Shikasta

by Doris May Lessing Little Dorrit

  America. Olga and Simon say that it is so rich anyway, the crisis was masked. But I remember seeing lines of people waiting for food. And Olga says it was the same, like England, the unemployed milling about and rioting and smashing things, and when we were there the beginning of camps and uniforms and keeping them under military discipline. Nigeria was different because people had been poor anyway. Perhaps that is better than having been very rich and then getting poor. I have just had that thought. In Nigeria we saw hungry people and sick people. That was when I began to go with my mother everywhere. Into hospitals and relief camps. There was an epidemic. My first epidemic. I went with her. Of course I was inoculated against everything. But they weren't sure what the disease was. To this day she says they don't really know what it was. Now I think how brave she was to take me everywhere. She says when I asked her (just now) that I have to be ready for danger and emergency. And that is one of the reasons all three of us have been taken to so many places with our parents, even into camps full of illness and epidemics and famines. In Nigeria there weren't so many unemployed, because most of them got on to the land somehow. In Kenya it wasn't so very different - poor people, and different kinds of illness. Olga and Simon were working on a big team for six months with people who had escaped from a bad famine. They were doing hygiene in the camps. There were a lot of young people with no work and they were put into uniforms too. What big armies everyone has now. I hadn't thought of it like that before. Simply because of no work. In Egypt it was different in some ways. Very very poor. Illness, again. Olga and Simon at it as always, camps and relief. I remember watching the kids running along the streets breaking everything and screaming and setting fire. I was afraid that our building, the one we had a flat in, would be set on fire. Two buildings in that street were. All the city was full of burning buildings. More armies! More uniforms! And now Morocco. Well, it is different again, but not so very, if you come to think of it. Different words, but the same things. Poor people. Armies. Not enough to eat.

  I see I have got away from politics. I meant to write about all the political parties. Governments. That kind of thing. But it seems to me that in each country our family has been in, the same things have happened. Are happening. But America is a Democracy. Britain is Socialist. Nigeria is a Benevolent Dictatorship. (I have just asked Olga and that is what she said.) Kenya is Free and Developing. (Mother says, Benevolent Oligarchy.) Morocco is Islamic and Free and Socialist and Developing. (Benevolent.) I don't know if this is the sort of fact I ought to be dwelling on? I can't believe it matters. Well, everyone else seems to think it matters. But it seems to me to show that our education has been very peculiar to say the least. Nearly everyone is passionate about whatever political party it is. When we have visitors, they have certain things to say, and they say them, one after the other. Often I and George have had to stop ourselves giggling. And even gone out of the room. And this happens in each country, it doesn't matter what the government is. Of course Mother and Father are never part of any political thing, but they are always Experts employed by the Government. That means, if you are in the habit of thinking like that, they must be supporters of that government. Or might be. And this means that visitors have to say certain things for the benefit of Mother and Father and for the other visitors. It is very boring. Well, that is all I am going to say about that.

  Special contacts. I see that this is important. I see that it has been important always and I didn't understand that. Because of writing this I keep seeing things. I am trying to be careful to write down everything as I think now and not as then, but it is difficult, because I keep slipping back into that frame of mind.

  The first thing I have to think about is Hasan. Soon after George came back from the year on the farm, Hasan came to the house and George began spending time with him. If you come to think of it, it is funny how it happened. Because nothing much seemed to happen. Hasan was an ordinary kind of visitor, one of the people in the Medical Association. But he was George's friend right from the start. And we didn't think anything of it. Correction, I didn't think anything of it, because it has always happened like this.

  The first time, it was New York. George must have been only seven. There was a woman who came a lot, and she used to take George out to see things and do things. Once or twice Benjamin went too but he didn't like her. I asked George what they did and he said, We talk about things. I didn't think much about that then, but I am now. And then on holiday in Wales, the three of us. There was a man came from Scotland. We believed he was an expert in connection with farming. Perhaps he was. Now I wonder. He took George off to camp once, and fishing too. And other things. I've forgotten what. I wasn't taking much notice but now I wish I had. Benjamin went camping once. He didn't like it much. He was always finding things boring. That was his style. I see it was not so much what he really thought but a style. To protect himself. I have been sitting here wondering if I was asked to go on these trips. Why didn't I go too? But what I do remember is I loved the farm so much I never wanted to go a step from it, they could have invited me to do anything and I wouldn't have left Mrs. Jones. But I do remember going for a walk with George and this man. I remember something about him. Which I could recognise now. He was called Martin. George liked him. And then there was Nigeria. When the epidemic was on and our parents so busy, we weren't always with them. We started to have tutors then. One tutor came from Kano and he aught us mathematics and history and Arabic. Also how to notice everything. He made a great point of that. He was a tutor for all of us, but now I see that George went off with him a lot. And in Kenya we had tutors as well as the school. It was the same there. I mean, it was always George, I see that now.

