Judith (12 page)

Humanity, indeed, cannot get out of its cage, can it – that cage of desire, of consciousness, of where-are-we-from-and-where-are-we-going. So what can a goddess do about this? except to condescend, of course, vicariously. I had two Thai boys to help me (it was now I who was Holofernes with his handmaidens?). Edwin, of course, could do no more than poke out of his cage. And there were all the guests, the armament manufacturers, watching like drops of oil – about to touch some deep surface at last and spread. For them this had to be vicarious; how else could they also remain their compact, immune, all-of-a-piece globules? So I had to be helped (so fragile was I: such was my care!) on to their representative, their shadow in the cave or cage – Edwin their great vicar from Hertford Street. I had to smile sweetly as I was lifted on the arms of my acolytes; on to, as it were, my throne, my consecration. I could do this quite well: what do
you think it is that makes an actress? And Edwin would bang and roar against the bars of the cage: he was quite good at this too: he said he used to imagine he was one of his uncles who had swallowed a serpent in Port au Prince. And the two Thai boys went so delicately: getting the hook as it were, on to the worm at the mouth of the cage. And it was the audience who were caught – by Edwin as suffering humanity; by the Thai boys with their dexterity and control: and by myself, of course, above all – as the drop of oil, their queen, bursting in their minds and spreading.

If a woman were to be the sacrifice, do you think the satisfaction for men would be just the nails having gone in?

That's enough, Princess Salome! Blot her out!

There are shafts between the conscious and the unconscious: they are like bars of light.

(Did not you, Bert, once make a film like this? A new-born baby lies on the edge of a bed –)

What I remember is the audience becoming very still. I looked amongst them: I was saying – Is it you; is it you?

You can paint the sacrificed god: could you paint the sacrificed goddess?

Would she not be watching you? Looking down –

That is why you would not want her to be on top?

Edwin, I think, at the end had to pretend to be garrotted: he could not be allowed out of his cage. One of the Thai boys had to nip round behind.

You know what happens when a man is garrotted?

Oh, the remaining Thai boy and myself could make quite a prettily posed picture! a cherub at the feet of my throne.

In the end, yes, I would come down.

I would move about amongst my audience like a vicar shaking hands on Easter Sunday.

Of course I am real! Of course you can touch me!

A little blood, a little shit, do you not think?

(Don't you call this contempt?)

That is also what you came for, isn't it?

*

I said to the Professor ‘What work are you engaged on at the moment?'

He said ‘I'm on a committee in Whitehall to do with chemical and biological warfare.'

I said ‘What can you do about such things?'

He said ‘You can't unknow what you know. You can't do away with primitive emotions. You can learn a new way of looking.'

I said ‘Such as.'

He said ‘What is beautiful, and what is simply boring.'

We were sitting on a parapet of a fountain in Trafalgar Square. The basin of the fountain was empty. Pigeons flew about like spirals of dust in a courtyard.

I said ‘Do you know Kleist's story of the puppet-master?'

He said ‘Yes.'

I said ‘He said humans were not viable because they were neither puppets nor gods.'

He said ‘He also said that humans would be viable, if they went right round the world and into the Garden of Eden again by the back way.'

I said ‘I didn't know that.'

He said ‘Didn't you?'

There were some young men in white shirts and grey flannel trousers unloading equipment from a van at the edge of the paved area of the square. They carried wooden planks and rolled-up banners to the plinth at the bottom of the column in the centre.

I said ‘No, I don't know how to keep off dope. I don't know how to get out. I don't know where to go.'

He said ‘You will when you want to.'

I said ‘How will I want?'

He said ‘It may not be much to do with you.'

I said ‘What will it be to do with?'

He said ‘You haven't hit rock bottom.'

The men in white shirts had propped two ladders against the plinth. They climbed up. They seemed to be preparing for a political meeting.

I said ‘I thought I had.'

He said ‘You may be carried off kicking. Who wants to be reborn?'

