Lawrence Durrell - The Alexandria Quartet

‘So should I’ I said, disappointed that I could not get a look at the handwriting of the old poet. ‘So should I.’

‘Can I lift you?’ he said, as the sucking door expelled us once more into the trampled musical air of the landing. ‘Useless to expect to say goodbye to our hosts. Cervoni is probably in bed by now.’ We went down slowly chatting into the great hall where the music rolled on in an unbroken stream of syncopated sound. Da Capo had adjusted his mask now and looked like some weird birdlike demon. We stood for a moment watching the dancers, and then yawning he said: ‘Well, this is where to quote Cavafy the God abandons Antony. Good night. I can’t stay awake any longer, though I am afraid the evening will be full of surprises yet. It always is.’ Nor was he to be proved wrong. I hovered for a while, watching the dance, and then walked down the stairs into the dark coolness of the night. There were a few limousines and sleepy servants waiting by the gates, but the streets had begun to empty and my own footfalls sounded harsh and exotic as they smacked up from the pavements. At the corner of Fuad there were a couple of European whores leaning dispiritedly against a wall and smoking. They called once hoarsely after me. They wore magnolia blossoms in their hair.

Yawning, I passed the Etoile to see if perhaps Melissa was still working, but the place was empty except for a drunk family which had refused to go home despite the fact that Zoltan had stacked up the chairs and tables around them on the dance—floor. ‘She went off early’ the little man explained. ‘Band gone. Girls gone. Everyone gone. Only these canaille from Assuan. His brother is a policeman; we dare not close.’ A fat man began to belly-dance with sugary movements of the hips and pelvis and the company began to mark the time. I left and walked past Melissa’s shabby lodgings in the vague hope that she might still be awake. I felt I wanted to talk to someone; no, I wanted to borrow a cigarette. That was all. Afterwards would come the desire to sleep with her, to hold that slender cherished body in my arms, inhaling its sour flavours of alcohol and tobacco-smoke, thinking all the time of Justine. But her window was dark; either she was asleep or was not yet home. Zoltan had said that she left with a party of businessmen disguised as admirals. ‘ Des petits commerзants quelconques ’ he had added contemptuously, and then turned at once apologetic.

No, it was to be an empty night, with the frail subfusc moonlight glancing along the waves of the outer harbour, the sea licking and relicking the piers, the coastline thinning away in whiteness, glittering away into the greyness like mica. I stood for a while on the Corniche snapping a paper streamer in my fingers, bit by bit, each fragment breaking off with a hard dry finality, like a human relationship. Then I turned sleepily home, repeating in my mind the words of Da Capo: ‘The evening will be full of surprises.’ Indeed, they were already beginning in the house which I had just left, though of course I was not to learn about them until the following day. And yet, surprises though they were, their reception was perfectly in keeping with the city — a city of resignation so deep as almost to be Moslem. For nobody in Alexandria can ever be shocked deeply; among us tragedy exists only to flavour conversation. Death and life are both simply the hazards of a chance which cannot be averted, and merit only smiles and conversations made more animated by the consciousness of their intrusion. No sooner do you tell an Alexandrian a piece of bad news than the words come out of his mouth: ‘I knew. Something like this was bound to happen. It always does.’ This, then, is what happened.

In the conservatory of the Cervoni house there were several oldfashioned chaises-longues on which a mountain of overcoats and evening-wraps had been piled; as the dancers began to go home there came the usual shedding of dominoes and the hunt for furs and capes. I think it was Pierre who must have made the discovery while hunting in this great tumulus of coats for the velvet smokingjacket which he had shed earlier in the evening. At any rate, I myself had already left and started to walk home by this time.

Toto de Brunel was discovered, still warm in his velvet domino, with his paws raised like two neat little aiders, in the attitude of a dog which had rolled over to have its belly scratched. He was buried deep in the drift of coats. One hand had half-tried to move towards the fatal temple but the impulse had been cut off at source before the action was complete, and it had stayed there raised a little higher than the other, as if wielding an invisible baton. The hatpin from Pombal’s picture hat had been driven sideways into his head with terrific force, pinning him like a moth into his velvet headpiece. Athena had been making love to Jacques while she was literally lying upon his body — a fact which would under normal circumstances have delighted him thoroughly. But he was dead, le pauvre Toto , and what is more he was still wearing the ring of my lover. “ Justice! ”

‘Of course, something like this happens every year.’

‘Of course.’ I was still dazed.

‘But Toto — that is rather unexpected, really.’ Balthazar rang me up about eleven o’clock the next morning to tell me the whole story. In my stupefied and sleepy condition it sounded not merely improbable, but utterly incomprehensible.

‘There will be the procиs-verbal — that’s why I’m ringing. Nimrod is making it as easy as he can. One dinner-party witness only — Justine thought perhaps you if you don’t mind? Good. Of course.

No, I was got out of bed at a quarter to four by the Cervonis. They were in rather a state about it. I went along to … do the needful.

I’m afraid they can’t quite sort it all out as yet. The pin belonged to the hat — yes, your friend Pombal … diplomatic immunity, naturally. Nevertheless, he was very drunk too…. Of course it is inconceivable that he did it, but you know what the Police are like.

Is he up yet?’ I had not dared to try and wake him at such an early hour, and I said so. ‘Well anyway’ said Balthazar ‘his death has fluttered a lot of dovecotes, not least at the French Legation.’

‘But he was wearing Justine’s ring’ I said thickly, and all the premonitions of the last few months gathered in force at my elbow, crowding in upon me. I felt quite ill and feverish and had to lean for a moment against the wall by the telephone. Balthazar’s measured tone and cheerful voice sounded to me like an obscenity.

There was a long silence. ‘Yes, I know about the ring’ he said, and added with a quiet chuckle ‘but that too is hard to think of as a possible reason. Toto was also the lover of the jealous Amar, you know. Any number of reasons….’

‘Balthazar’ I said, and my voice broke.

‘I’ll ring you if there’s anything else. The procиs is at seven down in Nimrod’s office. See you there, eh?’

‘Very well.’ I put down the phone and burst like a bomb into Pombal’s bedroom. The curtains were still drawn and the bed was in a terrible mess suggesting a recent occupancy, but there was no other sign of him. His boots and various items from the washerwoman’s fancy dress lay about the room in various places, enabling me to discern that he had in fact got home the night before. Actually his wig lay on the landing outside the front door: I know this because much later, towards midday, I heard his heavy step climbing the stairs and he entered the flat holding it in his hand.

‘I am quite finished’ he said briefly, at once. ‘Finished, mon ami. ’ He looked more plethoric than ever as he made for his gout chair as if anticipating a sudden attack of his special and private malady.