Stories

by Doris Lessing

  “Where did you go this time?”

  “You know.”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “You know. Where you were.”

  “Yes. Tell me.”

  “Can’t.”

  “I know. Tell me.”

  “With you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Are we one person, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes.”

  Silence again. Again he roused himself.

  “Where are you working this afternoon?”

  “I told you. It’s a baker’s shop in Exeter Street.”

  “And afterwards?”

  “I’m taking Alice to the pictures.”

  She bit her lips, punishing them and him, then sunk her nails into his shoulder.

  “Well my darling, I just make her, that’s all, I make her come, she wouldn’t understand anything better.”

  He sat up, began dressing. In a moment he was a tall sober youth in a dark blue sweater. He slicked down his hair with the young husband’s hairbrushes, as if he lived here, while she lay naked, watching.

  He turned and smiled, affectionate and possessive, like a husband. There was something in her face, a lost desperation, that made his harden. He crouched beside her, scowling, baring his teeth, gently fitting his thumb on her windpipe, looking straight into her dark eyes. She breathed hoarsely, and coughed. He let his thumb drop.

  “What’s that for, Fred?”

  “You swear you don’t do that with Charlie?”

  “How could I?”

  “What do you mean? You could show him.”

  “But why? Why do you think I want to? Fred!”

  The two pairs of deep eyes, in bruised flesh, looked lonely with uncertainty into each other.

  “How should I know what you want?”

  “You’re stupid,” she said suddenly, with a small maternal smile.

  He dropped his head, with a breath like a groan, onto her breasts, and she stroked his head gently, looking over it at the wall, blinking tears out of her eyes. She said: “He’s not coming home to supper tonight, he’s angry.”

  “Is he?”

  “He keeps talking about you. He asked today if you were coming.”

  “Why, does he guess?” He jerked his head up off the soft support of her bosom, and stared, his face bitter, into hers. “Why? You haven’t been stupid now, have you?”

  “No, but Fred … but after you’ve been with me I suppose I’m different….”

  “Oh Christ!” He jumped up, desperate, beginning movements of flight, anger, hate, escape—checking each one. “What do you want, then? You want me to make you come, then? Well, that’s easy enough, isn’t it, if that’s all you want. All right then, lie down and I’ll do it, and I’ll make you come till you cry, if that’s all …” He was about to strip off his clothes; but she shot up from the bed, first hastily draping herself in her white frills, out of an instinct to protect what they had. She stood by him, as tall as he, holding his arms down by his sides. “Fred, Fred, Fred, darling, my sweetheart, don’t spoil it, don’t spoil it now when …”

  “When what?”

  She met his fierce look with courage, saying steadily: “Well, what do you expect, Fred? He’s not stupid, is he? I’m not a … He makes love to me, well, he is my husband, isn’t he? And … well, what about you and Alice, you do the same, it’s normal, isn’t it? Perhaps if you and I didn’t have Charlie and Alice for coming, we wouldn’t be able to do it our way, have you thought of that?”

  “Have I thought of that! Well, what do you think?”

  “Well, it’s normal, isn’t it?”

  “Normal,” he said, with horror, gazing into her loving face for reassurance against the word. “Normal, is it? Well, if you’re going to use words like that …” Tears ran down his face, and she kissed them away in a passion of protective love.

  “Well, why did you say I must marry him? I didn’t want to, you said I should.”

  I didn’t think it would spoil us.”

  “But it hasn’t, has it, Fred? Nothing could be like us. How could it? You know that from Alice, don’t you, Fred?” Now she was anxiously seeking for his reassurance. They stared at each other; then their eyes closed, and they laid their cheeks together and wept, holding down each other’s amorous hands, for fear that what they were might be cheapened by her husband, his girl.

  He said: “What were you beginning to say?”

  “When?”

  “Just now. You said, don’t spoil it now when.”

  “I get scared.”

  “Why?”

