Pascali's Island (7 page)

I know what it is that Mister Bowles requires of me. He arrived at the studio not very long after I did. Doctor Hogan came too, a little later. Lydia was working when I arrived, but seemed not to mind being interrupted. We talked about Mister Bowles for a while, and then, after he arrived, about painting. This conversation afforded a number of insights, important, I think, in this narrative of mine, and I shall describe it in more detail later. But I must speak first about Mister Bowles's proposition.

When I got up to go Mister Bowles offered to accompany me, rather to my surprise. He had been annoyed, I think, by some remarks of the doctor's, and I thought at first that he was leaving because of this, but it was not so: his real reason soon became plain.

We walked for some time in silence. It was mid-afternoon and the sun was high, though the house walls on the seaward, western side cast a narrow shadow. Our steps were quiet in the dust of the street. We passed one or two Moslem women, no men. They were quick to cover their faces, no doubt because of the tall fair foreigner walking beside me.

Mister Bowles began to speak about his archeological interests. He was particularly interested in the site of the sanctuary to Artemis and in the area adjoining this. 'Up there in the hills, you know,' he said, not looking at me-he did not look at me while he was speaking, and nothing could make him seem so alien to the ways of the Levant. Still, for a dedicated informer what could be better than to see Mister Bowles unfolding his obsessions, watch the movements of moustache and pale lashes? 'No one has ever really looked at it,' he said. 'There are some extensive ruins there. Also the remains of a villa of the early Roman type.' He did look at me now, quickly, as if these last words were in some way revealing. After a moment, he said, 'It is believed to be the house to which the Virgin Mary retired after the death of Christ.'

'That is the local legend,' I said.

But it was not merely local, it seemed. In a series of bursts Mister Bowles indicated that it was a belief of very respectable antiquity. There were references in contemporary authors, though admittedly not conclusive. ' St Jerome,' he said, 'speaks of an island in the Greek Sea as having been the last resting place of the Mother of Christ. And Thornton, the English traveller Thornton-'

'But by the Greek Sea, he must have meant the Western Aegean, surely?' I said.

Mister Bowles went on as if I had not spoken, merely raising his voice a little. 'The English traveller Thornton -' he repeated. It was as if he were reciting something, almost, and was dutifully determined to get through to the end. 'He was here in 1703,' he said, 'and he refers to the belief, then generally prevalent, that this was where the Virgin spent her last years.' People used to come from as far away as the mainland, apparently, to intercede at her shrine.

'The Greeks burn a candle up there sometimes,' I said. 'When they want to give thanks to the Panagia for some favour, a good olive crop or a male child, something like that.'

Mister Bowles nodded at this, soberly, and said he would put it in his book. He was writing a book about the various places that claim sanctity on the grounds that Mary breathed her last there. 'There are eight altogether,' he said. 'Shall we walk down to the shore?'

We were among the Greek houses again now. We turned down towards the sea. Pappoulis was standing at the door of his taverna, clicking his tongue at the caged goldfinch on the wall. He nodded to me, but said nothing, and after a moment looked away. He did not speak to me, Excellency! Only last week, only five days ago, we played chess together. Fear came like nausea to the pit of my stomach. Pappoulis was averting his eyes from my death. For a moment, there in the sunlit street, the crucified man of my memory swung and creaked in his ropes. Mon bon cadavre, o ma mémoire.

'Turks too,' I said. 'They go mainly for the spring water, which they regard as holy, possibly through the association with Mary, and therefore good for the bowels. Typical of Moslems to reverence the laxative in this way.'

How naturally concealment comes to us, Excellency. Here I was, possessed by fear of death, talking thus lightly. The Englishman's face was placid. What fears was he concealing?

We walked down to the shore and sat on the low wall above the shingle. I removed my hat and wiped the perspiration from my brow. It was cooler here. We could see the whole sweep of the bay, out to the headland. Mister Bowles went on talking. There were five in Asia Minor, he said, two in the Greek Archipelago, one on the Black Sea coast. Again I had an impression of recital, of a lesson learned. The sites were diverse, the evidence in some cases scanty, but the common claim, he was hoping, would suffice to give unity and interest to his book. Had he published anything yet? I asked him. No, not yet. We have an aspiration in common then.

