The Golden Notebook (67 page)

know how long I was there. I came to myself like coming out of a dream, not knowing what room one is going to wake in. I realised that, like Saul, I no longer had a sense of time. I looked at the cold whitish sky, and the cold distorted sun, and turned carefully to look into the room. It was rather dark in the room, and the gas fire made a warm glow on the floor. Saul lay very still. I walked very carefully across the floor, which seemed to heave and bulge under me, and I bent over to look at Saul. He was asleep, and the cold seemed to come out of him. I lay down beside him, fitting myself to the curve of his back. He did not move. Then, suddenly, I was sane, and I understood what it meant when I said, I am Anna Wulf and this is Saul Green and I have a child named Janet. I tightened my hold on him, and he turned, abrupt, his arm up to ward off a blow, and saw me. His face was dead white, the bones of his face sticking out through thin skin, his eyes a sick lustreless grey. He flung his head on to my breasts and I held him. He slept again and I tried to feel time. But time had gone out of me. I lay with the cold weight of this man against me, as if ice lay against me, and I tried to make my flesh warm enough to warm his. But his cold crept into me, so I gently shoved and pushed him under the blankets and we lay under warm fibres and slowly the cold went away and his flesh warmed against mine. Now I was thinking about my experience of being Charlie Themba. I could no longer remember it, as I could no longer 'remember' how I had understood that war was working in us all, towards fruition. I was, in other words, sane again. But the word sane meant nothing, as the word mad meant nothing. I was oppressed by a knowledge of immensity, feeling the weight of hugeness, but not as when I play 'the game,' only in its aspect of meaninglessness. I cowered, and I could see no reason why I should be mad or sane. And, looking past Saul's head, everything in the room seemed sly and threatening and cheap and meaningless, and even now I could feel the slippery dead curtains between my fingers. I slept and I dreamed the dream. This time there was no disguise anywhere. I was the malicious male-female dwarf figure, the principle of joy-in-destruction; and Saul was my counterpart, male-female, my brother and my sister, and we were dancing in some open place, under enormous white buildings, which were filled with hideous, menacing, black machinery which held destruction. But in the dream, he and I, or she and I, were friendly, we were not hostile, we were together in spiteful malice. There was a terrible yearning nostalgia in the dream, the longing for death. We came together and kissed, in love. It was terrible, and even in the dream I knew it. Because I recognised in the dream those other dreams we all have, when the essence of love, of tenderness, is concentrated into a kiss or a caress, but now it was the caress of two half-human creatures, celebrating destruction. There was a terrible joy in the dream. When I woke up the room was dark, the glow of the fire very red, the great white ceiling filled with restful shadow, and I was filled with joy and peace. I wondered how such a terrible dream could leave me rested, and then I remembered Mother Sugar, and thought that perhaps for the first time I had dreamed the dream 'positively'-though what that means I don't know. Saul had not moved. I was stiff and moved my shoulders, and he woke up, frightened, and called out: 'Anna!' as if I were in another room or another country. I said: 'I'm here.' His prick was big. We made love. In the love-making was the warmth of the love-making of the dream. Then he sat up and said: 'Jesus, what time is it?' and I said: 'Five or six, I suppose,' and he said: 'Christ, I can't sleep my life away like this,' and rushed out of the room. I lay on the bed, happy. Being happy, the joy that filled me then was stronger than all the misery and the madness in the world, or so I felt it. But then happiness began to leak away, and I lay and I thought: What is this thing we need so much? (By we, meaning women.) And what is it worth? I had it with Michael, but it meant nothing to him, for if it did, he wouldn't have left me. And now I have it with Saul, grabbing at it as if it were a glass of water and I were thirsty. But think about it, and it vanishes. I did not want to think about it. If I did there would be nothing between me and the little dwarf-plant in the pot on the window sill, between me and the slippery horror of the curtains, or even the crocodile waiting in the reeds. I lay on the bed in the dark, listening to Saul crashing and banging over my head, and I was already betrayed. Because Saul had forgotten the 'happiness.' By the act of going upstairs, he had put a gulf between himself and happiness. But I saw this not merely as denying Anna, but as denying life itself. I thought that somewhere here is a fearful trap for women, but I