Shikasta (43 page)

I wrote that last bit several weeks ago. It has been a very bad epoch in my life. Benjamin suddenly started being very nice to me and I and Benjamin went out a lot. Several times, quite by chance – though I know our parents don't believe this, Benjamin and I were in cafés where George was with Suzannah. When George is with Suzannah, so it would seem, he is quite different from what he is at home with us. He is very
funny.
He laughs a lot. Not a care in the world.
Showing off.
I just wanted to be sick. But then Benjamin started to show off too, and more than once called across to George and Suzannah with all sorts of
 
j
okes. I wanted to die. So then I said I wouldn't go out with Benjamin. I stayed at home. I did badly with my school work. And then Mother talked to me. She was disappointed in me. I know she and Father had talked.
I'm
not stupid. She came into my bedroom one night. I was crying. I said to her at once, All right, you and Father think I am jealous of George. She said to me, That's not the point at all. I said to her, All right then, what? – for already I could see a new perspective. She said to me, George isn't a saint, he isn't some sort of paragon. But the point is, he is not yet eighteen years old. I said, I think it is all disgusting.

She said, as humorous as you can get, Rachel,
what
is disgusting?

I said, Olga, George is a person who sits in a room and thinks that if there are thirty people in it, then there are thirty intestines full of shit, thirty bladders full of pee, thirty noses full of snot, and three hundred pints of blood. So I suppose if he is in a café with Suzannah, with those fat boobs of hers hanging out, he is thinking, two intestines full of shit, two bladders full of pee, two noses of snot, two bodies full of sweat, and twenty pints of blood. Not to mention 700 million sperm and an egg. And an erection and a vagina.

Olga sits down. She lights a cigarette. She leans back. She folds her arms. She sighs. She says,
When
did he say things like that? Getting at once to the point.

He was … it was a long time ago.

I daresay he might have added a dimension or two since then.

Well, I can't stand it, I said to her. I can't stand life. That's the truth of it.

I had half a thought that she would put her arms around me and comfort me. But although that is what I was wanting before she came in, when she was actually there I would have been ashamed if she had.

She said: You do not have any alternative, Rachel. Because you can either stand it, or commit suicide. Or live in such a way that it is as good as committing suicide. And there is evidence to suggest – here she was being humorous the way Father is, she has caught it off him – there is evidence to suggest that there is hell to
pay. Literally. But in any case,
we do not commit suicide.
And the way she said this was different from anything I had ever heard from her, full of pride. Really grim. It was as if she had slapped me or flung me into freezing water. I suddenly saw her quite differently. I saw that she was a person. Not my mother. She had thought it all out. She had wanted to commit suicide. She would never commit suicide. On that night I grew up. Or so I would like to believe.

I have been thinking about Olga's life. I have been trying to put myself in her place, always in camps full of refugees, dying people, starving people, people dying of diseases, babies dying. When I was with her in the epidemic that time I saw her crying over a room full of dying babies. No one else was there. She was very tired, that was why she was crying. Ever since I can remember, my mother has been working with people dying in one way or another. She is always in places where it is truly hell. Always. And that is true for my father too. I see that I am extremely childish.

What I am writing now happened three nights ago. I could not write it down before, it was too difficult. Now I have thought about it. Very late I heard George come in. It was four in the morning. It was very hot. It was that time when night is still absolutely here but morning
is
here but you can't see it only feel it. Outside in the streets it was silent in that particular way. I would know any city I have been in by the silence at four in the morning. George had come in. I could hear him in his room. I went to his door and knocked. He did not answer. I went in. He was just slipping down his trousers and I saw him. Our family has never made a thing about nakedness, but what I was thinking was,
That
has been inside that awful cow. He turned his back, so I saw his buttocks and his back and he put on his pyjamas. Then he got into bed and lay down with his arms behind his head. George is very beautiful. But if he were ugly it would be the same. He was very tired. He wished I wasn't there. Exactly like my parents, affectionate and patient. He said to me, Rachel you aren't being kind. I was expecting him to say,
Fair.
When we use
words like Fair, Olga and Simon always laugh and say we haven't stopped being British and childish. But he said Kind. So I said to him, I don't care, George. I
don't
understand. So he said, Well Rachel there isn't anything at all I can do.

There I was standing at the door, and he was in bed and his eyes kept closing.

He said, Rachel, what is it you want?

At this I was slapped in the face again. Because of course I wanted him to say I hate Suzannah, she is a clumsy vulgar idiot. But he wouldn't in a hundred years.

Sit down, he said.

I sat on the bottom of the bed.

I was expecting some illuminating remarks, I see that now, but of course his eyes kept closing.

He did look so handsome. But he was so tired. And I started to think about his life. He never has slept more than three or four hours a night.

I thought he was asleep. So I began to talk. I was talking to George. I said, It is absolutely intolerable, all of it, it is awful, it is ugly, it is disgusting, and life is absolutely unbearable.

His chest rose and fell, rose and fell. I wanted to put my head down on it and go to sleep.

He suddenly said, with his eyes closed, Well Rachel … I am listening. And he was asleep again. Absolutely gone. I stayed there a little, thinking he might wake up. But the light came in at the window. There were the dusty palm trees along the streets. The smell of dust. Hot. George slept and slept. I felt ashamed and angry and I went to bed.

