The Green Knight

by Iris Murdoch

  As they attacked the good food and drink Emil started to ask questions.

  ‘Now I must hear all the news. I have been travelling and out of touch. How is your foot? You said on the telephone it was better. But I see you limping.’

  ‘I think it probably won’t get any better. I’ll have to “live with it”, as they say. I’m constantly told that a limp is romantic, like Byron you know.’

  ‘Dear me, that is not good enough. We must hope for a complete cure – you are young and youth cures well. You are having some treatment I hope?’

  ‘Yes, but it doesn’t help.’

  ‘I know a man in Harley Street – ’

  ‘Please let’s not talk about my foot, it’s such a bore.’

  ‘All right, but we shall return to the matter and I shall want details! And how is Lucas?’

  ‘Lucas? You know he is back?’

  ‘Yes, but no more. I received such a letter from Bellamy. Then I unexpectedly left the address I gave, but letters will have been forwarded to here.’

  ‘Oh, there are lots of letters, I put them in a box.’

  ‘Good, good. And how is it with Lucas?’

  ‘Well, you know the man he killed, well, he didn’t kill him, the man turned up and wanted some damages.’

  ‘So he returned from the dead and wanted money from Lucas, after having tried to steal his wallet?’

  ‘I don’t know. You’d better ask Lucas.’

  ‘And dear Bellamy? I hope he has not gone into his monastery.’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘And the lovely Andersons?’

  ‘Lovely as ever.’

  ‘Especially Aleph?’

  ‘Especially Aleph.’

  ‘And your beautiful mother, gone back to Paris?’

  ‘She’s, well, actually – ’

  ‘You will be able now to get up the stairs to your attic?’

  ‘Yes, it – I’ve got used to it. I’ll go after lunch – well, now we’ve really had lunch, and such a wonderful lunch, thank you so much! I’ll just pack up my stuff, I can go by taxi – Emil, you were so very kind to give me that taxi money, I’d have died without it. I expect Clive is arriving later – ’

  ‘I will tell you something, Harvey. Clive will not be arriving later. We have parted company. Or I should say, he has left me. He has found someone else whom he better loves. He is gone from me.’

  ‘Oh Emil – how awful – you have been together so long – I am very sorry indeed – I do hope – you may find someone else – sorry, I am putting it badly, I am just so sorry – ’

  ‘You put it very well, my child. To find someone – oh yes – that is the problem. To have mutual love, that is so difficult indeed. I hope you may achieve it, Harvey, I hope the gods will guide you to where happiness is. As for me – there is another partner waiting for me, a teacher whom I knew long ago – his name is solitude. I am glad to be back here among my English friends, I will, oh yes, ring up everybody, I shall make out some übersichtliche Darstellung, as Wittgenstein used to say. But I shall come back here to an empty flat and close the door, and I shall lean back against the door, as I recall I used to when I was young, and breathe deeply and feel the deep relief and liberation of coming home to solitude, coming home to myself.’

  It was fifteen minutes to ten. Lucas and Clement were waiting for Peter Mir to arrive. The long curtains had been carefully adjusted, pulled first this way and then that. The sun was shining but the wind was carelessly shifting some little clouds around. Clement was sitting on Lucas’s desk. Lucas was walking to and fro, the length of the room and back. Clement had had some trouble in setting the stage. At first he had arranged the chairs so that, Lucas of course sitting at his desk, Clement should be seated beside him, only a little behind him. While Peter should sit on a chair isolated in the middle of the room. Lucas however had vetoed this arrangement. Now it was to be that Lucas would of course take his usual place behind the desk, Peter’s chair would be approached, placed very near to the desk, almost up against it, while Clement was to sit a long way off, well down the room towards the door.

  Lucas said, ‘I want to see his face at close quarters. What colour are his eyes?’

  ‘Dark grey – I think.’

  ‘Not perhaps a very dark green? The colour of some coniferous trees? No, black I believe.’

  ‘Oh damn his eyes. For heaven’s sake don’t let him get too close. Or anyway let me sit just behind him.’

