The Brooke-Rose Omnibus (23 page)

Despite the heavy knowledge that Mrs. Mgulu has next nodded, nor appeared, nor given the slightest proof of her objective existence, and that it hurts, despite all this she moves alongside, sometimes reclining in the cushions of the vehicle as it glides companionably along at a walking, talking pace, or alternatively treading lightly on the burning road in golden sandals and something diaphanous, sharing the observation of phenomena, the village of smart concrete huts, the
concrete
post-office, the grocer’s shop, the smiling eyes and frank admiring looks, the carefully terraced, carefully irrigated vegetable gardens and the terraced olive groves through which the pink road winds. She smells of aloes and hair fixative and all the objects stand out sharp.

Or else quite suddenly the objects are switched off and merge into a dim olive-green dusk which wraps up and weighs down the heavy knowledge that Mrs. Mgulu has not given the slightest proof of her objective existence and does not share the observation of phenomena, and that it hurts,
entering
the body through the marrow-bone, up into the medullary centres, down the glosso-pharyngeal nerve perhaps or the pneumogastric, at any rate forward and down the throat that tightens as enlargement of the lymphatic glands occurs and the knowledge spreads into the chest, aching. Sooner or later it will reach the spleen.

At eye-level the shacks come into view. Three of them are on fire, are having a party, reflect the reapparent setting sun in their verandah doors. The others are all dead,
straddling
their own verandah roofs in a cocooning dusk. Some people would call them bungalows.

– It is not merely that I no longer desire you physically which would be understandable in any circumstances but that you dwell in me and watch me no longer desire you and smile as I mourn the passing of that simple, intense desire. Sometimes it is sufficient to disimagine, so that slowly and with infinite patience, atom by atom the element of desire will disintegrate. But energy is indestructible as you well know, except in very special circumstances, and so something
remains
, other and else, equally painful and whole. The thing exists and we cannot pretend that it does not. We make our errors in a thought and reject them in another thought, leaving a host of errors in us. Sooner or later the body must be emptied.

Sooner or later the bowl of steaming gruel will be set down on the wrinkled wood inside the pool of light.

Mrs. Ned’s bungalow is on fire. The glass verandah doors of Mrs. Ned’s bungalow reflect the last rays of the setting sun. The other bungalows are extinguished. The fig-tree’s foliage is dark blue-black, the leaves are hardly
distinguishable
. The dark green trunk leans along the edge of the bank at an angle of forty degrees inside which, from the road, the lower section of the brown clapboard wall next to the verandah merges into the dusky patch of dry grass. The lower branches swoop down their dim U-shapes, visible against the grass only with the help of the knowledge that they are normally visible from this position, in daylight. It is the
knowledge
of their shape which makes them visible.

The glass door of the verandah reflects a green light, in which a filmy monster shifts into view, cut into three sections. The top section frames a jellyfish surrounded by flowing wisps, the middle section a tiered hierarchy of diagonal wobbles, the lower section two wavering stems. Don’t keep looking at the monitor it spoils the picture. What books have you been reading? Your head is full of items, you must have got them from somewhere.

– I’m a reflective type, you see. I exercise my memory in the privacy of concupiscence, the male to the left, the female to the right, reflecting sensory observations as the moon
reflects
the sun … Oh, the satisfaction of demand, any day … No, I have nothing against authority, what makes you ask? My gesture is of holding a conventional weapon, a flame-thrower for example, or an atomic machine-gun. I am a fire-fighter you see. The fire-fighters’ union kindly did not object to my working overtime, at overtime rates, of course, which is quarter-pay, on account of the severe unemployment, and overtime hours only, from 2359 to zero hour, and in the privacy of concupiscence.

– That’s very interesting. Your profile is coming up very clearly, your depth personae are most revealing, no don’t look now, there is a very real danger of disintegration.

– I might of course disintegrate, but that is a risk worth taking.

– Mr. Blob: thank you very much.

The shafts of green light swiftly shift, the picture is replaced.

– Oh, good evening Mrs. Ivan. Nice evening. I was just seeing whether the door needed, well –

– Yes?

