Lawrence Durrell - The Alexandria Quartet

But here another disappointment awaited him; for when in the midst of the hubbub at the Cervoni ball Justine took his arm and piloted him through the garden to the place of rendezvous among the tall hedges, all they found was an empty marble seat with a silk handbag on it containing a note scrawled in lipstick.

‘At the last moment my nerve fails me. Forgive.’ He tried to hide his chagrin and discomfiture from Justine. She herself seemed almost incredulous, repeating: ‘But she came in from Karm Abu Girg specially for the meeting. I cannot understand it. She has been with Nessim all day.’ He felt a sympathy in the warm pressure of her hand upon his elbow as they returned, downcast, from the scene, brushing impatiently past the laughing masked figures in the garden.

By the pool he caught a glimpse of Amaril, sitting uncowled before a slender masked figure, talking in low, pleading tones, and leaning forward from time to time to embrace her. A pang of envy smote him, though God knew there was nothing he recognized as passional now in his desire to see Leila. It was, in a paradoxical way, that Egypt itself could not fully come alive for him until he had seen her — for she represented something like a second, almost mythical image of the reality which he was experiencing, expropriating day by day. He was like a man seeking to marry the twin images in a camera periscope in order to lay his lens in true focus. Without having gone through the experience of having seen her once more, he felt vaguely helpless, unable either to confirm his own memories of this magical landscape, or fully assess his newest impressions of it. Yet he accepted his fate with philosophical calm. There was, after all, no red cause for alarm. Patience — there was ample room for patience now, to wait upon her courage.

Besides, other friendships had ripened now to fill the gap — friendships with Balthazar (who often came to dine and play chess), friendships with Amaril, Pierre Balbz, the Cervoni family.

Clea too had begun her slow portrait of him at this time. His mother had been begging him to have a portrait in oils made for her; now he was able to pose in the resplendent uniform which Sir Louis had so obligingly sold him. The picture would make a surprise gift for Christmas, he thought, and was glad to let Clea dawdle over it, reconstructing the portions which displeased her.

Through her (for she talked as she worked in order to keep her subjects’ faces alive) he learned much during that summer about the lives and preoccupations of the Alexandrians — the fantastic poetry and grotesque drama of life as these exiles of circumstance lived it; tales of the modern lake-dwellers, inhabitants of the stone skyscrapers which stared out over the ruins of the Pharos towards Europe.

One such tale struck his fancy — the love—story of Amaril (the elegant, much beloved doctor) for whom he had come to feel a particular affection. The very name on Clea’s lips sounded with a common affection for this diffident and graceful man, who had so often sworn that he would never have the luck to be loved by a woman. ‘Poor Amaril’ sighing and smiling as she painted she said: ‘shall I tell you his story? It is somehow typical. It has made all his friends happy, for we were always apt to think that he had left the matter of love in this world until too late — had missed the bus.’

‘But Amaril is going abroad to England,’ said Mountolive. ‘He has asked us for a visa. Am I to assume that his heart is broken?

And who is Semira? Please tell me.’

‘The virtuous Semira!’ Clea smiled again tenderly, and pausing on her work, put a portfolio into his hands. He turned the pages.

‘All noses’ he said with surprise, and she nodded. ‘Yes, noses.

Amaril has kept me busy for nearly three months, travelling about and collecting noses for her to choose from; noses of the living and the dead. Noses from the Yacht Club, the Etoile, from frescoes in the Museum, from coins…. It has been hard work assembling them all for comparative study. Finally, they have chosen the nose of a soldier in a Theban fresco.’ Mountolive was puzzled. ‘Please, Clea, tell me the story.’

‘Will you promise to sit still, not to move?’

‘I promise.’

‘Very well, then. You know Amaril quite well now; well, this romantic, endearing creature — so true a friend and so wise a doctor — has been our despair for years. It seemed that he could never, would never fall in love. We were sad for him — you know that despite our hardness of surface we Alexandrians are sentimental people, and wish our friends to enjoy life. Not that he was unhappy — and he has had lovers from time to time: but never une amie in our special sense. He himself bemoaned the fact frequently — I think not entirely to provoke pity or amusement, but to reassure himself that there was nothing wrong: that he was sympathetic and attractive to the race of women. Then last year at the Carnival, the miracle happened. He met a slender masked domino. They fell madly in love — indeed went farther than is customary for so cautious a lover as Amaril. He was completely transformed by the experience, but … the girl disappeared, still masked, without leaving her name. A pair of white hands and a ring with a yellow stone was all he knew of her — for despite their passion she had refused to unmask so that oddly enough, he had been denied so much as a kiss, though granted … other favours. Heavens, I am gossiping! Never mind.

‘From then on Amaril became insupportable. The romantic frenzy, I admit, suited him very well — for he is a romantic to his finger-tips. He hunted through the city all year long for those hands, sought them everywhere, beseeched his friends to help him, neglected his practice, became almost a laughing—stock. We were amused and touched by his distress, but what could we do?

How could we trace her? He waited for Carnival this year with burning impatience for she had promised to return to the place of rendezvous. Now comes the fun. She did reappear, and once more they renewed their vows of devotion; but this time Amaril was determined not to be given the slip — for she was somewhat evasive about names and addresses. He became desperate and bold, and refused to be parted from her which frightened her very much indeed. (All this he told me himself — for he appeared at my flat in the early morning, walking like a drunkard and with his hair standing on end, elated and rather frightened.)

‘The girl made several attempts to give him the slip but he stuck to her and insisted on taking her home in one of those old horse-drawn cabs. She was almost beside herself, indeed, and when they reached the eastern end of the city, somewhat shabby and unfrequented, with large abandoned properties and decaying gardens, she made a run for it. Demented with romantic frenzy, Amaril chased the nymph and caught her up as she was slipping into a dark courtyard. In his eagerness he snatched at her cowl when the creature, her face at last bared, sank to the doorstep in tears. Amaril’s description of the scene was rather terrifying. She sat there, shaken by a sort of snickering and whimpering and covering her face with her hands. She had no nose. For a moment he got a tremendous fright for he is the most superstitious of mortals, and knows all the beliefs about vampires appearing during carnival. But he made the sign of the cross and touched the clove of garlic in his pocket — but she didn’t disappear. And then the doctor in him came to the fore, and taking her into the courtyard (she was half-fainting with mortification and fear) he examined her closely He tells me he heard his own brain ticking out possible diagnoses clearly and watchfully, while at the same time he felt that his heart had stopped beating and that he was suffocating…. In a flash he reviewed the possible causes of such a feature, repeating with terror words like syphilis, leprosy, lupus, and turning her small distorted face this way and that. He cried angrily: “What is your name?” And she blurted out “Semira — the virtuous Semira.” He was so unnerved that he roared with laughter.