John Fowles - The Magus

At two, in the fierce afternoon sun, I started to toil up between the hedges of prickly pear towards the central ridge. I was carrying a hurricane lamp, a crowbar and a hacksaw. No scandal was one thing; but no investigation was another.

I came to Bourani about half-past three. The gap beside and the top of the gate had been wired, while a new notice covered the salle d'attente sign. It said in Greek, Private property, entrance strictly forbidden . It was still easy enough to climb over. But I had no sooner got inside than I heard a voice coming up through the trees from Moutsa. Hiding the tools and lamp behind a bush, I climbed back.

I went cautiously down the path, tense as a stalking cat, until I could see the beach. A caïque was at the far end. There were five or six people—not islanders, people in gay beach clothes, a brown girl in a white bikini. As I watched, two of the men picked up the girl, who screamed, and carried her down the shingle and dumped her into the sea. There was the blare of a battery wireless. I walked a few yards inside the fringe of trees, half expecting at any moment to recognize them. But the girl was small and dark, very Greek; two plump women; a man of thirty and two older men. I had never seen any of them before.

There was a sound behind me. A barefoot fisherman in ragged gray trousers, the owner of the caïque; came from the chapel. I asked him who the people were. They were from Athens, a Mr. Sotiriades and his family, they came every summer to the island.

Did many Athenian people come to the bay in August? Many, very many, he said. He pointed along the beach: In two weeks, ten, fifteen caIques, more people than sea.

Bourani was pregnable: and I had my final reason to leave the island.

The house was shuttered and closed, just as I had last seen it. I made my way round over the gulley to the Earth. I admired once again the cunning way its trap door was concealed, then lifted the stone and pulled on the ring. The dark shaft stared up. I climbed down with the lamp and lit it; then climbed back and got the tools. I had to saw halfway through the hasp of the padlock; then, under pressure from the crowbar, it snapped. I picked up the lamp, shot back the bolt, pulled open the massive door, and went in.

I found myself in the northwest corner of a rectangular room. Facing me I could see two embrasures that had evidently been filled in, though little ventilator grilles showed they had some access to the air. Along the north wall opposite, a long built-in wardrobe. By the east wall, two beds, a double and a single. Tables and chairs. Three armchairs. The floor had some kind of rough folkweave carpeting on top of felt, and three of the walls had been whitewashed, so that the place, though windowless, was surprisingly ungloomy. On the west wall, above the bed, was a huge mural of Tyrolean peasants dancing; lederhosen and a girl whose flying skirt showed her legs above her flower-clocked stockings. The colors were still good; or retouched. In the middle of the east wall there was a door. I opened it and found myself in another similarly shaped room. There were five beds in this one, another wardrobe. In a corner, a paraffin stove. The same blockedin embrasure slits. And on a desk in one corner a field telephone. I went back into what had evidently been the girls’ room, and started examining it more thoroughly.

There were fifteen or so changes of costume for Lily in the wardrobe, and at least eight of them were duplicated for Rose; several I had not seen. In a set of drawers there were period gloves, handbags, stockings, hats. Even an antiquated linen swimming costume with a lunatic ribboned Tam o' Shanter cap to match.

Blankets were piled on each mattress. I smelt one of the pillows, but couldn’t detect Lily’s characteristic scent. Over a table between the old gun slits there was a bookshelf. I pulled down one of the books. The Perfect Hostess. A Little Symposium on the Principles and Laws of Etiquette as Observed and Practised in the Best Society. London. 1901 . I flicked through it. How to make an elegant billet . A note folded into a star.

There were a dozen or so Edwardian novels. Someone had penciled notes on the flyleaves. Good dialogue, or Useful cliche’s at 98 and 164 . See scene at 203 , said one. “ Are you asking me to commit osculation?' laughed the ever-playful Fanny. ”

There was a chest, but it was empty. In fact the whole room was disappointingly empty of anything personal. I searched next door. The desk was empty. In the wardrobe there I found the horn that the Apollo figure had called with; the Robert Foulkes costume; a chef’s white overall and drum hat; a Lapp smock; and the entire uniform of a First World War captain with Rifle Brigade badges.

I began to go more carefully through the drawers, pockets, to see if I could find something. At last I came back to the shelf of books. In irritation I pulled down the whole lot and out of one of the books, an old bound copy of Punch , 1914 (in which various pictures had been ticked in red crayon), spilled a little folded pile of what I thought at first were letters. But they were not. They were pieces of paper used by Lily to scribble on. They had apparently originally been orders. None was dated.

1. The Drowned Italian Airman

We have decided to omit this episode.

2. Norway

We have decided to omit the visits with this episode.

3. Hirondelle

Has arrived. Treat with caution. Still tender.

4. If Subject discovers Earth

Please be sure you know the new procedure for this

eventuality by next weekend. Lily considers the

subject likely to force such a situation on us.

I wondered why they had bothered to keep up the pretense of the false name.

5. Hirondelle

Avoid all mention with the subject.

6. New Phase

Termination by end of July for all except nucleus.

7. State of subject

Maurice considers that the subject has now reached

the malleable stage. Remember that for the subject

any play is now better than no play. Change modes,

intensify withdrawals.

The eighth sheet was a typewritten copy of the Frog verses Lily had recited to me.

Finally, on different paper, a scrawled message: Tell Bo not to forget the unmentionables and the books. Oh and tissues, please.

Each of these nine pieces of paper had writing on the back, obviously (or obviously intended to look like) Lily’s rough drafts.

1. What is it?

If you were told its name

You would not understand.

Why is it?

If you were told its reasons

You would not understand.

Is it?

You are not even sure of that,

Poor footsteps in an empty room.

2. Love is the course of the experiment.

Is to the limit of imagination.

Love is your manhood in my orchards.

The nigger lurks my thin green leaves;

The white bitch wanders all your jungle.

Love is your dark face reading this.

Your dark, your gentle face and hands.

Did Desdemona

This was evidently unfinished.

3. The Choice

Spare him till he dies.

Torment him till he lives.

4. ominus dominus

Nicholas

homullus est

ridiculus

igitur meus

parvus pediculus

multo vult dare

sine morari

in culus illius

ridiculus

Nicholas

colossicus ciculus