  ‘No, I want you at a distance, up near the bookshelves.’

  ‘As I told you, it’s very possible that all this remembering and becoming good and so on is a pretence, he may want to get near to you simply to attack you. He’ll start with some soothing account of how he’s given up revenge and so on, and then when we’re both off our guard – ’

  ‘I don’t think that will happen.’

  ‘Don’t say it so casually, as if it were about will it rain tomorrow. He says he’s changed, but this may mean anything. Your life may be in danger. Perhaps you don’t care.’

  ‘Think, Clement, he can easily kill me at any time, or get some villain to kill me. Or do you imagine that like you he’s a man of the theatre?’

  ‘Theatre. Yes. I’m afraid of it here.’

  At last the bell rang. Clement hurried to the door. Against a bright background of sun and racing cloud Peter Mir stood smiling, his smooth rosy cheeks glowing in the bright light, his large eyes shining, dark grey, or were they really very dark green? He was wearing a green and brown tweed jacket, a blue striped shirt open at the neck, very narrow brown tweed trousers, and, not seen before, a black cap which made him look very Russian. He also wore, which particularly impressed Clement, a broad leather belt with a silver buckle about his waist. He carried his mackintosh and his green umbrella. It occurred to Clement that, exiled from his house for mysterious reasons, he had just regained access to his full wardrobe. He looked extraordinarily youthful and full of energy, like a young man setting out upon a delightful mountain walk. He looked happy and excited. He doffed his cap with a flourish. Clement gave, gravely, a slight bow. Peter, with a humorous conspiratorial smile, bowed too. He followed Clement into the drawing-room.

  The room seemed dark, after the blaze of colour through the front door, and Clement instinctively and against Lucas’s wishes, pulled the curtains back a little more. Meanwhile Peter made for the nearest chair. Clement hastened back, touching his sleeve, and conducting him to the chair in front of the desk behind which Lucas was sitting in his usual place. Clement returned to the more distant chair, quickly moving it a little further forward.

  Lucas said to Clement, ‘Pull back that curtain again, please.’ Clement did so, and returned to his seat.

  There was a moment’s silence during which Clement gazed at the floor. Peter put his mackintosh and cap and umbrella down beside his chair, then sat quiet, staring at Lucas. Lucas spoke.

  ‘You wished to see me. Please get on with what you want to say.’ His tone was weary, and he leant his head down on one hand.

  Peter began at once. ‘My letter will have informed you of my recovery of my being. The person who confronted you earlier is no more. You see now a new person.’ He paused, expecting or allowing Lucas to speak. Lucas, gazing intently at him, said nothing. Peter went on, ‘Memory is a strange thing. A loss of memory can, evidently, induce or be a change of character. A wisdom which I had learnt over years was lost to me. My sense of value, my moral sense, was darkened and depraved, reverting to that of my previous unenlightened self. I hasten to add that I am not, in any proper sense, and will never be, a truly enlightened man, but let us say that now I see light, the light which I had lost, and have found again.’ There was another pause. Lucas maintained his serious studious gazing. Peter said, ‘During the strange time, the dead time as it were, between our first meeting and your reappearance, I busied myself, as soon as any consciousness returned to me, in studying, with what material was available, your career and personality, and I kept watch
, as you know, upon your family. You are a learned man, what is called a polymath, and must know something, however superficially, about Buddhism, and about the use of a shock or blow to induce wisdom. Let me say here, in case you wonder how I came to be a Buddhist, that I learnt this discipline during visits to Japan, made in the course of my professional work. In fact Buddhist teaching is not at all remote from the asceticism of mystical Judaism or Christianity, and indeed not alien to psychoanalysis. Travel a little further and you will see it as pure common sense. What I am now rehearsing will not be strange to you. How was it that you and I met on that dark summer night? You of course were there with intent, I as the most accidental of strollers. A minute either way and we would never have met. In any case, whatever we may think of here as fate, the outcome, which caused so much terrible grief and about which I was so ferociously angry, has proved to be, not a catastrophe, but a blessing, the release of a great spirit. I have found my true self, I have been returned to the Way, and what is even more remarkable is that I find myself, upon the Way, at least a little farther on. My understanding has been deepened, my vision clarified, I can see my path ahead, my task and my mission. I am aware of my frailties, the weakness of my will, the vast distance between good and evil. But a violent shock, and a glimpse of death such as I have had, may produce incurable depression, or else a liberation into a more pure, more free mode of living. When I die, what goes away? Nothing. As we grow older the body devours the soul. But it may also be that the soul, shocked into awareness, is able to chasten the body.’

