'It is very life-like, isn't it?' Mrs Marchant whispered to me. She means death-like I think, really. She seems troubled. Disturbed perhaps in her reticent Protestantism, that so much more abstract religion. It is rather strong stuff for her, the incessant deep incantation, the wavering light of the candles playing on the gilt of the bier, the saint's waxen immobility, which expresses nothing of martyrdom, no hint of violence or wounds: nothing but death.
The crowd maintains an unbroken silence. Their faces are heavy and sad, their hands thick, clumsy-looking. They seem to be waiting for something other than the apotheosis of Alexei. The priests' chanting grows louder. Their vestments, faces and hands are devotional and powerful in the gloom. Four men from the congretation move forward, all men I know. They take up the bier and move with it up the steps, into the chancel. They deposit it there and file down again, into the body of the congregation. The priests go slowly up the steps, still chanting. They pass into the chancel, drawing behind them a white curtain, which shuts them off from the view of the people. The chanting ceases. All eyes are fixed on the curtain, behind which the priests are busy stripping the saint of his panoply, dressing the attenuated form in its Assumption robe, getting it to its feet. For some moments more there is silence, deep, expectant. Then a quick, running peal of bells. The curtain is drawn back, and the saint, in a blaze of light from the altar candles, stands upright before the congregation, dressed now in his long white robe. How the priests manage this bit of stage-craft, how they get the saint to stand on his own feet, so to speak, I have never discovered. Perhaps his feet are weighted, or some wedge is used, concealed by the robes. Whatever the method, Excellency, on this occasion something went badly wrong.
For some seconds he stood there. Long enough for the singing to recommence. Long enough for us all to meet his staring brown eyes and see the gleam on his features, like death-sweat. Then, very slowly at first, he began to keel over. One side of him seemed to be unsecured, so that he fell slightly sideways, with a strange effect of deliberateness, as if he had himself chosen the angle. One of the priests, with swifter reflexes than the others, stepped forward and made an attempt to catch the toppling saint, but the bier was in his way, and he was not quick enough. In the full blaze of altar lights and cynosure of eyes, Saint Alexei, O Alexei mas, as the local people call him, our Alexei, went thudding down on his face, and – here is the crowning disaster, Excellency, if you will forgive the bad pun – on impact with the stone of the chancel floor, his head came off altogether, snapped off clean at the neck, and went rolling down the steps, almost reaching the front ranks of the congregation. His headless form remained at the top, draped in its Assumption robe.
The singing had faltered, died away. There was a hush of consternation. I heard Mrs Marchant say something in abrupt exclamation at my side, and felt her take my arm. Then those immediately around me, men and women, turned and looked at me, and there was the same expression on every face: not accusation, but knowledge, the final knowledge of some utterly detestable creature. I thought I saw relief there too, as if this was what they had really been waiting for. Several people made the sign of the cross. They blamed me for the débâcle, Excellency. Now my treachery was confirmed. I was in the pay of the Turk and in league with the Devil. From spy to evil eye, a short step for these people. A man standing close by me – one Trikiriotis by name – suddenly stretched out his arm towards me, the fingers splayed and rigid. This is the curse of the five senses, Excellency. Others followed suit. I lost my nerve. I thought they were going to kill me. I turned, shaking myself free from Mrs Marchant, leaving her, unforgivably, alone and unprotected, and plunged blindly through the crowd. Somehow they parted for me. I rushed out of the church, down the steps, stumbling in my haste and panic, and so home.
That was some hours ago, Excellency. I have just opened my shutters. It is morning now. The sun has not risen yet, but there are preliminary stains on the sea. Setting all this down has calmed my fear, leaving me with a certain kind of resignation. Nothing really matters to me now but this report: and this report depends for balance and completeness, poignancy and point, on Mister Bowles. I knew that, from the beginning. Hence my efforts to make him real to your Excellency, to bring him before your eyes. And yet I cannot be sure that I have succeeded. His face is present now to my mind: narrow, long-jawed, with its reddish tan and the pale indignant eyes; the moustache, the smooth brown hair. Once again I am troubled by suspicions of him, by my sense of some discrepancy which I cannot define. I saw no books among his luggage. A man so interested in the past would carry books, surely, works of reference. Of course, there was the other bag, the one I was not able to examine, perhaps in there… My report began with him, he brought with him the taste of death, which has been in my mouth ever since. It must end with him too. The thought of dying with my report unfinished, of leaving Mister Bowles to pursue his destiny unregistered and unrecorded, is a very bitter one.
I slept till noon, Excellency, then ate the bread and peaches I bought yesterday. Peaches are plentiful this year and now is the time for them.
In the afternoon, in obedience to Mister Bowles's instructions, I went once more to see Izzet. I told him of the Englishman's request for a further meeting with the Pasha. He was curious, but I could tell him nothing. He said he would try to arrange matters for later today. So far I have heard nothing from him.
On the way back a rather odd thing happened. I ran into Politis, the cotton merchant, at the corner of Paradisos, and instead of ignoring me, as I had expected, he smiled and paused. 'You did not speak to us the other evening,' he said.
'Speak to you?' I said. I was bewildered. They had failed to speak to me, Excellency.
'Yes,' he said. 'At the Metropole. Now you have more important friends, eh?'
'No, not at all,' I said. 'Any time… I would be glad But Politis moved away, still smiling. Does he mean to be friendly? Could I possibly have been mistaken? If about him, then about all the others. No, impossible. It is a trick, a device to allay my suspicions until they are ready to act. A clever-move, but it will not succeed. I will not be lulled.
Below me, some distance along the shore, a group of young men. Two of them wrestling, Turkish-style, stripped to the waist. Higher up, where it is sandy. Too far to distinguish faces. Labourers, judging by the sun-darkened forearms and necks. I watched them for some time, locked together, shifting and heaving, neither of them able to get the advantage. Again the equipoise, Excellency – God continues to pay me with symbols for my attention to this visible world.
Beyond them the sea, pale in the shallows, deepening in colour as the water deepened, to a cobalt so intense the eye could not stay on it, was forced away, back to the softer hues of the shore, to the locked forms of the young men. Suddenly both fell heavily together on to the sand, extricated themselves there. When they got up, the game was different. Now one of them made stabbing motions towards the other. He had what looked like a piece of stick in his hand. He was simulating a knife or bayonet attack, and the other was warding off, evading, seeking to disarm. Their quickness and agility were impressive. Elemental too the postures of attack and defence, against the background of sea and rock.
Everywhere, in small things and in great, the world is rehearsing for violence, Excellency. Games on the beach, articles in newspapers, any casual conversation, all show the same impatience with peace. I saw it on the faces of people in church last night, mute, sad, a slow rage at inactivity – then the relief, the joy of hate, with which they turned to me. Everywhere a rising need for the gesture that shatters the glass.