Back in No Time. Brion Gysin

married the one who had blue eyes and red hair, but it was not much of a romance, for he was soon recalled and sent to France where he was killed before he ever could see the small, quiet son she bore him.

      When my grandfather bought the island of Herm he wished to turn it into an earthly paradise, and decided to import a number of exotic plants, birds, and animals. He felt that Herm would be capable of sustaining flamingos as well as sparrows or starlings, and the soft, damp climate encouraged him in the idea. He planted several acres of palms and cacti, camelia bushes which throve, hibiscus and mangoes which did not, fig trees and pines, cedar of Lebanon, an avenue of eucalyptus leading to the house, and a kraal of thorn bushes which he announced was to be for the lions.

      Several weeks later a half-dozen mangy lords of the jungle were delivered. They had been bought from a German menagerie and they staggered onto dry land looking more than a little seasick, overcome as much by the smell of the terrified fishermen and their smacks, as from the journey up the cliffside by means of tackles.

      These beasts were followed by an assortment of wildlife which Grandfather thought suitable. There were zebras, several ostriches, a family of kangaroos, various sorts of horned and hoofed things considered decorative and not dangerous. There was also an assortment of beautiful birds which were obtained at great expense. These last were no sooner set free at Grandfather’s orders, than they left for some hopeless, unplanned migratory journey and were seen no more. It was decided that the lions would be happier if they were allowed to roam at large on the island of Jethou, which is little more than an immense rock lying across a narrow channel from Herm. From time to time they were thrown quartered lambs from a boat while Grandfather “studied” them through his glasses from the opposite shore. They continued to live there in a state of nature until the island was occupied by Australian troops during the war.

      Grandfather was a stern man who allowed no one to question his authority. If things turned out badly he was always certain that it was the fault of those who had not carried out his orders properly. Nevertheless, in a far corner of the island, a mile or two from his house, there stood the evidence of one tragedy for which he did feel responsible. Grandfather went to his grave feeling that he had the blood of three Japanese on his hands, and this is how it happened.

      Grandfather’s good friend, Lord de Haviland, who lived in Guernsey, had spent much of his youth traveling in the Orient, collecting things which had to be numbered, knocked down, and crated to be carried off home. In the course of his travels, his fancy had been struck by a small Chinese temple which he had bought on the spot. He had ordered it dismantled and brought to Guernsey, where it ornamented a corner of his garden which was sufficiently damp to grow a thicket of bamboo. Grandfather had seen it there and admired it extremely. He not only admired the object itself, but he had an intense admiration for his old friend’s manner of doing things. He wanted the temple for his island of Herm, and was even preparing to send workmen to take it in Lord de Haviland’s absence but gave up the idea when the latter, having got wind of the plot, suggested an alternative.

      He told Grandfather that his son, who was at that time an undersecretary in the British legation in Tokyo, might find a suitable temple there which could be sent back to Herm. After an exchange of letters, the younger De Haviland answered that he could not find a temple, but that he knew of a beautiful small house belonging to a noble Japanese family which was for sale. Grandfather had become most impatient, and he decided at once to send his secretary to Japan with the most explicit instructions that the house was to be brought to Herm exactly as it stood when he first saw it. He particularly stressed the fact that he wanted everything inside the house to be brought along, for he was anxious that his Japanese house should be more complete than the De Haviland temple in Guernsey. The secretary was a German, and from his long training with Grandfather, who meant exactly what he said, was accustomed to unquestioning obedience.

      Some six months later the house arrived in several hundred numbered crates. Three Japanese came with it: a woman and two men. Grandfather at first surmised that the men had come to supervise the reconstruction, but thought it a little strange that a woman should have come, too, until it occurred to him that she was there to arrange the interior. He was most pleased at the unexpected foresight of his agent, and was preparing to compliment him when he appeared to give his account.

      The secretary stated simply that he did not know who these people were, but that they had been in the house at the time he first saw it, and he had brought them along in an attempt to fulfill his orders to the letter. The Japanese had been slightly dazed at the rapidity with which their home had been dismantled, but as their books, clothes, cooking utensils, and bed covers were all rapidly put in crates, they had followed him blindly to the boat. “No discretion,” muttered Grandfather, and called the Japanese in order to question them. They could not be questioned. They spoke no European language and no one on the island of Herm spoke a word of Japanese. Grandfather sent for an interpreter, but before one could be brought the house had been reassembled and it was too late. The two gentlemen had killed themselves in what grandfather reported to have been a most untidy way, and the lady had jumped off a cliff into the channel, very probably because there was no volcano handy.

      The reason for their behavior was never very accurately determined. The most logical explanation seemed to be that the secretary had entered the house at a moment of great domestic tension. Perhaps one of the men was the lady’s husband, and had come in at a moment when she was making flower arrangements with the stranger, or was immersed in the etiquette of the tea ceremony. The act of violence which would have followed this discovery had been arrested by the entrance of Grandfather’s agent. The participants in this drama had undoubtedly been so horrified by the abrupt manner in which he took over their house and their fate, that the crime of passion which should have followed immediately was postponed, and existed in a state of suspension during their journey halfway across the world. Once the house was reassembled the charm was broken and the action completed. Grandfather felt somehow responsible.

      On fine days he used to walk to the Japanese house and tap the oiled paper walls reflectively, or blow the dust off the pretty books which he could not read. Sometimes he stroked the curious little lacquer rosettes which decorated the furniture. He had been told that these were the strange coat of arms of the former owner, and this made him sad and respectful, for he felt that such things should not happen to “his sort of people.” For Grandfather, “his sort of people” constituted the one truly international class, and he would have felt more at home with a Hottentot if that Hottentot were a chief than he would with just any Frenchman or German.

      In the late autumn of 1915, when the island of Herm was taken away from him, the British government stationed Australian troops on the island. During several weeks they amused themselves by killing all the remaining birds with slingshots and running the ostriches to death. One day Grandfather decided to walk to the Japanese house, for he felt that he would be more at home there than in the company of these strange people who had been quartered on him. When he came within sight of the pretty little oriental garden with which he had surrounded the house, he stopped frozen with horror. Everything had been devastated; everything destroyed.

      He turned back, filled with rage, intending to lodge a protest with the commanding officer. From some distance away he heard one of the old gardeners shouting to him. “Highness, the soldiers have taken the little boat and gone to Jethou with their guns,” he cried. Grandfather hurried to his own room where he kept an old rifle. Carrying it under his arm he rushed toward the cliff from which he had always “studied” his lions. On that cold, damp day he could see the soldiers’ Girl-Guide hats showing over the tops of some large boulders. They were stumbling and falling over the rocks as they stalked the lions; his lions. Grandfather let loose a volley.

      The following day he left for Guernsey in spite of all the submarines in the Channel, and he never saw Herm again.

Time and Brother Griphen

      The school I went to as a child had an air of the romantic period of Neo-Gothic architecture, which flourished at a time when it was fashionable to build false ruins. The dormitories, halls, classrooms, refectories, chapel, and recreation hall formed a straggling block of ivy-covered buildings attached to an abbey and a monastery by a series of long corridors and vaulted, echoing halls. I still think