XXXVII

A BRUISED MAN in a torn suit knocks at the door of a brothel, seven times. Exactly on the seventh stroke, the door flies open. A hollow noise as it strikes against a darkened wall. Candlelight: a woman in a long lace nightgown, her dark hair a cascade upon her shoulders, her face glowing. The man stumbles inside; the door closes. There is no wilderness without an oasis.

The man lies in the lap of a lady with a lamp, sleeping as she sings. Behind her stands a girl, naked and motionless; at their feet the woman in the long lace nightgown lies watching. These are some of the words of the song:

Awaking, the man asks for refuge; and since a brothel is a place of refuge, asylum is given. And food and new clothing.

—Your namesake Chanakya, whispered Kamala Sutra to Virgil Jones, could place his right hand upon a brazier of coals and his left hand upon the cool breast of a young girl, feeling neither the pain of the fire nor the pleasure of her skin. Ask yourself if it is your luck or your misfortune that you could feel both. And now that the fires have scalded you, allow the woman to heal you.

She lay beside him; from her throat came low clucking noises. She drew her hands over her eyes to close them and held them, fingers spread, at the corners of the sloe-shaped lids. When Virgil made no move, she took his hand in hers and put it on her breast. Slowly, it began to move.

—Be comforted, she said.

And he was.

—If you fix your eyes upon a black dot at the centre of a sheet of white paper, said Lee Kok Fook, it will either disappear or grow until it gives the illusion of filling the page. In the ancient symbol of yin and yang, the yin hemisphere contains a yang dot, and the yang hemisphere a yin dot, to show how each half contains the seeds of its opposite. If you fix your eyes upon the dot, it will grow into a cloud, and create an imbalance in the mind, such as the desolation you feel now. I will help you to avert your eyes from the cloud; by our love-making the harmony can perhaps be restored.

She wound around him like a snake, her legs and arms seemingly spiralling around his, until they were irretrievably interlocked; and he could do nothing but respond.

That night, Florence Nightingale sang him to sleep once more; and again the naked Media stood behind them silently while Madame Jocasta reclined at their feet. It was a rippling song, full of clear waters and quickly-running streams, fresh and soothing. He slept better.

—There are some men, said Lee Kok Fook, whose curse it is to be different from the rest. Among thinkers, they see only a lack of practicality; among men of action, they mourn the absence of thought. When they are at one extreme, they yearn for the other side. Such men are habitually alone, unloved by most others, incapable of making a friend, since to make a friend would be to accept the other’s way of thinking. But perhaps it is not such a curse to be alone; wisdom is very rarely found in crowds. And then, she added, melting around him, there are always times when even such men are not wholly alone.

Madame Jocasta raised the flap of an observation-hole. Kamala Sutra was showing Virgil an exercise in yoga tantra. He sat naked and cross-legged on her bed; she sat on his lap, her legs locked about his waist, their sexes conjoined, their eyes closed. Jocasta nodded her head in satisfaction.

Virgil Jones lay peacefully on Florence Nightingale’s bed. On the bedside table stood a gleaming bronze pitcher of wine. Jocasta, Media, Kamala and Lee stood in a semicircle around the two people on the bed.

—Welcome home, Virgil, said Madame Jocasta.

—I propose a toast, said Virgil Jones, to the House of the Rising Son and its resident angels of mercy.

—And we shall drink to your renewed good spirits, said Jocasta.

Virgil drained his glass. Florence refilled it instantly.

—Shall I play, Madame Jocasta? she asked.

—Yes, please, said Virgil. Play and sing.

Florence picked up her lute and began to sing. Looking at her, Virgil remembered a verse from another poem:

He watched the black-skinned Nightingale sing and forgot all other songs and poems.

They lay in bed, Greek-named gravedigger and Greek-faced whore.

—At first, said Virgil, I was wounded by Flapping Eagle’s desertion. But now I really don’t care.

—You must stay, Virgil, said Jocasta. Stay with us and look after us. You’ve been wandering far too long, up and down this wretched mountain, and done quite enough. Nobody can carry the guilt for an entire island. It’s time you rested. Let your Flapping Eagle travel on if he must; you’ve taken him as far as you can.

—Or as far as I want to, said Virgil. At the moment his mind is full of settling down. Settling down! But who knows, perhaps that’s all there is to it, all there is to do, all there is to him. It’s just that I thought…

He fell silent.

—You thought he was the one to do what you can’t, said Jocasta. Virgil didn’t reply.

—Revenge isn’t a very worthy emotion, said Jocasta softly. You know as well as I do that nobody can touch Grimus now.

Virgil shrugged. —Probably, he said. Most probably not.

—What is it in Liv, asked Jocasta bitterly, that leaves such a cancer in people? You would never have hated Grimus if Liv hadn’t made you do so.

—Probably not, repeated Virgil.

—Liv, spat Jocasta. You’ll have to forget her, Virgil. Her, and Grimus, and Flapping Eagle. I can’t go to bed with your ghosts.

Virgil laughed.

—You’re a tolerant woman, Jocasta, he said. Give me some wine; there’s absolution in it. I’d love to stay.

—Jocasta?

She stirred in her sleep.

—Jocasta, listen.

Virgil was sitting bolt-upright in bed. He could see himself, blurrily, in the dark, reflected in the mirror on the far wall.

Jocasta raised herself on one elbow. —Whatever have you thought of now? she asked. For the last few nights, this had been a regular occurrence; Virgil would be brought abruptly awake by his dreams. —It takes longer to exorcise the unconscious, he had apologized.

—I’ve just remembered, he said. Night I came here. Do you recall… something happening? Something odd.

—Lord, she said, I forgot. The jolt.

—Yes. What the devil was it?

—It’s never happened before, she said.

Virgil stared out of the window at the dark bulk of Calf Mountain above them, clouds enveloping its summit.

—What the hell is that fool up to now? he said angrily.

—Perhaps he can’t control it, said Jocasta quietly.

—It was like … began Virgil, and stopped.

—Like a flash of death, finished Jocasta.

Neither of them slept again that night.

—On the way back here, said Virgil, I regained the gift, you know? And then I lost it again. Just once, I travelled.

—You shouldn’t have tried, said Jocasta. The rest of us are lucky; being immune, I mean.

—Like the king who took poison regularly to make sure it couldn’t kill him, Virgil said with heavy irony.

—Yes, said Jocasta seriously, exactly like that.

Virgil fell back on his pillow. —That’s one thing You’ll never understand, he said. There’s nothing like travelling. Nothing ever invented.

—Forget it, Virgil, said Madame Jocasta. Come here.