Virginia Woolf in Manhattan (39 page)

but never any safety

 
no guiding rope

 
Leonard, my rock, no longer there

I was slipping my bearings in time and space

Nessa forbade me to get excited

Handy dandy, who was my lover?

 
Lear was mad, but I dared not go there

Yes, they were back at the turn of the road,

 
waiting for me with their cackling voices

‘You are ours, child, now’
 
there was no escape

they were here already
 
there, in her eyes
 
bright and tiny and terrible

the eyes, I perceived, of a consummate actress, there was a Greek word but it skipped out of reach, a chorus of birds were shrieking it, the taxi was stuck, its sides shrank inwards –

‘Virginia, are you all right?’

I looked away from her, out of the window, I made myself concentrate, look, listen –

No, just crows. The ‘
Kaar
’ of crows. My intelligent friends from two continents.

They flew like guardians around the taxi. Greyer, less threatening than ever this morning, the colour of socks or grey flannel trousers, they spoke no language besides their own, an animal language sufficient to save me. ‘
Kaar, Virginia. Kaar, Kaar
.’

I was animal too. I was sane. I had proved it. Like the birds, I could mate, I could fly
.

I would brazen it out. I would not be afraid. Of her, of the Furies, the sad blank void that yawned behind when I looked at her, the lie in her mouth, the sharp cruel teeth protruding under her orange lipstick

and I looked away again out of the window, at the sunlit world outside the glass –

through cracks she had made in the city’s bright surface, the rosy roof-tops, the red-striped stalls, the blue of the sky which had woken me earlier, cloudless, perfect, a perpetual moment, my joy still glittered as it leaked away, liquid silver in the greedy gutters
but a child came out and ran up the pavement, what flew above him, a kite on a string? through the hordes of adults with their heavy purpose – no, it was a swallow, in fact, it was two, two bold young swallows looping the loop, dipping, dancing over Constantinople – one of them rose till I could barely see it, hovered, oh where, with its
quivit
,
quivit
, then plummeted, my heart stopped, had I lost it

– no, crew-on-the-blue, there were six, a dozen, doing acrobatics as they cheeped and twittered,
chideep
,
chideep
, that silver again, the joy of that thin filigree music, and Angela looked up: even she heard them.

I would not be robbed. It could not be stolen
.

Yes, I was not afraid of her. I looked again; she was ordinary.

Cross, perhaps, but not unfriendly.

‘Give me the paper. I will read it.’

The cab started again. She handed it over.

88

I watched her, staring down at my pages, or past my pages, was she taking it in? – her heavy mauve lids more languorous than usual, the orbs underneath them flickering sidelong. Some birds were squeaking like a midget violin, a hair of annoyance tickling my brain. And we stopped again.

Did I know her at all?
Had all my reading of her books meant nothing? How much did we ever know anyone?

I’d thought all her characters were part of herself, that by adding them together, you came up with the author, a shifting composite, the details uncertain but the basic shape, against the light, constant.

Now she had thrown the book out of the window, like Becky Sharp and the ‘Dixonary’ – and I always felt uneasy with Thackeray’s Becky, I loved her, yes, but she was so – selfish!

As I watched Virginia, her brow relaxed. After a moment, she started to laugh. ‘Oh I see. I see … what a fool I am.’

Now she was nodding, and reading more swiftly. At least twice, she nodded. My anger dissolved, though my fear was still great. Her long artist’s hands on my vulnerable pages.

But the taxi was jerking down the road again. We were rounding the mosque near the university. Still some time before 11
AM
.

‘Angela,’ she said, looking up suddenly. ‘Thank you. You defended me. But really – how heavy-footed critics can be.’

89

The question ‘What happened that night?’ must be answered. I can only tell you what happened to me. One day, perhaps, wherever she is, Virginia will tell it from her point of view.

What did I expect at the start of the evening? Not a lot. Fun and flirtation. Though I’d invited Kuyperman to please Virginia, I was half-relieved she was out of the picture. I had had the most exhausting day, beginning with the terrible row with Edward – then the ramp in Aya Sophia – then the riot …

Now the consolation of male attention. I was glad I had washed my hair. I decided to wear my Afghan coat, which made me look hippy, alternative, young.

