by Ann Harries
The whole frontal slope of the island was covered in patterned pavements and intricately structured courtyards and archways, above which swelled those towers, domes and cupolas which I had mistaken for the dreaming spires of the most beautiful city in England. And sauntering along these elegant byways were fashionably-dressed men and women, both black and white. Our boat was so close to the island now that one could hear the murmur of voices, and the clink of chisel against stone, as black labourers fashioned lumps of green and white rock to be laid in symmetrical patterns within the delicate pavements. It was difficult to believe that we were several thousand miles from Europe, but the lush flora which tumbled from balconies and sprouted from the sweep of marble steps suggested a climate more tropical even than that preserved in the hothouses by the Isis.
The boat drifted on, around the walled curve of the island. Now the inhabitants could lean over their wall and gaze at us face to face. One man smiled and waved.
A deep groan ran through the crowd of passengers, who suddenly crumpled and swayed as if hit by a sudden cyclone. Glasses of claret and champagne shattered as the stampede began.
Curiously enough I have no fear of lepers. In fact, I have to confess that I rather enjoy resting my eyes on their grotesque deformities, much as one actually pays to stare at malformed freaks in travelling fairs. These lepers were all the more interesting in that their disintegrating limbs protruded, not from the usual beggars’ tatters, but from what I would imagine was the very height of haute couture. They seemed content.
The passengers remained below deck until the ship had returned to an empty sea. I alone remained, exactly in the place where I had positioned myself earlier, when the vision of Oxford first appeared. I caught the eye of a man who waved to me with his handless wrist.
With all the gravity I could muster, I mimed the gesture of raising my hat. He bowed, evidently satisfied.
Occasionally I sat at the Captain’s table. Here the conversation was much concerned with the possibility of impending war in South Africa. I learnt there were several hundred Royal Irish Fusiliers on board, ready to decant at Durban. Naturally this talk was not good for my digestion, but the Captain soothed me by saying that the old Boer president was giving in to British demands over the franchise question: the wounds opened by the Jameson raid still had not healed, but there was hope that war between the Boer Republics and Great Britain would be avoided by compromise.
One night after dinner the Captain revealed his secret to me. Along with Challenger’s tusks, the cargo held two thousand copies of a slim volume, an allegory by the South African authoress Miss Schreiner, whom the Captain had met on an earlier voyage from Cape Town to Southampton. I had heard her name through Oscar, who admired her work very much, being smitten by the same semi-Biblical style in his own parables. The Captain told me with some pride that those slim volumes in his hold were the equivalent of two thousand sticks of dynamite. He pointed out to me the very lines in which she personally attacks the Colossus: they are spoken by an English soldier and employee of his beloved Chartered Company, who helps put down a rebellion in Matabeleland, using the usual brutal tactics of warfare. The soldier admires his employer’s ability to force the native’s unwilling nose to the grindstone: ‘They say he’s going to parcel them out, and make them work on our lands whether they like it or not – just as good as having slaves, you know; and you haven’t the bother of looking after them when they’re old.’
Quite frankly, I’m not particularly interested in these issues. But the Captain was much stirred, and seemed to think I should know about these things. He remembered her very clearly, and with some awe.
‘A mannish little woman, very highly strung,’ was his verdict. ‘She told me he could finish her, but she had to speak out. It was her duty to expose his brutalities, she said. Very high-minded lady. Said he was laying the foundations for a national tragedy. She became very animated when she spoke of the native question.’
I thank heaven she was not on my boat.
Cape Town 1899
The sun sets abruptly in this part of the world. One minute it’s day, the next it’s night. After my rest I realised I would have to hurry to pay my final visit to the cages, and reluctantly rose from my comfortable bed. As usual I turned to my photograph albums for consolation. They are safer in the dark-room, which is visited by no one but me. I cannot imagine that the charms of Oxford would appeal to Orpheus or Huxley but I do not like to think of strangers poring over my precious pages, and leave nothing to chance.
