The Collected Short Fiction Page 15

  'Do what?'

  'Borrow a boat. They would never lend you a boat to come here.'

  'No,' said Grigg, certain that he was blushing under the singularly direct gaze of his interrogator's black eyes. 'It was difficult.' After pausing for a second, he took a small plunge. 'Why should that be?'

  'The Greeks are stupid,' said the first woman. 'Violent and vengeful, of course, too; quite incapable of government; but, above all, stupid. They can't even grow a tree. They can only cut them down.' She placed her hand on the bole of the beautiful flowering tree which grew in the courtyard. It was a rather fine movement, Grigg thought, much more like the Greeks of myth than any of the Greeks he could remember actually to have seen.

  'They certainly seem to have a particular feeling about this island.'

  No further explanation was forthcoming. There was merely another slight pause. Then the first woman spoke.

  'Do you have any particular feeling about this island?'

  'I think it is the most beautiful place I have ever visited,' replied Grigg, hardly knowing whether or not he exaggerated.

  'Then stay with us.'

  'I have to take back the boat. As I said, I have only borrowed it.'

  The third woman spoke for the first time. 'I shouldn't take back the boat.' She spoke with the same accent as the others, and her tone was one of pleasant warning.

  'What do you mean?' asked Grigg.

  'You'll be torn to pieces if you do.'

  'Oh, surely not,' said Grigg, laughing uneasily.

  'Didn't you steal the boat?' The woman was smiling quite amicably. 'Or at least borrow it without asking?'

  'As a matter of fact, yes.'

  'And haven't you borrowed it so as to come here?'

  'Yes.'

  'They'll tear you to pieces.' She spoke as if it were the most foregone of conclusions; but, seeing that Grigg still doubted, she added in friendly seriousness, 'Believe it. It's true. If you leave us, you can't go back. You'll have to go somewhere else. A long way off.'

  Inevitably, Grigg was impressed. 'But tell me,' he said, 'why shouldn't I – or anyone else – come here?'

  The woman with the black eyes looked hard at Grigg. 'They believe we're sorcerers – sorceresses,' she corrected herself, tripping over the language.

  Grigg was familiar with such talk among southern peasants. 'And are you?' he asked lightly.

  'Yes,' said the dark woman. 'We are.'

  'Yes,' confirmed the first woman. 'We are all sorceresses.' There was about about the statement neither facetiousness nor challenge.

  'I see,' said Grigg gravely; and looked away from them out to the open ocean, empty as before.

  'People who come her usually know that already,' said the first woman; again in some simple explanation.

  Grigg turned back to them and stared for a moment. They really were, he realised, most striking to see, all three of them: with beautifully shaped, muscular, brown limbs; strong necks and markedly sculptural features; and a casual grandeur of posture, which was perhaps the most impressive thing of all. And their practical, almost primitive, garments suited them wonderfully. The two fair women wore yellow shoes, but the dark woman was bare-footed, with strong, open toes. Grigg was struck by a thought.

  'Yesterday I saw your ship,' he said. 'In a way, it was why I came. Do you sail her yourself?'

  'Yes,' said the first woman. 'We have sometimes to buy things, and they will sell us nothing here. We built the boat on a beach in Albania, where no one lives. We took wood from the forests behind, which belong to no one.'

  'I believe that now they belong to the People's Republic,' Grigg said, smiling.

  'That is the same thing,' said the woman.

  'I suspect that you are right about my little boat,' said Grigg. 'They tell you to act more regularly on impulse, but I often act on impulse, and almost always find that it was a mistake, sometimes a surprisingly bad one.'

  'Coming here was not necessarily a mistake,' said the first woman. 'It depends.'

  'I wasn't thinking about that part of it,' said Grigg, convicted of rudeness. 'I like it here. I was thinking of what will happen when I go back – whenever I go back.'

  'One of us will guide you to somewhere you'll be safe. Now, if you wish.'

  'Thank you,' said Grigg. 'But I only borrowed the boat and must really return it.'

  'Take it back during the night,' said the third woman, with unexpected practicality.

