Pascali's Island

'I do not think human beings can live for very long above the board,' I said. 'The light would shrivel them up.'

Mister Bowles laughed at this, an explosive sound. He was smoking a thin cheroot, but did not offer me one. 'Everything strives for light,' he said. 'Everything.'

'Possibly,' I said. 'But striving for light is the natural result of normally preferring darkness.'

He laughed again. He seemed to be in a jovial mood. Perhaps his researches are going well. 'I can sign this with a clear mind anyway,' he said. 'Since you tell me it is all in order.'

I was pleased that he trusted me. So pleased that my grievance about the fee receded. Mister Bowles has some quality of binding people to him.

'They didn't ask for it to be signed in their presence then,' he said. 'No, of course not – the contract does not matter much to them, does it.'

This remark showed a shrewdness that surprised me. Mister Bowles is full of surprises… I took Izzet his copy back at once, together with the ten liras which had been agreed on as a deposit.

'Mister Bowles would like a receipt for this,' I said.

'He is a great one for papers,' Izzet said sourly. 'Does he say when the balance of the money will be arriving?'

'No.'

Izzet looked at me for a moment in silence. Now that we were alone together he was much less friendly. 'The Pasha will hold you personally responsible,' he said.

'I merely acted as interpreter,' I told him.

'You will be held responsible,' he said again.

We parted coldly. I was depressed and frightened by his words, Excellency. I know what can happen to those against whom Mahmoud Pasha has a grievance. I could not settle down to my report in the evening – I lost a valuable evening's writing time because of that cursed Izzet. Gone for ever the words I might have written then. The mood of one day is never like that of the next.

Today I feel better. I now have my month's pay in hand, collected this morning from Pariente, the local agent for the Banque Ottomane. This is paid on the fifth day of the month with absolute regularity. It has not varied, to my recollection, for twenty years and is, in itself, I sometimes think, an argument for a regulated universe, with all controls set. Pariente is a melancholy man at the best of times, and I thought he looked at me with some special quality of sorrow today. Again I wondered if he was the leak, if it was him I had to thank for my predicament.

'Keeping you busy this week,' I said to him, in jocular reference to the well-known fact that his post is not very exacting. 'First the Englishman, and now me.'

'Englishman?' he said. Pariente's eyes are chestnut brown, luxuriantly lashed. There was no flicker of comprehension in them as he looked back at me, and I knew in that moment, quite beyond any doubt, that Mister Bowles had not so far been to see him to arrange a transfer. Interesting fact, Excellency.

From there I went to the Sans Souci for an aperitif. At this stage in the month I always allow myself such gestures – it is good for the morale. I tried to engage Stavros, the waiter, in conversation, but he barely spoke to me. In fact, he walked away from me while I was still speaking. After an acquaintance of nine years, Excellency.

I have been thinking again about the American, and about Lydia 's words and behaviour that afternoon at her studio, that unguarded remark of hers, that she had heard of him. Surely that can only mean she knew of him beforehand, before he came here. Unless it was simply a fault in her English, the wrong choice of preposition. But no, she was conscious herself of having said the wrong thing, she tried to cover it up by talking of the Italian crew-member. Where can she have learnt of Mister Smith's existence? Presumably on her travels.

She was disappointed – and a

But if this is indeed the truth of the matter, and Lydia has definite knowledge of it, then it is highly probably that she warned the authorities herself. Perhaps this is how she lives so free from interference on the island. She travels, she hears things, she passes them on. Not for pay, like a professional, but for love… I remember the passion of her opposition to change, new styles in art. Perhaps she feels the same about political changes. Lydia is on your side, Excellency, it would seem. A natural reactionary. Or is it that she dislikes people making money out of guns? Instruments of death, as she would probably put it.

Now, forewarned in his turn, Mister Smith might change his plans, even decide to abandon the attempt. Or, depending on his psychology, he will feel emboldened. Quite possible, of course, that I am wrong about him, wrong about Lydia. What is it based on, after all? An uncertain inflection, a momentary loss of poise, an odd choice of phrase. Slight indications indeed. All the same, there was something… She was waiting for him, for Mister Bowles. She was excited. Is she in love with him? Perhaps it was excitement that disturbed her judgement, betrayed her into those small, but revealing, indiscretions.

I will keep my eyes on them, Excellency.

Just after midnight. I hear the first whistles of the night watchmen. An instructive evening, Excellency. I was making for the Metropole with no particular intention in mind, and I had just reached the small plateia below it, when I saw a group of people, among them Lydia and Herr Gesing, sitting on the terrace of the taverna on the far side – Ta Varelia, it is called, Excellency. It has a terrace with a grape vine, and coloured lanterns, a pretty place. I hesitated for some moments, but I did not think there would be any trouble from the Greeks while I was in that company-the worst they could do was refuse to serve me. I walked across the plateia, observing as I drew nearer that Dr Hogan and his wife were in the group – he is married to a woman of the island. Also the French engineer Chaudan, and another lady, whom I did not know. There was no one else on the terrace-they had put two tables together, so they could all sit round.

Doctor Hogan was the first to see me. 'Hello, Basil,' he said. 'Come and join us.'

'This is Mrs Marchant,' Lydia said. 'She is travelling in this part of the world. Basil Pascali, one of the fixtures of the island.'

'Slightly more mobile than that, I hope,' I said, bowing to Mrs Marchant, who is a woman of about fifty, with narrow grey eyes and a very full underlip. I sat down next to her with Lydia on the other side of me. I was curious about Mrs Marchant. There is no cruise ship in at present, Excellency. She must be travelling alone and independently. Not so unusual for a woman these days as it used to be, but all the same…

'You are lucky to be living here,' she said. Her accent was American. From the folds of her person, released by this little stirring of enthusiasm, came odours of warm, scented crepe.

'Oh, Basil is a gentleman of leisure,' Doctor Hogan said. He is a genial fellow, but like the others, thinks of me as an idle sponger. Amusing. A fixture of the island. An unfortunate phrase, in view of my predicament. Lydia, however, knows me better than the others. She knows my feelings for her, though these have never been expressed in words. She senses my sufferings.