The Magus

The next day, Nick asks Demetriades, whose nickname is “Meli,” about the German collaborator said to live in Bourani, the headland of the island on which the Salle d’Attente is located. Meli tells Nick the man’s name is Conchis, but he hardly ever visits Phraxos, which means Mitford, or his predecessor John Leverrier, could not have met him.

When Nick asks around the island about Conchis, he runs into Hermes, Conchis’s former handyman or agogiati (donkeyman, a term referencing the days when handymen transferred goods by horse or donkey). Nick learns that the tale of Conchis being a German collaborator is false. The truth is that during the German occupation of Phraxos, Conchis refused to execute a group of Greek resistance fighters.

Later, Nick discovers among Leverrier’s old papers incontrovertible proof that the man regularly met Conchis, proving the story of Conchis’s absence is a lie. Intrigued, Nick intensifies his search for Conchis. He also writes to Alison that he has found the “waiting-room” mentioned by Mitford.

Nick revisits Bourani in the hope of meeting Conchis. In the isolated landscape, Nick has an erotic dream about Alison, and masturbates to her memory. Afterward, he walks to the house, seeing clear signs of habitation. Suddenly, Conchis appears in the doorway.

Conchis, a tanned stocky man in his 60s or 70s, makes it clear he was expecting Nick to visit. He asks Nick to sit for tea, introducing him to his housekeeper, Maria, a tiny old woman. Conchis makes a point of telling Nick that he lives by himself in Phraxos. Throughout the conversation, Conchis behaves strangely, leaving Nick alone for a while to goes inside to play music. When Conchis returns, he offers to show Nick his “domaine” or grounds, comparing himself to Prospero, the magician-hero of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

Conchis’s garden contains a frightening sculpture of an erect Priapus, the god of male fertility. Conchis mysteriously says that he is very excited for Nick, an “elect” who has been “chosen” to discover new things. John Leverrier was similar, and “felt chosen by God” (80). As Nick prepares to leave, Conchis makes two requests of him: Nick is not to reveal their meeting to anyone, and must come stay with Conchis on the coming weekend. Nick agrees, his interest piqued by Conchis’s mysterious utterances.

On his way out of Conchis’s house, Nick discovers a woman’s old-fashioned silk glove on the beach. He wonders if the glove belongs to Conchis’s mistress, wife, or daughter. Perhaps, this lady was hiding in the house during Nick’s visit. He wonders why Conchis told him he lived alone.

Back at the school, Nick spends many hours contemplating Conchis’s strangeness. He worries about Conchis’s invitation being a sexual advance. However, in the end, Nick decides to go to Conchis’s house the coming weekend.

Nick arrives at the Waiting Room to find Conchis behaving in a more measured fashion. He asks Nick polite questions about his life and gives Nick a tour of his house, which is filled with expensive books and paintings, including an original by Modigliani. However, Conchis’s library does not include a single novel, as Conchis believes novels are a dead artform.

Conchis also shows Nick a large, framed photo of a beautiful girl in an Edwardian dress. According to Conchis, the girl in the picture is his English fiancée, Lily Montgomery, who died young. Conchis never got engaged or married after Lily. He wonders if Nick has a woman in his life. Nick almost brings up Alison, but then requests Conchis not to ask him questions, just as Conchis had requested of him.

Later, Conchis tells Nick that he is a psychic. After the odd pronouncement, he tells Nick he will meet him for dinner in half an hour.

Waiting for dinnertime, Nick looks at the books in the guest room, one of which is a volume of photos of the female breast, some in extreme close-up. Nick finds it too clinical to be erotic.

He reflects on Conchis’s contradictions: The man is at once old-fashioned (e.g., the devotion to the dead fiancée) and bizarre (e.g., the references to his psychic abilities). Nick can tell something odd is afoot with Conchis, but instead of being scared, Nick feels exhilarated, seized by the feeling that something fresh is about to begin.

Nick arrives at the music room. As he waits for Conchis, he looks around at the artworks, curios, and books in the cabinets lining the walls. Many of the sculptures and paintings are extremely risqué, including a timepiece with a naked cupid at its center, his phallus one of the hands of the clock. Conchis joins Nick. Over drinks, Conchis makes more extraordinary pronouncements, such as that he has lived in many centuries. Nick cannot tell if Conchis is joking or delusional.

After dinner on the terrace, Conchis tells Nick that Nick’s presence in Bourani is not an accident, but an inevitable occurrence, as was Conchis’s arrival at his house. The moment Conchis first saw the Bourani house on April 18, 1928, he knew he had to live there, as it was a place where his past merged with his future. Life is full of such liminal, fulcrum-like moments, but only a few “elect” can recognize them. To Nick’s astonishment, Conchis calls him one of the elect, a psychic. Nick suddenly wishes Alison was around to protect him from the strangeness of Conchis and the island.

