Judith (33 page)

Lilia turned and looked at me. She was on the opposite side of the road or river. I thought – Thus, of course, my friend in the Garden turned to look at me: Lilith: Lilia: of course there are connections! between hate and love.

I could not get through the procession towards Lilia: there were all these people opening and shutting their mouths, singing hymns. I thought – The traffic jams in heaven!

Lilia had the absolutely receptive face of a deer: I thought – It is by its sense of smell, that a deer protects itself. Lilia leaned slightly forwards with her arms crossed beneath her breasts – as if she were carrying a child.

I thought – One might cross a river just as one climbs on the façade of a ruined building.

Lilia had begun to walk in time with the procession at the far side of the road. I kept pace with her. I thought I might say –

– I thought you might be here –

– I didn't expect you to be here –

– Can we talk? –

There was a helicopter overhead. I thought – Bert! on your hook like Petrouchka! Coo-ee!

The tails and noses of aeroplanes within the airbase were like the humps of a sea-serpent. Lilia and I kept up with each other on our different sides of the road. She might say – See, I have made for you this cloak of fire! I would say – Oh do let's see what it looks like on! There was a group of the women with heavy quilted jackets and loose trousers watching the procession go past. I thought – As witches, they are dressed all ready to be burned. The road or river contained trees and dead bodies floating. I thought – You choose to drown, or you choose to burn?

I thought, since I was choosing nothing, I should try to step across the road towards Lilia.

When I stopped and turned, I found that Lilia had stopped and had turned too.

Lilia came across the road as if she were walking on water: as if she were treading on the trunks of bodies or dead trees. She had this extraordinarily tough and yet quite open face – like a prison from which all the bars had long since been blown. I thought – I am not a witch, I will stand quite still: did people do this when they felt the flames?

Lilia said ‘Have you seen my child?'

I said ‘No.'

She said ‘I've lost him.'

I thought – Do you not think we might be those two figures in a courtyard?

Then – It is to me, is it, that you do not use the name of your child?

She said ‘He went off on his bicycle.'

I said ‘In which direction did he go?'

She said ‘He went to find Eleanor.'

I said ‘Eleanor is here too?'

She said ‘She's somewhere by the women's camp.'

I thought – We are like an extended family stretched out across that desert with their donkey.

Lilia and I were by the side of the road with all the people playing guitars and singing hymns going past us. I thought – Pious souls have always gone to and fro in wrong directions.

I said ‘Would you like some coffee?'

Lilia said ‘Yes.'

I said ‘We can go to the pub.'

Lilia said ‘I told him, if he got lost, to meet me in the pub.'

On our way across the green, which now was emptying, we passed some clowns. One was miming a chicken, and another was chasing him with an axe. When the clown with the axe struck at the chicken, the chicken reared up with his wings out and the clown with the axe staggered back clutching his head.

She said ‘Bert tells him these stories.'

I said ‘What stories does Bert tell him?'

She said ‘About buried treasure, and that sort of thing.'

I said ‘Do you think Bert makes up stories?'

She said ‘Of course Bert makes up stories!'

We were walking towards the pub at the far side of the village green. The ground-floor windows were boarded up. In front of the door there was a large man wearing a track-suit and a woollen hat. As we approached, he put an arm across the door.

Lilia said ‘I'm meeting my child here.'

The man with the woollen hat said ‘No one goes in.'

Lilia shouted ‘Do you fucking think you're going to stop me meeting my child?'

The man lowered his arm, and we went in.

Inside the pub there was a hall, which was empty, and a bar with a grille across the counter to the right. This room was half in darkness, the windows being boarded up. Lilia turned on some lights.

I said ‘Does Bert think you can alter things by making up stories?'

She said ‘Do you think you can make things better by telling the truth?'

She walked up and down. I sat on a stool at the barricaded bar.

