Despite the heavy knowledge that Mrs. Mgulu has next nodded, nor appeared, nor given the slightest proof of her objective existence, and that it hurts, despite all this she moves alongside, sometimes reclining in the cushions of the vehicle as it glides companionably along at a walking, talking pace, or alternatively treading lightly on the burning road in golden sandals and something diaphanous, sharing the observation of phenomena, the village of smart concrete huts, the concrete post-office, the grocer’s shop, the smiling eyes and frank admiring looks, the carefully terraced, carefully irrigated vegetable gardens and the terraced olive groves through which the pink road winds. She smells of aloes and hair fixative and all the objects stand out sharp.
Or else quite suddenly the objects are switched off and merge into a dim olive-green dusk which wraps up and weighs down the heavy knowledge that Mrs. Mgulu has not given the slightest proof of her objective existence and does not share the observation of phenomena, and that it hurts, entering the body through the marrow-bone, up into the medullary centres, down the glosso-pharyngeal nerve perhaps or the pneumogastric, at any rate forward and down the throat that tightens as enlargement of the lymphatic glands occurs and the knowledge spreads into the chest, aching. Sooner or later it will reach the spleen.
At eye-level the shacks come into view. Three of them are on fire, are having a party, reflect the reapparent setting sun in their verandah doors. The others are all dead, straddling their own verandah roofs in a cocooning dusk. Some people would call them bungalows.
— It is not merely that I no longer desire you physically which would be understandable in any circumstances but that you dwell in me and watch me no longer desire you and smile as I mourn the passing of that simple, intense desire. Sometimes it is sufficient to disimagine, so that slowly and with infinite patience, atom by atom the element of desire will disintegrate. But energy is indestructible as you well know, except in very special circumstances, and so something remains, other and else, equally painful and whole. The thing exists and we cannot pretend that it does not. We make our errors in a thought and reject them in another thought, leaving a host of errors in us. Sooner or later the body must be emptied.
Sooner or later the bowl of steaming gruel will be set down on the wrinkled wood inside the pool of light.
Mrs. Ned’s bungalow is on fire. The glass verandah doors of Mrs. Ned’s bungalow reflect the last rays of the setting sun. The other bungalows are extinguished. The fig-tree’s foliage is dark blue-black, the leaves are hardly distinguishable. The dark green trunk leans along the edge of the bank at an angle of forty degrees inside which, from the road, the lower section of the brown clapboard wall next to the verandah merges into the dusky patch of dry grass. The lower branches swoop down their dim U-shapes, visible against the grass only with the help of the knowledge that they are normally visible from this position, in daylight. It is the knowledge of their shape which makes them visible.
The glass door of the verandah reflects a green light, in which a filmy monster shifts into view, cut into three sections. The top section frames a jellyfish surrounded by flowing wisps, the middle section a tiered hierarchy of diagonal wobbles, the lower section two wavering stems. Don’t keep looking at the monitor it spoils the picture. What books have you been reading? Your head is full of items, you must have got them from somewhere.
— I’m a reflective type, you see. I exercise my memory in the privacy of concupiscence, the male to the left, the female to the right, reflecting sensory observations as the moon reflects the sun … Oh, the satisfaction of demand, any day … No, I have nothing against authority, what makes you ask? My gesture is of holding a conventional weapon, a flame-thrower for example, or an atomic machine-gun. I am a fire-fighter you see. The fire-fighters’ union kindly did not object to my working overtime, at overtime rates, of course, which is quarter-pay, on account of the severe unemployment, and overtime hours only, from 2359 to zero hour, and in the privacy of concupiscence.
— That’s very interesting. Your profile is coming up very clearly, your depth personae are most revealing, no don’t look now, there is a very real danger of disintegration.
— I might of course disintegrate, but that is a risk worth taking.
— Mr. Blob: thank you very much.
The shafts of green light swiftly shift, the picture is replaced.
— Oh, good evening Mrs. Ivan. Nice evening. I was just seeing whether the door needed, well –
— Yes?
— Cleaning, you know, I mean, the hinges. I think they squeak, don’t they, would you like some oil on them?
— I have.
— Oh. Well, then perhaps –
— My verandah, yes, okay?
— I — er — wasn’t peeping in, Mrs. Ivan. I assure you. It’s just that, well, I love this verandah door.
— You see yourself.
— Yes. In the green light of the evening. It’s very … frightening. Effective I mean. Look. Come here. Yes, come, don’t be afraid. I’ll shut the door. Look at yourself. Isn’t it beautiful? In three sections.
— Yes.
— Mrs. Ivan –
— Shsh. He hear.
— Oh. Is he asleep?
— No, no, him, in door.
— But, Mrs. Ivan, that’s you.
— It is me-him. The light.
— Oh, I see.
— Shsh.
The algae are still. The hierarchy of diagonal shafts are still. The aureole is dark gold as an angel’s. To the right, a little behind, is the jellyfish, petrified in frozen zigzags.
— For me it is him. For you, her. You understand?
— Yes. I understand.
— Sometimes, then, for me it is her. Like, for you, him.
— Yes … Yes … I love you Mrs. Ivan.
— I love also. Long in your house, only goodday, goodnight, excuse, no friends, wife busy, I love, all must love.
— I’ve always loved you, from the beginning I’ve loved you.
— And him in door?
— Layers and layers of love.
— Lares? What is lares?
— Lay-ers. Like geology. Or geophysics.
— Ah. You love tea? Samovar tea?
— The god will go if you open the door.
— He come back. Dark now.
— Yes, he has almost gone.
— He go inside maybe. Come in please. You sit. Look, I have many tins now, all boiled, your wife ask, clean, this shelf all full, many many. Roof, Ivan build hut. One day.
— Where?
— God he know.
— So you’ll be leaving us?
— One day. Private. You understand?
— Yes.
— What you were before?
— I was an Intellectual.
— Ye-es?
— I was a broad-based Liberal humanist.
— Please?
— And you?
— I am born here.
— Yes of course. I’m old enough to be your daughter.