Chamberlain and Salisbury were fiddling about with their patterns and pebbles in the sand when I arrived to check up on the well-being of the birds, all of whom sat sullen and silent in the gloom. The guilty start given by both boys reinforced my suspicion that these loops and trails around the cages were the manifestation of some primitive belief in the powers of magic. Deliberately kicking one of their carefully placed stones so that it clattered against the starling aviary, causing a group of huddled birds to shake their black feathers at the disturbance, I demanded to know how much the birds had eaten during the day. Not much, seemed to be the answer. I opened my mouth to lecture the boys on the necessity of vigilance, when the heart-stopping trill of the nightingale bubbled from the forest above.
I looked at my two helpers. The song was now flooding through the gardens, glorious melody which I had taught them to reproduce in the hope of stirring the collective syrinx of the caged birds, but the boys were strangely indifferent to the miracle pouring from the mountain slopes. I waved my hand in the air. ‘Listen!’ I exclaimed. The boys lowered their eyes, at the same time chewing their lips to stifle their grins. Their bare feet dug into the sand, their toes exploring its textures like fingers.
It was clear that no bird could have escaped through the fine wire mesh that covered the cages. I found my legs running of their own accord across the lawns towards the gate that opened on to the mountain path, as if the bird were calling me upwards, even as the sun shot red spears above the horizon. To my finely tuned ears there could be no doubt but that the birdsong came from the mossy spot I had discovered in the morning; excitement made me race up the steep path without noticing the stabs of pain in my leg muscles. But by the time I had reached the dim path that led to Titania’s grove, the sublime music had stopped, disturbed, perhaps, by the thud of my feet.
With a stealth that surprised me – one needs supple limbs for stealth – I crept down the darkening path, aware of watchful eyes in bushes and upon branches. A squirrel froze in mid-ascent of a tree trunk, a crucified carpet with a visibly beating heart; a bird of prey whined from above; a small snake thrashed among the pine needles.
I reached Titania’s grove and raised my binoculars.
The small girl was sitting on a rock far to my right. Her head was bent over something she was holding in her cupped hands, something she must have only just reached out for. So absorbed was she in retaining this object that she did not hear the twigs snapped by my trembling foot. The overtall pines creaked behind her, and my own stiff, motionless knees creaked in sympathy. I tried to control my panting.
The girl wore the white apron of childhood, thick black stockings and sturdy black shoes. Underneath the apron peeped the sleeves of a demure cotton frock, dark green in colour, as far as I could tell in the twilight. Then, mysteriously, she began to stretch her clasped hands upwards, sacerdotal fashion, and her ringlets fell back from her face to reveal plump cheeks of a deep colour, and glittering eyes. Her tiny mouth had dropped open with excitement as she gazed at her uplifted hands.
For a few moments the child held this position, as if partaking in some pagan rite of nature-worship; then, with a sharp intake of breath, parted her chubby hands to release a speck of light that floated and darted erratically about before disappearing into the foliage of the plumbago hedge. At this, she rose from her rock and began burrowing between the mossy pebbles beside the stream.
I racked my brains for some whimsical remark with which
to open a conversation with this creature, such as would have dropped effortlessly from the lips of Dodgson, who always travelled with a black bag full of small puzzles to capture the interest of young ladies at moments like this. I have a good memory for verse, and summoned Edward Lear’s genial limericks to my aid. Entertaining as these rhymes undoubtedly are, I realised that the sudden intonation of lines concerning an old person of Ealing who was wholly devoid of good feeling, or a young person of Bantry who frequently slept in the pantry, would terrify the child out of her wits; I was therefore obliged to remain frozen to the spot, risking problems to my circulation, while I watched the delightful child probe and poke among the stones.
In fact, something far more spontaneous than a bon mot was about to spring from my lips. A good five minutes before the sneeze exploded, I felt sure that, in addition to the encumbrance of a foot now entirely devoid of sensation, I was catching a cold. The back of my throat was suddenly on fire; my blood seemed to have turned to water; a slight sweat tickled through my beard. It is that monstrous house which has done this to me, those icy shifts of space between open windows. Dare I reach for my handkerchief?
