Seven Days in New Crete (Penguin Modern Classics) (17 page)

‘Certainly not. Only neighbours know each other well enough to go to war. The inhabitants of one kingdom are complete strangers to those of another, and even within a kingdom the neighbourly ties between district and district are not strong enough to allow for warfare on a large scale. It is a pity, because war on a large scale would be great fun.’

Then the captain announced that the formal declaration was to be made the same night. I asked Sapphire whether I might attend the ceremony. I wanted to get away from the tense and uncomfortable atmosphere of the sitting-room, and pretended not to notice the obvious reluctance with which she gave me leave.

‘You’ll get very little sleep if you go, unless you’re prepared to miss the opening stage of the war,’ she said.

‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to see it through from beginning to end.’

When Starfish volunteered to come with me, the others rode home. I sounded him about the trouble, but he said that his lips were sealed. All I gathered was that it concerned Sapphire. Well, if so, I preferred to hear her account before Sally said her piece.

After about half an hour’s preparation, the fighting men of Rabnon, headed by the captain, the football team, the barber, and various other people of importance in the village, marched off in single file towards Zapmor, with banners and pennants flying. Every fifth man carried a lighted torch and all wore their gala-clothes of slashed silk. A bugle band played a familiar march; I forget its name, but the words that go with it in our epoch are:

Here comes the Boys’ Brigade,
All smothered in marmalade,
With a tuppenny-ha’penny pill-box
And a yard-and-a-half of braid.
Pum! Pum! Pum!
Pum! Pum! Pum!

There was a great deal of shouting, cheering and good-natured banter, at which the village priest who brought up the rear of the procession smiled absently, crossing himself every now and then. Starfish and I walked our horses behind at a discreet distance.

When, half an hour later, we halted at the Zapmor border, Rabnon began to bang drums and blow conches, until the fighting men of Zapmor, who had been warned what to expect, came marching up to meet them, in gala-clothes of black velvet. The rival priests advanced towards each other, kissed and exchanged gifts – a statuette of the Goddess with a radish clasped in both hands against one of the Goddess bending down to admire her square-toed black shoes – while a hymn of universal friendship was sung in unison by both villages.

The Zapmor barber – the barbers were also the village spokesmen – then inquired politely: ‘Why have you brought drums and conches to this border, dear radish-growing friends?’

‘Kind shoemakers,’ the Rabnon barber answered, ‘the conches are blown to ask a question to which, of course, you need not reply: “Is damson jam still pleasant to eat on the seventh evening of seven?”’

‘This is a question that we are proud to answer. Its taste grows upon the eater: damson jam is better even on the forty-ninth evening of forty-nine.’

‘But three little boys of your village do not seem to be of that opinion.’

‘They were attracted by the reputation of your radishes and cheese-straws. When they returned, we feared that they might leave us altogether, seduced from our austere village custom by your delicate living. We tried to persuade them that damson jam is the best of all, and that the more one eats it, the sharper grows one’s appetite for it.’

‘But did you succeed in this?’

‘We have not yet given up hope. A custom of ancient standing cannot be lightly broken.’

‘But is it not a somewhat loveless custom?’

‘We cannot possibly accept that view. Zapmor is a nest of constant and enduring love.’

There was no more to be said. As soon as it was clear that Zapmor stood firm, the Rabnon priest returned the gift of friendship with the formula: ‘Brother, at daybreak there will be war between your village and ours. Guard your bridges and your cross-roads, and keep your children safely at the upper windows of your houses.’

The rival captains now discussed the limits of the fighting, what orchards and fields were out of bounds for agricultural reasons and how long a truce was to be observed at midday and at the hour of afternoon prayer. They also decided at what commanding points the district recorders should be stationed, and how many magicians would be needed to part combatants who were carried away by the excitement of the battle.

As soon as all this had been amicably settled, the Rabnon conches blared again, but no answering blare came from Zapmor; the Rabnon men performed a wild war dance, brandishing imaginary weapons and making hideous grimaces at their opponents, who saluted nonchalantly, turned their backs and stalked away.

When I got home at about half-past-eleven there was nobody in the sitting-room. I found Sapphire in the bedroom, seated swollen-eyed and miserable in an arm-chair.

