The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [459]
Now what the devil could he have been doing on leave? It seems quite impossible to discover. His stay is not recorded at any of the hotels or army transit hotels. He spoke no language but English. Those few days spent in Cairo are completely missing from the count. And then the woman with the golden needle?
‘But in truth it is happening all the time, and I think you are right’ (this to Clea) ‘to insist obstinately on the existence of the dark powers and the fact that some people do scry as easily as I gaze down the barrel of my microscope. Not all, but some. And even quite stupid people, like your old Scobie, for example. Mind you, in my opinion, that was a rigmarole of the kind he produced sometimes when he was tipsy and wanted to show off — I mean the stuff supposedly about Narouz: that was altogether too dramatic to be taken seriously. And even if some of the detail were right he could have had access to it in the course of his duties. After all Nimrod did the procès-verbal and that document must have been knocking around.’
‘What about Narouz?’ I asked curiously, secretly piqued that Clea had confided things to Balthazar which she had kept from me. It was now that I noticed that Clea had turned quite white and was looking away. But Balthazar appeared to notice nothing himself and went plunging on. ‘It has the ingredients of a novelette — I mean about trying to drag you down into the grave with him. Eh, don’t you think? And about the weeping you would
hear.’ He broke off abruptly, noticing her expression at last.
‘Goodness, Clea my dear’ he went on in self-reproach, ‘I hope I am not betraying a confidence. You suddenly look upset. Did you tell me not to repeat the Scobie story?’ He took both her hands and turned her round to face him.
A spot of red had appeared in both her cheeks. She shook her head, though she said nothing, but bit her lips as if with vexation. At last ‘No’ she said, ‘there is no secret. I simply did not tell Darley because … well, it is silly as you say: anyway he doesn’t believe in that sort of rubbish. I didn’t want to seem stupider than he must find me.’ She leaned to kiss me apologetically on the cheek. She sensed my annoyance, as did Balthazar who hung his head and said: ‘I’ve talked out of turn. Damn! Now he will be angry with you.’
‘Good heavens, no!’ I protested. ‘Simply curious, that is all. I had no intention of prying, Clea.’
She made a gesture of anguished exasperation and said: ‘Very well. It is of no importance. I will tell you the whole thing.’ She started speaking hastily, as if to dispose of a disagreeable and time-wasting subject. ‘It was during the last dinner I told you about. Before I went to Syria. He was tipsy, I don’t deny it. He said what Balthazar has just told you, and he added a descrip-tion of someone who suggested to me Nessim’s brother. He said, marking the place with his thumbnail on his own lips : “His lips are split here, and I see him covered in little wounds, lying on a table. There is a lake outside. He has made up his mind. He will try and drag you to him. You will be in a dark place, imprisoned, unable to resist him. Yes, there is one near at hand who might aid you if he could. But he will not be strong enough.” ’ Clea stood up suddenly and brought her story to an end with the air of someone snapping off a twig. ‘At this point he burst into tears’
she said.
It was strange what a gloom this nonsensical yet ominous recital put over our spirits; something troubling and distasteful seemed to invade that brilliant spring sunshine, the light keen air. In the silence that followed Balthazar gloomily folded and refolded his overcoat on his knee while Clea turned away to study the distant curve of the great harbour with its flotillas of cubist-smeared