  “Suppose I get pregnant? Well, one day I must, it’s only fair, he wants kids. Suppose he leaves me—he gets in the mood to leave me, like today. Well, he feels something … it stands to reason. It doesn’t matter how much I try with him, you know he feels it…. Fred?”

  “What?”

  “There isn’t any law against it, is there?”

  “Against what?”

  “I mean, a brother and sister can share a place, no one would say anything.”

  He stiffened away from her: “You’re crazy.”

  “Why am I? Why, Fred?”

  “You’re just not thinking, that’s all.”

  “What are we going to do, then?”

  He didn’t answer, and she sighed, letting her head lie on his shoulder beside his head, so that he felt her open eyes and their wet lashes on his neck.

  “We can’t do anything but go on like this, you’ve got to see that.”

  “Then I’ve got to be nice to him, otherwise he’s going to leave me, and I don’t blame him.”

  She wept, silently; and he held her, silent.

  “It’s so hard—I just wait for when you come, Fred, and I have to pretend all the time.”

  They stood silent, their tears drying, their hands linked. Slowly they quieted, in love and in pity, in the same way that they quieted in their long silences when the hungers of the flesh were held by love on the edge of fruition so long that they burned out and up and away into a flame of identity.

  At last they kissed, brother-and-sister kisses, gentle and warm.

  “You’re going to be late, Fred. You’ll get the sack.”

  “I can always get another job.”

  “I can always get another husband….”

  “Olive Oyl … but you look really good in that white naygleejay.”

  “Yes, I’m just the type that’s no good naked, I need clothes.”

  “That’s right—I must go.”

  “Coming tomorrow?”

  “Yes. About ten?”

  “Yes.”

  “Keep him happy, then. Ta-ta.”

  “Look after yourself—look after yourself, my darling, look after yourself….”

  Homage for Isaac Babel

  The day I had promised to take Catherine down to visit my young friend Philip at his school in the country, we were to leave at eleven, but she arrived at nine. Her blue dress was new, and so were her fashionable shoes. Her hair had just been done. She looked more than ever like a pink-and-gold Renoir girl who expects everything from life.

  Catherine lives in a white house overlooking the sweeping brown tides of the river. She helped me clean up my flat with a devotion which said that she felt small flats were altogether more romantic than large houses. We drank tea, and talked mainly about Philip, who, being fifteen, has pure stern tastes in everything from food to music. Catherine looked at the books lying around his room, and asked if she might borrow the stories of Isaac Babel to read on the train. Catherine is thirteen. I suggested she might find them difficult, but she said: “Philip reads them, doesn’t he?”

  During the journey I read newspapers and watched her pretty frowning face as she turned the pages of Babel, for she was determined to let nothing get between her and her ambition to be worthy of Philip.

  At the school, which is charming, civilised, and expensive, the two children walked together ac
ross green fields, and I followed, seeing how the sun gilded their bright friendly heads turned towards each other as they talked. In Catherine’s left hand she carried the stories of Isaac Babel.

  After lunch we went to the pictures. Philip allowed it to be seen that he thought going to the pictures just for the fun of it was not worthy of intelligent people, but he made the concession, for our sakes. For his sake we chose the more serious of the two films that were showing in the little town. It was about a good priest who helped criminals in New York. His goodness, however, was not enough to prevent one of them from being sent to the gas chamber; and Philip and I waited with Catherine in the dark until she had stopped crying and could face the light of a golden evening.

  At the entrance of the cinema the doorman was lying in wait for anyone who had red eyes. Grasping Catherine by her suffering arm, he said bitterly: “Yes, why are you crying? He had to be punished for his crime, didn’t he?” Catherine stared at him, incredulous. Philip rescued her by saying with disdain: “Some people don’t know right from wrong even when it’s demonstrated to them.” The doorman turned his attention to the next red-eyed emerger from the dark; and we went on together to the station, the children silent because of the cruelty of the world.

  Finally Catherine said, her eyes wet again: “I think it’s all absolutely beastly, and I can’t bear to think about it.” And Philip said: “But we’ve got to think about it, don’t you see, because if we don’t it’ll just go on and on, don’t you see?”

