The Magus - John Fowles [38]
�de leurs blancs troupeaux. Ils n'�ient pas toujours habill�des costumes de l'� qua. Quelquefois us �ient v�s a la romaine ou a la grecque, at ainsi r�isait-on des odes de Th�rite, des bucoliques de Virgile. On parlait m� d'�cations plus scandaleuses, de charmantes nymphes qui las nuits d'� fuyaient au clair de lune d'�anges silhouettes, moiti�omme, moiti�h�e_..." * [* "Visitors who went behind the high walls of Saint-Martin had the pleasure of seeing, across the green lawns and among the groves, shepherds and shepherdesses who danced and sang, surrounded by their white flocks. They were not always dressed in eighteenth-century clothes. Sometimes they wore costumes in the Roman and Greek styles; and in this way the odes of Theocritus and the bucolics of Virgil were brought to life. It was even said that there were more scandalous scenes--charming nymphs who on summer nights fled in the moonlight from strange dark shapes, half man, half goat..."] At last it began to seem plain. All that happened at Bourani was in the nature of a private masque; and no doubt the passage was a hint to me that I should, both out of politeness and for my own pleasure, not poke my nose behind the scenes. I felt ashamed of the questions I had asked at Agia Varvara. I washed and, in deference to the slight formality Conchis apparently liked in the evenings, changed into a white shirt and a summer suit. When I came out of my room to go downstairs the door of his bedroom was open. He called me in. "We will have our _ouzo_ up here this evening." He was sitting at his desk, reading a letter he had just written. I waited behind him a moment, looking at the Bonnards again while he addressed the envelope. The door of the little room at the end was ajar. I had a glimpse of clothes, of a press. It was simply a dressing room. By the open doors, Lily's photograph stared at me from its table. We went out onto the terrace. There were two tables there, one with the ouzo and glasses on, the other with the dinner things. I saw at once that there were three chairs at the dinner table; and Conchis saw me see. "We shall have a visitor after dinner." "From the village?" But I was smiling, and he was too when he shook his head. It was a magnificent evening, one of those gigantic Greek spans of sky and world fluxed in declining light. The mountains were the grey of a Persian cat's fur, and the sky like a vast, unfaceted primrose diamond. I remembered noticing, one similar sunset in the village, how every man outside every taverna had turned to face the west, as if they were in a cinema, with the eloquent all-saying sky their screen. "I read the passage you marked in _Le Masque Fran �s_." "It is only a metaphor. But it may help." He handed me an _ouzo_. We raised glasses. Coffee was brought and poured, and the lamp moved to the table behind me, so that it shone on Conchis's face. We were both waiting. "I hope I shan't have to forego the rest of your adventures." He raised his head, in the Greek way, meaning no. He seemed a little tense, and looked past me at the bedroom door; and I was reminded of that first day. I turned, but there was no one there. He spoke. "You know who it will be?" "I didn't know if I was meant to come in last week or not." "You are meant to do as you choose." "Except ask questions." "Except ask questions." A thin smile. "Did you read my little pamphlet?" "Not yet." "Read it carefully." "Of course. I look forward to it." "Then tomorrow night perhaps we can perform an experiment." "On communicating with other worlds?" I didn't bother to keep a certain scepticism out of my voice. "Yes. Up there." The star-heavy sky. "Or across there." I saw him look down, making the visual analogy, to the black line of mountains to the west. I risked facetiousness. "Up there--do they speak Greek or English?" He didn't answer for nearly fifteen seconds; didn't smile. "They speak emotions." "Not a very precise language." "On the contrary. The most precise. If one can learn it." He turned to look at me. "Precision of the kind you mean is important in science. It is unimportant in --" But I never found out what it was unimportant in. We both heard the footsteps, those same light footsteps I had heard before, on the gravel below, coming as if up from the sea. Conchis looked at me quickly. "You must not ask questions. That is most important." I smiled. "As you wish." "Treat her as you would treat an amnesiac." "I'm afraid I've never met an amnesiac." "She lives in the present. She does not remember her personal past--she has no past. If you question her about the past, you will only disturb her. She is very sensitive. She would not want to see you again. I wanted to say, I like your masque, I shan't spoil it. I said, "If I don't understand why, I begin to understand how." He shook his head. "You are beginning to understand why. Not how." His eyes lingered on me, burning the sentence in; looked aside, at the doors. I turned. I realised then that the lamp had been put behind me so that it would light her entrance; and it was an entrance to take the breath away. She was dressed in what must have been the formal evening style of 1915: an indigo silk evening wrap over a slim ivory-coloured dress of some shot material that narrowed and ended just above her ankles. Her hair was up, in a sort of Empire fashion. She was smiling and looking at Conchis, though she glanced with a cool interest at me as I stood. Conchis was already on his feet. She looked as stunningly elegant, as poised and assured--because even her slight nervousness seemed