Sanders turned and studied Max's face, with its bright shortsighted eyes below the domed head. The element of guile, if any, in this last remark was hard to assess. For some time Sanders had suspected that Max had known all along that Suzanne would run away into the forest after seeing Sanders, and that his own pointless search among the hill settlements had been a deliberate means of making sure that no one stopped her. During their time in Port Matarre Max rarely referred to Suzanne, although his wife by now would be frozen like an icon somewhere within the crystal forest. Yet Max's last reference to the lepers, unless intended to provoke him into returning to the forest suggested that in fact Max had no idea of the significance of the forest for Suzanne and Sanders, that for both of them the only final resolution of the imbalance within their minds, their inclination toward the dark side of the equinox, could be found within that crystal world.

"Two cases of leprosy? I'm not interested in the least." Before Max could speak Sanders went on: "Frankly, Max, I'm not sure whether I'm still qualified to help you."

"What? Of course you are."

"In absolute terms. It seems to me, Max, that the whole profession of medicine may have been superseded.-I don't think the simple distinction between life and death has much meaning now. Rather than try to cure those patients you should put them into a launch and send them up-river to Mont Royal."

Max stood up. He made a gesture of helplessness, and then said cheerfully: "I'll come back tomorrow. Keep an eye on yourself."

When he had gone Sanders completed his letter, adding a final paragraph and farewell. Sealing it into a fresh envelope, he addressed it to Derain and propped it against the inkwell. He then took out his checkbook and signed one of the checks. He slipped these into a second envelope on which he wrote Louise's name.

As he stood up, buttoning his jacket, he noticed Louise and Max talking in the street outside the hotel. Recently he had often seen them together, in the foyer of the hotel or at the door of the restaurant. He waited until their conversation ended and then went down to the foyer.

At the desk he paid the previous week's bills for himself and Louise, and settled their accounts for a further fortnight. After exchanging a few pleasantries with the Portuguese owner, Sanders went out for his usual pre-lunch stroll.

Usually his walk took him down to the river. He strolled through the deserted arcades, noticing, as he did each morning, the strange contrasts between light and shadow despite the apparent absence of direct sunlight in Port Matarre. At the corner, opposite the police prefecture, he flexed his injured arm for the last time against one of the pillars. Somewhere in the crystalline streets of Mont Royal were the missing fragments of himself, living on in their own prismatic medium.

Thinking of Captain Radek and of Suzanne Clair, Sanders reached the waterfront and walked down along the deserted jetties. Almost all the native boats had gone, and the settlements on the other side of the river had been abandoned.

One craft, however, as usual still patrolled the empty waterfront. Three hundred yards away Sanders could see the red-and-yellow speedboat in which he and Louise had first made their journey to Mont Royal. The tall figure of Aragon stood at the helm, letting the boat drift on the tide. Every morning he would watch Sanders walk by, but the two men never spoke to one another.

Sanders walked toward him, feeling the wallet in his jacket. As he reached Aragon the latter waved to him, then started his motor and moved off. Puzzled by this, Sanders walked on, and then saw that Aragon was taking the craft down-river to the point of the bank where the crystallized body of Matthieu had been cast up two months earlier.

Sanders caught up with the boat, and then walked down the bank toward it. For a moment the two men regarded each other.

"A fine boat you have there, Captain," Sanders said at last, repeating the phrase he had first used to Aragon.

Half an hour later, as they moved off up-river, Sanders leaned back in his seat when they passed the central wharves. In the choppy water the spray broke unevenly, the fallen rainbows carried away in the dark wake behind them. In the street between the arcades an old Negro was standing in the dust with a white shield in his hand, waiting for the boat to go past. On the police jetty Louise Peret stood next to Max Clair. Her eyes hidden by the sunglasses, she watched Sanders without waving as the boat sped on up the deserted river.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

J.G. Ballard, born in 1930 in Shanghai and educated at Cambridge University, is widely known for his imagination, intelligent, and powerful science fiction novels and short story collections, including _The Drowned World_, _High-Rise_, and _The Wind From Nowhere_. He is the author of _Empire of the Sun_, the basis for the Steven Spielberg film of the same name. J.G. Ballard's most recent book is _Super-Cannes_, published in 2000.