Briefing for a Descent Into Hell

by Doris Lessing

  Yet, Frederick said, if you judge a society by harmony, responsibility towards its members, and lack of aggression towards neighbours it was a society on a high level indeed. And—and this was the place where Frederick was hit—it was a society more integrated with Nature than any he could remember, and for Africa that is saying a great deal. Not only did this tribe’s life centre on the flooding and subsidence of the river, but it was very highly ritualised around the seasons, the winds, the sun, the moon, the earth. But in conventional anthropology it is tantamount to saying that a society is barbaric, backward, to say that it is animistic, or bound with nature.

  Frederick left this place deeply perturbed. Visiting this tribe, and the thoughts he had had as a result, struck at his confidence as an archeologist—that was how he experienced it. That he had the equivalent of a religious person’s “doubts,” and it was necessary to dismiss them before going on. The chief thought was that our society was dominated by things, artefacts, possessions, machines, objects, and that we judged previous societies by artefacts—things. There was no way of knowing an ancient society’s ideas except through the barrier of our own.

  This experience’s effect on him he decided was “unhealthy” and “morbid.”

  I am sure you will have gathered by now that Frederick is and always was a man of great vitality, assurance, and has never been one to be afraid to voice opinions, take sides—assert himself.

  If he had been less self-confident, probably the effect of that visit in Africa would have been much less.

  However, he overcame his temporary loss of spirits, and started his lectures on Greece, which he had to abandon because of his first attack of stammering.

  To come to the period just before he and I met outside the gates of London University.

  There was a small, apparently minor incident … he was visiting an old colleague, who was engaged in an excavation in Wiltshire. He had stayed the night in a local inn, and had walked over next morning to visit his old friend. It was mid-morning and the work was in full swing. The professor himself, half a dozen amateurs there for the love of it, and two archeological students. A trench loosely filled with rubble had been exposed. The professor was unaware that Frederick was there. He was saying that the type of trench indicated that the foundations were for a stone building—the stones that had been keyed in to the stony rubble having been taken away for other later building. At which one of the students timidly piped up that he had recently been in Africa and had observed that in a village he was visiting, the people were making a hut of poles, mud plaster and thatch. The first stage of this was to dig a trench, the second being to stand the poles of the future walls in the trench, the third being to pack stony rubble around the poles. The professor did not comment on this. He walked away and Frederick followed him and announced himself. The professor took Frederick around the site and when he came to the trench filled with the rubble he said: “In my opinion this is the foundation of a wood and not a stone building, after all, certain primitive people did start wood huts by …” and etc. and so on. But if there had been no student back from a jaunt to Africa, the professorial voice would have announced with total authority that this building must have been of stone. And this was how the emphatic pronouncements of archeology are arrived at. It was this minor incident that made Frederick remember certain disquiets he had suffered last summer in Turkey. If “disquiet” is the right word for it.

  All through the summer in Turkey he was thinking of his visit to the river-dominated society in Africa more than ten years before. He could not shake off the memory of it, although the two places had so little in common, one being under water for months of the year, the other being so high, dry and exposed. He could not shake off thoughts about the bases of modern archeology, which usually he just accepts as not more than nuisances no one can do anything about. Particularly about finance—that the financing of an excavation was always the key to it, and particularly whether it took place at all. Certain people got money easier than others. Some people couldn’t get money at all, or only with great difficulty. Some countries were easy money-extractors, others not. Countries had runs of popularity, were in vogue for a while, then went “out,” like styles in dress. He, Frederick, had been working on that particular site and not one he wanted to work on, because he had been able to get money for that site from an American source—a museum short of a certain kind of artefact which was known to be freely available on that site.

  Certain ideas were accepted, sometimes for decades or centuries, dominating archeology; suddenly they were doubted. That “Greece was the mother of Western civilization and Rome its daddy” directed archeology and excavation for a long time—yet he, Frederick, would be able to make out a case that the Arabs, Moors and Saracens were parents to “Western” civilisation, sources of its ideas, its literature, its science, a case based on the same kind of evidence that made us legitimate heirs to Greece and Rome … this case wouldn’t necessarily be more true, but its bases would be as powerful.

  Throughout the summer he amused himself by concocting, one after another, papers describing the civilisation he was unearthing from the point of view of civilisations not ours—Roman, Greek, Aztec, etc., and so on. With his tongue in his cheek he framed various versions of the paper that he would probably publish about his work of the summer.

