Pascali's Island Page 2

  No, the sea is not a proper image for the void. The sea is sufficiently inhabited with bodies both native and foreign – it doesn't matter which, as the sea makes everything its own, modifies everything in the interests of unity, and this is exactly what the informer does, Excellency, with the elements he takes from life. Bleach, bloat, shimmer or rot – depending on the original substance. The sea is more strictly comparable to my finished report, multiplicity of effect within a single organic whole…

  While I am thus eagerly dreaming of my finished report, Hassan, the shore fisherman, emerges from the shadow of the café verandah farther along the shore towards the town. In the distance I see him stepping on legs thin as stilts down towards the sea. He holds his net like a gathered skirt. Stippled briefly by the bars of shadow cast by the verandah railing, then out on to the vacant expanse of shore. He walks slowly towards me, keeping close to the sea. He is as I see him every day: beak of a nose turned steadily seawards, faded headcloth and ragged shirt, black shalvas tucked up above his crane's thighs. The same. Yet today, in this my last report, he seems like some special emissary or messenger. The universe is crammed with symbols and portents, for those who have eyes.

  How did they find out about me? No one has been here in my absence, my papers have not been disturbed. Perhaps some casual indiscretion in Constantinople, reaching the wrong ears. Or the agent for the Banque Ottomane, where I go every month for my stipend, Mister Pariente… But he knows nothing of the source of the money. In any case, why now, after twenty years?

  Nevertheless, some connexion must have been made. There is a good deal of tension now on the island, with the rebels in the mountains stepping up activities. Separatist movements are everywhere gaining strength. I am not pure Greek, of course, they know that. I spend a lot of time with foreigners. All this might be regarded as suspicious. And then, two years ago, I ceased through boredom and laziness to attend the meetings of the Literary Society, where local patriots devote themselves to keeping Greek culture alive, quote Palamas and Pericles, express treasonable sentiments under the tutelage of the pappas. Harmless for the most part, but they have connexions, Excellency – these thin threads of sentiment and subversion extend to the furthest corners of your possessions and at points within this complex web are men with guns and money and friends abroad. My failure to attend may have gone against me.

  I have continued to send details of these meetings, of course, even though not actually present at them. Why should it matter, when both fact and invention are received in silence? In solitude such as mine these distinctions blur. Even before I left the society, many of those attending had become in my reports partially fictitious, or they were people culled from other times and other places, put in for the sake of colour and variety.

  Hassan is wading circumspectly into the pale water holding the net stealthily clear of the surface. The water is so clear that I can see the glimmer of his legs below the surface. He stops, turns away sharply as if piqued with the sea, then at once makes his cast, swinging round again, ending with arms outstretched like a suppliant. The net sails out, bunched at first, catching sun in its strands and weights. It opens, glinting, resembling for this brief time a sudden gauzy swarm of insects over the sea. It drops, dipping its mesh into the water with the briefest glitter of disturbance.

  Because the times I shall watch Hassan are numbered now, his actions take on ritual significance for me, a kind of lustral character. As do those of the group of women now sitting against the low wall at the top of the beach between here and the café. Dressed in black for bereavement and gossip. I can hear the plaintive, yet plangent, notes of their voices. Movements, voices, timeless, immemorial. The island does not change. Mister Bowles saw it as the first colonisers must have seen it.

  Why has he come, why is he here? An indefinite stay – that, in itself, is suspicious. If it were simply to see the castle built by the Crusaders, the Roman harbour installations, the Seljuk mosque, the classical remains along the coast, two days and a guide would be sufficient. No, he has some other purpose in mind. 'I hope you gave him a good room,' I said to Yannis, who is bad-tempered, but a simple man. 'Of course,' he said, 'Room 16, the big one, with a view of the sea.' So I know where he is. Yannis did not seem more unfriendly than usual. Strange.