From here we could see something of the area he had spoken of. We could see at least part of the path of the spring. Even at this distance, even in the heat haze, the seam of green where the spring took its course was clearly visible, as were marks of human habitation amidst the shrub and granite of the slopes. There was the kind of dereliction there only to be found where there has been human order previously.

'What I want, you see, is to obtain some kind of lease. For a month, say. Then I could come and go as I please.' He was still looking up towards that scarred bit of hillside. 'I could conduct my researches freely,' he said.

'The land,' I said, 'belongs to Mahmoud Pasha.'

'Who is he?'

'He is the Commandant of the garrison. He is also de facto if not de jure, the Governor. He is nominally responsible to the Vali of the Eastern Isles, but Mytilini is far from here, and in any case the Vali is fully occupied with hashish and harem.'

'Does that mean the land belongs to the state?'

'No, no, it is in the private possession of the Pasha.'

It is possible that you already know this, Excellency, but Mahmoud Pasha has been acquiring all the land adjoining the coast on this side of the island. Or rather, Izzet Effendi, his jackal, has been acquiring it for him. Just why is not yet clear to me. The coastal strip itself is good land, but they have extended their operations up into the foothills. A number of families, Greeks mainly, but also some Bosnians, have been ousted more or less, poorly compensated. Virtually dispossessed. It is said that several of the men have gone to join the bandits in the interior. Men with a grievance are dangerous men, Excellency.

'This Mahmoud Pasha can be approached, I suppose?' Mister Bowles said.

I did not reply immediately. In fact, I could not see what he hoped to gain by applying for a lease. Unless, of course, he had motives other than the one he had declared to me.

'They would not allow you to remove anything,' I said. 'Not without a firman, and you would only get that from Constantinople.'

'I realise that,' he said, rather stiffly. 'I have no intention of doing any digging.'

'In that case, if you will excuse me, I see no point in the proceeding you have in mind. You already have what amounts to free access to the area. Your movements will have been noted already, and reported to the Pasha. There are spies everywhere these days. Since no attempt has been made to limit your movements, you have nothing to gain by applying for a lease.'

He turned to me at last, looked at me fully, hesitated, plunged into speech. 'Oh, I must have a lease, you know. I mean to say, it is the proper way to go about things. I wouldn't be happy if everything wasn't quite legal and above-board.'

There was an immense sincerity in these simple words of Mister Bowles. Not only personal rectitude was contained in them, but an obvious belief in the legality and above-boardedness of the universe as a whole. He looked at me, and though I was not more than a metre away, I was not the centre of his vision, but simply one element in this ordered universe. It was absurd, of course. For I had in my mind what Mister Bowles could not possibly have had in his, a picture of Mahmoud Pasha, and his land-agent, Izzet. Your official representatives, Excellency. The Pasha enormously fat, almost immobile, some clogging of breath in the depths of him, wheeze of depravity and avarice; Izzet delicate-boned, beaky, vigilant, like a well-groomed vulture. These two do not belong in Mister Bowles's universe of due form and procedure. They do not represent order. Ordure, more like it. I felt a strong desire to laugh.

'I think it's the best policy in the end,' he said. 'What I was going to ask you is whether you would arrange things for me. And act as interpreter. My Turkish is non-existent, I'm afraid. For a suitable fee, of course.'

'Oh, no, no, no,' I said.

'Yes,' he said, 'I must insist on that.'

I did not protest any further. I am always in need of money, as you know, Excellency. Besides, I was curious. I promised to arrange an interview with the Pasha through Izzet, and after one or two expressions of appreciation on his part, and modest rejoinders on mine, we parted.

Now, however, back here at my table, shore and sky and sea outside at their usual conspiracies, that feeling of puzzlement returns to me. Some faint sense of discrepancy hangs over Mister Bowles, some failure in correspondence. Informers develop a fine sense for such things. When he asked me about Mahmoud Pasha, he did not seem interested greatly in my reply. It is true that there is a certain habit of nonchalance about him. Perhaps it was no more than that. And yet, I had the feeling I was confirming things for him rather than giving him information. Perhaps he has made preliminary enquiries elsewhere. Quite a sensible thing to do. But in that case why question me?

