The Magus, A Revised Version (51 page)

‘
What happened to you when you got back to France?
’
‘
I saw Henrik meet his pillar of fire at about midnight on August 17th, 1922. The fire at Givray-le-Duc began at the same hour of the same night.
’

Julie was more nakedly incredulous than I was. He sat turned away, and our eyes met. She lowered he
r
s with a little grimace, like someone disappointed.

I
said,
‘
You
’
re not suggesting …
’

‘
I am suggesting nothing. There was no connection between the events. No connection is possible. Or rather, I am the connection, I am whatever meaning the coincidence has.
’

There was an unusual shade of vanity in his voice, as if in fact he believed he had in some way precipitated both events and their common timing. I sensed that the coincidence was not literally true, but something he had invented, which held another, metaphorical, meaning ; that the two episodes were linked in significance, that we were to use both to interpret him. Just as the story of de Deukans had thrown light on Conchis himself, this threw light on the hypnosis
–
that im
age he had used,
‘
reality breaking through the thin net of science
‘
… I had
myself recalled something too similar from the hypnosis for it to be coincidence. Everywhere in the masque, these inter-relationships, threads between circumstance.

He turned parentally to Julie.
‘
My dear, I think it is your bedtime.
’
I glanced at my watch. It was just after eleven. Julie gave a little shrug, as if the question of bedtime was unimportant.

She said,
‘
Why have you told us this, Maurice?
’

‘
All that is past possesses our present. Seidevarre possesses Bourani.
Whatever happens here now, whatever governs what happens, is partly, no, is essentially what happened thirty years ago in that Norwegian forest.
’

He spoke to her then as he often spoke to me. The pretence that Julie was basically any different, any more understanding of what was going on, was wearing very thin. I knew he was initiating another shift in our relationships, or the conventions that ruled them. In some way we were both cast now as his students, his disciples. I remembered that favourite Victorian picture of the bearded Elizabethan seaman pointing to sea and telling a story to two goggle-eyed little boys. Another surreptitious look passed between Julie and myself. It was clear to both of us that we were moving into new territory. Then I felt her foot: a fleeting touch like a snatched kiss.

‘
Well. I suppose I must go.
’
The mask of formality was reassumed. We all stood.
‘
Maurice, that was so remarkable and interesting.
’

She moved and kissed him briefly on the cheek. Then she
off
ered me her hand. One shadow of conspiracy in her eyes, one minute extra pressure of her fingers. She turned to go; stopped.

‘
I
’
m sorry. I forgot to replace your matches.
’

‘
It doesn
’
t matter.
’

Conchis and I sat again, in silence. A few moments later I heard light footsteps going across the gravel towards the sea. I smiled across the table at his unrevealing face. The pupils of his eyes seemed black in their clear whites
–
a mask that watched me, watched me.

‘
No illustrations in the text tonight?
’

‘
Does it need them?
’

‘
No. You told it… very well.
’

He shrugged dismissively, then waved his arm briefly round: at house, at trees, at sea.

‘
This is the illustration. Things as they are. In my small domaine.
’

At any point before that day I should have argued with him. His not so small domaine held a lot more mystification than mysticism; and the one sure feature of
‘
things
’
there was that they were not what they seemed. He might have his profound side, but another was that of a cunning old charlatan.

I said lightly,
‘
Your patient seemed much more normal this evening.
’

‘
She may appear more normal tomorrow. You must not let that deceive you.
’

‘
There
’
s no chance of that.
’

‘
As I told you, I shall keep myself out of sight tomorrow. But if we do not see each other again … I shall see you next weekend?
’

‘
I
’
ll be here.
’

‘
Good. Well …
‘
He stood up, as if he had really only been waiting for a certain time, I presumed the time for Julie to
‘
disappear
’
, to pass.

As I stood as well I said,
‘
Thank you. Once again. For possessing me.
’

He inclined his head, like some seasoned impresario too accustomed to first-night compliments to take them very seriously. We walked indoors. The two Bonnards glowed gently from the inner wall of his bedroom. On the landing outside I came to a decision.

‘
I think I
’
ll go for a stroll, Mr Conchis. I don
’
t feel very sleepy. Just down to Moutsa.
’

I knew he might say he would come with me and so make it impossible to be at the statue at midnight; but it w
as a counter-trap for
him, an insurance for me. If we were caught, I could claim the assig
nation was an accident. At least I hadn
’
t concealed that I was going out.

‘
As you wish.
’

He put out his hand and clasped mine, then watched me for a moment as I went downstairs. But before I reached the bottom I heard his door close. He might have been out on the terrace listening, so I crunched noisily on the gravel as I walked north towards the track out of Bourani. But at the gate, instead of turning down to Moutsa, I went on up the hill for fifty yards or so and sat down against a tree-trunk, from where I could watch the entrance and the track. It was a dark night, no moon, but the stars diffused a very faint luminescence over everything, a light like the softest sound, touch of fur on ebony.

My heart was beating faster than it should. It was partly at the thought of meeting Julie, partly at something far more mysterious, the sense that I was now deep in the strangest maze in Europe. Now I really was Theseus; somewhere in the darkness Ariadne waited; and perhaps the Minotaur.

I sat there for a quarter of an hour, smoking but shielding the red tip from view, ears alert and eyes alert. Nobody came; and nobody went.

At five to twelve I slipped back through the gate and struck
off
eastwards through the trees to the gulley. I moved slowly, stopping frequently. I reached the gulley, waited, then crossed it and walked as silently as I could up the path to the clearing with the statue. It came, majestic shadow, into sight. The seat under the almond tree was deserted. I stood in the starlight at the edge of the clearing, very tense, certain that something was about to happen, straining to see if there was anyone in the dense black background. I had an idea it might be a man with blue eyes and an axe.

There was a loud ching. Someone had thrown a stone and hit the statue. I stepped into the darkness of the pine trees beside me. Then I saw a movement, and an instant later another stone, a pebble, rolled across the ground in front of me. The movement showed a gleam of white, and it came from behind a tree on my side of the clearing, higher up. I knew it was Julie.

I ran up the steep slope, stumbled once, then stood. She was standing beside the tree, in the thickest shadow. I could see her white shirt and trousers, her blonde hair, and she reached forward with both hands. In four long strides I got to her and her arms went round me, and we were kissing, one long wild kiss that lasted, with one or two gulps for air, for a fevered readjustment of the embrace, and lasted … in that time I thought I finally knew her. She had abandoned all pretence, she was passionate, almost hungry. She let me crush her body; met mine. I murmured one or two torn endearments, but she stopped my mouth. I turned to kiss her hand; caught it; and brushed my lips down its side and round the wrist to the scar on the back.

A second later I had let go of her and was reaching in my pocket for the matches. I struck one and lifted her left hand. It was scarless. I raised the match. The eyes, the mouth, the shape of the chin, everything about her was like Julie. But she was not Julie. There were little puckers at the corner of her mouth, a slight over-alertness in the look, a sort of calculated impudence; above all, there was a deep sun-tan. She sustained my stare, then looked down, then up again under her eyelashes.

‘
Damn.
’
I nicked the match away, and struck another. She promptly blew it out.

‘
Nicholas.
’
A low, reproachful
–
and strange
–
voice.

‘
There must be some mistake. Nicholas is my twin brother.
’

‘
I thought midnight would never come.
’

‘
Where is she?
’

I spoke angrily, and I was angry, but not quite as much as I sounded. It was so neat a modul
ation into the world of Beaumar
chais, of Restoration comedy; and I knew the height the dupe has fallen is measured by his anger.

‘
She?
’

‘
You forgot your scar.
’

‘
How clever of you to see it was make-up before.
’

‘
And your voice.
’

‘
It
’
s the night air.
’
She coughed.

I caught hold of her hand and pulled her over to the seat under the almond tree.

‘
Now. Where is she?
’

‘
She couldn
’
t come. And don
’
t be so rough.
’

‘
Well, where is she?
’
The girl was silent. I said,
‘
That wasn
’
t funny.
’

‘
I thought it was rather exciting.
’
She sat, then glanced up at me.
‘
And so did you.
’

‘
For Christ
’
s sake I thought you …
‘
but I didn
’
t bother to finish the sentence.
‘
You
’
re June?
’

‘
Yes. If you
’
re Nicholas.
’

I sat down beside her and fished out a packet of Papastratos. She took one, and I gave her a good long look in the matchflare. In return she examined me, with eyes markedly less frivolous than her voice till then.

The striking facial similarity with her sister upset me in some unexpected way. It seemed a hitherto unrealized aspect of Julie that I could do without, an unnecessary complication. Perhaps it was the tan on this other girl
’
s skin, a general air of living a more outdoor, physical life, of being healthier, a fraction more rounded in the cheeks … indeed of being what Julie herself must look like in normal circumstances. I leant forward, elbows on knees.

‘
Why didn
’
t she come herself?
’

‘
I thought Maurice had told you why.
’

I didn
’
t show it, but I felt like an over-confident chess-player who suddenly sees that his supposedly impregnable queen is only one move from extinction. Once again I thought frantically back
–
perhaps the old man had been right about the high intelligence of some schizophrenics. The tea-throwing scene had seemed too far out of character if she was cunning-mad; but cunning-madder still might have precipitated it just to plant the wink at the end; then those collusive bare feet under the table, the message with the matches … perhaps he had been less oblivious than he had seemed.

‘
We don
’
t blame you. Julie
’
s misled far greater experts than you.
’

‘
Why are you so sure I
’
m misled?
’