The Brooke-Rose Omnibus

by Brooke-Rose, Christine

  – The same.

  – I don’t know how to thank you. You shouldn’t have – really.

  – That’s enough of that. If a person can’t help a fellow-creature in distress, well, where would we all be? But tell me, why did it happen? Was it the sun? It is hot in here I must say. Facing South and under the roof. Why don’t you leave the door open to create a draught?

  – Well, the noise, ma’am, and the dust.

  – Or are you … ill?

  – Oh, no, no, not at all, I assure you. I love my work. I’m so grateful to you. Nineteen months, you see, it’s demoralising. I once took a degree in Creative Thought.

  The eyes strike deep, a rich chromatic chord. The stone in the left nostril is an alexandrite perhaps, blue-green by day, with purple shafts. The wide lips are edged with mauve, they purse in mock reproach that bears a strong resemblance to the real thing. It hurts, down the back of the neck, then forwards, spreading throatwise through the chest.

  – You don’t have to impress me, you know, I love people as they are. And I’m glad I’ve been of help, not just for Lilly’s sake but for your own. Now, are you going to be all right? I don’t think you should be working up here all alone, that wasn’t the idea at all. And in a pink bathroom too, right at the top of the house.

  – It’s nice, this pink marble.

  – Oh, do you like it? It’s very old-fashioned, it must have been put in when the house was built I shouldn’t wonder. It’s all going to be changed into a hairdressing salon for my guests. Right through into the next room.

  – What colour?

  – I haven’t thought yet. Black probably. Though that’s not very original. Or purple. I’m very fond of purple. But I really can’t think what Mr. Swaminathan was doing, putting you up here, all alone in a pink bathroom. I must speak to him.

  – No, no, please don’t, he’ll think –

  – He won’t think anything, he’s my servant. One has to speak to them, you know.

  – But I thought –

  – Well don’t. A pink bathroom at the top of the house, really. No wonder you fainted. Sheer introversion. And I had him trained in human relations, mind you, he should have known better.

  – Mrs. Mgulu –

  – Yes?

  – I beg you not to speak to him. I like it up here. And I like Mr. Swaminathan.

  – I see. But work is a social function. You must learn to relate, you know. I’ve taken a special interest in you for Lilly’s sake, and for your own, and from now on you’ll do as I say.

  – Yes ma’am.

  – I’m going to keep my eyes open.

  – Yes ma’am.

  The eyes strike deep, a rich chromatic chord, that echoes in the blood long after it has come and gone.

  Whereas no amount of positive evidence can ever conclusively prove a hypothesis, no evidence at all is needed for a certainty acquired by revelation. Why him? That’s a very good question. Why now? That is an ignorant remark. In an age of international and interracial enlightenment such as ours revelation is open to all, regardless of age, sex, race or creed. It is not, however, compulsory. It’s entirely up to you. Just fill up this form and queue here.

  Mrs. Ned’s arms throw her laughter about, it rebounds against the kitchen walls and she catches it. The goitre moves slowly up and down as she relishes the idea. It is possible, after all, to act out these things. With a little concentration, she can be made to give the correct reply. The evening breeze moves the bead curtain imperceptibly, so that through it the slanted glow from the setting sun can be seen reflected in the verandah glass of Monsieur Jules’s bungalow. The red stone floor is dark and still.

  – You provoked it you know, your unconscious did, I mean, the fainting, and her coming in just in time to find you.

  – Lilly, you shouldn’t have said that. Why didn’t you let Mrs. Ned say it? She was going to.

  – No, I wasn’t. I was going to say that it’s an external circumstance. That’s what they call it. So you be careful.

  – Of course you’re under-nourished as well. That’s what Mrs. Mgulu said when she told me. Lilly, she said, he’s undernourished. She gave me these pep pills for you, they’re rather hard to come by, they’re better than the national ones, she said.

  – Isn’t the whole world?

  – Oh Mrs. Ned, don’t be morbid. I think I’ll open that tin of pineapple after all.