* * *

In fulfilment of my undertaking I went to see Izzet Effendi this morning. His office is on the second floor of his house, in Sardou Street. It was cool and latticed. Izzet was wearing a Western style jacket too large for him and a fez. He looked even frailer and more feverish than usual, as if consumed by the heat of his greed. There was a picture on the wall of Your Excellency, on a white horse, as you were at your accession. What hopes we had of you then.

'You look ill,' Izzet said. 'Your colour is not good.' I explained I had not been so well lately. We drank tea, chatted for some time. He treated me politely. Izzet knows everything that the Pasha knows, and a great deal more, but I do not get the impression that he knows what I am. However, it is possible that he does, and he is quite capable of the guile and patience not to use his knowledge till the moment comes.

After the period consistent with courtesy had passed, I broached the subject of Mister Bowles, and his desire for a lease. I had to choose my words carefully. In these days of dissolving loyalties and universal chicanery, with adventurers from all over the world thronging into your possessions for what they can pick up, your officials add to their normal dislike for foreigners an almost pathological suspiciousness, based on the fear that others, cleverer than they, may be quicker to see opportunities for plunder. With this in mind I portrayed Mister Bowles as rich, naively honest, eccentric – for otherwise why would he want to investigate ruins? – not overburdened with brains. The archetypal Englishman abroad, in fact.

I put a good deal into this portrait, stressing particularly the Englishman's readiness and ability to pay; and I am confident that I succeeded in arousing Izzet's interest. His face remained impassive but I detected cupidity in the cordial pressure of his hand when I took my leave. Mister Bowles and I are to present ourselves at the Governor's house tomorrow morning at ten o'clock. This will give Izzet time to see his master and discuss the matter. I have left a note for Mister Bowles at the hotel, telling him of the arrangement and promising to call on him there half an hour beforehand. There seems little more, for the moment, that I can do.

I did not complete my account of the visit to Lydia 's studio yesterday. Yesterday or the day before? My sense of time, of the sequence of days, is growing vaguer, spending as I do so much of my life enclosed here, writing all hours, eating and sleeping irregularly. It is afternoon now. Outside the prolonged outcry of cicadas, buzz of summer. I cannot work on the balcony, it is too exposed, I am too vulnerable there to distraction and fear. So I sit here in pyjamas, against the heat.

I remember the light. It was the time of day when light is fully revived, fully quickened, but mild still, blooming on the white walls of houses. (Our island houses are white for the most part, Excellency. Shallow roofs, railed balconies, heavy wooden shutters). I stood for some time at the upper end of Caritas Street looking down over the orange trees and the dome of the cami at a segment of sea with fishing caiques laid on it one behind the other, receding into the haze of distance. The nearest had a red hull. Flat, resinous gleam on the sea, and the boats looked trapped in it, expiring with a faint tremor of sails. Not real movement, probably, but a trick of heat or light. There is no real movement.

From somewhere near at hand, somewhere above me, the soft, plaintive bleatings of a sheep. I looked up but could not see it. The light hurt my eyes. Waiting on some balcony for the sacrificial knife. How far is it off now, the Sacrifice Festival? Three, four days. Caritas Street was like a tilted trough, brimming with light. Intermittent tic of shadow cast by the low-flying falcons. My steps were muffled in the dust. That solitary bleating started off others. From all around me, all down the street and the streets around, plaints of tethered sheep. Bought some days in advance when the prices are better, tethered to balcony rails or gate posts, they suffer in the heat. The individual sound is trivial, but terrible anguish in this sustained collective cry. It rains down on me like the light. Through this chorus, from a neighbouring street I heard the jingle of harness, the creak of a burden.

Three people I passed on my way up this street, but spoke to none of them, fearing a rebuff or worse. I saw myself with their eyes: my obesity, crumpled suit, straw hat, monogrammed handkerchief cascading from pocket. They do not see my fear.