The Magus - John Fowles [93]
60
I was to have no sense of time for the next five days. When I first woke up I did not know how many hours had passed since I was in the hotel bed. I was very thirsty, and that must have been what woke me. I remember one or two things indistinctly. A sense of surprise that I was in my own pyjamas but not in my room at school; then realising I was in a bunk, at sea, but not in a caIque. It was the narrowing forecabin of a yacht. I was reluctant to leave my sleep, to think, to do anything but sink back into it. I was handed a glass of water by a young man with crewcut blond hair, who had evidently been waiting for me to wake. Dimly I recognised him as the one who had closed the "lid" of the Earth on me. I was so thirsty that I had to drink the water, even though I could see it was suspiciously cloudy. Then I must have blurred into sleep again. The same man made me go to the head in the bow of the yacht at some later point, and I remember he had to hold me upright, as if I was drunk; and I sat on the pan and just went to sleep again. There were portholes, but the metal shields were screwed down. I asked one or two questions, but he didn't answer; and it didn't seem to matter. The same procedure happened again, once, twice, I don't know, in different circumstances. This time I was in a room in a proper bed. It was always night, always if light an electric light; figures and voices; then darkness. But one morning--it seemed like morning, though it might have been midnight for all I knew, because my watch had stopped--I was woken up by the blondhead, made to sit on my bed, to dress, to walk up and down the room twenty or thirty times. Another man stood by the door. I became conscious of something I had hazily noticed before, an extraordinary mural that dominated the whitewashed wall opposite the bed. It was a huge black figure, larger than lifesize, a kind of living skeleton, a Buchenwald figure, lying on its side on what might have been grass, or flames. A gaunt hand pointed down to a little mirror hanging on the wall; exhorting me, I supposed, to look at myself, to consider I must die. The skull face had a startled and startling intensity that made it uncomfortable to look at; and uncomfortable to think of the mind that had put it there for me. I could see it was newly painted. There was a knock on the door. A third man appeared. He carried a tray with a jug of coffee on it. It had the most beautiful smell; of real coffee, something like Blue Mountain, not the monotonous "Turkish" powder they use in Greece. And there were rolls, butter, and quince marmalade; a plate of ham and eggs. I was left alone. In spite of the circumstances it was one of the best breakfasts of my life. Every flavour had a Proustian, mescalin intensity. I seemed to be starving, and I ate everything on the tray, I drank every drop of coffee and I could have done it all over again. There was even a pack of American cigarettes and a box of matches. I took stock. I was wearing one of my own pullovers and whipcord trousers I hadn't put on since the winter. The high curved ceiling was that of a cistern under a house; the windowless walls were dry, but subterranean. There was electric light. A suitcase, my own, full of my things, stood in a corner. The wall against which the table stood was new-built of brick. It had a heavy wooden door in it. No handle, no spyhole, no keyhole, not even a hinge. I gave it a push, but it was bolted or barred outside. There was another triangular table in the corner--an oldfashioned washbowl, with a sanitary bucket underneath. I rummaged in my suitcase; a clean shirt, a change of underclothes, a pair of summer trousers. I saw my razor and shaving brush, and that reminded me that I had a clock of Sorts on my chin. I went and looked in the _memento mori_ mirror. At least two days' stubble. My face was strange to me; degraded and yet peculiarly indifferent. I sat on the bed, and stared at the death figure. Death figure, death cell. A sinister reason for the wonderful breakfast struck me. A mock execution was about the only indignity left to undergo. I began to walk up and down and to try to take command of the situation. Behind and beneath everything there was the vile and unforgivable, the ultimate betrayal, of me, of all finer instincts, by Lily. I started to think of her as Lily again, perhaps because her first mask--the Lily mask--now seemed truer than the second one. I tried to imagine what she really was. Obviously a consummate young actress, and consummately immoral into the bargain; because only a prostitute could have behaved as she did. A pair of prostitutes, because I saw that her sister, June, Rose, might well have been prepared to carry out that final abominable seduction. Probably they would have liked me to be thus doubly humiliated. All her story--her stories--had been lies; or groundbait. Those letters, forgeries. They could not make it so easy for me to trace her. In a grim flash I guessed: none of my post left the island unintercepted. And from that I leapt to the realisation that they must now know about Alison; because of course they would have intercepted letters coming to me as well. When Conchis had advised me to go back and marry Alison he must have known she was dead; Lily must have known she was dead. Then my mind plunged sickeningly, as if I had walked off the edge of the world. Forged cuttings about the sisters, forged cuttings... forged cuttings. Alison. I stared at my own dilated eyes in the mirror. Suddenly her honesty, her untreachery--her death--was the last anchor left. If she, if she... I was swept away. The whole of life became a conspiracy. I strained back through time to seize Alison, to seize her and to be absolutely sure of her. To seize a quintessential Alison beyond all her powers of love or hate. For a while I let my mind wander into a bottomless madness. Supposing _all_ my life that last year had been the very opposite of what Conchis so often said--so often, to trick me once again--about life in general. That is, the very opposite of hazard. The fiat in Russell Square... but I had got it by answering a chance advertisement in the _New Statesman_. Meeting Alison that very first evening... but I might so easily have not gone to the party, not have waited those few minutes... and Margaret, Ann Taylor, all of them... the hypothesis became top-heavy, and crashed. I stared at myself. They were trying to drive me mad, to brainwash me in some astounding way. But I clung to reality. I clung too, to something in Alison, something like a tiny limpid crystal of eternal nonbetrayal. Like a light in the darkest night. Like a teardrop. An eternal inability to be so cruel. And the tears that for a brief moment formed in my own eyes were a kind of bitter guarantee that she was indeed dead. They were not only tears