  In the train going back to London I sat beside Catherine. She had the stories open in front of her, but she said: “Philip’s awfully lucky. I wish I went to that school. Did you notice that girl who said hullo to him in the garden? They must be great friends. I wish my mother would let me have a dress like that, it’s not fair.”

  “I thought it was too old for her.”

  “Oh, did you?”

  Soon she bent her head again over the book, but almost at once lifted it to say: “Is he a very famous writer?”

  “He’s a marvellous writer, brilliant, one of the very best.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, for one thing he’s so simple. Look how few words he uses, and how strong his stories are.”

  “I see. Do you know him? Does he live in London?”

  “Oh no, he’s dead.”

  “Oh. Then why did you—I thought he was alive, the way you talked.”

  “I’m sorry, I suppose I wasn’t thinking of him as dead.”

  “When did he die?”

  “He was murdered. About twenty years ago, I suppose.”

  “Twenty years” Her hands began the movement of pushing the book over to me, but then relaxed. “I’ll be fourteen in November,” she stated, sounding threatened, while her eyes challenged me.

  I found it hard to express my need to apologise, but before I could speak, she said, patiently attentive again: “You said he was murdered?”

  “Yes.”

  “I expect the person who murdered him felt sorry when he discovered he had murdered a famous writer.”

  “Yes, I expect so.”

  “Was he old when he was murdered?”

  “No, quite young really.”

  “Well, that was bad luck, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, I suppose it was bad luck.”

  “Which do you think is the very best story here? I mean, in your honest opinion, the very very best one.”

  I chose the story about killing the goose. She read it slowly, while I sat waiting, wishing to take it from her, wishing to protect this charming little person from Isaac Babel.

  When she had finished, she said: “Well, some of it I don’t understand. He’s got a funny way of looking at things. Why should a man’s legs in boots look like girls?” She finally pushed the book over at me, and said: “I think it’s all morbid.”

  “But you have to understand the kind of life he had. First, he was a Jew in Russia. That was bad enough. Then his experience was all revolution and civil war and …”

  But I could see these words bouncing off the clear glass of her fiercely denying gaze; and I said: “Look, Catherine, why don’t you try again when you’re older? Perhaps you’ll like him better then?”

  She said gratefully: “Yes, perhaps that would be best. After all, Philip is two years older than me, isn’t he?”

  A week later I got a letter from Catherine.

  Thank you very much for being kind enough to take me to visit Philip at his school. It was the most lovely day in my whole life. I am extremely grateful to you for taking me. I have been thinking about the Hoodlum Priest. That was a film which demonstrated to me beyond any shadow of doubt that Capital Punishment is a Wicked Thing, and I shall never forget what I learned that afternoon, and the lessons of it will be with me all my life. I have been meditating about what you said about Isaac Babel, the famed Russian short story writer, and I now see that the conscious simplicity of his style is what makes him, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the great writer that he is, and now in my school compositions I am endeavouring to emulate him so as to learn a conscious simplicity which is the only basis for a really brilliant writing style. Love, Catherine. P.S. Has Philip said anything about my party? I wrote but he hasn’t answered. Please find out if he is coming or if he just forgot to answer my letter. I hope he comes, because sometimes I feel I shall die if he doesn’t. P.P.S. Please don’t tell him I said anything, because I should die if he knew. Love, Catherine.

  Outside the Ministry

  As Big Ben struck ten, a young man arrived outside the portals of the Ministry, and looked sternly up and down the street. He brought his wrist up to eye-level and frowned at it, the very picture of a man kept waiting, a man who had expected no less. His arm dropped, elbow flexed stiff, hand at mid-thigh-level, palm downwards, fingers splayed. There the hand made a light movement, balanced from the wrist, as if sketching an arpeggio, or saying goodbye to the pavement—or greeting it? An elegant little gesture, full of charm, given out of an abundant sense of style to the watching world. Now he changed his stance, and became a man kept waiting, but maintaining his dignity. He was well-dressed in a dark suit which, with a white shirt and a small grey silk bow tie that seemed positively to wish to fly away altogether, because of the energy imparted to it by his person, made a conventional enough pattern of colour—dark grey, light grey, white. But his black glossy skin, setting off this soberness, made him sparkle, a dandy—he might just as well have been wearing a rainbow.