Conchis now tells Nick the story of his life. His father was an English businessman while his mother was Greek, sent to live with relatives in England after her parents died in an earthquake. Conchis was deeply influenced by his mother, under whose encouragement he learnt how to play the piano and harpsichord.

It was around this time that Lily’s family moved next to their house in the neighborhood of St. John’s Wood. Soon, Conchis and Lily fell in love, promising marriage to each other by the time Conchis was 17 and Lily 16. Conchis had just enrolled at the Royal College of Music when the Great War (World War I) broke out. Though Conchis did not have much of an interest in battle, he joined the British army to impress Lily.

Conchis resumes his tale. Soon after he joined the army, Conchis’s company was called to the front in France. At Neuve Chapelle, a French village, Conchis took part in a bloody, horrifying attack on Germany, with a barrage of artillery trained on the German trenches. The ghastly sights, sounds, and smells he witnessed made Conchis realize the futility of war.

Conchis decides to show Nick the reality of war, which is essentially a gamble on death. He brings out a pill box containing six old molars, each containing a vial of poison. If Nick rolls six on some dice, he will have to bite a tooth, the poison exploding in his mouth. Nick rolls the dice and gets a six, but does not take the poison pill. Conchis goes on to reveal that the pills were fake, and that Nick took the right decision. Conchis took the same decision in Neuve Chapelle, where he decided to desert the army and never risk his life in war again.

Returning to Neuve Chapelle, Conchis tells Nick how he pretended to be dead in a festering shell-hole to save his life. During his delirious night in the crater, Conchis dwelled in the memory of simple physical pleasures like the smell of bacon. His recall of the physical aspects of existence made Conchis sense a fundamental truth about life. Conchis goes on to recount how he pretended to be injured so medics could carry him out of the field, and later, caught a ship to England by stealing a drunk soldier’s ID.

Nick is keen to know what happened to Conchis on his return to England, but Conchis gets up from the lounge chair, saying he needs to rest. Later, when Nick is in bed, he hears a song, a marching tune from the Great War, swell from somewhere. Nick thinks the song is an elaborate joke by Conchis, and goes to his window to hear more of it. Soon, he can smell decomposing flesh. The song and smell fade after a while, leaving Nick confused.

The next day, Conchis takes Nick fishing at Petrocaravi, a small, deserted islet half a mile off Phraxos. Petrocaravi is mostly enormous slabs of rock, with underwater grottos and pools in between, packed with marine life. Conchis gets into the water and uses a line and a white cloth to catch an octopus. He tells Nick another octopus will replace the creature by that night. For Conchis, this is proof that even the octopus prefers the ideal, since the creatures keep returning to the perfect grotto despite the real risk of getting caught.

Back at Bourani, Nick goes off to the beach to read a 17th-century journal recommended by Conchis. Written on death-row by English vicar Robert Foulkes, the journal recounts his scandalous relationship with a young girl, and his murder of the child he had with her. Foulkes repents his sin, but denies the accusation that the girl was only nine when he supposedly forced her; she was in fact older, and a willing participant in the affair.

Later, Nick spots in the distance a man who is unmistakably Robert Foulkes from the description in the journal, standing next to a girl in her teens. However, by the time Nick approaches the figures, they are no longer there. Nick refuses to believe the figures were ghosts because they had looked so solid. He is sure they are part of a prank by Conchis.

Nick returns to the house for tea. He does not tell Conchis about the vision on the beach. Conchis asks Nick about the woman in his life. Nick finally mentions Alison by name. Conchis cannot understand why Nick would not commit to Alison.

That night, Conchis tells Nick that on his return to England, he lied to his parents and Lily that he had been granted a furlough for a brief visit home. By now, Lily, spurred by an awareness of mortality, returned Conchis’s ardor. She and Conchis became as physically intimate as was permissible in those times. Soon, Conchis’s supposed two-week vacation from the army came to an end and he pretended to leave for the front, actually staying at his Greek great-uncle’s house in London.

Wracked by guilt over lying to Lily, Conchis met her three weeks later and told her the truth. Lily forgave Conchis, but begged him to return to the army. When Conchis refused, Lily told him she would not marry him till he redeemed himself by performing his duty. The two young lovers parted in an impasse.

Conchis never saw Lily again, as she contracted typhus while working at a hospital a few years later, and died. As he concludes this portion of his tale, Conchis asks Nick to spend the next weekend with him too, an offer Nick accepts.

Nick waits by the window in his room that night to catch any strange happenings that may occur, like on the previous night. He hears Conchis go down the stairs, and music emanating from the music room. Nick creeps downstairs and sees a young woman with an uncanny likeness to the photo of Lily, holding a recorder. She looks at Nick and gives him a conspiratorial smile, as if telling him she knows a game is afoot and Nick must play his part in it. She leans forward and touches Nick’s lip with the tip of a brush, playfully gesturing at him to go away.

Nick returns to his room and goes to bed. Monday morning, he sets off for the school, re-entering reality, even though he feels he is now part of a grand myth.