Pascali's Island

'What, here in the house?'

'Yes, he brought one of his crew, an Italian. Fellow had cut his hand very badly.'

'That's the man with the caique, isn't it? The one who is fishing for sponges.'

'Yes, that's right.'

Here was a piece of news. Had their meeting been planned or accidental? They shook hands at parting…

'He's leaving soon, apparently,' the doctor said. 'Or so Lydia says. I looked in on her today and we gossiped a bit.'

How does Lydia know that, Excellency? Obviously she is in touch with the American. Or did Mister Smith tell Mister Bowles today that he was leaving, when they met in the bar? In that case Mister Bowles must have passed on the information to Lydia in the course of the afternoon.

'When was that?' I said. 'When did you see Lydia?'

'Round about noon. Why do you ask?'

'I wondered if Mister Bowles was there. At the studio I mean.'

'Bowles? No, he wasn't there.'

It must be Lydia, then, who knows the American's movements. Perhaps it was she who introduced him to Mister Bowles. If my theory of the gun-running is correct, and if Lydia knows about it, knows who the contracts are, she may have used this knowledge to put pressure on the American. For Mister Bowles's sake, of course. What story can he have told her? Is he trying to arrange a passage on the American's boat? Is he planning to leave in a hurry and to cheat me out of my share…? The thought brought me out in a cold sweat.

'We don't see much of you these days, Basil,' Doctor Hogan said.

'I have been spending a lot of time at home lately,' I said. ' Reading, that kind of thing.'

I felt his eyes on me, but he asked me no questions. 'The news from Constantinople is very bad, so Lydia tells me,' he said. 'I don't know how she knows these things. I've had no letters for a month. The postal service now seems to have broken down completely.'

'Why?' I said. 'The news has been bad for years, but things go on much as before. What's wrong now?'

'Just about everything, as far as I can make out. They are proclaiming a republic in the north. The Sultanate, the Caliphate, the whole structure – it is all toppling over, Basil. Abdul Hamid never leaves the palace now. He lives behind locked doors with no one to rely on but the women of his harem and his Albanian guard – and how far he can rely on them is doubtful. No, it's all up with him this time. I'm going myself, the day after tomorrow, to bring my boy back here.'

I am merely reporting what he said about you, Excellency. I am not saying that I believe it. You have ruled for more than thirty years, and in that time there have been many crises.

All the same, I was depressed. When I stood up to go, I was attacked by a slight fit of dizziness. I did not speak of this to the doctor, but his eyes were on me, and he must have seen something change in my face, for he said, 'You must take things easy, Basil. I don't like your colour much.'

'Oh, I'm all right,' I said. I was touched by his concern, but any intention I had had of confiding in him had quite gone by now. He is kind, he is even good, but his life is too different from mine, too settled and secure. I need an outcast to confide in – a powerful outcast. Perhaps that is what you are, Excellency. The atmosphere of peace in the house, the sense of an ordered life, of family affection, reciprocal duties and ties, all the things that I have never had, can never have now, all this puts distance between us.

'By the way,' I said, as I was leaving, 'does the name Mannfeldt mean anything to you? It's a firm of some kind.'

'Mannfeldt? Yes, they are the armaments people. Aircraft too I think, not the engines, the bodywork. They've got all sorts of interests. Very big people. Gesing would know more about them, I should think.'

'Yes, I'll ask him,' I said. 'I heard the name, you know, and I wondered. What about terra rossa? It came up in the same conversation.'

'Terra rossa? Red earth. No, you've got me there. Sounds like a name on some primitive kind of map. You know, like terra incognita or terra pericolosa. One of those maps the old explorers made.'

'Yes,' I said, 'it does sound like that, doesn't it? Oh well, it doesn't matter.'

I shook hands with them and thanked them. Maria gave me ajar of home-made tomato paste. She put it into my hands as I was leaving. 'Come again when you feel like it,' the doctor said. I have the feeling that I will never see them again.

I went down a little way along the earth road that descends from the house towards the town. But this road is winding and offers no shade, so I decided to take a more direct way, down the hillside, through the olive terraces. It was late afternoon now, hot and still. I caught glimpses of dark blue sea through rifts in the olive trees. Smell of marjoram, cistus, mint from the uncultivated slopes among the terraces. At first my own body was all the movement, all the noise there was. Then, within my own pauses, the interstices of movement, I became aware of the life around me, sudden soft impactive sounds among the dry grass edging the terraces, wings of small birds in the trees. Suddenly I looked down to a clearing, a good way below me, and saw a little group, two men and a boy standing together. The fleece of a sheep lay beside them. The sheep itself I saw last of all. It was skinned and strung up on a post or perhaps suspended from a branch. Forelegs tugged high by the rope, livid pink shape in the broken sunlight among the trees. In the last few moments before my line of vision was obscured, I saw one of the men cut downwards from the join of the animal's forelegs. I did not see the knife, only the long cut down, from forelegs to belly. A thick, dark red line followed the knife. I saw this one gesture in just this one moment, then passed on. It was as if it had been performed just for me. Blood, that darker line? No, the animal was dead, blooded already. Probably the darker inner flesh opening to the knife…

Down to the lower terraces, out on to the road again, and it was here that Izzet, accompanied by a big, silent, ragged man, were waiting for me, at the turn of the road, just before the first houses. They were waiting at the side of the road, in the shade of the large mulberry tree there. They stepped out into the road before me, forcing me to a stop. Neither of them said anything at first; and this silence, and the fact that they had waited so patiently for me there, frightened me badly. I tried to explain to Izzet, but he did not listen. They were not there to listen. We moved to the edge of the road and they stood close to me.

'We know you have seen him,' Izzet said. 'You were watched.'

'He wants two more days,' I said. 'In order to complete his researches.'

'He said nothing about his researches yesterday. It was he who fixed the time. He was in a great hurry then. Now he wants more time.'

'Please have patience,' I said. 'You know the Englishman is honest.'

'Honest?' Izzet smiled, very disagreeably. The ragged man smiled too, I think because he saw Izzet smiling. 'He has been seeing the American,' Izzet said. 'The American has a boat. Do you think we are fools?'

'No,' I said. 'Of course not. But you should not attach any importance to these meetings with the American. It is natural for foreigners, who speak the same language, to be on friendly terms.'

'Why only now?' Izzet said. 'Tell me that. You cannot. Basil Effendi, you are in great trouble.'

They were standing very near. The ragged man reeked unpleasantly. Their shadows were over me and over the reddish dust of the road: Izzet's quick and small, moving with his gestures; the ragged man's motionless. Beyond them the road was stained and sticky with fallen mulberries and flies were murmuring among them.

I said, 'I will speak to him. As for the boat, I am sure there is no connexion.' I attempted to move further down the road, but they moved to prevent me.