“Is it not by its effects that you should judge it?”
“I do not judge,” he said. “How can I judge it? There is a law and a truth that is beyond judgment. What you are trying to make me say is that my belief is a belief of the devil because a person was destroyed when she looked on it. You hold responsibility as a judgment against my belief. And I am saying that I accept responsibility for every decision at every time, but with judgment I am not concerned. The belief is God’s and the judgment is God’s, and the catastrophes are just what happen.”
“What then is your responsibility when your wife is destroyed?”
“My responsibility is that I will not tell you, but it is not to deny my God.”
“Why will you not tell me?”
“Because you would sneer.”
“And are you frightened of that?”
“I am not frightened for myself but for you.”
“Are you frightened for me when you would destroy your wife and pray to your God all in one breath and in the name of love?”
“Yes I am frightened, and yes then that is my responsibility to pray to my God, and I will tell you this, that you do not know what love is, you have no conception of what love is, you do not know about love at all.”
“Do you?” I said.
“Ask someone else,” he said.
“Your wife?”
“Yes,” he said; “Ask her, ask my wife,” and he turned away from me and walked off violently into the crowd where he disappeared like a bubble in a swirl of water.
I stood at the crossroads. I thought: There is madness, now. Outside the playground there is nothing but madness. Secrets should never be told. Secrets should never be told. I repeated this, endlessly.
The world went past me. What Marius has talked about is madness. The secret is horror, horror is at the centre, there is nothing but horror. Perhaps it is myself who is mad.
The rain was green as if the world was drowning. All this has happened too quickly, things do not happen so quickly as this. Out beyond the railings, across the waiting world, time has foundered like a wreck on the rocks. They say that to a drowning man time is speeded so that all his life is in one second. What is it that he remembers? Marius said it was eternity. Perhaps, after all, he only remembers what has been left undone.
What is Marius? He said it was tragedy. He said that nothing can happen until there was tragedy. Once there were no conflicts and now that there is a conflict what can happen now? Perhaps conflicts are of the imagination, like the games of children. That is one thing I should have learned, from the sense of madness.
So there is tragedy. A conflict is irrelevant, because I do not know. I do not know what I am feeling. Emotion is not like this, it is what is known. Get rid of the conflict and then I shall know. This is the one thing I have learned. Now, at every moment, there is something to do.
I rang up Annabelle. The glass was broken in the window of the call box, so that the noises of the street came in in waves. “Hullo,” she said.
“I want to ask you something, something about Marius.”
“Where are you?”
“When Marius told you about him and his wife, what did he say?”
“Can’t you come round here or can I meet you?”
“I don’t think so, I’m sorry, I have to get back . . . ”
“Are you there now, at the hospital?”
“I have been, I have to . . . ”
“Can’t I see you?”
“No.”
A pause, then: “He told me that when . . . ”
“I am sorry, I can’t hear you.”
“Surely it is not what happened then but what happens now,” she shouted.
“What?”
“I said surely . . . ”
“I hear you. But what can I do now when I do not know what Marius is?”
“Don’t you know what Marius is?”
“No,” I said.
“You do, you do, and you must not . . . ”
“I can’t hear you.”
“I said you must not take a failure . . . ”
“Did he say it was a failure?”
“Of course he did. Wasn’t it a failure?”
“He seemed to think . . . ”
“Is not everything both a failure and not a failure, and what has that got to do with it?”
“Everything . . . ”
“No nothing, nothing, surely, you know what you feel about Marius, you know what Marius is, you cannot judge . . . ”
“If I cannot judge what can I do?”
“Do? Can’t you do what you have to do and it is not a quibble over words that will decide you?”
“What have I to do?”
“What you feel and what Marius is to you, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll see you.” I went out of the call-box and walked among the streets.
A green day. Emotion is not describable. But if I cannot judge what is a failure and what is not a failure what is there to judge and what to know? And if I cannot know what is a disaster and what is not a disaster can I judge what is right and wrong just by looking inwards to the inmost soul, he said, but we can never know about ourselves, she said, and what is there to do? But can we know about others then, what to do at least and thus to everyone yes everyone but Marius especially who is close to me and who has helped me and who has given to me these days and this part of him this whole of him and this should I, I know, but can I? And what is this failure except that everything both is and isn’t, and to him what am I to do but give—he who has been five years with a dying wife, who saw her die, who saw her kill, who saw him kill, five years looking inwards to ask a question that cannot be answered, a question like that, too, was it or was it not, am I or am I not, O God, and what can he do except pray to his God O God if it was then it was and I did, and if it wasn’t then it wasn’t and I did, and the prayer is the same whether it was or wasn’t. And forgiveness is the same, too, so that it doesn’t matter except that he asks to be forgiven, which he does, from his God, and from me too, from me, and who am I to walk about the streets asking a question that even his God does not answer because it is not necessary to be answered but only to have something done about it, and this is what I can do here and now because I have seen this suffering and hers too and it is not for me to ask about it but only to help it. This I accept and must do although I do not know how and I do not know why and I do not even know if it will be right or wrong, but that doesn’t seem to matter any more, I don’t know why, it is the doing that matters, and for the how and why and right and wrong I trust to luck and whatever there is between us and whatever there is between everyone in the world and that indeed he has given me. What they have done for others I can do for them. It is a green day. I must do for what he is and what he requires.
