The Magus, A Revised Version (14 page)

After fifty yards I looked back. He was still standing there, master of his domaine. I waved and he raised both his arms in an outlandish hieratic gesture, one foot slightly advanced, as if in some kind of primitive blessing. When I looked back again, just before the trees hid the house, he had disappeared.

Whatever else he was he was not like anyone else I had ever met. Something more than mere loneliness, mere senile fantasies and quirks, burnt in his striking eyes, in that abrupt, probing then dropping conversation, in those sudden oblique looks at nothing. But I certainly didn
’
t think, as I went into the trees, that I should have the apparent answer within another hundred yards.

¹⁴

Long before I came up to the gate out of Bourani, I saw something whitish lying in the gap. At first I thought it was a handkerchief, but when I stooped to pick it up I saw it was a cream-coloured glove; and of all gloves, an elbow-length woman
’
s glove. Inside the wrist was a yellowish label with the words
Mireille, ganti
è
re
embroidered on it in blue silk. The label, like the glove, seemed unreasonably old, something from the bottom of a long-stored trunk. I smelt it, and there it was, that same scent as on the towel the week before
–
musky, old-fashioned, like sandalwood. When Conchis had said that he
’
d been down on Moutsa the week before, it had been this one fact, the sweet womanish perfume, that had puzzled me.

Now I began to understand why he might not want unexpected visits, or gossip. Why he should want to risk his secret with me, perhaps, next week, let me know it, I couldn
’
t imagine; what the lady was doing out in Ascot gloves, I couldn
’
t imagine; and who she was, I couldn
’
t imagine. She might be a mistress, but she might equally well be a daughter, a wife, a sister
–
perhaps someone weak-minded, perhaps someone elderly. It flashed through my mind that it was someone who was allowed out in the grounds of Bourani and down at Moutsa only on pain of keeping herself concealed. She would have seen me the week before; and this time, have heard my arrival and tried to catch a glimpse of me
–
that explained the old man
’
s quick looks past me, and perhaps some of his nervous strangeness. He knew she was
‘
out
’
; it explained the second place at the tea-table, and the mysterious bell.

I turned round, half-expecting to hear a giggle, a rather inane giggle; and then as I looked at the thick shadowy scrub near the gate, and remembered the grim reference to Prospero, a more sinister explanation came to me. Not weak-mindedness, but some
terrible disfigurement.
‘
Not all young and beautiful, Mr Urfe.
’
I felt,
for the first time on the island, a small cold shiver of solitary-place fear.

The sun was low and night co
mes with near-tropical speed in
Greece. I didn
’
t want to have to negotiate the steep north-side paths in darkness. So I hung the glove neatly over the centre of the top bar of the gate and went on quickly. Half an hour later the charming hypothesis occurred to me that Conchis was a transvestite. After a while I began, for the first time in months, to sing.

I told no one, not even
Méli
, about my visit to Conchis, but I spent many hours conjecturing about the mysterious third person in the
house. I decided that a weak-minded wife was the most likely answer;
it would explain the seclusion, the taciturn servants.

I tried to make up my mind about Conchis too. I was far from sure that he was not just a homosexual; that would explain Mitford
’
s inadequate warning, though not very flatteringly to me. The old man
’
s nervous intensity, that jerking from one place to another, one
subject to another, hisj aunty walk, the gnomic answers and mystifica
tions, the weird flinging-up of his arms when I left
–
all his mannerisms suggested, were calculated to suggest, that he wanted to seem younger and more vital than he was.

There remained the peculiar business of the poetry book, which he must have had ready to puzzle me. I had been swimming a long time that first Sunday, far out in the bay, and he could easily have slipped the things on to the Bourani end of the beach while I was in the water. But it seemed an oddly devious means of introduction. Then what did my being
‘
elect
’
mean
–
our having
‘
many things to discover
’
? In itself it could mean nothing; in regard to him it could
mean only that he was mad. And
‘
Some would say I lived alone
’
: I
remembered the scarcely concealed contempt with which he had said that.