  Hassan is a good way off along the shore. I see him again involved in that controlled violence of movement. The net invisible now, but the gesture unvarying, that final stillness of the outstretched arms. Beyond him the sea is wrinkled like the back of a hand. A thin moon above it. The fishing boats stand out in the bay, waiting for darkness. Further out I see the pale lights of the American's caique, though not the shape of the boat itself.

  Mister Bowles will be there now, in his room. Sitting at his window reviewing the events of the day, questioning himself, his motives. Or unpacking: photograph of a woman he always carries with him. No, he is writing in his journal – all English travellers have journals, it is an essential part of their equipment. He is making an entry in his journal before dinner. The English are very methodical and have a strong sense of duty, which they regard as sufficient morality. Wrongly.

  Darkness is falling as he finishes his entry. He stands at the window of his room looking out. He hears, as I am hearing now, the wail of the muezzin calling on us to pray. Behind him faint crepitations. At once, with his strongly developed sense of hygiene, he suspects filthy cockroaches. From the lokanta across the square the sound of a zither. Someone singing a few words. Cooking smells. In a few moments he will go down to the dining-room: plum-coloured carpeting, oval tables, gilt chairs. Soft flares of the gas lamps along the walls. Biron, the waiter, slim and assiduous. Would monsieur like an aperitif? One of the tables on the terrace, perhaps? From here you can see the lights of the harbour.

  I too must leave soon, if I am to get there before dinner. I intend to introduce myself to Mister Bowles, exert my charm, establish friendly relations.

  Some domestic details now, Excellency, at the risk of being tedious. I want you to see me here in this room. I want you to see how your informers live. First a quick wash of hands and face, in cold water – my house, though convenient in many ways, being private and cheap, has certain disadvantages, among which is the absence of running water. I have to get my water from the pump below.

  The mirror will reveal brown eyes full of intelligence and a capacity for pain; tongue, in all probability whitish, as it so often is nowadays. (My diet is bad, Excellency.) Stubble, though evident, should not be too disfiguring – I go only twice a week to the barber. The same shirt, unfortunately. Tomorrow Kyria Antigone brings the washing. White linen trousers. One leg has got shorter than the other, over the years, owing to an uneven rate of shrinkage, but they are clean. Finger-nails. A wet comb through the hair. No socks, which is a pity. I will discard my slippers in favour of the white and tan shoes. They pinch, but one must make some sacrifices. I go out three or four evenings a week, Excellency, normally: for information, and lower in the scale of things, but vital for continuance, food. Not the fez this evening, the straw hat. It will be obvious that I am not wearing socks, but no matter-my acceptance among the foreign community here is due largely to the fact that I provoke mirth and contempt in them. They see only an obese Levantine, scrounger and clown, one trouser leg rather shorter than the other.

  Such judgements are irrelevant, of course, and yet they are what most people proceed on. Anyone coming in just before, for example, while I was sleeping, would have missed the fire and fever of my eyes, seen only the uneasy bulk, the sleep-dewed brow. Not that anyone could obtain entry. Not without a good deal of force and noise. My room is securely locked at all times. But of course, they will, they will break in, sooner or later. It is only to be expected.

  Broken man on the rough cross. Not much blood. His head was down, but he was still breathing. I saw the movements of his chest.

  I was not surprised, Excellency. I was frightened by his face, but not surprised. I must start gettin
g ready to go out.

  Some minutes after midnight – I hear the first whistles of the nightwatchmen.

  My room was as I had left it. Thankfully I slipped the shoes off my tormented feet. I stood for some moments in the darkness, at my window, looking out. Faint glimmer of moonlight, starlight, on the sea. No lights along the shore. Plaintive whistle of the watchman, then again silence.

  I am at my table. Thick felt across the window – it is unwise to show light when every man of worth, Muslim or rayah, should be sleeping. I am too excited to sleep.

  Light from the spirit lamp falls on my pages. I love the look of paper in lamplight, the soft bloom on the loosely gathered pages. Around this charmed space the room falls away into obscurity. Here is luxe, calme et volupté. Here is where freedom and authority, spirit and form, embrace.