I went back to the hospital. “I hope I am not disturbing you,” I said.
“I did not expect you,” she said.
“No.” She raised herself.
“Why have you come back?”
“I have had a row with Marius,” I said.
“A row? Have you?”
“Yes.”
“I did not mean . . . ” She looked frightened. “I am afraid I was rather dramatic this morning,” she said.
“So was I.”
“Perhaps after all . . . ” She paused, and I knew that I had to begin.
“It is a fault of mine—being dramatic,” I said.
“Yes?”
“It is what happens when you don’t know what should be happening really. Why can’t you get well?”
“Because they say so.”
“Who?”
“There is a man called Dr. Livingstone.”
“There is? I shall make you laugh. When was the last time you laughed?”
“Why do you want me to get well?”
“Isn’t that what matters?”
“Is it?”
“Perhaps because I am in love with Annabelle,
” I said.
“Oh,” she said. I knew that it was imperative that there should be no silence.
“Do you know what Peter said once? That if one makes a business of tears then one is free to laugh at one’s leisure.”
“Did he? And does he laugh?”
“No, he makes other people laugh, he is the clown that cries by night.”
“And what are you?”
“Just at the moment I don’t know.”
“Why did you say that about Annabelle?”
“Because I have got to think of a joke.”
“That wasn’t a joke.”
“No, that is the terrible thing, I can’t think of a joke.”
“Please, it is not necessary.”
“It is, I am sure, I am like the fools that prattle in tragedies, they have to think of jokes. I hope they find it easier.”
“Is this what Marius has done to you? Is this what happens now?”
“I think so, yes. This room is like a diving-bell. Shall I send you flowers?”
“Marius brings me flowers.”
“Marius would bring you a wreath of last year’s laurel. What do you do with them?”
“I have them taken away. I do not like to see them out.”
“You can have them in pots. I will bring you a tree planted in a tub.”
“A tree would wither in a room like this.”
“It would not if you liked it. It would be your tree. When the nurses came they would get caught up in its branches like Absalom.”
“They would look funny without their hats.”
“Yes. And Marius could sit in it and then he would look funny too.”
“Marius has never looked funny. Perhaps that is what . . . ”
“Yes, we must make him look funny.”
“He would not look funny in a tree.”
“He would if you laughed.”
“I laughed about the nurses,” she said.
I sat by her bed. It was as if I were dreaming. “Marius is all right,” I said.
“What can you do for him?”
“I will do something,” I said.
“And Annabelle?”
“I will do what I can.”
“You are too good to us.”
“No,” I said.
“It is worse for him than for anyone.”
“He has been very good to me.”
“Has he?”
“Yes, he has made things possible.”
“For others?”
“Yes, yes, for others, and by that and nothing else for himself.”
“Does he suffer?
“You know about that sort of suffering.”
“It won’t destroy him?”
“It didn’t destroy you,” I said.
She looked at me. I know what it was that I had to answer. “And if I should die?” she said.
“You won’t die,” I said.
“If I did?”
“He would remember.”
“I do not want him to remember.”
“Then he would have Annabelle,” I said.
“He would?”
“Yes.”
“You are too good to us,” she said again.
“No.”
“You are.”
“That is the only point of anything,” I said.
After a while I went to see Dr. Livingstone. He was a quiet, impressive man. “No,” he said, “she can’t get well.” He explained something technical. “If I had had her at first . . . ” he said. “But she was abroad, wasn’t she? Are you a relative?”
“No,” I said. “Will she die then?”
“That is not for me to say,” he said.
“But will she?”
“She may do. The bullet may move and that would kill her. She is here under observation. I cannot operate.”
“Why can’t you operate?”
He explained. Again something technical.
“Might I get other advice?” I said.
“I have had other advice,” he said.
