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In the web that holds all these powers together, morality is merely one strand, and that a weak one; at every intersection there is a deal of some sort, provisional and largely dishonest; gumming it all together a collective salivation of ambition and self-interest. (Some sentiment too, to make it sticky.) A very precarious web, Excellency. One shade the more, one ray the less, and the whole thing falls apart.
Once again I have allowed daylight to fade u
I remember the expression, the absence of expression on those faces in the hotel last night. Politis, the priest's brother, the other Greeks there. Not hostility, no longer hostility, but the stillness of a final judgement on those faces. None of them spoke. They know. Why have you left me alone here, among enemies, Excellency? Why have you abandoned me? I should at least have heard, like Anthony, the music of departure. But there has always been silence. From the very begi
I kept no copies. At first I thought of it as too dangerous. And now that I have grown more careless of the danger, it is too late. I have no record of what I have written. All those words. The words falling, strewing the sheets, random as snow to my memory, falling and melting away behind me. Everything, in my devotion to duty, I sent to your officials. I have no means of recovering what I have experienced and known – except only by visiting the Imperial Archives in Constantinople, the rooms where the reports of spies are kept. Then I could see my work again, perhaps even make copies. I could edit and collate the material. Even, one day, I could publish, with suitable omissions and abridgements of course. A book, Excellency! What happiness that would give me. But to gain admittance, to obtain the necessary permits – a man as poor as I could not hope to do that.
Why have you abandoned me? I was twenty-five when I was recruited as one of your informers. Polyglot, literate, possessed of some charm of ma
I look round my room now, in the lamplight: at the square table before me, the upright chair, pale lemon in colour on which I sit; the narrow bed against the wall and its faded quilt; my triple row of books, schemed for, stolen, bought with the scrapings of piastres, Sherlock Holmes, Candide, The Greek Testament, In Memoriam. Books, my consolation. My narguilch in the corner, given to me before his death by Ibrahim Turcut. On the narrow bench against the opposite wall, my spirit stove and coffee-making appurtenances – and my telescope, stolen from an Italian gentleman six years ago.
It is not much. Forty-five years I have been in the world. All those moments of perception and sensation, pulse beats of my life, reduced to this. I have no family, no children, no great possessions. A woman to cry for me, a yali on the Bosphoros, such things would at least be tangible evidence of a life. As it is, five minutes work of clearance would remove for ever all evidence of my existence. Other occupants there will be, knowing nothing of Basil Zavier Pascali. Nothing I see pleads for me, upholds me as a person, makes me feel more than a temporary vehicle for someone else. Perhaps you, Excellency? Your thoughts are crowded, so you need an a
Taking into account that my earlier reports were much sketchier, and that I have increased steadily in output until now my activity is virtually incessant, I calculate that I have addressed well over a million words to your officials at the Ministry, and they have vanished as into some kind of mighty pit. The Imperial Word-Pit, specially limed to reduce all verbiage, however densely written, however solidly informative, to sludge.
No trace of those words, except the marks on my face that the struggles with them put there… I must stop now, Excellency, rest my eyes a little. Perhaps a stroll along the shore. I am reluctant these days to go out, but this is a good moment. I am up to date with my report.
I did no more last night, Excellency. Now I am here again, at my accustomed place. Sky and sea empty. No sign today of the American's caique. Shore empty too, except for the sardine fishermen, just begi
Soon it will be time for Hassan, the shore fisherman, to emerge from the shadow of the café, step out on to the bright empty shore, with his gathered net, like a person entering another's dream. Hassan and his net provide me with analogy, a high service. He was sent to me, I am convinced of it, sent to me at the begi
He has just appeared again, this time walking in the opposite direction, along the shore towards the headland. Not Hassan, the Englishman. Mister Bowles. I looked up from the page and saw him, midway between the water and the wall. Dressed again for walking, in heavy shoes, loose-fitting grey trousers, the same brown hat. I watched his figure slowly receding against the coruscating expanse of the bay. When he was begi