I Hear Voices

by Paul Ableman

  The three girls look towards the princess but, because of the sudden confluence of waiters, I can not tell if they see her or not.

  “My name is Stella,” says the crisp and distant girl who explained about Toby.

  “Our wonderful Stella whom we admire and fear. We others, in the beginning, were filled with desire, and every time we love, we dispense a little of it. But Stella, the veteran of how many affairs, is full as ever. The liquid in her cup is full as ever but whether that liquid is wine or —”

  “Icy ether,” smiles Stella. “But really, Barbara, you mustn’t circulate such tales. Men may think I’m unapproachable and you know perfectly well, and whisper it maliciously amongst yourselves, I’m as bad as any of you.”

  “Yes, but different.”

  “Different?”

  “You know you’re different.”

  “Different? I have my little things and contempts and turn each limb, each streaming line of flesh, in the street. For whom? The dull, dead skies? The dull, real, stupid or intelligent men? Myself? Shop-windows— perfume—cars—I passed a country scene in a boyfriend’s car, some cows, grass hedges—for that? For the bridge, the Seine, the tepid, fashionable sea? My father is a doctor. For him? The smudge above my name in the vulgar press? For that? Different? Stella living at this time— dancing—Stella drinking, journeying—”

  She remains quite still. She does this partly theatrically, to consecrate the attitudes she has compelled, and partly to retain and even improve the clarity of the knowledge she has attained. She stands still, accepting, on her clear flesh, in her clear eyes, through her submissive clothes on every part of her body, the messages of the night and entertainments, hugging them for a moment as an unhappy mother might hug departing children, and then returning them a little transformed from her embrace. For a moment, I want anxiously to communicate with her, to tell her the little that I know, but, even as I step forward, the certainty comes to me that this is not the time, that, even though I may never meet her again, it is still far too soon and I can do nothing better than turn my step in a different direction and leave her with her companions.

  And so I turn away. The woman is still beckoning to me. I move close enough to compliment her on her rainbow. “A marvelous effect,” I enthuse.

  She smiles in a dignified way.

  “All would be well—” she begins. “All would be perfect but for that faint, infinitely subtle and yet never-quite-absent odor.”

  “Of ooze,” I exclaim. “Of tidal ooze. I smelled it too. As if the tide had gone out and sea-things were festering in the marshes.”

  “It may be ooze,” nods the woman. “But where does it come from? What can be its origin? The foundations are sound, the location choice—”

  “Ooze bubbles up everywhere,” I point out. “If you live on the earth, you can’t avoid it.”

  “But we’d have gone to any lengths,” protests the hostess, “no matter what the cost, to avoid it, or any other unpleasantness, no matter how slight, that tended to dissolve the illusion we were bent on creating—a fairy world, a magic world, outside the bustle and the hurly-burly—”

  “But you’ve done very well,” I assure her. “I mean the effect is almost perfect, with this lovely chemical rainbow and doubtless all sorts of other novelties and fantastic sprites of the imagination waiting to be inspected elsewhere. I don’t think you should reproach yourself.”

  “Oh, I don’t,” returns the woman. “I know we’ve done very well and I’m sure that everyone is having a splendid time. You’ve met no one that isn’t having a splendid time, have you? I saw you circulating amongst the guests, sampling a conversation here, trapping an attitude there, and I thought ‘that young man will tell me how things are going. He’ll tell me if people are enjoying themselves.’ However, I wasn’t too pleased to see you so intent upon that young woman, that Stella. Now I don’t wish to say anything explicit but surely there are lots of other attractive and, what shall I say, more suitable young ladies here?”

  “There are lots of pretty girls.”

  “Yes, of course. Well I’m glad you take my point. I’m an older woman myself. We were less explicit in my time, but we managed to get our meaning across. And now we’ve created this lovely entertainment here this evening the way it used to be in the familiar villages with the trees and lawns. Of course, we have to use chemicals nowadays—everyone does, but the spirit is the same, isn’t it? It is the old, genuine spirit, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know,” I confess. “I’m not sure. As a matter of fact, I didn’t want to come at all. I wasn’t sure what Arthur would say. But now I’m very glad I did.”

