The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea

by Pursewarden’s solitary act of cowardice — and the unexpected discovery which had supplied its motive, the mainspring of his death. Nessim too, so long self-deluded by the same dreams of a perfect finite action, free and heedless as the impulse of a directed will, now found himself, like his friend, a prey to the gravitational forces which lie inherent in the time-spring of our acts, making them spread, ramify and distort themselves; making them spread as a stain will spread upon a white ceiling. Indeed, now the masters were beginning to find that they were, after all, the servants of the very forces which they had set in play, and that nature is inherently ungovernable. They were soon to be drawn along ways not of their choosing, trapped in a magnetic field, as it were, by the same forces which unwind the tides at the moon’s bidding, or propel the glittering forces of salmon up a crowded river — actions curving and swelling into futurity beyond the powers of mortals to harness or divert. Mountolive knew this, vaguely and uneasily, lying in bed watching the lazy spirals of smoke from his cigar rise to the blank ceiling; Nessim and Justine knew it with greater certainty, lying brow to cold brow, eyes wide open in the magnificent darkened bedroom, whispering to each other. Beyond the connivance of the will they knew it, and felt the portents gathering around them — the paradigms of powers unleashed which must fulfil themselves. But how? In what manner? That was not as yet completely clear.

Pursewarden, before lying down on that stale earthly bed beside the forgotten muttering images of Melissa or Justine — and whatever private memories besides — had telephoned to Nessim in a new voice, full of a harsh resignation, charged with the approaching splendours of death. ‘It is a matter of life and death, as they say in books. Yes, please, come at once. There is a message for you in an appropriate place: the mirror.’ He rang off with a simple chuckle which frightened the alert, frozen man at the other end of the line; at once Nessim had divined the premonition of a possible disaster. On the mirror of that shabby hotel-room, among the quotations which belonged to the private workshop of the writer’s life, he found the following words written in capitals with a wet shaving- stick:

NESSIM. COHEN PALESTINE ETC. ALL DISCOVERED AND REPORTED.

This was the message which he had all but managed to obliterate before there came the sound of voices in the hall and the furtive rapping at the panels of the door; before Balthazar and Justine had tiptoed softly into the room. But the words and the memory of that small parting chuckle (like a sound of some resurrected Pan) were burned forever into his mind. His expression was one of neuralgic vacancy as he repeated all these facts to Justine in later times for the exposure of the act itself had numbed him. It would be impossible to sleep, he had begun to see; it was a message which must be discussed at length, sifted, unravelled where they lay, motionless as the effigies upon Alexandrian tombs, side by side in the dark room, their open eyes staring into each other with the sightlessness of inhuman objects, mirrors made of quartz, dead stars. Hand in hand they sighed and murmured, and even as he whispered: ‘I told you it was Melissa … The way she always looked at me…. I suspected it.’ The other troubling problems of the case interlocked and overlapped in his mind, the problem of Narouz among them.

He felt as a beleaguered knight must feel in the silence of a fortress who suddenly hears the click of spades and mattocks, the noise of iron feet, and divines that the enemy sappers are burrowing inch by inch beneath the walls. What would Mountolive feel bound to do now, supposing he had been told? (Strange how the very phrase betrayed them both as having moved out of the orbit of human free will.) They were both bound now, tied like bondsmen to the unrolling action which illustrated the personal predispositions of neither. They had embarked on a free exercise of the will only to find themselves shackled, bricked up by the historical process. And a single turn of the kaleidoscope had brought it about. Pursewarden! The writer who was so fond of saying ‘People will realize one day that it is only the artist who can make things really happen; that is why society should be founded upon him.’ A deus ex machina! In his dying he had used them both like … a public convenience, as if to demonstrate the truth of his own aphorism! There would have been many other issues to take without separating them by the act of his death, and setting them at odds by the dispensation of a knowledge which could benefit neither! Now everything hung upon a hair — the thinnest terms of a new probability. Act Mountolive would, but if he must; and his one word to Memlik Pasha would entrain new forces, new dangers…..

