‘ “But” the old man protested “no-one will take her, for she has no nose.” He got out of bed in a stained nightshirt and walked right round Amaril, who remained kneeling, studying him as one might an entomological specimen. (I am quoting.) Then he touched him with his bare foot — as if to see whether he was made of flesh and blood — and repeated: “Who are you to take a woman without a nose?” Amaril replied: “I am a doctor from Europe and I will give her a new nose,” for the idea, the fantastic idea, had been slowly becoming clear in his own mind. At the words, Semira gave a sob and turned her beautiful, horrible face to his, and Amaril thundered out: “Semira, will you be my wife?”
She could hardly articulate her response and seemed little less doubtful of the whole issue than was her father. Amaril stayed and talked to them, convincing them.
‘The next day when he went back, he was received with a message that Semira was not to be seen and that what he proposed was impossible. But Amaril was not to be put off, and once more he forced his way in and bullied the father.
‘This, then, is the fantasy in which he has been living. For Semira, as loving and eager as ever, cannot leave her house for the open world until he fulfils his promise. Amaril offered to marry her at once, but the suspicious old man wants to make sure of the nose. But what nose? First Balthazar was called in and together they examined Semira, and assured themselves that the illness was due neither to leprosy nor syphilis but to a rare form of lupus — a peculiar skin T.B. of rare kind of which many cases have been recorded from the Damietta region. It had been left untreated over the years and had finally collapsed the nose. I must say, it is horrible — just a slit like the gills of a fish. For I too have been sharing the deliberations of the doctors and have been going regularly to read to Semira in the darkened rooms where she has spent most of her life. She has wonderful dark eyes like an odalisque and a shapely mouth and well-modelled chin: and then the gills of a fish! It is too unfair. And it has taken her ages to actually believe that surgery can restore the defect. Here again Amaril has been brilliant, in getting her interested in her restoration, conquering her self-disgust, allowing her to choose the nose from that portfolio, discuss the whole project with him. He has let her choose her nose as one might let one’s mistress choose a valuable bracelet from Pierantoni. It was just the right approach, for she is beginning to conquer her shame, and feel almost proud of being free to choose this valuable gift — the most treasured feature of a woman’s face which aligns every glance and alters every meaning: and without which good eyes and teeth and hair become useless treasures.
‘But now they have run into other difficulties, for the restoration of the nose itself requires techniques of surgery which are still very new; and Amaril, though a surgeon, does not wish there to be any mistake about the results. You see, he is after all building a woman of his own fancy, a face to a husband’s own specifications; only Pygmalion had such a chance before! He is working on the project as if his life depended on it — which in a way I suppose it does.
‘The operation itself will have to be done in stages, and will take ages to complete. I have heard them discussing it over and over again in such detail that I feel I could almost perform it myself. First you cut off a strip of the costal cartilage, here, where the rib joins the breastbone, and make a graft from it. Then you cut out a triangular flap of skin from the forehead and pull downwards to cover the nose — the Indian technique, Balthazar calls it; but they are still debating the removal of a section of flesh and skin from inside the thigh…. You can imagine how fascinating this is for a painter and sculptor to think about. But meanwhile Amaril is going to England to perfect the operative technique under the best masters. Hence his demand for a visa. How many months he will be away we don’t know yet, but he is setting out with all the air of a knight in search of the Holy Grail. For he intends to complete the operation himself. Meanwhile, Semira will wait for him here, and I have promised to visit her frequently and keep her interested and amused if I can. It is not difficult, for the real world outside the four walls of her house sounds to her strange and cruel and romantic. Apart from a brief glimpse of it at carnival-time, she knows little of our lives. For her, Alexandria is as brilliantly coloured as a fairy—story. It will be some time before she sees it as it really is — with its harsh, circumscribed contours and its wicked, pleasure-loving and unromantic inhabitants. But you have moved!’ Mountolive apologized and said: ‘Your use of the word
“unromantic” startled me, for I was just thinking how romantic it all seems to a newcomer.’
‘Amaril is an exception, though a beloved one. Few are as generous, as unmercenary as he. As for Semira — I cannot at present see what the future holds for her beyond romance.’ Clea sighed and smiled and lit a cigarette.
‘Esperons’ she said quietly.
*******
VIII
‘A hundred times I’ve asked you not to use my razor’ said Pombal plaintively ‘and you do so again. You know I am afraid of syphilis. Who knows what spots, when you cut them, begin to leak?’
‘Mon cher collиgue’ said Pursewarden stiffly (he was shaving his lip), and with a grimace which was somewhat intended to express injured dignity, ‘what can you mean? I am British. Hein?’ He paused, and marking time with Pombal’s cut-throat declaimed solemnly:
‘The British who perfected the horseless carriage Are now working hard on the sexless marriage.
Soon the only permissible communion Will be by agreement with one’s Trade Union.’
‘Your blood may be infected’ said his friend between grunts as he ministered to a broken suspender with one fat calf exposed upon the bidet. ‘You never know, after all.’
‘I am a writer’ said Pursewarden with further and deeper dignity. ‘And therefore I do know. There is no blood in my veins.
Plasma’ he said darkly, wiping his ear-tip, ‘that is what flows in my veins. How else would I do all the work I do? Think of it. On the Spectator I am Ubique, on the New Statesman I am Mens Sana.
On the Daily Worker I sign myself as Corpore Sano. I am also Paralysis Agitans on The Times and Ejaculatio Praecox in New Verse. I am …’ But here his invention failed him.
‘I never see you working’ said Pombal.
‘Working little, I earn less. If my work earned more than one hundred pounds a year I should not be able to take refuge in being misunderstood.’ He gave a strangled sob.
‘Compris. You have been drinking. I saw the bottle on the hall table as I came in. Why so early?’
‘I wished to be quite honest about it. It is your wine, after all.
I wished to hide nothing. I have drunk a tot or so.’
‘Celebration?’
‘Yes. Tonight, my dear Georges, I am going to do something rather unworthy of myself. I have disposed of a dangerous enemy and advanced my own position by a large notch. In our service, this would be regarded as something to crow about. I am going to offer myself a dinner of self-congratuladon.’
‘Who will pay it?’
‘I will order, eat and pay for it myself.’
‘That is not much good.’ Pursewarden made an impatient face in the mirror.
‘On the contrary’ he said. ‘A quiet evening is what I most need.