When I got to the university, I was met by a telegram that had only just been delivered. From? The good gentleman W.A. de Klerk. Its contents: “I see no good in it. Reconsider. All the best.” Goodness me! If the post office could only have known what I wanted to telegraph back to him, the sanctimonious old sourpuss.
This afternoon from two to five I had to invigilate an exam: the most boring, sterile job on earth. After a while I went and sat at a table against the wall at the back of the room and semi-slept.
“In general”? Reception: neutral, cool, matter-of-fact. As I said to you: I think there’s a possibility things could be set right again. But I don’t know any more.
Oh, my love, I am so tired of tension and waiting and weakening embankments.
Luckily I received my copies of Sempre today and enjoyed the pleasurable task of composing inscriptions for people. It’s a consolation, at least. And then a pleasant piece of news: my little one-act play, Die Koffer, is going to be broadcast by the SABC’s English service on their Radio Theatre (only in Nov. – but still).
Above all else there’s you, and everything that happened this past week. Even the tears, for which I deserve no forgiveness – especially from myself – and which are yet so unutterably precious (“die sout van trane, sweet en nog / die allerlaaste liefdesvog”). The hidden secrets. Shadow and light on your tummy. The childlike challenge of your breasts. Your happy, sorrowful eyes. Ingrid, Ingrid, you are everything, always.
Please write and tell me all the news about Jan and company. Uys too, and Jack. Little thing, I have rendered you vulnerable with love, but I must also credit you with the grace and strength of love (“believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things”). I don’t know what lies ahead for me or you or both of us. Hoe zouden wij weten ...? All I know is: God (and this time, I think I mean this word), I am in love. Everything has mass. Everything is endlessly enmeshed. Everything is sore. And yet: everything is joyous, because it’s all so irradiated with light that I wouldn’t want it any other way for a single moment, ever.
When I really get sad, then I just think:
The black amphibians will never again
return to the waters of this pit
or something equally immortal, or about our tent-making, or about my sleepy little girl with a big appetite – all the silly and precious things about which we laughed so much and were so happy about.
And for that, little child, thank you. Thank you “for everything”. Thank you for you.
With all my love,
Your André.
Castella
22 Wessels Street
Green Point
Monday, 17 June 1963
Hello, my treasure,
What a joy it would be if you came home tonight, because today I transformed the little castle into a palace – it was one of those wonderful mild days – Simonetta, chicken pox and all – because she’s got it, of course – was playing around here outside, helped me wash and dust and scrub, now I’ve dressed her in snow white and put cream on all her blisters and bundled her into bed – why are you and I never this domestic? Now I’m having a nice drink here in my clean little palace, and one may do so, instead of all the hotels we’re forever rushing to. No, child, next time (and then I’ll hopefully be better equipped – even discovered a bread knife today) we’ll just stay here and the friends must come round. Shall I tell you how wonderful it was to have you here for a whole week (in spite of all the tears and the necessary have-to things we had to go through) and how wretched it was last night (and when Chris came Mrs Oxley was here and later he left without us having a chance for a nice chat), and I went to sleep; terribly lonely, with this sense of loss, but today everything was right and warm and good: received your telegram around four o’clock when I was knee-deep in washing and soap-soup and scorching taps, thank you, I’m glad you’re “safe” – why such a short telegram? Where did you sleep in the end and how was the driving? Tell all.
This first letter will of necessity have to be a kind of “diary” – because there is still too much that isn’t necessary to say – this evening, soon, Lena is coming for a meal here, I made Spanish rice – do you know it, and do you think I really can? Didn’t see Jan and them because of Simone’s pox – can’t go out – have even read five chapters of that awful piece of journalism Optimists in Africa – he was probably thoroughly remunerated by the government – that doesn’t excuse his language – and didn’t glance again at Aunt Grietjie’s little poem because of fear of longing. But believe me, my André, I have more than one reason to think constantly of Van Wyk Louw:
Nou het die môre my
oor die rand van sy glas gemors
op die stoep waar die waterkraan drup
in die uur van die donkere dors.
