‘I don’t mean saying things about it—like the war has done a lot of damage, or it will take ten years to restore agriculture in the Ukraine or something, I mean, really feeling things are different.’
She saw she was repeating herself—yet as she spoke, she felt as if she were in the grip of a new kind of knowledge, a new insight. She understood what Athen had been trying to say outside Maisie’s bar. She had not understood Athen—she had merely made an assent to his words with her mind. It was the difference between hearing a phrase and thinking: Yes, that’s true, and forgetting it; and letting the real meaning of the words sink into one, become part of one—as if one had eaten them, swallowed them—‘digested’ them, in short. She knew Jack had heard what she had said and had assented: Yes, there have been five years of war, there’s been a lot of damage. But just as she had been irritated with Athen, impatient, because she wanted to enjoy the evening, so now Jack was annoyed, or at least impatient, because he was a man who worked very hard, and he had wanted to enjoy today.
After a mile or so of the fast, swerving journey through swaying grass, trees, he said: ‘I didn’t mean to run down Maisie, I didn’t know she was so much a friend of yours.’
She said: ‘It’s all right,’ but she was absorbed by the swooping movement through the high, sparkling air. The empty space was opening inside her, and she was gazing into it with passionate curiosity. Martha and Jack, two minute fragments of humanity, rattling in the machine across immensities of empty country, they were only two of the figures that moved, small and brightly lit, against the backdrop, while she watched. She saw Maisie, if there had not been a war: married to her first husband, producing a child, two children; the in-laws would very soon have said: Well, she’s a nice enough girl really. Soon she would have been a fat, middle-aged woman with reserves of lazy good nature, and spoiled children and a husband she protected and ordered about. Instead—well, Thomas said she was sleeping with men from the bar, and probably for money.
But what did it matter? The two pictures of Maisie stood side by side on the empty space—and cancelled each other out. Both were true. Both were untrue. Yesterday someone had written from England: one of the young men who had visited the Hesses in their old flat was badly wounded and in hospital. He had been in hospital for nearly a year. His leg had been cut off. He was the fair young man who used to sleep on the floor when he was too late to catch a camp bus. Much to Anton’s annoyance. But how could the two things fit together: a man in hospital with a leg cut off, and the boy asleep on the floor with the sun on him. Why, she had only to shut her eyes to see him there, rather flushed, his hair untidy—a flushed, defenceless-looking boy asleep in the morning sun. She could see him clearer than she had in life. And Athen—Athen was going back to Greece any day now. If he wasn’t arrested first, he would be with the partisans in the mountains very soon. ‘Mine is the only country in Europe that still destroys itself.’ But it was as if someone flicked a scene off a cinema screen and put on a new one. ‘Greece is still at war.’ ‘Greece is at peace.’ Turn the scene back two years: Europe was crawling with tiny ants, murdering each other. Turn it forwards: Europe was at peace, bandaging wounds, clearing away rubble. Asia was ‘at peace’ again, though in China great armies still fought. But in Europe the armies were quiet, though millions of people were hungry, the newspaper had said that morning; and next winter would be famine again. Turn the scene forward—how many years? No ruins left, no hungry people?
The empty space swelled up to the great, wind-scoured skies: it was the size of the great landscape, this enormous stretch of country lifted high, high, under a high, pale-blue, cloud-swept sky.
And soon the car would come to Thomas’s farm. She and Thomas loved each other. Whatever that meant. And whatever it meant, it was the most sure, the most real thing that happened to her. But blur the scene slightly, and Thomas did not exist—almost he had not left Poland at all. If he had not—well, none of his family was left alive, several dozen brothers, sisters, cousins, relations—they were all dead, they had died in the gas ovens, on the gallows, in the prisons and the concentration camps in those years of our Lord, 1939–1945. But here Thomas was alive. And all her life Martha would say to herself—whatever else had been untrue, whatever else had not existed, this had been true: this was true, she must hold on to it, even though, when she touched Thomas it was with an anxiety that related not to Thomas now and here, but to the scene which she could create by a slight dislocation in her mind: Thomas very nearly had not left Poland.