  This paper would begin, or end, with the ritual sentence that of course the conclusions drawn were tentative due to lack of knowledge, lack of money, lack of time, and because only a fraction of this level of the site had been excavated, let alone all the levels beneath. But this bone having been tossed to the dogs of doubt, all else would be assertion and statement. The paper would draw the fire of opposing professors schools and theories. Textbooks for universities and schools would result. These would contain statements like: Writing was not discovered in the Middle East until 2,000 B.C. The Sumerians believed so and so. The astronomers of the Akkadians believed such and such. The Egyptians mummified their priest-kings because they wanted the corpses to last a long time. The world was created by God 4000 years ago. That African civilisations prior to the coming of the white man were nonexistent/barbaric/plentiful/backward/sparse/or whatever was the current notion. And so on. Frederick left Turkey in a disturbed frame of mind which he associated with his previous state of mind after his African visit. It so happened that he chanced on a book describing a Victorian clergyman’s crisis of Doubt over the existence of God. The clergyman’s character struck Frederick as being similar to his own: energetic, and confident. The man had been upset by Doubts about the exact date of the creation of the world by God. His state of mind was very like Frederick’s as he read. He was on the point of deciding that it was his moral duty to leave the Church, as he could not with honesty remain in it, when his tenth child, a girl, became engaged to a clergyman. This was a very good and by then despaired-of match, as the girl was an old maid, being nearly thirty. The father knew the girl would not keep this man, if he, the father, aired his Doubts and left the Church. For if he left the Church there would be a family-engulfing scandal and the daughter’s fiancé was a conventional man with a future to guard. The father’s crisis now became a nice exercise in balancing responsibilities: his conscience, or his daughter’s future. With much anguish, he put off his leaving the Church until his daughter was wed. This meant he had to go through marrying (personally officiating) his daughter to the clergyman son-in-law with his mind full of Doubts. But when he examined his conscience after the ceremony he found his Doubts much less. As if the act of going through the ceremony had relieved them. “It was my love for my poor Daughter; my fears for her comfortless future; my anguish of mind that my own misery and confusion should poison Others—it was these that had caused me to act, as I then believed, Dishonestly. Thanks be to God in His Great Mercy that he led me, through my Valley of the Shadow, back to Himself …”

  In short, that Victorian crisis was over. Frederick was left with two thoughts. One, that this frig
htful, painful, and very real conflict had taken place about a hundred years ago, which was nothing at all, even in human time. It had been a very common conflict indeed. Some of the best Victorian minds had suffered torment, even collapse. Careers had been ruined, families destroyed, lives laid waste. But by even a few decades later these Doubts looked ludicrous. (In religious terms, Doubts looked ludicrous, for in our time Crises of Doubt are experienced most noticeably in the political context.) The second thought was—that his state of mind after the African visit, his state of mind due to visiting the Turkey site, were identical with that of the Victorian clergyman in his religious conflict. But the Victorian had not had the benefit of modern psychology. (Though he could have remembered that the hand of the dyer is subdued to his craft.) There was, however, no excuse at all for him, Frederick, not to take a cool look at what was bothering him, which was nothing less, unfortunately, than Profound Doubts about what was going on in Archeology, Doubts about its bases, premises, methods and above all, its unconscious biases.

  If he were to do what that poor Victorian had done, he should accept the job in the Sudan, on the grounds that if he did not, his wife would have to go without a pleasure cruise to Madeira, on which she had set her heart, and it was not fair to make her suffer for his crisis of confidence. But if he did this, since the Mind of the Worker is conditioned by his Work, he would have soon forgotten all about his Doubts, which would begin to look silly and unhealthy. Luckily Frederick’s wife is a sensible woman whose attitude towards archeology has always tended to be that it made for attractive holidays for herself and the children, and all she said to Frederick was that she could hardly complain about not going to Madeira when she had been able to get about so much. She went off to stay with a friend in Spain who has a villa, leaving Frederick in London.

  And now for an interesting psychological fact … in an account which I hope you’ll agree is not short of them. Frederick forgot all about his Doubts that resulted from the African visit—this is not surprising since it happened a decade ago. But he also forgot his Doubts of last year after the Turkey excavations. Forgot completely, until just recently, after his visit to Wiltshire, when he made a deliberate effort to remember things he might have buried because they were painful. He then slid into a Euphoric, or Male Menopausal, or Manic Depressive (pay your penny and take your choice!) state of mind which he enjoyed enormously. If enjoyment is the word for such a bonus. He walked about London, and amused himself by going to museums and looking at pots and spears and stones and things and inventing theories as powerful and as convincing as currently accepted ones, about previous societies. And so now I’ve reached the end of what I agreed to write and tell you. If what I have said doesn’t mean anything to you, then I have made a mistake, but I do find that hard to believe. I don’t know why it is, but I am sure you will understand. Would you like to come and see me next time you are in London? I would be delighted, and so would Frederick and the others.