professional--as if she had just stepped out of a _cabine_ at Dior. That was indeed my immediate thought: She's a professional model. And then, the old devil. The old devil spoke, after first kissing her hand. "Lily. May I present Mr. Nicholas Urfe. Miss Montgomery." She held out her hand, which I took. A cool hand, no pressure. I had touched a ghost. Our eyes met, but hers gave nothing away. I said, "Hello." But she replied only with a slight inclination, and then turned for Conchis to take off her wrap, which he placed over the back of his own chair. She had bare shoulders and arms; a heavy gold and ebony bracelet; an enormously long necklace of what looked like sapphires, though I presumed they must be paste, or ultramarines. I guessed her to be about twenty-two or three. But there clung about her something that seemed much older, ten years older, a sort of coolness--not a coldness or indifference, but a limpid aloofness; coolness in the way that one thinks of coolness on a hot summer's day. She arranged herself in her chair, folded her hands, then smiled faintly at me. "It is very warm this evening." Her voice was completely English. For some reason I had expected a foreign accent; but I could place this exactly. It was very largely my own--product of boarding school, university, the accent of what a sociologist once called the Dominant Hundred Thousand. I said, "Isn't it?" Conchis said, "Mr. Urfe is the young schoolmaster I mentioned." His voice had a new tone it it: almost deference. "Yes. We met last week. That is, we caught a glimpse of each other." And once again she smiled faintly, but without collusion, at me before looking down. I saw that gentleness Conchis had prepared me for. But it was a teasing gentleness, because her face, especially her mouth, could not conceal her intelligence. She had a way of looking slightly obliquely at me, as if she knew something I did not--not anything to do with the role she was playing, but about life in general; as if she too had been taking lessons from the stone head. I had expected, perhaps because the image she had presented me with the week before had been more domestic, someone less ambiguous and far less assured. She opened a small peacock-blue fan she had been holding and began to fan herself. Her skin was very white. She obviously never sunbathed. And then there was a curious little embarrassed pause, as if none of us knew what to say. She broke it, rather like a hostess dutifully encouraging a shy dinner guest. "Teaching must be a very interesting profession." "Not for me. I find it rather dull." "All noble and honest things are dull. But someone has to do them." "Anyway, I forgive teaching. Since it's brought me here." She slipped a look at Conchis, who bowed imperceptibly. He was playing a kind of Talleyrand role. The gallant old fox. "Maurice has told me that you are not completely happy in your work." She pronounced Maurice in the French way. "I don't know if you know about the school, but --" I paused to give her a chance to answer. She simply shook her head, with a small smile. "I think they make the boys work too hard, you see, and I can't do anything about it. It's rather frustrating." "Could you not complain?" She gave me an earnest look; beautifully and convincingly earnest. I thought, she must be an actress. Not a model. "You see..." So it went on. We must have sat talking for nearly fifteen minutes, in this absurd stilted way. She questioned, I replied. Conchis said very little, leaving the conversation to us. I found myself formalising my speech, as if I too was pretending to be in a drawing room of forty years before. After all, it was a masque, and I wanted, or after a very short while began to want, to play my part. I found something a shade patronising in her attitude, and I interpreted it as an attempt to upstage me; perhaps to test me, to see if I was worth playing against. I thought once or twice that I saw a touch of sardonic amusement in Conchis's eyes, but I couldn't be sure. In any case, I found her far too pretty, both in repose and in action (or acting), to care. I thought of myself as a connoisseur of girls' good looks; and I knew that this was one to judge all others by. There was a pause, and Conchis spoke. "Shall I tell you now what happened after I left England?" "Not if it would bore... Miss Montgomery." "No. Please. I like to listen to Maurice." He kept watching me, ignoring her. "Lily always does exactly what I want." I glanced at her. "You're very fortunate, then." He did not take his eyes off me. The furrows beside his nose caught shadow, deepening them. "She is not the real Lily." This sudden dropping of the pretence took me, as once again he knew it would, off-balance. "Well... of course." I shrugged and smiled. She was staring down at her fan. "Neither is she anyone impersonating the real Lily." "Mr. Conchis.... I don't know what you're trying to tell me." "Not to jump to conclusions." He gave one of his rare wide smiles. "Now. Where was I? But first I must warn you that this evening I give you not a narrative. But a character." I looked at Lily. She seemed to me to be perceptibly hurt, and just as another wild idea was beginning to run through my mind, that she really was an amnesiac, some beautiful amnesiac he had, somehow, literally and metaphorically laid his hands on, she gave me what was beyond any doubt a contemporary look, a look out of role--a quick, questioning glance that flicked from me to Conchis's averted head and back again. At once I had the impression that we were two actors with the same doubts about the director.