The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [346]
Other people had now entered the clearing. Thinking became easier. They had brought an enormous purple curtain with which to carry him back to the house. And now, in some strange way, the place was full of servants. They had ebbed back like a tide. The air was dark with their concern. Narouz ground his teeth and groaned as they lifted him to the great purple cloak and bore him back, like a wounded stag, through the plantations. Once as he neared the house, he said in the same clear child’s voice: ‘To see Clea’ and then subsided into a feverish silence punctuated by occasional quivering sighs.
The servants were saying: ‘Praise be to God that the doctor is here! All will be well with him!’
Balthazar felt Nessim’s eyes turned upon him. He shook his head gravely and hopelessly and repeated his clucking sound softly. It was a matter of hours, of minutes, of seconds. So they reached the house like some grotesque religious procession bearing the body of the younger son. Softly mewing and sobbing, but with hope and faith in his recovery, the women gazed down upon the jutting head and the sprawled body in the purple curtain which swelled under his weight like a sail. Nessim gave directions, uttering small words like ‘Gently here’ and ‘Slowly at the corner’. So they gradually got him back to the gaunt bedroom from which he had sallied forth that morning, while Balthazar busied himself, breaking open a packet of medical supplies which were kept in a cupboard against lake-accidents, hunting for a hypodermic needle and a phial of morphia. Small croaks and groans were now issuing from the mouth of Narouz. His eyes were closed. He could not hear the dim conversation which Nessim, in another corner of the house, was having with Clea on the telephone.
‘But he is dying, Clea.’
Clea made an inarticulate moaning noise of protest. ‘What can I do, Nessim? He is nothing to me, never was, never will be. Oh, it is so disgusting — please do not make me come, Nessim.’
‘Of course not. I simply thought as he is dying ——’
‘But if you think I should I will feel obliged to.’
‘I think nothing. He has not long to live, Clea.’
‘I hear from your voice that I must come. Oh, Nessim, how disgusting that people should love without consent! Will you send the car or shall I telephone Selim? My flesh quails on my bones.’
‘Thank you, Clea’ said Nessim shortly and with sadly downcast head; for some reason the word ‘disgusting’ had wounded him. He walked slowly back to the bedroom, noticing on the way that the courtyard was thronged with people — not only the house servants but many new curious visitors. Calamity draws people as an open wound draws flies, Nessim thought. Narouz was in a doze. They sat for a while talking in whispers. ‘Then he must really die?’ asked Nessim sadly, ‘without his mother?’ It seemed to him an added burden of guilt that it was through his agency that Leila had been forced to leave. ‘Alone like this.’ Balthazar made a grimace of impatience. ‘It is amazing he’s alive at all still’ he said.
‘And there is absolutely nothing….’ Slowly and gravely Balthazar shook that dark intelligent head. Nessim stood up and said: ‘Then I should tell them that there is no hope of recovery. They will want to prepare for his death.’
‘Do as you wish.’
‘I must send for Tobias the priest. He must have the last sacraments — the Holy Eucharist. The servants will know the truth from him.’
‘Act as seems good to you’ said Balthazar dryly, and the tall figure of his friend slipped down the staircase into the courtyard to give instructions. A rider was to be despatched at once to the priest with instructions to consecrate the holy elements in the church and then come post-haste to Karm Abu Girg to administer the last sacraments to Narouz. As this intelligence went abroad there went up a great sigh of dreadful expectancy and the faces of the servants lengthened with dread. ‘And the doctor?’ they cried in tones of anguish. ‘And the doctor?’
Balthazar smiled grimly as he sat on the chair beside the dying man. He repeated to himself softly, under his breath,