Tales of Freedom (3 page)

Pinprop nodded.

‘Doesn’t that surprise you?’ the Man asked, a little baffled. ‘Isn’t it a little hair-raising?’

Pinprop was still.

‘That’s alright then. You’ve probably murdered someone yourself. Anyway, I killed him. It wasn’t particularly difficult. I simply smashed his head with a hammer.’

The Man laughed. It was long and perfectly normal laughter. He fell silent. Then:

‘After that it was the asylum. And then running. And then you.’

Five

THERE WAS A
long silence, during which the Man studied Pinprop. Then he looked around him, at the clearing, the woods, the sky. He walked round the immobile Pinprop.

‘How strange!’ he said. ‘I’ve been talking to myself all this time. I’m not even dreaming. What a bad impression you must have of me. Do you have a bad impression of me?’

Pinprop remained immobile.

‘Do you?’

Pinprop didn’t move.

The Man proceeded to shake Pinprop, who did not wake. Then he kicked Pinprop.

‘Are you dead or alive?’

Pinprop groaned sleepily, and nodded.

‘This is driving me mad,’ the Man cried.

He kicked Pinprop a few more times. Pinprop sneezed, but remained still.

‘Not again, oh no, not again,’ the Man shouted.

Striding about the clearing, stamping his feet, and pulling his hair, he worked
himself
into a frenzy. Then he suddenly stopped. A weird calm came over him.

‘Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. It won’t be my fault, yes,’ he said.

Then he laughed, looked excitedly about the clearing, ran off into the woods, and soon came back with a thick tree-branch in his hand.

Six

AS THE MAN
got to the middle of the clearing Pinprop yawned, stretched, looked up at him, and said:

‘Oh, hello. You’ve recovered, have you?’

The Man stuttered, at a loss.

‘Good,’ said Pinprop. ‘Definitely good.’

‘Ah, yes,’ replied the Man, perplexed.

‘You do look a bit agitated,’ said Pinprop, pointedly. ‘Are you alright?’

‘Yes, indeed,’ the Man answered, looking awkwardly at the thick piece of wood in his hands, which he dropped. ‘Em, I was just going to make a fire. It is a bit cold.’

‘Good,’ said Pinprop. ‘Definitely so.’

There was a brief silence.

‘You mean you were really asleep all that time?’ the Man asked.

‘As asleep as sleep is possible,’ Pinprop replied, nonchalantly. ‘That is if you take into consideration the amount of sleep that is not possible. Why?’

‘Well, you see, I was under the impression that you were dumb.’

‘Dumb?’ said Pinprop, laughing. ‘I’ve been called many things but not dumb.’

‘Well, I was talking to you.’

‘Oh. What about?’

Flustered, the Man said:

‘About life, my job, my wife and all that.’

‘You mean boredom, of course.’

‘Yes, boredom.’

‘A profound subject boredom is.’

‘Very much so.’

Seven

THERE WAS ANOTHER
long silence. Old Woman clapped her hands together. Old Man woke up. He sat bolt upright, staring straight ahead of him, as if deep in thought, or in a daze. Then after a while he woke up Old Woman.

Pinprop, addressing the Man, said:

‘Was anybody else here?’

‘No.’

‘I must have dreamt that someone was kicking me.’

Laughing nervously, the Man said:

‘I only brushed past you a number of times.’

‘That explains it,’ said Pinprop, dryly.

‘Things are magnified in dreams, you know.’

‘Yes, definitely.’

‘Do you know where I can find that room advertised on the trees?’ the Man asked, in a new voice.

‘Room? What room?’

‘It’s just a room,’ said the Man, defensively. ‘Didn’t you see the signs on the trees?’

‘No.’

‘That’s alright then. Forget the subject. It’s not important anyway.’

‘Isn’t it?’

‘No. Why should it be?’

‘You were right. Let’s forget the subject.’

‘A fine idea.’

They were silent for a while.

‘What’s your name?’ the Man asked suddenly.

‘My name?’

‘Yes.’

‘Mada.’

‘A nice short name.’

‘And what’s yours?’

‘It’s not important.’

‘Yes. Definitely.’

‘And what are you doing here?’

‘Me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, I’m, em, tired,’ said Pinprop, blithely. ‘I’m impotent.’

