The Magus

Back in London at his Russel Square flat, Nick feels dismayed at the cold, drab weather. He visits the flat downstairs, but finds it is now occupied by a wholly different set of young women who know nothing about Ann Taylor or Alison.

Oppressed by the memory of Alison in his current dwelling, Nick looks for another rental. Soon, he moves into an attic flat on Charlotte Street. The landlady, who lives in the basement, is called Joan Kemp and is a bohemian. Joan tells Nick that everyone calls her “Kemp.” Nick warms up to Kemp’s generosity and loquaciousness, finding these qualities a comfort in his troubled state.

Nick spends August in a fog of despair, unable to make sense of the events of the last year. His one anchor is investigating Lily and Conchis, hoping to find clues. He discovers that the newspaper cuttings of Alison’s death were fake. Nick can find no trace of De Deukans or Lily’s mother, but does confirm that the man who played Wimmel is a real actor, who was also part of the Polish resistance in the war.

As Nick conducts his elaborate investigations, he is aware that he is playing yet another role in Conchis’s masque, that of the detective or the hunter. He has nearly abandoned the enterprise when one of his leads suddenly proves fruitful.

Based on Conchis’s story about living next to Lily Montgomery as a child, Nick visits St. John’s Wood, wholly expecting the story to be concocted. However, the search leads him to Lily de Seitas, a woman in her fifties, whose maiden name was Montgomery.

Lily tells Nick that his description of Conchis corresponds to the music teacher coaching her and her older sister, Rose. The sisters had dubbed the man “Mr. Rat.” Rose died of typhoid when Lily was still young, the great tragedy of her life. Lily’s husband died a few years ago, leaving her with their only child, Benjie, a young boy.

The conversation wraps up and Nick leaves, stopping at a nearby bar for a drink. The bartender casually mentions Lily’s twin daughters. Recognizing that the woman hid the truth from him, Nick runs out of the bar.

Back in Lily’s house, Nick demands to know what she has been hiding. Lily drops all pretense and reveals the truth. The bits about growing up with a sister called Rose, learning piano and harpsichord with Mr. Rat, and Benjie being her son are facts. However, Conchis is not Mr. Rat, but someone she met in 1928, the year she moved to Phraxos with her wealthy, well-connected husband. Lily and Rose—her daughters, so named after their mother and deceased aunt—were born in 1929.

Though the family moved back to England, they kept in touch with Conchis, returning often to Greece to participate in his experimental theater. It was the older Lily who used her connections with the British Council to get Nick the job at Phraxos, determining he was a worthy subject. She supplied Conchis with Nick’s background information so he could plan the masque around Nick. What’s more, Lily has met Alison, and is good friends with her. However, she cannot reveal Alison’s location to Nick.

An angry Nick tells Lily that she has led to the “corruption” of her daughters, since they have been having performative sex as part of Conchis’s so-called theater. Lily tells Nick she knows all about the sexual aspect of the performance, having played such roles herself. For Lily and Conchis, lust and love were different. Sexual infidelity was not a great taboo, what was worse was lying to one’s loved one. Lily and her husband always kept the commandment that they would be honest with each other, which is why her husband always knew she had an intimate relationship with Conchis. The couple shared another commandment, but Lily will reveal it to Nick in time. Frustrated by Lily’s cryptic utterances, Nick leaves her house.

A few days later, Nick receives a lunch invite from Mitford. Unlike Leverrier, Mitford does reveal his experiences at Bourani, mentioning how the man’s goddaughters played elaborate pranks on him, including leaving him naked on a beach. Seeking revenge, Mitford wrote a letter to the authorities, warning them of the communist sympathies of Conchis and his associates.

Mitford thinks Conchis voyeuristically set him up with his goddaughters because he cannot himself perform sexually. Nick is surprised that he dislikes Mitford’s crude interpretation of Conchis’s motives. He says goodbye to the man, loathing his affected British military manner. Years later, Nick would learn Mitford’s manner seemed affected because it was: Mitford had never been in the army; he impersonated an army veteran to get jobs.

