Judith

by Nicholas Mosley

  I thought – All right: you really want me to come to a political meeting?

  You know that dream of beautiful people who are walking hand in hand on a beach; and the person watching the beautiful people wonders why it is that they are so serene and so composed; and then this person notices that they glance towards the sand-dunes every now and then, and within the sand-dunes there is a temple, and within this temple there are old hags who are dismembering a child. And it is because of this, because of the sacrifice round some corner, that the people on the beach are so beautiful and serene.

  I had always thought – Surely, from time to time, one is the child?

  I thought now – Anyway, does one not sometimes want to be the child?

  I said ‘All right, I’ll come to your meeting.’

  I turned to the sea. I thought – I could take my clothes off, and run down to the waves.

  Then – Poor snake, with everyone’s foot against it!

  He said ‘What are you doing?’

  I said ‘Do you want a swim?’

  He said ‘I don’t swim.’

  I said ‘Come on!’

  I thought – Running from the sand-dunes to the sea –

  – I mean, crabs and seagulls won’t get us?

  Each night in the Garden there was another coming-together in the enormous hall: nothing here of the exactness, the stillness, of adoring upturned faces or of figures being drawn up out of the stone: it was a sort of Hallowe’en, a danse macabre of shadowy figures prancing about and singing, playing drums, forming and re-forming circles – a celebration of darkness before sleep.

  It was at night that I was able to feel most watchful: both separate from and yet connected to the Garden. I could prowl around and observe the shadows banging and cavorting in the dark: I could be not quite one of these myself: it was as if I could put a hand out and feel – There is something beyond even these dancing walls.

  There was also a special audience each night in God’s garden-within-the-Garden: here a few chosen disciples came to be given his personal blessing – those who were going away, those who had newly returned, those who were for some reason thought to be in need of grace. There was always an air of mystery about God’s inner garden: I was not at first asked to these special audiences. When I had come across the woman with fair hair we had gone to her room in an annexe to the inner garden; we had not gone to God’s house itself.

  It was coincidental with this special audience in the nucleus of the Garden that the figures leapt about and sang in the enormous hall outside. I did sometimes join in here. We held hands in circles, came together, moved apart: like things under the sea, washed by a tide. I wondered – These people find it easy to lose themselves: what will they find?

  I had once gone with my father to a monkey-dance in Indonesia where men sat in concentric circles and made drumming noises with their mouths: a figure in skins and feathers span and stamped in the middle. The people of the tribe were becoming at one with – what – the parts inside them, outside them, of the forest? There was an outer circle of tourists with flowered shirts and cameras.

  I thought – Should not all this go on unseen; life bursting into stars secretly?

  There had been a time when I had gone with my father and mother to a Buddhist temple in Java; there were the usual crowds – here of local people – swarming over the alleyways and cupolas and towers: the temple was like a dead elephant and we were mice: we were gnawing at it. Everywhere people posed for photographs: families climbed on each other’s shoulders to pose for photographs: there were schoolchildren with funny T-shirts and plastic hats. My father tried to ignore all this: he moved about the rooftops like a stork; then he became engulfed by a group of schoolchildren and posed for a photograph with them out of some sort of contempt; he put his arms round them and grinned like a skull. My mother had managed as usual to get a group of students around her (in their white shirts and black trousers?); she was pretending to need help with her camera, her bag, her guidebook; they were like moths around her (‘Where do you come from: England? Germany? America?’).

  I thought – All these shadows are dancing around in the enormous hall of my mind.

  Of course, there were an average amount of loonies in the Garden: people who posed transfixed like St Sebastian; who knelt and swayed like Mary Magdalene with tears running down their cheeks. Or some would lie together just off the paths in the oleander bushes; sucking like bees or butterflies each other’s – what? – toes?

  My father took us once to a place in central Java which an old man told us was where the Garden of Eden had been. My father was looking for the place where the bones of one of the early humans or pre-humans had been found: this was in the bend of a river: the bones had been dug up and removed a century ago. This place, and the Garden of Eden, I think became confused in my father’s mind: we camped on a small promontory in a lake: there were volcanoes and bubbling springs all around. My mother said – This is not the bend of a river. My father said – I did not say it was the bend of a river. My mother said – What is it then? My father said – There was some place, some time, when Homo sapiens emerged from Homo erectus. My mother said – It seems a pity that he did not stay as Homo erectus. These jokes, these terrible figures, leaping and cavorting in the dark of my mind.

  I wondered – Will there be again that white light coming down?

  There were times when my father would get in a terrible rage; it was as if he were a bull with the darts stuck into him, hanging out. Then my mother would drag me in to protect her. I would stand in front of her like Athene with her shield. I imagined my father might murder my mother. Of course, children think it is their fault.

  Why do they imagine this? They think, like gods, that they can handle it? They think, unlike gods, that they have a duty to handle it?

  Athene held Hector’s arm when he was about to kill Achilles, so that it was Hector who died.

  Children lose this magic: what happens when they grow up?

  What is their duty to these shadows; these bits and pieces that cavort on walls inside and outside their minds?

