Judith (29 page)

I suppose he saw my bicycle. He lowered his head, and stood like some guardian of the tomb.

I could say – You did ask me to come here!

He could say – But that was some time ago –

– and you have been in another country.

There is that ballet, do you know it, in which people sit, and stand, and move across the stage, and just come to rest perhaps against a ruined pillar: the music is the slow movement of a symphony: the dancers seem to be trying to do just what would show honour to the music. Bert left the tomb and came towards me through the long grass. There is an effect that you can get in a film of someone walking through grass as if on water.

He said ‘Hullo.'

I said ‘Hullo.'

He said as if he did not now mind what might hurt him ‘Did you have a nice time?'

I said ‘Yes, it was quite nice, thank you.'

He stretched out a hand and put a finger on my forehead. I thought – Why do people when they cannot think of anything else to do, put a finger on my forehead?

He said ‘You found your way.'

I said ‘Yes, thank you for the map.'

He said ‘Da da di dum dum; da da di da.'

I said ‘I'm sorry.'

I thought – Because I have the mark of Cain? Then – But Cain needed comfort!

Bert kneeled and undid the flap of the tent. Inside there were a groundsheet and a sleeping-bag and one or two blankets. There was also a jumble of cameras and film equipment.

I said ‘Tell me what's happened.'

He said ‘About this or that?'

I said ‘Both.'

Bert crawled inside the tent. He was like one of those elephants going into that cave to get minerals, to get comfort, do you remember?

He said ‘Well, there's this demonstration, as you know.'

I said ‘Yes.'

He said ‘They'll be at the airbase tomorrow.'

I said ‘What are they going to do?'

I thought – There is a fence between us as we talk, like the one around the airbase.

He said ‘They've been doing this sort of thing for years, as you know. The more they demonstrate, the more the other side feels at home. You knock a ball over a net: if the other side isn't there, you haven't got a game.'

He was rearranging the film equipment inside the tent; pushing it to one side, spreading out the groundsheet as if to make a larger bed.

He said ‘It's like the Western Front in the First World War. Everyone's dug in. There's a women's camp outside the fence. Every now and then they expose their breasts to the men inside the fence, and the men inside expose their arses.'

I said ‘But nothing happens.'

He said ‘But nothing happens.'

I said ‘Except a bomb may go off.'

He said ‘Except a bomb may go off.'

When he crawled out of the tent he would not look at me. I thought – All right, why not kick me: drag me around the stage.

Then – We are trying to build, or break down, with our talk, a fence like the one around the airbase?

He said ‘Lilia took an overdose, did you know?'

I said ‘Yes.'

He said ‘I suppose she wanted to do more than make a protest: about you and Jason: set a small sort of bomb off.'

I thought – You mean, this was a valid form of protest of Lilia's? Some sort of bomb may have to go off?

He took my rucksack and carried it into the tent.

I thought – You think you need not even ask me whether or
not I will stay?

He said ‘I wrote an article for their magazine – I mean, the magazine of the women outside the airbase. I said it was no good simply to go on demonstrating: this only encourages those within. I said that if they were to get anything of what they wanted, then some sort of bomb would have to go off. Then people would experience reality, and not just be reinforcing themselves with words. It is words and gestures that are counter-productive.'

He lay on his back inside the tent with his hands behind his head. I thought – Well, what happens now: you think we have grown up, do you, Holofernes?

I said ‘And did they publish it?'

He said ‘No.'

I thought – So you are not responsible.

Or – But you know, don't you, that I feel responsible for myself!

He put his hand on the sleeping-bag beside him as if inviting me to join him.

He said ‘I told them the exact time and place – the sort of bomb that should go off. I mean not a big bomb, which they couldn't get anyway; but an old-fashioned bomb, with some radioactive material around it.'

I thought – This is mad. But you have said, haven't you, that words are counter-productive?

He said ‘I told them there was this Easter demonstration at the American airbase and that just next door there was this enormous battle-area where no one ever comes. I mean, no one anyway would be here on Easter Saturday. I said they could let the bomb off here. Then people could see what it was like; but no one much would be hurt, except possibly military men, who like practising this sort of thing anyway.'

I said ‘But you made it clear it was a joke.'

He said ‘Yes, but what is a joke.'

I said ‘Exactly.'

I thought – You mean, might not some old god have quite often behaved like this?

He said ‘And now they're said to have got hold of some radioactive material.'

I said ‘Who are said to have got hold of some radioactive material?'

He said ‘I don't know.'

I thought – You mean you don't know, or you won't tell me?

He said ‘Of course, they might just be saying it.'

I said ‘Yes, they might just be saying it.' Then – ‘But then that would be counter-productive.'

He said ‘Yes, that would be counter-productive.'

I thought I might crawl into the tent and put my head on his knee.

Behind me was the long grass, the tomb, the walls on which fruit trees had once grown.

I wondered – Why did you draw the tree growing out of the tomb?

He said ‘The whole thing is ridiculous.'

I thought I might say – Yes, the whole thing is ridiculous.

I said ‘But you mean, even if people did explode such a bomb, they wouldn't be able to control it?'

He said ‘Yes, they might not be able to control it.'

I said ‘But that, presumably, would be part of what you were trying to show.'

He said ‘Yes, that would be part of what one was trying to show.'

I crawled into the tent and put my head against his knee. He was trembling slightly. I thought – If he were pretending to tremble, it would not be so effective?

I said ‘And how is Lilia now?'

He said ‘She's all right.'

I said ‘And the child?'

He said ‘All right.'

I said ‘You think you should not even have put the idea into words?'

He said ‘I am not saying what anyone should or should not have done.'

I said ‘And you came here to stop it: no, how can you stop it? to be here –'

He said ‘– Being responsible.'