  And thus it was that Grigg decided to stay; at least until it was dark.

  *

  There was work to be done: first, the unloading of the ship. Grigg naturally offered to help, but the women seemed very cool about it.

  'The tasks are disposed for the three of us,' said the woman who had spoken first, 'and you would find it very hot.'

  Grigg could not deny this last statement, as he was already perspiring freely, though standing still. None the less, he could hardly leave it at that.

  'As you are permitting me to intrude upon you,' he said, 'please permit me to help.'

  'You are not an intruder,' said the woman, 'but you are a stranger, and the tasks are for me and my sisters.'

  She made Grigg feel so completely unqualified that he could think of nothing to say. 'The house is open to you,' continued the woman. 'Go wherever you like. The heat is not good unless you are accustomed to it.' The three women then went out through the harbour gateway and down the long flight of marble steps to the ship. Grigg looked after them as they descended, but none of them looked back.

  *

  Grigg entered through one of the doors and began to prowl about. There were many rooms, some big, some small, but all well proportioned. All were painted in different colours, all perfectly clean, all open to the world, and all empty. The whole place was beautifully tended, but it was hard to see for what, at least by accepted standards.

  Grigg ascended to the floor above. The marble staircase led to a landing from which was reached a larger and higher room than any of the others. It had doubtless been the main hall of the citadel. Three tall windows opened on to small decorative balconies overlooking the courtyard. On a part of the floor against the wall opposite these windows were rectangular cushions packed together like mah-jong pieces, to make an area of softness. There were smaller windows high in the wall above them. There was nothing else in the room but a big circular bowl of flowers. It stood on the floor towards one corner, and had been hewn from pink marble. Grigg thought that the combined effect of the cushions, the flowers, and the proportions of the room was one of extreme luxury. The idea came to him, not for the first time, that most of the things which people buy in the belief that they are luxuries are really poor substitutes for luxury.

  The other rooms on that floor of the citadel were as the rooms below, spotless, sunny, but empty. On the second floor there were several rooms furnished as the hall; with in one place a mass of deep cushions, in another a mass of flowers, and nothing else. Sometimes the flowers were in big iron bowls mounted on tripods; sometimes in reservoirs forming a part (but the dominant part) of a statuary group. On the first and second floors, the rooms led into one another, and most of them had windows, overlooking the larger island from which Grigg had come, the other overlooking the open sea. It was true that there were doors, in coloured wood; but all, without exception, stood open. There was nothing so very unusual about the building, agreeable though it was, and nothing in the least mysterious in themselves about its appurtenances, but before Grigg had completed his tour and emerged on to the flat roof, he had begun to feel quite depressed by the recollection of how he and his neighbours dwelt, almost immersed beneath mass-produced superfluities, impotent even as distractions.

  On the roof was a single stone figure of a recumbent man, more than life-size. It reposed at one end of the roof with its back to the harbour, and it was from the other end of the roof that Grigg first saw it, so that he had a longish walk across the bare expanse before he came up to it, like a visitor to Mussoli
ni in the great days.

  The figure was, inevitably, of the kind vaguely to be termed classical; but Grigg doubted whether, in any proper sense, it was classical at all. It was not so much that it was in perfect order, as if it had been carved that same year, and glossy of surface, both of which things are rare with ancient sculpture, but rather the sentiment with which the figure was imbued, and which it projected as an aura, the compulsive implication of the artist's work, if indeed there had ever been an artist.

  It was a male of advanced years, or alternatively, perhaps, ageless, who reclined with his head on his right hand which rose from the elbow on the ground, a position which Grigg had always found to be especially uncomfortable. The hair straggled unkempt over the low cranium. The big eyes protruded above the snub nose, and from the thick lips the tongue protruded slightly also. There was a lumpy chin, unconcealed by a beard. The rest of the body was hirsute, long-armed, and muscular; hands, feet, and phallus being enormous. The man appeared to be lying on the bare and wrinkled earth; or possibly, it struck Grigg, on rocks. The folds in the stone ground of the statue (it seemed to be some other stone than the usual marble) were very similar to the folds in the rock which he had noticed as he walked up from the harbour. There was something compressed and drawn together about the man's entire attitude, almost like a foetus in the womb, or an immensely strong spring, compressed against the moment of use. Grigg thought that the man did not much stare at him, though staring he certainly was, as right through him and beyond him, probably far beyond. As Grigg gazed back, a small spurt of dirty water bubbled from the man's open mouth. It dribbled from his tongue and discoloured the forearm supporting his head. There must have been a pump to supply the fountain, and Grigg was not surprised, considering the obvious mechanical problems, that it did not work very well.

