Translated Accounts (21 page)

She did not answer.

I raised the covering. You are tired, myself also, exhausted, come under, we may sleep. I put my hand to her wrist, lightly there. She did not notice. Then she did and looked to me. I said, What
it is, tell me, something is wrong.

No.

Yes, I know it.

She put her hand to my face, her finger onto my chin, the groove there. What is this? she said.

Tell me?

Nothing, nothing is wrong. She studied my face, her finger still onto my chin, now she looked to my eyes.

I said, Tell me.

We shall live forever. She nodded. It is not sarcasm. She turned her face from me and there was the stick and she poked into the embers, the fire dying there. It was more than one hour, if she
thought of it.

I found that I was singing. She heard me. It was not singing as she thought. It is a nonsense song, she said.

Yet if it is, I am singing it for you.

If people were to hear such nonsense it would give embarrassment.

Not to the creator of it, it is my composition.

All others.

No.

All others would scorn it.

Some would offer encouragement, praise, not all are lacking generosity.

You think I am so?

You are dependent on others, you should have confidence in yourself, I am your man, if you should praise me, why you do not, familiarity.

She laughed.

Strangers would praise me, our enemies. My song is so beautiful, it could not be denied.

You hum this one song, it has no melody. It is a mournful mournful sound, it is mournful. Yes.

Mournful! It is yours, I composed it for you.

I do not want it, she said. Her hand now was onto my chest and we lay for some period of time, her finger twisting hairs on my chest. I was tired, sleep would come. Moments are good. Yesterday
into this day, if tomorrow is there. Moments with her, seeing her eyes now, but alert, a light glinting, continual movement, her hand on my arm, her mind roving afar, breasts flatting onto me,
heavy beautiful. I do not know, if she thought something of myself. I thought of my daughter, infant, who that I had not seen for more, longer than one year, who never could be at peace, if I put
her onto my knee, staying there, restraining her, weighting her down. I would have to do that, and if she was kicking and struggling with me, not able to be still, tethered to myself and if I laid
her onto the floor would come her breathing in gasps, lungs of oxygen, I was her guard, now she was free, my daughter. This was after that my wife had not returned home, I had gone to her, it was
by the sea near to the home of her grandparents. These two now had my daughter.

Nonsense song. You are singing it. She slapped my chest.

Again?

Yes again, you do not know it?

Some have said that my singing is very good.

Your mother.

My mother?

None other could lie in such a manner. But I have a question.

Yes.

If I may ask it. I can ask it?

What?

If she was speaking to you, then why?

What?

If you can answer this question.

Ask.

I asked, why the woman was speaking to you.

Many people speak to me.

Why was that woman speaking to you?

What woman?

There are many women? Yes, they look to you they speak to you. You know the one. One woman who did so, she spoke to you, I saw her face, smiling to you, I saw her. Why? If this was indicative of
contempt. Contempt for myself.

She pulled at the hairs of my chest. I shall torture you. These women speak with you, why is that? This one woman who was very pretty. No, if I ask you, why is it?

What?

They speak with you, these women, younger, older, anything, if you are any place, I see them, and they talk to you. At our last meeting when the stranger to our country was there and talking
with many of us, his discourse to us, yes, this other fellow, I saw the woman there, she watched only you, yourself only. I saw it. What was it, she heard nothing of that discourse. Such manners
also. Here is a stranger who speaks to us and yet this one would not listen to him. Why? You did not see this woman watching you? Yet she did so, why?

Because I am so handsome

Yes because you are so handsome.

You are foolish.

You make yourself handsome for these women?

Yes.

Yes, so, you are handsome to see for these women, so why should they not so address you, she was speaking to you, it is what you wished.

If that one addressed me I can say nothing. Males address females, beautiful females, so females address males, handsome males.

So they will address you handsome male.

If so

Yes, my own life is altered by your presence, why not that of others. You are a dangerous man. Perhaps we should worship you.

Why are we fighting?

What do you mean? I do not understand. We are fighting, I do not think so.

You are fighting.

Who is fighting? Who is fighting? What are you saying now to me, I am not fighting with you. I am not fighting with you. I am not talking to you. Neither can I say more, I cannot, cannot.

What.

I cannot speak to you.

What, what is it?

Our life is passing.

What can we do? Nothing. Nothing.

I do not ask

I am sorry, nothing.

But what I am to do, if I may do something, what, I am sorry.

Oh.

I am to do nothing. Except the work that is there for us, what else, for myself, myself, I cannot say more.

Where is your child? Where is your child? Where?

With her grandmother.

All males are enemies. She breathed deeply, I felt the breath on my body, now her hand from my body and was a discomfort beneath my shoulder and also her breasts there if they would give
discomfort for her, so shifting the position I lay and she also. Later she said, Hearing you say that, I do not like it.

It is not serious.

I do not like it.

I said, We should have a pallet.

Even as she wore clothes, clothes for both sexes, she transformed them. As that women do, yes, but her way was different, I saw other women, they did not look as she did, she was one only,
beautiful and as the female shape, in the trousers was obvious, her waist and hips, breasts and eyes when she smiled, beautiful, as now my eyelids remaining closed and if hearing her laughter, her
laughter. I then suffered depressions, I do not say greater depressions, clouds only, darkening. Yet these would not vanish, overhanging me.

