The God of the Labyrinth Read online

  In spite of the heat, Donelly put on a clean shirt and tie, and a sports jacket. I carried my own jacket slung over my shoulder. He looked as if he was on his way to his London club for a midday drink; I felt crumpled, sweaty and will-less. Aware by now that he was talking from some compulsion, I scarcely paid attention to what he said, walking along beside him over the rutted fields. The great yellow hound followed us; its legs were so long that it seemed to be moving in slow motion. Donelly walked with long strides, pointing out various objects of interest with his cane. ‘That’s known as the lynching tree. The Klan hanged three negroes there a few years back.’ ‘What had they been doing?’ ‘Setting fire to hayricks.’ Some of the areas of woodland we strolled through were pretty, but I was amazed by the quantity of rusty tins and Coca Cola bottles lying in the undergrowth. We leaned on a fence to watch the oil derricks, and I suddenly noticed that Donelly was wearing a revolver in a holster underneath his jacket. ‘What’s that for?’ ‘In case of snakes’, he said. He evidently felt that the noise of the derricks interfered with conversation, for he hurried me on. I noticed that he kept glancing at his watch. ‘Are we going anywhere in par­ticular?’ I asked. The flow of talk stopped for a moment. ‘No.’ He looked blank. I was beginning to feel thirsty, and his tension was communicating itself to me. ‘Where are we going?’ ‘Oh, I thought we’d just stroll along for a mile or so, then make our way home.’ The word ‘stroll’ was so inappropriate that I smiled. ‘I ought to think about getting back.’ He ignored the remark. But he consulted his watch again. The great yellow dog was growling and barking at a clump of grass in a ditch. I peered down, and saw a black snake coiled there, hissing. As it saw me, it slithered off. I expected Donelly to shoot at it, but he only said: ‘Come on.’

  We clambered over a fence and on to a dirt road. There were farm buildings a few hundred yards away, and a mail box indi­cated that we were now on somebody else’s land.

  Donelly said suddenly:

  ‘Hello, that looks like a fire.’

  ‘Where?’

  He pointed across a field next to the farm, but all I could see was a faint wisp of smoke rising from an open barn full of straw. But a few minutes later, flames were shooting high into the air, and the black smoke billowed and twisted like a materialising genie. Donelly was suddenly running, his gun banging against his buttock, and the great dog loping alongside like a small pony. We scrambled over a fence and crossed a field with pigs rooting in the black mud. Men were also running from the direction of the farm buildings.

  I could see no point in running. There was obviously nothing we could do, and the fire would certainly not burn itself out before we arrived. So I walked across the field, my hands in my pockets. Five minutes later, I joined Donelly. It was certainly an impressive blaze; the flames were so powerful they carried up fragments of burning straw that slowly rained on us or drifted in grey wisps. It was impossible to approach closer than fifty yards; the heat was tremendous. Something exploded—a barrel perhaps—and a part of the roof fell in. Showers of sparks rose like fireworks. I said something to Donelly, but he ignored me. I looked at his face, and looked away quickly. His jaw was set and rigid, and his eyes were staring as if they were made of blue glass. It was as if he was drinking in the noise and smoke. Even when smoke blew towards us, and made my eyes water, he went on staring. His fists were clenched in his trouser pockets. There was something about the set of his face that made me realise that he was experiencing a weird exaltation. To some extent, I could understand it. The fire was majestic; there was something sym­phonic about the crackling and the heat and the shower of sparks.

  I felt that some of the other spectators were looking at us with a certain resentment, as if we had no right to be there; so I retired to the fence and sat on it. Half an hour later, when nothing remained of the barn but the metal uprights, the fire engine arrived.

