Lawrence Durrell: Sicilian Carousel: Adventures on an Italian Island

Later of course our companions developed distinct identities but on that first evening in the dismal light it was impossible to distinguish accurately between the Anglican Bishop who had developed Doubts, the timid young archaeologist, the American dentist who had eloped with his most glamorous patient, the French couple of a vaguely diplomatic persuasion and all those others who hung about on the outskirts of our table like unrealized wraiths. Later their characters printed themselves more clearly. Tonight we gathered a few random impressions, that was all. The Bishop was testy and opinionated and had been airsick. He kept sticking his forefinger in his ears and shaking vigorously to clear the canals, as he put it. His wife was both tired and somewhat cowed. We knew nothing then about his nervous breakdown in the pulpit. His name was Arthur. The dentist was shy and hung his head when spoken to in a strong British accent while his partner looked pleasantly saucy. I sympathized with him. The Bishop spoke English as if he had a hot potato in his mouth. The rest of the table was made up by the rather distinguished French couple who could not, I decided, be diplomatic for they spoke no English and were glad to lean on us as translators.

And then Roberto made his relaxed appearance, shaking hands all round and moving smilingly from table to table, slipping from one language to another with smooth skill and checking off our names on the tourist list. He combined charm and kindness; later we discovered that he was efficient as well. He knew Deeds quite well from a previous trip and their greeting was most cordial. My friend explained when he had left us that Don Roberto came of a noble but penniless family and had been a university lecturer in history; but the boredom of academic life with its endless intrigues had sent him in search of something more suitable to a lively nature. He had found it in becoming guide, philosopher, and friend to the travelers on the Carousel. His calm friendliness had an immediately reassuring effect; it acted as a catalyst.

We dug deeper into our charmless food and poured out more stoups of wine. It would have been a pity, after spending so much money on the trip, not to enjoy it a little. The French diplomat had a head which came straight off a Roman coin — the benign features of one of the better emperors. His wife was fearfully pale and looked very ill; she was clearly convalescent after some obscure illness and looked all the time as if she were on the point of fainting. The concern of her husband was very evident. The dentist ate his food with a sort of soundtrack; he was clearly a great masticator, and probably a health food addict. The French Microscopes were far off; they had found another microscope to talk to.

“When I was young,” said Deeds, to nobody in particular, “there was a great Victorian moustache cup among the family heirlooms, out of which my father drank his Christmas punch. On this object the family had had engraved the motto DEEDS NOT WORDS which is perhaps why I am so dashed taciturn.”

Though it was relatively late when our dinner was concluded with a pungent grappa we were disinclined to turn in straight away. A few of our fellow travelers took refuge in the lounge where coffee was available and where there was light enough to write postcards, sort papers, count up currency. Roberto was talking to the pretty German girl about archaeology. There were two striking but severe-looking French ladies sending views of the town to their relations. They were very finely turned out and would obviously be destined to match up with the proconsular gentleman and his distinguished but pale wife. We were to be a group speaking three languages — which offered no problems for Roberto. He smiled and waved to us as we passed through the swing doors into the warm and fragrant darkness outside. It was pleasant to stretch one’s legs once more, and the hot night was full of flower scents. Quite soon, however, Deeds steered us into the little Bellini garden I had hoped to see before we left — for it was here that Martine in high summer had sat to write me a letter and mend the broken thong of a sandal.

It was a good letter, and I had brought it with me to Sicily in order to try and re-experience it here. It had come after a silence of nearly two years and after several long journeys. “We have been brought up to believe that facts are not dreams — and of course they are.” It was strange to think of her penning the words as she sat here among all this greenery. And there were other little touches of observation too, which proved that the writer in her had gone on maturing long after the ambition to write had become dispersed by her domestic concerns. A note about the curious volcanic stone which gave a feeling of weightlessness and insubstantiality, and altered the sound of heels upon it. Then, too, of the marvelous vulgarity of Bellini’s “Puritani” as played in Sicily — its appropriateness to the place and mood. Smoking a cigarette, I pondered these matters beside a silent Deeds. The air was rich with the smell of invisible flowers. I wondered where people went when they died. Right back into the painting I suppose.

“Bedtime,” said Deeds, looking at his watch and I rose to follow him through the dark streets to the hotel. Here we elected to turn in right away for the call on the morrow was to be a relatively early one and I had to rearrange my affairs against a week of hard traveling. The words “hard traveling” were a joke when one thought of the luxury of the Carousel. Nevertheless.

But before I put out my light I could not resist opening the little green file of her letters in order to re-read the two she had sent me from here while she had been touring the island in her little car. There were good things there, things which connected.… “I always remember the way you pronounce the word ‘impossible!’ But Larry dear the impossible has always been just within man’s grasp — happiness and justice and love. You feel it so strongly among these battered vestiges. It is always such a near miss. O why can’t man reach for the apple instead of waiting for Eve?” Why indeed? “The universe is always bliss side up if only he knew it.”

To sleep. To dream. Light airs, ever so faintly sulphurous seemed to drift into the room through the curtains. Does lava have any smell — or am I imagining things?

I had an extraordinarily vivid dream of our long-lost selves reliving a short sequence of our Cyprus lives. The house had been built on a promontory hard by a little Turkish mosque. Underneath was a tiny beach where we bathed half the night. Though the island had plunged into an insurrection against our rule there were pockets of emptiness where one could still find a moment of ordinary peace in which to swim and talk — yet never be too far from a pistol. By that time I was working in Nicosia but I used to slip over the Kyrenia range as often as possible to meet her. As a matter of fact I had got her into bad habits — for we often drove outside the sectors under army control and deep into enemy country, so to speak, in order to see a particular church or bathe at a special beach I knew. How dangerous was it? Not very, but the thing was problematic and depended upon a chance meeting with a platoon of resistance fighters armed with automatic weapons. It salted the whole operation with a fitful uneasiness. One never knew.

And then, too, one had a bad conscience like naughty children who know they are disobeying their parents. But these sallies brought us very close together. She sat beside me with my pistol lying in her lap — just to have it handy in case we were overtaken on some country road by some youthful band of hotheads. More than once a car had been overtaken and shot up by the EOKA youth. Through all the beautiful hills and dales of the island we traveled thus, with our lunch in a hamper and our towels beside us. Nothing ever happened, thank God. But once I had a glimpse of the courage of Martine. We had climbed a hill to visit a church and left the car along the olive groves. Having stayed rather longer than usual we came down at dusk to find three darkly clad men in the middle foreground advancing towards the grove where our car lay.