The sneeze reached my nose before my handkerchief did; my numb foot skidded forward on the damp stone; and I found myself on my posterior, a sharp pain jabbing through my coccyx. My eyes being now level with those of the little one, I expected her own to fly open in alarm, and a whimper of fear to escape her lips. Instead of which, she frowned severely and pronounced in stern tones: ‘Sssh, or you’ll frighten the fairies!’
Though relieved at her composure, I now found myself caught in another dilemma which certainly would not have posed a problem for the likes of Dodgson or Lear. Do I inform her that her fairies are really glow-worms and fireflies, which are neither worms nor flies but lampyrid, elaterid or coleopterous insects, or, to enter the sublimely ordered world of Linnaeus, more specifically are the larvae Lampyris noctiluca and Phrixothrix genera. Even I drew the line at the latter, and retracing the variety of nomenclature at my disposal I found myself back at the species of winged creature which she herself had named, and pressed my forefinger against my lips in conspiratorial though anxious silence.
I was well acquainted with the larvae which she groped after, Coleoptera being particularly fine prey for migratory birds, especially when they shine in the dark. I could have told this angelic child how some so-called glow-worms emit a greenish gleam but bear a red headlight in addition; that their rhythmic flashes are no more than signals to bring the sexes together; how some frogs eat so many fireflies that they themselves give off a greenish glow. Instead of this, I concentrated on not sneezing, in total obedience to her command, a task which absorbed most of my energies.
After a few minutes of searching she said reproachfully: ‘They’ve all flown away!’ The child’s voice had a strong colonial intonation, with its sharp falling cadence and slithering vowels, not at all like the refined accents of an Alice Liddell. Her eyes, still level with mine, were grave with accusation.
Humbly I raised my clenched right hand and opened it just beneath her chin. A perfect spray of microscopic fireworks flurried before her eyes and caused her face to light up, both literally and metaphorically.
‘Do it again!’ she implored, her pupils still zigzagging after the vanishing insects.
I had not known, when I performed my trick, that a child’s greatest accolade is to ask for more. In my effort to escape repeated and unattainable encores, I suddenly entered the world of the imagination.
‘I am allowed to perform that magic only once a day.’ I certainly sounded very grand, even though I must have looked absurd. ‘If you happen to be here tomorrow at the same time I may be able to do it again.’ From whence this inspiration came I am utterly unable to tell.
‘Hmm.’ She now seemed indifferent to the trick. ‘Are you p’raps the Englishman with the birds?’ Again the curious intonations, almost as if English were her second language.
I felt it was time for me to rise to my feet but feared my knees and ankles might let me down.
‘Yes, I suppose I am.’ I gave myself a tentative push with both hands and found my joints still operated.
Her eyes were mischievous. ‘I’ve got a bird.’
‘Can I see it?’
In reply, she ran across to the stream and clattered about. And there it was again; in the silence of the forest rose the pure, soaring song of the nightingale, now chirruping, now gargling, now embarking on an exquisite melody in lopsided 5/8 time, and causing my heart to contract with forbidden pleasure.
The music stopped short and she scampered back.
‘May I see your bird?’
‘Here’s my bird. You’ve got to put water in it.’
She held out the little clay bird-whistle carefully, so as not to spill what remained of the water. It was a finely modelled instrument, unlike the cheap tin models the children of England perform upon.
‘His name is Oom Paul. My mommy made it out of clay.’
I smiled at this. ‘You’re quite right. It is only men birds who sing so beautifully.’
‘You talk posh, hey?’ Her eyes were wide with astonishment.
Relinquishing the spoken word, I pursed my pink lips together and began to whistle. Her astonishment turned to admiration at the full-throated ease with which I reproduced the nightingale sounds, and her gaze settled on my busy lips with envious curiosity. When I had finished she continued to stare at my mouth with great concentration, and then slowly, uncertainly, began to draw the rosebud of her lips into a tiny circle. I did not smile at the pathetic little whisper she produced, no more than the rush of air needed to blow out a candle.
‘That is a start.’
She raised her eyes to mine, evidently still overawed by my performance.
‘I want to whistle like you.’