Mrs Oxley is sending a man on Saturday to come and sort things out. And forgetful, you (thank you!) left all your colour slides here (where is your evidence now?) clothes, books, Mikro, among others. Sorry about Tristia, but that one I haven’t detected here yet. Mrs Oxley very much likes “your André” and seems to approve wholeheartedly of everything (of course it’s not much). In any case, she doesn’t mind at all that you stay here. Oh, darling, I wonder how you are this evening and whether perhaps you’re also writing to me (I’m still feeling far too emotional for the little tape, but am just writing all the rot (as my ouma would say) that comes into my head). Do I disappoint you in saying that our quadruplets aren’t on their way yet? (About an hour after you left.) Good heavens, André, why am I writing everything in brackets this evening? Is it an expression of longing or timidity or casualness, or a whispering, an intimate conversation, like how we also speak quietly afterwards?
Ag child, tonight I feel like I’m an onion. Maybe it’s the silky nightdress (because I’ve already bathed, all clean and dressed for a long long sleep after Lena’s visit), in any case as round and smooth and untouched as if I’ve just come up out of the ground (do onions come out of the ground or do you pull them out?).
I still haven’t found out whether my book has arrived – I don’t give a hell, know more or less what it looks like now – could perhaps have called but I didn’t think of it – will send you a final copy – and now, darling, good night, I’ll write a little more tomorrow, because the road to Thursday is a long one, or are you still phoning on Wednesday evening? You must remember to love me, and in any case you mustn’t chronically upset yourself.
To be nosey: where exactly did you put my little thing? You don’t have to answer, but I haven’t come across it yet!
Until tomorrow, my lovely person. Will I still have to say goodbye or goodnight if you are always here?
Your Ingrid.
PS: Cast your bread upon the waters and after many days you will find it – thank you for all the typing paper) Love you. That bracket should have been an exclamation mark, seems that I’m becoming unhinged, I’m so happy!
Ingrid Jonker I.J.
“Ons moet nog óns kompartement gaan soek”. It’s not just this that made me put down your beautiful new Sempre Diritto. It’s the solitariness of each individual. Lena still hasn’t arrived.
I.
Tuesday morning: Simone and I (no wait, good morning! Good morning, the way you do!) carried out the little table with much effort and groaning – little diamonds of sun out here on the stoep. You’re probably all already on your way to Potchefstroom – when I woke this morning I lay and thought about all the possible things Christie and Retha [Roode] could say to you. Whatever other people say can be nothing more, nothing less than “batallions of lies”. Oh, my treasure! Koos [Human], from what I hear, said, “I am glad.” But I really just wanted to say hello so I can go and post this little letter, so that at least you’ll have a letter on your arrival, although it’s not much to speak of. Die Here het gaskommel die dice, hy’t vakeerd geval vir ons, daais ma’ al. [The Lord shook the dice, they fell wrong for us, that’s all there is to it.] Depressing, hey? But you should be here thes
e golden days – “daar kom in my ’n stil vermoede / dat alle lewe só sy volheid kry”. I am well. I hope that you are confident, and free. I support you with all my strength.
Ingrid.
Castella
22 Wessels Street
Green Point
Sunday, 23 June 1963
Lord I am not worthy,
Lord I am not worthy,
But speak the word only
My wonderful darling, beautiful abundant tender man, mine! Do you know Paul Rodenko’s “Het Beeld”?
Uit het hout van de morgen
uit morgenrozenhout
sneed ik een beeld
heel licht en smaller dan een lijsterstem
een beeld van morgenrozenhout
Het was zo schuw zo ongeschoold
dat ek het zelf niet kende
met elke windvlaag was het weg
maar een kind
een bloesemtak
een onbekende
bracht het mij voorzichtig weer terug
Er waren er die het herkenden
en luide namen gaven
Confecta Sexgiraffe Tafel mit Citroenen
Clown Tederheidsbeginsel Bloedgewricht
Naakt met Napoleon Een Huis My Country
My Ka My Lah My Lullalongsome Baby
…
Een heel small haast doorzichtig beeld
van morgenrozenhout
And difficult as it is for me to give you a name, my beautiful generous man, it is harder even to think of all the things of last week, things that go deeper and deeper, become more intangible, more unsayable. How many times now have I written to you, made tapes, and then just wiped them again – the tape I made for you a moment ago protested all on its own – how on earth it happened I don’t know, but when I played it back, another voice came out, speaking backwards! Absurd. And now I will have to do it all over again, and after a repeat like this nothing ever comes right.
