity of darkness. The little wayside chancels built of dry mud and floored with fresh straw where the pious traveller might say a prayer as he journeyed. Egypt! The goose-winged sails scurrying among the freshets with perhaps a human voice singing a trailing snatch of song. The click-click of the wind in the Indian corn, plucking at the coarse leaves, shumbling them. Liquid mud exploded by rainstorms in the dust-laden air throwing up mirages