Or something like that, the legs being brown perhaps and the flowers a mass of pink. Mrs. Mgulu says they remind her of damp December funerals in the North, the hands being black, the flowers a deathly white. To live the gesture in immobility is to evoke and therefore to have observed the gesture. But imagination is not an imaged projection of observed phenomena. Sometimes it is sufficient to imagine an episode for the episode to occur, and that is the terrifying thing, though not necessarily in that precise form. The first failure is the beginning of the first lesson. Learning presupposes great holes in knowledge.
In the white wall the glossy black door opens suddenly. The woman stands framed by the whiteness, pert and petite and pretty in a white linen dress the neckline of which embraces the glowing basalt of her throat as a crescent moon the night sky. It is more difficult as a negative. The background is of pale flowers and cypress hedge receding. The brownish green of the cypress hedge looks darker in the light of the white linen dress, merging with the skin’s rich earthy brown. The negative creates a silence.
— Good afternoon, ma’am. Would it be possible to see the head gardener?
— What’s that?
— I was wondering if it would be possible to see the head gardener. I’m sorry to disturb you.
— Who wants him?
— I came once before, it was another lady. Mrs. Mgulu had sent me, but there was a misunderstanding.
The two pillars beneath the white vessel are made of graphite. Behind them the path is crazy pavement.
— Oh. Well, I suppose it’s all right. He’s about somewhere. I’ll go and see if I can find him. Wait there please. I’ll have to shut the door.
The gestures are framed by the white wall. Above the gestures are two mauve flowers. The red network is very fine.
— Oh yes. You know Mrs. Mgulu well? I’m all for everyone lending a helping hand. Especially us, I mean we must stick together, mustn’t we, I always say to Milly, that’s my wife, or is it Dolly, I always say to Polly, forty-nine years we’ve been married and we’ve seen plenty, I can assure you, I always say to Polly, in these difficult times we must all pull together and sink our ex-differences as Westerners, don’t you agree.
— I’m afraid I never studied non-Euclidean geometry. I specialised early, you see, in my country –
— In your country men were lazy and smug. That’s why they lost the battle for survival. It’s an article of faith. Conceited, lazy, unreliable. These little orange-trees, for instance, they’ve been wrongly planted, in round hollows, instead of on mounds of earth. The fellow who did that was one of you lot. Hosed them for minutes at a time, that’s what he did, and let them soak in a great pool of water, why it’s murder, especially in the dry season, they can’t take the contrast. You have to be gentle with them you know. The water should be allowed to drain down slowly.
The green snake slithers along the left flower-bed right back to the yellow door in the white wall, though in the other direction it also reaches as far as the wall beyond the olive grove, where the brass tap is. There are six other hoses and taps.
— Oh of course I realise that it takes four or five hours, because every plant must be watered individually. I do know that, it’s one thing we can’t do with machines, though naturally you probably use the automatics for vegetables. Some plants like the spray, I know, and some prefer a plain jet on the root or around the root. These castor-oil plants for example, they need a very gentle jet which mustn’t touch them at all or the stem would break. So I wouldn’t use the spray at all but I’d put my finger over the nozzle-holder whenever I need a spray.
— You certainly seem to know a lot. What did you say your occupation was?
— I was a landscape gardener.
In the white wall the glossy black door opens. The pretty Bahuko woman stands framed by the whiteness, the edge of the white linen dress resting crescently upon her skin. The negative creates a silence.
— You can come in. Follow me.
The path leads straight up to the small white cottage. On either side of the path the cypress hedge stands in a narrow flower-bed full of pink carnations fragrant on the hot air. The hedge opens its brownish green arms to the woman in white linen who walks into them poised and indifferent as they recede. She is an arum lily on a dark stem moving. The path is made of benzene rings.
— Wait here. My husband is just coming.
The left foot treads the length of a cemented line. Between the tiles, the right foot carefully selects another line of cement parallel with the edge of the path. The instep of the left foot crosses the carbon atom at the top of the elongated hexagonal, pointing towards the nitrogen hydrogen two. The amount of free energy that becomes available for the performance of useful work does not correspond to the total heat change, but is equivalent to the new face that is handsome, smooth, assured, glowing with earthen vitality and slashed with curved oblongs of sunlight, well?
— I, I came, I was wondering — excuse me, but are you the head gardener?
— I am.
— Oh. I see. I came earlier. The pink man, your predecessor I mean, Mrs. Mgulu had sent me –
— You know Mrs. Mgulu then?
— Yes. Yes I do. I was working up at the house, but I fell ill and she sent me for treatment to the hospital. I’m all right now. But they want me to have an outdoor employment and she sent me to you.
— How do I know you’re telling the truth? Mrs. Mgulu said nothing to me. Haven’t you got a note?
— No. I — er, I had one but I lost it. Mr. Swami –
— What? Speak up. Besides, if Mrs. Mgulu sent you why did you expect to see my predecessor? He died. Some time ago.
— Oh. Well I’m sorry, I’m confused. I had seen him you see.
— You mean you had seen him about or you had been sent for an interview?
— For an interview.
— And?
— Well. It’s difficult to explain. There was a misunderstanding.
— Hmmm. Yes, well you’re obviously telling the truth there more or less, or you’d have a better story. The only thing is, I’ve got all the gardening hands I need. If anything we’re over-employing here.
— But what about the watering? Have you got anyone for the watering?
— The watering? It’s being done all the time. As you should know if you’ve been here before. Look.
Round and round, catching the sunlight once in every revolution, the spray unfurls its minute particles at vast distances over the encampment of wigwammed plants to the right of the cypress hedge. Round and round. Catching the sunlight, the spray unfurls its radiating hydrogen and oxygen over the field of potato plants next to the field of tomato plants. And silently through the deep canals beneath the cobcorn skyscrapers to the left of the cypress hedge, the water flows from an unseen reservoir, pumped like blood by an unseen irrigation reactor, darkening the earth with life.
— But what about the flowers? They’re not like vegetables, each plant needs watering individually, some like the spray, and some prefer a plain jet on the root, or even around the root. The castor-oil plants, for example, where are they? When small they need a very gentle jet that mustn’t touch the stem at all or it would break. Where are the castor-oil plants?
— We don’t have any. They’re cultivated gross up at the farm, and as for flowers, you should know very well that Mrs. Mgulu has given over all the grounds to food-growing, except for the area immediately around the house. And that is well taken care of as regards watering. The lawns are sprayed automatically anyway. You should know that if you’ve been here before.
— Yes. I suppose so. One gets confused. May I ask you, do you know, I mean how, what, what did he die of?
— Who?