“Oh. And what about moving her—out of this place, I mean. Is that possible?”
“I have told all this to her husband,” he said.
“Yes?”
“She is paralysed all down one side of her body,” he said. “She is paralysed below the waist. She either cannot eat or will not. She is kept alive by drugs. She needs constant supervision. It would be madness to move her. I have told her husband this.”
“And is she in pain?” I said.
“We do all we can,” he said.
“Great pain?”
“Sometimes,” he said.
“And what would make the bullet move?” I said.
“Now look here . . . ” he said.
“I’m sorry,” I said; “I didn’t mean anything by that.”
“Listen,” he said. “I don’t know who you are, but I’ll tell you this. She is a very remarkable woman. I don’t know how she’s kept alive so long. She must have had something to live for or else by now she would have died.”
“Yes,” I said. “I think she has wanted to find something out.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “She never will see anyone except her husband.”
“No,” I said. “Thank you, doctor, for your help.”
“And I will tell you this too,” he said, “That when she wants to die she will die, and I don’t expect she will till then.”
“No,” I said. “Thank you, doctor. Thank you for your help.”
When I got back to her room she was sitting up in bed and was almost smiling. “Well,” she said, “did you like Dr. Livingstone?”
“Yes,” I said.
“And did he tell you that I could not get well?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I am so sorry about Annabelle,” she said.
“Oh God,” I said. I wanted to cry.
She went on quickly, “I should like a fruit tree, I think. And you must get a little can to water it with.”
“You could have an aquarium,” I said.
“Yes, that would remind me. I should like those fishes that are striped like silk.”
“You could grow sponges in the wash-basin,” I said.
“I am sure that would not be necessary. Marius used to dive for sponges and he got very deaf.”
“Did he really swim? Now he is so stately. I am sure I should laugh if I saw him swim.”
“What effect does he have on the others?”
“On Annabelle and Peter? They do not have much to do.”
“They may have one day, you know.”
“Yes,” I said.
“You have given me such a clever answer,” she said.
“Not an answer,” I said. “It is what we have to do now.”
“Why is it only after one has stopped thinking oneself important that one feels important at all?”
“That’s what’s funny,” I said. “There has to be someone else too.”
“And something else besides the someone else. Isn’t that what Marius said?”
“Marius talks so much he would have to have a committee to listen to him anyway.”
“Yes,” she said. She laughed. “What else shall we do to this room?”
“Perhaps pictures and a gramophone and we can all wear paper hats.”
“That is never funny. What about birds?”
“Birds will come when the tree is enormous.”
“Yes,” she said. Then: “There is something else that I should like you to bring.”
“What?” I said.
“No,” she said, “it doesn’t matter.”
“What?” I said.
“Never mind,” she said. “I think I can get it myself.” I did not know what she meant but I felt too tired to think.
“Marius told me to ask you whether he knows what love is,” I said.
“Is that what you asked him?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Yes. And do you know what you are?”
> “No,” I said. “That is something that I think I shall never know.”
“Perhaps that is what I should tell you to ask Annabelle and what she need not answer.”
“Why not answer?”
“Because I have not answered, have I, but haven’t you?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Both of us have. The whole lot I don’t know at all. What I am wondering is how to get an aquarium and a tree up those stairs without being arrested as a lunatic.”
“That is a more important question,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Perhaps if they thought you were a lunatic they would help you with them up the stairs and put you to bed with them and then we could both be lunatics together.”
“Yes,” I said.
“That is a very comforting thought,” she said.
When I left her I felt so tired and had such a headache that I forgot to ask her again what it was that she wanted and what she had not asked me for.
9
Outside I found that it was evening. There was an enormous moon on the roof tops that looked like a jellyfish. I was cold and rather feverish. The moon looked so heavy that I was sure it could never rise. I went round to Annabelle, and found her alone. “Do you know where Marius is?” I said.
“No,” she said. “He hasn’t been in all day.”
“I feel like a jellyfish,” I said.
“Have something to eat,” she said.
“No,” I said; “I don’t think I could have anything to eat.”
“Have something to drink,” she said.
“Yes,” I said; “I will have something to drink.”
“You don’t look like a jellyfish,” she said.
She brought me a large glass and filled it. She was wearing a velvet dress which changed colour as she moved.
“Did you go back?” she said.
“Yes, I went back.”
“And was it all right?”
“I hope it was all right. I think I must get drunk,” I said.
“Do,” she said. “What did Marius say?”
“We went in and Marius went out and I was alone with her and I got very excited and then I went out to find Marius. Can I have another drink?”
A Garden of Trees Page 15
