The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [195]
‘But he was wearing Justine’s ring’ I said thickly, and all the premonitions of the last few months gathered in force at my elbow, crowding in upon me. I felt quite ill and feverish and had to lean for a moment against the wall by the telephone. Balthazar’s measured tone and cheerful voice sounded to me like an obscenity. There was a long silence. ‘Yes, I know about the ring’ he said, and added with a quiet chuckle ‘but that too is hard to think of as a possible reason. Toto was also the lover of the jealous Amar, you know. Any number of reasons….’
‘Balthazar’ I said, and my voice broke.
‘I’ll ring you if there’s anything else. The procès is at seven down in Nimrod’s office. See you there, eh?’
‘Very well.’
I put down the phone and burst like a bomb into Pombal’s bed-room. The curtains were still drawn and the bed was in a terrible mess suggesting a recent occupancy, but there was no other sign of him. His boots and various items from the washerwoman’s fancy dress lay about the room in various places, enabling me to discern that he had in fact got home the night before. Actually his wig lay on the landing outside the front door: I know this because much later, towards midday, I heard his heavy step climbing the stairs and he entered the flat holding it in his hand.
‘I am quite finished’ he said briefly, at once. ‘Finished, mon ami. ’
He looked more plethoric than ever as he made for his gout chair
as if anticipating a sudden attack of his special and private malady.
‘Finished’ he repeated, sinking into it with a sigh and distend ing. I was confused and bewildered, standing there in my pyjamas. Pombal sighed heavily.
‘My Chancery has discovered everything’ he said grimly setting his jaw. ‘I first behaved very badly … yes … the Consul General is having a nervous breakdown today….’ And then all of a sudden real tears of mixed rage, confusion and hysteria sprang up in his eyes. ‘Do you know what?’ he sneezed. ‘The Deuxième think I went specially to the ball to stick a pin in de Brunel, the best and most trusted agent we have ever had here!’
He burst out sobbing like a donkey now, and in some fantastic way his tears kept running into laughter; he mopped his streaming eyes and panted as he sobbed and laughed at one and the same time. Then, still blown up by these overmastering paroxysms he rolled out of his chair like a hedgehog on to the carpet and lay there for a while still shaking; and then began to roll slowly to the wainscot where, shaken still with tears and laughter, he began to bang his head rhythmically against the wall, shouting at every bang the pregnant and magnificent word — the summa of all despair:
‘ Merde. Merde. Merde. Merde. Merde. ’
‘Pombal’ I said weakly, ‘for God’s sake!’
‘Go away’ he cried from the floor. ‘I shall never stop unless you go away. Please go away.’ And so taking pity on him I left the room and ran myself a cold bath in which I lay until I heard him helping himself to bread and butter from the larder. He came to the bath-room door and tapped. ‘Are you there?’ he said. ‘Yes.’ ‘Then forget every word I said’ he shouted through the panel. ‘Please, eh?’
‘I have forgotten already.’
‘Good. Thank you, mon ami. ’
And I heard his heavy footfalls retreating in the direction of his room. We lay in bed until lunch-time that day, both of us, silent. At one-thirty, Hamid arrived and set out a lunch which neither of us had the appetite to eat. In the middle of it, the telephone rang and I went to answer it. It was Justine. She must have assumed that I had heard about Toto de Brunel for she made no direct mention of the business.