Translated Accounts (31 page)

Sarcasm, she said.

Sarcasm, yes.

Foolish, she said, now turning from me, turning also from this newcomer, looking to other people there. She always would say what was the case, what that she believed it to be, never rising to
such as this, if wasting her breath, she would not, and her irritability, I saw it and might have laughed but that what had happened before was again happening, and her irritability was against
myself.

I could not believe it. It was not to this other one, only myself. How could I believe it. Yet it was true. She did not disguise her perception of a situation, not from myself, I would see it, I
would know it. It was this newcomer having his influence, affecting her behaviour. Of course it was puzzling to me, of course. Now where my anger was it was other factors, emotions. I thought to
drink the tea, it would have nauseated me, my stomach.

Now this one spoke across her so that she stopped talking, staring at the floor. He was talking to myself, looking to myself. I did not know. I said nothing. I was not talking to him. Energy for
nothing. What was he talking, why we were to allow it, talking in this manner. I said, Why are you here? What is happening?

The newcomer would have spoken but was stopped by my companion who whispered to me. You must listen to him, it is important.

What is important, what he says, of course it is important, if you say it, I shall concede it.

You are bitter, said the newcomer.

I am bitter.

Matters are acute to us.

Matters that cannot be aired are acute to us, matters that we require none to inform us, of what exists in our midst, we do not require such information thrust down our throats, I said, not from
colleagues. Neither lectures, we do not require lectures, not from such as yourself.

He looked to my companion, It is contempt, he said, contempt from him.

Then how do you respond? If you are to respond.

He smiled. I shall respond.

In what way?

Again he smiled.

I thought how easily I could strike him. My companion was unsmiling, and her agitation, I saw it. Now she looked to myself. I was a puzzle to her. The newcomer whispered, You are returning?

Yes, if it is possible, sooner or later.

Your companion has his own plans, perhaps strategies. He smiled again to her, and not to me, now taking from his coat a pack of cigarettes, matches, passing the cigarette to me. I did not accept
it. He looked to her. Now I did accept and he had the match, striking it for me. I did not lean to him, he now moved his hand with the lighted match so that I could take the light, not moving too
much for it. I did not see at his eyes in that glare. I smoked the cigarette for more than two draws, and did not look to them, until returning it to him. He smoked one draw and gave it to her.

Yes you are irritable, she said to me. It was not spoken as to goad you. It is a philosophy he outlines to you, allow him to further advance his argument.

We have all the time, I said.

We have time, she said.

Yes. I whispered to the newcomer, What will you tell me now, of foreign lawyers and theoreticians, yes, very moral people, talk to us of them, members of the human species, tell me of securitys,
how they also are people, we may respect humanity, they may answer back to us, answering questions firstly, the killing will follow, nothing will change, only speakers.

The newcomer passed the cigarette on to me.

This is not sarcasm, I said, only tell me. He made a gesture, not as to antagonise. Now there was silence. I smoked the cigarette. Only a little was left, I ground it out. I thought now of all
that I could say, and said it to her, You do not wish me here.

I saw her exhaustion, knees drawn up, arms folded on them, chin resting. I could see her eyes. We had been in awkward circumstances, situations. Who had not been. I also was exhausted, body
aching, food.

She said, What do you mean. You are speaking nonsense, I do not want to hear nonsense.

What is wrong?

Nothing is wrong. I am tired of you. You are irritable, your bitterness, we cannot talk, you will not allow it, I see your face, he says things and you must deny you must deny you cannot
listen.

I cannot listen.

No.

No, I said, I cannot. You are tired of me, he is here and you say it. No, not to me, you will not do it. It is not justifiable.

Nothing is justifiable.

Yes, I am wrong, I am sorry for it. I got onto my feet quickly, looking not to her, neither to him never to him. Nearby I heard movement and further stirring from others, some listening, they
could not do other, I could not blame them, and I said again to her, No, this is not justifiable. And I left her, striding from her, the bitterness in me and what reason what reason.

