Catastrophe Practice (39 page)

Anderson said ‘I can't bear it!'

The Professor said ‘You'll find it.'

He thought, watching Anderson —

— We were on a hill, with fir trees, once, Eleanor and I: and I said — Why don't we have children? And she said — We have got children —

— He would have been like this, so bright and troubled, if we had had a child?

Out in the passage there seemed to be a flash, travelling both ways, towards the rubble by the stairs and back from it, creating a light both in front and behind the eyes; like a backdrop or nerve-ends burning; leaving a taste on the tongue like something from childhood —

The Professor said ‘Wait here.' He put the bottle of colourless liquid in his pocket, and went out past Anderson and along the corridor.

When he came to the hallway there was the door to the lift-shaft and three men in gas-masks. One was held up by two others: he thought — Some sort of devil's deposition. The Professor shone his torch in their faces. One seemed to reach for — a gun? a Geiger counter? bat's piss? The Professor thought — I am so bored of these people! He swung his torch to and fro, as if he were making an erasure.

Anderson had come up behind him. He was saying ‘Oh damn! damn!' He was searching about in the rubble.

The Professor shouted ‘Get them out of here!' Then he sat down, heavily, on some rubble.

He thought — I am drunk.

Then — Have I, or have I not, sat down on that little bottle of liquid that will destroy the world!

He put his hands to his throat and coughed. He thought he might say — No need to panic!

Or — Gather around my children: you can brighten your dying sun —

There was water pouring through the roof and down the rubble.

Anderson was saying to the men in gas-masks ‘Don't you know what this place is?'

The Professor thought he might say — I should do; I run it.

He sat with his elbows on his knees. Anderson came up and squatted beside him. Anderson said ‘Are you all right?' The
Professor wondered — Is he acting?

The Professor said ‘Yes.'

Anderson said loudly as if he were acting'— There's no need to panic. People will destroy themselves if they want to! —'

Looking at the men in gas-masks, the Professor wondered — What if there were something — in the mind, in the outside world — that would destroy only men in gas-masks?

Anderson was making as if to help him up through the rubble. He thought — Like Aeneas, after the fall of Troy.

Anderson had his cardboard box under his arm. He was still looking around on the rubble.

When they were out in the night sky, it was so beautiful! There were fire-engines like old space-craft, landed.

The Professor thought — So this is what the world looks like after so many plagues and prophets —

Anderson was saying ‘I know I did have it!'

The Professor wanted to pray — There could still be some Noah's Ark in this flood?

One of the men in gas-masks was coming up out of the rubble. He was putting a finger under his chin as if to take off his face.

The Professor thought — What terrible words might be loosed in the world from behind it!

Then he thought — Yes, it might work if I say: I have nothing to say about any of this.

Eleanor sat on the branch of a willow over the river. Her feet hung down. She began to see, as the sun came up, a pattern of birds, in the water, in the sky above; they were sitting on five lines of telephone wire, like notes of music. She tried to sing them — one long; one down, two going up; the first two of these quickly; the last one a long one; two down; up; down. She thought — The last theme from
Gotterdammerung?
Another bird appeared She herself had been doing her breathing exercises — in, one two; hold it, three four; out, five to eight — with which she meditated; like someone having a baby. This was in counterpoint to the birds on the wire. Then there was the she that was both above and slightly ahead of the music, like a conductor. She thought — Perhaps in such a way, at dawn, witch-doctors thought they could affect the universe.

The light, under the water, behind the curve of the world, created a slight transparency; the sun and the trees like the head and arms of a drunk man coming up over the edge of a table —

She thought — Sometimes life itself is as if you had eaten toadstools.

Lilia and the baby were asleep in the caravan.

Judith was in the camp bed by the fire.

Her head was clear; like the sky; like the fire and water of the night before.

There was some sort of test, she remembered, in which you had to draw — a tree, a house, a river, a snake, a road: and depending where you put them — the snake going into the house; the river cutting off the tree; the road a guide-line or a barrier — something could be known about the person doing the drawing: who he was, what she required, what were his or her defences.

There was something like a lion moving on the far side of the river: it was under the trees, going in and out of the darkness: or was becoming striped like a zebra.

There had been times in Africa when she had sat like this and had watched the sun come up and there had been the animals by the pools like a pre-laid breakfast —

She thought — What does the world require? we are here with one another: we do not want to eat and be eaten?

There was a figure squatting beneath the trees at the far side of the river. It was holding something clasped to its middle — like entrails, she thought; or like those pipes that had once played music —

There was the story of a dark god who had sat like this and had charmed lions and zebras —

The figure from the other side of the river called — ‘I'm coming over!'

She thought she might say — There's a footbridge at the back, for heaven's sake, on the other branch of the river.

The figure called ‘Do you think I can walk?' Then — ‘I need to do this. I feel so guilty.'

She had recognised the figure as Jason. He stood, and stepped into the water. He held high above his head, as if to keep it dry, a plastic bag — or organ-pipes, or entrails.

She said ‘It's too deep to walk!'

He said ‘How did you get your caravan over?'

Eleanor thought — This is ridiculous.

Jason climbed back out of the water. He seemed to be looking for something on the far bank.

He called ‘Can I borrow your clothes-line?'

Going back to the caravan, along a short path through a wood, she thought — Perhaps you have to go through fire and water, do you, like a pilgrim, to reach the holy city?

By her caravan there was a clothes-line. She took it down. Judith was still sleeping.

Going back to the river she thought — We have the fire and water: this is the holy city?

In the river Jason was standing up to his waist again. He held his plastic bag above his head with one hand.

Looping the clothes-line, and keeping hold of one end, Eleanor tried to throw the other end across the river.