  I have asked Mother about it. (Have just finished asking.) She knew exactly what I was asking from the first word I said. She had been expecting me to ask her one day and had wondered how to answer. I could see all that as soon as I asked her. She set herself carefully to answer all my questions. She has always been patient about questions. I have understood this because of watching other mothers with questions from their children. When Mother gets asked a question she makes it clear that she thinks it is important and she is taking it seriously.

  I said I was writing this. Well she knew that. I said I had to get my facts right. And then I told her that as I wrote I was understanding things. She was not at all surprised by that. She told me a lot about Martin. Who he was and that kind of thing. And about the tutors and the woman in New York. But when she had ended with saying that they were like this and like that and did this kind of work or whatever, she said to me, as if I had asked some exact question, I don't know, Rachel. The way she answered that, framed the question I hadn't asked.

  I will put down where this is happening. We are in a little house with a flat roof. We like it better than the big block of flats where we were first. This is in a part of the town where it is nearly all local people, i.e., Natives. So called. They are most of them lovely and we have friends among them. I mean, real friends. At night we often sleep on the roof. It is lovely. We lie out, on mattresses and look at the stars and talk. This is the best time ever for us all. I get so happy I don't know what to do with myself. When the family is together at last. Because that isn't often. Father for instance is away this minute, organising hospitals with a team of doctors. Doctors "All-Sorts," Benjamin calls teams like this, meaning, all races. Father is working very hard. Well, I suppose that goes without saying.

  There are some small rooms around a court. The rooms have earth floors. This is not a house "people like us" live in often. Some of the white people say we are "eccentric." I'd rather be eccentric and sleep on the roof and look at the stars and the moon.

  Mother is at this minute in the court, writing a report for the WHO. The court is not just for us but for several families. There is a lot of noise. She works with everything going on, kids playing etc. There are some lilies in a big terra-cotta pot, and a rather dingy little pool, dusty, but it is better than nothing.
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  Mother is sitting on a cushion on the edge of the pool writing. I sat on the edge of the pool too.

  I didn't have to prod her after she said, I don't know, Rachel - I just sat and waited... I thought perhaps she would not say anything at all. I understand her when she doesn't. We are together so much, we know what we are thinking. I knew that Mother knew I was in one of those times when we understand things suddenly, all at once.

  She said to me, What do you think about it?

  That surprised me, I must confess. She said it in a low voice, not frightened, not like that, but as if truly not knowing what to say, and as if she truly thought I might be able to say something she hadn't thought of.

  I said, Well, Olga, it seems to me as if there is something very funny about it.

  She said, Yes. Yes.

  We sat there quite a long time. It wasn't as if this was a good time to have an important talk. I mean, because of the children. The baby from the room across the court would have fallen into the pool if I hadn't got hold of it, for instance.

  I said, It is only now I have had a sudden feeling that there was something all the time.

  Yes, it started very early. George was seven.

  Yes, with the woman in New York.

  Miriam.

  She was a Jewish woman?

  Yes.

  It hasn't ever mattered what they were.

  No.

  Then I said to her, in the same tone of voice she had used to me, low, and in my case it was because I was a bit afraid, really, George is special in some way?

  Yes, that must be it.

  What does Simon think?

  He saw it first. I was quite frightened about it all at one point, Rachel. But he told me not to be. He told me to think about it. So I did. I have never thought about anything so hard in my life. I believe that since then that is what I have been thinking about. Yes, I can say that, Rachel.

  That was all for then. I took the baby back to its mother. There is one thing about living like this. No one could say we aren't integrated with Moroccan life at its roots.

  I have been sitting here thinking. This room is my bedroom. It is more like a cubbyhole. But I like it. It is very cool. It is all mud. It has an earthy smell. A damp smell, because I sprinkle water in the morning before the sun gets hot. And I throw down water outside the door morning and evening, to keep the dust down, and the smell is gorgeous.

  When I look out of the door, there is blue sky. That's all. Blue sky. Hot.

  There are two things on my mind at this moment.

  One is this. Benjamin. One of the reasons Benjamin is so difficult and awful and sulks so much, and tries to quarrel with George is, he is jealous because George goes with Hasan so much. But Hasan has more than once asked him to go out to a cafe or something but Benjamin never will. That is because he thinks he is being put off with a cafe or a walk in the evening. I know this because unfortunately I have only to watch myself to know. I think of George having all kinds of really deep experiences with Hasan, I don't know what, and cafes aren't much. But I've asked George at nights when we lie out on the roof and he says: We talk, that's all.

  Now when I look back at all the places and people, and I've asked him, he has always said, We talk, that's all. Or, He tells me things.