I said ‘Responsible and not responsible.'

He said ‘Exactly.'

He put a finger in my hair and twirled it round. I went to the entrance of the tent and pulled the flap down so that we were enclosed.

He said ‘Why did you come here?'

I said ‘For the same reason as you.'

He said ‘Being responsible –'

I said ‘You think you can tell how what you have done will affect the future?'

There were some leaves from the trees outside making shadows on the walls. I thought – I am that child, whosoever or whatsoever it was, lying in its pram, looking up.

He said ‘We used to come here as children. The house used to be just beyond that wall.'

I thought – We come back on the curve of the universe. Then things have a chance of making themselves all right again?

I said ‘Yes, I know.'

He said ‘You've been here before?'

I said ‘Not here exactly.'

He said ‘Where did you go?'

I thought – You mean here? or to that other place?

Then – Words, being counter-productive, might help to make things all right?

I said ‘To that hotel: at that place I stayed at before.'

He said ‘Why did you go there?'

I said ‘I wanted to write about it. It was from there, that time years ago, that I wrote to you.'

I thought I might have said – I came here now, of course, because of you.

The tent was about three feet high. There was a dim orange light. Bert lifted his hand above his face as if he might make shadows on the wall. The light seemed to make shadows on his face.

He said ‘Lilia has always manipulated things. If you do this, in the end, I suppose, you have to hit rock bottom.'

I said ‘But what about the child?'

He said ‘Yes, what about the child.'

He sat up. It was as if his head and shoulders were pressing against the roof of a cave. I thought – He is one of those elephants; he is trying to get sustenance?

He said ‘Neither Lilia nor anyone else knows what they are doing with the child.' Then – ‘Perhaps it was her way of getting him a day off from school.'

I said ‘Getting him a day off from school?'

Bert said ‘There was an accident at the school-crossing that day. Oh, don't you see, how do you think one can talk about this!'

I thought – Yes, I see.

Then – I mean, I see why you cannot talk about this.

Bert lay back. He said ‘The child! Why do you call him the child?'

I thought – You do mean, because of Lilia taking an overdose, the child didn't go to school that day?

Bert said as if quoting ‘– Type of explosive, wind direction, height from ground, that sort of thing –'

I tried to imagine Lilia and the child. I had a picture of him at the top of a staircase, holding on to bannisters, looking down.

The mind, yes, goes blank.

Bert said ‘I don't know how much Lilia knew about you and Jason.'

I thought I might say – Not much. I suppose enough.

Or – But then do you, or do you not, want such a bomb to go off?

I was looking up at the leaves, the shadows.

There are, do you think, these coincidences?

I said ‘Whose is that tomb?'

He said ‘My great great grandmother's or something. ‘Then, as if he were quoting' – She was born in this part of the world.'

He put an arm round me. He stroked my back.

I said ‘Do you think one could make a joke of that?'

He said ‘Of what?'

I said ‘Of Jason and Medea. Of that bomb going off.'

He said ‘– Ladies and Gentlemen, we now come to the more practical part of our demonstration –'

I said ‘But you don't even know they've got hold of this radioactive material!'

He said ‘There is some evidence that they've got hold of radioactive material.'

I said ‘Tell me, who are “they”?'

He said ‘There are always “theys”.'

I said ‘Of course I feel guilty!' Then – ‘I mean, about Lilia.'

He said ‘Don't cry.'

I said ‘It's so awful. So awful!'

I thought – Jason and Lilia, or Medea, and that girl, what was her name: they must have all wanted to kill each other!

I sat up and put my hands around my knees.

I thought – I am not pretending to cry!

He said ‘Lilia and the child and Jason are all right.'

I wanted to say – Where's Jason?

(Well, where were you? waiting for some new dragon's teeth to grow, I suppose!)

I said ‘When was the house pulled down?'

He said ‘After the war. There was a fire.'

I thought I might say – I came here to say I'd marry you!

He said ‘Would you like some food?'

I said ‘Yes.'

He crawled out of the tent. He took with him a small gas-stove and a bowl in which there were carrots and potatoes.

I thought – I do not see, really, how one lives like this. Then – This is the only possible way to live?

He said ‘We used to camp here, my mother and my father and Lilia and I. Even then the battle-area was usually empty.'

He poured what was left of a can of water into the bowl and began to wash the carrots and potatoes.

He said ‘It was like the Garden of Eden. There were all the notices telling people to keep out.'

‘So you used to go in?'

‘So I used to go in.'

He put the carrots and potatoes into a saucepan and lit the stove; then he held the bowl with the dirty water in it and looked at the saucepan.

He said ‘– Cooking water, washing-water, drinking-water: that sort of thing –'

I said ‘But if Jason and Lilia and the child are all right –'

He said ‘Yes?'

I said ‘You think you can't talk about it?'

He said nothing.

I thought I might say – Not even in inverted commas?

He might say – Can you live in inverted commas? Can you die in inverted commas?

He crawled into the tent and got hold of a can of clean water which, when he emerged from the tent again, he poured into the saucepan which he put on the stove.

I said ‘What did you think of my letter?'

He said ‘Which one?' Then – ‘I sent you a map.' Then – ‘That letter was years ago!'

I said ‘I've written letters since then!'

He crawled into the tent again and rummaged about among some clothes. He produced a bundle of letters which he began leafing through as he sat cross-legged on the sleeping-bag.

He said ‘Do you love him?'

I said ‘Who?'

He said ‘Jason.'

I thought – Why don't I say: I came here to say I'd marry you?

He said ‘Read this.' He began himself to read one of the letters.

I said ‘No, I don't love him.'

He said ‘Words are counter-productive.'