Read Online Turning Back the Sun by Colin Thubron - Free Book Online Page B

that.”
    “Well, they did—”
    Felicie broke in, “Ivar thinks the savages are “racially inferior.” “ Her head wobbled like a flower. “Do
you?”
    Rayner laughed (it seemed the only thing to do). “Genetics isn”t my subject.” But when he thought about the natives, he felt a confused disquiet. Between them and the whites there seemed to lie some absolute divide, as ifthey inhabited another stratum of time. He said, “I suppose they”re inferior when they”ve had to adapt to our way. We”d be, if we had to adapt to theirs.”
    He did not want to talk about it. Through a window behind Ivar”s back he saw that the moon had risen out of the hills. He wrenched himself to his feet and walked out onto the terrace. The wine had gone to his head. In front of him only the lake and the moon seemed to exist in the simplifying night. He even fancied that this was where the moon came from, out of the lake. He was reminded of the seacoast near the capital on other summer nights, of Miriam, of phosphorus water in the rock pools. The restaurants in the capital, he thought, did not have to strain for effect as this one did, with its pretentious chandeliers and fake leather upholstery.
    Ivar had followed him out. “Felicie wasn”t joking,” he said. “I do think that. These people are radically different. You only have to look at the shape of their heads to see it. There simply isn”t enough room for a developed neocortex.”
    Rayner chilled. Ivar, he”d noticed, was reading a manual called
Leadership Effectiveness.
He seemed to be mentally arming himself. To Ivar, knowledge must always have a purpose—Rayner remembered this from their schooldays. Everything was used, directed to an end. Nothing existed simply for itself.
    Rayner said, “It”s not as simple as that.”
    Ivar answered quite affectionately, “You always did complicate things.” He dropped his cigarette stub over the verandah. “But just look at Felicie”s head shape, for example. That”s the brain case of a sheep.”
    “Are you joking?”
    “Not in the least.” But he laughed. “This is the last holiday she and I take together. She”s an exceptionally pretty woman, don”t you think, but there”s too much I dislike in her, and I”ve no doubt she”d say the same about me.”
    “There”s something desperate about her.”
    “I”ll keep an eye on her after we”ve split up.”
    Rayner watched Ivar”s face in the moonlight: the putty-like face in which nothing was memorable, except the bland balance of the whole. Yes, Ivar would keep an eye on Felicie. Rayner”s childhood memories of him were all of a premature adult, mocking a little, but kindly within limits: a man to whom cruelty would be a waste of energy.
    He went on gazing at the moonstruck lake. His head was clearing, but not happily. If he had not known Ivar in childhood, he thought, they could never have become friends. Yet sometimes he felt irritated at his own inability to embrace life as Ivar did. Everything seemed to grate on him harder than on others—on these robust townspeople drinking and dancing behind him, their exile forgotten. Ivar and the town were right for one another, he thought. They were all ruled by a merciless common sense: whether in accepting a theory about the savages” inferiority (one of God”s slips, they would say) or the lot of the pathetic Felicie.
    “Zoë will help her,” Rayner said. “I think she relies on Zoë.”
    “Yes, she probably does.” Ivar turned quiet. “But you can”t rely on Zoë except in bursts.” He took Rayner”s arm, asserting their old friendship, its primacy over any later ones. “I”ve known Zoë several years, and she”s very self-willed, complex…. She”s a solitary.”
    Perhaps Ivar was warning him against falling in love. But in some way, Rayner thought, Zoë had offended him.
    “Don”t misunderstand me,” he went on. “She”s good looking, she”s intelligent…. On a six-day holiday she”ll be