Pascali's Island

There was not much of interest among the papers. Official correspondence for the most part, addressed to Mahmoud Pasha, some of it dated several months previously. It was obvious that the Commandant had no system for dealing with his letters. One I noticed because it bore the imperial seal, and contained a reference to a German firm, Ma

Mister Bowles coughed, I think to denote disapproval. At that moment I caught some flicker of movement outside. I glanced through the small window and was in time to see the figures of Mahmoud Pasha and Herr Gesing walking side by side in a direction away from me, the former in uniform, the latter black-suited. They were talking but not, it seemed to me, very amicably. In a moment more they had disappeared round the side of the house. Herr Gesing speaks Turkish, then – he has never admitted as much to me. Presumably taking his leave. I wonder what business brought him. On our previous visit, too, his name occurred, if you remember, Excellency.

I had only a few seconds more to look at the map, time enough, however, to see that a rough diamond shape had been traced out on it in red, lying horizontally, its eastern point begi

I heard steps outside the door, Izzet's voice raised in anger. Instantly I moved away from the desk, and took up a position near the window – there was no time to regain my seat. I think Izzet was upbraiding the orderly for leaving us alone. A moment later he entered, looking not exactly flustered, but certainly less than calm. 'Please be seated,' he said, giving me a sharp glance. He went to the desk and looked over it quickly, but without touching anything.

Mahmoud Pasha entered, his bulk encased in dark blue dress uniform with silver brocade on epaulettes and sleeves. His face was dark red, congested-looking. Again I had the feeling that the interview with Herr Gesing had not been a friendly one.

When we were again seated, Izzet and Mahmoud Pasha looked in expectant silence at Mister Bowles. There was a short, uneasy pause, then Mister Bowles, in his usual plunging way, said, 'Well, the fact is, you'd better tell them I have found some objects on the site.'

'Objects?' I said.

'What does he say?' Izzet pointed his nose at me.

'On the site they leased to me.' Mister Bowles put one hand up, briefly, to his tie, and touched the knot. 'They are of considerable archeological importance,' he said. 'There's a lot of stuff there.'

'What does he say?' Izzet's thin lips twisted. He was getting impatient.

'He has found certain objects in the course of his researches.' I said.

'What kind of objects?'

Mister Bowles leaned forward earnestly. 'It is an important discovery,' he said. 'The point is that I want to ask them to change the lease so I can have the right to excavate the site. Of course I am willing to pay more for it – whatever they think fit.'

Inwardly marvelling, outwardly impassive, I translated this.

'Valuable objects?' Izzet said.

'He asks if they are valuable,' I said.

'Yes, I suppose so,' Mister Bowles said. 'It depends on the material. Of course I shan't know what there is until I start digging.'

For an appreciable period after this no one said anything at all, and this I could well understand. The blinding correctness of Mister Bowles's behaviour was dazing them, as it had dazed me. He sat there before us, with his bag beside his chair, like a marvellous monster of rectitude.

'Large objects?' Izzet said at last. 'Buyuk dir? A natural question. If they were large, of course, it would go some way towards making Mister Bowles's behaviour human and explicable: large objects could not be pocketed, removed surreptitiously-time was needed.

'I have them here in my bag,' Mister Bowles said.

'Small objects apparently,' I said to Izzet. 'He has them in his bag.'

The eyes of both Izzet and the Pasha leaped at once to the bag.

'I would be willing to double the sum,' Mister Bowles said. I translated this.

Mahmoud Pasha shifted his bulk behind the desk, and his chair winced. 'Let us see the objects,' he said. His eyes were still on the bag.

Without waiting for me to translate this, Mister Bowles began to unbuckle the side strap of his bag. It seemed to take a long time. Finally, when the brass clasp at the top had also been undone, he opened the bag. Then he paused again, surely with a showman's instinct, and said, 'Perhaps I could put the objects on your desk?'

'Certainly,' the Pasha said. 'Buyurun.' I had never seen him look so alert and generally exhypnos.

Mister Bowles got up rather awkwardly, still holding the open bag. He moved over to the desk. His hand went into the bag and emerged, holding something. The others were looking only at his hands, but I glanced up at his face, and saw him lick his lips in two quick movements of the tongue. He placed the object on the desk.

It was the marble head of a woman, pale honey colour, the size of a smallish human fist. And I had seen it before.

Recognition was not immediate, did not come flooding into my mind, but was achieved in a series of incredulous stabs, or pangs. The head seemed to palpitate, so intently did I eye it. But of course there was no doubt: it was the same head.

'I think this is the most interesting of the finds to date,' Mister Bowles said. After that small betraying movement of the tongue his face was quite calm again. 'I thought at first it was Roman,' he said to the red-faced and astounded Mahmoud Pasha. 'A Roman copy, you know. But the workmanship is extremely delicate, particularly in the treatment of the hair. I think it is Hellenistic work, almost certainly from the corner of a sarcophagus.'

With the same feeling of incredulity I heard my voice translating, purveying information about this head for the benefit of Mahmoud Pasha and Izzet; this head I had seen in his room on the evening of his arrival, before he had so much as left the hotel; this head he had undoubtedly brought with him to the island.

'Early third century BC,' Mister Bowles said, with what seemed genuine interest and pleasure. 'And look at the marble.' He picked the head up and displayed it to us. 'That is not local marble,' he said.

I glanced at Mahmoud Pasha and Izzet. It was obvious that neither of them was at all interested in what the Englishman was saying. This lump of marble must have come as a distinct anticlimax.

'It is Pendelic marble,' Mister Bowles said, 'and you know what that means, of course. Then there is this. This is quite a different kind of object.' His hand was in his bag again. His voice, I noticed now, was calmer, more deliberate in falsehood than in the blurts of his everyday speech. 'Less interesting perhaps than the head,' he said.

He laid on the table, alongside the head, a thick circlet of metal, in which were set blue stones. The metal had a yellowish gleam. 'Roughly the same period, I should say,' he said. 'I have a theory about these things, actually.'

'He says it belongs to the same period,' I said, abetting Mister Bowles in the absurd pretence that Izzet and the Pasha were interested in the historical aspect. The circlet I had not seen before.

Mahmoud Pasha picked it up, looked at it against the light, weighed it in his palm. 'Alti' he said. 'It is gold.' His voice sounded changed to me, everything seemed changed, voices, light, above all Mister Bowles, standing upright before the desk – by 'upright' I am describing only his posture, Excellency, not his character as I now viewed it.