Lawrence Durrell - The Alexandria Quartet

All the little errors of judgement the blind make, like talking to a chair which had just been vacated by its owner … they are absent.

One wonders sometimes if she really is blind. She came out here to collect his effects and to gather material about him for a biography.’ I: ‘Balthazar hinted at some sort of mystery.’ She: ‘There is little doubt that David Mountolive is hopelessly in love with her; and from what he told Balthazar it began in London. It is certainly an unusual liaison for someone so correct, and it obviously gives them both a great deal of pain. I often imagine them, the snow falling in London, suddenly finding themselves face to face with the Comic Demon! Poor David!

And yet why should I utter such a patronizing phrase? Lucky David! Yes, I can tell you a little, based on a scrap of his conversation. Suddenly, in a moribund taxi speeding away to the suburbs she turned her face to him and told him that she had been told to expect him many years ago; that the moment she heard his voice she knew that he was the dark princely stranger of the prophecy. He would never leave her. And she only asked leave to verify it, pressing her cold fingers to his face to feel it all over, before sinking back on the cold cushions with a sigh! Yes, it was he.

It must have been strange to feel the fingers of the blind girl pressing one’s features with a sculptor’s touch. David said that a shudder ran through him, all the blood left his face, and his teeth began to chatter! He groaned aloud and clenched them together.

So they sat there, hand in hand, trembling while the snowlit suburbs shuttled by the windows. Later she placed his finger upon the exact configuration in her hand which portended an altered life, and the emergence of this unexpected figure which would dominate it! Balthazar is sceptical of such prophecies, as you are, and he cannot avoid a note of amused irony in recounting the story. But so far the enchantment seems to have lasted, so perhaps you will concede something to the power of prophecy, sceptic that you are! And well: with her brother’s death she arrived here, has been sorting out papers and manuscripts, as well as interviewing people who knew him. She came here once or twice to talk to me; it wasn’t altogether easy for me, though I told her all that I could remember of him. But I think the question which really filled her mind was one which she did not actually utter, namely, had I ever been Pursewarden’s mistress? She circled round and round it warily. I think, no, I am sure that she thought me a liar because what I had to tell her was so inconsequent.

Indeed perhaps its vagueness suggested that I had something to conceal. In the studio I still have the plaster negative of the deathmask which I showed Balthazar how to make. She held it to her breast for a moment as if to suckle it, with an expression of intense pain, her blind eyes seeming to grow larger and larger until they overflowed the whole face, and turned it into a cave of interrogation. I was horribly embarrassed and sad to suddenly notice, sticking in the plaster, a few little shreds of his moustache. And when she tried to place the negative together and apply it to her own features I almost caught her hand lest she feel them. An absurdity! But her manner startled and upset me. Her questions put me on edge. There was something shamefully inconclusive about these interviews, and I was mentally apologizing to Pursewarden all the time in my mind for not making a better showing; one should, after all, be able to find something sensible to say of a great man whom one fully recognized in his lifetime. Not like poor Amaril who was so furious to see Pursewarden’s death-mask lying near that of Keats and Blake in the National Portrait Gallery. It was all he could do, he says, to prevent himself from giving the insolent thing a smack with his hand. Instead he abused the object, saying: “ Salaud! Why did you not tell me you were a great man passing through my life? I feel defrauded in not noticing your existence, like a child whom someone forgot to tell, and who missed the Lord Mayor riding by in his coach!” I had no such excuse myself, and yet what could I find to say? You see, I think a cardinal factor in all this is that Liza lacks a sense of humour; when I said that in thinking of Pursewarden I found myself instinctively smiling she put on a puzzled frown of interrogation merely. It is possible that they never laughed together, I told myself; yet their only real similarity in the physical sense is in the alignment of teeth and the cut of the mouth. When she is tired she wears the rather insolent expression which, on his face, heralded a witticism!

But I expect you too will have to see her, and tell her what you know, what you can remember. It is not easy, facing those blind eyes, to know where to begin! As for Justine, she has luckily been able to escape Liza so far; I suppose the break between Mountolive and Nessim has presented an effective enough excuse. Or perhaps David has convinced her that any contact might be compromising to him officially. I do not know. But I am certain that she has not seen Justine. Perhaps you will have to supply her with a picture, for the only references in Pursewarden’s notes are cruel and perfunctory. Have you reached the passages yet in the commonplace book? No. You will. I’m afraid none of us gets off very lightly there! As for any really profound mystery I think Balthazar is wrong. Essentially I think that the problem which engulfs them is simply the effect upon him of her blindness. In fact I am sure from the evidence of my own eyes. Through the old telescope of Nessim … yes, the same one! It used to be in the Summer Palace, do you recall? When the Egyptians began to expropriate Nessim all Alexandria got busy to defend its darling. We all bought things from him, intending to hold them for him until everything had blown over. The Cervonis bought the Arab stock, Ganzo the car, which he resold to Pombal, and Pierre Balbz the telescope. As he had nowhere to house it Mountolive let him put it on the veranda of the summer legation, an ideal site. One can sweep the harbour and most of the town, and in the summer dinner guests can do a little mild star-gazing. Well, I went up there one afternoon and was told that they were both out for a walk, which by the way was a daily custom all winter with them. They would take the car down to the Corniche and walk along the Stanley Bay front arm in arm for half an hour. As I had time to kill I started to fool with the telescope, and idly trained it on the far corner of the bay. It was a blowy day, with high seas running, and the black flags out which signalled dangerous bathing. There were only a few cars about in that end of the town, and hardly anyone on foot. Quite soon I saw the Embassy car come round the corner and stop on the seafront.

Liza and David got down and began to walk away from it towards the beach end. It was amazing how clearly I could see them; I had the impression that I could touch them by just putting out a hand.

They were arguing furiously, and she had an expression of grief and pain on her face. I increased the magnification until I discovered with a shock that I could literally lip-read their remarks!

It was startling, indeed a little frightening. I could not “hear” him because his face was half turned aside, but Liza was looking into my telescope like a giant image on a cinema screen. The wind was blowing her dark hair back in a shock from her temples, and with her sightless eyes she looked like some strange Greek statue come to life. She shouted through her tears, “No, you could not have a blind Ambassadress”, turning her head from side to side as if trying to find a way of escaping this fearful truth — which I must admit had not occurred to me until the words registered. David had her by the shoulders and was saying something very earnestly, but she wasn’t heeding. Then with a sudden twist she broke free and with a single jump cleared the parapet like a stag, to land upon the sand. She began to run towards the sea. David shouted something, and stood for a second gesticulating at the top of the stone steps to the beach. I had such a distinct picture of him then, in that beautifully cut suit of pepper and salt, the flower in his button-hole and the old brown waistcoat he loves with its gunmetal buttons.