Kingsley Amis - Dear Illusion - Selected Stories

Let me begin with information from the official dossiers of the two agents involved. The younger, Michael Courtenay, had been born in 1870, educated at Rugby and Brasenose and recruited by the Department (nowhere referred to by any fuller title) in 1895; he was expert in opening locked doors, safes and the like; his interests, perhaps rather quaintly, embraced cricket and the then new-fangled science of psychology. A photograph in poor condition nevertheless showed him to have been a broad-shouldered, heavy-featured young man with a determined look. His superior officer was eight years his senior, Guy Barnes by name, of similar education and a distinguished record of service in the Department. With his unruly hair and wide eyes he resembled, I thought, a poet or musician rather than the severely practical creature required by his trade.

Far above the head of either man it had been concluded that, however warmly to be welcomed on other considerations, the Turkish departure raised certain hazards for the Allies. It rendered the island more vulnerable to the intervention of third parties, of which the most likely was Italy, lately in aggressive mood, her disastrous Abyssinian adventure concluded only two years before — not that she showed at the moment any sign of an interest in Crete. The departure itself might be a feint, a prelude to return in greater strength — not that this was foreshadowed by any known development in Constantinople. What was quite certain was that the newly appointed High Commissioner for the island, Prince George of Greece, had arrived to take up his office on 21 December 1898, and hardly less so that he had enemies there and near by. All in all an unobtrusive intensification of vigilance seemed desirable. Together with his colleagues in the area, Courtenay received orders to keep an eye on comings and goings, to watch for and report anything which his two and a half years’ local experience told him was unusual. He passed the message on to his village informants and settled down to wait in the little shipping Office that disguised his true function.

He had only a short time to wait. Early in that January there came to see him a middle-aged fisherman whom I will call Vassos and who had shown himself to be reliable and observant. Courtenay asked for coffee to be brought. (He does not say so, but since in the Greek-speaking world nothing of importance is ever discussed except over coffee I have thought the inference a safe one, like others I have drawn here and there.)

‘You have news for me, Vassos?’

‘Yes, kyrie . I don’t know what it means, but it is news.’

‘We will try to understand it together. Speak.’

The visitor was silent for a short space. Courtenay thought he seemed agitated about something. (This he does say.) Finally he began: ‘Last night I take out my boat to go to my lobster pots, near the side of the bay where there is the headland with the big house on it.’

‘I know the place. Go on, man.’

‘I beg pardon, kyrie . I have reached the pots but not brought out my lantern when a light flashes from the house. That surprises me because I think the house is empty, as it has been for over a year, but then I remember the chandler has told me three men have come to it a week ago. While I watch, the light flashes again, and it flashes on and off, on and off, twice, like that, and then all the house is dark. Then I look out to sea and there another light flashes, and again all else is dark, and this is much more strange, because now I hear an engine, a big one, and what must I think of a ship with a big engine all dark except for the flashes in these waters where there are so many small craft? So I wait, and soon the ship comes, and she is big, bigger than my cousin’s kayik . She’s just passing me when some more lights come on, at the landing-stage under the house, but they are dim, as if someone has smoked the glass of the lanterns, just enough to see by, except… The anchorage is too small for the ship to tie up alongside, so she turns and comes in stern first, beam on to me. When they’re ready, some people disembark; they have the dim lanterns too.’

‘How many?’ asked Courtenay.

This harmless question evidently troubled Vassos. He swallowed and said, ‘Either sixteen or seventeen, kyrie .’

‘That’s near enough. All men?’

‘Ten at least, kyrie . With some I couldn’t be sure.’

‘Did you get a good look at any of them?’

Vassos said in a changed tone, ‘Once there was a bright light for some seconds, perhaps a match, and I saw… I saw… no, I could not have seen.’

‘What could you not have seen? What ails you?’

‘No, kyrie , forgive me, I can’t say. On the head of St Peter I swear it was nothing you asked me to look for.’

‘Oh, very well. Did anyone see you?’

‘Certainly not. I waited till they were all gone and then I paddled away; I didn’t even row at first.’

‘Excellent. Can you take me out there? We will be two fishermen who happen to be passing.’

‘When, kyrie ?’

‘Now, if possible.’

After some thought, Vassos said, ‘Better tomorrow morning, kyrie , I will speak to my cousin. Can you be at the harbour by six o’clock?’

‘Yes. You’ve done well, Vassos. Here.’

‘ Evkharisto, kyrie. ’

‘ Parakalo. Kal’ iméra sas. ’

A couple of hours after Vassos had left the office, a large, well-built young man with baggy trousers and a dirty face was riding an elderly donkey along the path that led from the base of the headland to the house at its tip. When still some fifty yards from his objective he found his way barred by a freshly painted iron railing with what proved to be a locked gate in it. There was a bell attached to this gate, but instead of ringing it, the obvious course, the new arrival tied up his mount to the railing and wandered in apparent perplexity along it first to his left, finding that it ended at a precipice, or rather projected a yard into thin air, then in the other direction far enough to see that it ran down a broken slope to the water’s edge. Where it crossed naked rock each upright was rooted in a heavy cross-bar. Those three earlier residents had not wasted their week. The railing would not have kept out a determined and properly equipped intruder, but it was quite enough to see to it that idle curiosity remained unsatisfied. The intervention of some olive-trees and a dip in the ground gave a poor view of the house itself from the landward side of the railing, except that it appeared to be shaped like an L or perhaps a T and had one or more outbuildings close to it.

While the person with the donkey, who carried a pannier of fresh figs, was looking vaguely in that direction, a man came out of the little olive-grove. He wore servants’ clothing and as he approached he called out in a Peloponnesian accent, ‘What do you want, you there?’

The other swept off his straw hat and bowed. ‘Greetings to your honour.’ His accent was Cretan and rustic. ‘Would your lordship care for some of my fine fruit? Two piastres for the whole.’

‘We need none. We have our own supply.’

‘One and a half piastres.’

‘I tell you we need none,’ said the servant, halting while still some yards short of the gate. If he had a key, it was not to be seen. ‘Be off with you, fellow.’

‘One piastre. My figs are the most delicious in all Crete. His highness the Count would much enjoy them.’

‘Count? What Count?’

‘Count Axel, your master, distinguished sir.’

‘Count Axel is not here. Now go.’

The Peloponnesian turned his back and retreated the way he had come. After making a blasphemous gesture and muttering a number of imprecations, the unsuccessful vendor of figs resumed his donkey and went off down the path. Not a hint of menace, said Courtenay to himself, just total discouragement, designed to set the word going about that there was no profit to be had at the house on the headland. What meaning was to be attached to the implied denial of Count Axel’s existence, followed by the explicit denial of his presence? — his existence, and his status as the recent purchaser of the house, having been easily enough established by earlier inquiry in the port. Perhaps no more than a simple desire to be obstructive. Axel — presumably a Scandinavian name. Could Sweden or Denmark have any designs in Crete?