  Someone behind me said: ‘Mind tellin’ me your name?’, and I found a burly policeman looking at me with an expression of sour disapproval. Two men were standing behind him, holding guns; they looked like farm labourers. I gave my name, and said that I was with Colonel Donelly. At this, the elder of the two men said: ‘Oh, you’re with Donelly, are you?’, and I wondered why his tone was so hostile. The cop frowned at him, then said to me: ‘Do you mind tellin’ me how long you been here?’ ‘Since just after the fire started. We were taking a walk.’ The questions puzzled me, but it seemed easier to answer. ‘Who are you?’ When I explained that I was lecturing at Baton Rouge, his tone became more civil. I had the lecture contract in my pocket, and an I.D. that I always carry in America. I was on the point of asking if it was against the law to stop and watch a fire, but it hardly seemed worth while. The cop examined my papers, said thank you politely, then strode over to Donelly, fol­lowed by the two men. The great yellow dog stood by Donelly’s side, and as the men approached, it growled and started to crouch, as if for a spring. Donelly held its collar. The conver­sation was brief; I saw him pointing towards me. Then he came across to me, yawned, and said: ‘Well, I think we may as well get back.’ The fire engine had finally got water spraying on to the smouldering ashes, and clouds of steam came up, carrying ash and fragments of charred wood.

  ‘What was that all about?’

  ‘Oh, they’re very suspicious of strangers in this area.’

  ‘But they couldn’t have suspected us of starting the fire.’

  He shrugged, then began to whistle an Irish jig. He walked back with the same long strides, but it struck me that he had ceased to be tense. During the earlier part of our walk, he had talked and walked like an automaton—or a man with his mind rigidly fixed on something else. Now he was human, relaxed. As we entered the house, he even placed his hand on my shoulder and said: ‘Well, I think we both deserve a long cool drink.’

  He produced bottles of English ale—Worthingtons. As I watched him pouring, and humming to himself, something silly came into my head. Exhaustion had given me a feeling of reck­lessness; I obeyed the impulse and said it.

  ‘I don’t suppose you had anything to do with it, did you?’

  For a moment I wondered if I had gone too far. But he held out the beer with the happy, innocent smile of a schoolboy.

  ‘What an odd question. How could I?’

  And suddenly, with a certainty I cannot explain, I knew that he had. Perhaps it was the way he said it, or the immediate way he had understood the question. An innocent man would have hesitated, wondered if he had understood me correctly. I sat in the armchair and drank deeply. When I looked at him again, the certainty had vanished. He had been with me all day. . . .

  ‘Here’s to Esmond Donelly.’

  I drank. It seemed irrelevant.

  He went into the kitchen, and I heard sounds of food being prepared. He had switched on a radio—another sign of relaxa­tion. A cool breeze blew through the open window. The more I thought about it, the more I was inclined to believe that he had some fore-knowledge of the fire. It all fitted in: the attempts to persuade me to stay; the obsessive, mechanical conversation; the absurdly long walk on a hot afternoon; the gun he carried and the great dog; the increased pace as we came close to the hay­stack and the glances at his watch. The man was a pyromaniac. Probably he had set his own out-buildings on fire. Perhaps he had fired the chicken factory too. Perhaps—I suddenly felt a cold shock—perhaps he had caused the fire for which the negroes were lynched. But how had he done it? An accomplice who started the fire as we approached? Too dangerous, surely? Some timing device? That must be the answer.

  I finished my ale and began to doze. I woke up when he brought in the food—yams, french fries and sausages. He poured more beer; I ate from a tray on my knee. He was obviously very hungry; I watched him furtively as we ate in silence. He didn’t look like a Count Dracula, guarding his terrible secret. He looked like a tired, worn-out man of fifty who habitually drove himself too hard and could not be bothered
to eat proper meals. I knew it was my duty to mention my suspicions to someone—perhaps to the head of the English department at the University of Louisiana. But I knew I wouldn’t. He was my host. I could only hope he got caught soon.

  It was nearly nine o’clock when I finished eating. I said:

  ‘You’ve been very kind, but I really ought to think about getting back. . . .’

  He was piling the dishes on a tray. He said casually:

  ‘What, before you’ve seen the Donelly manuscript?’

  I was unable to believe I had heard correctly.

  ‘Manuscript?’

  ‘That’s what you came for, isn’t it?’

  ‘Do you have some of his manuscript?’

  He nodded as he carried the tray out. When he came back, he took a key from his pocket, and opened the green safe in the corner. He said:

  ‘These are not for publication, of course.’

