The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [64]
he repeats angrily. ‘I very nearly married her. It is infuriating. Thank God that the veil lifted when it did. It was seeing her naked in front of the mirror. All of a sudden I was disgusted — though I mentally admitted a sort of Renaissance dignity in the fallen breasts, the waxy skin, the sunken belly and the little peasant paws. All of a sudden I sat up in bed and said to myself “My God!
She is an elephant in need of a coat of whitewash!” ’
Now Sveva is quietly sniffing into her handkerchief as she re-counts the extravagant promises which Pombal has made her, and which will never be fulfilled. ‘It was a curious and dangerous attachment for an easy-going man’ (hear Pombal’s voice explain-ing). ‘It felt as if her cool murderous charity had eaten away my locomotive centres, paralysed my nervous system. Thank God I am free to concentrate on my work once more.’
He is troubled about his work. Rumours of his habits and general outlook have begun to get back to the Consulate. Lying in bed he plans a campaign which will get him crucified and promoted to a post with more scope. ‘I have decided that I simply must get my
cross. I am going to give several skilfully graded parties. I shall count on you: I shall need a few shabby people at first in order to give my boss the feeling that he can patronize me socially. He is a complete parvenu of course and rose on his wife’s fortune and judicious smarming of powerful people. Worst of all he has a distinct inferiority complex about my own birth and family back-ground. He has still not quite decided whether to do me down or not; but he has been taking soundings at the Quai D’Orsay to see how well padded I am there. Since my uncle died, of course, and my godfather the bishop was involved in that huge scandal over the brothel in Reims, I find myself rather less steady on my feet. I shall have to make the brute feel protective, feel that I need encouraging and bringing out. Pouagh! First a rather shabby party with one celebrity only. Oh, why did I join the service? Why have I not a small fortune of my own?’
Hearing all this in Sveva’s artificial tears and then walking down the draughty staircase again arm in arm thinking not of Sveva, not of Pombal, but of the passage in Arnauti where he says of Justine : ‘Like women who think by biological precept and without the help of reason. To such women how fatal an error it is to give oneself; there is simply a small chewing noise, as when the cat reaches the backbone of the mouse.’
The wet pavements are slick underfoot from the rain, and the air has become dense with the moisture so ardently longed for by the trees in the public gardens, the statues and other visitants. Justine is away upon another tack, walking slowly in her glorious silk frock with the dark lined cape, head hanging. She stops in front of a lighted shop-window and takes my arms so that I face her, looking into my eyes: ‘I am thinking about going away’ she says in a quiet puzzled voice. ‘Something is happening to Nessim and I don’t know what it is as yet.’ Then suddenly the tears come into her eyes and she says: ‘For the first time I am afraid, and I don’t know why.’
PART III
hat second spring the khamseen was worse than I have ever known it before or since. Before sunrise the skies of the T desert turned brown as buckram, and then slowly darkened, swelling like a bruise and at last releasing the outlines of cloud, giant octaves of ochre which massed up from the Delta like the drift of ashes under a volcano. The city has shuttered itself tightly, as if against a gale. A few gusts of air and a thin sour rain are the forerunners of the darkness which blots out the light of the sky. And now unseen in the darkness of shuttered rooms the sand is invading everything, appearing as if by magic in clothes long locked away, books, pictures and teaspoons. In the locks of doors, beneath fingernails. The harsh sobbing air dries the membranes of throats and noses, and makes eyes raw with the configurations of con-junctivitis. Clouds of dried blood walk