Today (lunch time) I walked in the Gardens with the new blossoms. The sun was delicious. Tonight, early to bed with Teddy. I would so love to dream about you, my prince.
Blessings and love, my sensitive darling,
Cocoon.
PS: Felt really nauseous yesterday. A strange, impossible premonition …
Con.
Grahamstown
Wednesday, 10 October 1963
My own little Cocoon,
The fact that today was a holiday delayed the sending of the tape, so you’ll only be receiving it on Monday. I’ll send a telegram on Saturday, otherwise you might feel neglected!
This is not really a letter, just “directions for use”: the first side of the tape was recorded at ¼, the second side on ⅔ – here’s hoping you’re not too distracted. And I’m sending a little cheque so you can also make one for me. (I’m posting the tape itself to Castella.)
No news. Just roaming around in the absurd joy that our moesie-girl is maybe growing into a person after all. (Even if [Guillaume] Apollinaire does say: “The children of lovers are born in sorrow.”) It’s a kind of turning into the self, curling up like a hedgehog – around oneself and around the little thing, or the possibility of one, with love and care and quiet ecstasy.
I was upset about Simone’s near-nasty experience. She’s such a pure little thing, such a wild little animal. Protect her against the evil that walks in darkness. Give her a little kiss on her tummy.
And so, are you getting afternoon tea these days because your throat’s so dry and you were so bad-tempered?
Are you, along with the separation and daily drabness, still happy, still whole? Look after yourself; close yourself up like a little cocoon. Write verse. Swim in your all-white bathing costume that you have to worm and wiggle yourself into so delightfully. (Probably more so now, because your soft, round, lovely breasts are getting larger and fuller.)
We have a memory as multifaceted as the eye of an insect. “So we’ll live, / And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh / At gilded butterflies …”
Work sweetly and daringly, and when you get home from the anonymity of buses and crowds, pour yourself a drink and sit back, and then I’ll talk to you on the tape that’s waiting at the little castle.
Love
love
love
love,
Your André.
Grahamstown
Sunday night, 13 October 1963
Dearest, darling little Cocoon,
Thank you for yesterday’s delightfully varied, vivid letter – about the “culture” meeting, the tiff with Jan, the white-costume swim, the “strange, impossible premonition”, and lobola that should be lobolo. (I too made this discovery after the book appeared; but it’s okay – I don’t think the “a” is used by enough people to go through as generally accepted Afrikaans!)
And, darling: Make sure you’re in fine feather. Because: although there are still some “ifs”, it’s nonetheless beginning to look like I’ll be there with you by 6 November. I phoned Koos, and he’s almost certain the book will be ready by then – if it’s a day or so earlier, he’ll be able to hold its appearance back until I get there. If I can get everything arranged satisfactorily on this side – the exam scripts and the trip itself – then I’m coming. I’d started talking about this quite a while ago, and raised it again, so it doesn’t look like there’ll be any obstacles.
Girlie, my little girl. Reading: The Lord is merciful and gracious.
Even the date – 6 November – should suit you better than the past few times!
I shall preserve the papie, and let it get properly well again (the last time I slept with you – Heroes Day! – the little abrasion opened up again). And I’ll store lots of secrets and come to you with a full load.
How we live, we of the past-and-present! (Alice had to listen as one of the Wonderlanders – the Duchess? or the Queen of Hearts? – said: “Jam yesterday and jam tomorrow but never jam today!”) We are always in transit. But child, with the prospect of such a destination (even though the train doesn’t stop for long!), what an adventure the journey promises to be! One sits with one’s nose pressed against the window without even noticing the soot in one’s hair.
Did you swim again today, and get a nice tan? Here it was such a divinely sunny day (I did no work before this evening, and then just one chapter of the Simenon translation). Frieda and a friend were here. From eleven this morning we lay in the sun, reading newspapers, lazing around and eating; we made plans to drive to the beach this afternoon, but we drank and ate so much, and got so lazy, that nothing came of it. And all day I lay with my head in the sweet, warm, ticklish grass, or looked up into the sky through the lemon leaves, and I was with you.
What shall we do when I come down this time? It’ll most likely be ± Wednesday to Monday.
One night we’ll celebrate together.
Another night we’ll celebrate with Chris.
And the weekend –?
“Everything is new, everything lies in the future.”
This quotation turns my thoughts to Uys; and to a funny little thing in a third-year class yesterday (tell him about it). We were discussing Die Goue Kring [The Golden Circle], and one of the girls said: “It’s very nice and all, but you get tired of all the oranges. Ever since reading the thing, I’ve never eaten another orange!”
Willem Jordaan, says Koos, is apparently wildly enthusiastic about Die Ambassadeur and very eager to start with his design. Hopefully he’ll send it via airmail in the course of this week for my attention. I’ve never before – not even with Lobola – looked forward to a book’s appearance quite this much. Because this one’s ours. So much of it is thanks to you.
Tomorrow, I think, I can finally resume work on Orgie, as the worst of the marking is behind me. I’ll probably spend a few days just sitting around, “getting into the spirit” of the thing, brooding and becoming foul-tempered. But I’ve been itching to start working on it again. It’s so frustrating, all the other, unavoidable things one has to do.
Meanwhile, I’ve set up a kind of “Manifesto for Sixty” for the next 60 – actually just to characterise and give a closer indication of our “nieuwe lente en een nieuw geluid”. I’ll send it to you once it’s been typed up. Meanwhile I’m sending you the Schutte parody.
Remember to find out your post office box number and telegraphic address.
Write a lot, and – even though you’re no longer a “young man” – “cleanse your way”. Because I love you, and miss you; I fill my days with you. On Wednesday night I’ll phone you, too.
Love, mine,
André.
Castella
Tuesday, 15 October 1963
My dearest lamb,
Thank you for your lovely, lovely tape which I was finally able to play yesterday evening after a pilgrimage – to the home of my old friends in Clifton, with a beautiful view over the sea: my recorder has stopped working, and Erik [Laubscher] wasn’t home. It was a lovely tape – I wish I could play it again. On Friday my recorder will be fixed; so I’ll “answer” you over the weekend although I chatted and laughed along heartily last night. And thank you for the cheque, I’ve already bought a tape and this funny thin pen, which I am not getting along with.
I miss you, and your Anton. You must try and come in November; the Cape Town circle isn’t asking as many questions any more – it seems to me, I may be wrong – they have accepted things more or less. Oh yes, I wanted to tell you about yesterday evening. After the tape-playing, I went to Lena, and then Chris arrived and brought me home. Then we drank a huge amount of red wine – Lena and I, and I only went home after eleven, so that I couldn’t then, as I’d wanted to, begin writing to you, because this morning it was court – all okay: I am so glad this horrible business is now over, hope I won’t be harassed like this any more – they withdrew the “contempt of court” … Lovely man! I behaved quietly and demurely, and when I saw his honour look at me, I realised t
he curl was tightly twirled – I was actually shit-scared! It’s lovely to chat to you. I haven’t written to you for a while – but you write so regularly and then you say: this isn’t actually a letter … then it goes all quiet inside me, “what a miserable thing man is”. You who gives me so much, gives everything so generously, who allows me to take part in you, every day.
The weekend was actually nice. Saturday morning went and had tea with Chris in town, then wandered around and here and there, bought something, drank half a bottle of wine together at the Manchester while he wrote six postcards to one friend; went to eat at El P. – “braized duck with orange” – to the beach, the white swimsuit that fits so tightly and constantly makes me want to run, drink with Jack (who gave me a lecture about my dangerous relationship with you, but friendly); Sunday with Simone to the beach; lunch at Marjorie and Jan, met lovely people who brought me home at seven, and so to dream. The rest of the previous week, nothing. Static, alone.