(Was Ray …
possible
? I didn’t see why not. He had sought me out at a conference before, he had praised my novels, albeit rather vaguely.)

Long before dessert, I was disabused. Over starters, he first mentioned ‘Jimmy’, who seemed to accompany him on long walks. I was going to ask him what breed he was, but by the main course, I knew Jimmy was human.

‘It’s a bore being categorised,’ he said to me, ‘and things are still a little touchy in Jo’burg, but I realised, of course, in retrospect, after I saw you and your friend in Ida’s, that you were probably there for the same reason as me.’

‘Which is?’ A slight pause. It dawned on me. ‘Oh, I see. No, she’s … No. Yes, the cafe. Yes,
yes
.’

He carried us over the awkwardness. ‘Jimmy didn’t come with me, on this occasion, but we love Ida’s, we always go.’

I felt obscurely cheated, though, as if he’d taken something away from me, and started laying into the wine. He wasn’t even paying! We were going Dutch! I hadn’t forgotten the conference next day, but by the time we left, I was no longer sober.

It was twelve o’clock. Virginia must be back. Prodded by the same unsatisfied desire for some kind of reward or recognition, a simple nod, a word of praise, I marched upstairs, bumping into the wall because the stairs were stupidly narrow, and knocked on her door. By now she would have read it.

I knocked again, a little louder.

There were noises inside. Laughter, movement.

Perhaps she was talking in her sleep. I did not want to wake the hotel. The landing light was very bright, so I could not see if her light was on.

‘Virginia?’ I called, quietly. I could definitely hear a creaking of furniture, two voices, surely, and someone coughed.

But Room 13 was directly adjoining. Probably the sounds were coming from there.

I took what seemed like the easiest course, though in retrospect, it lacked dignity, and got down on all fours on the floor of the landing to see if there was light under her door.

In that instant it opened, and I was exposed.

Kneeling on the landing like some kind of goat.

In the Afghan coat I had put on to go out.

What did I see? It’s not easy to be clear, for I wasn’t expecting the door to open, it was dim inside, I was hauling myself backwards and scrambling upright at the same moment – the figure who emerged was not Virginia, but the slim pale Muslim girl who’d seen me before, when I’d just poked my paper underneath the same door.

‘Room service,’ she said. ‘I bring your friend tea.’

‘I was trying to see if the light was on.’

We had both talked at once. We stared at each other. She looked compassionate, as if I were insane. It was the second time, to be fair, that she’d found me on the landing with my head jammed against the crack beneath Virginia’s door.

Then I saw a large black shoe on her floor.

‘Are you all right, Virginia?’ I called.

‘Go away.’

The voice that answered was fuzzy with sleep. Or perhaps tipsy, or
I
was tipsy.

‘She is well,’ the Muslim girl asserted, blocking the door, almost protective.

What was I to do? I was unwelcome. I had been assured that Virginia was fine.

Perhaps she was lying on the bed naked
! I could not bear to see my hero naked.

When we’d shared a room, I never saw her naked (though was she my hero anymore?).

I shuffled away, backwards, defeated. I had missed something, I knew, I was sure.

‘Thank you,’ I said to the maid as I went, trying to reassert my authority.
Why had she taken her headscarf off?

90

As I tossed and turned through the night before the conference, telling myself I must go to sleep or I would be too tired to give a good paper, a salting of details fell like snow, bright disconnected particles against the darkness.

1. The pale girl with the sooty lashes had lost her scarf, and had no shoes on. Of that I was sure. I was at ground level, I could not be mistaken.

2. Virginia was a lesbian. (As her husband summarised it, after her death.) When she talked about her ‘feelings’ for men, in the café, it was a smokescreen.

But

3. the shoe I had glimpsed on the carpet by the bed, sturdy, black and shiny, was a man’s.

Or a lesbian shoe? Did it belong to the maid?