  Grigg advanced to the balustrade surrounding the citadel roof and looked over the harbour. The women were still at work unloading the ship. One of them, the smaller of the two with fair hair, who had been the last to speak when Grigg appeared, was carrying up the wide steps a large green cask, mounted on her right shoulder.

  Grigg felt very uncertain what to do. He could hardly just stand about while the women were working so industriously, but he felt that the rejection of his services had been singularly final, and he also felt that if he succeeded in insisting, then he would almost certainly make a fool of himself in the great heat and with a routine of which he was ignorant. He had nothing even to read, nor had he seen anything to read on the entire island. He decided, pusillanimously, to stay where he was, until things below perhaps quieted down.

  He sank upon the stones of the roof at a place where the balustrade gave a little shade. He had in mind to stretch out for a siesta, but the stones were so hard and so level that he found himself propping his head on his hand, like the stone man he had just been looking at. He gazed out to sea between the columns of the balustrade, but the attitude soon proved every bit as uncomfortable as he had always thought, and he began instead to sprawl upon his back, pushed as close against the balustrade as he could manage, in the need for as much shade as possible. He reflected that again he was imitating the stone man, so drawn in on himself.

  It was, in any case, quite useless, and, like most useless things, useless almost immediately. Not only was the sun unbearable, but the stored heat of the stone was even more unbearable and worse even than its hardness, though stone is harder in the Hellenes than anywhere else. After only a few minutes, Grigg felt as stiff and parched as an old tobacco leaf; so much so that he had difficulty in rising to his feet, and was glad that his middle-aged muddling, the dropsy of a welfare society, was not under observation.

  He descended to the floor below and sank himself on the cushioned area in one of the luxurious rooms; he neither knew nor cared which. Through the open windows had flown in some very tiny, curiously coloured birds. Grigg could not quite name the colour: some kind of bright blue, aquamarine perhaps. The birds fluttered immoderately, like moths; and, from their throats or wings or both, came a faint, high, silvery, unceasing chant, as of honey heard dripping from the very summit of Hymettus. Grigg normally liked a bird in the room no more than other men like it; but all he did about the birds now was fall dead asleep.

  At some time during his sleep, he had a nightmare. He dreamed that lizards, not small blue ones, but quite large black ones, possibly eighteen inches long, were biting off his own flesh. Already they had devoured most of the flesh on his feet and legs, so that he could see the bare, red bones extending upwards to the knees. It was difficult to look, however. There was something in common between his attitude, lying uncomfortably on his back, and the attitude he had been forced into on the roof. He did not seem to be tied down in any way, or even drugged, but he was too stiff to move very much, none the less. Gnawing away even now were eight or ten lizards, with long angular legs, big clawed feet, and oversized necks, heads, and eyes; and there were many other similar lizards, standing silently in the background, a terrifying number, in fact. Perhaps they are waiting their turn, Grigg thought; and then remembered that it was something which animals are seldom observed to do. One curious thing was that the gnawing did not exactly hurt: it was quite perceptible, but Grigg felt it as a nervous frisson charging his whole body, half painful but half pleasurable, like a mild current of electricity from a machine on the pier. Grigg could not decide whether or not he was wearing clothes. When he looked, he could see his bare legs (very bare in fact); while, at the same time, he felt as if he were fully dressed. But, then again, the lizards had already pecked at other patches of his body. He trembled to think what it would be like when they reached his head.

  But before they did, Grigg was awake, or, rather, awakened.

  The scene seemed hardly less strange, because there were several things to be taken in at once.