Thank you for your phone call, darling, it’s a pity they cut us off so quickly – the telephone and telegram people perhaps find us terribly boring? The meal with Jack afterwards was pleasant after all – he shows such gentleness and understanding, sometimes he is rebellious, and then again truly loving with such a longing for the lost body – oh my little treasure! Everyone has become so vulnerable, and thus lovelier, better. I understand everything you say on the tape so well, it reminds me of Van Wyk [Louw] “noudat die bitter trots gaan skuil in deernis” … But you mustn’t worry about me – Uys doesn’t want to have much to do with me, only spoke to me once, the other day, quite sharply – but it doesn’t matter. As Eric Venter – remember the little guy who wanted to know whether there were sweeties in my bag – always says: Let them go … I haven’t seen Jan and Marjorie again. I’ve only seen Chris twice, he’s scared of the chicken pox. We had tea together at Suikerbossie – I was almost poisoned by the sour milk – he says I am so “changed” and dearly wants one of our little boys! Dear Chris, I am always so amazed at the beautiful, beautiful things in people; they always seem new to me again. Also, my treasure, I’ve received two more armchairs and a pile of plates, am getting a carpet tomorrow, the snails ate my daisies, my bookshelf’s been built, I’m reading Sempre and am amazed at you and everything you’ve done and experienced and I long more than anything to also be able to travel the world with you – now I must go and buy cigarettes in the sun, the harbour lies splendid here before me: “herinnering, o pragtige skip …”
Back. A quick walk up the big hill, it’s such a Table Mountain day and I wish we were over there in the little cable car with our arms around each other and the fat American women’s ridiculous remarks somewhere in the background. And yet everything here is also bright, and when you come in July we’ll walk around the harbour on a day just like today – this time last week you dropped me off at my sister’s, magtig, André, is no one just a tiny bit sorry for us? Yet I suppose we mustn’t go round in circles … but even [J.] Slauerhoff can’t get away from the “benoude self”. Thank you for all your lovely remarks about my collection – which still hasn’t arrived here – but you mustn’t overestimate me, liefsteling – Rook en Oker is a tiny harvest! Rather wait for Europe. On Monday I have to – this is horrible, actually – read from my own work at the cultural association – should I take the tape recorder along? I actually forgot to listen to the bikini affair the other day – it was in any case so unremarkable.
Did I tell you that Lena stayed over here the other night? – I slept on the bed with Simone and in the middle of the night almost squeezed her to death and said, “André! André!” Lena laughed at me about it (naturally). Ag, child! Precious, pure André! Everything will be all right. As that arrogant Sally Disner (sculptor) wrote in someone’s little book in big letters right across the page: “I have complete confidence in the future Sally Disner.” André. André Brink. How strange your name sounds sometimes – as if a miracle is happening. But you’ll forgive my silliness, won’t you? I can say anything to you, can’t I, my André? Now you must just be happy and come back soon, my sensitive treasure, I am waiting for you, patient and restless – who wants to save you with your hands and feet forever safe on bridges without danger.
Love, darling,
Your Ingrid.
Sunday night, 23 June 1963, 10:45
I still want to say good night to you. Like this. Night. As if you’re lying here next to me. Please warm your darling cold paw before putting it on me. Good night darling! After posting your letter this afternoon I walked to Mouille Point and heard Chris’s little red car hooting behind me. So we went for a long walk on the beach, and had some milky porridge – the way the old people make it – at his flat. He dropped me off here around nine and then quickly left again because I’d lent him a little book about sex, which he is probably lying reading right now. He sends his regards, but to me: “Ag no, look, Ingrid, there’s nothing to say to someone who’s in love.” I probably bored him with my babble – about you! My poor Simone is sickish again, it’s just one thing after the other now, and we still had to go to the doctor first. Luckily it’s nothing bad, but a sick little child is so pathetic.