  – I’m not morbid. It always helps me no end to think of those six point two people to the square metre in Sino-America. I don’t know how they stand up to it, I really don’t. Afro-Eurasia’s being much cleverer. I mean, it helps me to think how fortunate we are. I didn’t mean –

  – No, of course not.

  – Yes I will open that tin of pineapple, to celebrate.

  Mr. Swaminathan has returned from the Mgulu Farming Estate up-country. He has not nodded and will not nod ever at any time, but the pain, though unallayed, is less acute. He continues to indwell, swaying slightly from side to side, sharing the observation of phenomena. Other people, however, also say the necessary things, from time to time, and no evidence is needed to prove that these things have been said by just these people. With a little concentration from within it is possible after all, to divide oneself and remain whole. At least for a time. There is a record which can be beaten.

  – Though of course, there is the spiritual hunger, as you were saying, and that I can’t deny.

  – There are plenty of remedies.

  – Oh, you’re a great one for remedies, Lilly, I know. But in the end they’re more dangerous than the original –

  – Have a slice of pineapple.

  – Well, that is kind of you. I was going to say cachexy. Can you spare it? I mean, it was for him, wasn’t it?

  – Why him?

  – That’s a very good question.

  – Why now?

  – That is an ignorant remark.

  Mrs. Ned’s arms throw her voice about, her laughter rebounds against the wall and she catches it excitedly. As for the squint it seems a little wide this evening, the blue mobility of the one eye calling out the blueness of the temple veins and a hint of blue in the white skin around. The skin around the eyes, both the mobile eye and the static eye, is waxy.

  But Mr. Swaminathan dwells within, swaying from side to side, aching his absence from the sharing of phenomena.

  The floor is almost finished. The other workers have left. From this position, laying the marbled thermoplastic tiles on the last strip of floor between the wash-basins and the dressing-tables, it is possible to distinguish the dark legs of the hairdressing assistants from those of the guests as they step across from time to time in variously coloured shoes, for the hem of their pale orange overalls just comes within the outer orbit of downcast absorption. The guests, however, wear black slipovers. It is necessary to raise the eyelids a fraction to include a serial of long black legs that shoot out, in variously coloured shoes, each leg supported below the knee by another which rests vertically on the thermoplastically marbled floor. Different sizes and darknesses of thigh are underlined variously in red or pink or black. The floor is almost finished, the other workers have left and the salon is functioning in embryo, for a few guests only. The floor is scattered with snippets of dark cut hair, mostly wet and curved, but they dry quickly, and when they dry they thicken out. Some are almost circular. A few are silvery pink or green. A pink and yellow boy in pink and yellow cotton trousers sweeps the snippets with a miniature broom and brings them together in a grey funeral pyre, the colours merging with the dust. The hairdresser himself is a small dark man in candy-stripe trousers, with delicate black hands and large brown lips thickly pursed in concentration. Mrs. Mgulu wears golden shoes, and a girl in an orange overall with piled gold hair is lathering her thrown-back head, the neck-line dark and taut, the chin well up and rounded, the lips protruding above it and beyond them the wide nostrils. The gold setting of the alexandrite is just visible on the left nostril. The marbled th
ermoplastic tiles are purple, with a streak of pink.

  – Why now? Why not now? You know the past proves nothing. There’s no such thing as the past, save in the privacy of concupiscence. That’s an article of faith. So stop fretting about how it might have been. Unless of course the urge is too great to be contained. Then go find yourself a whore, a bureaucrat’s willing wife, they’re all willing to reenact you know, regardless of race or creed, so just go ahead and indulge yourselves with post-mortems and forged identities. Go on, go on.

  – Why, Lilly, whatever’s the matter?

  – He gets on my nerves. And there’s my tin of pineapple gone, for nothing.

  – Don’t cry, Lilly. Shall I take him over for a bit? You need a rest.

  – Oh, my pineapple!

  – But the pineapple was gorgeous, and we had a good laugh, didn’t we? Look, I’ve got a tin of prunes at home I can let you have instead. Oh I know it’s not the same but there’s a lovely recipe on it for prune kebab. He’s a sick man you know.

  – I’m perfectly healthy. I do a full day’s work. That’s the test isn’t it? Can he love, can he work?

