Mister Bowles assumed definition along with the boat. Distinguishable while yet a good way off by his tallness, and the light clothes. I watched him, the boat meanwhile nosing into harbour, and the water slapping, vegetable matter eddying between hulk and moorings.
He remained standing at the rail, looking at the town rising before him on its terraced slopes. The hat shadowed his face. And now something very strange, Excellency: I began to see the town through the eyes of this newcomer, somehow he imposed his view on me – even before we met. Some unshakable confidence he managed to convey, or perhaps simply indifference to the assessments of others. Whatever the reason, I was constrained to look up as if for the first time, to note the white houses with their shallow roofs and ramshackle storks' nests; the whole town enmeshed in the green of its terraces; the minarets of mosques and the broken towers of the Frankish castle sticking up through the net; brown falcons loitering in the sky above.
He came down the gangway. A sailor carried his two brown leather bags. He carried a smaller bag himself. He has a fair moustache, not drooping – ending at the corners of his mouth. His face is sunburnt. A longish, rather thin face, pale, narrow eyes-the eyes seem paler because of his tan. He paused on the quay, amid a little group of people competing for his attention -fiacre-drivers, children clamouring for kurus, hammals eager to carry his luggage on their backs. He took off his hat, for some reason, quite unhurriedly. His hair is brown, darker than the moustache, and smooth, parted down the middle. He holds himself stiffly, but there is something less than assured in his movements, a quality of diffidence or slight uncertainty, rather graceful in its effect. At that moment, as he stood there, alone and bareheaded, at that moment, I felt the importance of his arrival for me. (Even before old Dranas set the seal on it.) And again he imposed his experience on me – the voices of those around him, the reek of the fiacre horses, the squabbling drivers in their black skull caps and dirty calico. (The drivers are all Greeks, Excellency, noted for their powers of invective.)
I was moving forward, with the intention of offering help, when he looked towards me and our eyes met for a brief moment. Then he looked away, made his own compact with one of those besieging him – Dranas, it was – and they moved off together to where his cab was waiting, under the eucalyptus adjoining the quay.
I followed them into the town. On foot, of course – my pay does not permit much indulgence in fiacres. On the outskirts of town flocks of sheep penned, marked with red, reminding me again that this is the twelfth month of the Moslem year, and Sacrifice Bayram falls next week. The hillsides near the town are loud with the cries of these sheep. I could still faintly hear them as I approached the main plateia.
Dranas was still there, sitting up on his cab, on the corner near the Metropole. He looked down at me without expression.
I need not have spoken to him at all, Excellency. I was sure in any case that the Englishman had been taken to the Metropole. Perhaps it was the blankness of his face that made me speak. I asked after his health and that of his family – he has two grandchildren now, both boys. To these enquiries he replied curtly scratching his grey stubble, watching my face without a smile. And this in itself was strange. I am a well-known figure on the island, children call out after me, everyone has a word and a smile for me. They know me, Excellency: Basil Pascali, plump and good-humoured; shabby, but with a certain dash -the ruby ring my step-father gave me, my monogrammed handkerchiefs. I am derided, but not disliked. Or so I thought, until today.
Jokingly I said, 'I hope you did not overcharge the Englishman?'
Such a remark would normally have been greeted with some play-acting, slyly exaggerated assertions of honesty. But Dranas did not even smile. 'From the harbour to the plateia it is twenty-five kurus,' he said. 'Everyone knows that.'
'I know it,' I said, in the same manner as before. 'And you know it. But does he?'
For his only answer the old ruffian leaned forward and spat sideways. The spittle landed quite near my left shoe. This is a sign of hostility and contempt among uneducated Greeks, Excellency, and although still puzzled I decided to move away. I knew now that the Englishman was staying at the Metropole. I was turning away when Dranas spoke again. 'If there are complaints,' he said, 'I will know who to thank.'
'Complaints?' I said. 'I make no complaints. It is none of my business. Why are you speaking to me in this way?'
Dranas looked at me and moved his hand up and down slightly, several times. 'Xerome ti isse' he said. 'We know.'
I was frightened by his face. It was so vindictive and so certain. No matter if in his ignorance he reduces my role to his own scale, to questions of cab fares, a few kurus more or less. He knows what I am. And if he, others – whose scale will be different.
We exchanged a long glance. For that shocked moment, as I looked into the old man's face, everything hushed, stopped. Then suddenly, without cover and soft-skinned as I was, exhilaration swept through me, the sense of a desired ending, and I smiled full at old Dranas. I smiled broadly, saying nothing, and I saw his face change. Then I turned and walked away.
Now, however, back in my room, fear returns. Fear of the void to which I am moving. My words, the motion of my hand as it writes, alike proceeding to the void. Parmenides knew this, spent his life denying it, constructed a system of philosophy, founded a school, attempting to deny void and motion alike, as illusory. The universe perpetually brim-full. Is not Your Excellency's foreign policy, holding together a crumbling Empire, based on fear of the void? For twenty years I have poured language in, trying to achieve a depth which would enable me to drown…
The sea is blank. Without mark or indentation anywhere. A fitting image for the void. Intractable matter, indifferent to suffering and aspiration. At least in these pages of mine there is possibility of spirit and form. This July weather is hot. The insides of my thighs prickle along the line of their junction. My hookah and cushion in the corner. Or perhaps sleep for a little, not too long, then resume later. My eyes give me trouble these days.
If only I could come in person to Stambul, I would sit day and night in the anterooms of the Ministry until I obtained audience with Mehmet Bey. He it was who directed me to this island, twenty years ago. Twenty years, Excellency! He would be able to explain things to me. For all I know, my reports, though never acknowledged, are being used elsewhere in your vast dominions. But for every step in those corridors baksheesh would be needed. Perhaps Your Excellency is not aware to what extent the wheels of your administration are lubricated by bribes? And I am poor. I can barely live on my pay. It comes regularly, I do not complain about that, but it has not increased in all the years I have been here, despite rising prices. There are days when I cannot afford coffee or tobacco. There are days when I do not eat. Besides, my will has been sapped. I do not believe that either fear or ambition will get me off this island now. There is only my room, the words on the page. I will sit here while they talk themselves into murdering me. Perhaps I can hold off fear of death and dissolution by making my existence real to you, re-creating my substance, as it were. I will withhold nothing, Excellency. I will give my whole time to this report – I have nothing else to do…
I must not change the Englishman into a character, as I have done so often with others. I must in what I write of him keep to observed truth – aided of course by reasonable inference and imaginative insight. (We are nowhere without this latter.)
He looked at me briefly, our eyes met. His eyes look as if they ought to recognise you, but don't, and are angry, or perhaps merely puzzled, at this failure of recognition.