I said ‘There might be soft lights and sweet music!' He said ‘Yes, indeed, there might be soft lights and sweet music'

At the side of the square there was a policeman and a policewoman who were watching the men in white shirts at the plinth. The policeman spoke into his two-way radio: the policewoman held hers to her ear.

I said ‘But why me?' Then – ‘I mean, why are you helping me?'

He said ‘Why anyone?' Then – ‘My girlfriend's just left me.'

I thought – Is that true? Then – You're too old to have a girlfriend!

There was another group of people coming across the square. They wore bowler hats; they carried cases that looked as if they contained musical instruments.

I said ‘Why shouldn't some sort of Bomb go off, if you've got to hit rock bottom?'

He said ‘Indeed, why shouldn't some sort of Bomb go off.'

I said ‘I thought you had something to tell me.'

He said ‘I've told you.'

The men on the plinth were setting up a microphone and loudspeakers. They hung wires over the stone lions at the corners of the plinth.

I thought – Again, what was it in those paintings: an empty space? a courtyard? a girl lying on a beach?

I said ‘Why has your girlfriend left you?'

He said ‘She's having a baby.'

I thought – You mean the baby's not yours? Then – This is ridiculous!

Then – You mean, it is like the baby in the picture? He said ‘And so I thought I'd do anything to get another girl –'

I said ‘That's not true!'

He said ‘Of course it's not true!'

I thought – You mean, I have to see why you said it?

The musicians were putting down their instrument-cases at the bottom of the plinth. They were taking off their jackets.

He said ‘She wants an abortion.'

I said ‘And you don't want her to?'

He said ‘No.'

I thought I might say – Stop her then. I thought suddenly – Perhaps I will go to that old guru in India!

I said ‘The baby's not yours –'

He said ‘I don't know.'

I thought – That girl: the empty space: those two figures in the courtyard –

Then – I am responsible for my story: you are responsible for yours –

– You are responsible for my story: I am responsible for yours –

Two of the musicians had taken hold of the ladders which belonged to the men in white shirts on the plinth. They were climbing up them. They began to walk about on them as if they were stilts.

I said ‘I once saw a film about this: the foetus is drawn into a vacuum: it explodes: it can't make a noise.'

He said ‘Oh yes.' Then – ‘Thank you.'

I said ‘Of course you can stop her if you want to!'

He said ‘You see, you're helping me.' Then – ‘You've got my number: you can call me any hour of the day or night.'

I thought – You mean, you'll help me to get to India?

The men in white shirts were looking down from the top of their plinth. The men who had taken their ladders were walking about like clowns. One of them carried a flute which he brandished as if it were a sword.

I said ‘But you don't want a new girlfriend.'

He said ‘Of course I want a new girlfriend!'

I thought – I don't understand this way of seeing things, this way of talking, at all.

There was that physical sensation of cold air coming in. I thought – I am that foetus, trying to get out?

So what did become of that girl with the wound in her throat –

– The message like a bird –

– That empty space?

I said ‘What is the name of your girlfriend?'

He said ‘Lilia.'

I thought – Not Lilith? Lilia?

The two men on stilts confronted one another; they seemed, with their musical instruments, to be about to fight a duel. The men in white shirts had got down from their plinth and were going after them; the clowns on stilts began waddling across the square. The men in white shirts caught up with them and held the ladders; they were like people struggling to raise a flag.

The Professor said ‘It's like an experiment I once did with my students.'

I said ‘What is?'

He said ‘This.' Then – ‘Sometimes there are connections: sometimes not.'

One of the ladders, upright, was by the parapet of the fountain. As the men in white shirts struggled with it, it toppled, slowly, projecting the man at the top on towards a piece of sculpture within the fountain. There he landed, and clung, as if on a rock in a rough sea; while the other end of the ladder, the length of which had pivoted on the parapet, jerked up and caught one of the men in white shirts in the groin. This man sank to the ground, while his companions gathered round him.