Up hillsides that hissed and tossed with the long movement of wind, and down again; it was a world floored with immensities of tossing, pale gold grass, roofed with depths of pale blue—turn her upside down, she would be floating on pale blue depths where white foam flowers hissed and died, looking up at a great bubble of pale gold, where the movements of wind showed in mile-long currents of whitening light.
Perhaps, when Thomas and she touched each other, in that touch cried out the murdered flesh of the millions of Europe—the squandered flesh was having its revenge, it cried out through the two little creatures who were fitted for much smaller loves, the touch only of a hand on a shoulder, simple hungers, and the kindness of sleep. Instead—it was all much too painful, and they had to separate.
Last week Thomas had said: ‘Why should I stay in this country? I’ll tell you something, I’ve just understood it—when you’ve left one country, then you’ve left all countries, for ever. I’m a wandering Jew, like my fathers were. So why should I stay here?’
‘Where will you go?’
‘I don’t know.’
Meanwhile, Jack and she were going to ‘drop in’ to Thomas’s farm for lunch. Though ‘dropping in’ here meant a ten-mile drive off the main road, and then ten miles back on to it. And she, Martha, would meet Thomas’s wife Rachel, and his little girl Esther. And then she, Martha, would be driven on to Gotwe by Jack Dobie, expert on the wrongs of India, ex-agitator from the Clyde, the Colony’s most energetic kaffir-lover, who wished to have an affair with her; leaving behind Thomas, whom she loved, and who this week was occupied, he said, with preparing new seedbeds. Nothing fitted, ridiculous facts jostled with important ones, if one only knew which was which, and the empty space dazzled with its growing distances—she wished very much she had not said they would ‘drop in’ for lunch; suddenly everything was unbearable and she wished she was back in the refuge of the loft, reading, or already in Gotwe with Jack, working. But here they already were, Jack and she, half-way along the rough farm road to the house. And the empty space not only contained her and Jack, two tiny ant-like figures, she contained the space—she was the great bell of space, and through it crawled little creatures, among them, herself.
There was Thomas’s house. It was nothing special: like a thousand others, it was a brick bungalow under corrugated iron. But it spread attractively, and the pillars and the verandas of warm brick supported flowers and foliage. All around were gardens; they had driven through maize fields that surrounded the homestead, bare fields now, light red earth where the plough had turned furrows of darker red and everywhere patches of glinting gold leafage marked where the mealie stocks had been. Then there were banks of shrubs to break the winds which swept across leagues of country from the circling mountains, then roses, it seemed acres of roses, gold and scarlet and white, drenching the sharp winter air with their scent. Then lawns, studded with poinsettias, and beyond the house and working beds where Thomas grew plants for selling in town.
On the veranda stood a fair, young woman holding a blonde little girl by the hand. Behind them a dark, bearded man of middle age who nodded and smiled, indicating that his English was poor. And Thomas came in from the garden, wearing his khaki shorts rolled up to the top of his thighs. He was brown and polished by wind and sun. And he was shy, nodding awkwardly at Martha, but putting the warmth he felt for her into his greeting for Jack.
They went into lunch. There was a long room, windowed at either end, show
ing descending hillsides covered with roses and flowering shrubs and, a long way off, blue mountains. In the middle of the room, a long trestle table made by Thomas, with salads and fruit and pickled fish prepared by Rachel.
They were Thomas and Rachel, Esther, who was about two or three, and Jack and Martha and the silent, bearded man who was a professor of something or other.
Martha eyed Thomas’s wife who examined her.
Rachel at first sight was not pretty at all, but then extremely pretty, though that was too banal a word.
She was slender, but strong; she was white-skinned, with the solid, white skin that browns well. Her hair was a curling light brown—almost gold. She was all clear colours: healthy, brown cheeks, very white teeth, blue eyes with clear whites to them, and warm, golden hair curling around her face. She had the combination of a fine robustness and delicacy of a Leonardo woman, which is what Martha was reminded of, as Rachel smiled and talked like a hostess, protesting that they did not often have company. But soon she fell silent, leaving the business of entertaining to her husband, while she sat beside her little girl, quietly directing her in Polish about spoons and forks. Esther was newly admitted to the grown-up table, it seemed, and was watching her mother to learn how she should behave. Meanwhile, Thomas and Jack argued about Zionism, and Martha thought of Caroline, now five years old, and watched the delightful little girl who sat beside her mother, and glanced up continually to see how she must handle a spoon or convey a piece of bread to her mouth. The two, mother and daughter, had the most marvellous freshness and delicacy; they glowed in the dark, cool depths of the dining-room as they sat together at the end of the table.
