Briefing for a Descent Into Hell

by Doris Lessing

  I’m not angry but I can’t help crying. Wouldn’t you?

  Please go. You must go away. I don’t know you, you see, Felicity.

  Patient was visited by his wife today. Visit terminated at patient’s request.

  Wife hysterical subject, better kept away from patient for the time being, in my opinion.

  DOCTOR X.

  Doctor X, I simply have to see you.

  Ah, Mrs. Watkins, I thought you had gone back home. Well, sit down, I’m very pleased to see you. Now, what can I do for you?

  What can you do for me! Doctor X, he’s been here now nearly two months.

  Yes, I’m afraid he has. But he is better, we think.

  How do you judge betterness, then? How? You say he didn’t know who he was when he came in here. And he still doesn’t. So why is he better?

  He’s better in himself. More rested.

  Rested? Was he ill when he came in?

  No, he didn’t have flu, or bronchitis.

  I know I am very stupid Doctor. I know that. But it doesn’t help me when you are sarcastic. You say he is better. But I’ve never seen him look so awful. Never. He’s so thin. And he seems shaky and weak.

  It is very understandable that you are upset.

  Oh thanks. Thanks very much.

  Look at it from our point of view. Your husband was brought in here nearly two months ago, by the police, in a state of shock, having been robbed, without papers, money, or knowledge of who he was. He was talking to himself, hallucinated, he had religious delusions and he was paranoiac. We did what we could to get him better, that’s all.

  And you say he is better?

  In my opinion he is better.

  Can I see Doctor Y?

  Certainly, but he isn’t here today.

  He wasn’t here yesterday either. He wrote to me about my husband, you see.

  He does two days a week at another hospital.

  When will he be here?

  Tomorrow.

  Can I see him then?

  Certainly. Tell the office on your way out that you will be back tomorrow, and ask them to make an appointment.

  Oh please don’t think that I want to be rude, Doctor, I don’t.

  Not at all. We are quite used to it Mrs. Watkins.

  Oh Doctor Y, I stayed over in town to see you.

  And I’m very pleased that you did. How do you think your husband is?

  How do I know? How can I tell? Oh, I think he looks awful, awful … I don’t see how it is possible!

  Oh, believe me, it happens.

  No, no, I don’t mean that. That people don’t lose their memories. But … are you married, Doctor?

  Yes, I am.

  How long have you been married?

  Nine years. No, ten.

  Imagine you walk into your bedroom tonight when you go home, and your wife is there, and she looks at you and talks exactly as she always does and then suddenly she says she doesn’t know who you are.

  Yes, Mrs. Watkins, I have tried to imagine it happening. I really have tried.

  But … I’m not complaining about that. I don’t seem to be able to make myself understood. It is this—how can you say he has lost his memory then?

  Now I don’t understand … cigarette? They are bringing some tea in a minute.

  If he has lost his memory, then why does he speak as he always speaks. The same phrases. Everything the same.

  Ah, now I understand.

  If he had lost his memory, if he really didn’t know who he was, then he’d be like a—newborn baby.

  In some respects I’m afraid that he is.

  No, I don’t think he is. If what he was before is cancelled out—washed away, then he might just as well come back to us as—oh I don’t know, a South Sea Islander, or a German or a man from Mars or something.

  I see your point. I do, really. Ah, here is the tea.

  Thank you. So it isn’t that he has lost his memory. He is still who he was. He just doesn’t remember—me. And the children.

  He says he doesn’t remember anything at all. Not his childhood. Nor his parents. Nothing.

  Yet, Doctor Y, when you say to him, Do you remember your childhood, he says, No, I don’t remember my childhood. He doesn’t say—oh I don’t know, Gobbledegook, or Worra worra worra worra. Oh I wasn’t making a joke, I assure you. I’m very far from making jokes. Oh, God, I know it is stupid to cry.

  Mrs. Watkins, would you like to see him again—that is, if he agrees. It might help.

  If who agrees?