The city with its obsessive rhythms of death twanged round them in the darkness — the wail of tyres in empty squares, the scudding of liners, the piercing whaup of a tug in the inner harbour; he felt the dusty, deathward drift of the place as never before, settling year by year more firmly into the barren dunes of Mareotis. He turned his mind first this way and then that, like an hourglass; but it was always the same sand which sifted through it, the same questions which followed each other unanswerably at the same leaden pace. Before them stretched the potential of a disaster for which — even though they had evaluated the risk so thoroughly and objectively — they had summoned up no reserves of strength. It was strange. Yet Justine, savagely brooding with her brows drawn down and her knuckle against her teeth, seemed still unmoved, and his heart went out to her, for the dignity of her silence (the unmoved sibyl’s eye) gave him the courage to think on, assess the dilemma. They must continue as if nothing had changed when, in fact, everything had changed. The knowledge of the fact that they must, expressionless as knights nailed into suits of armour, continue upon a predetermined course, constituted both a separation and a new, deeper bond; a more passionate comradeship, such as soldiers enjoy upon the field of battle, aware that they have renounced all thought of human continuity in terms of love, family, friends, home — become servants of an iron will which exhibits itself in the mailed mask of duty. ‘We must prepare for every eventuality’ he said, his lips dry from the cigarettes he had smoked ‘and hold on until things are complete. We may have more time in hand than we imagine; indeed, nothing whatsoever may come of it all. Perhaps Mountolive has not been told.’ But then he added in a smaller voice, full of the weight of realization: ‘But if he has been, we shall know; his manner will show it at once.’

He might suddenly find himself, at any street corner, face to face with a man armed with a pistol — in any dark corner of the town; or else he might find his food poisoned some day by some suborned servant. Against these eventualities he could at least react, by a study of them, by a close and careful attention to probabilities. Justine lay silent, with wide eyes. ‘And then’ he said ‘tomorrow I must speak to Narouz. He must be made to see.’

Some weeks before he had walked into his office to find the grave, silver-haired Serapamoun sitting in the visitor’s chair, quietly smoking a cigarette. He was by far the most influential and important of the Coptic cotton- kings, and had played a decisive role in supporting the community movement which Nessim had initiated. They were old friends though the older man was of another generation. His serene mild face and low voice carried the authority of an education and a poise which spoke of Europe. His conversation had the quick pulse of a reflective mind. ‘Nessim’ he said softly, ‘I am here as a representative of our committee, not just as myself. I have a rather disagreeable task to perform. May I speak to you frankly, without heat or rancour? We are very troubled.’

Nessim closed and locked the door, unplugged his telephone and squeezed Serapamoun’s shoulder affectionately as he passed behind his visitor’s chair to reach his own. ‘I ask nothing better’ he said. ‘Speak.’

‘Your brother, Narouz.’

‘Well, what of him?’

‘Nessim, in starting this community movement you had no idea of initiating a jehad — a holy war of religion — or of doing anything subversive which might unsettle the Egyptian Government? Of course not. That is what we thought, and if we joined you it was from a belief in your convictions that the Copts should unite and seek a larger place in public affairs.’ He smoked in silence for a minute, lost in deep thought. Then he went on: ‘Our community patriotism in no way qualified our patriotism as Egyptians, did it? We were glad to hear Narouz preach the truths of our religion and race, yes, very glad, for these things needed saying, needed feeling. But … you have not been to a meeting for nearly three months. Are you aware what a change has come about? Narouz has been so carried away by his own powers that he is saying things today which could seriously compromise us all. We are most alarmed. He is filled now with some sort of mission. His head is a jumble of strange fragments of knowledge, and when he preaches all sorts of things pour out of him in a torrent which would look bad on paper if they were to reach Memlik Pasha.’ Another long silence. Nessim found himself growing gradually pale with apprehension. Serapamoun continued in his low smoothly waxed voice. ‘To say that the Copts will find a place in the sun is one thing; but to say that they will sweep away the corrupt regime of the pashas who own ninety per cent of the land … to talk of taking over Egypt and setting it to rights…..’

‘Does he?’ stammered Nessim, and the grave man nodded.

‘Yes. Thank God our meetings are still secret. At the last he started raving like someone melboos (possessed) and shouted that if it was necessary to achieve our ends he would arm the Bedouin. Can you improve on that?’

Nessim licked his dry lips. ‘I had no idea’ he said.