Some men would not have taken part, as I understand, travelling continually these areas of waste, always burning, fires, stench of smouldering rubber, thick black smoke. These
men had sticks or poles and dug among it. Poles might be long and thin, having iron hooks fashioned at an end. Men carried these poles balanced on their shoulders. Our colleagues were not with
them. I saw the father of the one requested, he wore dark clothes also, black or dark blue colour, and the vest as termed amereecana where across it above his belly reached the chain of that watch
fine watch, I remember it, pocketwatch. Where he got it. If the son would know, it is possible. If I asked him, I cannot remember. Heritable goods, family goods, elderly relatives. His father was a
man who performed obligations so, with dignity, as he thought, to the ruling class, and this watch may have been their reward to him, perhaps stolen but I do not think so. I say it only as
possible. He knew the town, all perimeters. It belonged to him, as how he walked as how his son also walks, I see the walk, I see his father, I see the arrogance. When his son was selected his
superior he said that the boy was no longer his son.

So with my own father who believed I also had power. I did have power, but not as he thought. It was necessary he held this opinion, proper that he so believed. As the general situation such
opinions held as by parents would not interest myself, nor colleague, colleagues, yet in the form of specimen, yes, it is possible. If we considered the lives of our parents, these were a form of
nightmare. But for younger men what the lives of adults are, who can say. When I had entered the teens I could not have used certain words and terms in their presence. I had to leave and I did
leave, was taken, it may be said. I could not have remained with them, conscious of that inferiority, to have coped with the knowledge.

Yes superiority. If it is to be so transformed, I make no objection, and can say it, now say it, as with my former colleague I held that superiority, over my father and mother. Who will slap his
face in her presence, in his presence slap her face. Who will slap one’s face in my presence, slap my mother’s face, father’s face, presence of myself, who will do it to my
father, father of my former colleague, and to we two, who will do it.

What is there.

I can speak of one night lying in my bed she came to me, my mother, and spoke and I also to her, beginning with the words
When I return from
. I cannot recollect more of that,
coming to
home
. Her reaction was strongly affected, how it was that she shrivelled, in front of my eyes losing weight losing height, becoming this ancient woman, manifestation of powerlessness in front
of my eyes, and she knew it well. She could say nothing to me. I had advanced to a level beyond, beyond which she would not understand, neither to have withdrawn.

Yet we ourselves had made that decision, myself herself, one to one, I know it now, perhaps then also I had the understanding, as my former colleague, yes, at that time we spoke together.

We acceded to obligations.

And our parents, taking pains to hide worldly things for the sake of each other. I can have sympathy. What is not possible, not permissible. These things had entered our lives and through this
the lives of our parents and elders, forced to concede their inferiority. If choice did exist, did it so for we two, no, I do not think so, we had none, it was to be accepted and we accepted it, as
must they. We had no choice, acceding to obligations, I have said.

Then of my former colleague I would say he had that imagination, necessary imagination. Decisions were taken early, from when, when is it, when for myself, the age of twelve.

If in those days my father had friends it did not continue. I remember how he would stand, hands in pockets, head cocked to the good ear, his head nodding while he looked off that he might
listen the more intently (the sight of a speaker’s face disturbs our attention). His gaze would settle on myself. He had a mannerism, how he would shake his head, meantime in the act he would
have established not only his inferiority but that he was not discontented, not a discontented man, often dangerous. I recall how he looked to me, frowning, yes distracted, not with comprehension,
neither occurring to him that I might pay heed to this. No reference was made to these encounters.

The company of my father was acceptable to the community, company of my former colleague’s father also. But the community was of them, not we two ourselves.

My father could not speak to me on matters beyond the immediate, continuing to lead me on forays upwards of the river, and we would find there different things, lumps of rubber, metal or wood.
He led, moving quickly not quickly, slowing as he thought, searching for all things, bodies could be there, deaths that need not have occurred. This was how he said it to me, need not have
occurred, people who need not have died. There came the occasion of the white clothing. It was among the undergrowth, ferns, sunflower plants. It had a sleeve torn and was of no value, also
stained, of course blood, I did not touch it, my father did so. We found that body, of a man, each leg snapped above the ankle as so, laid on the track for the train wheels. My father did not say
this to me but it was known, I knew it as did he. I told it to my former colleague, then boys as we were, he listened closely, asked of the dead man who had been of our community, from our district
but had not been here for some long period. Who had killed him, we then thought securitys, we made inquiry, securitys not securitys, if military were in the district.

Impertinence is a worldly quality. For our parents it would have been beyond them always. An exhibition of impertinence had a peculiar effect on them. I knew it as a child. They thought of me as
“godlike”. Yes, I believe that to have been true. But they would stand together. After the selection had been made known I saw my father look at me as though become aware, and only now,
that a secret had been kept from him. My father believed I had kept a secret from him. I do not know of my mother if it was the same, if it is possible, I do not think so. The possibility of my
selection was not kept from him, nor from my mother. For the lives of parents it would have been not so difficult could they have considered themselves accomplices.

What I am to say.

If I so could do, I could not, if such a choice existed, it did not. I say it with certainty. I cannot say this for other than myself. I am saying nothing of my former colleague. I know nothing
of himself and father, his mother or other family, I know nothing. We only were boys together. Beyond selection we moved separately. I did not see him for years after it, ten.

For myself, imagination might lead further as it was to do and from then, the break having been made by myself, no I did not see him for some long period, I have said years, ten.

I bore him no ill will, did not see him either as cause of evil. What terms, what can be said. He of course had the authority, anything. It was more than nominal. If only that
I still would have allowed it. He was not a fool but responsible. The hunger in his eyes was for something that for me would not exist but yet had its meaning. He had asked that I accompany him and
it was complimentary. But his authority, he used this with me. He could only use it. I do say he enjoyed it. Authority is not irrelevant. I say he did enjoy his. It had moved beyond good humour. At
first I thought so, the joke lying between us. Later, no, he had authority, he used it.