  Yes, I do see your point. But don’t you see, I’m as much in the dark as you are. More. You know him well and I don’t. If you talked to him again, let him get used to—and don’t mind my saying this, if you try not to cry …

  Doctor, I took his hand, and he’s my husband, remember, and he looked as if—he looked like a man that a woman is flirting with and he’s not sure he likes it.

  Look, my dear. I’m going to make a suggestion. You have another cup of tea and a cigarette. Wash your face—there’s a washbasin in there. I’m going to ask him to talk to you again. But don’t come in if you can’t stop yourself crying. Do you understand why? If you are very emotional, it may have the effect of blocking him—try and be easy and relaxed, and things may come back.

  I’ll try, doctor.

  Well, Charles, I talked to Doctor Y.

  Yes.

  I like him.

  I can see him.

  See him?

  Some you can’t see at all.

  Oh, yes………………………………………………………………………

  I didn’t understand that, it’s no good pretending I did. But I want to ask you something. This is hard for me Charles. Please don’t be angry.…

  I don’t think I’ve felt anger yet. I haven’t felt. But I can see emotions on your face and on the faces of the doctors and nurses.

  But you asked me to go away. What did you feel then?

  I felt, not that all over again, not that again.

  What?

  You asked me what I felt. That is what I felt—if that is feeling. I didn’t want that. I don’t want that, you see.

  Now Charles, I’m very calm, and I’m not crying at all. But I want you to look at me, and answer me. When you see me sitting here, am I just the same to you as—oh I don’t know, the nurses, or the doctors?

  The same?

  I mean, don’t you know me any better?

  I know you, I know you very well.

  You do—oh, then.…

  I know them too. Looking is knowing.

  Oh, I see.

  You are all very …

  Very what?

  You are all so—large. Very bright. Very hot and bright.

  You press on my eyeballs. You press into my eyes. It is too much.

  Are you afraid of me, Charles?

  Your anger …

  Charles, when you say you don’t remember anything, do you mean that? Not me, nor your children, nor your home?…………………………Not your mother and your father? You were fond of your father, Charles, very fond, don’t you remember?………………………

  My mind is full of memories,

  Oh you do—but the doctors say …

  I don’t remember the things you talk about.

  What do you remember then?…………………………Charles?…………………You don’t answer … Tell me, what you remember might link up somewhere with the truth.

  Truth is a funny word, isn’t it?

  Oh, Charles, you never used to be philosophical!

  Philosophical? What’s …

  Why is it that some words you know quite well, and others you look blank?

  I’ll tell you, if you like. Some words—match. A word falls out of your mouth and matches with something I know. Other words don’t fit in with what I can see.

  But what do you see? Charles? Tell me?………….

  Felicity—you talk to me. Tell me what you think. Tell me w
hat you know. You are my wife? Well then, tell me about that.

  Charles! Very well, then. I’ll try. We were married in London, Kensington Registry Office. In February. It was 1954. It was a very cold day. Then … we went to a farm in Wales for our honeymoon. We didn’t have very much money. We were there for three weeks. We were very happy … Charles? Shall I go on? We went to a flat in Cambridge after that. Later we got a house. I started with Jimmy in Wales. Jimmy is our elder son. We have been very happy.

  Why are you so much younger than I am?

  But … well, you fell in love with me, Charles.

  And I’m not surprised.

  Charles, for God’s sake, don’t flirt with me, I can’t stand it. I’m your wife.

  I’m sorry.

  You were worried, you said fifteen years was too much. But I said nonsense, and I was right, it hasn’t made any difference at all. I was one of your students.

  Oh yes, they keep telling me I teach. Teach. That’s a funny word …

  Do you want me to go on?……………………………………………………I think I’ll go now, if you don’t mind, Charles. Do you want me to come back? I don’t mean tomorrow, because Aunt Rose is with the boys and she has to go back to stay with Aunt Anna, because Aunt Anna isn’t very well, she has her bronchitis back again, and of course I can’t leave the boys alone, but I could come back in four or five days if I can get Mrs. Spence to come and stay a couple of days.… I’ll ring the Doctor. Goodbye Charles.