– Cleaning, you know, I mean, the hinges. I think they squeak, don’t they, would you like some oil on them?

– I have.

– Oh. Well, then perhaps –

–
My
verandah, yes, okay?

– I – er – wasn’t peeping in, Mrs. Ivan. I assure you. It’s just that, well, I love this verandah door.

– You see yourself.

– Yes. In the green light of the evening. It’s very … frightening. Effective I mean. Look. Come here. Yes, come, don’t be afraid. I’ll shut the door. Look at yourself. Isn’t it beautiful? In three sections.

– Yes.

– Mrs. Ivan –

– Shsh. He hear.

– Oh. Is he asleep?

– No, no, him, in door.

– But, Mrs. Ivan, that’s you.

– It is me-him. The light.

– Oh, I see.

– Shsh.

The algae are still. The hierarchy of diagonal shafts are still. The aureole is dark gold as an angel’s. To the right, a little behind, is the jellyfish, petrified in frozen zigzags.

– For me it is him. For you, her. You understand?

– Yes. I understand.

– Sometimes, then, for me it is her. Like, for you, him.

– Yes … Yes … I love you Mrs. Ivan.

– I love also. Long in your house, only goodday,
goodnight
, excuse, no friends, wife busy, I love, all must love.

– I’ve always loved you, from the beginning I’ve loved you.

– And him in door?

– Layers and layers of love.

– Lares? What is lares?

– Lay-ers. Like geology. Or geophysics.

– Ah. You love tea? Samovar tea?

– The god will go if you open the door.

– He come back. Dark now.

– Yes, he has almost gone.

– He go inside maybe. Come in please. You sit. Look, I have many tins now, all boiled, your wife ask, clean, this shelf all full, many many. Roof, Ivan build hut. One day.

– Where?

– God he know.

– So you’ll be leaving us?

– One day. Private. You understand?

– Yes.

– What you were before?

– I was an Intellectual.

– Ye-es?

– I was a broad-based Liberal humanist.

– Please?

– And you?

– I am born here.

– Yes of course. I’m old enough to be your daughter.

– Please?

– It was a joke.

– Ah yes, Ukay humour. Different from Uessessarian. I speak Asswati very good, I laugh in Asswati but not Ukayan. They teach at school, here everyone speak Ukayan good like Asswati, but for me not, my mother always speak Uessessarian as child to me.

– It all comes to the same thing in the end.

– Please?

– We seem to communicate all right.

– Ah yes. You love my tea?

– Very good, thank you very much.

– You prefer with milk?

– No, no, it’s fine like this. You – er – you’re very cosy in here, aren’t you? You’ve arranged the furniture quite well.

– Ye-es.

– I’m afraid it’s very old furniture we picked up here and there. I got that armchair on a rubbish dump outside the town you know, they were about to burn it.

– Yes.

It is the knowledge of the shape and size of the sparse furniture which makes it visible in the darkened room, the armchair with its inside spewing, the rickety iron bed in the corner to the left of the verandah-door, the curtained shelves on the wall facing the verandah, the small table with the wash-basin that doesn’t match the jug or slop-pail, the cooking-ring in the corner, the larger table against the other wall, its far end covered from edge to edge with opened cans, the wooden kitchen chair. It is the knowledge of the history of every item which makes it sharply visible in the darkening room, even, if need be, in absolute blackness. It is likewise the knowledge of Mrs. Ivan however limited so far, that makes her tangible to the eyes and inner thoughts in the almost blackness of the darkening room. There is thus no need to talk, the atoms of her being move soundlessly in waves across the darkened room. A conversation, however, occurs. It is the knowledge of the history of every item thought that makes it tangible to the neural cells both before and after utterance, the utterance merely giving it that particular form which may or may not have been expected by the neural cells as they quickly rearrange themselves to enfold it in that precise form.

– What does your husband do, Mrs. Ivan?

– Labour Exchange.

– You mean, as an official?

– No, no. Unemployed. He wait.

– I’ve never seen him there.

– No? Maybe different, er – chass ..

– Group?

– No. Different, er – well, yes, different group, different, ah, time.

– What did he do before?

– You on other side yes? Questionnaire.

