‘Human truths are always complex.’
I smiled warily back. ‘I’m not quite sure what the difference is between what you’re doing here and the thing you hate so much -fiction.’
‘I do not object to the principles of fiction. Simply that in print, in books, they remain mere principles.’ He said, ‘Let me pass on an axiom about our species, Nicholas: Never take another human being literally.’ He added, ‘Even when they are so ignorant that they do not know what “literally” means.’
‘There’s no danger of that. Here, anyway.’
He looked down, then straight at me. ‘What I am employing is a very new psychiatric technique. It has been only very recently developed in America. They call it situation therapy.’
‘I’d like to read those papers of yours.’
‘Which reminds me. I looked for them just now. I seem to have mislaid them.’
It was shameless, he made it sound like a blandly deliberate lie; as if he wished me to stay in doubt.
‘Too bad.’
He folded his arms. ‘I have been thinking … your friend. As you perhaps know, I own the house that Hermes lives in in the village. He uses only the ground floor. It occurred to me that you might like to bring her to Phraxos for a while. She is most welcome to the upper floor. It is primitive. But sufficiently furnished. And quite spacious.’
That really did take the wind out of my sails, though it seemed a colossal nerve rather than a kindness… to have taken all this trouble to net me, and now to be offering every kind of escape. He must have been so sure that he had me, and for a moment I felt like taking the offer; not that I wanted Alison within a hundred miles of the island, but just to spite him.
‘Then I couldn’t help here any more.’
‘Perhaps you could both help here.’
‘She wouldn’t give up her job. And I really don’t want to be involved with her any more.’ I added, ‘But thanks all the same.’
‘Well. The offer stands.’
He turned rather abruptly away then, as if this time I had offended him. I set to again, expending on the job my growing sense of frustration. Another forty minutes later the wall was back to something like its proper shape. I carried the tools to a shed behind the cottage, then went round to the front of the house. Conchis sat there under the colonnade, quietly reading a Greek newspaper.
‘Is it done? Thank you.’
I made one last effort.
‘Mr Conchis, you’ve got the whole thing with this other girl ludicrously wrong. It was just an affaire. It’s past history now.’
‘But she wishes to see you again?’
‘Nine tenths out of curiosity. You know what women are like. And probably just because the man she now lives with is out of London for a few days.’
‘Forgive me. I will interfere no further. You must do as you feel. Of course.’
I turned away, wishing I’d kept my mouth shut, when he said my name. I looked back at him from the open doors into the music room. He gave me a powerful yet paternal look.
‘Go to Athens, my friend.’ He glanced towards the trees to the east.
‘Guai a chi la tocca.’
I had very little Italian, but I knew what he meant. I went on up to my room, undressed; then to the bathroom and the salt-water shower. In an odd way I knew what he was really saying. She was not for me because she was not for me; not because she was a ghost, or a schizophrenic, or anything else in the masque. It was a sort of ultimate warning—off; but you can’t warn off a man with gambling in his ancestry.
I lay naked on my bed after the shower, staring at the ceiling, trying to evoke Julie’s face, the curve of her eyelashes, the feel of her hand, her mouth, that frustratingly brief pressure of her body as we kissed; and her sister’s body seen the night before. I imagined Julie coming to me there, in the bedroom; or in the pine-forest, darkness, a wildness, a willing rape … I became the satyr; but then, remembering what had happened to him, realizing now what lay behind that little bit of classical hocus-pocus, I opted for detumescence and dressing. I too was beginning to learn to wait.
36
I did not enjoy dinner. Once again he tripped me up, by handing me a book as soon as I appeared.
‘My papers. They were on the wrong shelf
It wasn’t a very thick book, and cheaply bound in green cloth, without indication of the contents. I opened it – the page sizes and types of print differed, they were obviously pieces taken
ad hoc
from various journals and bound up. The texts seemed to be in French throughout. I saw a date: 1936. One or two titles.