  Mrs. Watkins spent an hour with patient today. She says he did not remember her at all. In my view the visit was helpful to patient and should be repeated soon.

  DOCTOR Y.

  I disagree. E.C.T. should be attempted.

  DOCTOR X.

  Patient had a very disturbed night with recurrence of hallucinations. Have put him back on Equanil.

  DOCTOR Y.

  DEAR DOCTOR Y,

  You asked me in your first letter if I could remember anything at all in my marriage that seemed to me strange at the time. I don’t think I know any longer what strange is—not after seeing Charles in this state. But I’m sending you, after lying awake all night to think it over carefully, the first letter my husband sent me. I did think it very strange then, because he had not said anything about loving me before, although I had been his pupil for seven and a half months. I was only eighteen then. I didn’t think it was strange later, when I agreed to marry him, but perhaps I had got used to him. I don’t know if you would think it a strange letter. The circumstances of the letter were that I had never thought of him like that. I admired him very much of course. One afternoon after a class he took me to tea and he talked. I thought his manner was rather strange, but then falling in love is strange. When I got his letter I didn’t know what to think, particularly as I began to be so happy and proud. And then later, when we agreed to marry, I forgot about thinking him strange, and even now I don’t know what to think. Please send me the letter back when you have read it. It is one of my most precious possessions.

  Yours sincerely,

  FELICITY WATKINS

  Oh my God Felicity, I haven’t slept since I saw you—Yesterday?—I don’t know—I keep seeing your face—your hair is too bright for my eyes. It was your hair first—I always look for your head shining in the dark class—You are a light in a naughty world—yes and it is enough to look—touching too?—That would be too much joy—And yet if I can look touching could be too—for both of us?—How dare I think it—and yet yesterday with you I knew differently—you too—I didn’t sleep—I am old Felicity—thirty-five. You, eighteen? A baby! But girls have no age—they shine in dark corners—if you could—I keep thinking of you in a big forest somewhere with the sunlight coming down through branches and you and your bright shining head and you smiling at me—smiling—will you?—oh I don’t know if—I wonder if I will post this at all—it is one thing sitting here putting words on a paper and your thoughts rushing by fifty at least to a word—so what is the use of sending it if I can’t send the thoughts—one in fifty—so much diluted—is it worth your attention even?—I wonder—you could take the word for the—I love you. Yes, that is it, I know—you would never keep me a pig in your pen—no, I’m sure. She had bright yellow hair and blue eyes too, she must have had—but it is the soul that counts. Not like that dark one, black hair and white teeth and red lips—those are the colours for pig-keepers. And in war time too—The light and the dark of it. But the yellow-hair locked him in her pen and fed him husks. Later a fatted calf? But I don’t dare—Yes. Would you—I’ve never dared, I’ve been alone for fear of that. She died, and so could never lock me in her stye. Must I be afraid of you? Felicity Felicity Felicity Felicity—you have a name like bright sunlight to match your hair. If I see you smile tomorrow I’ll know. I love you. Felicity Felicity Felicity Felicity Felicity Felicity Felicity

  DEAR DOCTOR Y,

  I can’t say how distressed I am to hear that Charles Watkins is ill and in hospital in your care. Yes, of course I shall be only too glad to help in any way I can. As it happens I heard about his illness when I returned from Italy last night, and my wife telephoned Felicity Watkins.

  No, I don’t think that Charles showed any unusual signs of stress or strain this year but he is not the sort of person one would take much notice of, if he did overshoot any marks, but I cannot, I am afraid, explain that without going into considerable detail about our relationship. Which is not, far from it, that I am his “superior”—did Felicity Watkins say I was? If so, then I regard that as painfully and sadly significant—not because of Felicity but because of Charles. He is, and has been since he joined us, the “star” of our Classics Department, even when I was nominally over him, and in theory Head of Department. I hope that doesn’t sound like a criticism. Letters are tricky things, and I certainly would have preferred to talk it over with you, but the term starts tomorrow and, alas, needs must.