  “Yes, but the spirit,” insists the woman. “You’ve seen nothing strange or distorted, have you? Nothing not explicable in terms of our excellent values? Oh, they are such precious values and I’m not at all sure that people devote as much attention to them nowadays as they should. Still, this is a very reassuring scene, you must admit, even if the waiters are a bit equivocal. Have they served you well?”

  “Well, they obscured the princess, but I don’t think intentionally—”

  “Ah, the princess. There’s been much nobility here this evening, even if a few managers did get in—on the whole a most satisfying evening. Though it must be nearly dawn.”

  Waiters pass. They give each other suspicious looks, or wink in a comradely fashion. In the distance, by the festooned calculus, young bloods are pursuing managers and politicians. At any moment the sun will rise and gleam through the elaborate illuminations into dusty whorls of the Rococo. Magnifications have been switched off, drivers are purring and all around the countryside is astir. I look for the manager and fancy I detect him lurching angrily through the brambles once more. Arthur has not arrived, but I find that I no longer dread his arrival.

  “If you see Arthur,” I ask the woman, “Tell him that I couldn’t wait. That I had to go back to my egg. He’ll understand.”

  And with a wave of farewell, I leave both her and the entertainments and make my way wearily back to my egg. There, I find myself too exhausted to broach it and I simply lie for a while trying to still my overactive brain. I have partially recovered when Cousin Susan comes in to tell me that she has brought a famous professor to see me.

  “About this egg?” I ask the pleasant-looking, bespectacled man who has followed her to my bedside.

  “No, about your personal condition,” he replies, seating himself on the rickety chair by my bedside. Cousin Susan glances critically at the bedside arrangements to make sure that nothing is lacking to make the distinguished visitor’s stay agreeable, and then departs.

  “As reflected in this egg?” I suggest.

  “It’s not reflected in the egg,” he insists. “That’s half your trouble. Look at that object once more. It’s only a bit of shell, an ovoid of shell, calcium and so forth, with yolk and albumen inside. It comes from a hen.”

  “So do I.”

  “Now, that’s hardly likely, is it?”

  He smiles at me, a pleasant winning smile, and attempts to attach a large meter to my throat.

  “Well, I haven’t got a mother,” I protest, knocking the meter to the floor where it whines and flickers feebly.

  “But you must have,” says the professor. He looks thoughtfully but also, I am convinced, with a concealed impulse to fury, at the ruins of his meter on the floor. “I wish you hadn’t wrecked that meter,” he complains mildly. “They’re fearfully expensive. Still, it doesn’t matter. I should have explained to you beforehand what I was doing. I’ll get another from the Institute and return with it tomorrow.”

  “I’m no friend to meters,” I warn him. “And you haven’t really proved that I have a mother.”

  “No—well, I can hardly do that now. It’s a long, complicated proof—but I am interested—Tell me, why do you imagine that you haven’t got a mother?”

  “I never see her.”

  “No. No, but you can remember her, can’t you?”
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  “Memory’s my best subject,” I warn him. “I don’t want to sound glib but—I’d beware of bringing up memory.”

  “Well—” says the professor, straightening up and doing inconsequential things like touching another meter, half withdrawing a register from his pocket, frowning thoughtfully out of the window at a sliding section in the middle distance, in order to give himself time to consider the matter. “Nevertheless, I am interested in memory. I like remembering things, don’t you?”

  Rather than attempt to answer, I detach a speck of yolk from the counterpane and lay it on the professor’s knee. He does not flick it away, nor even glance at it but continues in the same sympathetic voice:

  “Unless they’re horrid memories. I don’t like those at all. I can understand your not liking those. I suppose some of your memories are horrid too?”

  “Do you incubate your memories?” I ask him. “Like eggs?”

  “Ah,” he smiles. “You’re determined to talk about eggs. Very well then, you tell me a few things about eggs and, while you’re doing so, with your permission, I’ll just take a few more readings.”

