Barry Unsworth: Pascali's Island

I too must leave soon, if I am to get there before dinner. I intend to introduce myself to Mister Bowles, exert my charm, establish friendly relations.

Some domestic details now, Excellency, at the risk of being tedious. I want you to see me here in this room. I want you to see how your informers live. First a quick wash of hands and face, in cold water – my house, though convenient in many ways, being private and cheap, has certain disadvantages, among which is the absence of running water. I have to get my water from the pump below.

The mirror will reveal brown eyes full of intelligence and a capacity for pain; tongue, in all probability whitish, as it so often is nowadays. (My diet is bad, Excellency.) Stubble, though evident, should not be too disfiguring – I go only twice a week to the barber. The same shirt, unfortunately. Tomorrow Kyria Antigone brings the washing. White linen trousers. One leg has got shorter than the other, over the years, owing to an uneven rate of shrinkage, but they are clean. Finger-nails. A wet comb through the hair. No socks, which is a pity. I will discard my slippers in favour of the white and tan shoes. They pinch, but one must make some sacrifices. I go out three or four evenings a week, Excellency, normally: for information, and lower in the scale of things, but vital for continuance, food. Not the fez this evening, the straw hat. It will be obvious that I am not wearing socks, but no matter-my acceptance among the foreign community here is due largely to the fact that I provoke mirth and contempt in them. They see only an obese Levantine, scrounger and clown, one trouser leg rather shorter than the other.

Such judgements are irrelevant, of course, and yet they are what most people proceed on. Anyone coming in just before, for example, while I was sleeping, would have missed the fire and fever of my eyes, seen only the uneasy bulk, the sleep-dewed brow. Not that anyone could obtain entry. Not without a good deal of force and noise. My room is securely locked at all times. But of course, they will, they will break in, sooner or later. It is only to be expected.

Broken man on the rough cross. Not much blood. His head was down, but he was still breathing. I saw the movements of his chest.

I was not surprised, Excellency. I was frightened by his face, but not surprised. I must start getting ready to go out.

Some minutes after midnight – I hear the first whistles of the nightwatchmen.

My room was as I had left it. Thankfully I slipped the shoes off my tormented feet. I stood for some moments in the darkness, at my window, looking out. Faint glimmer of moonlight, starlight, on the sea. No lights along the shore. Plaintive whistle of the watchman, then again silence.

I am at my table. Thick felt across the window – it is unwise to show light when every man of worth, Muslim or rayah, should be sleeping. I am too excited to sleep.

Light from the spirit lamp falls on my pages. I love the look of paper in lamplight, the soft bloom on the loosely gathered pages. Around this charmed space the room falls away into obscurity. Here is luxe, calme et volupté. Here is where freedom and authority, spirit and form, embrace.

How shall I begin? Not, certainly, with the bald relation of my finds among Mister Bowles's luggage. That will have to be led up to.

The streets were dark, the only light coming from windows, and the doorways of shops. We have no street lamps on the island, though there is a rumour that this year they will be installed – by an Italian company, who will certainly have offered large bribes to the appropriate officials. Forgive me, Excellency, if I speak disparagingly of your civil servants. But they are the most corrupt that the world has ever seen.

I went up by the steps. (There is also a road which climbs more gradually up towards the plateia.) I could hear the distant lamentations of the herded sheep. Pausing outside the magistrate's to get my breath, I breathed scented air from his garden, gulps of jasmine and mint. His shutters were not closed. I saw two men in the room overlooking the steps, neither of them known to me. Out at sea fishing lanterns in a looped chain.

Yannis was standing outside the hotel. He barely returned my greeting. I passed through the swing doors into the lobby, saw Mardosian at the reception desk looking, as always, sleek and slightly troubled, as if engaged in not quite satisfactory self-communings.

Excellency, that I have just described these two men so scantily, in such summary phrases, as if they did not exist until my words called them forth, fills me with disquiet. They do exist. I cannot give equal space to all in one single report. Yannis from the Smyrna dockside, Mardosian who escaped clubbing in the massacres of the nineties, to prosper here – they are mysteries, irreducible mysteries. Yet over the years, by constant reference, I have reduced them to my creatures, my props, just as I have made this island my territory. I swear I will not do this with Mister Bowles. I will render him direct, with sympathy and fidelity. I will seek to understand him, but will not fall into the error of regarding him as transparent.

I must admit that, as far as my personal relationship with him is concerned, I have not made a very good beginning. Things went wrong from the start.

I went on through the lounge, making my portly decorous way through the pink rattan tables and chairs. Following now the route which I had earlier imagined for Mister Bowles. On the walls familiar frescoes of the amorous metamorphoses of Zeus, executed by a German artist in the early years of the last century, crowded with bulky, frantic nymphs.

Across the carpeted floor, through the pillars and the potted palms, among which I suddenly saw old Mrs Socratous, sitting reading the Figaro Littéraire. Or holding it, at least. Others there were too, islanded amidst the plants and pillars with the sound of music coming through to them from the dining-room. Old people, for the most part, sitting very still. They were sitting very still, Excellency. Age and stillness combined at this moment to make them seem emblematic to me. I loitered for a while among the pillars, formulating sentences which might or might not go into this report. The good informer sees parallels everywhere, and this careful immobility reminded me of the state of the Empire. These people are dying, as we all are, as is the Ottoman power. They know it intimately, and seek by reducing movement to postpone the final pang, to achieve a sort of protracted moribundity. The lesson is plain: avoid sudden movements, Excellency.

Mrs Socratous looked up with a brief glint through narrow, gold-rimmed glasses. Her fingers, much beringed, clutched the edges of Figaro with tenacity, as if there were much needed nourishment within the spread of the page. High on the wall beyond her, Zeus, in the shape of a white bull, was bearing off a massive-thighed Europa in dishabille. Mrs Socratous did not smile exactly but her mouth appeared to relax. I said, 'Kali spera sas,' and heard no response.

I passed on, entered the dining-room and made my way directly across to the verandah at the far end. This verandah is long and narrow, with room only for a double line of tables. It has leaded glass panes on its outer side, and an elaborate framework of wrought iron, in the English style. Presumably used as a conservatory when the house was in private hands. (It was throughout most of the last century in the possession of the Zotas family.) Converted to its present use by the enterprising Mardosian.

The Englishman was sitting at one of the farther tables, alone. Exactly as I had envisaged! Indeed, as I look back on it now, this triumph, this exact coincidence with my expectation, acted like a spur to me, impelling me forward, arranging my face already into a smile. There were others on the verandah, Greeks of the town, among them Politis the cotton merchant, with two younger men, one of them the brother of the priest, Spyromidis. At another table two Turkish officers from the garrison, in uniform. I was hardly aware of it at the time, being so intent on my meeting with the Englishman, but I seem to remember now that Politis did not return my greeting, and that the whole group was silent as I passed. I am almost sure that this is so.