Shikasta (42 page)

A lot of subcommittees were set up in not very much more time
than it is taking me to write this, on a large variety of on the whole useful tasks, such as crash courses into
real
national and regional differences (note that the tetchy obligations of the hostile rhetoricians were bypassed neatly in this one nonabrasive word— understood with small pleased smiles by everyone present) and on survival, and on the exchanging of sample groups from country to country. And so on.

The conference ended in a rush with the bands playing very fast, because we had run overtime, a vast number of national anthems, organizational songs, and martial music of every kind, type and style, but thank heavens, the delegates were already streaming out to catch their coaches, many in floods of tears at interrupted friendships and loves, making improbable plans to meet again, kissing, hugging, waving. Never has there been such a scene of – surely? –
treason,
for these enemies were entwined together like barley-sugar sticks on a rainy day, and they could hardly be dragged apart.

And so ended the Conference.

George was pleased. He was in very good spirits on the drive back, singing and playing games. The life and soul of the party one could say, and I do. I suppose he is not so bad, my sainted brother. But what was he doing there at all?
    
RACHEL SHERBAN'S JOURNAL

It is a long time since I wrote down anything. Eighteen months to be exact. We are in Tunis now. A modern block. Unfortunately.
I
say unfortunately. I felt perfectly at home in that mud rabbit warren. I loved living there. Benjamin was relieved to get out of it. As soon as he walked into this boring flat he was at home. You can see him positively expanding in every breath. Smiling and
relieved.
I have not heard from Shireen and Naseem. Fatima married Yusuf just after I left. They are in a room next to Shireen's and Naseem's rooms. Soon I suppose Fatima will have five children. Who will help Shireen with her babies then? I would help if I were there. I felt they were my family just as much as this family is. I
love
them. Here today and
gone tomorrow. In this block of flats no sleeping on the roof. That was the best thing I ever knew.

Well, at least here we aren't called eccentric.

The reason I am making myself write this is that I don't know what to think about anything. Particularly about George, I
hate
all this youth movement thing. I think it is
childish. I
simply can't see how any of them takes it seriously. It is
obvious
to the
meanest intelligence
why the kids join it. It is because they wouldn't have any privileges otherwise. I think that is
despicable.
And George is in it up to his ears. Of course a lot of them
have
to join something. It is the law.

The last time I wrote things down I understood what was going on. So I am trying again.

It was Hasan who said I should last time.

Where is Hasan? He has completely vanished from our lives. And George left Morocco apparently without a pang. Apparently, but who knows what he feels? I don't think he has seen Hasan though and he saw him every day in Marrakesh. I asked if he missed Hasan, and he looked bothered, and then he sighed. Because of me, of course, I asked him again and he said, Rachel, you are making things much harder than they need be.

Since we have been here, George has made another visit to India. He has not talked about it. Olga and Simon haven't asked. So I didn't. Benjamin did. But in a sarcastic sort of way. When he is like that George doesn't answer. Anyway he was invited to go and he wouldn't. But George is spending time with Benjamin. Often in the evenings they go to cafés. I hardly ever go. I am working for my exams. I am taking geopolitics, geoeconomics, and geohistory.

I have seen something. I work for exams. Benjamin works for exams. George doesn't work for exams. What he does is this. Wherever we go he attends college or university or something. Or tutors come. Or he goes off on trips with Father and Mother to places, though hardly ever now, that was when he was younger. Now it is trips with someone like Hasan. But he doesn't take exams. He knows as much as we do, though. More, by far. What happens is, he is with a class or a tutor for a month or something
like that, and then he
knows that subject.
Mother and Father have never made him sit for exams. Yet we always have to. But they take a lot of trouble to make sure he learns all kinds of things. Mother is off in the South at the epidemic, so I shall ask Father.

I did. Obviously he had been expecting this question. What he said was, It was felt that George would not need exams.
It was felt. I
did not notice at once that he had said that. Then I said, Felt by
whom?
I
was being cross and a bit sarcastic. (The way Benjamin is.) Father was quite patient, affectionate but definitely on his guard. Not cagey, though.

He said, You must have understood the situation, Rachel.

That checked me. Because of course I believe I do.

I said, Yes, I think I do. But what I want to know is, who said to you and Mother in the first place that George should be educated like this?

He said, The first time it
was suggested,
was in New York.

Miriam?

He said, Yes, that's it. And then there were the others.

I suddenly knew exactly how it was. It had been exactly like those moments when Hasan talked and I
suddenly
understood something, though apparently nothing very much had been said. I saw that it had been the same with Father and Mother.
Obviously
Miriam and then afterwards one of the tutors or someone had said quite casual simple things that rang in their minds, and then slowly they understood.

Writing that down has made me feel I have to know more about Simon and Olga. How is it they are like this?
Why
did they understand so easily? Or perhaps it wasn't easily. But they did understand. I don't know any other parents, of my friends, I mean, who would understand. Now I am looking back on our education, all of it, all the odd things, the tutors and the special courses and being with Olga and Simon in all kinds of peculiar and sometimes dangerous places, and how they have allowed George to be taught in that way, and I see how different they are. For one thing, and before anything else, they take so much trouble with us. Most parents aren't bothered.

I have just been to ask Father. He is working with his papers on the desk in the bedroom. I knocked and went in and he said, Wait a minute Rachel. He finished doing some calculations. Then he said, What is it?

I sat on the bed where I could see his face with the light on it. I felt quite fierce, but I didn't know what to ask.

