A Jest of God

by Margaret Laurence

  Mother wouldn’t. That is certain. Even if she could bring herself to, which she couldn’t, she wouldn’t be able to. Physically, she’s not up to it.

  It can’t be borne. I can’t see any way it could be.

  It can’t be ended, either. I don’t know where to go.

  I don’t exactly know when I bought this. Perhaps a week ago. I don’t recall details well, these days. I put it in the top part of my cupboard. I take it down now, the known brand of whisky, and then I see I haven’t a glass.

  Mother is sleeping. I can tell from the way she is breathing. The bathroom glass is blue plastic. Her sleeping capsules are on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet. Quietly, quietly, Rachel. There. Everything necessary is here, gathered together in my own room.

  How many? As many as possible in order not to take any chances. She’s had a new lot only last week from Doctor Raven, so the bottle is nearly full. It isn’t necessary to count them.

  I pour the brown fluid into the blue plastic tumbler, and juggle a little while with the blue and crimson capsules, rolling them in my hands. They are incredibly small. They take up practically no room at all. And then I find I’ve counted them, despite myself. There are fourteen.

  Enough?

  One is enough for a night, so surely these will be all right, with the other. I swallow some of the whisky. I thought I would hate it, straight, but I don’t. It is like swallowing flame which burns for a second only and then consoles. It’s all right. It’s going to be all right. There is nothing to be afraid of.

  Actually, it is very simple. Anyone could get down a few capsules – this shouldn’t be difficult in the slightest. And this liquid – anyone can open their throat and drink, if they’ve decided to. Firewater. This makes me want to laugh. The Indians, or so we’re told, used to call it firewater. How accurate they were.

  Half the glass has gone down. But no capsules. That remains to be done. All right. One at a time. One. That’s the first. Thirteen to go. Unlucky number, but after the next it will only be twelve. Come on, Rachel. Only a little way to go, and then everything will be all right.

  Oh Christ.

  Time must have stopped for a time. What have I done? And now I see that what I’ve done is that I’ve taken the bottle of my mother’s barbiturates and have emptied the crucial and precious capsules out of my window, zanily, on to Hector Jonas’s trimmed lawn beneath. The whisky is not gone. It is still here. Something prevents my pouring out good whisky. I’m my father’s child, no doubt. Niall Cameron would have dropped dead at anyone who poured out a bottle of whisky. Let us give respect unto the dead. I turn the cap on to the bottle and put it again among the other relics in the highest cupboard.

  How can I have this lightness? It’s temporary, a reaction. It won’t last.

  At that moment, when I stopped, my mind wasn’t empty or paralysed. I had one clear and simple thought.

  They will all go on in some how, all of them, but I will be dead as stone and it will be too late then to change my mind.

  But nothing is changed now. Everything is no more possible than it was. Only one thing has changed – I’m left with it, with circumstances, whatever they may be. I can’t cope, and I can’t opt out. What will I do? What will become of me?

  The floorboards are splintered here, where the rug doesn’t reach, and their roughness makes me realize what I am doing. I don’t know why I should be doing this. It is both ludicrous and senseless. I do not know what to say, or to whom. Yet I am on my knees.

  I am not praying – if that is what I am doing – out of belief. Only out of need. Not faith, or belief, or the feeling of deserving anything. None of that seems to be so.

  Help me.

  Help – if You will – me. Whoever that may be. And whoever You are, or where. I am not clever. I am not as clever as I hiddenly thought I was. And I am not as stupid as I dreaded I might be. Were my apologies all a kind of monstrous self-pity? How many sores did I refuse to let heal?

  We seem to have fought for a long time, I and You.

  The ones who do not have anyone else, turn to You – don’t you think I know? All the nuts and oddballs turn to You. Last resort. Don’t you think I know?

  My God, I know how suspect You are. I know how suspect I am.

  If You have spoken, I am not aware of having heard. If You have a voice, it is not comprehensible to me. No omens. No burning bush, no pillar of sand by day or pillar of flame by night.

  I don’t know what I’ve done. I’ve been demented, probably. I know what I am going to do, though.

  Look – it’s my child, mine. And so I will have it. I will have it because I want it and because I cannot do anything else.

  TEN

  I can’t go to the doctor’s. He’ll ask about things that are none of his concern. “Have you told the man, Rachel? Would he be willing to marry you?” Or else he’ll say, “It’s going to be a pretty bad shock for your mother, Rachel, and with that heart of hers –”

  Mother’s heart. I’ve only just thought of that. What if my telling her did actually bring on another of her attacks? It would be my fault. If it was fatal, it would be all my fault. I can’t. I can’t tell her, or Doctor Raven, or anyone. I’ll have to go away.

  I can’t go away with no explanation. That would be impossible. Anyway, where? I have to get away. Where am I going to go? Stacey’s? No, not there, not ever.

  I won’t be able to work, at least not as a teacher, once it shows. What will I do for money? I can’t see how I will be able to live.

  There is only one thing to do, and that’s for me to get rid of it. By myself. No one will know, then. I was out of my mind to think I could have it. There’s only one thing to be done.