And now happened that most unexpected thing, a security was in the doorway out from our building and I knocked into him, and off balance he falling. My impulse was to strike at him I was angry,
to hurt him, and overpowered him could have struck at him easily but did not or would have been dead at once. He lay a moment then twisting and rolling immediately off from myself as expecting
blows from myself. Now he saw it, knew what it had been, an accident, and he was onto his feet and he moved now towards me, as I also backwards. He gripping my arm and up under my shoulder turning
my body, knocking me sideways and down and I was on the ground, himself on top, astride my shoulders now, and angry so very angry I thought to see his knife now to cut my throat. You fool. If I had
had strength, I had none, I could not have unseated him. More securitys now behind and to the side. You fool, he said, and looking into my eyes as I also. Our eyes, myself himself. About him I do
not know, staring down but I also to him, and he saw that and I saw his face, expressive. He was older, heavy on me, now that I could see him. He shook his head. You are a fool.

As you also I said but into my mind, but why insult him, this was my own self to blame for this, striking into him so that he was foolish, looking so, if his other colleagues were there. My mind
then went to my child. I thought I am dying they must kill me now, she will not know. Instead he slapped my face, and greater force, feeling at the corner of my eye if it was the skin tore, as
though my eye would hit into my nose and fall out. One security laughed. One other said, A slapping for him, he is a naughty boy.

Instead if they had killed me, I thought it then, if death was to come it would be peace, if none was to know, not anything.

I remained on the ground. My eyes were open. The securitys had gone. Voices now also gone. Nothing. But the night, it also had gone. If I had lost consciousness, perhaps I did do so. How long I
was there lying, if I did glimpse her, perhaps. There was good light, moonlight, sunlight, towards dawn. I thought I did see her in the doorway, a shape there. I could see a person, someone there
observing. Now as in a dream what she was doing, images crowded of my companion and the newcomer, these two now together, and the voice now that I heard it, strongly, this voice talking, These
people want from me what is it they want from me.

Later it was dawn. I walked by the perimeter, securitys were there, one challenged me. I acted as though not hearing that he might ignore me. None else may have heard, there was no necessity
that a confrontation should take place. But he stepped sideways into my path and raised his arm and I stopped and his eyes stared into myself, a moment there standing until he thought not to bring
matters further. What is there to die for. I can die for it, not as others had done, if others had done, my own death might be for anything, nothing. I walked to the outer area, others were here.
If there is the wish to die it is nothing to talk about.

The moon was not part of it, the moon was above another part of it, someone’s world where children were and smells of old people, people near to death, now from the other section smells
also. Later I would return to mine, securitys by the door, barring entry, now seeing myself, raising the weapon, I was no threat. Of course she would have gone, nothing there in the space, also
clothings that I had, these also gone.

The security was in my path.

How long it had been here in this place. Some detailed the days and the weeks.

Unfortunately no one told me of his death. I would have wanted to know. I would have thought of him. At the farewell-gathering I could have sat by myself, ensuring some
solitary time. This is the ritual. I could have performed it. I know about rituals that they may allow us an understanding and in this will lie their worth. Ritual is far from a bad thing, if under
the foregoing, if it is so.

Then during the periods of repose these moments where nothing is demanded of us, reflection on the individual now deceased often will transform itself into lived-experience and we are
remembering scenes of our youth, feelings that we shared, our various leanings, political, sporting, other, also love, loves, early ideas of love. I here am referring to the deepmost experiences of
our youth. We re-encounter the most vivid images of greatness, future greatness, for the species, of which we are a part, gloriously. We think then of tragedy, for we consider humanity itself. We
consider individual human beings, we regard them as tragedies and ponder on meaning, their significance for us. We are aware these are not the experience of youth, that we have no true knowledge of
such a thing, as a tragedy, its reality, which is for adults, and we are able to glorify in that, as in our youth, we glorify in this now, this present, this

communing,

that we are here in the face of a form of greatness, for what else is death?