The policeman and the policewoman were approaching across the square. The Professor got up and walked towards them. He stood in front of them and seemed to show them some card of identification. I thought – He is dissuading them from interfering with whatever it is that is going on: he is making out that he has been in control of some experiment all the time.

I thought – I must get away!

I got up and walked in another direction across the square. The Professor was standing with the policeman and the
policewoman watching the scene as if they were appreciating some picture.

One evening I was on my own in the sitting-room of the flat and there was a ring on the doorbell from downstairs and I pressed the button and then when I opened the door of the flat there was Desmond.

I thought I might say – Go away! Don't you know it is dangerous to be here?

– You have come to rescue me after all? But it is too late! Don't you know this might be a trap?

Desmond said ‘Oliver told me you were here.'

I thought – I know Oliver would have told you I was here!

Desmond followed me into the sitting-room. He closed the door. He said ‘He said I could come and see you.'

I thought – So you are a member of Them – who? – the invaders from Andromeda? The Gestapo? You will put on rubber gloves. You will be looking for – Guns? Papers? Foetuses?

Desmond sat with his arms along the sides of a chair. I thought – If I had a button, I might get currents passing through him –

He said ‘How have you been?'

I said ‘All right.'

He said ‘Oliver doesn't mind!'

I thought I might say – There will be the explosion; the rubble; the dome of the observatory; the spire open to the wind –

He said ‘What does Oliver do? I've heard stories!'

I wanted him to go away. I wanted to explain – We each have to be getting on with – whatever is in those pictures.

He said ‘Come to bed.'

I said ‘Why did Oliver want you to come here?' He said ‘I don't know, do you?'

He sat with his arms along the sides of the chair. I thought – But don't you know what happens to people who are booby-trapped –

Then – Perhaps all of us have to be wiped out.

He said ‘Show me what he does.' Then – ‘I'd like anything!' I thought – Oh I have seen children with dogs' heads and fins of fishes! –

He said ‘Aren't you well?'

I said ‘No.'

He said ‘Perhaps I better come back another time.'

I thought – You mean, there really is something keeping an eye on this, just round some corner?

The experiment that the Professor had once done with his students (he told me later) was –

The students were placed in front of a screen and each was given to hold an instrument similar to those by which you alter the channels on television. The students were told that by pressing this or that button they could affect what image came up on the screen: there were five or six buttons and five or six corresponding images available: the students were told that their instruments were connected to a machine which would project the image selected by the majority of buttons. In fact the instruments were connected to nothing that affected what image came up on the screen: they were connected to a computer which recorded what buttons were pressed, and which analysed the relations and patterns of relations between the buttons pressed and the images. What came up on the screen was occasioned by another machine which made its ‘choices' at random: by ‘random' was meant something to do with the behaviour of elementary particles: this at that time among scientists had become a definition of ‘randomness'. But students were under the impression that they could influence what came up on the screen by becoming part of a statistical majority. So, what was the point of the experiment? The computer recorded the buttons pressed and the images that came up and it analysed the relations and patterns of relations: there were certain coincidences that occurred slightly more or slightly less than what might be expected from laws of averages: there were certain numbers of occasions that the image that came up was the one before, or the one after, the
corresponding majority – button pressed – and so on. There were statistics that might seem interesting here and there: but these seemed to be offset by interesting figures somewhere else. So what, indeed, was the point of the experiment?

It was, I suppose, that all this was like life: we are under the illusion – are we not? – that we influence things – even if we imagine our influence is dependent on its being part of a statistical majority. But then, after a time, the students got bored – do we not get bored like this in life: however much we think we participate actively in events we also suspect, at some level, that we do not: and anyway, what sort of personal influence is it that depends on being part of a majority statistic? Is there here anything of control? And so there is a sort of despair (might there not be a button by which we could blow up the world!). And so on. You see what I mean.