It was quite a surprise. While he had not built up a mental picture of the author, and had envisaged her neither young nor old, he suddenly knew that he had not imagined her looking quite like that. The glimpse of her had been of a woman in her early middle age, rather plump and fierce-looking, quite unwriterlike.
The author of The Affirmation had been, in Dik’s mind, more ethereal, more a romantic notion than an actual person.
He opened the door and walked into the saw-mill. The old building was unlit and cold, but he could see the angular shapes of the benches and saws, the storage-racks and conveyor-belts. The smell of pinewood and sawdust was in the air: dry and distant, sweet and stale.
He heard the sound of feet above, and the woman appeared at the top of a flight of wooden stairs built against the wall.
“Are you Miss Kaine?” Dik said, still hardly believing that it could be her.
“I left a message at the civic hall,” she said, coming down towards him. “I don’t want to be disturbed today.”
“Message…? I’m sorry. I’ll come again later.” Dik backed away, reaching behind him for the door-handle.
“And tell Clerk Tradayn that I’m engaged tonight as well.”
She was halfway down the stairs, and waiting as Dik fumbled for the door-handle. It seemed to have stuck, so he took his other hand from his pocket to get a better grip. As he did so, his copy of The Affirmation fell to the ground. The pass, still wedged between Orfé and Hilde, slipped from the pages and fluttered away. Dik stooped to pick them up.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I didn’t know—”
Moylita Kaine came quickly to his side, and took the book from his hand.
“You’ve got a copy of my novel,” she said. “Why?”
“Because…I was hoping I might talk to you about it.”
Holding the book, looking at him thoughtfully, she said: “Have you read this?”
“Of course I have. It’s—”
“But the burghers sent you?”
“No…I came because, well, I thought anyone could see you.”
“So they tell me,” she said. “I suppose we should go upstairs.”
“But you aren’t to be disturbed.”
“I thought you were from the burghers. Come up to where I’m working. I’ll sign this copy for you.”
She turned and went up the stairs. After a moment, gazing disbelievingly at the back of her trousered legs, Dik followed.
* * *
The room had once been an office in the saw-mill, and the window looked down the valley and across to the distant snowscape beyond. It was a bare, grubby room, furnished with a desk and a chair, and a tiny one-bar electric radiant heater. It was not much warmer here than it had been downstairs, and Dik understood why Miss Kaine wore her furs as she worked. She went to the desk, moved some papers aside and found a black fountain-pen. As she opened his copy of the book to the title-page, Dik saw that her hands were clad in gloves, with the woollen fingers cut away.
“Would you like me to dedicate it?”
“Yes, please,” Dik said. “Whatever you think is best.”
In spite of the moment, Dik’s attention was not wholly on the signing of his book, because as she spoke he had noticed that in the centre of the desk was a large, old-fashioned typewriter, with a curl of white paper coming out of the roller. He had found her actually writing something!
“Then what shall I say?” Moylita Kaine said.
“Just sign it,” Dik said.
“You wanted me to dedicate it. What’s your name?”
“Oh…Dik.”
“With a ‘c’?”
“No, the usual way.”
She wrote quickly, then passed the book back to him. The ink was still wet. Her handwriting was very loose and wild, and it looked as if she had written: “To Duk…will evey beet wisl, Moylilo Kine”. He stared at it in joyous incomprehension.
“Thank you,” he said. “I mean…er, thank you.”
She went behind the desk and sat down, stretching out her hands towards the fire.
Dik looked at the paper in the typewriter. “Excuse me, is that a new novel you’re working on?”
“A novel? I should think not! Not at the moment.”
“But your publishers said you were writing one.”
“My publishers told you that? What—?”
“I wrote to them,” Dik said. “I thought The Affirmation was the best novel I had ever read, and I wanted to find out what else you had written.”
She was looking at him closely, and Dik felt himself beginning to redden. “You really have read the book, haven’t you?”
“Yes, I told you.”
“Did you read it all the way through?”
“I’ve read it several times. It’s the most important book in the world.”
Smiling, but not patronizingly, she said: “How old are you, Dik?”
“Eighteen.”
“And how old were you when you read the book?”
“Fifteen, I think.”
“Did you find some of it rather, well, bizarre?”
“The love scenes?” Dik said. “I found them exciting.”
“I didn’t mean those, but…good. Some of the reviewers—”
“I looked up the reviews. They were stupid.”
“I wish there were more readers like you.”
“I wish there were more books like yours!” Dik said, then instantly regretted it. He had vowed to himself that he would be dignified and polite. Miss Kaine was smiling at him again, and this time Dik felt that his enthusiasm had made him deserve it.
“If that isn’t a novel,” he said, pointing at the page in the typewriter, “do you mind telling me what it is?”
“What I’m being paid to write while I’m here. A play about the village. But I thought everyone knew what I was doing here.”
