Then, after a long time, we heard a faint whimper. It must have hurt, as the first few breaths hurt a newly born child. The body of Clea was protesting at this forcible rebirth. And all of a sudden the features of that white face moved, composed themselves to express something like pain and protest. (Yes, but it hurts to realize.)
‘Keep it up’ cried Balthazar in a new voice, shaky and triumphant. There was no need to tell me. She was twitching a little now, and making a soundless whimpering face at each lunge. It was like starting a very cold diesel engine. Finally yet another miracle occurred — for she opened very blue sightless unfocused eyes for a second to study, with dazed concentration, the stones before her nose. Then she closed them again. Pain darkened her features, but even the pain was a triumph — for at least they expressed living emotions now — emotions which had replaced the pale set mask of death. ‘She’s breathing’ I said. ‘Balthazar, she’s breathing.’
‘She’s breathing’ he repeated with a kind of idiotic rapture.
She was breathing, short staggering inspirations which were clearly painful. But now another kind of help was at hand. We had not noticed, so concentrated were we on this task, that a vessel had entered the little harbour. This was the Harbour Patrol motorboat. They had seen us and guessed that something was wrong. ‘Merciful God’ cried Balthazar flapping his arms like an old crow. Cheerful English voices came across the water asking if we needed help; a couple of sailors came ashore towards us.
‘We’ll have her back in no time’ said Balthazar, grinning shakily.
‘Give her some brandy.’
‘No’ he cried sharply. ‘No brandy.’ The sailors brought a tarpaulin ashore and softly we baled her up like Cleopatra. To their brawny arms she must have seemed as light as thistledown. Their tender clumsy movements were touching, brought tears to my eyes. ‘Easy up there, Nobby.
Gently with the little lady.’ ‘That tourniquet will have to be watched. You go too, Balthazar.’
‘And you?’
‘I’ll bring her cutter back.’ We wasted no more time. In a few moments the powerful motors of the patrol vessel began to bustle them away at a good ten knots. I heard a sailor say: ‘How about some hot Bovril?’
‘Capital’ said Balthazar. He was soaked to the skin. His hat was floating in the water beside me. Leaning over the stern a thought suddenly struck him.
‘My teeth. Bring my teeth!’ I watched them out of sight and then sat for a good while with my head in my hands. I found to my surprise that I was trembling all over like a frightened horse with shock. A splitting headache assailed me. I climbed into the cutter and foraged for the brandy and a cigarette. The harpoon gun lay on the sheets. I threw it overboard with an oath and watched it slowly crawling downwards into the pool. Then I shook out the jib, and turning her through her own length on the stern anchor pressed her out into the wind.
It took longer than I thought, for the evening wind had shifted a few points and I had to tack widely before I could bring her in.
Ali was waiting for me. He had already been apprised of the situation, and carried a message from Balthazar to the effect that Clea had been taken up to the Jewish hospital.
I took a taxi as soon as one could be found. We travelled across the city at a great pace. The streets and buildings passed me in a sort of blur. So great was my anxiety that I saw them as if through a rain—starred window-pane. I could hear the meter ticking away like a pulse. Somewhere in a white ward Clea would be lying drinking blood through the eye of a silver needle. Drop by drop it would be passing into the median vein heartbeat by heartbeat. There was nothing to worry about, I told myself; and then, thinking of that shattered hand, I banged my fist with rage against the padded wall of the taxi.
I followed a duty nurse down the long anonymous green corridors whose oil-painted walls exuded an atmosphere of damp.
The white phosphorescent bulbs which punctuated our progress wallowed in the gloom like swollen glow-worms. They had probably put her, I reflected, in the little ward with the single curtained bed which in the past had been reserved for critical cases whose expectation of life was short. It was now the emergency casualty ward. A sense of ghostly familiarity was growing upon me. In the past it was here that I had come to see Melissa. Clea must be lying in the same narrow iron bed in the corner by the wall. (‘It would be just like real life to imitate art at this point.’) In the corridor outside, however, I came upon Amaril and Balthazar standing with a curious chastened expression before a trolley which had just been wheeled to them by a duty nurse.