Meanwhile, Jack was indignantly reproaching Thomas for being a Zionist, for how could a Marxist be a Zionist? Not that he, Jack, was a Marxist, he was just concerned that the proper categories of thought should be maintained. And Thomas was saying: ‘Logically you are right. A Marxist is not a Zionist. But I am a Marxist. And with every day I became more of a Zionist. I see British soldiers allowing refugees from Europe to drown rather than land in Israel, and I am a Zionist.’
Meanwhile, they ate stuffed aubergine and sour, black bread, baked on the farm; and Thomas, interrupting a sentence about the Labour Party and its policy in Europe, said something to his wife in Polish, and she instantly clapped her hands. A servant came in, and took away the plates. He brought in clear soup. It was to be a real feast, and there would be no moving away from the table for hours yet. Not once had Thomas looked at Martha—or not really, as she put it. Then, briefly, he did look at her, and Martha felt the touch of his warm, blue eyes on her face, so strongly, that she understood why he did not look at her. She felt that Rachel must have sensed the look and what it meant. But if so, she made no sign, and went on chattering to the little girl in Polish or Yiddish, and to the servant when he came in, in Shona, and to her guests in charming broken English.
The long meal went on. The sunlight sparkled on the cold windowpanes; the petals of the poinsettias, scarlet and pink and yellow, fluttered in the wind; the roses scattered their petals on the brown earth. How many times had Martha sat, at lunch in a farm house on the veld, looking through windows at mountains? And how many hours had she heard discussed, the colour bar, war, politics, the ‘native problem’, communism, oh, my God, for ever, it seemed, she had sat talking or listening, and here she was again and now it was Zionism.
Zionism in the middle of the veld, in the middle of mealie fields scooped out of the bush, and beautiful Rachel from Cracow, and Thomas from Sochaczen, and herself, and the dark, silent professor, and Jack from the Clyde. Jack was positively sending out sparks of rage in all directions, he was almost dancing in his seat with exasperation, because of the total inconsistency of Thomas.
Now they ate cold chicken. It was very good, and they watched white and black and golden-brown chickens run scratching among the shrubs outside.
Martha felt a current running strongly between herself and Thomas. He had hardly glanced at her again. Several times he got up and went abruptly out of the room and Martha thought of how he had said at the dance: I can’t sit beside you like a stuffed horse at a fair.
They ate apple cake and then nuts and fruit and drank strong Turkish coffee. It was four in the afternoon. Then Rachel laughed and said that Martha and Jack must not leave before having tea. Thomas said: ‘But they have to get to Gotwe before it’s dark.’ And she said, laughing: ‘Then they must drive in the dark, it won’t hurt them!’ Suddenly Thomas walked off, by himself, around the side of the house, crushing a handful of leaves between his fingers. All the air was pungent with the smell of the crushed leaves. Jack, oblivious of all these currents, said he wanted to see the gardens. He had no time these days for gardens, but he wanted to pick up tips for when he started to grow fruit. They went off to see the gardens, in a group. Coming around the side of the house, they saw a long bed in which were clumps of shining green leaves and by it Thomas, squatting on his heels, his bare knees brown and shining. But in front of him stood Esther, the tiny child, and these two were looking at each other, in silence. Thomas did not know the others were there, but Esther did; she glanced, very serious, as if apologizing or explaining, past her father’s shoulder at her mother and the professor and the guests, and then she looked back at her father, in the way someone waits out of politeness.
Rachel said: ‘Come on, we must go this way.’ Rachel and Jack and the professor went on, and Martha stood still a moment, watching Thomas, twelve paces off. She could see he had been crying. His cheeks had red stains on them. He was half-turned away, his shoulder was presented to her, as he stared into the face of his child.