I found a large-scale map of the island in the school library. The boundaries of the Bourani estate were marked. I saw it was bigger, especially to the east, than I had realized: six or seven hectares, some fifteen acres. Again and again I thought of it, perched on its lonely promontory, during the weary hours of plodding through Eckersley
’
s purgatorial
English Course.
I enjoyed conversation classes, I enjoyed doing more advanced work with what was known as the Philologic Sixth, a small group of eighteen-year-old duds who were doing languages only because they we
re hopeless at science, but the
endless business of
‘
drilling
’
the beginners bored me into stone.
‘
What am I doing? I am raising my arm. What is he doing? He is raising
his arm. What are they doing? They are raising their arms. Have they
raised their arms ? They have raised their arms
.
’

It was like being a champion at tennis, and condemned to play
with rabbits, as well as having always to get their wretched balls out of
the net for them. I would look out of the window at the blue sky and the cypresses and the sea, and pray for the day
’
s end, when I could retire to the masters
’
wing, lie back on my bed and sip an ouzo. Bourani seemed greenly remote from all that; so far, and yet so near; its small mysteries, which grew smaller as the week passed, no more than an added tang, or hazard, in its other promise of civilized pleasure.

This time he was waiting for me at the table. I dumped my duffel bag by the wall and he called for Maria to bring the tea. He was much less eccentric, perhaps because he had transparently determined to pump me. We talked about the school, about Oxford, my family, about teaching English to foreigners, about why I had come to Greece.
Though he kept asking questions, I still felt that he had no real interest
in what I was saying.
“
What interested him was something else, some syndrome I
exhibited
, some category I filled. I was not interesting in myself, but only as an example. I tried once or twice to reverse our roles, but he again made it clear that he did not want to talk about himself. I said nothing about the glove.

Only once did he seem really surprised. He had asked me about my unusual name.

‘
French. My ancestors were Huguenots.
’

‘
Ah.
’

‘
There
’
s a writer called Honore
d
’
Urfé
̶
’

He gave me a swift look.
‘
He is an ancestor of yours?

‘
It
’
s just a family tradition. No one
’
s ever traced it. As far as I know.
’
Poor old
d
’
Urfé
; I had used him before to suggest that centuries of high culture lay in my blood. Conchis
’
s smil
e was
genuinely warm, almost radiant, and I smiled back.
‘
That makes a difference?
’

‘
It is amusing.
’

‘
It
’
s probably all rubbish.
’

‘
No no, I believe it. And have you read
L
’
Astr
é
e
?’

‘
For my pains. Terrible bore.
’

‘
Oui, un peu fade. Mais pas tout
à
fait sans charmes.
’
Impeccable
accent; he could not stop smiling.
‘
So you speak French.
’

‘
Not very well.
’

‘
I have a direct link with
le
grand si
è
cle
at my table.
’

‘
Hardly direct.
’

But I didn
’
t mind his thinking it, his sudden flattering benignity. He stood up.

‘
Now. In your honour. Today I will play Rameau.
’

He led the way into the room, which ran the whole width of the house. Books lined three walls. At one end there was a green-glazed tile stove under a mantelpiece on which stood two bronzes, both modern. Above them was a lifesize reproduction of a Modigliani, a fine portrait of a sombre woman in black against a glaucous green background.

He sat me in an armchair, sorted through some scores, found the one he wanted; began to play; short, chirrupy little pieces, then some
elaborately ornamented courantes and passacaglias. I didn
’
t much like
them, but I realized he played with some mastery. He might be pretentious in other ways, but he was not posing at the keyboard. He stopped abruptly, in midpiece, as if a light had fused; pretension began again.

‘
Voilà.’

‘
Very charming.
’
I determined to stamp out the French
‘
flu before it spread.
‘
I
’
ve been admiring that.
’
I nodded at the reproduction.

‘
Yes?
’
We went and stood in front of it.
‘
My mother.
’

For a moment I thought he was joking.

‘
Your mother?
’

‘
In name. In reality, it is his mother. It was always his mother.
’
I looked at the woman
’
s eyes; they hadn
’
t the usual fish-like pallor of Modigliani eyes. They stared, they watched, they were simian. I also looked at the painted surface. I belatedly realized I was not looking at a reproduction.

