by Iris Murdoch
‘How old is your mother?’ she asked them once, after they had danced themselves to a standstill.
‘A hundred,’ said Jan.
‘He mean, very old,’ said Stefan. ‘Very, very old. She soon forget Polish language too. She forget all. When is so old, past is nothing, future nothing. Only is present — so big.’ He approached his two hands towards each other until there was only a fraction of an inch between them.
‘It is so,’ said Jan. They both sighed deeply.
After their capering and shouting, a profound sadness would seem to fall upon them and they would begin to sing, in lugubrious voices, their repertoire of Polish songs, concluding always with a rendering of Gaudeamus igitur, which they sang like a dirge, to a slow rhythm, swaying solemnly to and fro, shoulder to shoulder.
‘That is student song,’ Jan would always explain. ‘In Poland we are students of technic, but we have no time to make our doctor.’
‘Now we drink,’ Stefan would say. A bottle of British sherry would be produced, and a toast drunk out of tea-cups.
‘Our mother!’ said Jan gravely.
‘See, we are patriotic for our new country too,’ said Stefan. ‘We drink the horrible wines of our new country!’ Then there would be uproarious laughter, in which Rosa would join.
Rosa had been discouraged at first by the excessive deference with which the brothers treated her. She had wished to be friends with them; but they had made for her a role which was half lady of the manor and half social worker. After she had at last persuaded them to call her ‘Rosa’, a word which they would utter awkwardly, with blushes, hesitations, and smiles, she set about wooing them in every way possible. Their deference, their helplessness, their timidity called up in Rosa a perfect frenzy of protective tenderness. She felt as if she were warming back to life a couple of small birds who had been battered and frozen almost to extinction. Every day brought her an advance, a triumph, a surprise. During this time she was made very happy indeed by the Lusiewicz brothers.
It gave her a particular joy to teach them English. At first their communication had been by means of pantomime and the astonishingly small number of words which the brothers had brought with them. But gradually, and with increasing speed, the area of communication grew wider, the intercourse between them richer and more subtle — and Rosa would continually have occasion to congratulate herself upon the instinct which had led her to adopt these two strange and helpless children. She felt like the princess whose strong faith releases the prince from an enchanted sleep, or from the transfigured form of a beast. As her pair of princes awoke into the English tongue and as they were able more and more to reveal themselves to her, she found in them a hundred-fold the intelligence, the humour and the joy at which she had at first only guessed. Though even then there were moments when, like the princess who remembers with a strange nostalgia the furry snout and fearful eyes which are now gone forever, she wished to have back some particularly moving moment in the metamorphosis. Indeed, if she could she would have slowed the process down, so delightful did she find it.
The lessons would take place in the room in Pimlico, with the three of them sitting cross-legged on the floor inside the frame of the bedstead. In the centre were the grammar books and dictionaries. At first the brothers talked a great deal to each other in Polish, and could barely be persuaded to stammer out an exercise with Rosa’s help. Then they discovered how to make simple remarks in English. Rosa banned the talk in Polish, and they would take a special pleasure in showing off to each other or taunting each other for mistakes.
‘You are like peasant!’ Stefan would say to Jan. ‘Only so talk peasants in England!’
‘You not even like peasant!’ Jan would answer. ‘Rosa not understand you at all. I talk like peasant, but you talk like pig!’
Sometimes they would make Rosa laugh so much that the tears would stream down her face; and then suddenly she would find that these tears were not to be checked, and they would flow and flow until she was sobbing to relieve a pain that lay too deep for any ordinary solace. The brothers had opened in her some profound seam of vulnerability and grief. In their presence she was always breathless, as one in a new and beautiful country, full of an inexplicable rapture and never very far from tears. At such times the brothers treated her with a tender respect and consideration, solemnly offering clean handkerchiefs and asking no questions.
Then one day something happened which Rosa had not exactly foreseen but thought of and refused to contemplate. She was walking back with Stefan from the factory. It was a foggy evening in November. Jan, who had been on an earlier shift, had gone ahead and would be waiting for them with a hot meal. The factory was in Lambeth, and they needed only to walk across the river to find themselves in Pimlico. Rosa was for hurrying. It was damp and cold. It was also very dark, and she thrust her arm through Stefan’s. They were nearing the river. Then suddenly, with a sort of moan, Stefan stopped in his tracks. Rosa stopped too. For a moment she thought he was ill.
‘What is it?’ she asked anxiously, as she turned to face him. Then she saw what it was, and a prophetic terror ran through her. For a moment they stood paralysed, staring at each other. Then with a violent movement Stefan thrust her back against the wall. He kissed her fiercely several times. Then he moaned again like an animal and lay there leaning heavily against her. As Rosa felt his weight upon her, all the will was drained out of her body. She held on to him silently.
At last Stefan drew back a little and looked at her. He drew one finger very gently down the side of her face. ‘Rosa,’ he said, uttering the name which she had taught him, ‘you want this, yes?’ Rosa could only nod to him dumbly. There was nothing else she could do.
The rest of the walk to Pimlico was like a nightmare. Thinking of it later, Rosa seemed to remember that she could hardly walk and that Stefan had had to support her and drag her along. Nothing more had been said. When they arrived and mounted the stairs, Stefan behaved as usual, and soon they were eating the supper which Jan had prepared. Then there was the English lesson, and the evening passed without incident. Rosa thought that once or twice she surprised a strange look upon Jan’s face, but that may have been only imagination.
The next day was Saturday, and Rosa had arranged to see other friends in the afternoon and evening. In the morning she glimpsed the brothers at the factory. They both seemed to be in exceptionally good spirits, whistling and singing and making everyone laugh. She passed the rest of the day in a coma of misery. She seemed to see the brothers shooting away from her upon a moving stair. Some wordless bond between them, which had for a short time lifted them all out of this world, had been broken. She saw them suddenly as two very young men, nearly twenty years younger than herself. But she thought nothing clearly about the matter and could not define either what she feared or what she intended to do.
On Sundays she always went to Pimlico about five o’clock and spent a long evening with the brothers. This was usually the best time of the week. She went along on this occasion punctually, but with a sinking heart. Stefan was there, but there was no sign of Jan. Stefan was standing in the middle of the bedstead, his hands on his hips and a gleam of exultation in his eye. ‘Ah, Rosa!’ he said, in a tone which she had never heard before.
‘Where’s Jan?’ asked Rosa shortly.
‘Jan has gone with friends,’ said Stefan. ‘He asks for excuse.’
This was something unprecedented and extraordinary, as they both knew; but Rosa made no comment. As usual, they had a drink and had supper. The old mother sat there blinking at them. The brothers would never feed her in Rosa’s presence. They finished supper, and as they smoked a cigarette they both fell silent.
They were sitting inside the bed frame, opposite to each other, leaning back against the iron bars. Rosa stubbed out her cigarette. She found that Stefan was looking at her intently, and she returned his look. As she gazed at him now she felt a strange mixture of emotions. A grief which came from the profound deep which the comin
g of the brothers had opened within her was mixed with a hard elation which was the echo of the look which she had seen in Stefan’s eyes as she entered; and with it all, as an almost physical sensation, went that numb paralysis which is the deliberate dulling of thought by itself. She knew that she had called up a love against which she was now defenceless.
Stefan was no longer looking elated, but was studying her with a stern curious look. ‘Come and sit here, Rosa,’ he said.
She moved, and fell upon one knee beside him, looking into his face. In a moment he grasped her by the shoulder and pulled her down towards him. Rosa lay stiffly in his arms. As she lay she was looking straight into the eyes of the old woman, who watched them without any change of expression.
‘We make love now, Rosa. It is time,’ said Stefan, in a matter-of-fact tone.
‘It’s impossible,’ said Rosa, in an equally matter-of-fact tone, ‘because of Jan.’ She was not able to think, and she could not say anything more explicit than that.
‘Jan is nothing here,’ said Stefan. ‘Now is me, not Jan. Come.’ He rose to his feet, pulling Rosa with him.
‘Your mother!’ said Rosa.
‘She not see, not hear,’ said Stefan.
Involuntarily Rosa stepped back so as to be out of sight of the old woman round the angle of the room, and as she moved Stefan caught her off her balance and threw her full length on to the mattress. He fell on top of her, and they lay there panting. After a few minutes he was making love to her savagely.
On the following day Rosa began to wonder what on earth she was to do. The first shock of her despair was over. She thought of every possibility, including that of giving in her notice and leaving London. It was impossible to divide Jan and Stefan; for her they were one being. Yet the idea of losing the brothers seared her with such pain, the notion of life without them was now so purely agonizing that she soon veered back towards other even less practicable but less painful plans of action. If it was impossible to part the brothers, it seemed equally impossible to part from them. In fact, Rosa could decide nothing because of a profound and disquieting vagueness in her conception of the whole situation. She knew neither what had happened nor where she stood. There was nothing which she could decide to do but wait; and she found herself secretly hoping that in some way the brothers would take over the situation and make all the necessary decisions for her.
That evening she was expected at Pimlico again, according to their usual arrangement. Normally on that day she made the walk across the river at the end of the shift with both brothers, but when the time came to leave the factory she could find neither of them. Eventually Rosa set out alone, and as she walked the tears fell down in a slow stream, steadily and endlessly as winter rain. These were bitter and distressful tears, not the warm tears that brought solace to the nameless grief. Perhaps there would never be such tears ever again.
She climbed the stairs and entered the room. Jan was there, sitting on the edge of the bed frame, pretending to read a book. There was no sign of Stefan. Jan stood up as she came in, and said, ‘Ah, Rosa!’
‘Where is Stefan?’ asked Rosa.
‘He has gone with friends,’ said Jan. ‘He asks for excuse.’ Jan was looking radiant.
‘I see!’ said Rosa.
They had supper in silence. After supper they smoked a cigarette, sitting inside the bed frame opposite to each other, leaning back against the iron bars. Rosa looked at Jan, and it seemed to her that she saw him through such a thick cloud of melancholy that he was scarcely visible at all. He looked back at her, not with sternness but with a strong fierce expression.
‘Now, Rosa!’ he said and got up.
‘Now what?’ said Rosa, with all the sudden irritation of deep misery.
‘Now we make love,’ said Jan.
‘O God!’ said Rosa. Then she added, ‘That is not possible, Jan.’
Jan looked down at her with a look of surly incomprehension. ‘How, not possible?’ he said. ‘For Stefan, but not for me? So is not! Get up.’
Rosa got up. They were standing very close to each other. Jan was immobile, his face stony. Rosa was trembling between anger and the grief of despair.
‘You know about Stefan?’ she said.
‘Of course,’ said Jan. ‘And now is me. Come.’
Rosa’s knees gave way and she sank down on to the mattress.
After that day Rosa was completely at a loss. The initiative had passed, as she had obscurely wished, into the hands of the brothers. It was soon clear to her that everything that had occurred had been arranged between them beforehand. She made this discovery with a mixture of relief, horror, and grotesque amusement. She saw them as frequently as before; and was grateful to them for the gentle tact with which they made plain to her the rules of the new regime. The English lessons continued, and the late suppers which they ate all three together; only now sometimes after supper one or other of the brothers would get up, stretch himself, and say that he needed a breath of fresh air. He would then absent himself for about two hours, and reappear in time for the pair of them to see Rosa to the station.
Rosa was surprised at the speed with which she accustomed herself to the new situation. As soon as it became clear to her that the loss of the brothers could be avoided — and this was clear as soon as she realized their collusion — the sharp pain left her and was succeeded by a cloudy fatalism in which disgust and despair lay uneasily asleep. The brothers had decided, and there was little now that she could do about it. The only thing which troubled her in an immediate way was the old mother, whose presence in the room during the love-making horrified and frightened Rosa in a way that she could not get over, and whose very existence hung upon her like a threatening cloud beneath whose menace she felt herself to be guilty of a fearful crime. And all the while, behind that fatalism and this distress, there grew in Rosa a more profound uneasiness. The power had left her now. The mastery had passed to the brothers. They were as gentle and as respectful as ever — but their eyes were the eyes of conquerors. In the deep heart of her which they themselves had laid open Rosa resented this; and as the days passed she began to fear them.