This is how we think. Yet too we would know it as erroneous. When we become older we are aware that tragedy is an experience, deeply, another experience, another reality, this is what it has
become, that we encounter it throughout our lives, individuals whom we have enjoyed, who have become no longer with us, and we are to experience this.

In these most difficult moments such as that now before us we think how would it be if our children were present. I also think this. I cannot halt the thought, my own child. And could such a
thing be possible? Have children, dependent children, been present? Of course they have. What did the father do? Did he cope? If it is not possible to cope. Myself to think so, for to what is it
akin, or may it be so? War situations, where one has to have one’s children? Be at war but take care of them. Yes. And to go further, we must recognise that this is as it is for all parents,
as we are and have been, and for all time. If I may think of Egyptian peasants of 7000 years ago in the knowledge that this is not ruled out as a form of hell, that drawing an exception to this
rule indicates only the nature of generality, that a rule may enclose any number of general indicators, only they are a guide to behaviour, behaviour that is difficult in situations grasped as
socially awkward. But from the earliest time we both set out to show the positive aspect to this, that these insurmountable burdens superficially are so, only so, that they do much to alleviate the
unbearable, unbearable action, the nature, of our present environment.

I become weary of the extension, it becomes further descent, my own inability, and lack

Movement, confined space, always that presupposition. Examples?

I received word of his death too late. No one advised me earlier. I regret this. It is awkward, is to be so expressed.

Yet such as this cannot be helped, these are the thoughts, there is a time for such thoughts, it is during the grieving, perhaps at the outset, of the grieving period, and no one told me of his
death, no one told me, I write to you

I write to you

If I could not move my body if it was not broken. You have him, he said, voice coming from where. It was not, I was not, this was a floor, floor, pallet and covering, and the
hand at my groin and I moved, shifting onto my side and it over me the arm over me the hand gripping me. The heat great and sweat, old layers. If my head was beneath the covering I would not
breathe, I knew it, could not, suffocating, I knew it. Drifting again into sleep, something like sleep, a pain dissipated. If I would awaken, if it was a dream passing, an event past, from earlier
in life or if it had been happening how long a long time, and the erection now, thinking it happening, it was happening, as endless thing, as dreams are, cyclic. And I was awake again, and the hand
having me there gripping me, I felt the heat also from her body. I barely could move, stretch only my limbs. What was it asked, things asked. If things were asked I heard them then the next moment
had arrived, I would not know until the moment to follow, or longer, how long, hours. What these questions were. The hand gripped me, tight in, strength there squeezing, yet I would open my legs,
wishing I might do so but what the dread was, or dreading that I was, but was not it was not,

Also in my memory, and with that the dread, and the body behind, somebody known to me, I thought, known to me, and a sickening feeling. Had I seen this woman I thought I had seen this woman.
Something of my life now was ended and this other thing that I knew, also finished, that I cared about, this other thing, it too, it was beyond, what

And if resisting. I was resisting. It was passive and had to be passive, not to move that I was known to be conscious. It was to loosen myself, in preparation. I would relax, but in preparation,
try for that. Her hand big round me my penis small, gripping my testicles, big round me her hand, and clutching, my eyes shut, my chest constricted, needing properly to breathe but not that power,
I wanted a strength so to accomplish this, and my lungs, I was gulping, not to gasp, spits of light behind my eyes, sparking, pin-points, behind my eyes now suffocating. My chest.

It comes in saliva, we tell these things. I just was to lie. I could not fight my way clear. They could not know I was conscious. I would die. I am saying that. I knew it, it was not possible,
speaking of escape, it was to control the nerves in my stomach, that I may control the nerves in my stomach or the oxygen leaving my lungs but beyond this not controlling any thing and my chest
such heaving if my lungs exploded, if it is happening to myself