  I do not feel ill-disposed towards this professor, but I do not feel like talking to him either. Later, I tell him a few things about eggs, and egg-like things wherever they may emerge. I do not destroy any more of his meters.

  “What’s all this about eggs?” he asks me, stuffing dials and meters back into his pockets.

  “It can be put quite simply,” I assure him. “I don’t know what procedures you use at the Institute but when you’re dealing with memory, it can be put quite simply. It has to be broadly based, of course, you have to be able to handle eggs and mothers.”

  “And your mother?”

  “You mustn’t pry.”

  “No, I’m not prying,” cries the professor, genuinely distressed at what he feels to be my misinterpretation of his motives. “You asked me about the Institute. We have a great many fine men there, fine and humane men, all bundled together. They huddle together over their extracts and distillates, and exchange ideas. Later they commit these ideas to paper and they put out these papers to be soaked in the juices of life. When the papers have acquired a rich and savory smell—”

  “Like ooze?”

  “No, like what they are. Like life-soaked papers—they read them to each other, sometimes straining their eyes badly as they try to pick out the words from amongst the fatty stains and tear-marks. Then they communicate with other Institutes and summon a Congress. A Congress is like a large basin. Congresses are usually very nimble and if you contemplate the winding course of History, you will notice Congresses leaping from island to island in their attempt to remain in mid-stream. But all this is a trifle advanced.”

  The professor beams at me. I do nothing but make those slight adjustments and petty rearrangements of limb and head that physically sound people confined to bed continually make. I scratch my hip where a tiny nerve has flared into action. I scratch my chin where its cousin has sympathetically awakened.

  “Well,” says the professor, “I shall have to go soon. Do you want to tell me about your mother first?”

  “We could swap reminiscences,” I suggest.

  “Very well,” smiles the professor. “My mother was a dear old lady.”

  “Mine was a dear old hen.”

  “Well, now, wait a minute,” exclaims the professor. He gets up excitedly and his poise is momentarily disrupted when he stumbles over some tools that I have left lying near the bed. “Why do you think we’re doing this? Why do you leave tools near the bed?”

  “I need those tools.”

  “Yes, I know, doubtless. I’m sorry about the tools. I mean—why do you think we’re playing this game, swapping these reminiscences?”

  “Well, it could be for almost any reason. I like rolling words on my tongue. But it might be just the opposite. In your case, you might loathe words and try to bite them as they emerged.”

  “It’s not purely verbal,” insists the professor. “I can assure you of that.”

  “You think words are smoky things?” I ask him. “Even in concentration? Even in long filaments and streamers? Do you think words are smokier than gas—or smoke?”

  The professor busies himself for a few moments in setting the tools neatly, straightening a small shape that has toppled and blowing light refuse around.

  “There,” he says. “That’s a bit more like the Institute. Though we keep a calendar there. I see you have no calendar.”

  “I settled the date,” I explain. “Now, how about mothers. How did yours coo when she pinched your baby-fat? Mine didn’t cluck as she usually did but dropped silver tears into the dimples of my bottom. These tears solidified and have been used ever since as paperweights by the tiny folk.”

  “What was she like?” asks the professor. “Your mother?”

  “Like Mrs. Oil.”

  “Not like a hen?”

  “Not entirely. Not entirely like Mrs. Oil or a hen. It was so long ago, before belts were invented. It was before blue brushes had been used or blue essences had been culled. Neither Mrs. Oil nor Mrs. Brush had any bailing in that chorus.”

  When Cousin Susan brings suitable refreshments the professor confides ruefully:

  “He claims to have no mother.”

  “No,” agrees Cousin Susan, setting the tray down by the bedside and eyeing me suspiciously. “No, of course not.”

  “Yes, that’s what he says, but, of course, it can’t be true. He must have had a mother.”

  “Of course he must,” agrees Cousin Susan indignantly. “Do you want one of these little round munchers, Professor?”

  “Well, it’s very good of you—” admits the professor. “I think just the beverage, the infusion—”

  “As you say, Professor. We’re not rich but we do have round munchers and infusions when people call. There. Now then, Professor, what’s your special opinion, if you don’t object to my putting it to you?”