“Yes,” Dik said, trying not to reveal his disappointment. He had seen the leaflet setting out the writer-sponsorship scheme, and knew that writers-in-residence were commissioned to write drama for the communities they visited, but he had had an irrational hope that Moylita Kaine would be somehow above that sort of thing. A play written about the village lacked the same appeal as a novel like The Affirmation. “Are you writing a novel, though?”
“I started one, but I put it aside. It wouldn’t be published…not until the war is over. There’s no paper for books at the moment. A lot of saw-mills have been closed.”
He was staring at her, unable to look away. It was difficult to believe that this was Moylita Kaine, someone who had been on or at the back of his mind for three years. Of course she did not look like Moylita Kaine, but she didn’t even talk like her either. He remembered the long philosophical dialogues in the novel, the subtleties of debate and persuasion, the wit and the compassion. The author in person was speaking openly but ordinarily, she was friendly but somehow reserved.
His first impression of her appearance had been hasty, and partly because of the circumstances. It was her bulky clothes that made her seem plump, because her hands and face were slender and delicate. She was no longer a girl, but neither was she matronly; Dik tried to guess her age, and thought she was probably older than thirty but younger than forty. It was difficult to tell, and he wished she would take off her fur cap so he could see her face properly. A wisp of dark-brown hair fell across her forehead.
“Is the play what you want to write?” he said, still staring fixedly at her.
“No, but it’s a way of making a living.”
“I hope you’re paid well!” And again he flinched inside from his own forthrightness.
“Not as well as your burghers are being paid for having me here. But I didn’t want to give up writing altogether.” She had turned away from him, pretending to hold her hands nearer the fire. “I have to wait for the war. A fallow period will be good for me in the end.”
“Do you think the war will be over soon?”
“No, but I’d make it end t
omorrow, if thinking it would do it.” She glanced at him quickly. “Are you a soldier?”
“A policeman. It’s the same thing, I suppose.”
“I suppose so too. Why don’t you come and stand here? You’ll be warmer.”
“I think I should be going back. You must be busy.”
“No, I’d like you to stay. I want to talk to you.”
She turned the electric fire slightly, indicating that he should go nearer, so he went to her side of the desk and sat awkwardly on the corner, letting the heat play on his legs. From there he could see some of the words she had been typing, and he looked curiously at them.
As soon as she noticed this, Moylita Kaine pulled the page from the machine. She laid it face down on the desk.
Taking it as a rebuke, Dik said: “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“It isn’t finished yet, Dik.”
“It’ll be marvellous,” he said, sincerely.
“Maybe it will, and maybe it won’t. But I don’t want anyone to read it yet. Do you understand?”
“Of course.”
“But you might be able to help me,” she said. “Would you?”
Dik felt an impulse to laugh, so ridiculous and thrilling was the notion that he could offer her anything.
“I don’t know,” he managed to say. “What do you want?”
“Tell me about the village. The burghers aren’t interested in me, now they’ve had the grant, and I haven’t been allowed to see anyone else. I have to write a play, but all I can write about is what I see.” She gestured towards the window, with its view of the frozen valley. “Trees and mountains!”
“Couldn’t you invent something?” Dik said.
“You sound like Clerk Tradayn!” When she saw his expression she added quickly: “I want to write about things as they really are, Dik. Who lives in the village, for instance? Is there anyone here who isn’t a soldier?”
Dik thought. “There are the burghers’ wives,” he said. “But they live outside the village. We never see them.”
“Anyone else?”
“There are some farmers in the valley, I believe. And the men at the railway-depot.”
“So it is just soldiers and burghers. I might as well write about trees and mountains.”
“But I thought you had already started,” Dik said, glancing at the pile of pages beside the typewriter.
“It’s proceeding,” Moylita Kaine said, explaining nothing. “What about the frontier wall? Do you ever go up there?”
“On patrol. That’s why we’re here.”
“Will you describe it to me?”
“Why?” Dik said.
“Because I haven’t seen it. The burghers won’t let me go up there.”
“You couldn’t put it in your play.”
“Why not? Surely it’s at the heart of this community.”
“Oh no,” Dik said, very seriously. “It’s along the top of the mountains.” As Moylita Kaine laughed he squirmed with embarrassment, then laughed too. “I see what you mean.”
“The wall goes right around our country, Dik, but how many ordinary people have ever seen it? It’s what the war is about, and so for anyone writing today it’s an important symbol. And it’s the same here. To understand this community, I have to know about the wall.”
“It’s just a wall. It’s made of…concrete, I think. It’s high, about twice the height of a man. There’s barbed wire along most of it, and machine-gun posts and towers. The enemy have put up floodlights on the other side.”
“And it runs along the old frontier?”
“Exactly,” Dik said. “Right over the peaks of the mountains. It’s very…symbolic,” he added, using her word.
“Walls always are. What do you do up there?”
“We make sure nobody gets across. Nothing happens, most of the time. We’ve got warmways laid in the snow, to stop the ground freezing. Every now and then someone on the other side throws grenades or poison gas at us, and if they do we throw some back. Sometimes it doesn’t lead to anything, sometimes it goes on for days.”