don't yet understand what it is. For there is no doubt of the new note women strike, the note of being betrayed. It's in the books they write, in how they speak, everywhere, all the time. It is a solemn, self-pitying organ note. It is in me, Anna betrayed, Anna unloved, Anna whose happiness is denied, and who says, not: Why do you deny me, but why do you deny life? When Saul came back he stood efficient and aggressive, his eyes narrowed, and he said: 'I'm going out.' And I said: 'All right.' He went out, the prisoner escaping. I lay where I was, exhausted with the effort of not caring that he had to be the escaping prisoner. My emotions had switched off, but my mind ran on, making images, like a film. I was checking the images, or scenes, as they went past, for I was able to recognise them as fantasies common to a certain kind of person now, out of common stock, shared by millions of people. I saw an Algerian soldier stretched on a torture bed; and I was also him, wondering how long I could hold out. I saw a communist in a communist jail, but the jail was certainly in Moscow, but this time the torture was intellectual, this time the holding out was a fight inside the terms of Marxist dialectic. The end-point of this scene was where the communist prisoner admitted, but after days of argument, that he took his stand on individual conscience, that moment when a human being says: 'No, that I can't do.' At which point the communist jailor merely smiled, there was no need to say, Then you have confessed yourself to be at fault. Then I saw the soldier in Cuba, the soldier in Algeria, rifle in hand, on guard. Then the British conscript, pressed into war in Egypt, killed for futility. Then a student in Budapest, throwing a home-made bomb at a great black Russian tank. Then a peasant, somewhere in China, marching in a procession millions strong. These pictures flicked in front of my eyes. I thought that five years ago the pictures would have been different, and that in five years they would be different again; but that now they were what bound people, of a certain kind, unknown to each other as individuals, together. When the images stopped creating themselves, I checked them again, named them. It occurred to me that Mr. Mathlong had not presented himself. I thought that a few hours ago I had actually been the mad Mr. Themba, and with no conscious effort on my part. I said to myself I would be Mr. Mathlong, I would make myself be this figure. I set the stage in every possible way. I tried to imagine myself, a black man in white-occupied territory, humiliated in his human dignity. I tried to imagine him, at mission school, and then studying in England. I tried to create him, and I failed totally. I tried to make him stand in my room, a courteous, ironical figure, but I failed. I told myself I had failed because this figure, unlike all the others, had a quality of detachment. He was the man who performed actions, played roles, that he believed to be necessary for the good of others, even while he preserved an ironic doubt about the results of his actions. It seemed to me that this particular kind of detachment was something we needed very badly in this time, but that very few people had it, and it was certainly a long way from me. I fell asleep. When I woke it was getting on for morning. I could see my ceiling lying pale and stagnant, disturbed by lights from the street, and the sky was a full purple, wet with a wintry moonlight. My body cried out with being alone because Saul was not there. I did not sleep again. I was dissolved in the hateful emotion, the woman-betrayed. I lay with my teeth clenched, refusing to think, knowing that everything I thought would come out of the solemn wet emotion. Then I heard Saul come in, he came in silent and furtive and went straight upstairs. This time I didn't go up. I knew that this meant he would resent me in the morning, because his guilt, his need to betray, needed the constant reassurance of my going to him. When he came down it was late, nearly lunch-time, and I knew this was the man who hated me. He said, very cold: 'Why do you let me sleep so late?' I said: 'Why should I have to tell you what time to get up?' He said: 'I have to go out to lunch. It's a business lunch.' I knew from how he said it it was not a business lunch, and that he had said the words in that way so that I should know it was not. I felt very ill again, and I went into my room and set out the notebooks. He came in and stood by the door, looking at me. He said: 'I suppose you're writing a record of my crimes!' He sounded pleased that I was. I was putting away three of the notebooks. He said: 'Why do you have four notebooks?' I said: 'Obviously, because it's been necessary to split myself up, but from now on I shall be using one only.' I was interested to hear myself say this, because until then I hadn't known it. He was standing in the door, holding on to the frame of the doorway with both hands. His eyes were narrowed