  In the first place, the whole room was filled with a dim and dusky red light, which Grigg soon realised was probably just the last of the sunset, suggesting that he had slept a long time.

  In the second place, the room seemed to be what he could only regard as moving about. There was a steady pitching, up, down, up; and with it was incorporated a sick-making diagonal tilt. It was by no means a single lurch, but a persistent, though far from regular, heaving and plunging.

  'An earthquake,' cried Grigg very loudly to the twilight; now much more fully awake.

  He tried to leap up, but then realised a third thing: in some way he was being restrained.

  He awoke completely. There was a weight on his chest, and bonds round his arms. He perceived that it was a human being who was imprisoning him, holding him down.

  It was one of the three women. She lifted her head, though without releasing him, and he perceived that it was the woman he had last seen carrying the green cask on her shoulder up the steps.

  'It will end,' she said. 'Lie still and it will be over.'

  'It is an earthquake?' enquired Grigg in a whisper.

  'Yes,' she said. 'An earthquake.' Her tonelessness was probably deliberate and intended to reassure. She tightened her hold on him, and as she moved her head, he felt her hair against his face in the near darkness.

  'What's your name?' asked Grigg in the same whisper.

  'My name is Tal.'

  'You are beautiful.'

  'You are strong.'

  Grigg had not, before she spoke, felt at all strong.

  'I could hardly hold you.' She spoke as if she had saved him from some great peril.

  'I was dreaming. I still am dreaming.'

  'Then I am part of the dream.'

  'The whole island is a dream but it is a very lovely island.'

  'It is an island of love.'

  Suddenly he realised that she was naked.

  The last of the sunset, setting fire to his body, kindled it into a blaze. The two of them rolled onto the warm floor.

  'It is my first earthquake,' he said. 'I always thought earthquakes were bad.'

  And in a few flu
shed minutes before it was absolutely and finally dark, in that region where darkness comes quickly, he had possessed her, with uttermost rapture, a rapture not previously imaginable.

  *

  He heard her voice through the darkness speaking, he divined, from the doorway. She sounded as cool as the night was still warm.

  'There is a meal.'

  'I am hungry for it.'

  The earthquake had ended. It was as if they two had ended it.

  'Can you find your way down without a light?'

  'I'm sure I can.' After all, she had given him the eyes of a cat, of a muscular, blonde cat.

  'We eat in the courtyard.'

  'I could devour an ox,' commented Grigg happily, and abandoning all restraint.

  'We eat fruit,' she said, and he could hear her leaving him through the darkness.

  'Tal!' he cried after her, but softly. He wanted to kiss her, to ravish her again, but she did not return.

  *

  There she was, however, eating nectarines with the others, as soon as he had groped his way down. There were grapes, nuts, and oranges, not in dishes but strewn with the nectarines about the stones of the court. Grigg thought it was just as if all the fruit had been scattered from a cornucopia. There were also a whole chest of figs and heavy lumps of small dates in a big brown canvas bag. The three women had brought out cushions and were eating in what is supposed to have been the Roman style. There were cushions for Grigg too, and soon he was peeling an orange. The sky was now full of stars.

  'I am Lek,' said the other fair woman.

  'I am Vin,' said the dark woman. She was still bare-footed, Grigg noticed.

  As Tal said nothing, Grigg wondered how much was known.

  'I am Grigg.'

  'Be welcome, Grigg,' said Lek, the woman who had spoken to him first, that afternoon in this same courtyard; 'be assured of all our loves.'

  'Thank you,' replied Grigg. 'I am happy.'

  Vin threw him a nut; or rather, if he had not been able to see her warm smile in the now clear starlight, he might have supposed that she had thrown a nut at him, so hard did it hit. What was more, he noticed that there were no nutcrackers and no substitute for them. The women split the nuts open by biting them, which was entirely beyond him to do. It was quite a serious matter, because he really could not subsist entirely on fruit. He had, after all, eaten nothing since breakfast. However, he looked with surreptitious meaning at Tal, and felt compensated but less than reassured. Moreover, the night, instead of growing cooler, seemed to be growing steadily warmer.