It’s now ten to nine and I’ve just got back from Simone, missed her terribly on Sunday; the pig who molested little girls has, praise God, been arrested, from what I hear. I suppose they’ll give him psychological treatment. Still – I would have given him a thorough thrashing if I’d seen him. Sunday night was actually terrible – “angst” – the terrible separation – from you, Simone, and also Jack. This feeling that something somewhere is wrong. But now everything is “right” again. It’s always like that. Then I diligently read through Lobola. (Oh yes, that’s right too.) Lobola is beautiful – sometimes I feel “never a mistake, the words don’t lie” (I can’t manage this pen at all). Seems I’m not getting tea after all; they had a council meeting about it but didn’t say what the conclusion was. So now I buy tomato juice at 1 pm and have it cooled and fetch it in our kitchen at 3:30. In the end it’s better for one than tea! We’re reading Murder, Mystery and the How. Helluva interesting – I have always been so morbidly interested in the law. Anne just thinks the drinking is terrible – always in “The Bar”.
Darling, moesie, always-laughing moesie-man – are you wearing your red pyjamas and are you lying heavily across the bed like that night at the Cederwood, do you remember, when you came and lay athwart me in a kind of absolute surrender, satisfied, exhausted, to be caressed? I cannot put into words the sense of softening and “destiny” which in this way you released in me.
And how is it going with Orgie (rest if you must) – and oh yes, the student (Éluard) probably meant “poem” instead of “institution” [“‘gedig’ in plaas van ‘gestig’”] …? It is a very mature poem, maybe it’s impossible for a student to understand. Lovely, lovely tape with all the laughter, which immediately brought me so close to you, and at the same time so immediately to my own heart. This, surely, is “being together”.
The little castle is clean, full of flowers, nasturtiums to stick into all my wounds, if you were here, you’d stick your nasturtiums into them – and in a way, you already do. André, we really do need one another. Need, need, need. And Sunday night I fell asleep with this otherworldly dream of us; the house looks like this:
And somewhere beyond, an old-fashioned yard.
Thank you, for your really lovely little letter, which sorts and arranges – it’s actually a fantastic experience, all of it. The liberating humour, the seriousness of the game, the absolute freedom from any feeling of “bitterness”, the incontrovertible, lasting tenderness. My wonder man, I love you. Biblelove, Corinthianslove. I carry you cocoon-tight, and then one has to be a cocoon to be a poet. Maybe being a poet is a playland, never really “deep seriousness”, but for me, one as safe as Jesus. I completely agree with your criticism of “My Embrace Redoubled Me”. That’s just a provisional comment. The worst is still to come! I’m going to sleep with you now. Perhaps just sleep from knowing – we’ll see how the hand leads us. But in any case, peacefully, happy, as you must also be. “Not for one moment, beautiful André Brink, will I forget thee.” Love and love, liefsteling.
As always your Cocoon
COCOON.
Ach, du … du!
{Thank you for the telegram on Saturday, generous child. IJ.}
Grahamstown
Thursday morning, 17 October 1963
My darling,
How did things go last night after our phone call: the “cold, distant” conversation between you and Jack? What can I possibly do to make sure your precious life is free of unnecessary muddying? And now you’ve begun to feel suspicious even of me, as you said – despite your saying it lightly. And, true to our tradition, it woke me up in the small hours last night, leaving me sleepless, disturbed and sad; and, of course, you weren’t there, so I couldn’t wake you up to seek assurance and some kind of solution in you and with you. Darling, no, don’t, nothing weakens the ground beneath one’s feet as much as a lack of trust. I am yours, everything I do and think is directed towards you; even in my least important daily activities, you are the steady five lines on which I score the notes of my life.