at me in pure hate. I saw the white door with its old-fashioned unnecessary mouldings, very clear. I thought how the mouldings on the door recall a Greek temple, that's where they come from, the pillars of a Greek temple; and how they in turn recall an Egyptian temple, and how that in turn recalls the bundle of reeds and the crocodile. There he stood, the American, clutching this history in both hands for fear he would fall, hating me, the jailor. I said, as I had said before: 'Don't you think it's extraordinary that we are both people whose personalities, whatever that word may mean, are large enough to include all sorts of things, politics and literature and art, but now that we're mad everything concentrates down to one small thing, that I don't want you to go off and sleep with someone else, and that you must lie to me about it?' For a moment he was himself, thinking about this, and then he faded away or dissolved and the furtive antagonist said: 'You're not going to trap me that way, don't you think it.' He went upstairs, and when he came down again, a few minutes later, he said cheerfully: 'Gee, I'll be late if I don't go. See you later baby.' He went off, taking me with him. I could feel part of myself leaving the house with him. I knew how he went. He stumbled down the stairs, stood a moment before facing the street, then walked carefully, with the defensive walk of Americans, the walk of people ready to defend themselves, until he saw a bench, or perhaps a step somewhere and sat on it. He had left the devils behind him in my flat, and for a moment he was free. But I could feel the cold of loneliness coming from him. The cold of loneliness was all around me. I looked at this notebook, thinking that if I could write in it Anna would come back, but I could not make my hand go out to take up the pen. I telephoned Molly. When she answered I realised I could not communicate what was happening to me, I could not talk to her. Her voice, cheerful and practical as always, sounded like the quacking of a strange bird, and I heard my own voice, cheerful and empty. She said: 'How's your American?' and I said: 'Fine. ' I said: 'How's Tommy?' She said: 'He's just signed up to do a series of lectures all over the country about the life of the coal-miner, you know, the Life of the Coal-miner. ' I said: 'Good. ' She said: 'Quite so. He is simultaneously talking about going to fight with either the F. L. N, in Algeria or in Cuba. I had a bunch of them here last night, and they're all talking of going off, it doesn't matter which revolution, provided it is a revolution.' I said: 'His wife wouldn't like that.' 'No, that's what I said to Tommy, when he confronted me, all aggressive, suggesting I would stop him. It's not me, it's your sensible little wife, I said. You have my blessing, I said, any revolution anywhere regardless, because obviously none of us can stand the lives we are leading. He said I was being very negative. Later he rang me up to say unfortunately he could not go off to fight just at this time, because he was going to do the series of lectures on The Life of the Coal-miner. Anna, is it only me? I feel as if I'm living inside a sort of improbable farce.' 'No, it isn't only you.' 'I know, and that makes it even worse.' I put down the instrument. The floor between me and the bed was bulging and heaving. The walls seemed to bulge inwards, then float out and away into space. For a moment I stood in space, the walls gone, as if I stood above ruined buildings. I knew I had to get to the bed, so I walked carefully over the heaving floor towards it, and lay down. But I, Anna, was not there. Then I fell asleep, although I knew as I drifted off this was not an ordinary sleep. I could see Anna's body lying on the bed. And into the room, one after another, came people I knew who stood at the foot of the bed, and seemed to try and fit themselves into Anna's body. I stood to one side, watching, interested to see who would come into the room next. Maryrose came, a pretty blonde girl, smiling politely. Then George Hounslow, and Mrs. Boothby, and Jimmy. These people stopped, looked at Anna, and moved on. I stood to one side, wondering: Which of them will she accept? Then I was conscious of danger, for Paul came in, who was dead, and I saw his grave whimsical smile as he bent over her. Then he dissolved into her, and I, screaming with fear, fought my way through a crowd of indifferent ghosts to the bed, to Anna, to myself. I fought to re-enter her. I was fighting against cold, a terrible cold. My hands and legs were stiff with cold, and Anna was cold because she was filled with the dead Paul. I could see his cool grave smile on Anna's face. After a struggle, which was for my life, I slipped back into myself and lay cold, cold. In my sleep I was in Mashopi again, but now the ghosts were ordered around me, like stars in their proper places, and Paul was a ghost among them. We sat under the eucalyptus trees in the dusty moonlight,