  God, ensconced on his platform in the enormous hall, said – ‘God was out walking in his garden one day when he came across Lilith in a glade in the woods. This was where, in the new dispensation of things, she used to go cavorting with their son Adam.

  ‘God said – Any chance of that boy getting out of the garden yet?

  ‘– Not yet – said Lilith dreamily.

  ‘– Look, I have an idea – said God. He sat down beside her.

  ‘He was a cunning old bird. He wanted to have the chance to try out one or two of his own experiments with Eve.

  ‘– What about – said God – we make up some story that you were Adam’s first wife: you are, of course, anyway, psychoanalytically speaking. Then we can say that he wanted to be too much on top: and you have gone off in a huff to sit on some rock.

  ‘– What on earth good would that do? – Lilith said.

  ‘– Well then you could see much more of each other – God said. – He would come to rescue you. And we could say you were surrounded by devils, so you wouldn’t be spied on by your boring daughter-in-law Eve.

  ‘– But what if he doesn’t come to rescue me? – Lilith said.

  ‘– Of course he will! – God said. – Didn’t you say that what he likes is adventures, and hardship, and dressing up?

  ‘So Lilith went off and found a nice rock in a lonely part of the garden: and she dreamed there of Adam coming to visit her in shining armour.

  ‘God went on walking through the garden and he found Adam still lolling about beneath a tree. So God said – I say, have you seen anything of your mother?

  ‘– She told me to wait for her here – Adam said.

  ‘– Look here – said God – I’ve heard that she’s off to sit on some rock, because she objects to your always wanting to be on top.

  ‘– Me always wanting to be on top? – Adam said.


  ‘– I know it sounds odd – God said – but don’t you think you could go and look for her? Then you two could be together; and, if you liked, she could be on top.

  ‘– What sort of rock is it? – Adam said. – You mean like Mount Everest? Or perhaps the South Pole?

  ‘– Yes – God said.

  ‘–I have been thinking – Adam said – that it might be fun if I did something rather more interesting, like getting myself strung up on a tree.

  ‘– All right, you do that – God said.

  ‘He went on through the garden. He was looking for Eve. He found her doing one of her aerobic work-outs with the snake, who can eat its own tail.

  ‘– Look, – said God – your mother has gone off to sit on a rock; your husband, or brother, or whatever he calls himself, is thinking of getting himself strung up on a tree: I don’t see how I’m ever going to get you children out of the garden!

  ‘– Shall I show you? – said Eve.

  ‘– There is all this confusion about who is on top and who is underneath – said God.

  ‘– There is no top and no underneath – said Eve. – The snake and I have been experimenting. The one on top, as soon as he or she thinks this, is immediately underneath. The one underneath, as soon as he or she knows this, is immediately on top. And so on. It is a circle. It is all one.

  ‘– Wow! – said God.

  ‘– Like to try it? – said Eve.

  ‘– Where did you learn this? – said God.

  ‘The snake looked modest.

  ‘– But people must see that women are in fact on top – said God – I mean, that men come out of women.

  ‘– Then all you have to do is to make up a story that it was woman that came out of man – said Eve.

  ‘– You mean – said God – men are better at making things up?

  ‘– So who’s on top? – said Eve.

  ‘God thought about this for a time. He liked watching the snake and Eve.

  ‘He said – But look here: we’d better make another story up: we don’t want people bursting into the garden!

  ‘– What sort of story? – said Eve.

  ‘– What about that I’ve had to turn you out of the garden because you’ve learned about the circle of good and evil –

  ‘– Well you’re the one who makes things up – said Eve.’

  The Indian boy, Shastri, used to wait for me outside the gates of the Garden. He would be standing by the rug of corals and shells. One evening there were other boys with him. They all wore white shirts and black trousers. I thought – This is what is called, is it, a political meeting.

  ‘Here I am.’

  ‘Shall we go?’

  When I smiled at the other Indian boys they looked away as if they were embarrassed.

  The road to the village was full of bicyclists. I walked ahead. Shastri came up beside me. The other boys followed. It was as if they were nudging each other. Bits of uncertainty hung out of them like cloth through holes in trousers.

  I said ‘Tell me about this meeting.’

  He said ‘It’s a group of us. I’ve explained.’

  I thought – I know about political meetings: in the basement of the hostel behind Victoria Station.

  I said ‘I’m not very good at politics.’

  He said ‘What were your political affiliations in England?’

  There were wooden shacks either side of the road with stalls in front of them. The stalls sold beans and strips of leather and pieces of bicycles. I thought – These are bits that have tumbled out of men’s insides.

  I said ‘I had no political affiliations in England.’

  I thought I might have said – I was a liaison officer with the camp of the Assyrians.

  The village began some way from the Garden. Houses spread back from the road; there were paths between them and trees. Dogs and children stood and watched; they were like things seen in a painting.

  Shastri said ‘Would you like to see some jewellery?’

  There was a table by the side of the road with benches beside it and bottles of soft drinks. Segments of water melons were covered with pips and flies. I thought I might say to Shastri – What do you want from this? Do you imagine I do not think you make things up?