Early prognosis of mild schizophrenia. The influence of profession on syndromes of paranoia. A psychiatric experiment in the use of Stramonium.
I looked up.
‘What’s Stramonium?’
‘Datura.
The thorn-apple. It produces hallucinations.’
I put the book down. ‘I look forward to reading it.’
In a way it turned out to be an unnecessary proof. By the time dinner was ended I was at least convinced that Conchis had far more than even a knowledgeable layman’s familiarity with psychiatry; and also that he had known Jung. That did not necessarily mean, of course, that I had to believe him about Julie. I tried to bring her in, but he was adamant – the less I knew of her case, at this stage, the better … though he promised that by the end of the summer I should be given the full picture. All the time I wanted to challenge him, but I was frightened of the growing resentment I was beginning to store against him: that things might explode into the kind of confrontation where I could only lose everything – be firmly told never to return. Then I sensed that he was in any case prepared, more than ready to throw up further clouds of obfuscating sepia if I really pressed him. My only defence was, as best as I could, to answer enigma with enigma; and my consolation, an intuition that he avoided all further reference to Athens and Alison for something of the same reason – that he might exasperate me into awkward questions.
So the meal passed – on one level I listened to an impressively shrewd old doctor, on another I was a mouse before a cat. I was also on tenterhooks for Julie to appear; and curious to know what experience I was to have that evening. A lingering aftermath of the
meltemi
made the lamp between us tremble and glow and fade intermittently, and this seemed to increase the general restlessness. Only Conchis seemed calm and at ease.
After the table had been cleared he poured me a drink from a small carboy-shaped bottle. It was clear, the colour of straw.
‘What’s this?’
‘Raki.
From Chios. It is very strong. I want to intoxicate you a little.’
All through the dinner he had also been pressing me to drink more of the heavy
rose
from Antikythera.
‘To dull my critical faculties?’
‘To make you receptive.’
‘I read your pamphlet.’
‘And thought it was nonsense.’
‘Difficult to verify.’
‘Verification is the only scientific criterion of reality. That does not mean that there may not be realities that are unverifiable.’
‘Did you get any response from your pamphlet?’
‘A great deal. From the wrong people. From the miserable vultures who prey on the human longing for the solution of final mysteries. The spiritualists, the clairvoyants, the cosmopaths, the summerlanders, the blue-islanders, the apportists – all that
galère.’
He looked grim. ‘They responded.’
‘But not other scientists?’
‘No.’
I sipped the
raki;
it was like fire, almost pure alcohol.
‘But you spoke about having proof
‘I had proof. But it was not easily communicable. And I later decided that it was better that it was not communicable, except to a few.’
‘Who you elect.’
‘Whom I elect. This is because mystery has energy. It pours energy into whoever seeks an answer to it. If you disclose the solution to the mystery you are simply depriving the other seekers … ‘ he emphasized the special meaning the word had for me ‘ … of an important source of energy.’
‘No scientific progress?’
‘Of course scientific progress. The solution of the physical problems that face man – that is a matter of technology. But I am talking about the general psychological health of the species, man. He needs the existence of mysteries. Not their solution.’
I finished the
raki.
‘This is fantastic stuff.’
He smiled, as if my adjective might be more accurate than I meant; raised the bottle.
‘One more glass. Then no more.
La dive bouteille
is also a poison.’
‘And the experiment begins?’
‘The experience begins. I should like you to take your glass and lie in one of the lounging-chairs. Just here.’ He pointed behind him. I went and pulled the chair there. ‘Lie down. There is no hurry. I want you to look at a certain star. Do you know Cygnus? The Swan? That cross-shaped constellation directly above?’
I realized that he was not going to take the other chaise-longue; and suddenly guessed.
‘Is this … hypnosis?’
‘Yes, Nicholas. There is no need to be alarmed.’
Lily’s warning:
‘Tonight you will understand.’
I hesitated, then lay back.