  Peter here paused, putting his hand to his breast and breathing deeply. Lucas said at once. ‘Wait a minute. Are we to understand that your new being, upon which we congratulate you, has now opened to you the possibility of some extreme asceticism? Do you intend to leave the world, to join some monastic order, perhaps in Japan, where you can continue in peace your journey toward enlightenment?’

  Peter, raising his finger, with the air of a teacher who is glad to be interrupted by an intelligent pupil, said, ‘Ah! For so much I can scarcely hope. Do not be misled by my boasting, which is in part a product of a new happiness and, at my modest level, a sense of freedom. Now I am grateful for life itself – ’

  ‘But you spoke of a mission and a task. Perhaps you will return to your practice of psychoanalysis.’

  ‘No, I think not. I see only a little way ahead – what I can achieve later I shall discover later. I possess, as I think I told you, a great deal of money. I have to decide how most wisely and satisfactorily to give it away. I need advice, I need friends – ’

  ‘Such as Mrs Anderson and the Misses Anderson.’

  ‘Yes, indeed, I already regard those excellent and beautiful people as my family. As I think I said earlier, I have no family. Now, after my liberation, I find it is not too late to create one.’

  During Peter’s long speech Clement had been gradually moving his chair forward, at first out of anxiety, later out of a desire not to lose a single word of the interesting tirade. Lucas, now noticing his position close behind Peter, frowned and with an angry gesture motioned him back. Clement unobtrusively receded toward his previous post.

  Peter’s speech had been accompanied by various gestures (Clement, leaning sideways to watch, thought of them as Jewish or oriental gestures): a lifting of the left hand together with a modest or humble extension of the right hand as if to receive, a lifting of the shoulders with an opening, on each side, of both hands as if in some sort of surrender, a movement of the right hand, drooping from the wrist, then moving gracefully upward palm open and fingers apart as indicating some trick or gift, then as in humility, or perhaps blessing, lowering the forefinger to the thumb, then a slow passage to the breast, and placing of the closed left hand inside the grasp of the right hand. At Lucas’s last question, or statement, Peter had stretched out both arms at shoulder height, then moving them upward in a gesture of joyful liberation.

  Lucas, who had watched this final gesture with raised eyebrows, then said, ‘Well, thank you very much, Dr Mir. You have rehearsed for us in vivid terms what you explained perhaps more simply and clearly in your letter. I am glad that you have so entirely recovered, and returned to a happy and fruitful life. I, and also my brother, wish you very well indeed. Thank you for coming here to tell us of your good fortune.’

  Lucas now made as if to rise, but was arrested by Peter who instantly reached out his long arm and pointing finger across the desk. ‘No. Wait. Please wait. The most important part of my discourse is yet to come. Please oblige me with your continued attention.’

  Lucas said, ‘We have listened to you patiently for some time, and our meeting seems to have reached a satisfactory conclusion, would it not be wise to leave it here? Surely there is nothing more that can profitably be said.’

  ‘There is indeed more, but I will try to be brief. What I have been saying has left out one thing.’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘The original act.’

  ‘What original act?’

  ‘The original event when you struck me violently with a club and nearly deprived me of my life.’