‘Sapphire! My poor darling!’

‘It’s a blessing to have you back,’ she said. ‘I did so badly want to talk to you, but you wouldn’t take my hint. This has been a horrible day for me – the worst of my whole life.’

‘What on earth happened?’ I asked. ‘You haven’t quarrelled with Sally?’

‘Of course not. We never quarrel here. But just after you went off to Sanjon I asked her if she could explain the midnight haunting in our bedroom, and she said that she knew nothing about your Antonia but that she wasn’t surprised if queer things were happening; and she asked me whether I hadn’t been rather rash to admit so crude a person as yourself to my bed. “Wouldn’t you have done the same if he had said he loved you?” I asked her. She flushed, but I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings any more than she meant to hurt mine.’

‘I’m sure of it, beautiful. I can’t imagine you being catty – only as saying things in perfect innocence that would raise blisters on the most leathery face. What happened then?’

‘She asked whether she might divine for trouble before we went off to our studies; and of course, I said yes, though really I should have done the divining myself, since it was in my own bedroom. So she put on her witch robe and fetched a blackthorn trouble-diviner from the herbary and peeled it. Then she came in and balanced it on her forefinger and said the necessary prayers. Presently it began to revolve. It revolved three times and when it came to rest the thin end pointed at that cupboard in the wall, just above your head. That’s where I lock up my most private possessions: my crystal ball, my silver plates, my jewel of the month and the nine secret objects given me at my initiation. I said: “Sally, quick, give the thing to me!” not believing my eyes. She gave it to me with a curious look on her face. I repeated the prayers and when I put the diviner on my forefinger it revolved at once and pointed at the cupboard again. She asked: “What’s in there, Sapphire? Do you know?” And I told her: “Oh, only my silver plates and my sacred things.” “Well,” she said, “if there’s trouble in that cupboard, it’s there with your connivance. There’s only one key and you wear it around your neck.”’

‘I said: “Yes, of course, Sally, it’s my cupboard. Leave this to me, please.” She went out, and when I unlocked the cupboard and found what was in it, I felt quite sick: it was so horrible. I gave a shriek and Sally came in at once – she must have been waiting outside – and saw what it was. I’ll never forget how she looked at me.’

‘Now, before you go any further, Sapphire,’ I said, ‘you must understand that I’ve not been at your cupboard and know absolutely nothing about the whole business.’

‘Of course you don’t, my love. Whatever anyone may say, this has nothing whatever to do with you.’

‘But what exactly was this horrible find?’

‘It’s there,’ she said, pointing with a gesture of loathing to a sort of china dish-cover with three ugly faces painted on it, lying on a table in a far corner of the room.

‘What, that cover?’

‘No: the thing underneath it. I put the Three Ugly Faces over it as a prophylactic, until I could speak to you about it. Lift the cover, have a look, then put it back at once, please.’

I went over to the table, and gingerly lifted the cover by its snake handle. Then I burst out laughing. ‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ I said. ‘What an anti-climax! How on earth did Erica manage to plant this on you?’

‘Erica? The brutch woman?’

‘Erica Yvonne Turner, about whom I’ve told you quite enough already. It’s her nasty little cigarette case.’

I picked it up carelessly and opened it. It was the one she had been using the night before: dingy white metal with a very stiff clasp and an appliqué design in stamped brass of a leering nude squeezing milk from one of her breasts into an outsize champagne glass. Inside were twelve cigarettes.

‘She must have meant these for me,’ I said. ‘She knows I like Old Golds. Yes, isn’t it an evil-looking object? It made me feel queer too when I saw it first. I can tell you all about it. There was a time when I thought Erica wonderful and used to give her the most expensive presents I could afford: one of them was a chaste gold cigarette case from a London jeweller’s called Cartier’s. I gave it to her at Marseilles, when we were just going off to Algiers. “Thank you, Teddy,” she said. “I can always raise two or three hundred dollars on this heirloom. But it’s not like me, really. You’ve got me all wrong; I’m not an English gentlewoman.” That afternoon she went down to the Basin and bought that horror at a shop in the negro quarter. “Yes, isn’t it deliciously appalling?” she said. “But exactly like me, the real me. The merciless vulgarity is American; the simpering obscenity is French.” She always carried it about after that, just for spite. I never saw the gold case again; she probably gave it to a dead-beat called Emile.’

