I had very little Italian, but I knew what he meant.
He moved away before I could answer; and in an odd way I knew he was saying that she was not for me because she was not for me; not because she was a schizophrenic, or a ghost, or anything else in the masque. It was a sort of ultimate warning-off; but you can’t warn off a man with gambling in his ancestry.
I went down to the jetty. The boat was already tied very carefully and securely; and he had had ten minutes with Lily, I supposed, to find out exactly what had gone on between us.
36
Lily did not appear before dinner, or after dinner; and I became increasingly impatient. Tense would be a better word. I was tense in expectation of a new “episode,” I was tense in expectation of Lily’s taking part in it, and I was tense in expectation of the difficulties Conchis was putting in the way of my meeting her again. I realized that he had so maneuvered me that I could not risk offending him again about the real machinery behind the “visitors” or about Lily.
The dinner was, for me, uneasily silent. The breeze made the lamp tremble and glow and fade intermittently, and this seemed to increase the general restlessness. Only Conchis seemed calm and at ease.
After the meal had been cleared he poured me a drink from a small carboy-shaped bottle. It was clear, the color of straw.
“What’s this?”
“Raki. From Chios. It is very strong. I want to intoxicate you a little.”
All through the dinner he had also been pressing me to drink more of the heavy rosé from Antikythera.
“To make me talk?”
“To make you receptive.”
“I read your pamphlet.”
“And thought it was nonsense.”
“No. Difficult to verify.”
“Verification is the only scientific criterion of reality. That does not mean that there may not be realities that are unverifiable.”
“Did you get any response from your pamphlet?”
“A great deal. From the wrong people. From the miserable vultures who prey on the human longing for the solution of final mysteries. The spiritualists, the clairvoyants, the cosmopaths, the summerlanders, the blue-islanders, the apportists—all that galêre.” He looked grim. “They responded.”
“But not other scientists?”
“No.”
I sipped the raki; it was like fire. Almost pure alcohol.
“But you spoke about having proof.”
“I had proof. But it was not easily communicable. And I later decided that it was better that it was not communicable, except to a few.”
“Who you elect.”
“Whom I elect. This is because mystery has energy. It pours energy into whoever seeks the answer to it. If you disclose the solution to the mystery you are simply depriving the other seekers…” he emphasized the special meaning the word now had for me… “of an important source of energy.”
“No scientific progress?”
“Of course scientific progress. The solution of the physical problems that face man—that is a matter of technology. But I am talking about the general psychological health of the species, man. He needs the existence of mysteries. Not their solution.”
I finished the raki. “This is fantastic stuff.”
He smiled, as if my adjective might be more accurate than I meant; raised the bottle. I nodded.
“One more glass. Then no more. La dive bouteille is also a poison.”
“And the experiment begins?”
“The experience begins. Now I should like you to lie in one of the lounging chairs. Just here.” He pointed behind him. I went and pulled the chair there. “Lie down. There is no hurry. I want you to look at a certain star. Do you know Cygnus? The Swan? That cross-shaped constellation directly above?”
I realized that he was not going to take the other chaise longue; and suddenly guessed.
“Is this… hypnosis?”
“Yes, Nicholas. There is no need to be alarmed.”
Lily’s warning: Tonight you will understand. I hesitated, then lay back.
“I’m not. But I don’t think I’m very amenable. Someone tried it at Oxford.”
“We shall see. It is a harmony of wills. Not a contest. Just do as I suggest.”
“All right.” At least I did not have to stare into those naturally mesmeric eyes. I could not back down; but forewarned is forearmed.
“You see the Swan?”
“Yes.”
“And to the left a very bright star, one of a very obtuse triangle.”
“Yes.” I drained down the last of the raki in a gulp; almost choked, then felt it flush through my stomach.
“That is a star known as alpha Lyrae. In a minute I shall ask you to watch it closely.” The blue-white star glittered down out of the wind-cleared sky. I looked at Conchis, who was still sitting at the table, but had turned with his back to the sea to face me. I grinned in the darkness.
“I feel I’m on the couch.”
“Good. Now lie back. Contract, then relax your muscles a little. That is why I have given you the raki. It will help. Lily will not appear tonight. So clear your mind of her. Clear your mind of the other girl. Clear your mind of all your perplexities, all your longings. All your worries. I bring you no harm. Nothing but good.”
“Worries. That’s not so easy.” He was silent. “I’ll try.”
“It will help if you look at that star. Do not shift your eyes from it. Lie back.”
I began to stare at the star; moved a little to make myself more comfortable. I felt the cloth of my coat with my hand. The digging had made me tired, I began to guess its real purpose, and it was good to lie back and stare up and wait. There was a long silence, several minutes. I shut my eyes for a while, then opened them. The star seemed to float in its own small sea of space, a minute white sun. I could feel the alcohol, but I was perfectly conscious of everything around me, far too conscious to be amenable.
I was perfectly conscious of the terrace, I was lying on the terrace of a house on an island in Greece, there was wind, I could even hear the faint sound of the waves on the shingle down at Moutsa. Conchis began to speak.
“Now I want you to watch the star, I want you to relax all your muscles. It is very important that you should relax all your muscles. Tense a little. Now relax. Tense… relax. Now watch the star. The name of the star is alpha Lyrae.”
I thought, my God, he is trying to hypnotize me; and then, I must play by the rules, but I’ll lie doggo and pretend I am hypnotized.
“Are you relaxing yes you are relaxing.” I noted the lack of punctuation. “You are tired so you are relaxing. You are relaxing. You are relaxing. You are watching a star you are watching…” the repetition. I remembered that from before. An insane Welshman from Jesus, after a party. But with him it had developed into a staring game.
“I say you are watching a star a star and you are watching a star. It is that gentle star, white star, gentle star…”
He went on talking, but all the curtness, the abruptness of his ordinary manner had disappeared. It was as if the lulling sound of the sea, the feel of the wind, the texture of my coat, and his voice dropped out of my consciousness. There was a stage when I was myself, looking at the star, still lying on the terrace; I mean aware of lying and watching the star, if not of anything else.
Then came a strange illusion; not that I was looking up, but down into space, as one looks down a well.
Then there was no clearly situated and environmented self; there was the star, not closer but with something of the isolation a telescope gives; not one of a pattern of stars, but itself, floating in the blue-black breath of space, in a kind of void. I remember very clearly this sense, this completely new strange perceiving of the star as a ball of white light both breeding and needing the void around it; of, in retrospect, a related sense that I was exactly the same, suspended in a dark void. I was watching the star and the star was watching me. We were poised, exactly equal weights, if one can think of awareness as a weight, held level in a balance. This seemed to endure and endure, I don’t know how long, two entities equally suspended in a void, equally opposite, devoid of any meaning or feeling. There was no sensation of beauty, of morality, of divinity, of physical geometry; simply the sensation of the situation. As an animal might feel.