The Magus by John Fowles Page B

But you must let me – ‘
    Once again his arm, brown and corded, swept silencingly towards the sea and the mountains and the south, as if I might not have properly appreciated it. I looked sideways at him. He was obviously a man who rarely smiled. There was something mask-like, emotion-purged, about his face. Deep furrows ran from beside his nose to the corners of his mouth; they suggested experience, command, impatience with fools. He was slightly mad, no doubt harmlessly so, but mad. I had an idea that he thought I was someone else. He kept his ape-like eyes on me. The silence and the stare were alarming, and faintly comic, as if he was trying to hypnotize a bird.
    Suddenly he gave a curious little rapid shake of the head; quizzical, rhetorical, not expecting an answer. Then he changed, as if what had happened between us till then was a joke, a charade, that had been rehearsed and gone according to plan, but could now be ended. And I was completely off-balance again. He wasn’t mad after all. He even smiled, and the ape-eyes became almost squirrel-eyes.
    He turned back to the table. ‘Let us have tea.’
    ‘I only came for a glass of water. This is…’
    ‘You came here to meet me. Please. Life is short.’
    I sat down. The second place was mine. An old woman appeared, in black, a black grey with age, her face as lined as an Indian squaw’s. She was incongruously carrying a tray with an elegant silver teapot, a kettle, a bowl of sugar, a saucer with sliced lemon.
    ‘This is my housekeeper, Maria.’
    He spoke to her in very precise Greek, and I heard my own name and the name ofthe school. The old woman bobbed at me, her eyes on the ground, unsmiling, and then unloaded her tray. Conchis plucked the muslin away from one of the plates with the quick aplomb of a conjurer. I saw cucumber sandwiches. He poured the tea, and indicated the lemon.
    ‘How do you know who I am, Mr Conchis?’
    ‘Anglicize my name. I prefer the “ch” soft.’ He sipped his tea. ‘If you question Hermes, Zeus will know.’
    ‘I’m afraid my colleague was tactless.’
    ‘You no doubt found out all about me.’
    ‘I found out very little. But that makes this even kinder of you.’
    He looked out to sea. ‘There is a poem of the T’ang dynasty.’ He sounded the precious glottal stop. ‘“Here at the frontier, there are falling leaves. Although my neighbours are all barbarians, and you, you are a thousand miles away, there are always two cups on my table.”‘
    I smiled. ‘Always?’
    ‘I saw you last Sunday.’
    ‘They were your things down there?’
    He bowed his head. ‘And I also saw you this afternoon.’
    ‘I hope I haven’t kept you from your beach.’
    ‘Not at all. My private beach is down there.’ He pointed over the gravel. ‘But I always like a beach to myself. And I presume the same of you. Now. Eat the sandwiches.’
    He poured me more tea. It had huge torn leaves and a tarry China fragrance. On the other plate were kourabièdes, conical butter-cakes rolled in icing sugar. I’d forgotten what a delicious meal tea could be; and sitting there I felt invaded by the envy of the man who lives in an institution, and has to put up with institution meals and institution everything else, for the rich private life of the established. I remembered having tea with one of my tutors, an old bachelor don at Magdalen; and the same envy for his rooms, his books, his calm, precise, ticking peace.
    I bit into my first kourabiè, and gave an appreciative nod.
    ‘You are not the first English person to have admired Maria’s cooking.’
    ‘Mitford?’ His eyes fixed me sharply again. ‘I met him in London.’
    He poured more tea. ‘How did you like Captain Mitford?’
    ‘Not my type.’
    ‘He spoke of me?’
    ‘Not at all. That is … His eyes were intent. ‘He just said you’d had a…. disagreement?’
    ‘Captain Mitford made me ashamed to have English blood.’
    Till then I had felt I was beginning to get his measure;