The Magus - John Fowles [272]
rather fine during the Resistance." "Not on your nelly. Actually he did a deal with the Germans. Personally organised the shooting of eighty villagers. Then got his kraut chums to line him up with them. See. As if he was all brave and innocent." "But wasn't he badly wounded, or something?" He blew out smoke, despising my innocence. "You don't survive a German execution, old boy. No, the bugger pulled a very fast one. Acted like a traitor and got treated like a bloody hero. Even forged a phony German report on the incident. One of the neatest little cover-up jobs of the war." I looked sharply at him. A dreadful new suspicion crossed my mind. New corridors in the labyrinth. "But hasn't anyone...?" Mitford made the Greek corruption gesture; thumb and forefinger. I said, "You still haven't explained the waiting-room business." "His name for the villa. Waiting for death or something. Had it nailed up on a tree in Frog." His finger traced a line. "_Salle d'attente_." "What happened between you?" "Nothing, old boy. Absolutely nothing." "Come on." I smiled ingenuously. "Now I know the place." I remembered as a very small boy lying on the bough of a willow over a Hampshire stream; I was watching my father casting for a trout. It was his one delicacy, casting a dry fly, posing it on the water as soft as thistledown. I could see the trout he was trying to coax into a rise. And I remembered that moment when the fish floated slowly up and hovered beneath the fly, a moment endlessly prolonged in a heart-stopping excitement; then the sudden swift kick of the tail and the lightning switch of my father's strike; the ratcheting of the reel. "It's nothing, old boy. Really." "Oh for God's sake. What's it matter?" "All damned absurd." The fish took the fly. "Actually I was out walking one day. May or June, I can't remember. Bit browned off at the school. Went over to Moutsa to swim and well, I came down, you know the place, through the trees and what did I see--not just a couple of girls. But a couple of girls in bikinis. Quick recce. Niftiest beeline I knew how towards them, said something in Greek, and damn me they answered in English. They _were_ English. Gorgeous creatures. Twins." "Good Lord. Let me get you another gin." I stood at the bar waiting for the drinks and watched myself in the mirror; gave myself the smallest wink. "_Sygeia_. Well you can imagine, I moved in _poly_ fast. Consolidated position. Found out who they were. Old boy's godchildren up at the villa. Bang out of the top drawer, both been to Roedean, finished in Switzerland. All that. Said they were there for the summer and that the old boy would very much like to meet me, why didn't I come up for tea. Nuff said. Off we trotted. Meet the old boy. Tea." He had the same old habit of stretching his neck up, as if his collar was too tight; to make himself look a man of the world. "This what's-his-name spoke English?" 'Perfect. Moved round Europe all his life, best society and all that. Well, actually I found one of the twins a shade off. Not my type. Rather marked the other for my area of ops. Okay, the old man and the not-on twin faded away after tea and this girl, June, that was her name, took me round the property." "Nice work." "Didn't actually get round to unarmed combat at that point, but I sort of felt she was ready and willing. You know how it was on the island. Full magazine on and nothing to shoot at." "Rather." He flexed his arm, caressed the back of his hair. "Right. I trotted off back to the school. Tender farewell. Invitation to dinner the next weekend. Week passes, I present myself over there in my number ones. Other necessary equipment. Drinks for dinner, girls looking smashing. But then." He gave me a taut, suspenseful look. "Well as a matter of fact the other girl, not June, got stinkers." "Christ." "I'd got her number the week before. One of these bloody intellectual girls. Pretend to be as tough as nuts, but a couple of gins put 'em out stone cold. Well, it got pretty bloody dicey during dinner. Damned embarrassing. This Julie girl took against me. Didn't