“Is it frightening?”
“Sometimes. It can be very boring.”
“What do you think about while you’re there?”
“The cold, mostly. And wishing I was at home.” She made no response, so Dik went on: “And I sometimes wonder who’s on the other side, and why he’s there. They don’t have burghers…or I think they don’t. I don’t like the burghers, you see,” he said, trying to explain.
“No one does.” She had been idly fingering her typescript as she listened to him. “Do you know who built the wall, Dik?”
“They did. The other side.”
“You know that that’s what they say?” she said. “That we built the wall?”
“That’s ridiculous. Why should we do that?”
“It’s what they say. I’ve read some of the literature that’s been smuggled in. They believe we put up the wall to prevent people from fleeing the country. They say that we are living under a dictatorship, and that our freedoms are restricted by the tithe-laws.”
“Then why are they trying to invade? Why do they bomb our cities?”
“But, Dik, they say they are defending themselves, because the burghers’ government is trying to impose our system on them!”
“Then why accuse us of building the wall?”
“It doesn’t matter who built the wall…don’t you see it shouldn’t be there at all! It’s a symbol, as we agree, but a symbol of stupidity.”
“Are you on their side?” Dik said, coldly.
“Of course not. I’m on no one’s side. I just want the killing to end. Didn’t you find this in The Affirmation?”
Her unexpected mention of the novel took Dik aback; while she was talking about the war she was on a subject about which he knew rather too much. But suddenly to relate the book to it…
He said: “I don’t remember.”
“I thought I made it clear. The duplicity of Hilde, and her lies about Coschtie. When Orfé—”
“I know!” Dik said, seeing at once. “The first time he makes love to her…they are talking. Hilde wants him to be treacherous, to excite her, and Orfé claims she will be the first to betray them.”
He would have gone on, letting his detailed memory of the book’s plot carry him forward, but Moylita Kaine said: “You really did read it closely. You see what I mean then?”
“About the wall?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head. “I know what happens in the book…but it was written before the war started.”
“There have always been walls, Dik!”
Then she began to talk about the novel, leaning over to dangle her fingers before the fire to warm them. She was guarded at first, watching Dik’s response, but as she saw his eager interest, as he revealed that his reading of the novel had been close and intelligent, she talked more freely. She spoke quickly, she made deprecating jokes about herself and her story, her eyes sparkled in the snowy light from the window. Dik was more excited than he could remember; it was like reading the book for the first time again.
She said there was a wall in the novel, a figurative barrier that lay between Orfé and Hilde. It was the dominant image in the book, if never directly described. It was there from the outset, because of her marriage, but after Coschtie’s death it continued because of the betrayals. As first Orfé and then Hilde tried to draw the other closer, because both found infidelity sexually stimulating, the wall became higher and more impregnable. The labyrinthine involvements of the lesser characters—fulfilling Coschtie’s demands on them in his lifetime, revenging themselves on his memory when he was dead—formed a pattern of moral attitudes. Their influence was divided: some controlled Orfé, some Hilde. Every conspiratorial action further fortified the wall between the two lovers, and made more inevitable the final tragedy. Yet the book was still the affirmation of the title: Moylita Kaine said she intended the novel to make a positive statement. Orfé’s final d
ecision was a declaration of freedom; the wall fell as the book ended. It was too late for Orfé and Hilde, but the wall had nevertheless fallen.
“Do you see what I was trying to do?” she said.
Dik shook his head vaguely, still lost in this new insight into the book, but when he realized what he was doing he nodded emphatically.
She regarded him kindly, and sat back in her chair. “I’m sorry, Dik. You shouldn’t have allowed me to talk so much.”
“Please…tell me more!”
“I thought I’d said it all,” she said, laughing.
It was Dik’s opportunity to ask the questions he had been storing up since his first reading of the book. How she had had the original idea, whether any of the characters were based on real people, how long the book had taken to write, whether she had ever visited the Dream Archipelago where the story was set…
Moylita Kaine, obviously flattered by his interest, gave replies to them all, but Dik was unable to judge how literally she was answering. She made more jokes, and sometimes was deliberately vague, raising more questions than he could ever ask.
It was after one such self-effacing joke that Dik suddenly took stock of himself, and realized that his barrage of questions was sounding like an interrogation. He lapsed into awkward silence, staring down at the battered old typewriter she had been using.
“Am I talking too much?” she said, to his surprise.
“No! I’m asking too many questions.”
“Then let me ask some of you.”
Dik had little enthusiasm for himself, and did not have much to say. He told her about the degree-course he had been offered, but he was uncertain of what might have followed that. He nurtured secret ambitions to write—and probably to write a book like The Affirmation—but he would never reveal that to Moylita Kaine.
There was only one thing he had left to say to her, and that was something else he would never volunteer, even though he hugged its secret to himself like a beloved animal. The question that would have released it did not seem to be forthcoming, so Dik moved away from the desk-top and stood up.
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