The Squire Quartet. Brian Aldiss

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СКАЧАТЬ slept naked. He put on a pair of blue swimming trunks and stood in the middle of the room in tadasana. He breathed slowly, concentrating on the expelled breath, letting the lungs refill automatically, letting air return like a tide, to the abdomen, the ribs, the pectorals; then a pause and a topping-up with still more air. Then a pause and the controlled release.

      He went into trikonasana, straightening and locking his legs with, first, his right fingers at his right ankle and his left arm raised, and then, second, his left fingers at his left ankle and his right arm raised, head always turned up towards the lifted thumb, knees locked.

      After some while, he went into various sitting poses, concentrating on parvatasana and, to keep his abdominal muscles in trim, navasana. Finally, he went into a recuperative pose, the sarvangasana, with his feet high above his head and toes hanging down. He breathed gently, without strain, staying as he was, hanging in the air, for about fifteen minutes, before relaxing into savasana, eyes closed, brain inactive.

      When he returned to the world, he reflected as always with gratitude on the brief refuge of meditation. Nothing could reach him there, neither his own follies nor the follies of other people. The paradox was that he had banished God by discovering him through the disciplines of yoga; what he had come upon was a timeless region at the back of his own skull: a small chamber shaped by countless generations of blood and perception. It had been there awaiting him all the time. It was as close as he would ever get to Eternity.

      Putting on yachting shoes and draping a towel round his neck, he went down through the hotel, still empty of guests, and took a slow swim up and down the outdoor pool. Only one other delegate of the conference was there, an Italian whose name Squire did not remember. They nodded to each other and wished each other good morning as Squire did six lengths and a few dives. As he went back to his room, an aroma of coffee reached his senses.

      He felt well prepared to face Thursday and the second full day of the conference.

      The dining room of the Grand Hotel Marittimo was full of fresh flowers. Sunshine poured in the far end of the chamber, and the fatherly waiters were moving unhurriedly about their business.

      Thomas Squire settled himself at a table with d’Exiteuil, who had managed to find himself a copy of Le Monde, the two Frenzas, Cantania, and the Romanian delegate, Geo Camaion. The latter nodded silently at Squire and continued to eat sausages and tomatoes. Gianni and Maria Frenza were chattering happily to each other over plates of fried egg and bacon. Gianni wore a silk sweater; his shaggy black hair, streaked with grey, reached to its collar. His wife looked attractive; she wore a plain brown dress to match the heavy dull gold of her hair. Squire observed that d’Exiteuil frequently gazed at her from behind his newspaper.

      Squire ordered continental breakfast from a paternal waiter. He was finishing his orange juice when Geo Camaion, who had reached the toast stage, leaned forward, and remarked in French, ‘I found your speech of yesterday, Mr Squire, charmingly insular, as we expect your countrymen always to be.’

      He was a small neat man with good features and a nobly furrowed forehead. He spoke in such a friendly way that only a tapping finger on the cloth revealed his inner tension.

      ‘In what respect did you find it insular?’ Squire asked.

      ‘We don’t expect the English to understand that there are other people in the world – other poets, for instance, than Shakespeare, and other film actors than Errol Flynn.’

      The croissants were not good, tasting too oily. Squire wiped his fingers on his napkin and said, ‘Surely you fellows haven’t been locked behind your frontiers for so long, Mr Camaion, that you have forgotten that Errol Flynn was Tasmanian, not English? Talking of people being locked in, I hear that your President Ceaucescu has finally allowed Peter Doma to leave his native land. Is that so? Wasn’t Doma persecuted because he complained about the police system in Romania?’

      ‘Doma! Doma was a client of propaganda hostile to our country!’

      ‘I see. Won’t there be more hostility to your country now that you have shown how you persecute an individual, and even his dog, if he happens to disagree with the way things are run? Aren’t I right in believing that Doma was even attacked because his wife was Jewish?’

      Camaion’s eyes were very round. ‘How dare you? Isn’t anti-Semitism rampant in the United Kingdom?’

      ‘It may exist, lingeringly, I suppose. It certainly isn’t official policy.’

      The Romanian wiped angrily at his face and rose, flinging his napkin at the table. ‘More insular and anti-internationalist remarks, just as one might expect!’ He marched from the room.

      Maria Frenza said – in Italian, but Squire understood the remark – ‘Fortunately the foreign gentleman had finished his meal before walking off.’

      An uncomfortable silence fell at the table. Squire poured himself another cup of coffee.

      D’Exiteuil said, with forced brightness, ‘We shan’t have a conference left if we start an international slanging match.’

      ‘He made an error,’ Squire said. ‘Two in fact. Flynn was one. And I don’t believe I mentioned Shakespeare in my speech. The Russian did that.’

      ‘Well, you know, Tom, he’s after all only an unimportant critic in a small department in the university in Bucharest, he doesn’t carry much weight. You don’t have to eat him.’

      ‘Your complaint is mine, Jacques. He’s only an unimportant critic in a small department in Bucharest University. Had he been Arthur Koestler, let’s say, I would have deferred to him. But Koestler would not have spoken as this man did.’

      ‘All the same, you mustn’t exactly blame him, you know, for the sins of his government. We’d really all be in the soup if that—’

      ‘Jacques, old chum, pass me over the rolls, will you, and let me enjoy my breakfast. I had no intention of upsetting your apple-cart, and actually I am sorry I broke out as I did.’

      Not wishing anyone to see how upset he was by this episode, he retired to his bedroom until it was time to go down to the first session of the day at nine o’clock. He felt to blame over the Camaion affair. He knew that Camaion – a little man, as d’Exiteuil said – was personally piqued because Squire had ignored him at the opening ceremony, or had seemed to ignore him. As Squire now recollected, too late, he had encountered Camaion only a few months earlier at a seminar in Paris. He had forgotten the man’s face. His bad memory was at fault. In fact, during the Paris occasion, Camaion had made complimentary remarks in public concerning Squire’s work.

      At the recollection, a rare blush of shame crept to his cheeks. Some people, and by no means the most contemptible, feel slights very keenly.

      From what Squire had been told, in words that now came back clearly, Geo Camaion was quite a brave man. Moreover, Squire had said insulting things about Romania. No matter that they were true. Romania was one of the most authoritarian regimes in the Eastern bloc, yet Squire admired President Ceaucescu’s independent stand against Soviet domination. Even at an unimportant conference like this, for Romania to suffer any disgrace could always be seized on in some way by her enemies, of which she had many; or Camaion himself could find his position undermined, and perhaps a worse man set in his place.

      A few minutes of thought persuaded Squire that he should apologize to the Romanian as soon as possible.

      When he went downstairs, the foyer was already filling with delegates, many of them СКАЧАТЬ