‘I’m not. But I don’t think I’m very amenable. Someone tried it at Oxford.’
‘We shall see. It is a harmony of wills. Not a contest. Just do as I suggest.’ At least I did not have to stare into those naturally mesmeric eyes. I could not back down; but forewarned is forearmed. ‘You see the Swan?’
‘Yes.’
‘And to the left a very bright star, one of a very obtuse triangle.’
‘Yes.’ I drained down the last of the
raki
in a gulp; almost choked, then felt it flush through my stomach.
‘That is a star known as
alpha
Lyrae. In a minute I shall ask you to watch it closely.’ The blue-white star glittered down out of the wind-cleared sky. I looked at Conchis, who was still sitting at the table, but had turned with his back to the sea to face me. I grinned in the darkness.
‘I feel I’m on the couch.’
‘Good. Now lie back. Contract, then relax your muscles a little. That is why I have given you the
raki.
It will help. Julie will not appear tonight. So clear your mind of her. Clear your mind of the other girl. Clear your mind of all your perplexities, all your longings. All your worries. I bring you no harm. Nothing but good.’
‘Worries. That’s not so easy.’ He was silent. ‘I’ll try.’
‘It will help if you look at that star. Do not shift your eyes from it. Lie back.’
I began to stare at the star; moved a little to make myself more comfortable. I felt the cloth of my coat with my hand. The walling had made me tired, I began to guess its real purpose, and it was good to lie back and stare up and wait. There was a long silence, several minutes. I shut my eyes for a while, then opened them. The star seemed to float in its own small sea of space, a minute white sun. I could feel the alcohol, but I was perfectly conscious of everything around me, far too conscious to be amenable.
I was perfectly conscious of the terrace, I was lying on the terrace of a house on an island in Greece, there was wind, I could even hear the faint sound of the waves on the shingle down at Moutsa. Conchis began to speak.
‘Now I want you to watch the star, I want you to relax all your muscles. It is very important that you should relax all your muscles. Tense a little. Now relax. Tense … relax. Now watch the star. The name of the star is
alpha
Lyrae.’
I thought, my God, he
is
trying to hypnotize me; and then, I must play by the rules, but I’ll lie doggo and pretend I am hypnotized.
‘Are you relaxing yes you are relaxing.’ I noted the lack of punctuation. ‘You are tired so you are relaxing. You are relaxing. You are relaxing. You are watching a star you are watching … ‘ the repetition; I remembered that from before at Oxford. An insane Welshman from Jesus, after a party. But with him it had developed into a staring match.
‘I say you are watching a star a star and you are watching a star. It is that gentle star, white star, gentle star
He went on talking, but all the curtness, the abruptness of his ordinary manner had disappeared. It was as if the lulling sound of the sea, the feel of the wind, the texture of my coat, and his voice dropped out of my consciousness. There was a stage when I was myself looking at the star, still lying on the terrace; I mean aware of lying and watching the star, if not of anything else.
Then came a strange illusion; that I was not looking up, but down into space, as one looks down a well.
Then there was no clearly situated and environmented self; there was the star, not closer but with something of the isolation a telescope gives; not one of a pattern of stars, but itself, floating in the blue-black breath of space, in a kind of void. I remember very clearly this sense, this completely new strange perceiving of the star as a ball of white light both breeding and needing the void around it; of, in retrospect, a related sense that I was exactly the same, suspended in a dark void. I was watching the star and the star was watching me. We were poised, exactly equal weights, if one can think of awareness as a weight, held level in a balance. This seemed to endure and endure, I don’t know how long, two entities equally suspended in a void, equally opposite, devoid of any meaning or feeling. There was no sensation of beauty, of morality, of divinity, of physical geometry; simply the sensation of the situation. As an animal might feel.