– I’m sorry, one gets so used to thinking of oneself that way, one transfers it.

– Yes? You transfer much? Your sickness. Yes? Or contain?

– I suppose I transfer most of it. Mrs. Ivan, how did all this happen, really I mean?

– Really? What is really?

– Through all the false identities that we build, the
love-making
, the trauma-seeking, the alchemising of anecdote to legend, of episode to myth, what really happened to us?

– Us. Us is difficult. You still think us. I do not think us. My mother Tartar, some Chinese, my father Uzbek, half Bahuko.

– But. But your hair is blonde!

– Red, no? Red gold, on identity. You not look in
daylight
. Funny genes. My son, eight years, my son surprising black. He strong. He work good at school.

– I see. I thought – but if you’re quarter Bahuko, why are you living here? Why are you so poor? You’re even poorer than we are.

– Always somebody poorer. Look Sino-America, nothing to eat, and Seatoarea.

– Oh yes I know, I know.

– Ivan, he ex-Uessessarian. Unskill. Skill before, no use, gone. Lucky room here. Thank you.

– What happened, Mrs. Ivan? What happened? Please tell me.

– To Ivan?

– No, to us.

– Us again. You very sick. People come, strong, too much strong, sick from too much strong, they go, more different people come, with not sickness.

– No, it’s not that simple. Something happened, something robbed us of the fruits of the earth.

– Perhaps nothing. That is what happened. The fruits are to everyone. But something, something means all. It was too much difficult. Oh, I cannot say, for me Ukayan words not come.

– You mean, Mrs. Ivan, that the human element mutated in some way, disintegrated even, as a radioactive element transmutes into another by emitting particles, diminishing itself?

– Diminish is … less? No not diminish. More. Human element more bigger.

– Covering the whole earth and interpenetrating itself to a new consciousness and those who cannot grow with it must die.

– Yes. Cannot trap the god for strong. He get into blood and no get out with giving, so poison.

– Man needs his daily ration of the whole world, and nothing less than symbiosis will do.

– Man is daily ration of whole world, he must be also eaten by all others. He petrol, grain, he electricity, he books, he satellites, he information bad good, he hello how are you, goodnight, sleep well, you love my tea I love your sickness, and that perhaps was too much difficult. Oh, I have speak never so many words Ukayan.

– Your samovar tea loosens your tongue.

The steps on the verandah loudly surround the enveloping darkness back to the angles felt one second before the sudden flood of light brings them leaping into sharp outlines and colour. The entry of Mr. Ivan and young, Bahuko,
bright-eyed
, thin Ivan Ivanovich, does not dispel the
interpenetration
of the psychic rays but adds to it, enriching it with smiles, and oh what nice surprise, how kind, you will be better soon, now you have work, alas not me but there is always hope, Ivanek here is first in mathematics, have some more tea, I love your samovar.

The flies lie quiet on the transverse bar, at eye-level, so quiet they might be dead, this very dawn on the transverse bar of the closed window in front of the closed shutters. The closing of the window after the hot night, the closing of the window like an earthquake to the flies, did not disturb the flies in their embrace. Beyond the shutters, a few metres away, rises the slatted shape of Mrs. Ned’s bungalow dark in the shadow cast by this shack and the rising sun. In the evening it is the slatted shape of Mrs. Ned’s shack that casts a shadow, keeping the burning sun in its late aspect off the little room, creating in theory a coolness, were it not for the corrugated iron roof that has absorbed the heat all day. But now the sun is rising on the other side. Soon it will beat down upon the iron roof.

The mattress on the floor is already covered over. The kitchen door is framed by the bedroom door. At the end of the short dark passage, almost cubic in its brevity, the kitchen through the two open doors seems luminous and apparently framed in red. The door, however, is of rough wood. The luminosity is due to the rising sun that flows obliquely into the kitchen through the bead curtain over the door and more obliquely still through the window above the sink to the right of the door, due to the slanted shade from Monsieur Jules’s roof. Only a narrow shaft of light turns the red stone floor into a miniature ditch of fiery water across the threshold. The wrinkled wood of the wooden table is still and dead, unlit by any shaft refracted or direct.