Barry Unsworth: Pascali's Island

'Well,' I said, 'of those periods you mention, I should have been most at home in the last one, the tricks of opposing rhythms, as you put it – and so would you, I think.' In fact, Excellency, although he had spoken in his lecturing voice, there had been a touch of the old moral disapproval in the way he had ended, and it had riled me slightly – hence the gibe, which I do not think he noticed. 'I don't see why decadence should be such a dreadful thing,' I added.

'Well, the whole thing was fragmented,' he said. 'You only have to look at the fluctuations of style. You only have to look at the faces, there is no serenity in them. They are questing and doubtful.'

'What about his face?' I said.

'Oh, him.' Mister Bowles's voice softened. My eyes were clear now, Excellency, but Mister Bowles's face still had that radiance about it. He was happy. 'He is just at the point of decline,' he said.' At the brink. That is why he is so marvellous.'

'Fragmented,' I said. 'That was the word you used, wasn't it? And this whole process took about five hundred years.'

'About that, yes.'

(That is roughly the duration of your Empire, Excellency. I point this out to you for the sake of the parallel.)

'So,' I said, 'it went from a collective idea of man, to a very brief period of perfect balance, then to increasing anguish and disunity, finally to breakdown and fragmentation.'

'Yes,' he said. 'That's about it. We've been living among the fragments ever since.'

'Fragments mean pickings,' I could not help saying, again provoked by his somewhat schoolmasterly air. 'If it could be speeded up,' I added, 'it would look like an explosion, wouldn't it?'

'How do you mean?'

I looked at him for a moment or two before replying. How strange it was, Excellency. Here we were together, he and I, talking easily, more than that, intimately – we had become friends at last, we had achieved our own, poignantly brief, balance. And I was about to betray him. I felt myself in danger of tears again. 'Well,' I said, looking away from him, 'think of a bomb – a perfect, unified shape, then fragments.'

'Yes,' he said, 'in a way, perhaps, but not really. The true perfection was the balance itself, and that is always an intermediate stage, you know. And brief, as I say.'

I nodded. 'Well,' I said, 'I can't do much more here. I'll be getting back now, if you don't mind.'

'Ah right,' he said. He stood silent while I retrieved my jacket and put it on. 'I'll stay on a bit longer,' he said. 'By tomorrow I shall have all the information I need, you know. Then we can go ahead.'

'Yes,' I said. 'Goodbye then, for the moment.' Mister Bowles hesitated, then suddenly held out his hand. 'Thanks for your help,' he said. 'I won't forget it. Listen, take my advice, don't go to Constantinople. Get out of it all, while the going's good. With your languages you could get work in Europe, as an interpreter, something of that kind.'

'It depends on money,' I said.

'You'll get your money,' he called after me. 'You have my word for that.'

At the foot of the slope I turned to look back at him. 'Tell me,' I said, 'what did you mean that day, when you said you were an instrument?'

'Oh, that,' he said. 'Well, someone has to show them.'

'Show them?'

'The error of their ways, you know.'

'A sort of mission?'

'You could put it like that.'

'I see,' I said. 'Yes, I see.'

And I did see, Excellency. I saw several things as I clambered up out of the hollow. Mister Bowles must have had Messianic leanings for a long time-perhaps even in those early days, in the insurance office. Now he has come to believe himself sent by a higher power. The delicate balance between zeal and financial gain which has preserved him hitherto, kept him apparently sane among the world of men, an accomplished trickster, has been broken. Whatever daimon led him down there in the first place was conducting him straight to mania, to the excess-in his own nature which was always there. He went mad in that hollow, Excellency.

At the top of the slope, I turned to look again. He was kneeling before the statue, at work on the belly and loins. I watched the two naked figures together there, the darker and paler red, both gleaming with oil. The youth looked over Mister Bowles's head with a sort of ecstatic aloofness, beyond, to where his step was taking him. That out-thrust hand had never held anything, no implement or insignia. It expressed desire. The step was made, irrevocable. The body was offered and withheld. Ecstasy may accompany many forms of beastliness and violence, Excellency, as well as communion with the gods; and whether that step forward was into life and joy, or into some degrading rite, could not have been told from the face or posture of the body.

You see I continue to draw parallels, make analogies, even now, as the night advances, and the moon rises over the sea. Full moon, Excellency – he must have taken this as a sign of favour, of blessing on his enterprise… The money is in the envelope, on the table before me, proving that he did not intend to cheat me after all. But I feel no compunction now, no regret, only a sick impatience for the night to be finished. I will break off for a little, with your permission, Excellency, make coffee, rest my eyes.

I left them together, as I have said, Mister Bowles and his bronze love. I knew, quite coldly and certainly what I must do. There was no inclination to tears now, only the feeling of desolation which attends acts of destruction felt to be necessary but not really desired.

I felt neither fatigue nor hunger as I made my way back to the town. Occasionally, however, I found myself staggering a little. I went straight to the Metropole, straight to Herr Gesing's room. Just as I was, stained with sweat and clay. If I passed anyone on the way I did not notice. He kept me waiting for some time and when he came to the door he was in crumpled pyjamas, puffy-eyed. I had disturbed his afternoon sleep.

'So,' he said. 'It is you, Pascali.'

'Can I see you for a few minutes?' I said.

He looked at me for a moment or two longer, then stood aside for me to enter. His room was bigger than Mister Bowles's. The bed was in an alcove with an arched entrance.

'Here,' he said, 'take a seat. You are not looking so good this afternoon, Pascali. You like a cold coffee?'

Gratefully I assented. While he busied himself I looked round the room. There were typewritten sheets on the table, but I lacked the energy to try to get a closer look. I needed no confirmation now. Whether Herr Gesing was acting for Mannfeldt or, as I suspected, some subsidiary interest, possibly a mining company, was of no real interest now.

'I keep always cold coffee, for the afternoons,' Herr Gesing said. 'In this verflucht hot weather.'

We sat opposite each other, at the table. Herr Gesing removed the papers, but without haste. 'Well,' he said. 'What can I do for you?'

Two minutes it took, no more, to commit myself to the betrayal of Mister Bowles. I did not give any information to Herr Gesing, and he did not ask for any. I did not by word or sign indicate that I knew of the bauxite deposits. I merely made him the offer.

'You said you wanted the Englishman off the land,' I said.

Herr Gesing offered me cigarettes from a japanned box. 'Yes, that is so,' he said. 'And that is the same now. Our attitude the same remains.'

'Well,' I said, 'I can get him off. For good. Within forty-eight hours. But I must be paid.'

I asked him for money, Excellency, in a forlorn attempt to preserve an appearance of reasonable motive, to conceal from Herr Gesing and from myself the gratuitous nature of my act. Mister Bowles is intending to be off the island anyway by tomorrow, if I am right, but Herr Gesing does not know this. I do not think he knows anything about the supposed finds on the site, nor the deal between Mister Bowles and Mahmoud Pasha. He may know of the existence of the statue, but that would be of no great concern to him, probably. Mister Bowles is simply an intruder to him, a potential threat to his interests.