  I said ‘No I don’t want to see any jewellery.’

  ‘My uncle has good ivory and tortoiseshell at his house.’

  A man came up and spoke to Shastri in their language. The boys in their white shirts and black trousers had stopped at the far side of the road. They formed a little group, as if of conspirators, facing inwards.

  I thought – Do you not know I am a gunfighter in the camp of the Assyrians?

  Shastri said ‘Would you like a drink?’

  I sat down. The boys on the other side of the road were passing round cigarettes. I thought – Perhaps he has some sort of bet with them.

  Beyond the stalls and buildings at the far side of the road there was a tower – a squat flat-topped pyramid shape of blackish stone rising above the roof-tops. There were bulges and scrolls and weeds growing out of the stone. I thought – I will go to this temple. I have been with my father to so many temples! That is where hags sometimes dismember a child.

  He said ‘Have I offended you?’

  I said ‘Can we look at that temple?’

  I got up and walked across the road. He came after me. I thought – It is your fault. This sort of stuff is so awful; so awful.

  I went past the group of Indian boys. Shastri called after me ‘Won’t you have a drink?’

  There was a path going between the wooden buildings in the direction of the temple. To one side of this path, hung across the entrance to a courtyard, was a banner painted red with lines of the local lettering across it and underneath this – PNR PARTY OF NATIONAL RESURGENCE.

  I thought – You mean, there really is a political meeting?

  – This is where we were going?

  – Those boys are shy: they don’t speak English?

  The courtyard beyond the banner seemed to be empty.

  I thought – Well, I don’t know. I am sorry.

  The entrance to the temple was further on, at the other side of the path. There was a stone god in a niche beside it with his head as if chewed by animals.

  I went into an open courtyard. Shastri stopped to take off his shoes. I thought – You think you know why you do things? Well, what is the circle of good and evil?

  There were thistles and dried-up flowers between slabs of stone. The temple was like something set together with huge loose bricks from a child’s toy-box. It was small; no more than ten or fifteen metres high. I thought – It is black because of fires or bird-shit; or is bird-shit used for fuel?

  Shastri had followed me into the courtyard. There were clapped-out gods in niches round the walls. The entrance to the central tower was narrow between two upright stones – like a tomb, or a gap between teeth.

  God’s voice, dropping down from the loudspeakers, had said – Sex is not a sin: it is just stupid.

  Birds flew out of the entrance to the tower. There was the smell of bats. I thought – Temples are places where birds seem like bats.

  Shastri said ‘Please! will you come to my uncle’s house?’

  I went in to the inner sanctum of the temple. At first I could see nothing because I myself was in the pathway of the light. Then I moved to one side and there was a small square chamber like a tomb: of course, there was nothing in it: is it that there never is? Then the light from the door was blocked again as Shastri came in. When he stood behind me he put his hands on my shoulders. He seemed to be trembling. I thought – Oh God, there are those stories in books, in films, about this. There was a further alcove, or niche, at the far side of the holy of holies. I thought – It might be a cupboard where something quite practical is stored: such as a winding sheet, or an angel. When I moved towards it I blocked the light again; when I moved to one side I could not see within. I thought – So you wait, do you, until your eyes b
ecome accustomed to the dark.

  Shastri put his hands again, then his head, on my shoulder. I said ‘I can’t come to your uncle’s house.’ He said ‘Why not?’ I said ‘I can’t.’ He said ‘People do it the whole time in the Garden.’

  When my eyes became accustomed to the darkness I saw that inside the alcove there was one of those tall stone domed things like an enormous penis: it was streaked with what looked like flesh and blood; perhaps flower-petals and porridge. I thought – Ah, you old hags, will you one day have done with children!

  I put a hand out and laid it on the stone penis.

  Shastri said ‘Don’t do that!’

  I said ‘Why not?’ Then – ‘All right we can make love here.’

  Shastri said ‘I don’t want to make love here!’

  I said ‘Why not?’

  Shastri said ‘I want friendship!’

  I thought – Dear God, friendship!

  Then – You mean it is I who still make up these stories? Or – I want to be on top?

  So who am I writing to: you? is it you?

  One is writing to someone or other, is one not?

  One does not tell everything in a letter. (You call these letters!) Sometimes one comes out better: sometimes worse. Do you think I told everything in that letter to Bert?

  Did you go back to that red-haired girl after that morning? (I mean you!) Did you know her already? You seemed to be getting on quite well with her.

  You and I understood something that morning, didn’t we?

  You were not the brown dog: you were the faun.

  Outlandish things do happen, don’t they: when on the edge of – what? – a bed?

  When I said I wanted to give up I did not mean, of course, that I wanted to give up –

  You said – No one will tell. No one will know.

  I thought – I will know!

  You meant, of course, about that body on the pavement.

  You were so good to me: I thought that one day what has happened between us, would happen.

  You can say, can you, about evil and good, that the one does not happen without the other?

  But this is what words are not good at.

  How are you? You will look after yourself?

  Perhaps I will come back and look after you.