‘I see. How interesting.’

‘And you?’

‘No. I’m not impotent,’ said the Man.

‘How do you know?’

‘What?’

‘I said, good. But what are you doing here?’

‘It’s not really important, if you see what I mean.’

‘Certainly.’

They were silent again. The Man stared into the forest, blankly.

Eight

‘I SEE THAT
the tribe has caught up with us,’ said Old Man.

‘Skeletons, I think,’ said Old Woman.

‘A harmless liar,’ said Pinprop.

‘Are you talking to me?’ asked the Man.

‘No.’

‘Harmless?’ wondered Old Man.

‘Harmful,’ said Old Woman.

‘A hyena, I suspect,’ said Pinprop.

‘A hyena? Where?’ asked the Man.

‘In the distance,’ replied Pinprop. ‘Beside me.’

‘Beside you?’ said the Man.

‘Shut up,’ said Pinprop.

‘What about your so-called tributes, Pinprop?’ piped Old Woman.

‘And temporary arrivals?’ added Old Man.

‘Hollow. A sham,’ replied Pinprop.

‘Are you referring to me by any chance?’ the Man asked, with a tinge of menace.

‘I said shut up.’

‘Are we going or are we to listen to this fool?’ demanded Old Woman.

‘You can be verbose if you like, Pinprop.’

‘If you tell me to shut up again …’ began the Man.

‘Isolate him!’ cried Old Woman.

‘… I will most certainly …’ continued the Man.

‘Chain him!’ said Old Man.

‘… crack your head,’ bellowed the Man.

‘A statement of iron,’ said Old Woman.

‘Definitely of rust,’ chimed Old Man.

‘Did you hear me?’ cried the Man.

‘Gut-rot,’ said Pinprop.

‘What?’

‘The vote is taken,’ said Old Woman.

‘And violence wins,’ said Old Man.

‘A definite victory to isolation,’ proclaimed Pinprop.

‘Are you mad?’ asked the Man, baffled.

Old Man and Old Woman rose from their seats.

‘Slave!’ said Old Man.

‘Sir!’

‘The table and chairs,’ said Old Woman.

‘I said are you mad?’

‘A throaty yes to new arrivals,’ declared Old Man, as he left the clearing.

‘A warm yes to new journeys,’ Old Woman intoned, following him.

‘A solid yes to all that,’ said Pinprop, carrying the table and chairs.

Soon all three of them had vanished into the forest.

The Man stood alone in the clearing.

‘Insane. Insane. This is madness,’ he said.

There was complete silence.

‘I’ve got to find that room,’ he said, after a while.

He sat down on the ground.

‘Yes.’

Then, after a moment, there came the wail of the siren in the distance, coming closer.

‘Heavens! Not again!’ he cried.

Then, agitated, he jumped up. He ran off into the forest in the direction from which he had originally come. Then he ran back, across the clearing, in the opposite direction.

Book Three

One

IN ANOTHER CLEARING
, in the forest, a young man and a young woman sat at a distance from one another. They were surrounded by a dense screen of trees and shrubs. There were muted bird calls in the air, and the faint noise of a baby crying. On a tree there was a sign which read ‘Eden to Let’.

The young man and young woman, with their hands outstretched on the ground, barely touched one another. The sky was clear.

‘I wish you wouldn’t be so cruel to me,’ said the young man.

‘I’m not being cruel to you,’ replied the young woman.

‘Yes you are.’

‘No I’m not.’

‘Do we have to argue again?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why do we have to argue and argue?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the young woman. ‘I suppose it’s the most important part of our relationship.’

‘No it’s not.’

‘Stop telling me what is and what isn’t.’

‘I’m not telling you anything. I’m just disagreeing, that’s all.’

‘Well, stop that as well.’

‘We don’t have to go on like this, you know.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because we are married. Much more than that, we have been together for a long time and we should have reached a deep under standing by now.’

‘Well, haven’t we?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the young man. ‘It’s just that we argue and fight and hurt each other so much.’

‘And don’t you find any satisfaction in that?’

The young man smiled with pleasure, and then said:

‘I can’t say that I don’t.’

‘Then what are you blathering about?’