  I don’t know if this sort of comment is in any way helpful, but recently I sat down to write out an account of my own life, a sort of balance sheet. It seemed a useful thing to do, at the age of fifty, well past the halfway mark. But when I came to read it over, it was more about Charles Watkins than about myself. I have always been aware of the influence Charles has had on me, but not, perhaps, quite how much. Of course, all this sort of thing is beyond me, and particularly when it gets into deep waters with mental breakdowns, that sort of thing, but the essence of the thing from my point of view is this: that I have never liked Charles. I believe that I don’t admire him, or approve of him. Yet he has certainly been the biggest influence on my life.

  You ask about his early life.

  Our parents were friends. We were described by them as “great chums” almost from birth. I believe that Charles regards this as wryly as I do—and did then. We went to the same prep school. We were neither of us particularly distinguished. We stuck together out of homesickness—an alliance of mutual aid and defence, if you like. My view of that period does not coincide with Charles’ at all, as emerges rather painfully when we ever discuss it. Briefly, I think he was rather a con. But not deliberately or consciously. However, I’ll skip all that and choose a typical incident from Rugby where we both went together. The summer we were both sixteen our form master invited six of us for a summer’s yachting, based on the Isle of Wight. I was one of the six. The invitations were not “personal,” but issued every holidays on a sort of rota system, in quite a regular, fair way. This master was a kindly man, quite the best influence on my young life, and I daresay on Charles too. The reason why I was invited that holidays and Charles was not was simply that I was minimally older. Now, I had done a fair bit of yachting for various reasons, and my parents were better off than Charles’ parents. I knew he was not looking forward to going home that holidays, and for a variety of reasons. To cut it short, I suggested to the form master that Charles should go instead of me. Again, I must ask you to take it as read that it was not possible for Charles to remain imper
vious to the fact that this was a real sacrifice on my part. The form master was surprised and touched. No, that is not why I did it. It was just that, given the circumstances, Charles might have been expected to show a consciousness of some kind. When Wentworth told him I had backed down in his favour, Charles simply nodded. Wentworth was so surprised that he repeated what he had said—that I had offered to back down, and Charles said, Yes, thanks, I’d like to. I said nothing to him about it, when he did not mention it. Now, it was a particularly good summer, and I was stuck with a pretty boring crowd, and I am afraid I did spend far too much time thinking of that crowd down there, on the water, and of Charles’ quite extraordinary attitude. I never mentioned it. I could not bring myself to, for it stung so badly. Not until years after, after the war as a matter of fact. I said to him in so many words—perhaps I was hoping to take the sting out of the memory, what I had felt throughout that summer holidays. He looked at me and said: Well, there was no need to offer it, was there?

  And of course, there was not.

  I am sure that looks a very small thing and very petty, and it does me a great deal of discredit to mention it at all. But you did ask me to say what I thought and that “anything I could tell you might be helpful.”

  That incident sums up something in Charles for me.

  I must say at this point that our relations were formalised by the time we were nine in this way: Charles was the original eccentric oddball, and Jeremy was the solid dependable one. I’ve always played along with it. I’m stuck with it, as it were. But when I say to Charles and to others that what I admire is his originality and his daringness of thought, and so on, that is not the point at all. For in fact there is something too careless, almost sloppy, about his “originality.” I suppose he is a bit of an anarchist. Of course his experience has tended to make him one.

  His father was in business and did badly in the slump. Charles started work, while I went to University. He did every variety of job, and there was talk of his going off to the Spanish Civil War, but he didn’t. The war started and he joined up at once. I was flying throughout the war, and Charles was in infantry, and then with Tanks. We met once or twice. I knew a bit of what he was up to, through mutual friends. He refused a commission, more than once. This was so like him. I asked him why, and he began roaring with laughter and said he had refused to annoy people. I found it then, and find it now—affected. And unconvincing. I told him so. I could say that “this caused ill-feeling” but as I was about to write that, I realised that it might have caused ill-feeling in me, but I don’t think in Charles. We did not quarrel, though I’ll acknowledge that I would have liked to quarrel—at last.