The stage on which Lilia and I now found ourselves (I call it a stage: you wouldn't want me to call it anything else, would you?) consisted of the archway into the hall on the right (right if you were looking out from the stage; left if you are in the audience beyond the boarded-up window), the bar at the back with the grille over it (you recognise the scene?), a staircase up on the left down which some messenger might come; towards the front a false fire with glowing coals from which no heat came but to which you could hold out your hands as if they might throw shadows. I thought – Well, after all, why did not people get out of that cave? They were, yes, I understand, frightened of burning by being their own suns.

Lilia walked up and down. She lit a cigarette, and puffed, and the smoke came after her. I thought – Those old gestures often work on a stage.

Lilia said ‘God I do hate you.'

I said ‘I've hated you too.'

Lilia said ‘Why?'

I thought I might say – and I said – ‘Because I'm jealous?'

Lilia said ‘How long have you known Jason?'

‘I first met him when he came to write about the Garden.'

‘He didn't go to write about the Garden!'

‘All right, when he'd been working on that film.'

She said ‘Seven years!'

‘I haven't what's called known him for seven years.'

‘How long have you what's called known him for?'

I thought – I suppose it's only actors who shout and yell: because they, in order to, feel nothing.

She said ‘You knew he had a wife and child.'

I said ‘Yes, I knew he had a wife and child.'

She said ‘If you didn't think of me, couldn't you think of the child.'

I thought – Oh, cut that last line!

She said ‘I'm sorry.'

I said ‘It's I who am sorry.'

She said ‘What are you sorry for?'

I thought – I'm sorry for being human. I'm sorry for the sake of getting the emotions out –

Lilia went to the chimneypiece and put her hands against it and rested her head on her hands. Then she said, as if to herself ‘Get it out: get it out –'

I thought – I might be burning: that cloak of flesh turning to fire.

I said ‘I suppose I didn't think you'd mind.'

She said ‘Why didn't you think I'd mind?' Then – ‘What has he been telling you!'

I said ‘Nothing.'

She said ‘He wrote that story about me!'

I said ‘I didn't think it was about you.'

She said ‘He wrote about you –'

I said ‘That wasn't about me.'

She said ‘Well I thought it was.' Then – ‘It wasn't about me.'

She lifted her head and looked around the room. She seemed to listen. Then she almost laughed, and said ‘Who was it about?'

I thought I might say – Jason, Medea.

She walked about the room again. She puffed at her cigarette, and the smoke came after her.

She said ‘Does he pay for you? –'

I said ‘What?' She said ‘No, cut that.'

Then – ‘When you go away together.'

She went to the boarded-up window and leaned with her head against it.

I thought – This is a rehearsal? The real play will be, is, going on outside?

I said ‘I'm trying to marry Bert.'

She said ‘God, that is like one of his stories!'

I said ‘But I don't think Bert will have me.'

She said ‘Well, if you don't mind my saying so, you can hardly blame him, can you?'

I said ‘No, I don't.'

She turned and looked at me directly for the first time since we had been in the room. She said ‘I mean, I think that's a pity. If Bert doesn't have you.'

I thought – Lilia: Lilith! we are both old elephants; who go into caves every now and then to rub off salt from people's rocks!

She said ‘Are you pregnant?'

I said ‘That is in fact a line from one of his stories!'

She said again ‘I'm sorry.' Then – ‘Why do I keep on saying I'm sorry!'

I thought I might say – Because, do you think, words are counter-productive?

So – Surely we can choose not to be characters in his stories!

She walked up and down again. She said ‘I hate you, I hate you. What is it that the woman does to the girl in the play?'

I said ‘What play?'

She said ‘Jason. Medea.'

I said ‘Jason leaves Medea for – I can't remember the girl's name. Medea makes a cloak of fire for the girl, which burns her up on her wedding day.'

Lilia said ‘That's what I'd like to do to you!'

I thought I might say – That's good! That's good!

I said ‘Then Medea murders her children.'