Plunging sideways, at the third throw, Jason managed to catch it.

Then he climbed out again on his side by the river and tied it to the branch of a tree.

Eleanor began, self-consciously, to tie her end of the clothesline to one of the branches of her willow.

She thought — But of course it is true that peace comes down when we are doing busily the odd things that we are doing: then violence climbs mountains; desolation crosses rivers —

She wondered if she should say — The girl's here too!

Jason had stretched the clothes-line tight across the river. Then he took off his belt, made a loop with it round the clothes-line, put it through the handles of the plastic bag, and hung the plastic bag from the clothes-line.

Eleanor thought — Well we can never say anything sensible, can we, about the holy city.

Wading into the river, and holding on to the rope, Jason managed to get the bag some way across without it touching the water.

She remembered a quotation — I would believe only in a god who could dance —

Jason seemed to be getting out of his depth. He could no longer hang onto the clothes-line without the bag touching the water.

Eleanor said ‘Let it go.'

He said ‘How can I pull it if I let go?'

‘You can swim with one hand and hold the bag with the other hand out of the water.'

Jason said ‘That's difficult.'

Eleanor thought — Then I won't watch: if it would be easier for you.

She looked up to the leaves, the shadows.

She thought — Was that really a lion?

— And how did Jason know that Lilia was here?

There was a sound of gasping and splashing. Jason was
climbing out on her side of the river. He was holding the plastic bag still clear of the water He had some weeds hanging from him. She thought — A god: or the man with sausages in a pantomime.

— Or has he come to see the girl?

Then — That lion must have escaped from some zoo.

He said ‘I've got milk, and rusks, and nappies, and that sort of thing.'

He had undone his belt, and was taking the plastic bag from the clothes-line.

He said ‘The stuff that she keeps in a basket, like witches; that sort of thing.'

Eleanor said ‘Do you feel better?'

He said ‘Yes.'

Jason began making his way along the path through the wood.

She thought — There are these circuits, yes, through mountains, rivers; in the body, in the mind —

He said ‘Why do we behave as we do?'

Eleanor said ‘I hear that the baby might have been killed or injured.'

He said ‘Yes.' Then — ‘Perhaps I'll die of cold.' Eleanor was following him. She said ‘How did you know she was here?'

When Jason came to the caravan he saw Judith asleep outside the tent. He put a hand to his eyes, his throat; he crept closer; peered down; then turned to Eleanor with sad, reproachful eyes.

Eleanor said ‘They're in the caravan.'

He said ‘I didn't know anyone was here. All I saw was a nappy on your clothes-line.'

Eleanor got down on her hands and knees by the fire.

Jason went round towards the entrance to the caravan.

Eleanor blew on the fire. The fire glowed.

Eleanor thought — The nappy was like a flag: or like one of those birds singing on the wire.

Jason came back without the bag he had been carrying. Looking down at Eleanor, he said ‘I don't want to be here when
they wake.'

She said ‘Neither do I.'

He said ‘Why?'

She said ‘Because I'm tired and hungry. And I think they should be on their own.'

He looked away over the tree-tops. He seemed to hum.

She thought — Shall we say we've lost our keys, and can't get in before morning?

He said ‘Would you like to come to my place?'

She said ‘I thought your windows were blown out.'

He said ‘They are. But there's food and a bed on the floor, in the kitchen.'

Looking up at the pink sky, Eleanor thought — Can we be so happy, when bombs come down?

Jason said ‘— Tuck you up. Make you feel safe —'

She said ‘Well I'm not going to swim that river'

She picked up a handbag, a blanket. She poked at the fire.

She thought — But is it not true that I want to re-affirm some sort of baptism?

Jason said ‘There are plenty of women who've swum the Channel.'

She said ‘Yes.' Both ways.'

They walked back along the path towards the river.

He said ‘Do you think it's women who push men to extremes? I mean, both good and bad? Like Faust? Mephistopheles?'

She said ‘Oh I don't know, do you?'

When she came to the river she took off a gum boot and put a toe in the water, which was cold.

He said ‘I thought you weren't going to swim the river'

She took off her other gum boot and handed the two of them to him.

She said ‘I think women know more than men, but they won't take the responsibility.'

He said ‘For what?' Then — ‘Shall I carry your gum boots?'

She said ‘For what to do when they know they're ridiculous.'

When she was halfway across the river she became very cold; she thought she might say — Are you sure you felt better?

Or — With one great leap —

When they reached the far bank she sat and looked at the clothes-line. She said ‘Shouldn't we be able to take that down?'

He said ‘You mean, people then might think we had walked on the water?'

Going up on the far side of the river, she felt her feet so numb that there might be bits of glass cutting into them; an ache that was like an ecstasy in her heart, arms, mind. She remembered a time in Africa when she had been carrying — what — a sick baby? they had done something to it to make it a member of the tribe: and she had thought she could save it: she had felt she could say to it just — Get up! You can walk!

She said to Jason ‘Did you see a lion?'

Jason said ‘It must have escaped from some zoo.'

Then — ‘But they'll be all right, won't they, on that island?'

Anderson approached Eleanor's caravan by the footbridge over the river. To one side, by the island, was an area of trampled reeds as if a body had fallen in there. Beyond it, on the stump of a tree by the footbridge, was what looked like the reel of his film. He thought — But I left it on the rubble: you mean, after all, there are angels?

He sat down on the edge of the footbridge. He thought — Dear God, thank you, thank you.

Then — Will I one day have to suffer?

The entrance to Eleanor's caravan was facing him. On the far side was the tent where Eleanor sometimes slept. He thought — She, or someone, takes up my reel of film, like a holy house, and whirls it through the sky, and dumps it by the river —