Lawrence Durrell - The Dark Labyrinth

Lighting a cigarette, he said to himself: “If you had told him the truth would he be happier or less happy? Would Böcklin’s disappearance as a miracle have more effect upon him than as a question of scientific fact? It is hard to say.”

In his experience it was the miracle that usually counted; and the more enlightened the person the greater the power of the miracle. He inhaled deeply and combed out his beard with his fingers. Somewhere above him Baird slept — his slumbers lulled by the prodigious snorings of the novice. The Abbot decided to take his problem to the sea-wall. He blew out the light and left the room, closing the door gently behind him. All was still in the courtyard. A bright bluish light from the risen moon deepened the shadows to the colour of ink; the sea sighed from time to time as one turning in a deep sleep. The darkness was fragrant with the scent of wallflowers. He sat himself upon the parapet close to his beloved pots of sweet basil, and consulted the glimmering tip of his cigarette. It was absurd really, he found himself thinking, that he should make a moral problem out of what was merely a kindness done to a friend. After all, he had loved Böcklin in a sense as dearly as anyone. Was there any need to reopen the whole question of his death and their guilt in making him die? “It was as much I”, he said to himself, “who fired the shot.”

He put out the cigarette and shuffled across the courtyard to the outhouse where Spiro kept the pots of tar and linseed oil, and all the tackle and gear of fishing. He lit himself a dark lantern, muttering to himself as he did so, and by the light of it unearthed a pot of dry tar. Over a small fire of shavings he melted it and then made his way once more across the courtyard to the chapel.

Here the darkness was absolute. He locked the door behind him with the great key, setting his lantern and his pot of tar upon the ground. The tinsel nimbus of St. Demetrius glimmered at him from the shadows of the altar. Mice chirped in the rotten woodwork of the pews. Other features of ikons less visible swam out at him upon the absolute darkness.

He sighed deeply, for what he was about to do would cost money to repair. Taking his pot of smoking tar he advanced into a corner and faced a small sandstone plaque standing above a slab of the paving. Through the soles of his slippers he felt the damp flags exuding their chill. He took up the stick with the rags tied to its end, which served him for a brush, and began to paint out an inscription in Greek which read:

UNDER THIS SLAB LIE THE MORTAL

REMAINS OF G. BÖCKLIN, A VERY

GALLANT OFFICER OF THE GERMAN ARMY,

KILLED IN ACTION 1944

He lingered for some time after he had successfully removed the inscription, reflecting with irony that his effort of age had been made on behalf of someone who did not believe in miracles. At any rate now Baird would never know the truth!

The Abbot fell asleep almost at once after reaching his room again, and did not wake until Brother Mark tiptoed into his cell at dawn with a crust of bread and a glass of goat’s milk. He slept very well, so there was no excuse for his drowsiness the next morning when Baird found him sitting half-asleep on the white parapet, fishing-rod in hand. The sun was shining brightly. Baird approached on tiptoe and peered down into the blue. “Your bait has gone,” he said pleasantly. The Abbot groaned. He was holding a book in his other hand and trying to read between naps. “I hate fishing,” he said. “I don’t really know why I do it. Self-discipline, I suppose.” Turning his head he roared: “Calypso. Come and change my bait.”

The little girl came and with expert fingers crushed the shell of the hermit crabs and fixed their limp writhing bodies on the hooks, while the Abbot averted his face. He could not bear to see them wriggle. “How they move,” said the little girl in her faraway voice. “Don’t,” said the Abbot, “don’t tell me. I hate inflicting pain.” She gave the signal and he cast the line erratically out into the blue again.

Baird sat down on the wall and tossed pebbles into the sea absently, waiting for his friend to catch something. “In half an hour”, he said, “I must walk over to Cefalû. Will you come?”

The Abbot John said he would. “But promise”, he said, “that you will say nothing about the City in the Rock being a real discovery.” Baird promised.

Campion and Virginia Dale were pushed bodily into something that was not unlike the flue of an old French chimney; the girl had fainted, and Campion had put his arms round her and managed to stagger a few feet into the gap, while the stones and earth poured into the opening behind them. Their faces were brown with dust, he noticed, as he climbed slowly up what seemed to be a flight of irregularly-hewn stairs towards a broad band of daylight. The girl was heavier than she looked; he was carrying her over his shoulders after the manner approved by firemen in rescues from fourth-floor windows. Campion was spared the anxiety of Miss Dombey — spared everything except thoughts of merciful deliverance, for almost from the beginning he could see the encouraging whiteness of daylight at the other end of the hold into which they had been blown. He climbed slowly, pausing to place Virginia gently on her feet and shake her; he did not think she had been hurt, as she had been standing behind him, and might, at the worst, have been flicked by the passing splinters of stone, one of which had lodged in his eye and temporarily blinded him; at least it felt as if it had blinded him. How magnificent the daylight looked, streaming softly into the entry above them. “Virginia,” he called, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “Virginia.” The girl seemed inclined to come round. He blew into her nostrils and saw her eyelids flutter. “Are you all right?” he said, but she subsided once more into what seemed to be more like a troubled sleep than a faint. Campion dragged her a few feet higher and paused. To his left there was a hole in the rock, a panel as large as a small bathroom mirror. It pierced several feet of solid rock and gave him a dim aquarium-like view of a cavern, in which, to his surprise, he saw the diminishing figures of Mr. and Mrs. Truman; saw them, briefly, for perhaps a second — for all the world as if he were looking at them through the wrong end of a telescope. He shouted hoarsely, putting his mouth to the opening, but there was no response. The grey-green subaqueous light shone steadily in a little group of stones. They had been (unless it had been an optical illusion) perhaps fifty yards away. His eyes were beginning to trouble him again; he could feel something stuck to the cornea when he closed it. Virginia stirred and moaned. Pausing from time to time to shake her, Campion mounted the last twenty paces, and collapsed with her upon the ledge, half-blind with sunlight. Here they lay for a long moment breathing the welcome scents of sage in the rare mountain air, and listening to the distant drumbeats of the sea. Presently Virginia sat up and looked round her. She was still pale and seemed about to be sick. Campion peeled off his coat, turning his body as it lay on the ground, to disengage first one arm and then the other. Thank God, he had managed to bring their lunch. “Virginia,” he said, “are you all right?” The girl gave a little cry and pointed to his face.

“Your eye,” she said. “Come here.”

In the cornea there was embedded a small fragment of stone — like the tip of a lead pencil. He sat patiently while she removed it between finger and thumb. It was not painful. He could still see out of it. Campion thanked her and lay back once more.

“What a merciful deliverance,” he said, with unusual piety. He lit a cigarette, deeply inhaling the smoke, and letting it gush from his nostrils; his hand still shook from the exertion and the fear of the last few moments. He thought of the others, trapped down there, and as he did so noticed that the girl was crying. Perhaps the same thought had visited her; Campion hated women to cry. He lay back and closed his eyes. In a little while they would have such food as they should find in their little cartons, and then slowly climb down to Cefalû to bring the first news of the disaster — if indeed the absence of the guide for so long a time had not already given the alarm. He settled himself more comfortably on the hard rock, feeling the wind flutter his hair, and ruffle the leaves of his small sketchbook which protruded from the pocket of the discarded coat. Idly now he took out the little packet of pastel crayons; they were all smashed up in their carton ridges. “Virginia,” he said, “do you feel better?”