‘
Good lord. It must be worth a fortune.
’

‘
No doubt.
’
He spoke without looking at me.
‘
You must not think that because I live simply here I am poor. I am very rich.
’
He said it as if
‘
very rich
’
was a nationality; as perhaps it is. I stared at the picture again.
‘
It cost me … nothing. And that was charity. I should like to say that I recognized his genius. But I did not. No one did. Not even the clever Mr Zborowski.
’

‘
You knew him?
’

‘
Modigliani? I met him. Many times. I knew Max Jacob, who was a friend of his. That was in the last phase of his life. He was quite famous by then. One of the sights of Montparnasse.
’

I stole a look at Conchis as he gazed up at the picture; he had, by no other logic than that of cultural snobbery, gained a whole new dimension of respectability for me, and I began to feel much less sure of his eccentricity and his phoniness, of my own superiority in the matter of what life was really about.

‘
You must wish you
’
d bought more from him.
’

‘
I did.
’

‘
You still own them?
’

‘
Of course. Only a bankrupt would sell beautiful paintings. They are in my other houses.
’
I stored away that plural; one day I would mimic it to someone.

‘
Where are your … other houses?
’

‘
Do you like this?
’
He touched the bronze of a young man beneath the Modigliani.
‘
This is a maquette by Rodin. My other houses. Well. In France. In the Lebanon. In America. I have business interests all over the world.
’
He turned to the other characteristically skeletal bronze.
‘
And this is by Giacometti.
’

‘
I
’
m staggered. Here on Phraxos.
’

‘
Why not?
’

‘
Thieves?
’

‘
If you have many valuable paintings, as I have
–
I will show you two more upstairs later
–
you make a decision. You treat them as what they are
–
squares of painted canvas. Or you treat them as you would treat gold ingots. You put bars on your windows, you lie awake at night worrying. There.
’
He indicated the bronzes.
‘
If you want, steal them. I shall tell the police, but you may get away with them. The only thing you will not do is make me worry.
’

‘
They
’
re safe from me.
’

‘
And on Greek islands, no thieves. But I do not like everyone to know they are here.
’

‘
Of course.
’

‘
This picture is interesting. It was omitted from the only
catalogue raisonn
é
of his work I have seen. You see also it is not signed. However
–
it would not be difficult to authenticate. I will show you. Take the corner.
’

He moved the Rodin to one side and we lifted the frame down. He tilted it for me to see. On the back were the first few lines of a sketch for another painting, then scrawled across the lower half of the untreated canvas were some illegible words with numbers beside them, added up at the bottom, by the stretcher.

‘
Debts. That one there.
“
Toto.
”
Toto was the Algerian he bought his hashish from.
’
He pointed.
‘
“
Zbo.
”
Zborowski.
’

I stared down at those careless, drunken scrawls; felt the immediacy of the man; and the terrible but necessary alienation of genius from ordinariness. A man who would touch you for ten francs, and go home and paint what would one day be worth ten million. Conchis watched me.

‘
This is the side the museums never show.
’

‘
Poor devil.
’

‘
He would say the same of us. With much more reason.
’

I helped him put the frame back.

Then he made me look at the windows. They were rather small and narrow, arched, each one with a centre pillar and a capital of carved marble.

‘
These come from Monemvasia. I found them built into a cottage. So I bought the cottage.
’

‘
Like an American.
’

He did not smile.
‘
They are Venetian. Of the fifteenth century.
’
He turned to the bookshelves and pulled down an art book.
‘
Here.
’
I looked over his shoulder and saw Fra Angelico
’
s famous
‘
Annunciation
’
; and at once knew why the colonnade outside had seemed so familiar. There was even the same white-edged floor of red tiles.

‘
Now what else can I show you? My harpsichord is very rare. It is one of the original Pleyels. Not in fashion. But very beautiful.
’
He stroked its shining black top, as if it
were a cat. There was a music stand
on the far side, by the wall. It seemed an unnecessary thing to have with a harpsichord.

‘
You play some other instrument, Mr Conchis?
’

He looked at it, shook his head.
‘
No. It has sentimental value.
’
But he sounded quite unsentimental.

‘
Good. Well. Now I must leave you to your own devices for a while. I have some correspondence to deal with.
’
He gestured. You will find newspapers and magazines over there. Or books
–
take what you want. You will excuse me? Your room is upstairs… if you wish?
’

‘
No, this is fine. Thank you.
’

He went; and I stared again at the Modigliani, caressed the Rodin, surveyed the room. I felt rather like a man who has knocked on a cottage door and found himself in a palace; vaguely foolish. I took a pile of the French and American magazines that lay on a table in the corner and went out under the colonnade. After a while I did something else I hadn
’
t done for several months: I began to rough out a poem.