The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [86]
— at once savage and tenderly lyrical. I took it as a measure of my maturity that I was filled no longer with despairing self-pity but
with a desire to be claimed by the city, enrolled among its trivial or tragic memories — if it so wished.
It was equally characteristic that by the time I reached the little flat and disinterred the grey exercise books in which my notes had been scribbled I thought no longer of destroying them. Indeed I sat there in the lamp-light and added to them while Pombal dis-coursed on life from the other easy chair.
‘Returning to my room I sit silent, listening to the heavy tone of her scent: a smell perhaps composed of flesh, faeces and herbs, all worked into the dense brocade of her being. This is a peculiar type of love for I do not feel that I possess her — nor indeed would wish to do so. It is as if we joined each other only in self-possession, became partners in a common stage of growth. In fact we outrage love, for we have proved the bonds of friendship stronger. These notes, however they may be read, are intended only as a pains-taking affectionate commentary on a world into which I have been born to share my most solitary moments — those of coitus — with Justine. I can get no nearer to the truth.
‘Recently, when it had been difficult to see her for one reason or another, I found myself longing so much for her that I went all the way down to Pietrantoni to try and buy a bottle of her perfume. In vain. The good-tempered girl-assistant dabbed my hands with every mark she had in stock and once or twice I thought that I had discovered it. But no. Something was always missing — I suppose the flesh which the perfume merely costumed. The undertow of the body itself was the missing factor. It was only when in des-peration I mentioned Justine’s name that the girl turned immedi-ately to the first perfume we had tried. “Why did you not say so at first?” she asked with an air of professional hurt; everyone, her tone implied, knew the perfume Justine used except myself. It was unrecognizable. Nevertheless I was surprised to discover that Jamais de la vie was not among the most expensive or exotic of perfumes.’
(When I took home the little bottle they found in Cohen’s waistcoat-pocket the wraith of Melissa was still there, imprisoned. She could still be detected.)
Pombal was reading aloud the long terrible passage from Moeurs which is called ‘The Dummy Speaks’. ‘In all these fortuitous col-lisions with the male animal I had never known release, no matter
what experience I had submitted my body to. I always see in the mirror the image of an ageing fury crying: “J’ai raté mon propre amour — mon amour à moi. Mon amour-propre, mon propre amour. Je l’ai raté. Je n’ ai jamais souffert, jamais eu de joie simple et can- dide. ” ’
He paused only to say: ‘If this is true you are only taking advan-tage of an illness in loving her,’ and the remark struck me like the edge of an axe wielded by someone of enormous and unconscious strength.
* * * * *
When the time for the great yearly shoot on Lake Mareotis came round Nessim began to experience a magical sense of relief. He recognized at last that what had to be decided would be decided at this time and at no other. He had the air of a man who has fought a long illness successfully. Had his judgement indeed been so faulty even though it had not been conscious? During the years of his marriage he had repeated on every day the words, ‘I am so happy’
— fatal as the striking of a grandfather-clock upon which silence is forever encroaching. Now he could say so no longer. Their common life was like some cable buried in the sand which, in some inexplic-able way, at a point impossible to discover, had snapped, plunging them both into an unaccustomed and impenetrable darkness. The madness itself, of course, took no account of circumstances.