(‘His mediocrity was his salvation.’) Indeed, his character was as thin as a single skin of gold leaf — the veneer of culture which diplomats are in a better position to acquire than most men.
The party went off to perfection, and a dinner invitation from Nessim threw the old diplomat into a transport of pleasure which was not feigned. It was well known that the King was a frequent guest at Nessim’s table and the old man was already writing a despatch in his mind which began with the words: ‘Dining with the King last week I brought the conversation round to the question of
…. He said … I replied….’ His lips began to move, his eyes to unfocus themselves, as he retired into one of those public trances for which he was famous, and from which he would awake with a start to astonish his interlocutors with a silly cod’s smile of apology.
For my part I found it strange to revisit the little tank-like flat where I had passed nearly two years of my life; to recall that it was here, in this very room, that I had first encountered Melissa. It had undergone a great transformation at the hands of Pombal’s latest mistress. She had insisted upon its being panelled and painted offwhite with a maroon skirting-board. The old arm—chairs whose stuffing used to leak slowly out of the rents in their sides had been re-upholstered in some heavy damask material with a pattern of fleur-de-lis while the three ancient sofas had been banished completely to make floor—space. No doubt they had been sold or broken up. ‘Somewhere’ I thought in quotation from a poem by the old poet, ‘somewhere those wretched old things must still be knocking about.’ How grudging memory is, and how bitterly she clutches the raw material of her daily work.
Pombal’s gaunt bedroom had become vaguely fin de siиcle and was as clean as a new pin. Oscar Wilde might have admitted it as a set for the first act of a play. My own room had reverted once more to a box-room, but the bed was still there standing against the wall by the iron sink. The yellow curtain had of course disappeared and had been replaced by a drab piece of white cloth. I put my hand to the rusted frame of the old bed and was stabbed to the heart by the memory of Melissa turning her candid eyes upon me in the dusky half-light of the little room. I was ashamed and surprised by my grief. And when Justine came into the room behind me I kicked the door shut and immediately began to kiss her lips and hair and forehead, squeezing her almost breathless in my arms lest she should surprise the tears in my eyes. But she knew at once, and returning my kisses with that wonderful ardour that only friendship can give to our actions, she murmured: ‘I know. I know.’ Then softly disengaging herself she led me out of the room and closed the door behind us. ‘I must tell you about Nessim’ she said in a low voice. ‘Listen to me. On Wednesday, the day before we left the Summer Palace, I went for a ride alone by the sea. There was a big flight of herring-gulls over the shoreline and all of a sudden I saw the car in the distance rolling and scrambling down the dunes towards the sea with Selim at the wheel. I couldn’t make out what they were doing. Nessim was in the back. I thought she would surely get stuck, but no: they raced down to the water’s edge where the sand was firm and began to speed along the shore towards me. I was not on the beach but in a hollow about fifty yards from the sea. As they came racing level with me and the gulls rose I saw that Nessim had the old repeating-gun in his hands.
He raised it and fired again and again into the cloud of gulls, until the magazine was exhausted. Three or four fell fluttering into the sea, but the car did not stop. They were past me in a flash. There must have been a way back from the long beach to the sandstone and so back on to the main road because when I rode in half an hour later the car was back. Nessim was in his observatory. The door was locked and he said he was busy. I asked Selim the meaning of this scene and he simply shrugged his shoulders and pointed at Nessim’s door. “He gave me the orders” was all he said. But, my dear, if you had seen Nessim’s face as he raised the gun….’ And thinking of it she involuntarily raised her long fingers to her own cheeks as if to adjust the expression on her own face. ‘He looked mad.’ In the other room they were talking politely of world politics and the situation in Germany. Nessim had perched himself gracefully on Pordre’s chair. Pombal was swallowing yawns which kept returning distressingly enough in the form of belches. My mind was still full of Melissa. I had sent her some money that afternoon and the thought of her buying herself some fine clothes — or even spending it in some foolish way — warmed me. ‘Money’ Pombal was saying playfully to an elderly woman who had the appearance of a contrite camel. ‘One should always make sure of a supply. For only with money can one make more money. Madame certainly knows the Arabic proverb which says: “Riches can buy riches, but poverty will scarcely buy one a leper’s kiss.” ’
‘We must go’ said Justine, and staring into her warm dark eyes as I said goodbye I knew that she divined how full of Melissa my mind was at the moment; it gave her handshake an added warmth and sympathy.
I suppose it was that night, while she was dressing for dinner that Nessim came into her room and addressed her reflection in the spade-shaped mirror. ‘Justine’ he said firmly, ‘I must ask you not to think that I am going mad or anything like that but — has Balthazar ever been more than a friend to you?’ Justine was placing a cigale made of gold on the lobe of her left ear; she looked up at him for a long second before answering in the same level, equable tone: ‘No, my dear.’
‘Thank you.’ Nessim stared at his own reflection for a long time, boldly, comprehensively. Then he sighed once and took from the waistcoatpocket of his dress-clothes a little gold key, in the form of an ankh. ‘I simply cannot think how this came into my possession’ he said, blushing deeply and holding it up for her to see. It was the little watch-key whose loss had caused Balthazar so much concern.
Justine stared at it and then at her husband with a somewhat startled air. ‘Where was it?’ she said.
‘In my stud-box.’ Justine went on with her toilette at a slower pace, looking curiously at her husband who for his part went on studying his own features with the same deliberate rational scrutiny. ‘I must find a way of returning it to him. Perhaps he dropped it at a meeting. But the strange thing is….’ He sighed again. ‘I don’t remember.’ It was clear to them both that he had stolen it. Nessim turned on his heel and said: ‘I shall wait for you downstairs.’ As the door closed softly behind him Justine examined the little key with curiosity.
*******
At this time he had already begun to experience that great cycle of historical dreams which now replaced the dreams of his childhood in his mind, and into which the City now threw itself — as if at last it had found a responsive subject through which to express the collective desires, the collective wishes, which informed its culture.
He would wake to see the towers and minarets printed on the exhausted, dust-powdered sky, and see as if en montage on them the giant footprints of the historical memory which lies behind the recollections of individual personality, its mentor and guide: indeed its inventor, since man is only an extension of the spirit of place.
These disturbed him for they were not at all the dreams of the night-hours. They overlapped reality and interrupted his waking mind as if the membrane of his consciousness had been suddenly torn in places to admit them.