  How? A knitting needle? That’s the favoured traditional way. Nobody knits, here. I’d have to buy a set for the purpose. How odd. Or a straightened wire coat-hanger? When I think of performing it, my flesh recoils as though hurt already. And if it all goes wrong, what then? Who would be there, to do anything? I wouldn’t only have killed the creature – I’d have killed myself as well. Barbiturates would have been kinder, if that’s what I’m really after. What am I really after?

  – She is in the bathroom, and the door is locked, and she cannot cry out. The pain distends her; she is swollen with it. Pain is the only existing thing. On the floor, all over, and all over herself, lying in it, and even on her hair, the blood.

  No, I won’t. That I cannot do. I refuse.

  Maybe it wouldn’t happen that way. It would, though. What do I know of my own anatomy? What I need is a good book. Do-it-yourself. How to be an angel-maker in one easy lesson. Oh Christ, it’s almost funny, isn’t it? Isn’t it?

  Steady, Rachel. There is no time for letting go. Not now. You’ve got to do something. If I were very careful, perhaps it would be all right. How could anyone be calculatedly careful about a thing like that? They’re surprisingly difficult to kill. I’ve read that. No delicate probing would ever dislodge it.

  Dislodge. It is lodged there now.

  Lodged, meaning it is living there. How incredible that seems. I’ve given it houseroom. It’s growing there, by itself. It’s got everything it needs, for now. I wonder if it is a girl or a son.

  – She is conscious. She has refused anaesthetics because they sometimes (she has read) damage the child. She sees the boy at the moment of his birth. He has black hair, and his eyes are faintly slanted, like Nick’s.

  I am not going to lose it. It is mine. I have a right to it. That is the only thing I know with any certainty.

  But where will I go? What will I do? The same questions, over and over, and never any answers. If only I could talk to somebody.

  Nick – listen –

  No. Don’t do that, Rachel. Everything only hurts more than before, when you leave off talking to him and acknowledge that he hasn’t heard. I have to speak aloud to someone. I have to. But I don’t know anyone.

  Yes, I do. Only one person. And I’ve avoided her, gone to see her onl
y rarely and only out of conscience, all of which she knows. Since school began again, I’ve hardly spoken to her. She doesn’t drop into my classroom any more, bringing potted plants or the other quirky gifts she used to place on my desk – once it was a tin tea-canister with scenes of New York, that she’d got free with detergent and thought I might like. Now she knows I don’t want them, so she stays away. Yet she’s the only one I can think of.

  “Are you going out, Rachel?” Mother says.

  “Yes. But only for an hour. To Calla’s.”

  “You won’t be gone long, will you, dear?”

  “No. Not long. I promise.”

  “That’s all right, then, dear.”

  She sighs a little, as though relieved. She believes me because she must, I guess. If I came back late a thousand nights, I now see, and then told her I’d only be away an hour, she’d still believe me. As I leave, she looks at me trustingly, like a child.

  Calla has painted the outside door of her apartment. I marvel that they allowed her to, whoever they might be. I’d never try, anticipating someone’s refusal. The door is quite a mild lilac, but in this warren of cream and beige doors, it makes its presence known. She’d do it and ask afterwards. I wish I were like that.

  “Rachel – well, hello. Come on in.”

  I don’t know what to say to her. She takes my coat, fusses me to a chair, slaps on the kettle for coffee. She is still in her teacher clothes – navy blue skirt which makes her hips and rump look like oxen’s, and a green long-sleeved smock that bears dashes and smears of poster paints.

  “I haven’t even changed yet,” she says. “I’ve just been – Rachel, what’s the matter?”

  “Why should you think there’s anything the matter?”

  “Only that you look like death warmed over, that’s all. Honey, what is it?”

  “I – wanted to tell you. I wanted to tell you – but now I don’t believe I can.”

  “Rachel, listen –” Calla is standing beside me, and her voice compels me to look at her. Her face looks as though she were trying very hard to get something across, to explain in words of genuine simplicity to someone who might find everything difficult to comprehend. “I don’t know what it is, and if you don’t want to say, then okay. But if you want to say, then I’ll listen, whatever it is. And whatever it is, if you need to get away sometimes, you can always come here. I won’t ask any questions.”

  “How can you say that? Wouldn’t you make any conditions?”

  “You mean, what would I ask from you? I don’t know. I hope I wouldn’t ask anything. But I can’t guarantee. I’d try – that’s all.”

  “Whatever it was, with me, even if it was something you hated? I could still come here?”

  “I guess I can’t promise. You have to gamble on where the limits are. I don’t know where they are.”

  “Calla –”

  “Honey, it’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right. Okay – so go ahead and cry. It’s fine. It doesn’t matter. Here – have a Kleenex.”

  Then, finally, I’m sufficiently restored to myself. She hands me a lighted cigarette and brings coffee.

  “What if I was pregnant, Calla?”

  She doesn’t reply for a moment, as though she were considering carefully what to say.