  How shall I begin? Not, certainly, with the bald relation of my finds among Mister Bowles's luggage. That will have to be led up to.

  The streets were dark, the only light coming from windows, and the doorways of shops. We have no street lamps on the island, though there is a rumour that this year they will be installed – by an Italian company, who will certainly have offered large bribes to the appropriate officials. Forgive me, Excellency, if I speak disparagingly of your civil servants. But they are the most corrupt that the world has ever seen.

  I went up by the steps. (There is also a road which climbs more gradually up towards the plateia.) I could hear the distant lamentations of the herded sheep. Pausing outside the magistrate's to get my breath, I breathed scented air from his garden, gulps of jasmine and mint. His shutters were not closed. I saw two men in the room overlooking the steps, neither of them known to me. Out at sea fishing lanterns in a looped chain.

  Yannis was standing outside the hotel. He barely returned my greeting. I passed through the swing doors into the lobby, saw Mardosian at the reception desk looking, as always, sleek and slightly troubled, as if engaged in not quite satisfactory self-communings.

  Excellency, that I have just described these two men so scantily, in such summary phrases, as if they did not exist until my words called them forth, fills me with disquiet. They do exist. I cannot give equal space to all in one single report. Yannis from the Smyrna dockside, Mardosian who escaped clubbing in the massacres of the nineties, to prosper here – they are mysteries, irreducible mysteries. Yet over the years, by constant reference, I have reduced them to my creatures, my props, just as I have made this island my territory. I swear I will not do this with Mister Bowles. I will render him direct, with sympathy and fidelity. I will seek to understand him, but will not fall into the error of regarding him as transparent.

  I must admit that, as far as my personal relationship with him is concerned, I have not made a very good beginning. Things went wrong from the start.

  I went on through the lounge, making my portly decorous way through the pink rattan tables and chairs. Following now the route which I had earlier imagined for Mister Bowles. On the walls familiar frescoes of the amorous metamorphoses of Zeus, executed by a German artist in the early years of the last century, crowded with bulky, frantic nymphs.

  Across the carpeted floor, through the pillars and the potted palms, among which I suddenly saw old Mrs Socratous, sitting reading the Figaro Littéraire. Or holding it, at least. Others there were too, islanded amidst the plants and pillars with the sound of music coming through to them from the dining-room. Old people, for the most part, sitting very still. They were sitting very still, Excellency. Age and stillness combined at this moment to make them seem emblematic to me. I loitered for a while among the pillars, formulating sentences which might or might not go into this report. The good informer sees parallels everywhere, and this careful immobility reminded me of the state of the Empire. These people are dying, as we all are, as is the Ottoman power. They know it intimately, and seek by reducing movement to postpone the final pang, to achieve a sort of protracted moribundity. The lesson is plain: avoid sudden movements, Excellency.

  Mrs Socratous looked up with a brief glint through narrow, gold-rimmed glasses. Her fingers, much beringed, clutched the edges of Figaro with tenacity, as if there were much needed nourishment within the spread of the page. High on the wall beyond her, Zeus, in the shape of a white bull, was bearing off a massive-thighed Europa in dishabille. Mrs Socratous did not smile exactly but her mouth appeared to relax. I said, 'Kali spera sas,' and heard no response.

  I passed on, entered the dining-room and made my way directly across to the verandah at the far end. This verandah is long and narrow, with room only for a double line of tables. It has leaded glass panes on its outer side, and an elaborate framework of wrought iron, in the English style. Presumably used as a conservatory when the house was in private hands. (It was throughout most of the last century in the possession of the Zotas family.) Converted to its present use by the enterprising Mardosian.

