The Magus, A Revised Version (77 page)

‘
I was hit and I fell and I knew no more because I fainted. I believe I heard the uproar from the hostages before darkness came. And possibly that saved me. I imagine the men firing were distracted. Other orders were being given to fire at the hostages. I am told that half an hour later, when the villagers were allowed to wail over their dead, I was found lying in a pool of blood at the feet of the guerillas. I was found by my housekeeper Soula
–
before the days of Maria
–
and Hermes.
“
When they moved me I showed faint signs of life. They carried me home and hid me in Soula
’
s room. Patarescu came and looked after me.
’

‘
Patarescu?
’

‘
Patarescu.
’
I tried to read his look; understood, by something in it, that he fully admitted that guilt, and did not consider it a guilt; and that he was prepared to justify it if I should press for the truth.

‘
The colonel?
’

‘
By the end of the war he was wanted for countless atrocities. Several of them showed the same feature. An apparent reprieve at the last moment
–
which turned out to be a mere prolongation of the agony for the hostages. The War Crimes Commission have done their best. But he is in South America. Or Cairo, perhaps.
’

‘
And Anton?
’

‘
Anton believed that I had been killed. My servants let no one but Patarescu into the secret. I was buried. Or rather an empty c
off
in was buried. Wimmel left the island that same afternoon, leaving Anton in the middle of all the carnage of flesh, to say nothing of that of the good relations he had established. He must have spent all evening, perhaps night, writing a detailed report of the whole incident. He typed it himself
–
seven copies. He stated that fact in the report. I presume they were all he could get on the typewriter at one time. He hid nothing and excused no one, least of all himself. I will show you, in a moment.
’

The Negro came across the gravel and began to dismantle the screen. Upstairs I could hear movements.

‘
What happened to him?
’

‘
Two days later his body was found under the wall of the village school, where the ground was already dark with blood. He had shot himself. It was an act of contrition, of course, and he wanted the villagers to know. The Germans hushed the matter up. Not long afterwards the garrison was changed. The report explains that.
’

‘
What happened to all the copies?
’

‘
One was given to Hermes by Anton himself the next day, and he was asked to give it to the first of my foreign friends to inquire for me after the war. Another was given to one of the village priests with the same instructions. Another was left on his desk when he shot himself. It was open
–
no doubt for all his men and the German High Command to read. Three copies completely disappeared. Probably they were sent to relations or fr
iends in Germany. They may have
been intercepted. We shall never know now. And the last copy turned up after the war. It was sent to Athens, to one of the newspapers, with a small sum of money. For charity. A Viennese postmark. Plainly he gave a copy to one of his men.
’

‘
It was published?
’

‘
Yes. Certain parts of it.
’

‘
Was he buried here?
’

‘
His family cemetery
–
near Leipzig.
’

Those cigarettes.

‘
And the villagers never knew that you had the choice?
’

‘
The report came out. Some believe it, some do not. Of course I
have seen that no helpless dependants of the hostages suffered financi
ally.
’

‘
And the guerillas
–
did you ever find out about them?
’

‘
The cousin and the other man
–
yes, we know their names. There is a monument to them in the village cemetery. But their leader … I had his life investigated. Before the war he spent six years in prison. On one occasion for murder
–
a
crime passionnel.
On two or three others for violence and larceny. He was generally believed in Crete to have been involved in at least four other murders. One was particularly savage. He was on the run when the Germans invaded. Then he performed a number of wild exploits in the Southern Peloponnesus. He seems to have belonged to no organized resistance group, but to have roamed about killing and robbing. In at least two proven cases, not Germans, but other Greeks. We traced several men who had fought beside him. Some of them said they had been frightened of him, others evidently admired his courage, but not much else. I found an old farmer in the Mani who had sheltered him
several times. And he said,
Kakourgos, ma Ellenas.
A bad man, but a
Greek. I keep that as his epitaph.
’

A silence fell between us.

