Part 16 (1/2)

'Sorry,' said Grigg, tired of the mystification. 'It is none of my business, anyway.'

'That depends,' said Lek.

'Upon whether you decide to stay or go,' said Vin. As she spoke, she took off her plain, greeny-brown dress. She did it casually, as a woman might remove a scarf when she finds it too hot. Vin was wearing no other garment, and now lay naked on the cus.h.i.+ons, her back against the low wall, behind which stretched the sea.

'On this island,' continued Lek, 'we live as all people once lived. But long ago they thought better of it and started looking for something else. They have been looking, instead of living, ever since.'

'What have they been looking for?'

'They call it achievement. They call it knowledge. They call it mastery. They even call it happiness. You called it happiness just now, when Vin threw a nut at you, but we are prepared to treat that as a slip of the tongue by a newcomer. And do you know who started it all?'

'I would rather you told me.'

'The Greeks started it. It was their stupidity. Have you not seen how stupid the Greeks are?'

'As a matter of fact, I have. It is not at all what one is led to expect. I have been continuously surprised by it.'

'Nothing to be surprised at. It is the same quality that made the Greeks separate man from nature in the first place, or rather from life.'

'You mean the ancient Greeks?' asked Grigg, staring at her.

'The same Greeks. All Greeks are the same. All stupid. All lopsided. All poisoned with masculinity.'

'Yes,' said Grigg, smiling. 'As a matter of fact, I have noticed something like that. It is not a country for women.' His eyes drifted to Vin's naked body, gleaming in the starlight.

'Once it was. We ruled once, but they drove us out,' said Lek, more sadly than fiercely. 'We fought, and later they wrote silly plays about the fight, but they defeated us, though not by the superior strength on which they pride themselves so much.'

'How, then?'

'By changing our world into a place where it was impossible for us to live. It was impossible for them to live in such a world also, but that they were too stupid to know. They defeated us in the same way that they have defeated everything else that is living,'

'Tell me,' said Grigg. 'What makes you think that I am any different? After all, I am a man, even though not a Greek. Why on earth should I be any kind of an exception?'

'There is no earth here,' said Lek. 'Haven't you noticed?'

'Nothing but rock,' cried Grigg. 'But there are more flowers than anywhere? And these wonderful nectarines?'

'They live on rock,' said Tal, speaking for the first time.

'You are different,' said Lek, 'simply because you have both set out and arrived. Few try and fewer succeed.'

'What happens to them?'

'They have set-backs of various kinds.'

'I didn't find it in the least difficult,' said Grigg.

'Those meant to succeed at a thing never do find the thing difficult.'

'Meant? Meant by whom?'

'By the life of which they are a part, whether they know it or not.'

'It is very mystical,' said Grigg. 'Where is this life to be found?'

'Here,' said Lek, simply. 'And it is not mystical at all. That is a word invented by those who have lost life or destroyed it. A word like tragedy. The stupid Greeks even called the plays they wrote about their fight with the women, tragedies.'

'If I stay,' began Grigg, and then stopped. 'If I stay,' he began again, 'how do I make payment? I do not necessarily mean in money. All the same, how?'

'Here there are no bargains and no debts. You do not pay at all. You submit to the two G.o.ds. Their rule is light, but people are so unaccustomed to it that they sometimes find it includes surprises.'

'I have seen one of the G.o.ds. Where is the other?'

'The other G.o.d is female and therefore hidden.'

Grigg noticed that a considerable tremor, very visible in the case of Vin, pa.s.sed through all three of their bodies.

'I still do not understand,' he said, 'why there is no one else. We are not all that far away. And the voyage is really quite easy. I should have thought that people would be coming all the time.'

'It might be better,' said Lek, 'to rejoice that you are the one chosen. But if you wish to go, go now, and one of us will guide you.'

Grigg didn't go. It wasn't Lek's riddling talk that prevented him, but much simpler things: Tal; the charm and strangeness of the empty rooms; not least the conviction that the women were right when they said he could not return to his starting-point, and uncertainty as to where else he could practicably make for. He told them that he would stay for the night. A plan would be easier to evolve in the suns.h.i.+ne.

'You don't mind if I grow a beard?' he said. 'I've brought nothing with me.'

They were very nice about his having brought nothing with him.

'Enchanted islands are hard to understand,' he said. 'I've always thought that. It worried me even as a child. The trouble is that you can never be sure where the enchantment begins and where it ends.'

'You learn by experience,' said Tal.

'Do you do we really live entirely on fruit?'

'No,' said Lek. 'There is wine.'

Vin rose and walked out through the gateway that led down to the harbour. She moved like a nymph, and her silhouette against the night sky through the arch was that of a girl-athlete on a vase.

Wine was not the sustenance that Grigg, fond though he was of it, felt he most needed at the moment, but he said nothing. They were all silent while waiting for Vin to return. The tideless waves flapped against the surrounding rock. The stars flickered.

Vin returned with a little porcelain bowl, not spilling a drop of the contents as she stepped bare-footed over the uneven stones. The bowl was set among them, small cups appeared, and they all drank. There was little wine left when all the cups had been filled. The wine was red. Grigg thought it was also extremely sweet and heavy, almost treacly in texture; he was glad that he did not have to drink more of it. They followed the wine by drinking water from a pitcher.

'Where do you find water?' asked Grigg.

'From springs in the rock,' answered Lek.

'More than one spring?'

'There is a spring of health, a spring of wisdom, a spring of beauty, a spring of logic, and a spring of longevity.'