  The Englishman was sitting at one of the farther tables, alone. Exactly as I had envisaged! Indeed, as I look back on it now, this triumph, this exact coincidence with my expectation, acted like a spur to me, impelling me forward, arranging my face already into a smile. There were others on the verandah, Greeks of the town, among them Politis the cotton merchant, with two younger men, one of them the brother of the priest, Spyromidis. At another table two Turkish officers from the garrison, in uniform. I was hardly aware of it at the time, being so intent on my meeting with the Englishman, but I seem to remember now that Politis did not return my greeting, and that the whole group was silent as I passed. I am almost sure that this is so.

  He looked up as I approached, glanced aside briefly, then regarded me steadily. I came to a halt at the table, removing my hat. His face was very real to me in this crucial moment of introduction: the long jaw and the thick fair moustache, eyes pale, rather narrow, very direct.

  I paused, rather too long. The truth is, Excellency, that I was momentarily disabled by what I can only call his intenser physical existence. My own – and this may seem laughable in view of my undoubted corpulence – my own existence is liable to become quite unreal to me, especially when a strange face is confronting mine. I don't know whether it was because of this, or because the hostility of the Greeks, though still not fully registered, had thrown me off balance, but I now, on a strange impulse, in full sight of Politis, made the Moslem salaam, raising my hand to forehead and lips. 'Salaam meleikum,' I said.

  Consciousness of my folly was immediate, and I felt fear, though not of those watching. 'Excuse me, sir,' I said, in English. 'Can I have a word with you?'

  At once, even while he was making a gesture towards the chair opposite, even before I was seated, I knew that I had struck a false note: my loss of poise at that crucial moment had made my manner too ingratiating. The English despise a too evident desire to please. I fancied that I saw something change in his face, and I was distressed, because I wanted him to like me, or at least to see my worth. However, I went on talking.

  'My name is Pascali,' I said. 'Basil Pascali. You are newly arrived on the island, I believe. I thought, since I speak English you know, after a fashion, that you might need some help… the services of an interpreter or guide. If I can be of any assistance to you, I hope you will not hesitate to ask.'

  (Here I must issue a small caveat, Excellency. I am reproducing this conversation some hours after the event. My faculty of recall is good, and it has been trained over the years, through the exercise of my profession. All the same, total fidelity is impossible; there must be some degree of manipulation. Anyone who writes reports will know that in the matter of dialogue, as in sequences of action, naturalism must often be sacrificed for the sake of coherence. My aim, as always, is to convey the essence through the form.)

  About my own feelings of course, there can be no mistake. And I will admit to Your Excellency that I felt a degree of self-contempt to hear my own voice, before too deferential, now become boastfully assertive. 'I live here, in the town,' I said. 'I am a well-known
figure on the island. Everybody knows me. Everybody knows Basil Pascali… To make your stay more enjoyable, you understand.'

  He looked at me for some moments without replying, as if he was waiting for something more. Then he said, 'That is very kind of you, Mister, er, Pascali. My name is Bowles. Anthony Bowles.'

  His first words to me. First example of an incongruity about him which I found from the very first disturbing: the contrast between the unrelaxed yet leisurely movements of his body, and the blurting habit of his speech, in which bunches of words come out like offerings, full of haste and sincerity.

  'There is a lot to see here,' I said. 'The island has a very long history as I am sure you know. It was one of the earliest Greek settlements. After that, layers and layers of peoples, cultures. But I am sure you know all this. We are naturally very proud…'

  I was attempting, you will understand, by these indirect means, to elicit something of the purpose of his visit. As I have already said, I do not believe he is here as a tourist. There is something different in the quality of his attention. Difficult to define. He made no immediate response to my remarks, and daunted by the silence I found myself looking fixedly at the level of Vermouth in his glass. I became aware of my own dry, nervous mouth. I am very sensitive, though few know this, and this meeting was so important to me. So momentous. His arrival, my departure… With my passion for portents, Excellency, you will see… Besides, I had felt from the beginning there was something between us. His present silence, however, gave me no help.

  'You are younger than I thought,' I said. 'I mean, at a distance -'

  It seemed to me that at this point Mister Bowles raised the level of his eyes slightly, as if to study the top of my head.