Judith (23 page)

‘Hullo.'

‘Hullo.'

‘You must tell me what to do.'

‘Follow me.'

I was still sure I had seen the man before. If he was not the man who had known the highest score in first-class cricket and the date of the Second Reform Bill, who was he?

‘When the music starts you first breathe out, hard, like a bellows.'

‘I breathe out, hard, like a bellows.'

‘Don't bother about breathing in.'

‘Oh no, no, I won't bother about breathing in!'

He seemed to be laughing: not at me, but with me.

‘And we do not talk.'

He opened his mouth and shut it. He clenched his hands and moved from one foot to the other like someone preparing for
the long-jump. He was this tall man with spectacles and a head like a bronze hatchet.

I said ‘Then, when the music stops, I'll tell you what to do after that.'

He mouthed – Then when the music stops – He looked round as if he might run after his words, as if they were butterflies.

I thought – This is the sort of language there might be through the back door of that garden?

When the music started, the man pumped with his elbows so hard that he was like one of those people who try to take off from the top of a tower with home-made wings. I thought – He is both putting his heart into this and mocking it. This is what God teaches in the Garden – to be true to a thing you also have to be in some way laughing at it?

Then – Who am I talking to?

I found, when I was with this man, that I was wondering what I might do when I got out of the Garden.

I said ‘Now, when the music starts again, you shake, and let bits and pieces fly off you.'

He said ‘Let bits and pieces fly off me.'

He clapped a hand over his mouth and looked up to the sky as if he were one of those pieces of agonised sculpture beneath a thunderbolt about to come down.

When the music started again he wobbled so dementedly that his spectacles half flew off: he caught them: it was as if he might loose his teeth, an arm, what was left of his hair, a wooden leg: he seemed to go diving after bits of himself. I thought – You mean, he really does understand – you do it, but of course you are laughing if you watch yourself doing it?

I said ‘Now, you hold your arms above your head and jump up and down on the spot for ten minutes.'

He raised and lowered his eyebrows like a comic. He took his spectacles off and put them in a pocket.

Then he looked at me quietly, ruminatively, as if he had pulled a curtain aside and found – what – me lying in some alcove?

I said ‘And afterwards, when the music stops, you stay absolutely still for a quarter of an hour.'

He said ‘Quite like the old one-two.'

When he started jumping he did this with such wild concentration that it seemed to be myself who was about to be overcome by laughter: I thought – He is, yes, pulling himself up by his own shoestrings. Then – Of course, there is a sense in which you can do this.

The music stopped.

I thought – So where are the two of us now on this strange planet?

He was pouring with sweat. I had never seen anyone sweat so much. He seemed to be like some Narcissus forming his own pool on the ground.

I remembered – I had been in Oliver's flat, watching television. There had been a line of people and the camera had moved to the end of the row. There it had seemed to fall off, into another dimension. This man had been at the end of the row. Lights had come on in the theatre.

We were standing on the floor of the enormous hall. The sun was coming up. There was a red glow on the floor like a river.

He had said something like – But do you see what trouble people have to go to, to destroy themselves!

So here we were, in this strange landscape.

You cannot bear things not because they are too little, but because they are too much.

The light on the floor was like some sort of grid, or riddle –

– What has four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon and three in the evening? –

– Some understanding, dimensions, we might be carried by; not fall through –

I said ‘Now we dance in celebration.'

He was looking at the floor. He put out a finger and pointed. I did not know why he did this.

I said ‘And then we have breakfast.'

He danced quite well. He was like some stork, lifting his feet around roof-tops. I thought – I have loved life so much! how
indeed can I show I am grateful? It was as if we were dancing on this riddle; bits and old pieces of us fell through: we were supported, delicately, on bars of light. Every now and then he laughed as if he were laughing at us dancing: we were dancing round that empty space to which he had pointed; where the bird had built its nest on the ground. The baby was looking away just out of the picture. I thought – You mean, there is something still waiting one day to be born?

‘There's bread and honey and yoghurt and cereals.'

‘The lot.'

‘Shall we sit here?'

‘Yes.'

We sat at a table where bars of light came down from the bamboo awning, as if demonstrating that these were not the walls of a cage.

‘I think I once saw you on television in England.'

‘I'm a friend of some friends of yours in England.'

‘How did you know who I was?'

‘I didn't.'

‘You seemed to know me when you were up that tree.'

‘I thought I recognised you.'

‘I did recognise you.'

‘I met that dreadful man called Eccleston in the hotel.'

I did not quite know what this explained. I remembered – But Oliver knew you!

I said ‘But you are not the man who knew the highest score in first-class cricket.'

He said ‘No.'

I said ‘But why weren't you surprised when I asked you if you were the man who knew the highest score in first-class cricket?'

He said ‘I told you, I do know the highest score in first-class cricket.'

‘What is it?'

‘Four five two?'

‘No.'

‘Four nine nine?'

‘Yes.'

He said ‘Perhaps everyone wants to be fascinating, mysterious.'

I said ‘Who?'

He said ‘What was I saying on television?'

He was eating cereal with honey. This seemed to get stuck in his teeth. He put a finger in his mouth. This seemed to enable him to look at me without taking his eyes from me for some time.

I said ‘You were saying what trouble people had to take to destroy themselves.'

He said ‘Or not to destroy themselves.'

I said ‘Who are these friends of mine in England?'

He said ‘Bert. And Max. Max Ackerman. The Professor, as you call him.'

I said ‘Oh. And you are called Jason.'

He said ‘I'm married to Bert's sister.'

I thought – I didn't know Bert had a sister.

Then – You know the Professor?

I said ‘I didn't know Bert and the Professor knew one another.'

