Word: nessim
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Ready? In the late 1930s, Justine (Anouk Aimée), the sensual wife of an Egyptian banker named Nessim (John Vernon), had been yearning after the aloof British diplomat Pursewarden (Dirk Bogarde), although she had to content herself with the favors of Darley (Michael York), a young writer and lover of a belly dancer named Melissa (Anna Karina). Suddenly Justine and Nessim are revealed as Coptic Christians involved in smuggling guns to Palestine so that the Jews can fight the British. Pursewarden, who knows of their treachery, keeps silent, apparently out of love for Justine. Melissa meanwhile goes...
...ravening women: handsome, black-browed Justine, a nymphomaniac with a neurotic need of intrigue; large-eyed, blonde Clea, who, when stripped, looks as "naked and slender as an Easter lily"; and blind Liza, still dotty with love for her suicide brother Pursewarden. Here, too, are his strangely ineffectual men: Nessim, the Coptic millionaire, in trouble both with his wife Justine and the British government; Dr. Balthazar, the homosexual cabalist; Mountolive, the stiff-necked British ambassador; and Darley, the Irish schoolteacher, who tries to put together the carnal jigsaw puzzle of his friends...
...Stockholm a much more impressive haul from China sat in a customs shed. It was a treasure hoard picked up in Peking by Nils Nessim, 43, a Swedish carpet dealer and importer. On a previous trip to Red China last year he had bought only modern carpets, ivory and porcelain. This time, taken down winding Peking streets to out-of-the-way antique shops, Nessim said he had stumbled onto a marvelous bronze figure of a six-armed, three-faced god crowned with a headdress of flames, excitedly asked if he might buy it. Told that he might, Nessim realized...
...Nessim insists that he got his collection out through some bureaucratic error, but his Chinese export permit looked official enough. Presumably the Chinese Reds agreed to sell some of the family heirlooms simply because they needed the money for foreign exchange...
...Author Durrell's weaknesses would still be strengths in most other novelists, and readers of Mountolive will be sharply aware that they are encountering an acute intelligence pursuing a grand design. The book ends with a rise of tension as Nessim's brother, a naive savage armed with a bullwhip and a Messianic impulse, is brutally slain. Faithful to his belief that "truth is what most contradicts itself," Author Durrell fails to be explicit about the murderer. It may be Nessim, Justine, or even agents of King Farouk's lethargic government. Presumably, this cliffhanger conclusion will...