An American man called John Briggs calls Nick, asking for a meeting. It turns out Briggs has been offered the English teacher’s job at Lord Byron school. The timing of Briggs’s offer seems uncanny to Nick; he is sure Lily de Seitas wants to test Nick’s promise to keep Conchis’s masques a secret. Though Nick is tempted to tell Briggs the truth about Phraxos, he decides against it.

Lily de Seitas reaches out to Nick again, and they meet at the Victoria and Albert Museum. She gives Nick a ceramic plate with a pastoral scene from China, telling him she bought it with Alison.

Nick cannot understand the meaning of the gift, so Lily explains that the plate will remind him how to handle fragile objects (signifying Alison). Lily tells Nick that Alison will soon reach out to him. Nick must win her back. Lily also tells Nick the second commandment she and her husband kept (the rule itself is revealed in the next chapter).

Nick spends his days waiting for Alison, as Lily suggested. Bored, he often walks through Soho and Chelsea, areas bustling with young, attractive women. It is as if Nick wants to prove to the invisible eyes watching him that he can be faithful to Alison despite overwhelming temptation.

Nick does strike up a friendship with Jojo, a working-class art student from Glasgow, believing Jojo’s no-fuss appearance and boisterous manner will keep his chastity safe. He even pays Jojo £4 a week for her companionship, driving her back to her faraway quarters every night. However, Jojo makes a pass at Nick, confessing that she is only 17 years old and has fallen in love with him. Nick refuses, though he makes sure to let Jojo down gently, recalling the commandment to which Lily had alluded in the previous chapter: “Thou shalt not inflict unnecessary pain” (666).

Jojo is gone by the time Nick wakes up. He is seized by a feeling of disgust at himself, having hurt young and vulnerable Jojo “as if [he] had kicked a starving mongrel in its poor, thin ribs” (667). He decides he must leave London, perhaps for South America.

Nick goes downstairs to tell Kemp about ending his lease. She berates him for leading Jojo on, and then abandoning her. Moving to another country may relieve Nick from his guilt, but Jojo will be on the streets, perhaps forced into sex work.

An angry Nick goes upstairs and begins to pack. The ceramic plate given by Lily breaks, as if an omen. Nick starts to cry, holding the pieces. Kemp comes to his room and comforts him. Nick decides to stay in London and keep waiting for Alison.

Ten days later, Kemp and Nick go to a tea-pavilion. As Kemp excuses herself to visit the restroom, Nick suddenly sees Alison standing opposite him. He realizes Kemp brought him there to meet Alison. Alison begins to walk away, and Nick gives chase; she finally stops at an empty bench. Nick and Alison sit at opposite ends of the bench.

When Alison stays quiet, Nick blurts out that he forgives her for fooling him, faking her own death, and making him wait the last three months. The only thing he wants is to know about is her connection to Conchis, and how she knows Kemp. Alison tells Nick that she has no answers for him. She only wanted to meet to let Nick know that she is moving to Australia for good.

As Alison gets up from the bench, Nick follows her. They stop again, Nick suspecting Alison is still playing a game with him under Conchis’s directions. He tells Alison that despite the fact that they’re being surveilled, Nick will tell her the truth: One, he cannot promise her financial security; two, he cannot even promise her fidelity, because if Lily/Julie were to reappear, he is unsure of what he may do; three, as Alison had noted in Athens, he cannot offer her sexual satisfaction; but four, he can promise her that he has begun to understand that he and Alison love each other. Alison tells him she is returning to Australia anyway. Nick walks away from her.

This time, Alison runs after him, shouting for him to stop. Suddenly angry, Nick tells Alison that she is still playing a game with him. Alison replies that she is playing no game; she only wanted to test if he has changed, and unfortunately, he has not. Nick slaps Alison. When Alison says she hates him, Nick tells her that she cannot hate someone as abject as him, “Who’ll never be more than half a human being without you” (680).

The narrative leaves the past tense at this moment, noting that time will loop in this moment, Nick and Alison on the verge of a decision as a blackbird continues to sing in the trees.