J.G. Ballard - The Crystal World

"Are you still writing to Derain?" she asked. "It's a long letter."

"There's a lot to say." Sanders sat back, clasping her hand as he looked out at the deserted arcade below. A few military landing craft were moored against the police jetty, and beyond them the dark river swept away into the interior. The main military base was now at one of the large government plantations ten miles up-river. Here an airfield had been constructed and the many hundreds of scientists and technicians, not to mention journalists, still trying to gain some understanding of the advancing forest were flown in directly, so by-passing Port Matarre. Once again the riverside town was half deserted. The native market had closed down. The stall holders with their crystallized ornaments had been put out of business by the forest's own over-abundant economy. However, now and then, during his walks around Port Matarre, Sanders would see some solitary mendicant hanging around near the barracks or police prefecture, an old blanket in his basket hiding some grotesque offering of the forest-a crystallized parrot or rivercarp, and once, the head and thorax of a baby.

"Are you resigning then?" Louise asked. "I think you should reconsider-we've talked-"

"My dear, one can't reconsider things to a hundred places of decimals. Somewhere one's got to make a decision." Sanders took the letter from his pocket and tossed it on to the desk. Not to hurt Louise, who had stayed with him in the hotel since his rescue, he said: "Actually, I haven't made up my mind yet. I'm just using the letter to work the whole thing out."

Louise nodded, looking down at him. Sanders noticed that she had begun to wear her sunglasses again, unconsciously revealing her own private decision about Sanders and his future, and their own inevitable separation. However, minor dishonesties such as this were merely the price of their own tolerance of one another.

"Have the police any news about Anderson?" Sanders asked. During their first month in Port Matarre Louise had gone down to the prefecture every morning in the hope of getting some news about her lost colleague, partly, Sanders guessed, to justify her extended stay with him in the hotel. That she could now dispense with this small squaring of her conscience meant that she had made other arrangements. "They might have heard something-you never know. You haven't been down?"

"No. Hardly anyone is entering the zone now." Louise shrugged. "I suppose it's worth trying."

"Of course." Sanders stood up, leaning on the injured arm, and then put on his jacket.

"How is it?" Louise asked. "Your arm. It seems all right now."

Sanders patted the elbow. "I think it's healed. Louise, it's been good of you to look after me. You know that."

Louise regarded him from behind her sunglasses. A brief smile, not without affection, touched her lips. "What more could I do?" She laughed at this, and then strolled to the door. "I must go up to my room and change. Enjoy your walk."

Sanders followed her to the door, and then held her arm for a moment. When she had gone he stood by the door, listening to the few sounds in the almost empty hotel.

Sitting down at the desk again, he read through his letter to Paul Derain. Thinking about Louise at the same time, he realized that he could hardly blame her for deciding to leave him. Sanders had in fact forced her out, not so much by his behavior at Port Matarre but simply by not being wholly there-his real identity still moved through the forests of Mont Royal. During his journey down-river in the ambulance craft with Louise and Max Clair, and his subsequent convalescence at Port Matarre, he had felt like the empty projection of a self that still wandered through the forest with the jeweled cross in his arms, re-animating the lost children he passed like a deity on his day of creation. Louise knew nothing of this, and assumed that he was searching for Suzanne.

There was a knock on the door, and Max Clair let himself into the room. Greeting Sanders with a wave, he put his surgical bag down on a chair. Since his arrival in Port Matarre he had been helping at the clinic run by the Jesuit fathers. On several occasions the latter had made an attempt to see Sanders, for the purpose, he guessed, of questioning him about Father Balthus's self-immolation within the forest. Obviously they suspected that his real concern had not been for his parish.

"Morning to you, Edward-I hope I'm not disturbing your meditation for the day?"

"I've finished." When Max glanced toward the halfopen door of the bathroom Sanders said: "Louise is upstairs. Now, what's the news today?"

"No idea-I haven't got time to hang around the police station. We're much too busy at the clinic. They're coming in from every hedge and byway."

"What do you expect-there's a doctor there now." Sanders shook his head. "Bring a doctor into a place like Port Matarre and you immediately create a major health problem."

"Well-" Max glanced at Sanders over his glasses, unsure how serious he was being. "I don't know about that. We certainly are busy, Edward. As a matter of fact, now that your arm is better we thought-the fathers, principally-that you might come and give us a hand. Just a couple of mornings a week to start with. The fathers would be grateful to you."

"I dare say." Sanders looked out at the distant forest. "I'd like to help you, Max, of course. As it happens, I'm rather busy at present."

"But you're not. You're just sitting here all day. Look, it's routine largely, nothing to take your mind off higher things, a few maternity cases, pellagra." He added quietly: "Yesterday a couple of cases of leprosy came in-I thought you might be interested."

Sanders turned and studied Max's face, with its bright shortsighted eyes below the domed head. The element of guile, if any, in this last remark was hard to assess. For some time Sanders had suspected that Max had known all along that Suzanne would run away into the forest after seeing Sanders, and that his own pointless search among the hill settlements had been a deliberate means of making sure that no one stopped her. During their time in Port Matarre Max rarely referred to Suzanne, although his wife by now would be frozen like an icon somewhere within the crystal forest. Yet Max's last reference to the lepers, unless intended to provoke him into returning to the forest suggested that in fact Max had no idea of the significance of the forest for Suzanne and Sanders, that for both of them the only final resolution of the imbalance within their minds, their inclination toward the dark side of the equinox, could be found within that crystal world.

"Two cases of leprosy? I'm not interested in the least." Before Max could speak Sanders went on: "Frankly, Max, I'm not sure whether I'm still qualified to help you."

"What? Of course you are."

"In absolute terms. It seems to me, Max, that the whole profession of medicine may have been superseded.-I don't think the simple distinction between life and death has much meaning now. Rather than try to cure those patients you should put them into a launch and send them up-river to Mont Royal."

Max stood up. He made a gesture of helplessness, and then said cheerfully: "I'll come back tomorrow. Keep an eye on yourself."

When he had gone Sanders completed his letter, adding a final paragraph and farewell. Sealing it into a fresh envelope, he addressed it to Derain and propped it against the inkwell. He then took out his checkbook and signed one of the checks. He slipped these into a second envelope on which he wrote Louise's name.

As he stood up, buttoning his jacket, he noticed Louise and Max talking in the street outside the hotel. Recently he had often seen them together, in the foyer of the hotel or at the door of the restaurant. He waited until their conversation ended and then went down to the foyer.