  ‘Oh that. But did you not explain in your letter that this whole affair, increasingly wrapped up in obscurity and uncertainty, could now be consigned to the past? Your own emotions, you even generously suggested, were to be regarded as fantasies and illusions of egoism. And you asked for my forgiveness. This is going far, very far, it is enough. Enough for you, and enough for me. Let us now, having reached this remarkable degree of understanding, leave it all alone for good.’

  Lucas, leaning forward, spoke in a gentle persuasive tone. He spoke indeed, Clement was sure then and later, with profound sincerity.

  Peter, who until this moment had seemed full of confidence and energy, the master of the scene, now began to show anxiety. He raised his left hand, putting the back of his hand against his mouth. He looked at Lucas soberly, even sternly. He lowered his hand and said in a new soft voice, ‘No. It cannot be so consigned. It must, I am afraid, be clarified, I mean looked at in a clear light, shall I say worked over – somehow – before it can be – overcome.’

  ‘Oh dear,‘ said Lucas in a brisk sprightly voice, audibly shuffling the papers on his desk, ‘do we have to start all over again? Surely just that is what you seemed so pleased to be free of. Surely one replay is enough?’

  Peter, breathing deeply and looking down at his now quiet hands, said, ‘Please let me go on talking, thinking and talking. We have reached, may I say, a great high peak, or plateau, an open space, in our – contest – I mean our relationship. Yes, I have been set free, I can sit quietly and breathe, I am at peace. Instead of the image of blind Justice with her sword and scales I have that great clear space, rather perhaps like a green field, a pure light, quietness, the sudden absence of the terrible pains of anger and hatred. But then – ’ he paused – ’but then, still, what about you?’

  ‘I am not sure that I understand you. If you are thinking of my welfare, moral or otherwise, I assure you that I can look after that myself. Is it not now your duty, your surely not unpleasurable duty, to leave me alone?’

  Lucas, sitting up straight, was staring at Peter who, rigid, was staring back. Clement, banished to the back of the room, saw, or more deeply felt, as never before, his sense of them as two great rival magicians.

  Peter turning his head away and relaxing his body, said in a worried tone, ‘Well, not quite like that. I want peace of course. But I also want reconciliation. And reconciliation involves two people. Do you see? I used to want retribution, now I want reconciliation – I want something clear – like an equivalence – only not like it was before – ’

  ‘It is,’ said Lucas gently, as if speaking to a child, ‘at this stage in our proceedings, useless, and even dangerous, to seek for clarity or speak of equivalences. Do you want me to confess to a crime, or make some gesture of submission, so as to be with you in that green field? It won’t do, you know, it won’t do.’

 
Peter did not reply to this at once. He looked at Lucas, then looked away again. He said, ‘I daresay I am thinking about myself, about my peace of mind. I know what you mean, about the danger of this, as it suddenly is now, argument or – contest. But – yes – I want something which is not just an empty form of words. There is a lack of completeness. Something deep is making its demand. I want to move all this, all that we have talked of, all our words, on a little farther, on toward something needful, a kind of action. Keeping in existence the understanding which now, now this very moment, exists between us. I think, I hope, that now you will see what I mean.’

  They continued to stare at each other. Lucas nodded slightly, waiting for Peter to continue.

  Peter continued. ‘I said in my letter that there was one small favour which I was going to ask.’

  Lucas nodded again.

  ‘Well, now, this favour, may I – ?’

  Lucas said, ‘Go on.’

  Peter suddenly stood up.

  Startled out of the hypnotic state which the ‘contest’ had induced in him Clement rose too. Lucas said to Clement sharply, ‘Sit down.’ Clement sat down.

  Peter then picked up his chair and, holding it in one hand, walked round the desk. He put the chair down beside Lucas’s chair, but sideways to it and close against it. He sat down. Lucas turned his head towards him.

  Peter then said to Lucas, ‘Please take off your jacket and your shirt and – ’

  Clement rose again and took several paces forward. He thought, Peter Mir has gone mad.

  Lucas, and Clement could see a strange smile upon his face, took off his glasses, took off his jacket, then his shirt and his vest, tossing them away behind him, still facing his interlocutor.