  – Well –

  – And if the past proves nothing why do they keep asking about my previous occupation?

  – They’re bureaucrats. They’re behind the times.

  – What were you before the displacement! What displacement for heaven’s sake?

  – The displacement from cause to effect.

  – Oh Mrs. Ned! You understand me! Help me, help me.

  – Lilly, d’you mind?

  – No, I don’t mind. Not if you bring me the prunes.

  – My dear, you mustn’t get so worked up. It’s their little weakness, they fed on our past you see, and drained us of its strength, and we feed on their present. Now they deny the past, but need to ask as a matter of form, it flatters them, it’s a relic that they adhere to. We must allow them their little weaknesses.

  – Come closer. Tell me, Mrs. Ned, how can you know they fed on it if there’s no such thing as the past?

  – There you go again with your sick talk. It’s all a question of adjustment.

  – Mrs. Ned, you are full of promise, I want to make mental love to you, here, on the kitchen chair. D’you mind, Lilly?

  – No, I don’t mind. I can tell you in advance, though, it won’t help. Don’t forget the prunes.

  – Tell me about yourself, Mrs. Ned.

  – There’s not much to tell, it’s banal really, I first met my father in the usual circumstances, as a transference, and I said to him, why did you deprive me of my trauma, I’ve been looking for it ever since, alchemising anecdote to legend, episode to myth, it’s exhausting, you’ve made my life a misery, it’s because of you that I’ve grown up deprived, but he didn’t reply. I fell in love with him, deeply, painfully in love. How did you first meet your mother?

  – At her funeral. The flowers on her coffin were a mass of red.

  – Really? Why, what did she die of?

  – In the displacement, you know.

  – Go on.

  – I can’t.

  – What did she say to you?

  – She was covered with purple patches. Her eyeballs stuck out. She couldn’t speak, she was deaf and blind.

  – Was it the monocytic type?

  – No, Chloroma.

  – Go on.

  – I can’t … Come in.

  – Excuse. Boeuf Strongonoff. Wife.

  – Well, thank you Mrs. Ivan. But why?

  – Cry on tins. Present.

  – It’s most kind of you. Lilly will be delighted.

  – Please empty to return. Keep for roof. Ivan.

  – Certainly. Thank you very much.

  – Nichevo. Goodnight. Goodnight Mrs.

  – Goodnight Mrs. Ivan.

  – Goodnight Mrs. Ivan. Oh dear where were we?

  – I don’t know.

  – Erm. What did you do, before?

  – What do you think I did?

  – Something important.

  The image of the man grows up a little. The two hands clutch each other damply across the wrinkled wood of the table, which is quite still and unflowing in the dusk. The goitre opposite seems to swell as Mrs. Ned relishes the idea.

  – You’re important to me.

  – Oh. But who are you? You must make yourself important too, a worthy vessel to contain my importance.

  – You must make me a worthy vessel. It takes two to make love.

  – Did you ever find your trauma?

  – Not really. It got lost, in the displacement, you know.

  – What displacement?

  – The displacement from cause to effect.

  – From birth to death.

  – From nothing to something.

  – From red to sickly white. Then black.

  – From infra-red to ultra-violet.

  – You’re beautiful. You’re wonderful.

  – That’s why I have this goitre, you see, it’s a deficiency of thyroxin due to emotional deprivation.

  – Oh my darling, you are important, you are a worthy vessel.

  – What did you do, then, it must have been very important?

  – I was a great lover. A lover of society. I grew up with her, grew strong out of her, basked in her. I tickled her, scratched her, tormented her, accused her, I trained the great microscopes of searching questions on her. I despised her, mocked her, got cynical about her, used her. I despaired of her, had high hopes of her, I loved her.

  – How wonderful. So you satisfied your own demand?

  – Yes, of course. But I was only a cog in her machine and the machine ground to a standstill.

  – She let you down?

  – Yes.

  The image of the man grows up.

  – Have you told this to anyone else?

  – You are the first person to know.

  – That’s nice. Because I’m bound to feel with you. I was let down too. Built up and then let down.

  – You’re not doing it right, you’re talking about yourself.

  – I’m only explaining that I’m ready as a vessel, and that I’m bound to feel with you, and understand your idealism.

  – But I’m a formalist.

  – I see. Well, it all comes, I mean, tell me, have you ever been in love, deeply, painfully in love?

  – Er … define your terms.

  – Needing his, I mean her, interest, I’ll put it no stronger, full-time, deeply, painfully enough to make an abject idiot of yourself getting it, and of course not getting it, on account of the situation, and so losing his, I mean her, interest. If any.

  – No, only women do that.

  – I am a woman. Have pity. You’re such a wonderful formalist.

  The image of the man grows big. His identity is enormous. Identity is a powerful instrument.

  – You’re talking about yourself.

  – I’ve always loved you. From the very beginning I’ve loved you.

  And so on. Lilly was right. Sooner or later smallness returns. Anyone can bluff a metaphysical remark as part of the pretence that the human mind is interesting, and alone involved. But nothing less than symbiosis will do. And in the marbled top-room of the mind, Mrs. Mgulu wears golden shoes. Her head is helmeted in golden chrome. In the left nostril, the alexandrite looks pink in the salon lights. She is reading a book on horticulture, with glossy golden callicarpas on the cover. From time to time she puts it down on her lap and looks a little beyond it to the floor in front of her. Or even to the right of her, keeping her eyes open, which strike deep, a rich chromatic chord. The marbled thermoplastic tiles are purple, streaked with pink. Have you ever been deeply, painfully in love? The answer is no, never. It is possible, after all, to act out these things, to divide oneself and remain whole, despite Mr. Swaminathan’s silent sway as he continues to indwell, sharing the observation of phenomena, staring at Mrs. Mgulu in golden shoes and a helmet of golden chrome. Eating her up. Her dark face shine
s under the hot air, beautiful in any circumstances, with the alexandrite pink in her left nostril. Mr. Swaminathan holds a black thermoplastic hose that follows his movement like a dying metronome.

  – Let’s go and interview her, you and I.

  – Is she not beautiful in any circumstances?

  – We’ll ask her.

  – She can’t hear, under the helmet.

  – She will remove the helmet when she sees the microphone. She loves me, you see.

  Mrs. Mgulu sits graciously at the dressing-table, taking an interest in the crackling electricity of her hair which is being brushed into sleekness by the small dark man in candy-stripe trousers, whose profile is reversed in the mirror. His hands are delicate with pale pink nails and his brown lips pout in concentration. On the other side of the dressing-table is another dressing-table which faces the other side of the mirror. There a pert Bahuko girl in an orange overall dresses the hair of a guest who is hidden by the two-sided mirror. As she works she glances into the mirror at the results. Even her long brown hands are visible, with their golden nails, but the guest’s head is hidden by the raised square mirror. From this position to the right of Mrs. Mgulu the Bahuko girl looks as if she were dressing the hair of Mrs. Mgulu’s image who faces Mrs. Mgulu on this side of the mirror. Mrs. Mgulu’s hair is being dressed by two live people, an Asswati in candy-stripe dressing her real hair, and a Bahuko girl in orange, dressing her reflected hair. Mrs. Mgulu does not know this, for she cannot see the Bahuko girl. In the square wooden-framed mirror her own smooth Asswati face smiles at her reflection with self-love in the round black eyes and in the well-curved lips, but occasionally with graciousness at the reflection of the Asswati with delicate hands, who pouts his mouth pursed in concentration. The smiling black eyes shift a little to the left, with graciousness, and then a little to the right, with self-love. A psychoscope might perhaps reveal the expression to be one of pleasure in beauty, rather than self-love. And then a little more to the right. The last marbled thermoplastic tile is glueing nicely, purple, streaked with pink. Sooner or later some interruption will be inevitable, a movement will have to be made, a finishing of the task, a declaration that the activity, the heat, the motion of colours and the concrete feel of tools and materials are over. You people are all the same, the task has taken far too long. The big ball is practically on us and the salon is only just finished, it’s all very well but it has been one long headache. You’re all as lazy and unreliable as one another.