The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [202]
‘ “Come in while I telephone” I said, and he followed me slow ly, half-blinded by the light. He stood by the door for a moment, accustoming himself to it, and then he saw the portrait. He ex-claimed with great force: “This Jewish fox has eaten my life,” and struck his fists against his thighs several times. Then he put his hands over his face and breathed deeply. We waited like this facing one another, while I thought what there was to be done. They had all gone to the Cervoni ball, I knew. I would telephone them to find out if there was any truth in this story.
‘Meanwhile Narouz opened his fingers and peeped at me. He said: “I only came to tell you I loved you before giving myself up to my brother.” Then he spread his hands in a hopeless gesture.
“That is all.”
‘How disgusting, how unfair love is! Here I had been loved for goodness knows how long by a creature — I cannot say a fellow-creature — of whose very existence I had been unaware. Every breath I drew was unconsciously a form of his suffering, without my ever having been aware of it. How had this disaster come about? You will have to make room in your thoughts for this variety of the animal. I was furious, disgusted and wounded in one and the same moment. I felt almost as if I owed him an apology; and yet I also felt insulted by the intrusiveness of a love which I had never asked him to owe me.
‘Narouz looked now as if he were in a high fever. His teeth chattered in his head and he was shaken by spasms of violent shivering. I gave him a glass of cognac which he drained at one gulp, and then another even larger one. Drinking it he sank slowly down to the carpet and doubled his legs under him like an Arab.
“It is better at last” he whispered, and looking sadly round him added: “So this is where you live. I have wanted to see it for years. I have been imagining it all.” Then he frowned and coughed and combed his hair back with his fingers.
‘I rang the Cervoni house and almost at once got hold of Nessim. I questioned him tactfully, without giving anything away. But there seemed nothing wrong, as far as could be judged, though he could not at that moment locate Justine. She was somewhere on the dance-floor. Narouz listened to all this with staring surprised eyes, incredulous. “She is due to meet them in the hall in ten minutes’ time. Finish your drink and wait until she rings up. Then you will know that there has been some mistake.” He closed his eyes and seemed to pray.
‘I sat down opposite him on the sofa, not knowing quite what to say. “What exactly happened?” I asked him. All of a sudden his eyes narrowed and grew small, suspicious -look ing. Then he sighed and hung his head, tracing the design of the carpet with his finger.
“It is not for you to hear” he whispered, his lips trembling.
‘We waited like this, and all of a sudden, to my intense em-barrassment and disgust, he began to talk of his love for me, but in the tone of a man talking to himself. He seemed almost oblivious of me, never once looking up into my face. And I felt all the apolo-getic horror that comes over me when I am admired or desired and cannot reciprocate the feeling. I was somehow ashamed too, looking at that brutal tear-stained face, simply because I could not feel the slightest stirring of sympathy within my heart. He sat there on the carpet like some great brown toad, talking; like some story-book troglodyte. What the devil was I to do? “When have you seen me?” I asked him. He had only seen me three times in his life, though frequently at night he passed through the street to see if my light was on. I swore under my breath. It was so unfair. I had done nothing to merit this grotesque passion.
‘Then at last came a reprieve. The telephone rang, and he trembled all over like a hound as he heard the unmistakable hoarse tones of the woman he thought he had killed. There was nothing wrong that she knew of, and she was on her way home with Nessim. Everything was as it should be at the Cervoni house and the ball was still going on at full blast. As I said good night I felt Narouz clasp my slippers and begin kissing them with gratitude.