for her, but also tears of rage at Conchis and Julie; at the certainty that they knew she was dead and were using this new doubt, this torturing possibility that could not be a possibility, to rack me. To perform on me, for some incomprehensible reason, a viciously cruel vivisection of the mind. As if they only wanted to punish me; and punish me; and punish me again. With no right; and nc reason. I sat with my hands clenched against my head. Fragments of things they had said kept on coming back, with dreadful double meanings; a constant dramatic irony. Almost every line Conchis and Lily had spoken was ironic; right up to that last, transparently double-meaning, dialogue with June. _Wind and running water._ _I cannot stand dishonesty in personal relationships._ _I cannot believe Maurice is evil._ _You will understand._ _A whole summer of tomorrows._ _Perhaps a young English master who is newly married_... That blank weekend: of course they had cancelled it to give me reasonable time to receive the "letter of reference" from the bank; holding me back only to hurl me faster down the slope. That day she had murmured, down at Moutsa, when I said I loved her: _I want you to love me_. She might just as well have said, My real name is Circe. Again and again images of Lily, the Lily of the Julie phase, surged back; moments of passion, that last almost total surrender of herself--and other moments of gentleness, sincerity, spontaneous moments that could not have been rehearsed but could only have sprung out of a deep identification with the part she was playing. I even went back to that earlier theory I had had, that she was acting under hypnosis. Our final wild struggle had seemed a struggle in Lily herself, a wanting to let go but a knowledge that she mustn't let go; though the inhibition was certainly not virginal, there had been something to inhibit. Then I recalled her appearance afterwards, when she seemed so professional; coldly solicitous for me, but above all professional. Hypnotism explained nothing. I lit another Philip Morris. I tried to think of the present. But everything drove me back to the same anger, the same profound humiliation. Only one thing could ever give me relief. Some equal humiliation of Lily. It made me furious that I had not been more violent with her before. That was indeed the ultimate indignity: that my own small stock of decency had been used against me. There was noise outside, and the door opened. The crewcut blond German came in; behind him was another man, in the same black trousers, black shirt, black gym shoes. And behind him came Anton. He was in a doctor's collarless white overall. A pocket with pens. A bright German-accented voice; as if on his rounds. And he had no limp. "How are you feeling?" I stared at him; controlled myself. "Wonderful. Enjoying every minute of it." He looked at the breakfast tray. "You would like more coffee?" I nodded. He gestured to the second man, who took the tray out. Anton sat on the chair by the table, and the other man leaned easily against the door. Beyond appeared a long corridor, and right at the end steps leading up to daylight. It was much too big a cistern for a private house. Anton watched me. I refused to speak, and we sat there in silence for some time. "I am a doctor. I come to examine you." He studied me, then smiled. "You feel... not too bad?" I didn't answer, but leant back against the wall; stared at him. He waved his finger reprovingly. "Please to answer." "I love being humiliated. I love having a girl I like trampling over every human affection and decency. Every time that stupid old bugger tells me another lie I feel thrills of ecstasy run down my spine." I shouted. "Now where the hell am I?" He gave the impression that my words were meaningless; it was my manner he was watching. He said slowly, "Good. You have awoken up." He sat with his legs crossed, leaning back a little; a very fair imitation of a doctor in his consulting room. "Where's that little tart?" He seemed not to understand. "Lily. Julie. Whatever her name is." He smiled. "Ah so. 'Tart' means bad woman?" I shut my eyes. My head was beginning to ache. I had to keep cool. The man in the door turned; the second man appeared down the distant steps with a tray and came and put it on the table. Anton poured out a cup for me and one for himself. The blondhead reached me mine. Anton swallowed his quickly. "My friend, you are wrong. She is a good girl. Very pretty. Very intelligent. Very brave. Oh yes." He contradicted my sneer. "Very brave." "All I have to say to you is that when I get out of here I am going to create such bloody fucking hell for all of you that you'll wish to Christ you --" He raised his hand, calmingly, forgivingly. "Your mind is not well. We have given you many drugs these last days." I took a breath. "How many days?" "It is Sunday." Three totally missing days: I remembered the wretched exam papers. The boys, the other masters... the whole school could not be in league with Conchis. It was the enormity of the abuse that bewildered me, far more than the aftermath of the drug; that they could crash through law, through my job, through respect for the dead, through everything that made the world customary and habitable and orientated. And it was not only a denial of my world; it was a denial of what I had come to understand was Conchis's world. I stared at Anton. "Of course, this is all good homely fun to you Germans." "I am Swiss. And my mother is Jewish. By the way." His eyebrows were very heavy, charcoal tufts, his eyes amused. I swilled the last of the coffee in my cup, then threw it in his face. It stained his white coat. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his face, and said something to the man beside him. He did not look angry; merely shrugged, then glanced at his watch. "The time is ten thirty... eight. Today we have the trial and you must be awoke. So good." He touched his coat. "You are awoke." He stood up. "Trial?" "Very soon we shall go and you will judge us." "Judge you!" "Yes. You think this is like a prison. Not at all. It is like... how call you the room where the judge lives?" "Chambers." "Chambers. So perhaps you would like to... shave?" "Christ!" "There will be many people there." I stared incredulously at him. "It will look better." He gave up. "Very well. Adam --" he nodded at the blondhead, stressing the name on the second syllable--"he will return in twenty minutes to prepare you." "Prepare me?" "It is nothing. We have a small ritual. It is nothing for you. For us." "'Us'?" "Very soon--you will understand all." I wished I had saved the coffee to throw till then. He smiled, bowed, and went out. The other two closed the door, and a bolt was shot. I stared at the skeleton at the wall. And in his necromantic way he seemed to say the same: very soon, you will understand. All.