Mister Bowles looked worried. 'I don't really think -' he began, then stopped, aiming at me the reproof of his pale eyes.
'Yes,' I said, 'sometimes it was a person highly placed, sometimes a poor artist, sometimes a simple peasant. There were times when I thought the whole race of men had gone into the making of me. Eventually, and to cut a long story short, my mother became the mistress of an official in the Ministry of Finance, a Maltese, by name Pascali. Through all these vicissitudes she kept me by her side. I learned English at her knee, Greek from tutors, Turkish on the streets, and French at the Lyceé. But English, as I was telling Mister Bowles before you came, was always my favourite.'
'A man's mother should be sacred,' Mister Bowles said.
Lydia was gazing at him with interest. 'Are you staying here long?' she said.
'Possibly a week or two. The whole area is rich in historical remains.'
'Are you an archeologist, then?'
'Strictly an amateur,' he said. 'It is a hobby of mine and I can afford to indulge it. At present I'm gathering material for a book about the classical antiquities, on the coast of Asia Minor and here, on the islands.'
'There is a lot here that has never been touched,' Lydia said.
'I am looking forward to investigating it.' Mister Bowles leaned forward and looked intently at Lydia. He paused, as if gathering himself, and then the words came out in a rush: 'The first settlers from Attica built a temple to Artemis up there, on the headland,' he said. 'But it seems that the area was regarded as sacred before that. Long before.' There was a note of deep seriousness in his voice.
'Perhaps because there is water there?' I suggested. 'Wells and water-courses have always bred superstitions, even faster than microbes.'
I spoke in this disrespectful way deliberately to counteract what I felt to be the religiosity of his tone. However, he made no reply. He was still looking at Lydia. 'Mister Pascali mentioned that you are a painter,' he said.
'Yes.'
'What kind of pictures do you paint?'
'Well,' Lydia said, 'landscapes mainly. With figures, you know. Though lately I have been doing some portraits.'
She was settling down to tell him about her work. Suddenly I had an idea. With Lydia on this subject, neither of them was likely to move for quite some time.
'I'll be back in a minute,' I said. Neither of them as much as glanced up.
Back through the palms and the pillars of the lounge, deserted now. The sense of being about to proceed illegally quickened my heart. I am a law-abiding man, Excellency. As I had expected, there was no one at all in the lobby, no one at the reception desk. Mardosian was making himself pleasant in the dining-room.
Passing round the desk to the panel where the heavy brass keys hang on their pegs, actually reaching out and grasping number sixteen, brought me out in a general perspiration. Key in hand I went rapidly back round the counter, wheeled left up the stairs, slipped along the corridor to room sixteen. I opened and entered, breathing heavily with the exertions of my haste. The room was warm, shuttered. I saw at once that the Englishman had not yet fully unpacked. Both of his valises were on the floor between the bed and the wall. One was locked still, the other open and half-empty.
In haste I opened this wider, saw the folded clothing. I thrust my hand into the depths of it, working the palm against the inner cover, all the way round. I trembled with fear, but I persisted. (Excellency, I ask you to notice my dedication-greater because I am not naturally endowed with courage. Men are unequal in this respect, as in all others. This of course you already know. My poor store of knowledge is contained in one small corner of your spacious mind. However, I presume to remind you. Recesses in such vast estates may become shadowy. Even the mind of God, they say, is not uniformly lit.)
Two silk shirts with the label of a tailor in Pera. So he has been in Constantinople. Then, amidst yielding of cotton, my hand touches something cold, smooth, resistant. I draw out, draw up like treasure, a smallish marble head of a woman. About as large as a man's fist. White marble, Paros marble by the look of it, warmed with age. Stylised hair, broad Asian brows, blind smile. Nose rather badly chipped. Why is he carrying her about in his luggage? Perhaps acquired on his recent travels.
Nothing further of interest in the luggage. Though by now intensely desirous of leaving, I steadied myself, controlled my breathing. I began to go through the chest of drawers in the corner. In the second one I found a notebook with glazed black covers. The journal? However, all I could make out on the pages I hastily glanced at were figures and dates in red ink, some place-names, details apparently of expenditure in Turkish liras. My eye was caught briefly by an entry against Miletus, with figures in brackets. No personal opinions or impressions whatever.
With a sort of trembling tenacity of purpose I opened drawer after drawer; and in the bottom one I was rewarded. There, quite alone, lay a short-barrelled revolver with a black rubber grip. Squat and naked it lay there, no holster, no masking cloth. A dull shine to it, blue-black. I did not touch it, Excellency. I have a horror of firearms.
Here was a discovery indeed. Do amateur archeologists normally include instruments of death in their equipment? I think not. Strangely enough I no longer felt any fear: fear had been stilled by the sight of the weapon, as by a blow. I remained for a second or two longer in the quiet room. In my mind a vague sense that something had been confirmed. Then I withdrew quietly, passed back along the corridor, down to the lobby. Someone had been at the counter while I was upstairs, because there was an open copy of Cumhuriet on it. However, I am sure no one saw me replace the Englishman's key. Pausing only to wipe palms and neck with my handkerchief, I made my way back towards the verandah, catching as I did so the stern eye of the divine rapist, now in human form, in a blue cloak and spiked helmet.
'We're having dinner here,' Lydia said. 'Come and join us.'
Thus assuring, bless her, my food for the evening. They had been joined by Herr Gesing, the German commercial agent. He has not featured in my reports before, having only been on the island a week or so…
I am very tired, Excellency. I cannot finish my account of the evening at this one sitting. I must postpone the rest until later today. My eyes ache, and the effort of focussing has become painful. Just now I opened the shutters a little and I saw light on the sea, the faintest swathe of light. Dawn has overtaken my labours. The sea lightens before the sky does, at this time of year: a kind of luminosity on the face of the water, as if daybreak is more promptly and sensitively recorded there. This band of light extends as I watch, with the effect of a long slow ripple, like a tremor in a dream – neither pleasurable nor painful, but constrained, under duress. As always, I am impressed by the docility of the sea. It quivers to light and current like a vast belly twitching in a dream… The sky above the hills lightens from minute to minute. Somewhere in the interior, beyond the bay, I see the smoke of fires. Lately I have seen them frequently, though not usually so near the coast. The smoke rises straight up in thin columns. Signals, cooking fires, it is impossible to tell. Too much smoke for shepherds' fires.
Before long the muezzin will be calling, reminding us that it is better to pray than sleep. I shall eat the olives and bread and salami which I managed to abstract from last night's supper (wrapping them in my napkin under cover of the table). While I am eating, I shall watch the distances of the sea define themselves, and the islands take shape – a process which never fails to please me, Excellency, giving the same feeling art gives, that this could assume no other form, happen no other way. Then I shall sleep (behind locked doors), and afterwards continue my report. I must omit nothing. Events must be dealt with as they occur. Otherwise I shall fall behind, and then death will overtake me, like this dawn, with something possibly vital, possibly the vital clue, left unrecorded. I cannot allow this to happen. I will not leave this room, I will not expose myself to new experience, until I have completed my account of last night. When they come for me everything will be up to date, up to the minute.