She said ‘What good did that do?'

She stood still. She seemed to be listening again.

I said ‘Nothing.' Then – ‘But I'm not going to have a wedding day.'

I thought I might cry.

Someone seemed to have come into the hallway. It was as if they, too, were listening; or waiting for some cue. I wanted to say – Not yet! We are doing so well!

Lilia was looking round at the archway to the hall.

I thought – Or you mean, now, this might be the beginning of the play?

I said ‘I could go and look – for your child.'

She said ‘Why should you do that?'

I said ‘Where else might he have gone on his bicycle?' Then – ‘You will be here for him when he comes back.'

She turned and look at me. She went on looking at me. She had these open, trustful-distrustful eyes. I wanted to say – This is the message: can we not learn the code?

She said ‘We stay here sometimes, did you know?'

I said ‘Yes.'

She said ‘I mean, not by the big house: in a cottage on the other side.'

I thought I might say – Yes, I know.

She said ‘You've been there?'

I thought – She does not, really, care whether or not I have been there?

I said ‘What are the stories that Bert told him?'

She said ‘Well, there's this battle-area, where no one is allowed to go. Of course, Bert used to go there. When we were children. In fact it was quite safe. He used to say it was like the Garden of Eden: where people had been told they mustn't go.'

I said ‘Yes, I had a glimpse of it this morning.'

She said ‘Bert told him stories of a secret place in the middle; where there was a tree, which is the Tree of Life: where all things are at one with their shadows.'

I thought – Bert! Lilia! There is a bright light like a child! like some sort of bomb coming down!

Lilia said ‘So he used to go there, when we were here at Christmas, although I told him not to. I think he thought Eleanor would take him there now on her horse.'

I said ‘I'll try to find Eleanor. She's on a horse?'

Lilia stared at me.

All the time there was the impression of both knowing, and yet not knowing, what was happening: there was the person listening in the hallway: there were the events elsewhere.

A man in a tweed jacket came in from the hallway. He had a youngish middle-aged cut-out face. I thought – You can tell these people, can you, because they all seem to be auditioning for the part of Holofernes.

He said ‘Do I know you two?'

Lilia said ‘No.'

He said ‘What's this about the battle-area? Snakes and dragons? Babes in the wood?'

Lilia said ‘For God's sake!' Then – ‘They're fairy stories.'

The man said ‘You believe in fairies?'

He came and sat between us at the bar. Lilia had sat at the bar some distance from me.

I thought – Lilia does or does not know about Bert's story about the bomb?

Lilia said ‘If I were you, I'd believe in fairies.'

The man said ‘Well, I don't. And may I ask what you two girls are doing in here?'

I said ‘Looking for a drink.'

Lilia said ‘Meeting someone.'

The man said ‘Who?'

I thought – This is a headquarters? They've closed the pub? Then – They all seem the same, these people whom we call ‘they'?

I said ‘We're rehearsing a play.'

The man said ‘Oh you're rehearsing a play, are you?' He put a hand up and rattled the grille which covered the bar.

I thought – Or you mean, Lilia has all the time been anxious about the bomb in the battle-area? This man thinks she has been talking about a bomb in the battle-area –

The man said – ‘You mean it's a hoax?'

Lilia said ‘No it's not a hoax.'

The man said ‘You know what I'm talking about?'

Lilia said ‘No, do you?'

I thought – Which one of us, do you think, might kill Holofernes?

The man said to me ‘You were at that tomb this morning.'

I said ‘Yes.'

Lilia said ‘You were with Bert?'

The man said ‘Come on!'

Lilia said ‘What's Bert doing?'

I said ‘He went up in a helicopter.'

The man said ‘That was his helicopter?'

I thought – This is ridiculous.

I said ‘He works for a film company.'

The man said ‘I know he works for a film company.'

I tried to remember the sort of style that Bert had been practising. I thought I might say – Look, why should you believe anything we say?