That’s what I was saying while he was writing. The woman had left the room, and now I could hear her talking on the phone. No one was listening to me, but I went on with my speech. I couldn’t stop, because the words were coming to me from somewhere of their own accord – I simply had to utter them. After each sentence I felt relief. And I was further stimulated by the fact that a client had just come in with a little Poodle; clearly perturbed by my tone, he gently closed the door and at once began whispering to Newman. His Poodle sat down quietly, tilted its head and looked at me. So I carried on:
‘In fact Man has a great responsibility towards wild Animals – to help them to live their lives, and it’s his duty towards domesticated Animals to return their love and affection, for they give us far more than they receive from us. And they need to be able to live their lives with dignity, to be able to settle their Accounts and register their semester in the karmic index – I was an Animal, I lived and I ate, I grazed in green pastures, I bore Young, I kept them warm with my body, I built nests, I performed my duty. When you kill them, and they die in Fear and Terror – like that Boar whose body lay before me yesterday, and is still lying there, defiled, muddied and smeared with blood, reduced to carrion – you doom them to hell, and the whole world changes into hell. Can’t people see that? Are their minds incapable of reaching beyond petty, selfish pleasures? People have a duty towards Animals to lead them – in successive lives – to Liberation. We’re all travelling in the same direction, from dependence to freedom, from ritual to free choice.’
So I spoke, using wise words.
From a back room a cleaner emerged with a plastic pail and stared at me in curiosity. Stony-faced, the guard was still filling in his form.
‘You’ll say it’s just one Boar,’ I continued. ‘But what about the deluge of butchered meat that falls on our cities day by day like never-ending, apocalyptic rain? This rain heralds slaughter, disease, collective madness, the obfuscation and contamination of the Mind. For no human heart is capable of bearing so much pain. The whole, complex human psyche has evolved to prevent Man from understanding what he is really seeing. To stop the truth from reaching him by wrapping it in illusion, in idle chatter. The world is a prison full of suffering, so constructed that in order to survive one must inflict pain on others. Do you hear me?’ I said. But now even the cleaner, disappointed by my speech, had set about his work, so I was only talking to the Poodle.
‘What sort of a world is this? Someone’s body is made into shoes, into meatballs, sausages, a bedside rug, someone’s bones are boiled to make broth… Shoes, sofas, a shoulder bag made of someone’s belly, keeping warm with someone else’s fur, eating someone’s body, cutting it into bits and frying it in oil… Can it really be true? Is this nightmare really happening? This mass killing, cruel, impassive, automatic, without any pangs of conscience, without the slightest pause for thought, though plenty of thought is applied to ingenious philosophies and theologies. What sort of a world is this, where killing and pain are the norm? What on earth is wrong with us?’
Silence fell. My head was spinning, and suddenly I started to cough. Just then the man with the Poodle cleared his throat.
‘You’re right, madam. You’re absolutely right,’ he said.
This confused me. I glanced at him, angrily at first, but I could see that he was moved. He was a lean, elderly gentleman, neatly dressed, in a suit with a waistcoat, sure to be straight from Good News’ shop. His Poodle was clean and well-groomed – I’d say he looked grand. But my declaration had made no impression on the guard. He was one of those ironists who don’t like pathos, so they button their lip to avoid being infected by it. They fear pathos more than hell.
‘You’re exaggerating,’ was all he said at last, as he calmly laid the sheets of paper on his desk. ‘I find it truly puzzling. Why is it that old women… women of your age are so concerned about animals? Aren’t there any people left for them to take care of? Is it because their children have grown up and they don’t have anyone to look after any more, but their instincts prompt them to care for something else? Women have an instinct for caring, don’t they?’ He glanced at his colleague, but she made no gesture to confirm this Hypothesis. ‘Take my granny for example. She has seven cats at home, and she also feeds all the local cats in her area. Would you read this, please?’ he said, passing me a sheet of paper with a short text printed on it. ‘You’re approaching this too emotionally. You’re more concerned about the fate of animals than people,’ he repeated himself in conclusion.
I didn’t feel like speaking any more. I thrust a hand into my pocket, pulled out a ball of bloodstained Boar bristles and put it down on the desk in front of them. Their first impulse was to lean forward, but they instantly recoiled in disgust.
‘Christ Almighty, what is that? Yuck,’ cried Newman the guard. ‘Bloody hell, take it away!’
I leaned back comfortably in my chair and said with satisfaction: ‘Those are Remains. I pick them up and collect them. I have boxes at home, properly labelled, to store them in. Hair and bones. One day it’ll be possible to clone all the murdered Animals. So perhaps there’ll be some sort of redress.’
‘What a nerve,’ said the female guard into the telephone, leaning over the hairball, her mouth twisted in disgust. ‘What a nerve you have!’
Caked blood and muck had soiled their papers. The guard leaped to his feet and backed away from the desk.
‘Are you repulsed by blood?’ I asked mischievously. ‘But you like black pudding, don’t you?’
‘Please calm down. That’s enough of your nonsense. After all, we’re trying to help you.’
I signed every copy of the report, and then the female guard took me gently by the arm and led me to the door. Like a madwoman. I didn’t resist. Meanwhile, she never stopped talking on the phone.
Once again I had the same dream. Once again my Mother was in the boiler room. Once again I was angry with her for coming here.
I looked her straight in the face, but her gaze kept veering sideways, she couldn’t look me in the eyes. She was being evasive, as if she knew an embarrassing secret. She kept smiling, and then suddenly becoming serious – the expression on her face was fluid, the image was rippling. I said I didn’t want her to keep coming here. This is a place for the living, not the dead. Then she turned to face the door, and I saw that my Grandmother was standing there too, a handsome young woman in a grey dress. She was holding a handbag. They both looked as if they were just on their way to church. I remembered that handbag – a funny one from before the war. What can you have in your handbag when you come to visit from the spirit world? A handful of dust? Ashes? A stone? A mouldering handkerchief for your non-existent nose? Now they were both standing in front of me, so close that I thought I could smell their scent – old perfume, bed linen neatly piled in a wooden wardrobe.
‘Go on, go home,’ I said, waving my arms at them, as I had at the Deer.
But they didn’t move. So I was the first to turn around and get out of there, locking the door behind me.
The old method for dealing with bad dreams is to tell them aloud above the toilet bowl, and then flush them away.
VIII
URANUS IN LEO