The Watched

IV

Jacj Parren and his wife were staying in an hotel in Tumo Town, and the next morning Jenessa went round to see them. Ordier left with her, and they walked together as far as his car. Their embrace in the street was cool for the benefit of passers-by; it was no reflection of the night they had passed together, which had been more than usually passionate. Ordier drove slowly back to his house, more reluctant than he could remember to succumb to the temptations of the cell in the folly wall, but at the same time more intrigued than ever about what he might see. The conversation over dinner had done that for him. It had reminded him of the guilty associations with Jenessa, both as a sexual partner and as someone who had a genuine scientific

interest in the Qataari, that going to the folly awoke in him. At the start he had made the excuse to himself that what he saw was so insignificant, so fragmentary, that it was irrelevant. But his knowledge of the Qataari had grown, and with it the secret… and a tacit bond had been tied: to speak of the Qataari would be to betray a trust he had created in his own mind. As he parked the car and walked up to the house, Ordier added further justification to his silence by reminding himself of how much he had disliked Parren and his wife. He knew that prolonged exposure to the seductive laziness of Tumoit life, and to the laxity of the ways of the Archipelago in general, would change Parren in the end, but until then he would be an abrasive influence on Jenessa. She would seek the Qataari more eagerly, renewing her own interest in their affairs. The house was stuffy from being closed for the night, and Ordier walked around the rooms, opening the windows, throwing back the shutters. There was a light breeze, and in the garden that he had neglected all summer the overgrown flowers and shrubs were waving gently. He stared at them, trying to make up his mind. He knew that the dilemma was one of his own making, and could be resolved by the simple decision never to go up to the folly again; he could ignore the Qataari, could continue with his life as it had been until the beginning of this summer. But the conversation the evening before had heightened his awareness of the Qataari, reminded him of the special curiosities they aroused. It was not for nothing that the romantic and erotic impulses of the great composers, writers, and artists had been stimulated by the Qataari, that the legends and daydreams persisted, that the societies of the north had been so thoroughly permeated by the enigma that there was hardly a graffito that did not reflect it, nor a pornographic fiction that did not perpetuate it. Voluntary abstention from his obsession was an agony to Ordier. He distracted himself for a time by taking a swim in his pool, and then later by opening one of the chests he had had sent from the mainland and setting the books on shelves in his study, but by midday the curiosity was like a nagging hunger, and he found his binoculars and walked up the ridge to the folly.