"Examples of evil," she said.
"Oh," said Enderby. "Killing for the sake of doing it. Torturing for pleasure-it always is that, though, isn't it? Defacing a work of art. Farting during a performance of a late Beethoven quartet. That must be evil because it's not wrong. I mean, there's no law against it."
"We believe," she said, sitting up seriously, checking the cassette machine and holding it out, "that a time will come when evil will be no more. She'll come again, and that will be the end of evil."
"Who's she?"
"Jesus, of course."
Enderby breathed deeply several times. "Look," he said. "If you get rid of evil you get rid of choice. You've got to have things to choose between, and that means good and evil. If you don't choose, you're not human any more. You're something else. Or you're dead."
"You're sweating just terribly," she said. "There's no need to wear all that. Don't you have swimming trunks?"
"I don't swim," Enderby said.
"It is hot," she said. And she began to remove her Coke-and-hamburger-stained sweater. Enderby gulped and gulped. He said:
"This is, you must admit, somewhat irregular. I mean, the professor and student relationship and all that sort of thing."
"You exhibited yourself. That's somewhat irregular too." By now she had taken off the sweater. She was, he supposed, decently dressed by beach standards, but there was a curious erotic difference between the two kinds of top worn. This was austere enough-no frills or representations of black hands feeling for the nipples. Still, it was undress. Beach dress was not that. He said:
"An interesting question when you come to think of it. If somebody's lying naked on the beach it's not erotic. Naked on the bed is different. Even more different on the floor."
"The first one's functional," she said. "Like for a surgical operation. Nakedness is only erotic when it's obviously not for anything else."
"You're quite a clever girl," Enderby said. "What kind of marks have I been giving you?"
"Two C's. But I couldn't do the sestina. Very old-fashioned. And the other one was free verse. But you said it was really hexameters."
"People often go into hexameters when they try to write free verse," Enderby said. "Walt Whitman, for instance."
"I have to get A's. I just have to." And then: "It is hot."
"Would you like some ice in that? I can get you some ice."
"Have you a cold Coke?"
"There you go again, with your bloody Cokes and 7-Ups and so on. It's uncivilised," Enderby raged. "I'll get you some ice." He went into the kitchen and looked at it gloomily. It was a bit dirty, really, the sink piled high. He didn't know how to use the washing-up machine. He crunched out ice cubes by pulling a lever. Ice cubes went tumbling into dirty water and old fat. He cleaned them on a dishrag. Then he put them into the GEORGIA tea mug and took them in. He gulped. He said: "That's going too far, you know." Topless waitresses, topless students. And then: "I forgot to wash a glass for you. Scatch on the racks," he added, desperately facetious. He went back to the kitchen and at once the kitchen telephone rang.
"Enderby?" It was an English voice, male.
"Professor Enderby, yes."
"Well, you're really in the shit now, aren't you, old boy?"
"Look, did you put her up to this? Who are you, anyway?"
"Ah, something going on there too, eh? This is Jim Bister from Washington. I saw you in Tangier, remember? Surrounded by all those bitsy booful brown boys."
"Are you tight?"
"Not more than usual, old boy. Look, seriously. I was asked by my editor to get you to say something about this nun business."
"What nun business? What editor? Who are you, anyway?" He was perhaps going too far in asking that last question again, but he objected to this assumption that British expatriates in America ought to be matey with each other, saying in the shit and so forth at the drop of a hat.
"I've said who I am. I thought you'd remember. I suppose you were half-pissed that time in Tangier. My newspaper is the Evening Banner, London if you've forgotten, what with your brandy and pederasty, and my editor wants to know what you-"
"What did you say then about pederasty? I thought I caught something about pederasty. Because if I did, by Jesus I'll be down there in Washington and I'll-"
"I didn't. Couldn't pronounce it even if I knew it. It's about this nun business in Ashton-under-Lyne, if you know where that is."
"You've got that wrong. It's here."
"No, that's a different one, old man. This one in Ashton-under-Lyne-that's in the North of England, Lancashire, in case you don't know-is manslaughter. Nunslaughter. Maybe murder. Haven't you heard?"
"What the hell's it to do with me anyway? Look, I distinctly heard you say pederasty-"
"Oh, balls to pederasty. Be serious for once. These kids who did it said they'd seen your film, the Deutschland thing. So now everybody's having a go at that. And one of the kids-"
"It's not mine, do you hear, and in any case no work of art has ever yet been responsible for-"
"Ah, call it a work of art, do you? That's interesting. And you'd call the book they made it from a work of art too, would you? Because one of the kids said he'd read the book as well as seen the film and it might have been the book that put the idea into his head. Any comments?"
"It's not a book, it's a poem. And I don't believe that it would be possible for a poem to-In any case, I think he's lying."
"They've been reading it out in court. I've got some bits here. May have got a bit garbled over the telex, of course. Anyway, there's this: 'From life's dawn it is drawn down, Abel is Cain's brother and breasts they have sucked the same.' Apparently that started him dreaming at night. And there's something about 'the gnarls of the nails in thee, niche of the lance, his lovescape crucified.' Very showy type of writing, I must say. They're talking about the danger to susceptible young minds and banning it from the Ashton-under-Lyne bookshops."
"I shouldn't imagine there's one bloody copy there. This is bloody ridiculous, of course. They're talking of banning the collected poems of a great English poet? A Jesuit priest, as well? God bloody almighty, they must all be out of their fucking minds."
"There's this nun dead, anyhow. What are you going to do about it?"
"Me? I'm not going to do anything. Ask the buggers who made the film. They'll say what I say-that once you start admitting that a work of art can cause people to start committing crimes, then you're lost. Nothing's safe. Not even Shakespeare. Not even the Bible. Though the Bible's a lot of bloodthirsty balderdash that ought to be kept out of people's hands."
"Can I quote you, old man?"
"You can do what the hell you like. Pederasty, indeed. I've got a naked girl in here now. Does that sound like pederasty, you stupid insulting bastard?" And he rang off, snorting. He went back, snorting, to his whisky and pouffe. The girl was not there. "Where are you?" he cried. "You and your bloody Jesus-was-a-woman nonsense. Do you know what they've done now? Do you know what they're trying to do to one of the greatest mystical poets that English poetry has ever known? Where are you?"
She was in his bedroom, he found to no surprise, lying on the circular bed, though still with her worker's pants on. "Shall I take these off?" she said. Enderby, whisky bottle in hand, sat down heavily on a rattan chair not too far from the bed and looked at her, jaw dropped. He said: