The Alexandria Quartet - Lawrence Durrell [97]
The night after Justine went away there was a freak thunder-storm of tremendous intensity. I had been wandering about in the rain for hours, a prey not only to feelings which I could not control but also to remorse for what I imagined Nessim must be feeling. Frankly, I hardly dared to go back to the empty flat, lest I should be tempted along the path Pursewarden had already taken so easily, with so little premeditation. Passing Rue Fuad for the seventh time, coatless and hatless in that blinding downpour, I happened to catch sight of the light in Clea’s high window and on an impulse rang the bell. The front door opened with a whine and I stepped into the silence of the building from the dark street with its boom-ing of rain in gutters and the splash of overflowing manholes. She opened the door to me and at a glance took in my condition. I was made to enter, peel off my sodden clothes and put on the blue
dressing-gown. The little electric fire was a blessing, and Clea set about making me hot coffee.
She was already in pyjamas, her gold hair combed out for the night. A copy of A Rebours lay face down on the floor beside the ash-tray with the smouldering cigarette in it. Lightning kept flash-ing fitfully at the window, lighting up her grave face with its magnesium flashes. Thunder rolled and writhed in the dark heavens outside the window. In this calm it was possible partly to exorcise my terrors by speaking of Justine. It appeared she knew all — nothing can be hidden from the curiosity of the Alexandrians. She knew all about Justine, that is to say.
‘You will have guessed’ said Clea in the middle of all this ‘that Justine was the woman I told you once I loved so much.’
This cost her a good deal to say. She was standing with a coffee cup in one hand, clad in her blue-striped pyjamas by the door. She closed her eyes as she spoke, as if she were expecting a blow to fall upon the crown of her head. Out of the closed eyes came two tears which ran slowly down on each side of her nose. She looked like a young stag with a broken ankle. ‘Ah! let us not speak of her any more’ she said at last in a whisper. ‘She will never come back.’
Later I made some attempt to leave but the storm was still at its height and my clothes still impossibly sodden. ‘You can stay here’
said Clea ‘with me’; and she added with a gentleness which brought a lump into my throat, ‘But please — I don’t know how to say this
— please don’t make love to me.’
We lay together in that narrow bed talking of Justine while the storm blew itself out, scourging the window-panes of the flat with driven rain from the seafront. She was calm now with a sort of resignation which had a moving eloquence about it. She told me many things about Justine’s past which only she knew; and she spoke of her with a wonder and tenderness such as people might use in talking of a beloved yet infuriating queen. Speaking of Arnauti’s ventures into psycho-analysis she said with amusement:
‘She was not really clever, you know, but she had the cunning of a wild animal at bay. I’m not sure she really understood the object of these investigations. Yet though she was evasive with the doctors she was perfectly frank with her friends. All that correspondence about the words “Washington D.C.”, for example, which they worked so hard on — remember? One night while we were lying
here together I asked her to give me her free associations from the phrase. Of course she trusted my discretion absolutely. She replied unerringly (it was clear she had already worked it out though she would not tell Arnauti):