He said ‘Oh yes.' Then – ‘And Bert knows you, and the Professor knows you, and I know Bert and the Professor, and the Professor knows my wife, and now I know you, so the only people who don't know each other are you and my wife.'

I thought – The Professor knows your wife? She's not the woman that –

Then – How long have you been married?

There was the bright light coming down.

I thought – But we are outside the theatre. We are within the bars of light.

He said ‘Max says you saved his life. He says perhaps you saved all our lives.' Then – ‘Why do you call him the Professor?'

I said ‘I don't know.' Then – ‘Why does he say I saved his life – all your lives?'

He said ‘I don't know, do you?'

I said ‘He saved my life!'

He ate grapefruit, scraping it round and round as if he were not noticing that there was nothing left inside.

He said ‘My wife was one of Max's old girlfriends. How much do you want me to talk? You know the thing about breaking things up if you talk?'

I said ‘I see.' Then – ‘The baby's all right?'

He said ‘Yes. That's right.'

He pushed his plate away and looked into the distance. I thought – Perhaps he may soon be saying – I've got to get away from here!

He said ‘You've been in the Garden – what – four or five months?'

I said ‘Yes.'

He said ‘And how long are you going to stay here?'

I said ‘I don't know.'

He said ‘When you've really loved it, I suppose you'll go.'

I thought – Will he look at me again? Will he find more honey in his teeth?

I said ‘What is your wife called?'

He said ‘Lilia.'

I said ‘And what are you doing in this part of the world?'

He said ‘I've been working on a film. I've been doing a filmscript.'

I said ‘And when are you going back?'

He said ‘I've got to get back very soon. My wife's having this baby.'

I thought – He is looking at whatever it is just out of the picture.

Then – All I said to the Professor was: of course you can stop her, if you like, getting rid of the baby!

He said ‘What time is God's discourse?'

I said ‘In about half an hour.'

He said ‘Can we last out?'

I said ‘How is Max?'

He said ‘Quite in love with you, I think.' Then – ‘As is Bert.'

I thought I might say – And how is your wife?

I said ‘Max did not tell me much about you.'

I thought – You don't really know whose baby it is?

He said, as if quoting – ‘There are things going on elsewhere –'

I thought – He acts: he knows that he is acting: does this make him, yes, not an actor?

I said ‘Why did you come to the Garden?'

He said ‘I wanted to look at the place anyway.'

I thought – What do you mean ‘anyway'?

He said ‘And I wanted to see you.'

I thought – You mean, you wanted to see me because the Professor was attracted to me: I cheered the Professor up? Or because of the baby.

He said ‘I was grateful.'

I said ‘You knew Oliver, didn't you?'

He said ‘Yes, I know Oliver.'

I thought – In a way, you are quite like Oliver.

Then – Should I say: you know about Desmond?

I said ‘I don't think I can leave this place.'

He said ‘Why not?' Then – ‘You don't feel guilty, do you?'

I said ‘Yes, I do.'

I thought – This is the message from the Professor? From you?

He said ‘You don't. You were frightened. Of taking it on. But you're all right now.'

I had a half-full plate of porridge. I wondered if I could throw it at him.

I said ‘Of taking what on?'

Then he said that thing that you all say, again as if quoting – ‘What is difficult about life is not to have been given too little but to have been given too much.'

I said ‘You know what happened with Desmond?'

He said ‘Yes, I do.' Then as if quoting – ‘With love from Judith.'

I said ‘I'm going.' I stood up.

He said ‘How long did you say it was before God's discourse?'

I said Twenty minutes.'

He said ‘Just time for a shit.'

God, on his platform, ineffable, smiling, said –

‘God was walking in his rock-garden one day when he came across Lilith among her bees and wasps and dragon-flies. And there was Adam, on his crucifix like Mr Universe, in one of his mother's or first wife's grottoes.

‘Now God was feeling low, as he had just come from an afternoon with Eve and the snake in the water-garden. There they had been playing their games of Going-On-Thy-Belly-All-The-Days-Of-Thy-Life and It-Shall-Bruise-Thy-Head-And-Thou-Shalt-Bruise-His-Heel: and God was tired.

‘He said to Lilith – Look, we'll never get anyone out of this garden!

‘Lilith said – It's all your fault. You told them those stories, and now we're all used to having a nice time.

‘God said – But they were supposed to find out about stories!

‘Lilith said – We've been through all this. You thought they wouldn't call nice having such an awful time.

‘God sat down by Lilith. Lilith made room for him on her rock. She said to some of her bees and daddy-longlegs – Go and sting Adam!

‘Adam said – Not my will but thine – and so on.

‘God said – Look: we wanted something better for our children.

‘Lilith who, as God had noticed before, sometimes did not seem to realise what she was saying, said – You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

‘God said – Look: suppose we put it to them to build a bloody great tower up to heaven: then they can think they are becoming like gods!

‘Lilith said – Why should they do that?

‘God said – Then they can put a bloody great bomb on top.

‘Lilith said – But they might be destroying themselves.

‘God said – But they might be getting into heaven.

‘Lilith said – You mean, at least they'll be out of the garden?

‘Lilith thought about this for a time. She mused – If the bomb is not to go off, they'll have to learn this by a bomb going off – and so on. So she said – I can't quite work this out.

‘God said – Neither can I.

‘Lilith said – But if they are supposed to be better than us –

‘God said – You think they'll have to have a child?

‘Lilith lay back among her slime-mould and dung-beetles. Adam quivered in his grotto like Napoleon stung by arrows on the walls of Troy.

‘Lilith said – You know, what has always interested me, is that when you told them not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil, you didn't tell them not to eat from the Tree of Life.