There Esther stood, as light and airy as if she could blow away, in a minute yellow dress that fluttered around her thin knees, her fair wisps of hair blowing about her head. She looked steadily at her father. Thomas held out his hands to her, but the child did not respond.
‘Esther,’ he said, coaxingly, then said something in Yiddish. But she would not. She stood frowning, the sun dazzling in her moving wisps of hair.
Thomas let his hands drop—in a rough, desperate gesture. Then gently, gently, he lifted his right hand and held it out to the child. It was this gesture that did for Martha, made her understand—but what? Here she felt was something she should know, should have known, about Thomas. She sensed that the real being of Thomas spoke out in that gesture—the big, strong hand going out so gently, delicately, to the child. Thomas squatted there, holding out his strong, brown arm where the hairs glinted gold, but held it as if it cost him very heavily to plead so. He did not touch Esther, he was giving her the opportunity to accept him. It was the way one offers a hand to a cat to sniff, to accept or reject as it wants. Esther looked doubtfully at the big, brown arm held out to her, at the pleading hand at the end of it—and then, slowly, she backed away. She was not coquetting, she simply backed herself away, and her face frowned. She looked in a kind of distaste at her father’s hand, held out to her. It trembled, very slightly. Then she lifted her serious blue eyes at her father and the little face showed a puzzled disapproval, even a dislike. Certainly a ‘go away, don’t touch me’. Then she stood still for a moment, the yellow cotton blowing about the ridiculously small brown legs, her hair whipping in the wind—then she turned and ran off towards her mother. And in her movement, the way she ran off, was a wild relief, as if she had been released from an oppression. She was running away from what was too heavy. Her father was a weight on her.
Martha watched Thomas lower his hand. He let it rest on its knuckles on the earth, among the clumps of glistening leaves. His cheek, half-turned to her, was wet. The others were out of sight. Rachel’s voice, light and laughing, chattered in Polish to her child. The professor’s voice said something in Yiddish. Rachel’s laugh came ringing across the sunlight.
Thomas had turned his head and seen Martha. He nodded at her. ‘Hello, Martha,’ he said. He wiped tears off his face with the back of his hand, unconcerned that she saw hi
m.
He said: ‘You’d better get to the others.’ Then, as she obediently went, she heard him say, low and fierce: ‘Don’t forget, you must be in our house the day after tomorrow, you must, please.’
This comforted her, and she held the thought of his needing her as she went with the others around bushes and across lawns, and admired vistas of veld and river and mountains. It was a beautiful place, and the gardens were superb. Thomas lived in a beautiful place surrounded by gardens which he had made. But he would not stay there. Soon he would go away.
They all had tea on the veranda, while the little girl chattered to the dark, bearded man who now had a white panama hat on his head, tilted forward because of the glare. The professor was called Michel Pevsner, and he was free to touch Esther, to stroke her hair, and to hold her on his knee. But her own father was not. Thomas watched Esther with Michel, and addressed remarks to the two of them, as if they were a unit. He did not say anything more to Esther. Esther prattled with her mother, flirted with the professor, and looked at her father as if he were an unpleasant fact in her life which she had to accept.
Soon Jack and Martha had to leave. There were another 150 miles to cover before they reached Gotwe.
Martha found an hotel in Gotwe, and Jack and she were very efficient about collecting figures. Meanwhile, she kept seeing Thomas and the tiny girl together. She would not think about it, however. She saw it, saw the scene, against her lids—every time she shut her eyes, or so it seemed. But she would not think about it. And she kept hearing Rachel’s light laughter; she heard it, but she would not think about her either.
The afternoon she got back into the city from Gotwe she slowly climbed the ladder to the loft, above the rising odours of damp foliage from the tins of seedlings on the floor.
Thomas’s brother’s wife, Sarah, had been standing on the veranda, hands on her solid, young-married-woman’s hips, watching, as Martha came in at the gate. That gesture, the finality of disapproval in the hands on the large hips, told Martha that soon Sarah would see to it that this shed would be needed for something else. Perhaps Sarah was so angry that she would simply come into the shed and up the ladder and make a scene? Why not?
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