  There was a wooden box in the top part of the safe and, on the lower shelf, a number of buff envelopes. He took out one of these and handed it to me. There was a great wad of papers that had been sewn together with waxed twine. The handwriting was distinctive and idiosyncratic, but easy enough to read:

  Falmouth, March 6, 1787

  The glass is sinking; the west wind gently breathing upon the water, the smoke softly descending into the room, and the sailors yawning dismally at the door of every ale house. Beckford has left me to go in search of his lady love on the hill; I remain here, lulled into a state of drowsy tranquillity, watching two young girls, beautifully shaped, and dressed with a kind of provincial elegance, walking by the edge of the sea. Ah, these delicious, glorious creatures! Who would question the assertion of Zozimus the Panopolitan that woman did not spring from the same root as man, but was created to people some other star, and allowed to stay in our male world as an afterthought! Are they not the supreme mystery of creation, the visible presence of magic in this draffish and Boeotian world?

  Godwin said the illustrious Bishop of Cambrai was of more worth than his chambermaid, but I would not ex­change ten bishops for the pretty minx who shared my bed last night. The wench—whose name is Clara—served us at supper yester-eve, and Beckford, whose tastes lie not in that direction, said the girl had a behind like a boy. I said I thought it too shapely for a lad, at least, to judge by the little bosoms I could see when she bent over the table to pour melted butter on my lobster. When she came close to me, I whispered that I would give her a crown for a kiss, and she laughed and blushed. Until Beckford spoke of her, I had paid her but small attention; but now my notions had become fixed upon her, the little god of pleasing anguish entered my breast and made a pincushion of my heart. Each time she came into the room I looked upon her as if I had newly fallen in love; indeed, for a moment it would have seemed no great price to marry her for the sake of a closer investigation of her charms. Although I believe I have less of the feminine in me than Beckford, I own to the con­suming curiosity of a Pandora, that is capable of dismissing all other considerations. When she came close to me to refill my glass, I passed my arm about her and allowed my hand to rest upon her thigh, knowing that if she objected to this, we would get no further. But she stood quietly, like a well-trained horse; then the landlord came in with more negus, and I withdrew my hand. I had no further opportunity to caress her during the meal; but when I left the room, I slipped a guinea into her hand and whispered: ‘This is for you, my dear. There’s five more waiting if you’ll come to my room when everyone is abed.’ She said nothing, lowering her eyes, but took the money. Later, Beckford told me that he had discovered that she was married to a fisherman, and that I had probably wasted my money. I replied that money given to a pretty girl is never wasted, if she be virtuous, for it must be regarded as a votive offering to Aphrodite, who will acknowledge the compliment in her own good time.

  On this occasion, Beckford proved to be wrong, for the nymph slipped between my sheets at three in the morning, after I had given up all hope, and thereafter denied me nothing. I asked her in a whisper what had become of her husband; she said he was out with the fishing fleet. She was wearing a coarse linen shift, which I soon had about her throat. I kissed her and called her many soft words, for I have never had patience with the fellows who rob a girl of her virtue and then treat her as if the robbery hath deprived her of all right to consideration or tenderness. Added to which, I was aware that the girl was a gift of the foam-born goddess, and deserved a part of the worship due to her donor. So I caressed her ears with soft words and the tip of my tongue, and then allowed its eloquence to speak to her breasts, and even to the velvet walls of the temple itself. By this time, the stirrings of her buttocks betokened excitement, whereupon I transferred my tongue to its proper resting place in her own mouth, and entered her as softly as a man slipping into bed. We fucked quietly and gently, barely moving the mattress, until her knees gripped me suddenly, and she spent with a shudder that was like the silver explosion of a sky-rocket. I lay there within her for a long time, kissing her lips as if to make up for a lifetime of ab­stention, hardly able to believe that this milk-white priestess was the same Clara who poured the gravy on my roast beef and gave me a glimpse of nipples that looked newly formed. Although her buttocks were now still—those buttocks that were too round to be a boy’s—my steed quivered within her, as if unable to believe itself in so delicious a stable. I resolved to lie there unmoving and see how long I could hold the starry fluid; but she undid me by slipping her hand between our bodies and caressing my balls with her finger­tips; the seed gushed, and the earth drank the rain. We continued the sport until daylight, when she left me. I lay there and meditated upon the argument I had with Beckford in the coach yesterday: that the Greek manner of love is more spiritual and exalted than that known between men and women. In my overflow of felicity I could have wished Beckford the company of Clara’s fish-spouse in his four poster; but could the mating have been other than hairy and lusty, as befits knights jousting with lances of flesh? Such a union partakes of the bemuscled bounty of the sun, not of the green water-magic of Artemis.

