Lawrence Durrell - The Alexandria Quartet

Then after that a whole month of silence before he heard his brother’s voice on the telephone. Narouz had walked all day long in a forest of his own heartbeats, attending to the work of the land with a concentrated fury of purpose, galloping along the slow-moving river of his inheritance on horseback, his reflection flying beside him: always with the great whip coiled at his saddlebow. He felt immeasurably aged now — and yet, at one and the same time, as new to the world as a foetus hanging from the birthcord. The land, his land, now brown and greasy as an old wineskin under the rain, compelled him. It was all he had left now to care for — trees bruised by frost, sand poisoned by desert salt, water-pans stocked with fish and geese; and silences all day except for the sighing and the groaning of the waterwheels with their eternal message (‘Alexander has asses’ ears’) carried away by the winds to the further corners of the land, to pollinate history once more with the infectious memory of the soldier-god; or the suck and pluck of the black ‘forehead-smasher’ buffalo wallowing in the ooze of the dykes. And then at night the haunting plural syllables of the duck deploying in darkness, calling to one another in anxiety or content — travellers’ codes. Screens of mist, lowlying clouds through which the dawns and sunsets burst with unexampled splendour each one the end of a world, a dying into amethyst and nacre.

Normally, this would be the hunter’s season which he loved, brisk with great woodfires and roving gun-dogs: time for the dousing of boots with bear’s fat, for the tuning in of the long punt-guns, the sorting out of shot, the painting of decoys….

This year he had not even the heart to join in the great annual duckshoot given by Nessim. He felt cut off, in a different world.

He wore the bitter revengeful face of a communicant refused absolution. He could no longer exorcize his sadness privately with a dog and gun; he thought only of Taor now, and the dreams he shared with her — the fierce possessive recognition of his dedicated role here , among his own lands, and in the whole of Egypt…. These confusing dreams interlinked, overlapped, intersected — like so many tributaries of the great river itself.

Even Leila’s love threatened them now — was like some brilliant parasite ivy which strangles the growth of a tree. He thought vaguely and without contempt of his brother still there in the city

— (he was not to leave until later) — moving among people as insubstantial as waxworks, the painted society women of Alexandria. If he thought at all of his love for Clea it was for a love left now like some shining coin, forgotten in a beggar’s pocket….

Thus, galloping in savage exultation along moss-green wharves and embankments of the estuary with its rotting palms fretted by the wind, thus he lived.

Once last week Ali had reported the presence of unknown men upon the land, but he had not given the matter a thought.

Often a stray Bedouin took a short cut across the plantations or a stranger rode through the property bound for the road to the city. He was more interested when Nessim telephoned to say that he would be visiting Karm Abu Girg with Balthazar who wished to investigate reports of a new species of duck which had been seen on the lake. (From the roof of the house one could sweep the whole estuary with a powerful glass.)

This indeed was what he was doing now, at this very moment.

Tree by tree, reed-patch by reed-patch, turning a patient and curious eye upon the land through his ancient telescope. It lay, mysterious, unpeopled and silent in the light of the dawn. He intended to spend the whole day out there among the plantations in order to avoid, if possible, seeing his brother. But now the defection of the servants was puzzling, and indeed, inexplicable.

Usually when he woke he roared for Ali who brought him a large copper can with a long spout full of hot water and sluiced him down as he stood in the battered Victorian hip-bath, gasping and hissing. But today? The courtyard was silent, and the room in which Ali slept was locked. The key hung in its place upon the nail outside. There was not a soul about.

With sudden quick strides he climbed to the balcony for his telescope and then mounted the outer wooden staircase to the roof to stand among the turrets of the dovecots and scan the Hosnani lands. A long patient scrutiny revealed nothing out of the ordinary. He grunted and snapped the glass shut. He would have to fend for himself today. He climbed down from his perch and taking the old leather game-bag made his way to the kitchens to fill it with food. Here he found coffee simmering and some pans set to heat upon the charcoal fire, but no trace of the cooks.

Grumbling, he helped himself to a snag of bread which he munched while he assembled some food for lunch. Then an idea struck him. In the courtyard, his shrill angry whistle would normally have brought the gun-dogs growling and fawning about his boots from wherever they had taken refuge from the cold; but today the empty echo of his own whistle was all that the wind threw back to him. Had Ali perhaps taken them out on some excursion of his own? It did not seem likely. He whistled again more loudly and waited, his feet set squarely apart in his jackboots, his hands upon his hips. There was no answer. He went round to the stables and found his horse. Everything was perfectly normal here. He saddled and bridled it and led it round to the hitching post. Then he went upstairs for his whip. As he coiled it, another thought struck him. He turned into the living-room and took a revolver from the writing-desk, checking it to see that the chambers were primed. He stuck this in his belt.

Then he set out, riding softly and circumspectly towards the east, for he proposed first of all to make an exploratory circuit of the land before plunging into the dense green plantations where he wished to spend the day. It was crisp weather, rapidly clearing, the marsh-mist full of evanescent shapes and contours but rising fast. Horse and rider moved with smooth deftness along the familiar ways. He reached the desert fringe in half an hour, having seen nothing untoward though he looked about him carefully under his bushy brows. On the soft ground the horse’s hooves made little noise. In the eastern corner of the plantation, he halted for a good ten minutes, combing the landscape once more with his telescope. And once more there was nothing of particular importance. He neglected none of the smaller signs which might indicate a foreign visitation, tracks in the desert, footmarks on the soft embankment by the ferry. The sun was rising slowly but the land slept in its thinning mist. At one place he dismounted to check the depth-pumps, listening to their sullen heartbeats with pleasure, greasing a lever here and there.

Then he remounted and turned his horse’s head towards the denser groves of the plantations with their cherished Tripoli olives and acacia, their humus-giving belts of juniper, the windbreaks of rattling Indian corn. He was still on the alert, however, and rode in short swift spurts, reining in every now and again to listen for a full minute. Nothing but the distant gabble of birds, the slither of flamingo-wings on the lake-water, the melodious horns of teal or the splendour (as of a tuba in full pomp) of honking geese.

All familiar, all known. He was still puzzled but not ill at ease.

He made his way at last to the great nubk tree standing up starkly in its clearing, its great trophied branches dripping with condensing mist. Here, long ago, he had stood and prayed with Mountolive under the holy branches, still heavy with their curious human fruitage; everywhere blossomed the ex votos of the faithful in strips of coloured cloth, calico, beads. They were tied to every branch and twig and leaf so that it looked like some giant Christmas tree. Here he dismounted to take some cuttings which he wrapped and stowed carefully. Then he straightened up for he had heard the sounds of movement in the green glades around him.