I have been thinking about Suzannah. Suzannah has been in George's life for nearly a year. That is a long time. I look back over a year and it seems forever. And I have grown up so much in that time. Suzannah comes to supper here a lot. She is very eager to please. She never takes her eyes off George, I am sorry for her. I did not realize that I am, until now. It is because she knows quite well she is not good enough for George. She wants to marry him. I once would have thought she was insane. But if George can sleep with Suzannah then he can marry her. I said to George, Are you
going to marry Suzannah? He said to me, My dear little sister! I hate that, it is what Benjamin calls me, and anyway, I am over sixteen now. But what about Suzannah, I said. She is twenty-three years old, he said. I was shocked to the
spine
when he said that. In the first place because she is so much older. And then because he thought it could make any difference to her. He said, She knows very well that marriage is not on my agenda. At this, I was shocked again. I can't remember George ever being stupid before. I said to him, George, Suzannah wants to marry you. She thinks of nothing else, day and night. He said to me, my little sister, you were born to be my tormentor, my hair shirt. At which he picked me up and whirled me around the room.

This was in the living room. Benjamin came in at this point. He wanted to be part of it. The moment he came in, things were different, I mean, George whirling me about became a different sort of act, hostile and against me, and not friendly. Which it had been. I could feel George slowing down because he knew this too. Benjamin tried to join in the whirling about, as if I were a prize to be grabbed away. George set me down against the wall and stood in front of me. Benjamin kept dodging about in front of George because he wanted to throw me up and down and whirl me about. By then I was crying with rage. At the same time I was grateful to George.

After a minute, Benjamin felt ridiculous and he went to sit down. Then George sat down.

Rachel believes that I ought not to be sleeping with Suzannah, said George to Benjamin. I may say that this was quite serious. He had taken me seriously.

Of course you should sleep with her. Fuck them all, I say, said Benjamin. The minute he had said it, we could both see he was sorry. He looked embarrassed.

There sat Benjamin in one chair. Large, hairy, brown. Like a peasant. And George, thin and lithe and elegant. Both embarrassed. I stayed where I was, because I was afraid Benjamin would come after me.

Well, little sister, said Benjamin, so you think George wouldn't be sleeping with Suzannah? But why not?

I said, Oh sleep with anyone, who cares, I don't care, I used to
think it matters, but I can see that it doesn't matter at all.

I was crying so that tears were literally splashing on to the floor.

George was looking at me. He kept looking at me. He was obviously unhappy. I was full of
triumph
because he was.

George said, Well little sister, tell me, who should I sleep with?

At which Benjamin said, Obviously, Rachel.

Then nothing happened for a few moments. George looked shocked and amused. Both. Benjamin was ashamed again.

It was one of those times that I recognize more and more: you can see alternative scenes parallel to what is really happening. Because of Benjamin, what
he
was, I could see very clearly that I could fling myself across the room, and try to scratch his eyes out. Then George would get up, pick me up off Benjamin, and sit me down.

That was
Benjamin's scene.
What
he
imposed.

But George being there prevented this happening.

Because George was there and looking as he did, I walked out and away from the wall and sat down by myself.

This is a serious conversation, said George to Benjamin, and Benjamin shut up.

So who should I sleep with? he asked me. I am a normal male. I shall not be marrying for five years.

At this, both Benjamin and I were stopped in a different way. There was a long silence.

I really want to know, said George. There are brothels by the hundred in this and any city. And of course there is chastity. There are a lot of girls who want to sleep with me. Suzannah is one.

All this seemed to be so off the point, I could hardly believe it.

And when you are finished with her? I said. What will she do when
you
marry?

Good God, said Benjamin, listen to that! – He was acting the part of resigned astonishment. The eternal feminine – the absolute absoluteness, the ultimate ultimatum.

Well go on little sister, said George, I want to know.

She loves you, I said.

She loves you, said Benjamin to George, as before.

Yes she does, I said. It's funny you can't see it. Why can't you? Why are you like this? Why are you suddenly stupid? You are the most important thing that ever will happen to her.

Well that's true enough, said Benjamin. False modesty will get you nowhere.

For George was in fact looking quizzical.

I said, You can marry fifty other women and she can marry some fat stupid speech-making politician, and she can be a big lady and make speeches and run around in a uniform, and you will still be the most important thing that ever happened or ever could happen.

George was extremely embarrassed. He was red. I have never seen that before, with George. Benjamin for once was looking quite sensible, even grown up. Benjamin said to George, She's right. George said, Well, so what am I supposed to do? Benjamin said, very dramatic, Trapped!

I have been thinking.

What I have concluded is this. You don't understand something until you see the results.

What made me think about this is the Conference of Youth. When he said he was going I was sick. Later I heard he was the delegate for some Muslims, some Jews and some Christians. Well, there isn't anybody else who could do this. I don't know how he does. And he could have represented socialist groups and marxists and business groups. They asked him,

I couldn't go to the Conference. I wasn't asked. How could I be when I never go near youth groups?

Benjamin went. First he said he wouldn't go if it killed him, but he went, of course.

I heard everything that happened. From Benjamin. But after he had finished I thought out what had happened from my own point of view.

Benjamin says that George was ever such a success and the belle of the ball, and hinted that George spent the night with some woman. Suzannah wasn't there. I could ask him and he would tell me but I won't, never again.

But since he came back, there have been messages all day, from everywhere. I am not going to list the countries because I can see there won't be an end to them. Because George went to that Conference
in that way
he can travel to anywhere now and be welcome. And various people have turned up at this flat and talked about George and what he said at the Conference. He was
talking,
they say. They mention particularly about his talking. And Benjamin said he ‘spouted' all night. If he spouted, then how could he have been with some woman? I said this to Benjamin and he said he never suggested George had done anything but talk.