‘But how and when can she have come into my bedroom and put the case in my cupboard?’

‘I don’t know for sure. My best guess is that she did it when you’d sent yourself to sleep at the end of the Santrepod. Anyhow, don’t take it so personally. The joke’s on me. She offered me a caseful of cigarettes when we last met, and I refused them.’

‘But, my love, you don’t seem to realize what this means!’

‘If you want me to get rid of the case, that’s simple. It doesn’t horrify me in the least; I’ve known it too long for that. Tomorrow I’ll ride down to the sea – no, tomorrow’s the war – very well, early the day after tomorrow, and drop it in. “The sea cleanses all” – didn’t I hear one of you quote that from some poet or other? I don’t suppose the horse will buck, and anyhow you’ll probably give me a charm against that. When I get home you can pour rose-water over my hands, and that will be that.’

‘But you don’t realize in the least what it means. It means that I’m disgraced for ever. By having had that horrible thing locked in my cupboard I forfeit the respect of the entire estate; my only course now is to go off and die.’

‘Nonsense, you didn’t put it there yourself and you dislike it as much as anyone.’

‘No, but my magic failed me. It failed me completely.’

‘If it comes to that, so did Sally’s. She needn’t behave so virtuously. It was her job as much as yours to keep this house free of brutches. Look here, darling, take things easy. It’s absurd to talk about dying, just because a devious-minded slut with whom I used to be in love ages ago has decided to play a schoolgirl trick on you. I’ll break her neck if I see her again, you see if I don’t. She’s the sort that hates to see a discarded lover of hers happily paired with someone else; especially with someone obviously better-looking than herself. Blow your nose, bathe your eyes and promise me that you’ll not talk about going away until I’ve had a chance to settle things with her myself!’

‘Very well, I promise,’ she said meekly. ‘I’m sorry I look so awful. I was past caring. But who
is
she?’

‘I’ve told you.’

‘You can’t have told me everything, because if she’s just an evil woman of your epoch, how did she get here and how does she perform her magic?’

‘Not being in the know, I can’t explain technicalities of this sort. And if you can’t either – well, then, I suppose all that you can do is to consult your Goddess. She was visiting the village in person just as the Interpreter and I came back from Sanjon.’

‘Edward, don’t blaspheme!’

‘Darling, I’m doing nothing of the sort. She flew up the mill-stream in the form of a crane with her grey legs sticking out behind her, and perched on the Nonsense House roof. Unfortunately a tree was in the way, so I couldn’t see what she did there; but I don’t think she flew off and when we came up she’d gone. The Interpreter got all worked up and…’

But Sapphire had fallen back in a faint. I put her to bed and then knocked up Sally, who came out of her room wide awake and fully dressed.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked coldly.

‘Sapphire’s fainted.’

‘That’s no affair of mine. You brought this trouble on her. It’s your duty to remove it.’

Then I lost my temper. ‘No, Sally, you won’t evade your responsibilities so easily as that. It was you who brought me here, and it was you who threw me into Sapphire’s arms, and it was your job to lay the brutch. She’s your best friend, and this world of yours is supposed to be ruled by principles of perfect love. If you don’t come along at once and put things straight, I’ll compose such a biting satire on you – in English, but none the less effective for that – that your nose will peel and your hair fall out in handfuls. Sapphire’s good –’

She interrupted me: ‘No good woman keeps obscenities in her cupboard.’

‘But she’s the victim of a bad joke.’

‘No good woman is ever victimized.’

‘We’ll soon see about that. And if you don’t go along at once and fetch Sapphire out of her faint I’ll tell everyone that you planted that cigarette case on her yourself.’

She smiled contemptuously, rang for a woman servant and when she appeared gave her brief instructions for treating Sapphire. Then she said ‘Good night’, and strolled back to her room.

I could have strangled her. But instead I quickly wrapped the cigarette case in my handkerchief, and handed it to the servant, not letting her see what it was. ‘When you make Sally’s bed tomorrow morning, please put this under her pillow,’ I said casually. ‘It’s a poetic gift.’