He pushed his chair right round and faced me. Father is getting old now. His hair is grey and he is always too thin. He is very tired at the moment. I could see that he wished I had not come in just then. The light from the window was on his glasses and I wanted to see his eyes. As I thought that, he took off his glasses. I thought that this was just like him. I suddenly felt very affectionate and I blundered straight in. I said, I want to ask something difficult. Ask away, then. I want to know how it is that you and Mother are the sort of parents you are.
Why?

He did not seem surprised. He saw at once. But he was thinking about what to say. He sat with his legs stretched out, almost to the bed where I was sitting. He swung his glasses back and forth. This always drives Mother
wild.
It is hard to get glasses at all, let alone repaired.

He said, Strange as it may seem – This is how he begins saying things he finds difficult. Humorous. Strange as it may seem, this thought is not a new one to either your mother or myself.

Strange as it may seem, I am not surprised to hear it. I suppose
as usual
you have been waiting for this moment of truth and you have your words ready.

Something like that, he said, swinging his glasses.

Mother will kill you if you break those glasses.

Sorry. And he put them down. Look, Rachel, I think you understand all this just as well as we do.

Oh
no, I
said to him, really furious. I thought he was going to slide out of it. I mean, I said to him, It is impossible. Listen! There you are, you and Mother and three children, Mum and Dad and three dear little kiddies, in New York, and you of course all set to do the very best for them. And then along comes a perfectly ordinary woman called Miriam Rabkin and buys ice cream for all the kiddies and says, Oh no, don't bother to send George to an ordinary school, just let him pick things up as he
can, that is by far the best way, and meanwhile I'll just trot him off to the Museum of Modern Man. And
you,
said, But of course Mrs Robkin, what a good idea, we'll do just that.

Silence. There we sat. He was smiling and friendly. I was smiling and
desperate. I
am feeling quite desperate these days.
That is the truth.

Something like that, he said.

Very well then. In Marrakesh George spent exactly half a term in Mahmoud Banaki's class. When he came out he was fully versed in the History of the Religions of the Middle East, back to Adam at least if not further. Right?

Right.

But who told you to send George to that class at that time? 

Hasan.

You mean he breezed in one afternoon and said Mr. Sherban! Mrs Sherban! I am Hasan and I am interested in George, a very promising lad you have got there, and I want you to see that etc. etc. And you said, But of course! And it was done.

He was being definitely on the defensive but patient.

You forget Rachel, that Hasan came along after quite a lot of people
of that kind.

Saying
of that kind,
in that way meant I had to accept those words and all the thoughts I had had on that subject.

All right, I said.

He was sitting there, rocking about on the back legs of his chair, looking at me. And I was looking at him.

And then he said what I had all this time been waiting for him to say.

You must see, Rachel, that being George's parents meant we had to see things differently. Yes.

We have been taught to see things differently. Do you see? Yes.

At the beginning, when it started, often enough your mother and I thought we were mad. Or something like that. Yes.

But we went along with it. We
did
go along with it.
And it worked.

Yes, I said.

Then he said, Rachel, you must run along, I've got to finish this, I have to, do you want any help with your homework? If so, I can after supper.

No, I said, I can manage.

I have seen something. During the term when George was doing the History of the Religions of the Middle East at the Madrasa, he also took classes from a Christian and from a Jew. In other words, while he was learning the curriculum, he was simultaneously learning the partisan points of view that wouldn't be in the curriculum. Not to mention
God knows what
from Hasan. That means he couldn't take exams, because what he had learned would never be contained in the exam questions. Though of course he could narrow everything down, after all Benjamin and I have to do that all the time. But
that
isn't the point.
He is being educated for something different.

By
whom?

What for?

Meanwhile he is a star figure in the local youth movements. And it makes me sick. Benjamin says George needs to show off. Well, that is of course what I cannot help thinking. But in my experience what Benjamin thinks is nearly always wrong. It comes out of his being jealous. Like me. At least I know that I am jealous and Benjamin doesn't seem to. Anyway I come more and
more
to the conclusion that what I think isn't worth anything. I seem to myself more and more a sort of sack full of emotions. Swilling around. I am angry. I don't know what about. I am so angry I could
die.
Sometimes I watch these emotions go surging past. Hi there anger! Hi there jealousy! Hi everyone! This is Rachel saying hello!

I have to put down what I feel about Suzannah. I think Suzannah is awful. Mother is very patient when Suzannah comes, and Father is extremely humorous. She is a loud, vulgar,
stupid, flashy girl. She is crazy about George. Well girls crazy about George are like the sands of the seashore. So why Suzannah?

I asked Mother. (She is back from the epidemic. But she is leaving for the famine next week.) She said: George is seventeen and a half. She said that George was seventeen at least ten times in half a hour. That was about all she could say about it. Meanwhile I could see she was wishing I would stop yapping at her. Yap yap yap, like a little dog. I could see myself. I asked Father. He said, Suzannah is extremely physically attractive. I can't bear this. Furthermore I don't believe George sleeps with Suzannah. I said to Benjamin who was making a lot of coarse remarks, George certainly does not sleep with Suzannah. He said, Darling little sister, what do you think they do during these starlit nights? I said he was stupid and didn't understand George.

I said to George, Do you sleep with Suzannah, and he said Yes.

When he said that what I felt was that he had hit me. So I cried a lot. If George could sleep with Suzannah, then nothing mattered. How can he? It is an insult. I mean, to girls who are serious. I just feel that everything is spoiled. And Benjamin is quite right I am afraid. He says George is a power-lover and he is. So that's that.