Briefing for a Descent Into Hell. Doris Lessing

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СКАЧАТЬ on Nancy’s coast and tell her that her Charlie has met up at last with—what? Them, I suppose, though that is all I can tell her, not even how he felt as he became absorbed into the substance of that shining Thing. Will she sing her song to me on my raft, drifting past, will the women line up along the walls of their summer gardens and sing, and shall I then sing back how the time is past for love? And then on I’ll drift to George’s friend and shout to him how George has—what? And where? And then on and on and on, until I see again my Conchita waiting, dressed in the habit of a nun, where all my wandering and ailing has put her.

      Man like a great tree

      Resents storms.

      Arms, knees, hands,

      Too stiff for love,

      As a tree resists wind.

      But slowly wakes,

      And in the dark wood

      Wind parts the leaves

      And the black beast crashes from the cave.

      My love, when you say:

      ‘Here was the storm,

      Here was she,

      Here the fabulous beast,’

      Will you say too

      How first we kissed with shut lips, afraid,

      And touched our hands, afraid,

      As if a bird slept between them?

      Will you say:

      ‘It was the small white bird that snared me’?

      

      And so she sings, each time I pass, around and around, and on and on.

      

      DOCTOR X. Well, how are you this afternoon?

      PATIENT. Around and around and around …

      DOCTOR X. I’d like you to know that I believe you could snap out of this any time you want.

      PATIENT. Around and around and around …

      DOCTOR X. Doctor Y. is not here this week-end. I’m going to give you a new drug. We’ll see how that does.

      PATIENT. In and out, out and in. In and out, out and in.

      DOCTOR X. My name is Doctor X. What is your name?

      PATIENT. Around and …

      I think he may very well have reverted to age eleven or twelve. That was the age I enjoyed sea stories. He is much worse in my opinion. The fact is, he never acknowledges my presence at all.

      DOCTOR Y. claims he reacts to him.

       August 24th

      DOCTOR X.

      DOCTOR Y. What is your name today?

      PATIENT. It could be Odysseus?

      DOCTOR Y. The Atlantic was surely not his sea?

      PATIENT. But it could be now, surely, couldn’t it?

      DOCTOR Y. Well now, what’s next?

      PATIENT. Perhaps Jamaica. I’m a bit farther South than usual.

      DOCTOR Y. You’ve been talking practically non-stop for days. Did you know that?

      PATIENT. You told me to talk. I don’t mind thinking instead.

      DOCTOR Y. Well, whatever you do, remember this: you aren’t on a raft on the Atlantic. You did not lose your friends into the arms of a flying saucer. You were never a sailor.

      PATIENT. Then why do I think I’m one?

      DOCTOR Y. What’s your real name?

      PATIENT. Crafty.

      DOCTOR Y. Where do you live?

      PATIENT. Here.

      DOCTOR Y. What’s your wife’s name?

      PATIENT. Have I got a wife? What is she called?

      DOCTOR Y. Tell me, why won’t you ever talk to Doctor X.? He’s rather hurt about it. I would be too.

      PATIENT. I’ve told you already, I can’t see him.

      DOCTOR Y. Well, we are getting rather worried. We don’t know what to do. It’s nearly two weeks since you came in. The police don’t know who you are. There’s only one thing we are fairly certain about: and that is that you aren’t any sort of a sailor, professional or amateur. Tell me, did you read a lot of sailing stories as a boy?

      PATIENT. Man and boy.

      DOCTOR Y. What’s George’s surname? And Charlie’s surname?

      PATIENT. Funny, I can’t think of them … yes, of course, we all had the same name. The name of the ship.

      DOCTOR Y. What was the name of the ship?

      PATIENT. I can’t remember. And she’s foundered or wrecked long ago. And the raft never had a name. You don’t call a raft as you call a person.

      DOCTOR Y. Why shouldn’t you name the raft? Give your raft a name now?

      PATIENT. How can I name the raft when I don’t know my own name. I’m called … what? Who calls me? What? Why? You are Doctor Why, and I am called Why—that’s it, it was the good ship Why that foundered in the Guinea Current, leaving Who on the slippery raft and …

      DOCTOR Y. Just a minute. I’ll be away for four or five days. Doctor X. will be looking after you till I get back. I’ll be in to see you the moment I’m back again.

      PATIENT. In and out, out and in, in and out …

      New treatment. Librium. 3 Tofranil 3 t.a.d.

       August 29th

      DOCTOR X.

      The sea is rougher than it was. As the raft tilts up the side of a wave I see fishes curling above my head and when the waves come crashing over me fishes and weed slide slithering over my face, to rejoin the sea. As my raft climbs up up up to the crest the fishes look eye to eye with me out of the wall of water. There’s that air creature they think, just before they go slop over my face and shoulders while I think as they touch and slide, they are water creatures, they belong to wet. The wave curls and furls in its perfect whirls holding in it three deep sea fish that have come up to see the sky, a tiddler fit for ponds or jam-jars, and the crispy sparkle of plankton, which is neither visible nor invisible, but a bright crunch in the imagination. If men are creatures of air, and fishes, whether big or small, creatures of sea, what then are the creatures of fire? Ah yes, I know, but you did not see me, you overlooked СКАЧАТЬ