It was overwhelming, this sudden glimpse of the innocently exotic. ‘The Perfects themselves compassionately decreed that here, and here only, the former flag of Hav should fly, night and day, to honour that time of tragedy and revelation, and that the House should never be demolished. And the flowers of the garden? Dirleddy, when this entire city was laid waste by our enemies, leaving only a steaming and blackened wreck, when our people were living in cellars or sheltering in shattered structures, or had fled the city to the countryside — at that black moment, like a promise of recompense our own native wild flowers sprang up everywhere through the city, carpeting the ruins and the shambled thoroughfares. This little patch of our native flora has been preserved just as it was from those grim times, untouched by gardeners or improvers, playing and weaving for ever just as it did around the Master’s House in its forlornity.’
It was the most beautiful thing — the only beautiful thing — that I had seen in the new city. The Director removed his monocle from his eye, and wiped it thoughtfully with his handkerchief, before walking me back to Memorial Square. When a buggy arrived to take me home under the water to Lazaretto he seemed quite moved.
‘You do appreciate, dirleddy, do you not, that for Cathars the Intervention had a doubly allegorical intimation. It was a tragedy of course, but it was also a scouring, a purgation if you prefer. The Greek Κáθáρσις, I don’t have to inform you I’m sure, signifies a purgation, a catharsis in fact, and so to Cathars any kind of scouring, even the cruellest kind, carries within it a seed of perfection. Thus in an unwavering track our emblematic memory conveys us from the fire to the ruin to the flowers. And even the flowers carry a message, for the true flora of our beloved city are us, its sons and daughters.’
He paused for a long silence. ‘And so farewell, dirleddy,’ he then concluded, as we shook hands. ‘No doubt we shall meet again.’
For a moment I considered my response. ‘See you about, trout,’ I said at last, and looked at him cautiously. I think the old man smiled, but I couldn’t be sure.
WEDNESDAY
3
Next morning I again had my breakfast in the sunshine at The Salt Trade, and there my English acquaintances greeted me enthusiastically.
‘Morning, morning, Jan!’ cried Arthur. ‘Come and join us, do. Top of the morning to you!’ and Vera observed that I was looking better already — ‘I did think you looked a little peaky the other day, but I expect it was just the long journey.’
And what had I been doing with myself? they wanted to know. They hadn’t noticed me on the beach at all, in fact they hadn’t seen me since that teatime — when was it? — Monday? — Tuesday? ‘How fast time passes when you’re enjoying yourselves!’
I told them the first thing I had done when I left them last time was to call upon the British Legate.
‘Very wise, very wise. Can’t be too careful in these places, even one like this.’
‘Do tell us. What kind of a person is the Legate? Is he, as it were, one of the old sort? Nowadays our Ambassadors and so on always seem to be commercial attachés or whatever they call themselves, so we don’t generally bother to call. What’s this one like? Do tell.’
‘I shouldn’t pry, Vera darling, if I were you,’ Arthur intervened. ‘They always used to say in the old days that the Hav Residence was a proper spy-nest, and perhaps Jan is in that racket too!’
She laughed a tinkly, silvery laugh. ‘Oh I hardly think so. Arthur spent a lot of time travelling, you know, before he retired from the company, and used to see spies all over the place, or thought he did.’
‘Only joking, darling. I imagine the Legate’s got quite enough to do here nowadays without bothering about espionage. Looking after himself all right, I suppose?’ he said to me. ‘Nice house, garden parties and all that? He doesn’t have to go far for the catering, does he?’
I gave them a quick run-down of the Legate’s circumstances, as they had struck me, and I was about to tell them about the pamphlet he had given me when a servant approached our table with a mobile telephone on a silver tray. ‘Call for you, dirleddy,’ he said to me.
‘Jan?’ said the caller, extremely loudly. ‘Jan? Is that you? You’ll never guess who this is. Remember Magda? Magda at the old Athenaeum? That’s me! Yes, yes, terribly ancient but still alive and kicking, I’m happy to tell you.
‘Now listen, Jan. You must come and lunch with me today. Yes, this very day. No, I won’t take no for an answer. Several of your old acquaintances want to see you too. Where? Why at the League of Intellectuals of course — the Athenaeum that was, though you’ll find it very different from what it used to be. I know you have a blue pass, so all you have to do is jump into one of those horrid little buggies and come straight here. They’ll know where it is. No, no, Jan, I won’t take no for an answer. Twelve o’clock sharp, at the League. Anton will be here? Remember Anton? And Ludo Borovic and, oh, lots of people you know, not to mention my lovely black husband.’
I didn’t know any of them, but ‘OK Magda,’ I said, ‘twelve o’clock at the League.’
The Ponsonbys were intrigued. ‘So you have friends in the city?’ said Vera rather querulously. ‘Fancy that!’
‘You see, darling, you never know,’ Arthur said with a wink to me.
Magda was waiting for me in the hall of the League. I remembered her at once — twenty years older, her black hair turning to grey, but still dark and vibrant, as though she had something urgent to tell everybody every day, and dressed gypsy-style, as always, in a long flowered skirt and a white blouse half off her shoulders, numerous scarves and heavy brass bracelets. With her was a handsome middle-aged black man.
‘You see! Here we are — just the same only a little older! You remember Henri? Of course you do — you remember, you met at the Victor’s Party, the year poor Izmic won?’
Of course I did, I could say with all honesty, as from some phantasmagorical dream — the Levantine colour and queerness of that lost Hav, the Governor and the elusive Caliph and Izmic himself with his red ribbon and his smarmed-down hair, and Mazda on the arm of this proud African.
‘But you may not realize that this building occupies the very remains of the old Athenaeum, where you and I first met — the one is the direct successor of the other, as it were. This is the same room!’ I remembered that first meeting too, if only hazily, but as for the Athenaeum — well, nothing could be more different than the spotlessly clean and orderly club-room we now entered. It was enormous, as the old one had been, but this one was comfortable, panelled in pale Hav ash, pilastered and austerely symmetrical. It was lit by half-hidden ceiling lights, in clumps around the room were squashy sofas, armchairs and tables with spindly legs, and on the walls hung large but unexciting abstracts. If Lazaretto tended undeniably towards the nouveau riche, the League club-room struck me as modestly neo-Fascist — perhaps in the decor they used to call, in Mussolini’s Italy, Rationalist.
The place was full of men and women. Some were in Hav caftans, and in one corner was a group of classically Arab-looking people, men in white kuffiyahs with silver daggers at their waists, women blackly veiled. All were talking very loudly in the manner I remembered from the Atheneaum. All were sitting — nobody standing about in conversation — but waiters in gallabiyehs glided industriously here and there, their trays cluttered with plates and glasses. The scene was almost disciplined. Only the noise was unrestrained.