‘It’s just that, you see, we are here all by ourselves. There’s nobody else around. We have no need to pretend that we don’t get on with one another. You know how people used to envy us our passion and how, because of that, they used to spoil things for us, and how,
because
of that, we had to disguise our feelings. Well, now that we’ve been wandering about together there is no need for all that. I mean, I really want to discover you again.’

‘God, you’re a moaner,’ said the young woman.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Well, for the past many years we’ve been discovering each other again and again. After a fight we discover each other. After you’ve gone away to live with someone else and you’ve run back, we’ve discovered each other. After I had the baby we discovered each other again. Don’t you get tired of these discoveries?’

‘No, I think discoveries are wonderful.’

‘You mean like discovering our capacity for cruelty?’

‘That as well.’

‘And discovering our insecurities?’

‘Yes. Yes.’

‘And that it is our cruelty and weaknesses that bind us together?’

‘Yes. Wonderful symbiosis.’

‘And secretly discovering how much we hate each other’s strengths and beauties?’

‘It’s all part of it.’

‘And that we’ve made a tolerable hell for each other?’

‘A tolerable hell is better than an impossible heaven.’

‘You are a fool,’ said the young woman.

‘So I am.’

‘But I love you.’

‘I love you too.’

‘I feel a lot of tenderness for you.’

‘I feel a volcanic warmth for you.’

‘You seducer.’

‘You … I don’t know what.’

‘Do you love me?’

‘Do you promise,’ said the young man, ‘that if I answer honestly we won’t get into another argument?’

‘Yes. I just want to know.’

‘Well then, yes. You know I do. We wouldn’t have stayed together all this time if I didn’t.’

‘You stupid fool!’ cried the young woman.

‘What?’

‘I said you stupid fool.’

‘What did I say wrong?’

‘You know perfectly well why we’ve stayed together all this time.’

‘I know,’ said the young man, perplexed. ‘I’ve just said it.’

‘You bloody moron.’

‘Look, I’m sorry if I didn’t say it with enough tenderness.’

‘Who cares about your idiotic tenderness?’

‘It’s just that I thought you’d be bored by it.’

‘We stayed together precisely because we did not really love each other.’

‘I admit there’s an element of that.’

‘We simply wanted to love one another, didn’t we?’

‘Yes. Correct,’ the young man said, brightly. ‘The want precedes the process.’

‘You idiot. I mean we desperately wanted to be in love with something or other. We were lonely people. It seemed more sensible to fall in love with another person who also wanted to fall in love, than to love a chair or a cat or an idea.’

‘Correct again. The process then invents itself.’

‘We knew all along that what other people thought was love was really a well-organised routine on our parts. An intricate
pattern
of tolerance and organisation. A relationship.’

‘You can’t say we haven’t had a good life together. All those holidays, visits, our jobs, Christmases, surprises, ups and downs, the new house that we bought.’

‘And the baby.’

‘Yes, the baby. That was special, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes. It was very special. I hated having it.’

‘No you didn’t. Do you remember what you said at the time?’

‘I think I groaned madly all the time.’

‘I mean afterwards.’

‘I said it was nice to have that load off my belly.’

‘No. Not then. Stop being facetious about an important experience in our lives.’

‘Speak for yourself.’

‘Okay, I’ll tell you what you said.’

‘Go on, then.’

Two

AS HE SPOKE
his face became radiant. His gestures became more expressive. For a moment he was transfigured in the strange light of the clearing.

‘You said that while you were having the baby it felt as if you were creating new spaces in the universe. You felt that as you pushed and pushed you were pushing the universe, moving it, opening up new worlds, expanding the miraculous spaces. You said you felt like God.’

‘I couldn’t have said that. It was a horrible experience. I couldn’t move for days.’

‘That’s why God had a rest on Sunday.’

There was silence.

‘You are so naive,’ the young woman said, gently, ‘and yet I love you.’

‘I love you too.’

‘There you go again, idiot. Always parroting me.’

‘I’m not parroting you.’

‘Then why do you say you love me?’

‘Because I do.’

‘What is love, then?’

‘That’s a difficult question,’ said the young man, taken aback. ‘The only way to tackle a question like this is to be honest. Love is what two people feel. An attraction. Something wonderful. It sort of gets you here.’

He dramatically placed his hands over his heart.

‘You mean,’ said the young woman, coolly, ‘like a heart attack?’