  “Staying in Manawaka wouldn’t be a very good thing, but you might have to, until after, when you could get organized,” she says. “If your mother couldn’t take it, the only thing to do, probably, would be to find a housekeeper for her so she could stay where she is. You could move in here, if you wanted. Or if you wanted to move away entirely, beforehand – well, there isn’t any particular reason why I couldn’t move, if you wanted someone by you. It might be kind of a strain on your finances for a time, but I don’t think you need to worry all that much. We could manage. As for the baby, well, my Lord, I’ve looked after many a kid before.”

  She halts abruptly. When she begins again, her voice is different, subdued.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have said any of that, should I? You think you’re not asking anything of someone, and then it appears you’re asking everything. To take over. I didn’t mean to.”

  “It’s all right. I know.”

  “I don’t know what I can say or offer to do. Nothing much, I guess. Except that I’m here, and you’ll know, yourself, what you need to ask.”

  “Calla –”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t know – I want to thank you, but –”

  “Don’t bother,” she interrupts. “It’s for nothing. I’ve got a collection of motives like a kaleidoscope – click! and they all look different. Would you like a drink, child? I’ve got some wine. It’s foul, but it’s better than nothing.”

  She doesn’t realize that she has called me child once more.

  “No, thanks. I don’t think so.”

  She looks at me, trying not to appear worried.

  “Are you going to be all right, Rachel?”

  If I’d been asked that, yesterday, I wouldn’t have known. Maybe even an hour ago I wouldn’t have known.

  “Yes. I’m going to be all right.”

  Maybe she’ll pray for me, and maybe, even, I could do with that. But she hasn’t said so, and she won’t, and that is an act of great tact and restraint on her part.

  My mother’s tricky heart will just have to take its own chances.

  The waiting room is full of people, and I sit edgily, tucking my cotton dress around my knees, edging away from the stout-skirted mother bidding a spectacled five-year-old to behave himself and shush. We are waiting to be called for examination, as though this were death’s immigration office and Doctor Raven some deputy angel allotted to the job of the initial sorting out of sheep and goats, the happy sheep permitted to colonize Heaven, the wayward goats sent to trample their cloven hoofprints all over Hell’s acres. What visa and verdict will he give to me? I know the country I’m bound for, but I don’t know its name unless it’s limbo.

  Rachel, shut up. Shut up inside your skull. Yes, I am, that’s it. Oh, stop this nonsense.

  Death’s immigration office indeed. You have to watch against this sort of thing. Is it madness, though? That bleak celestial sortinghouse, and the immigrants’ numb patience, all of us waiting with stupefied humbleness to have our fates announced to us, knowing there will never be any possibility of argument or appeal – it seems more actual than this deceptively seeable room with red leatherette chairs and a cornucopia of richly shiny magazines spilling out across the narrow table, and an aquarium of tropical fish, striped and silvered, fins fluttering like thin wet silks around the green and slowly salaaming reeds and weeds of this small sea.

  “Miss Cameron – in here, please.”

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  And I’ve drawn together my tallness and loped through the waiting room, sidestepping chairs and outstretched feet, an ostrich walking with extreme care through some formal garden. Rachel, hush. Hush, child. Steady. It’s all right. It’s going to be all right.

  I can’t tell him. I can’t be examined. I have to leave, right now. I’ll just have to make some excuse. Say I’m not feeling well. That would be splendid, wouldn’t it? To rush out of a doctor’s office because you weren’t feeling well.

  “Hello, Rachel. It’s for yourself, this time?”

  We’ve had so many dealings, Doctor Raven and myself – mother’s heart, my persistent winter headcolds, the bowels and bones of both, the inability to sleep, the migraine and dyspepsia, all the admittable woes of the flesh. This is a new one I’m bringing now.

  “Yes.”

  “Sit down, my dear.” He looks at me from his old eyes, still competent and able to appraise. “What’s the trouble? Not the bronchitis again, I hope?”

  “No. I – I’ve missed my period this month.”

  I sit here, waiting once more, waiting for him to speak. “It’s none of my business, Rachel dear, but I’ve known your family for a long time, and as a doctor I
have to ask –” What will I say?

  “Well,” Doctor Raven is saying in his comfortable and comforting voice, “at least we know there’s no question of one thing, anyway, with a sensible girl like yourself. That at least can be ruled out, eh? Can’t say the same for them all, I’m afraid.”

  I can’t believe he’s saying it, and yet it’s only too easy to believe. No words for my anger could ever be foul or wounding enough, against him, for what he’s saying. I could slash gouges out of his seemly face with my nails. I could hurl at him a voice as berserk as any car crash.

  I sit on the chair opposite his desk and I do not say anything. I see now that when he discovers what it is, with me, he won’t be able to stop himself expressing the same feelings as my mother will. Subdued, maybe, but the same. What right has he? He’s my doctor, not my father or judge. The hell with him. And yet I’m inheld so tightly now that I don’t see how I can consent to any examination.

  “Don’t worry,” Doctor Raven says. “I know what you’re worried about.”

  I strain to meet his eyes. “You do?”