Then a rise of tension. I was expecting something. The waiting was a waiting for. I did not know if it would be audible or visible, which sense. But it was trying to come, and I was trying to discover its coming. There seemed to be no more star. Perhaps he had made me close my eyes. The void was all. I remember two words, Conchis must have spoken them: glisten, and listen. There was the glistening, listening void; darkness and expectation. Then there came a wind on my face, a perfectly physical sensation. I tried to face it, it was fresh and warm, but I suddenly realized, with an excited shock, not at anything but the physical strangeness of it, that it was blowing on me from all directions at the same time. I raised my hand, I could feel it. The dark wind, like draught from thousands of invisible fans, blowing in on me. And again this seemed to last for a long time.
At some point it began imperceptibly to change. The wind became light. I don’t think there was any visual awareness of this, it was simply that I knew, without surprise, that the wind had become light (perhaps Conchis had told me the wind was light) and this light was intensely pleasing, a kind of mental sunbathing after a long dark winter, an exquisitely agreeable sensation both of being aware of light and attracting it. Of having power to attract and power to receive this light.
From this stage I moved to one where it dawned on me that this was something intensely true and revealing; this being something that drew all this light upon it. I mean it seemed to reveal something deeply significant about being; I was aware of existing, and this being aware of existing became more significant than the light, just as the light had become more significant than the wind. I began to get a sense of progress, that I was transforming, as a fountain in a wind is transformed in shape; an eddy in the water. The wind and the light became mere secondaries, roads to the present state, this state without dimensions or sensations; awareness of pure being. Or perhaps that is a solipsism; it was simply a pure awareness.
That lasted; and then changed, like the other states. This state was being imposed on me from outside, I knew this, I knew that although it did not flow in on me like the wind and the light, it nevertheless flowed, though flowed was not the word. There was no word, it arrived, descended, penetrated from outside. It was not an immanent state, it was a conferred state, a presented state. I was a recipient. But once again there came this strange surprise that the emitters stood all around me. I was not receiving from any one direction, but from all directions; though once again, direction is too physical a word. I was having feelings that no language based on concrete physical objects, on actual feeling, can describe. I think I was aware of the metaphorically of what I felt. I knew words were like chains, they held me back; and like walls with holes in them. Reality kept rushing through; and yet I could not get out to fully exist in it. This is interpreting what I struggled to remember feeling; the act of description taints the description.
I had the sense that this was the fundamental reality and that reality had a universal mouth to tell me so; no sense of divinity, of communion, of the brotherhood of man, of anything I had expected before I became suggestible. No pantheism, no humanism. But something much wider, cooler and more abstruse. That reality was endless interaction. No good, no evil; no beauty, no ugliness. No sympathy, no antipathy. But simply interaction. The endless solitude of the one, its total enislement from all else, seemed the same thing as the total inter-relationship of the all. All opposites seemed one, because each was indispensable to each. The indifference and the indispensability of all seemed one. I suddenly knew, but in a new hitherto unexperienced sense of knowing, that all else exists.
Knowing, willing, being wise, being good, education, information, classification, knowledge of all kinds, sensibility, sexuality, these things seemed superficial. I had no desire to state or define or analyse this interaction, I simply wished to constitute it – not even ‘wished to’ – I constituted it. I was volitionless. There was no meaning. Only being.
But the fountain changed, the eddy whirled. It seemed at first to be a kind of reversion to the stage of the dark wind breathing in on me from every side, except that there was no wind, the wind had been only a metaphor, and now it was millions, trillions of such consciousnesses of being, countless nuclei of hope suspended in a vast solution of hazard, a pouring out not of photons, but nöons, consciousness-of-being particles. An enormous and vertiginous sense of the innumerability of the universe; an innumerability in which transience and unchangingness seemed integral, essential and uncontradictory. I felt like a germ that had landed, like the first penicillin microbe, not only in a culture where it was totally at home, totally nourished; but in a situation in which it was infinitely significant. A condition of acute physical and intellectual pleasure, a floating suspension, a being perfectly adjusted and
related;
a quintessential arrival. An intercognition.