‘
Those years must have strained your philosophy. The smile.
’

‘
On the contrary. That experience made me fully realize what humour is. It is a manifestation of freedom. It is because there is freedom that there is the smile. Only a totally predetermined universe could be without it. In the end it is only by becoming the victim that one escapes the ultimate joke
–
which is precisely to discover that by constantly slipping away one has sl
ipped away. One exists no more,
one is no longer free. That is what the great majority of our fellow-men have always to discover. And will have always to discover.
’
He turned to the file.
‘
But let me finish by showing you the report that Anton wrote.
’

I saw a thin stitched sheaf of paper. A title-page:
Bericht
ü
ber die
von deutschen
Besetzsungstruppen unmenschliche Grausamkeiten
…

‘
There is an English translation at the back.
’

I turned to it, and read:

Report of the inhuman atrocities committed by German Occupation troops under the command of Colonel Dietrich Wimmel on the island of Phraxos between September 30th and October 2nd, 1943.

I turned a page.

On the morning of September 29th, 1943, four soldiers of No. 10 Observation-post, Argolis Command, situated on the cape known as Bourani on the south coast of the island of Phraxos, being
off
duty, were given permission to swim. At 12.45 …

Conchis spoke.
‘
Read the last paragraph.
’

I swear by God and by all that is sacred to me that the above events have been exactly and truthfully described. I observed them all with my own eyes and I did not intervene. For this reason I condemn myself to death.

I looked up.
‘
A good German.
’

‘
No. Unless you think suicide is good. It is not. Despair is a disease,
and as evil as Wimmel
’
s disease.
’
I
suddenly remembered Blake -what was it,
‘
Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.
’
A text I had once often used to seduce
–
myself as well as others. Conchis went on.
‘
You must make up your mind, Nicholas. Either you enlist under the
kapetan,
that murderer who knew only one word, but the only word, or you enlist under Anton. You watch and you despair. Or you despair and you watch. In the first case, you commit physical suicide; in the second, moral.
’

‘
I can still feel pity for him.
’

‘
You
can.
But ought you to?
’

I was thinking of Alison, and I knew I
had no choice. I felt pity for
her as I felt pity for that unknown German
’
s face on a few feet of flickering film. And perhaps an admiration, that admiration which is really envy of those who have gone farther along one
’
s own road: they had both despaired enough to watch no more. While mine was the moral suicide.

I said,
‘
Yes. He couldn
’
t help himself

‘
Then you are sick. You live by death. Not by life.
’

‘
That
’
s a matter of opinion.
’

‘
No. Of conviction. Because the event I have told you is the only European story. It is what Europe is. A Colonel Wimmel. A rebel without a name. An Anton torn between them, killing himself when it is too late. Like a child.
’

‘
Perhaps I have no choice.
’

He looked at me, but said nothing. I felt all his energy then, his fierceness, his heartlessness, his impatience with my stupidity, my melancholy, my selfishness. His hatred not only of me, but of all he had decided I stood for: something passive, abdicating, English, in life. He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm, to convert or detest.

I looked down at last.
‘
Then you think I
’
m another Anton. Is that what I
’
m meant to understand?
’

‘
You are someone who does not understand what freedom is. And above all that the better you understand it, the less you possess of it.
’

I tried to absorb that paradox.
‘
I
’
ve shown too much to please you?
’

‘
To be of further significance to me.
’
He picked up the file.
‘
Now I suggest we go to bed.
’

I spoke sharply. You can
’
t treat people like this. As if we
’
re all just villagers to be shot so that you can prove some abstract theory of freedom.
’

He stood up and stared down at me.
‘
For as long as you cherish your present view of freedom, it is you who holds the executioner
’
s gun.
’

I thought again of Alison; suppressed the thought.

‘
What makes you so sure you know my real self?
’

‘
I do not claim that. My decision is based on the certain knowledge that you are incapable of knowing it yourself.
’

‘
You honestly do think you
’
re God, don
’
t you?
’

Incredibly, he did not answer; and his eyes said that that was what I might be left to believe. I let out a little snort of air, to show him what I thought, then went on.

‘
So what do you want me to do now? Collect my bag and walk back to the school?
’

This seemed, unexpectedly, to set him back a little. There was a minute, but telltale, hesitation before he answered.

‘
As you wish. There was to be a little final ceremony tomorrow morning. But it is not of importance.
’

‘
Ah. Well. I
’
d hate to miss that.
’

He contemplated my humourless smile up at him, then gave a little nod.

‘
I
wish you good night.
’
I turned my back, and his footsteps receded. But he stopped at the music-room doors.
‘
I
repeat. No one will come.
’