Judith by Nicholas Mosley Page A

his skull like the flames around witches?
    He said ‘Do you know the story about D’Annunzio?’
    I said ‘No.’
    He said ‘D’Annunzio had the reputation of being able to go to bed with any woman he liked. Then one day some woman got the idea of being the first one ever to turn down D’Annunzio; so after that every woman wanted to be like her, and poor D’Annunzio couldn’t get to bed with anyone at all.’
    I said ‘Is that true?’
    He said ‘It might be.’
    I thought – Oliver is the only person who has made me feel inadequate?
    He stood looking out of the window. I thought – But he hasbeen doing this sort of thing for so long, that it is impossible even for himself to tell whether or not he is acting.
    It seemed I should say – Still, I can’t go to bed with you!
    He said ‘Take these.’
    He had taken from his pocket a bunch of keys which he held out in front of him as if he were a water-diviner. We watched them: his hand was steady: the keys did not swing.
    I said ‘What are they?’
    He said ‘They’re the keys of the new flat I’ve just moved into. I’d like someone to have a spare pair. I’m always losing my own.’
    I thought – This is really very clever.
    I said ‘All right.’ I took the keys.
    He said ‘And promise to ring me in the morning. Will you? The number is on the keys.’
    I looked at the keys and there was a label with a telephone number and an address on it. I thought – But is it not odd to have an address on a bunch of keys?
    I said ‘All right.’
    He said ‘You have promised.’
    I said ‘Yes.’
    I thought – But if he does not know himself whether he is or is not acting, does this or does this not mean that he is in touch with something beyond this?
    Now what about those spiral staircases going up or down: the windows one occasionally passes through when one waves and says – Coo-ee?
    There are coincidences. But are the staircases going up (to something beyond) or down (towards rock bottom): or are both processes going on at the same time, so that when one sees another’s face at a window this might mean – either this or that is up or down, so what is the difference?
    I was driven back towards the hostel by the chauffeur in the car: Oliver had said he wanted to walk. I got out of the car at Victoria Station. I could not think of any story to invent if there were a scene on the steps of the hostel.
    Upstairs I found that someone had been in my room; my drawers had been turned out; money had been taken. It was likely that this had been done either by, or with the knowledge of, Krishna; he was the only person except myself who had a key to the room. His revolutionary party was always short of money: Lenin, he had often explained to me, had encouraged the robbing of banks to obtain funds for his revolution.
    So I went down to the basement and found him and his friends perched like conspirators or chickens against the walls and I thought this would be quite a good time to have a quarrel. At first he said he knew nothing about the money and then he said what good did I do with my money anyway? So we had a fight and I tore down some of the posters and I said that if he was a revolutionary why didn’t he go out and fight; and so on. I said he and his friends were indistinguishable from very rich capitalists in that they sat around in a vacuum so that people were drawn in just by nothing happening.
    I slept in my room on the top floor with the bits and pieces of my past life scattered about on the ground. I thought sooner or later Krishna would come up and we would make love; and then everything would be just the same as before; and I could not make out if I wanted this, or could not bear it, or both. I thought – Well this is some sort of despair, or giving up, isn’t it? I sometimes imagined, when I talked to myself like