It contained a number of wet and glistening X-ray photographs, newly developed and pegged upon a rail. The two men were studying them anxiously, gravely, as if thinking out a chess problem. Balthazar caught sight of me and turned, his face lighting up. ‘She’s all right’ he said, but in rather a broken voice, as he squeezed my hand. I handed him his teeth and he blushed, and slipped them into his pocket. Amaril was wearing hornrimmed reading glasses. He turned from his intent study of those dripping dangling sheets with an expression of utter rage. ‘What the bloody hell do you expect me to do with this mess?’ he burst out waving his insolent white hand in the direction of the X-rays.
I lost my temper at the implied accusation and in a second we were shouting at each other like fishmongers, our eyes full of tears. I think we would have come to blows out of sheer exasperation had not Balthazar got between us. Then at once the rage dropped from Amaril and he walked round Balthazar to embrace me and mutter an apology. ‘She’s all right’ he murmured, patting me consolingly on the shoulder. ‘We’ve tucked her up safely.’
‘Leave the rest to us’ said Balthazar.
‘I’d like to see her’ I said enviously — as if, by bringing her to life, I had made her, in a way, my own property too. ‘Could I?’ As I pushed open the door and crept into the little cell like a miser I heard Amaril say peevishly: ‘It’s all very well to talk about surgical repair in that glib way ——’ It was immensely quiet and white, the little ward with its tall windows. She lay with her face to the wall in the uncomfortable steel bed on castors of yellow rubber. It smelt of flowers, though there were none to be seen and I could not identify the odour.
It was perhaps a synthetic atomizer spray — the essence of forget-me-nots? I softly drew up a chair beside the bed and sat down. Her eyes were open, gazing at the wall with the dazed look which suggested morphia and fatigue combined. Though she gave no sign of having heard me enter she said suddenly.
‘Is that you Darley?’
‘Yes.’ Her voice was clear. Now she sighed and moved slightly, as if with relief at my coming. ‘I’m so glad.’ Her voice had a small weary lilt which suggested that somewhere beyond the confines of her present pain and drowsiness a new self-confidence was stirring. ‘I wanted to thank you.’
‘It is Amaril you’re in love with’ I said — rather, blurted out.
The remark came as a great surprise to me. It was completely involuntary. Suddenly a shutter seemed to roll back across my mind. I realized that this new fact which I was enunciating was one that I had always known, but without being aware of the knowing! Foolish as it was the distinction was a real one. Amaril was like a playing card which had always been there, lying before me on the table, face downwards. I had been aware of its existence but had never turned it over. Nor, I should add, was there anything in my voice beyond genuine scientific surprise; it was without pain, and full of sympathy only. Between us we had never used this dreadful word — this synonym for derangement or illness — and if I deliberately used it now it was to signify my recognition of the thing’s autonomous nature. It was rather like saying ‘My poor child, you have got cancer!’ After a moment’s silence she said: ‘Past tense now, alas!’ Her voice had a puzzled drawling quality. ‘And I was giving you good marks for tact, thinking you had recognized him in my Syrian episode! Had you really not? Yes, Amaril turned me into a woman I suppose. Oh, isn’t it disgusting? When will we all grow up? No, but I’ve worn him out in my heart, you know. It isn’t as you imagine it. I know he is not the man for me. Nothing would have persuaded me to replace Semira. I know this by the fact of having made love to him, been in love with him! It’s odd, but the experience prevented me from mistaking him for the other one, the once-for-aller! Though who and where he is remains to discover. I haven’t really affronted the real problems yet, I feel. They lie the other side of these mere episodes. And yet, perverse as it is, it is nice to be close to him — even on the operating-table. How is one to make clear a single truth about the human heart?’