  I read on, forgetting Donelly’s presence. His remark that this was not for publication kept my excitement within bounds of restraint; but I had the feeling that I’ve experienced at other crucial moments in my life—for example, when I met Austin at the Diaghilev exhibition; almost a sense of repeating a scene you have already rehearsed.

  Donelly was back at the rum bottle. I refused a glass, but accepted a Budweiser. When I reached the end of the section, I put the manuscript volume down.

  ‘Are you quite sure you wouldn’t be willing to have this published?’

  ‘I think so.’

  I said: ‘It rather makes nonsense of the whole project. I see now what you mean about Fleisher’s version being a forgery. But I don’t see how I can recommend Fleisher to publish his version. It would be absurd.’

  ‘I agree.’

  ‘Is there no chance of a compromise?’

  He lit a cheroot.

  ‘The family would be most upset if the papers were pub­lished.’

  ‘But you said you weren’t on good terms with the family.’

  ‘Neither am I. That’s no reason for spiting them.’

  From a man who had just burned down someone’s haystack, this struck me as a little over-scrupulous. I changed my line of approach and asked him how the papers had come into his hands. He seemed to think about this for a moment.

  ‘Yes, I suppose there’s no harm in telling you that. When Donelly visited Rousseau at Neuchâtel in 1765—Donelly was about seventeen at the time—he presented him with an essay, written in French, refuting Hume and d’Alembert. This is men­tioned by John Morley in his Life of Rousseau. Donelly and Rousseau became friends, in spite of the age gap. But Rousseau was having a hard time of it. The clergy in Neuchâtel were all preaching against him, and he was accused of bewitching a man who’d died
of colic. One morning, Donelly found that someone had balanced a huge stone outside Rousseau’s door so that it would fall on him when he came out—it would certainly have killed him. Esmond removed the stone, and the next night he set up the booby trap outside the house of the blacksmith—who was a particular enemy of Jean-Jacques, and who was also the only man strong enough to lift the stone without help. It broke the blacksmith’s arm and collar bone. But it didn’t help poor Rous­seau, who had to leave town anyway—the people got to the point of stoning him in the streets. Two years later, when Rousseau was staying in London as the guest of David Hume, Donelly asked him what had become of the manuscript, and Rousseau said he’d left it behind in Paris, and would return it when he went back. He never did.

  ‘Shortly after the war, I was staying at Lausanne and I was introduced to a bookseller named Clouzot, who had a business in Neuchâtel. I told him the story of Donelly’s manuscript and he said he might be able to help me. Six months later, he wrote and offered it to me for sale—at a fairly reasonable price, I might add. I think he found it at the house of the man from whom Rousseau had rented his house, in a trunk of odds and ends. He also found pages of a travel journal by Donelly.

  ‘A few years later, Clouzot wrote to ask me if I was still in­terested in Donelly manuscripts. He’d come across another in Geneva. I knew that Esmond had rented a house in Geneva and spent most of the last twenty years of his life there. But he moved back to Ireland a year before he died in 1830, and took most of his possessions. I’ve no idea how this particular manuscript got left behind, although I do have a rather interesting theory. Byron visited Esmond at Geneva—he’d met him through Sheridan. A few weeks later, Byron was writing to Hobhouse from Pisa that he was reading a “most bawdily diverting manuscript by old Esmond.” I presume Esmond was Donelly—in which case, it’s possible that Byron borrowed the manuscript and forgot to return it.’