‘I’ll be here tomorrow morning. Perhaps you can practise getting your lips into the right shape – like this.’
The obedient child squared her face with mine, and attempted to mirror the movements of my mouth.
‘That’s more like it. Put the tip of your finger into the hole you have made with your lips, and try to make it as round as possible.’
I could see that nothing else in this child’s life now existed except the desire to whistle. I had yet to learn that childhood obsessions approach the crystalline qualities of genius.
Held in her spell, I tried to exclude an intrusive sound. A sharp clatter of metal from the world down below began to assume the summonsing call of an exotic percussion instrument. I had heard it the day before, and had wondered at its message: a rhythm of six beats and a pause, played again and again with no variation.
The girl unpursed her lips. That’s my mommy calling me for my supper.’
‘You must go then.’ Already she seemed about to run off, forgetting her promise to meet me the next day. I resisted the impulse to grab her by the arm, and said instead: ‘You haven’t told me your name.’
She stared at me, amazed that I could be so ignorant. ‘Maria!’ she exclaimed reprovingly.
‘Maria who?’
‘Maria van den Bergh.’ She chanted the pretty Dutch name shrilly, as if she had memorised it with some difficulty.
‘Maria of the mountain,’ I translated. That is a good name for you. Now shall I tell you my name?’
But the child had lost all interest in me and was anxious to get away. Clearly she had not been introduced to the rules of etiquette that an English child of her age would have dutifully obeyed at this point. Frowning, she opened those well-exercised lips and snapped at me: ‘No thank you!’
‘Maria – before you go – just wait a minute – why haven’t I heard your bird before? Do you come here every day?’
I was overloading her with questions. She stared at me blankly, as if I had spoken in a foreign language, then said in a plaintive voice: ‘I been sick.’
The triangle rattled out its command again; Maria gathered up her skirts and le
apt off the rock. She was taller than I had imagined, her head reaching almost to my hip. Then, with blank eyes, she stretched up her arms towards my neck, planted a kiss on my startled lips, and said politely: ‘Thank you, uncle.’
With that she disappeared into the undergrowth, leaving me still bent over into an unaccustomed shape, reluctant to abandon it. When did I last stoop to kiss a child?
I unfolded myself bit by bit back to my normal upright position and called out to a faint rustle in the undergrowth: ‘I’ll see you tomorrow!’
Cape Town 1899
Orpheus has finally understood that I prefer to take breakfast in my room. This morning I was awakened with a tray of toast and tea, together with the morning newspaper. The front page was almost entirely devoted to a dispute between the Colossus, who heads the Opposition Party, and the Prime Minister who had replaced him after his Disgrace. It is, of course, an absolute mystery to me how a man of his obvious ill-health, to say nothing of his Disgrace, should actually want to undertake the responsibilities of state in addition to his vast business enterprises (he has control over ninety per cent of the world’s diamond production, I am reliably informed) and Chartered Company. Surely what he needs now is rest, rest, rest?
I waited for the fragrant aroma of the East to do its work with my olfactory nerve endings before attending to the dense text which made up the speech delivered by my host, and which even a cursory glance told me altogether lacked the easy fluency of your average British MP. He was holding forth on the topic of franchise within the Cape Colony, a different affair altogether from the franchise question in the Boer Republic. A new bill was being introduced which would permit the educational qualifications of voters to be examined; my host claimed that civilisation rather than education should be used as a criterion. ‘I have always differentiated between the raw barbarians and the civilised natives,’ declared he to hoots of derisive laughter from the Ruling Party. ‘My motto has always been – Equal Rights for every civilised man south of the Zambezi who has sufficient education to write his name, has some property, or works. In fact, is not a loafer.’ This opinion obliged the Prime Minister, who shares his surname with Miss Schreiner (I know not if they are related), to remind the erstwhile Premier of an earlier version of this motto, first mouthed during the previous year’s election, which expressed his views more accurately: ‘Equal rights for every white man south of the Zambezi.’ Jeers from the Ruling Party, who understand only too well the need to boost the number of voters in individual constituencies.