Especially now, with the certainty of 8 November so luminously close, everything seems to have found a direction, a kind of “resignation”, and a transparent happiness. I was able to start working on Orgie again, though it was quite a struggle at first, as I expected, but after three days of working in fits and starts, I found my feet again last night, in fact before the phone call, writing seven pages quite quickly (I’m busy with the conversation in which “you” talk about your life in such a rebellious and passionate way, so full of resistance, that afternoon in Clifton). The telephone call’s little dose of edginess and unfinished business troubled the writing somewhat, but today – because I can now sit in restful seclusion and talk to you, my dearest beloved – I’m going to write quite a bit. “Each venture is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate.” You do of course know [T.S.] Eliot’s Four Quartets? To my shame I must admit that I have only read them properly now – in the past, I’d read them rather spottily, here and there. (And don’t you think the tone of voice of Tristia is rather strongly derived from the Four Quartets?) I’ve bought Eliot’s new Collected Poems, which runs up until 1962. Among the new ones there’s little that is exceptional. One nice one, though, which I’ll inscribe in your copy of Die Ambassadeur.
I’ve asked Koos to ensure that the very first copy is hand-delivered to you at the Citadel, immediately after the book appears. (This will be any day from about 30 Oct.) That means you’ll get to see it even before I do.
I am expecting Jordaan’s cover design tomorrow – actually with fear and trepidation, because if it’s disappointing, people lose all interest in the book.
I phoned Bartho yesterday to ascertain whether Orgie might yet see publication this year, that’s if I’m able to deliver it in two weeks’ time, but he’s apparently away from Jhb this week. Maybe it’s just as well, as I shouldn’t be working overhastily.
I probed Rob again about the APB books and, to my distress, he said not one of those he’s read so far deserves the prize – he wants to suggest that the judges be allowed to decline awarding a prize if they feel this way. Please keep this between me and you only. I’m actually very upset. Naturally I’ll seek an opportunity to raise the issue of Rook en Oker specifically with him – maybe when my review appears in 60.
Jan’s review is not just “nice” – it’s thorough. A little generalising (“always lyrical even when she is sensuous” – since when can’t sensuousness be lyrical, without the “even” tagged on? But I must first go and read the piece myself – I’m quoting according to what I can remember from last night’s conversation). To return to what I started saying: a little generalising, although this is actually a good characteristic. (Playfully: it’s quite an achievement that all your lovers are reviewing your book! Jack will surely do another one for that New Zealand journal, Windfall or Landslide or Avalanche? And mine in 60.)
(“I am one of your lovers, there are many” – suddenly I’m in a foul, jealous mood again!)
You neglect me with y
our one little letter a week, two if I’m lucky. I too am hungry and miss you and live in a state of continuous yearning. Love, my love, please don’t be distant. Be with me, let us take shelter together under cool leaves from the vengeful gods who roam in the night winds. Let us do this in the togetherness that has become my most valuable possession. So that I can feel you in my arms, your breath against my face, your sweet, still breath; feel the taste of your soft, lovely mouth; the faraway tenderness of your eyes, half-shut behind your eyelashes; the little curl on your forehead – the one that gets twirled so much nowadays; your soft neck; the childlike touch of your nipples against my chest; the tension of your arms around my back, where your lovely sensitive fingers make their little marks; let me feel the rumbling of your tummy; the arch of your little mound; your soft, most exquisite thighs; the touch of your calves and feet – and even the pinch of the leucodendron – and then, the concentration of all that is me deep inside you, and you so soft there and so deep and with such a firm, firm clinging. And the left lip pouting, a tiny bit longer than the other …!
Just three more weeks. My own girl, mine. I miss you and I love you, in daily certainty and trust,
André.
Castella
Thursday, 17 October 1963
My dearest André,
Hello! – In answer to your lovely long letter and the “prickly” phone call of last night. By that time I was probably so despondent, my treasure, about the cold emotional hell Jack and I frequently find ourselves in. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to whine. I told Jack I think it’s better if we don’t see each other for a while, and tomorrow evening after work I “depart” with Simone to … Bellville … that cultural town, to stay with friends for the weekend. Which means that I won’t get your promised letter on Saturday; but at least I’ll have it to go to sleep with on Sunday evening when I get back. It’s only now that I’ve really had time to think back to the phone call that I’ve felt really sorry. In reality, I didn’t “suspect” you; and – apart from that – if you had to for some reason or another – I would understand. Love is not love that changes with the tide – no, heavens –
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