Darling, don’t lose hope about your tape, you hear? I’ll send one – Wednesday. Tomorrow evening I have to go to that culture group – haven’t prepared anything yet – so will only be able to record it on Tuesday evening – and this time I’ll send it – even if you’ve got to listen to me talking backwards or crosswise – all I say in any case is, I miss you, I want to be, be, be, with you. Stay quiet, darling. Stay calm. Stay happy. I am so endlessly grateful for you: and I will always be, and will always love you.
Good night my André. Go to sleep now,
I.
Potchefstroom
Monday, 24 June 1963
Ingrid, my darling,
Little-girl-with-a-big-appetite (hell!), it’s with a kind of helpless longing that I sit and write today, in these few minutes of quiet and solitude before lunch, followed by unavoidable rounds of visits to acquaintances (with whom I have ever-diminishing contact).
Every day I hurry to my office to look for post; and every day I return letterless. After I arrived here on Friday, your first letter, an all-over-the-show delight, lay waiting for me; but since then there has been nothing. After our telephone conversation on Wednesday night especially, I can hardly wait to hear how everything went. I want to know, too, if you at least had a bit of a holiday before resuming the misery at the crack of dawn today; and if you had any success with HAUM (I’m holding thumbs); also whether you’ve – finally! – read Die Ambassadeur; and if you’ve posted the colour slides yet (please). And everything else, you neglectful little thing!
Meanwhile I am muddling along – “living and partly living” (mainly the latter), with a kind of deep weariness that has seeped into blood and bone and which I cannot shake off. “In this shipwreck of all certainty …”, i.e. all certainty except that of longing and love.
Last evening you were with me again all ni
ght; and the night before that I was quarrelling with you all through the small hours! Meanwhile, my longing has already become so fierce that I had to “sleep” with you again on Saturday night.
This afternoon I want to make time to visit [Gerrit] Dekker, although I doubt I’ll get much out of him; he’s such a closed book. But with this new storm brewing around Lobola, I’d very much like to know how he feels about things. Have you seen? – the Cultural Association [“Kultuurraad”] (sic!) of Pretoria has issued a press statement saying they will definitely be lodging a complaint against Lobola at the Publications Control Board. And it looks as though Die Ambassadeur has also been “marked” in advance for trouble. But all to the good. As soon as all hell breaks loose here, and I can rely on an overseas income, we can make a move, “take it easy” on a Greek island and concentrate on our own home industry: the production of beautiful little babies.
This morning I bought a recent Penguin anthology: The New Poetry (American and English) and found much that is worthwhile in it. You probably have it already? For the rest, the Italian anthology and your brown book are always with me. And your own beautiful little volume. (I’m getting really keen to see a second printing!)
Here, by the way, are a few lovely lines by Salvatore Quasimodo:
Perduto ho ogni cosa innocente,
anche in questa voce, superstite
a imitare la gioia
[I have lost every innocent thing,
even in this voice, which remains
to imitate joy]
Did Jan and his lot turn up again? And …? I do hope you see Chris and Lena often enough. It would be better if Chris didn’t go away for the holidays.
Don’t be lonely, darling! –
Sometimes just being alone seems the bad thing.
Solitude can swell until it blocks the sun,
It hurts so much, even fear, even worrying
Over past and future, get stifled …
Although the opposite is perhaps more true: solitude is in fact purifying. Even: it can create an unrivalled kind of togetherness. (We are, are we not, “one flesh”!) Or is that just me consoling myself? Because how does one hold out until September (and July is beginning to look very unlikely)? I suppose one finds the strength somewhere. If I could only know that you, despite all the necessary struggles and quarrelling, are happy. And for that I want to be with you, always. I am.
Flame in the Snow Page 10