  Incidentally, about Frederick’s stammer, in case this is of any use to you, he has cured it by letting the “parallel stream” of ideas, or words, that inhibited him from saying the usual things, come out: he listens and then voices it. Aloud. Either to himself, into a tape recorder, or to me. The results are surprising.…

  I do look forward to hearing from you,

  Sincerely yours,

  ROSEMARY BAINES

  DEAR MISS BAINES,

  I don’t know when I have felt so flattered. What a large result from what I am afraid I have to tell you was nothing but a routine occurrence for me. For my sins I give quite a number of lectures outside my own field. My wife says that I have too much energy for my own good. Perhaps she is right. The remarks which struck you so disproportionately—if I may be so frank!—I am afraid are one of my stock ploys. When I run dry or run out of breath, I have a few old standbys to get me started again. Yes of course I do feel that education is not what it ought to be. But few of us do not. I suppose I have to admit that what was once a crusade, a bit of a bee in the bonnet, has cooled rather. As regards your kind remarks about stammering, I am extremely grateful, of course. I have recently been overworking, or so the doctor tells me, and I developed a tendency to stammer. But I don’t seem to remember doing so at that lecture. But you appear to remember it all in such very remarkable detail. Perhaps my making a joke about stammering had a prophylactic effect? I have found this to be the case. As regards Frederick Larson, I do seem to know the name, but that is all. I take his word for it that we have met. I think he is making too much of the stammering. Mine was relieved by remembering to speak very slowly and carefully, particularly when tired, and above all, by not forgetting to take the doctor’s pills. I am sorry I have to disappoint you in replying so churlishly to your quite extraordinarily lengthy letter. But alas, I have not yet retired, with my time to myself. Which must be my excuse for not accepting your extraordinarily kind invitation to meet you and Mr. Larson. I am very seldom in London and when I am my time is taken up with interviews and visits in connection with my work.

  Yours truly,

  CHARLES WATKINS

  DEAR DOCTOR Y,

  Professor Watkins came to consult me in the spring of this year, in connection with stammering. I prescribed Librium and a holiday. I also gave him the address of a speech therapist, when the stammering did not stop. He has been on my books for five years. I took this practice over in 1964. He has not been ill in that time, except for influenza last year. He seemed to me to be in pretty good physical shape in March. He said he had lost weight. When I got your letter I asked his wife to come in and see me. I know her rather better than I know him, because I attend the children. She doesn’t seem able to throw much light. But in her interests, I suggest she see her husband pretty soon. Of course I am only that old-fashioned thing, a family doctor, and I don’t know as much as I should about mental health. But Mrs. Watkins is under heavy strain.

  Yours sincerely,

  DOCTOR Z

  Hello Charles.

  You are …

  I’m your wife.

  Would you like to sit down?...........................................

  ......................................................................................

  I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say.

  But Charles it isn’t possible that you don’t know me?

  I’m sorry.

  But I just can’t …

  Then Felicity …

  How do you know my name is Felicity?

  They told me. They said you might come today.

  You didn’t ask to see me then?

  No………………………………….

  Charles you sit there and you tell me … oh, no, I just can’t believe it. Oh, I’m so sorry.

  Tell me then?

  Tell you what?

  For instance, how long have we been married?

  Fifteen years.

  ……………………………………………………………………

  ………………………………………………………………………

  The doctor says he has had other cases. I’m not the first, by a long chalk. Why are you laughing?

  You always say that, just like that, “by a long chalk.”

  Do I?………………………………………………………………

  ………………………………………………………………………

  When they told me you were coming, I hoped that if I saw you I’d remember …

  And you don’t?

  No. You’re so angry. I didn’t expect you to be angry.

  Angry? Of course I’m not angry. What a funny thing to say. It’s not your fault you’ve lost your memory. It happens to people. I’m very sorry for you. I really am.

  No, you are angry.

  Well, if I were angry … it’s so like you Charles. All the time, since I knew you had lost your memory I couldn’t help thinking, That’s so like Charles.
>
  But why is it? Have I lost my memory before?

  No. Well, not so far as I know. You never told me, if so. But you don’t tell me things, do you?

  There, I said you were angry.

  Oh no, now I’m in the wrong again. I simply can’t believe………………………………………………………………

  ………………………………………………………………………

  Don’t cry.

  We’ve lived together for fifteen years. Fifteen years, Charles.

  I’m sorry. I’m really very sorry, Felicity. And now you are angrier still.