Five
ANNETTE was lying on her bed with her legs in the air. She was admiring the extraordinary slimness of her ankles. Both her wrists and ankles were narrow, almost, as Nicholas would declare, to the point of absurdity; but Annette was pleased with them. When she saw the delicate bones there moving under the skin, she became conscious of her whole body as a sort of exquisite machine. She twisted one foot slowly to and fro, watching the stretching of the white skin over the bone. Then she lowered her legs slowly, placing her hands on her hips and tensing her stomach muscles. She lay limp and drew in a deep breath, her lips relaxing gently as if she were breathing in a smile at the same time. She lay there with her eyes open, and as she did so she saw herself lying there like a beautiful corpse. Her body was long and supple, her waist was narrow, her head was small and neat like a cat’s. She had large luminous brown eyes and a very thin and slightly retroussé nose. ‘Annette’s nose is like a piece of paper,’ Nicholas used to say. ‘It’s so thin you can almost see through it.’
Annette was waiting for Rosa to come home. Annette, who was never very sure what Rosa’s reaction to anything would be, wondered what she would say to her latest exploit. But while she waited, she did not worry. Nicholas had said to her long ago, ‘Live in the present, Sis. And remember, you’re the person who decides how long the present is.’ Annette, who always tried to follow her brother’s advice, was glad to find that in this case she seemed to have a natural aptitude for doing as he suggested. She lay now, without a thought in her head, in a happy coma, enjoying the silence and the slim feeling of her body.
Annette’s life had always been full of agitation and clatter: engines and dance bands and badinags in four languages. If she crossed a continent it was always at the maximum speed which the age could muster, and if she walked down a road it was always in the company of several people w
ho were usually singing. She had rarely stayed in one place for long. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll soon be off!’ was what her father used to say to comfort her when she was small for any distressing thing, whether it was the hostility of the chambermaid or the unexplained knocking which she heard at night. But this was just what did worry her. It was because of these things that there was a mystery which had never been revealed. She remembered how, very long ago, she had seen a rose in bud in a garden in Brittany, and had said to her nanny that she didn’t want to go to bed yet, because she wanted to stay and see the flower open. Her nanny had told her not to be silly, and her father had laughed and said that by the time the flower had opened she would be three hundred miles away. ‘People like us can’t have a normal childhood,’ Nicholas had told her when she was ten and he was twelve. ‘We’ll cop it when we’re forty-five!’
Annette felt always that she was travelling at a speed which was not her own. Going to or from her parents on one of her innumerable journeys, her train would stop sometimes between stations, revealing suddenly the silence of the mountains. Then Annette would look at the grass beside the railway and see its green detail as it swayed in the breeze. In the silence the grass would seem very close to her; and she would stun herself with the thought that the grass was really there, a few feet away, and that it was possible for her to step out, and to lie down in it, and let the train go on without her. Or else, travelling towards evening, as the lights were coming on in the houses, she would see the cyclist at the level-crossing, his face preoccupied and remote, and think that when the train had passed and the gates opened he would go on his way and by the time he reached his house she would be passing another frontier. But she never got off the train to lie down in the grass, nor did she ever leave it, high up in the mountains, at the small station that was not mentioned in the time-table, where the train unexpectedly halted and where the little hotel, whose name she could read so plainly, waited with its doors open. She could not break the spell and cross the barrier into what seemed to her at such moments to be her own world. She stayed on the train until it reached the terminus, and the chauffeur came to take her luggage to the car and Nicholas came bounding into the carriage, filling her with both sadness and relief at the ending of the journey. But the world of the chambermaid and the cyclist and the little strange hotel continued to exist, haunting and puzzling her with a dream of something slow and quiet from which she was forever shut away.