  Benjamin has refused the special contacts from the very first. From when he was seven in New York and he didn't like Miriam. That is the truth. He has always had the opportunity, just as George had, and Benjamin has always refused it. You can think about it and think about it. I am thinking about it, and there is something so awful there I don't know what to do with myself, because of course I am thinking, What have I refused? I have always been offered everything too, but I always had some good reason not to. Like loving Mrs. Jones and wanting to be in the kitchen cooking with her and feeding the chickens.

  Benjamin. It has always been the same. What he has wanted, right from the beginning, has been something more than what he was offered. He wanted to be asked by himself with Miriam or Hasan or whoever. I bet he wouldn't have said Miriam was boring if Miriam had asked him out by himself. And when we had tutors and George went off with one of them, Benjamin never went. He said, once, Stupid black man. The funny thing is, this isn't what he really thinks. I mean, he doesn't think that blacks are stupid or anything like that. He says this kind of thing as part of his style. And that is frightening when you think of it. I mean, anybody can put on an act, but then you are stuck with it. Like that mime with the mask on his face he couldn't get off. There is something frightening about all this. Benjamin truly doesn't like living here. He makes jokes about "the native quarter." Yet he adores sleeping on the roof and he makes friends with all the local kids, and he is sweet with the little kids. But he means it too. He would like a nice boring modern flat in a nice boring modern building with nice boring people. What I think is, now I am thinking, is that Benjamin says this sort of thing simply because he isn't treated as special. But George hasn't been treated as special. George has always gone along with what was there. He has seen it, but Benjamin hasn't.

  Yet it was never anything much. So you would think at the time.

  You could even say that nothing at all has ever happened. Well, what did? George has made trips, and gone camping, been taken to tea or a museum or something by someone or another. Or a tutor has said, Let us go to the park. Or a mosque or something. Or just sitting and talking under a tree on the edge of a street. Once I saw George with Ibrahim sitting on the earth under a tree. He was about nine. Or ten. In Nigeria that was. They were talking. Just talking. I looked at them and I wished I was there too. But I believe I must have said no when I was invited. I can't remember it, but I believe so.

  What these people are, that is the point. After they have been coming for a while to the house, then I say to myself, Here it is again.

  What is it, then?

  That is the point.

  Well, that is the second thing on my mind, what these people are.

  I liked Hasan from the start, but I thought he was old. I suppose he isn't. Mother says he is about forty-five. That is about Simon's age.

  Hasan talks to George a great deal. Hasan spends more time with George than any of the other "special contacts" have done.

  George is with Hasan nearly every day. He went away with Hasan to the Sacred City for a week too. Now I am thinking about it. That was only last month. When George came back, I noticed our parents didn't ask him what had happened there. They both treat George as if he is grown up. He is sixteen. Are they afraid of him? That is the wrong word. There is a right word, but I don't know what it is.

  What I mean is this. The more you think about all this, the more amazing it is. But not in a dazzling way, as you say, How amazing. I mean, your mind keeps going deeper and deeper in.

  Every day there is more to think about. (This is being written a bit at a time every day.) And I think a lot in between, and I go and ask Mother questions. When George comes in, I try to talk to him, but that doesn't happen very often. He isn't unkind. He doesn't tease, the way he used to, before he was grown up.

  I wish we could go back to before George was grown up. I don't want to grow up. I want to stay a little girl. I am writing this because I am supposed to be telling the truth. So that is the truth. Sometimes (recently) I have watched Simon and Olga at their lives, and it is so hard for them always, I can see that, not only the working so hard, I have only just understood that they have heavy lives. That is the right word. For once. And I see George at this time, and I know he is finding it hard.

  I would say that he is thinking furiously. This is what I think is the main thing going on. He sometimes has a look on him that I feel on myself when I sit here thinking and thinking. As if things are crowding in too fast and you are afraid you can't catch them all. You know you are not catching them all.

  He sits by himself a lot. Sometimes he is in the courtyard and all the children of this house and a lot of the houses nearby are there too. He play
s with them and tells them stories but he is thinking. He is so restless! He gets up and moves off as soon as he has sat down sometimes, as if a pin has been stuck into him. As soon as the sun goes, he is up on the roof. He forgets about eating. Sometimes I take him a plate of something. He often gives it to the kids. It goes without saying that they are all hungry most of the time. He sits with his back to a little bit of roof, with one leg out and his arms on his other knee, which is raised, and he is looking out over the roofs and into the sky. And he is thinking. Sometimes at night I wake up and I see him sitting up awake, looking at the sky. And our parents wake too, but just go to sleep again. And now I wonder if they knew all the time that he often didn't sleep at night when he was four or five, let alone seven when Miriam came first. Have they known all that? I have tried to get near the subject with Mother, but she doesn't like to talk about that, I can see. I think she did know all the time but only understood what she thought about it later, like me. But that in itself is difficult. Heavy. Because if what we think now is different from what we thought then, we can take it for granted that what we think in a year will be different again. Or even a month the way my thoughts are changing at the moment. Your thoughts are the last thing you can rely on.