The Four-Gated City. Doris Lessing

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      When she left them, Sally-Sarah had not said one word.

      Downstairs the big room was emptying fast, because of Mark’s presence. He stood with his back to a wall, grave, anxious, looking past the two undergraduates who stood in front of him. It was now clear why they had come to this party: to meet the writer. It appeared that some tutor or teacher had said that Mark’s novel was influenced by Kierkegaard. Andrew had his clever young face, now rather flushed by drink, close to Mark’s, and he was unloading a series of observations: he did not agree with the tutor, it seemed. He was explaining to Mark why the novel was to be compared with Stendhal’s The Red and The Black. Mark was not listening. Close to this group Hilary Marsh stood, observing. Martha went forward to rescue Mark. She listened while the two young men, unwillingly accepting her as substitute, continued their ingenious literary game, their eyes not on her, but past her, on Mark. Hilary Marsh was expressing concern, to Mark about his brother Colin. After a few moments Mark said: ‘Yes. Yes. Excuse me …’ and went out of the room.

      It now occurred to the two young men that Mark might be upset about his brother Colin whose name had been all over the newspapers that day. When Martha left the party finally they were being witty about spies to Hilary Marsh, who, it seemed, was quite prepared to listen to them.

      Upstairs Martha found Mark in Sally-Sarah’s room. She was not asleep. She was curled up in bed, like a child, her child asleep beside her. Her eyes were shocked.

      She said, ‘Thank you. Thank you. You are very kind. Thank you. Thank you.’ Mark and Martha left her.

      ‘I’ll tell you in the morning,’ said Mark, ‘I must get rid of …’ He went downstairs.

      Colin’s principal, the man with whom he had worked for years, had been sentenced to fourteen years in prison for giving scientific information to the Russians. Next day Mark stayed in his room. Sally stayed in her room. Martha kept buying newspapers. Late that afternoon it was announced that Colin Coldridge son of – etc. etc., brother of the writer Mark Coldridge, and of Arthur Coldridge the well-known left-wing member of Parliament, had fled the country, presumably to Russia, leaving behind his wife and his son.

      Martha took the newspaper to Mark. ‘Did you know?’ she asked. ‘I knew he was going to.’ ‘Are we to look after Sally?’ ‘I don’t know. I suppose so.’ ‘Didn’t he say anything about her?’

      ‘I didn’t see him yesterday. I couldn’t get hold of him. I had a telephone call from him in the hotel. He was in a call box. All he said was, that he would be away for a time. He rang off.’

      Sally-Sarah came down to supper with her little boy. She wore her purple and gold striped dressing-gown. On the whole she seemed composed. The telephone rang continuously from Mark’s study, but they were not answering it. Outside the house, newspapermen stood in groups. They did not tell Sally-Sarah this, but after supper she went to a window and looked out at the group of men in their raincoats, with their cameras and their notebooks.

      She then asked Mark and Martha if they would look after Paul for a day. She wanted to go back to Cambridge to fetch some things. They dissuaded her: she must not go by herself they said. She appeared to agree. Late that night, going up to see if she needed anything, they found she had slipped out of the house, though it was hard to see how she had done it without alerting the newspapermen.

      In the morning Martha got Paul and told him stories. His mother had gone back to fetch something; his father had gone for some work somewhere. Paul was not concerned about his father; he had seen so little of him. He asked once or twice about his mother, but on the whole played quite happily.

      When Sally did not come back by lunchtime, Mark telephoned the flat in Cambridge. There was no reply. Shortly afterwards, as Mark was preparing to go to Cambridge to find her, the police telephoned. Sally-Sarah had gone to the flat, and gassed herself. She had left no message – nothing.

      And now, though there was no need at all to say it, Mark said: ‘You can’t go, Martha. I don’t see how you can.’

      ‘No,’ she said.

      ‘I don’t think Colin intends to come back. He never said anything – not directly. But I understand some things I didn’t at the time.’

      Martha rang up the estate agent to say she would not be taking the flat, now nearly ready. The churlish gracelessness that was the spirit of the time spoke through him as he said: ‘Well, if you don’t want the flat, there are plenty that do. You do realize your deposit isn’t returnable?’

      Life frayed into a series of little copings-with; dealings-with; details, details, journalists; newspapers; telephone calls; threatening letters.

      Paul had to be looked after, Francis had to be told – something. What?

      One thing became clear at once. Mark was going to be isolated. By refusing to condemn his brother, or inform, or to ‘co-operate’ with the police – very insistent they were that he should – he was tarred with Colin – a traitor.

      Margaret rang up. Having inquired about Paul she then started talking about the flat downstairs. Mark said his mother must have become unhinged by the crisis. She wanted Mrs Ashe, the widow from India, to live in the flat. She wanted this, apparently, so much, that she was prepared to bring Mrs Ashe herself, and settle her in. She went on ringing up about Mrs Ashe and the basement, until Mark lost his temper.

      She then wrote a letter about Mrs Ashe. It was an extraordinary letter, entreaty, threat, apology – Martha was ready to agree that Margaret was temporarily off balance. But they did not have time to worry about Margaret.

      Mark said: ‘I think it’s going to be a bad time.’

      It was already a bad time, all muddle and misery and suspicion and doubt.

       Part Two

      However, the Man Without Qualities was now thinking. From this the conclusion may be drawn that it was at least partly not a personal matter. What then was it? The world going in and out, aspects of the world falling into shape inside a head … Nothing in the least important had occurred to him. After he had been dealing with water by way of example, nothing else occurred to him but that water is something three times as great as land, even if one takes into account only what everyone recognizes as water – rivers, seas, lakes, and springs. It was long believed to be akin to air. The great Newton believed this, and most of his ideas are nevertheless still quite up to date. In the Greek view the world and life originated from water. It was a god, Okeanos. Later water-sprites, elves, mermaids and nymphs were invented. Temples and oracles were founded on its banks and shores. But were not the cathedrals of Hildesheim, Paderborn and Bremen built over springs – and here these cathedrals were to this day. And was not water still used for baptism? And were there not water-lovers and apostles of nature-cures whose souls had a touch of peculiarly sepulchral health? So there was somewhere in the world something like a blurred spot, or grass trodden flat. And of course the Man Without Qualities also had modern knowledge somewhere in his consciousness, whether he happened to be thinking about it or not. And there now was water, a colourless liquid, blue only in dense layers, odourless and tasteless (as one had repeated in school so often that one could never forget it again) although physiologically it also included bacteria, vegetable matter, air, iron, calcium sulphate and calcium bicarbonate, and this archetype of all liquids was, physically speaking, fundamentally not a liquid at all but, according to circumstances, a solid body, a liquid СКАЧАТЬ