  “No, of course not. I’m a floater of that order. I’m here to lower a line. Good heavens,” he laughs, “we’d have little purity if we stood on our objections.”

  “Of course you would,” affirms Cousin Susan. “You’d have little purity. Well now—”

  She settles herself in congregational style and looks trustingly but severely at the professor. Sound waves from the rattling crocks that little Jane, on tip-toe, is troubling in the livingroom, reach her and she stirs uneasily.

  “Well now—” she repeats. “Jane!” she bellows. “Stop that! It’s little Jane,” she apologizes. “She’s just at that age.”

  “Well now—” she resumes.

  “I’ve made various notes and jottings,” begins the professor. “I’ve taken various readings. I’m sure the results will be most interesting. They have to be correlated and sifted. Extracts have to be made and then, as I mentioned earlier, the result must be life-soaked. After that anything may emerge. Sometimes it wriggles out. Sometimes it shoots out, emitting sweet song or bat-cries. Now then, misconceptions. Stout citizens such as yourself are the sport of misconceptions. They lead you a merry dance. They toss you lightly, whirl you hither and whirl you thither. I’ll now dispel one, or rather hammer one a bit, for experience teaches us that they’re very durable. Blast a misconception with powerful logic and its dust settles on all sorts of plainnesses and obscures them. Terrible time we have with misconceptions.”

  “I’m sure, yes,” agrees Cousin Susan. “More infusion, Professor?”

  “No more. Now this misconception has arisen in recent times and now has great authority. People think we are omnipotent and we are not.”

  “A muncher, Professor? Or a cruncher?”

  “Perhaps a cruncher. Now then—aid and assistance. We are in a position to offer aid and assistance. Relative aid, limited assistance—we can heal the eye, but not what it sees. We can mend the limb, but not what it does. We never look beyond the immediate application. However, conventions linger. Like white beast
s when the ice recedes, like striped beasts when the glaciers creak down, they prowl desperately for a time until the changed conditions master them. Vision is still thought valuable when there is only dust to see. Activity is still held desirable though its strokes fall on temples, statues and green earth, pounding all to barren dust. And we, at the Institute, are kept so close to the separated parts of vision and activity that we have no thought for the dust that blows everywhere through the whole. In truth, we scarcely notice it. Purring machines blow sterile air into our lungs. Each part we turn over uncovers a hundred more and so furiously do we pursue and classify that the dusty world outside recedes from our awareness. And yet I sometimes wonder if it is not our frenzied burrowing that raises the dust in the first place, and if not we, then who shall lay the dust?”

  “You have sipped and crunched now, Professor,” observes Cousin Susan. “You have sat wandering by this lad’s bed. Now, you’ll forgive my asking, but what good’s that to me? I help the neighbors, a drop of milk or sugar, and clean the house. I do Arthur’s business sums at night. You’ll forgive my saying so, but you’ve told me nothing yet.”

  The professor recollects himself. He smiles vaguely. Then he gets slowly up and moves towards the door. There he pauses, turns and looks back at me and, in his look, I fancy I can read a secret gleam of envy. He departs with Cousin Susan and a more sonorous voice begins:

  “At night you see the stars (this is your astronomy master). They are far away and black velvet has been stuffed between. Look up at the stars. Are they up? Are you down? Do you see that bright star? We call that Sparkler. And that one Spitter. Spitter is a midgy star. Fit for Maria’s finger. Sparkler is a blazer, fit for a winter hearth. Switch on Sparkler. Switch on Spitter. But don’t get too close to either. Bad-tempered stars, they lick and sputter. They’re on fire, you know, burning madly. Hiss, hiss, hiss they burn and have done, you know, for a long time. Yes, they were burning when Hunter planted that pip. And long before. Yes, they were burning when the stone tree grew. And long before. Sparkler and Spitter have lots of brothers. Not on both hands, not on fingers and toes, will you count them. They are a family of stars, too far apart, poor things, for birthday greeting cards. But I’ve only been joking with you. They don’t really have feelings at all. They’re simply vortices of primal energy—and they will rage in empty space forever.”