But

4. the maid was small, and the shoe was large. What was going on? What was Virginia up to?

Then at four, I jerked awake with

5. a mind-boggling explanation. She had gone to bed with a woman and a man. But why was I shocked? I had read
Orlando
.

6. An innocuous explanation. The maid was a maid looking after a guest. She was a small person with very big feet. She had taken her shoes off out of respect. It was a universal Turkish habit. Devout young Muslims were not lesbians. Virginia was married for over three decades. Muslim women did take their veils off when they were alone with women.

And slowly the innocuous story gained ground. I berated myself. I was a horrible person. Censorious to boot. Why did it bother me?

7. Well, because I was losing my own husband. He was disappearing in a dream of ice. He was shouting, waving, but I could not hear him. And Gerda, too, her small mouth opening. The two of them on the same sleigh. I should have known they would gang up together.

8. Nightmare firmed up into half-awake conviction. As the night thinned in my lonely room, the light was fading from the poles, and I found my fingers were clutching the duvet, they were both together in the gathering darkness, they were huddled together, unimaginably cold, two tiny people on a blue-white field, they had called for help and I had not answered, and now they had turned their backs on me. I tried to hold on, but they slipped over the edge while I fretted in a half-life between sleep and waking.

Daylight had formed a blank shape on the mirror before I finally rolled over and slept. One hour later, the alarm exploded.

I woke up to one clear realisation. Of course I must let Edward have the money. It was partly his, in any case. I had gone mad. It was not too late. In the Arctic it would be the middle of the night, but I left him a long text with a short beginning: ‘Sorry, Edward. Take the lot. The whole £40,000.
We can afford it.’

I felt a bit better once I had done that (though hopefully, he wouldn’t spend all of it …?) Then turned my mind to the day ahead.

At 8.30
AM
, as agreed with Virginia, I was up on the roof-terrace, frowning at the light, waiting for her. She did not come, but she still might. On balance, she was innocent.

Our taxi was ordered for 9.10
AM
. I ate my eggs in agitation, pushing the tomato around the plate. I was due to talk at 11
AM
, but the opening ceremony was at 9.30
AM
. I started to feel convinced of her guilt. The toast dried my throat. My chair scraped the floor. I looked at my watch every other minute. Virginia was now a hardened harlot.

Modern women should be
professional!

(Preferably not at sex, of course.)

As a woman and a feminist, she’d let me down.

By the time I regained our landing, I was raging. Only ten minutes till the taxi arrived. (And I’d given away all our money! I was poor!) Then I noticed something. Her key was in the door.

Could she have checked out?

Was she all right?

Was she fucking coming, as promised, to the conference?

In one furious move, I had turned the key, I was in through the door –

She lay there sleeping.

91

That happiness: they want blood for it. I never had it before, so I never realised. She knew I was happy, so she wanted me to pay. It reminded me of something, the look in her eye when she finally extricated me from the bedclothes. Who did she remind me of?

– Yes, long ago, the narrowing faces of our Bloomsbury relations when they spotted us coming, twenty feet away, with Vanessa in her new uncorseted dress that showed her body; we were laughing together, her hair was loose, and her lips were red, and she had been kissing all afternoon. They nodded to me, the most minimal nod, we were arm in arm but they refused to see her. And ever afterwards, they cut us dead. With her happy body she earned their hatred.

Now suddenly I am bare as she was. Now the hard glances will come for me. I have to be humble. (But I am proud!)

Ahmet. How did we choose each other? What miracle made what happened, happen? Happen, happen, happiness.

I will keep those hours till the end of my life – this second life, my happy life.

92

Atatürk Airport was like New York except some of the signs were not in English.

I remembered Istanbul was enormous.

I remembered Mum telling me that. ‘It goes on forever. You’d love it there. The whole world is in Istanbul, Gerda. One day, I’ll take you.’

Yes, but she didn’t. And I hadn’t got a visa. I got to ‘Immigration’ and was sent straight back. A kind Dutch teacher saw what happened and showed me where to buy my visa.