  Before he could frown up and down the street again, another young African crossed the road to join him. They greeted each other, laying their palms together, then shaking hands; but there was a conscious restraint in this which the first seemed to relish, out of his innate sense of drama, but made the second uneasy.

  “Good morning, Mr. Chikwe.”

  “Mr. Mafente! Good morning!”

  Mr. Mafente was a large smooth young man, well-dressed too, but his clothes on him were conventional European clothes, suit, striped shirt, tie; and his gestures had none of the inbuilt delighting self-parody of the other man’s. He was suave, he was dignified, he was calm; and this in spite of a situation which Mr. Chikwe’s attitude (magisterial, accusing) said clearly was fraught with the possibilities of evil.

  Yet these two had known each other for many years; had worked side by side, as the political situation shifted, in various phases of the Nationalist movement; had served prison sentences together; had only recently become enemies. They now (Mr. Chikwe dropped the accusation from his manner for this purpose) exchanged news from home, gossip, information. Then Mr. Chikwe marked the end of the truce by a change of pose, and said, soft and threatening: “And where is your great leader? Surely he is very late?”

  “Five minutes only,” said the other, smiling.

  “Surely when at last we have achieved this great honour, an interview with Her Majesty’s Minister, the least we can expect is punctuality from the great man?”

  “I agree, but it
is more than likely that Her Majesty’s Minister will at the last moment be too occupied to see us, as has happened before.”

  The faces of both men blazed with shared anger for a moment: Mr. Chikwe even showed a snarl of white teeth.

  They recovered themselves together and Mr. Mafente said: “And where is your leader? Surely what applies to mine applies to yours also?”

  “Perhaps the reasons for their being late are different? Mine is finishing his breakfast just over the road there and yours is—I hear that the night before last your Mr. Devuli was observed very drunk in the home of our hospitable Mrs. James?”

  “Possibly, I was not there.”

  “I hear that the night before that he passed out in the hotel before some unsympathetic journalists and had to be excused.”

  “It is possible, I was not there.”

  Mr. Chikwe kept the full force of his frowning stare on Mr. Mafente’s bland face as he said softly: “Mr. Mafente!”

  “Mr. Chikwe?”

  “Is it not a shame and a disgrace that your movement, which, though it is not mine, nevertheless represents several thousand people (not millions, I am afraid, as your publicity men claim)—is it not a pity that this movement is led by a man who is never sober?”

  Mr. Mafente smiled, applauding this short speech which had been delivered with a grace and an attack wasted, surely, on a pavement full of London office workers and some fat pigeons. He then observed, merely: “Yet it is Mr. Devuli who is recognised by Her Britannic Majesty’s Minister?”

  Mr. Chikwe frowned.

  “And it is Mr. Devuli who is recognised by those honourable British philanthropic movements—the Anti-Imperialist Society, the Movement for Pan-African Freedom, and Freedom for British Colonies?”

  Here Mr. Chikwe bowed, slightly, acknowledging the truth of what he said, but suggesting at the same time its irrelevance.

  “I hear, for instance,” went on Mr. Mafente, “that the Honourable Member of Parliament for Sutton North-West refused to have your leader on his platform on the grounds that he was a dangerous agitator with leftwing persuasions?”

  Here both men exchanged a delighted irrepressible smile—that smile due to political absurdity. (It is not too much to say that it is for the sake of this smile that a good many people stay in politics.) Mr. Chikwe even lifted a shining face to the grey sky, shut his eyes, and while offering his smile to the wet heavens lifted both shoulders in a shrug of scorn.