The Magus - John Fowles [257]
passed an antique shop on my way to the hotel. Propped up in the window were five old Tarot cards. On one of them was a man dressed exactly as Gonchis had been; even to the same emblems on his cloak. Underneath were the words _Le Sorcier_--the sorcerer. The shop was shut, but I took its address and later they sold me the card by post; a "nice eighteenthcentury card." It gave me a sharp shock when I first saw it--I looked round, as if it had been planted there for me to notice; as if I was being watched. _The "psychologists" at the trial_. I tried the Tavistock Clinic and the American Embassy. All the names totally unknown, though some of the institutes exist. _Nevinson_. This was the man whose Oxford college was in a book in the school library. The Bursar's Office at Balliol sent me an address in Japan. I wrote him a letter. Two weeks later I had a reply. _Faculty of English,_ _Osaka University_ _DEAR MR. URFE,_ _Thank you for your letter, it came, as it were, from the distant past, and gave me quite a surprise! But I was delighted to hear that the school has survived the tvar, and I trust you have enjoyed your stay there as much as I did._ _I had forgotten about Bourani. I remember the place now, however, and (very vaguely!) the owner. Did I have a iolent argument with him once about Racine and predestination? I have an intuition, no more, that I did. But so much has flowed under the bridges since those days._ _Other "victims" before the war--alas, I can't help you. The man before me I never met. I did know Geoffrey Sugden, who was there for three years after me. I never heard him refer especially to Bourani._ _If you are ever in this part of the world, I should be delighted to talk over old times with you, and to offer you, if not an ouzo, at least a sake pou na pinete._ _Yours sincerely,_ _DOUGLAS NEVINSON_ _The incident on the ridge_. When the _kapetan_ called me _prodotis_ (traitor). Of course they knew one day I would know what treachery they meant. _Wimmel_. In late August, a piece of luck. One of my teeth began to hurt and Kemp sent me to her dentist to have it seen to. While I was in the waiting room I picked up an old film magazine of the previous January. Halfway through I came on a picture of "Wimmel." He was even dressed in Nazi uniform. Underneath there was a caption paragraph. _Ignaz Pruszynski, who plays the fiendish Town Commandant in Poland's much praised film of the Resistance, _Black Ordeal_, in real life played a very different role. He led a Polish underground group all through the Occupation, and was awarded the Polish equivalent of our own Victoria Cross._ _Hypnotism_. I read a couple of books on this. Conchis had evidently learnt the technique professionally. It was "virtually impossible" to get the person hypnotised to do acts that "run deeply counter to his moral beliefs." But post-hypnotic suggestion, implanting commands that are carried out on a given signal after the subject has been woken from the hypnotic state and is in all other ways back to normal, was "perfectly feasible and frequently demonstrated." _Raising both arms above the head_. Conchis got this from ancient Egypt. It was the _Ka_ sign, used by initiates "to gain possession of the cosmic forces of mystery." In many tomb paintings. It meant: "_I_ am master of the spells. Strength is mine. I impart strength." _The wheel symbol_. "The mandala, or wheel, is a universal symbol of existence. _The ribbon on my leg, the bare shoulder_. From masonic ritual, but believed to descend from the Eleusinian mysteries. Associated with initiation. _Maria_. Probably really was a peasant, though an intelligent one. She spoke only two or three words of French to me; sat silent all through the trial, rather conspicuously out of place. Unlike the others, _she_ was what she first seemed. _Lily's bank_. I wrote another letter, and got back a reply from the manager of the real Barclay's branch. His name was not P. J. Fearn; and the headed paper he wrote on was not like that I had received. _Her school_. Julie Holmes--unknown. _Mitford_. I wrote a card to