“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 knewwhat I was doing here.”
“Yes,” Dik said, trying not to reveal the disappointment he felt. He had seen the leaflet setting out the writer-sponsorship scheme, and knew that visiting writers were commissioned to write drama for the communities they visited, but he had retained an irrational hope that Moylita Kaine would be somehow above that sort of thing. A play written about the village didn’t have quite the same appeal as a novel like The Affirmation. “Are you writing another novel, though?”
“I started one. I could finish it, but it wouldn’t be published . . . not until the war is over. There’s no paper available. A lot of saw-mills have been closed.”
He was staring at her, unable to look away. It was almost impossible 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 didn’t 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 woman who was here was speaking openly but ordinarily, she was friendly but somehow reserved.
His first impression of her appearance had been hasty, and partly the product of 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.”
“You’re paid well I hope!” 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?”
“I’d make it end tomorrow, if thinking it would do it. But you should know better than me. You’re a soldier, aren’t you?”
“A policeman. It’s the same thing, I suppose.”
“I suppose so too. Look, why don’t you come and stand here? You’ll be warmer.”
“I think I should be returning to the hostel. 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 this position he could see some of the words she had been typing on the paper, 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 be, 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 urge 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, except for the prestige and money they get because I’m here, and I haven’t been allowed to see anybody 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. “There aren’t many dramatic possibilities in trees and mountains.”
“Couldn’t you make something up?” 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 still a few 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 what we’re here for.”
“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 round our country, Dik. We’re imprisoned by it, but how many ordinary people have ever seen it? It’s what the war is about, and so for anyone writing today it’s a very 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 parts 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 tries to get across. Nothing much happens for most of the time. We’ve got warmways laid in the snow, to stop the ground freezing. In theory we can turn them off quickly in case the enemy tries to invade, but I don’t think that’s ever been done. Every now and then someone on the other side throws grena
des at us, and if they do we throw some back. Sometimes it doesn’t lead to anything, sometimes the fighting goes on for days.”
“Is it frightening?”
“Sometimes. It can be very boring.”
As he talked she was looking at him sympathetically, her hands resting lightly on the desk and idly fingering her typescript. “Do you know who built the wall, Dik?”
“They did.”
“Do you know that that’s what they say?” she said. “That we put up the wall?”
“That’s ridiculous. Why should we do that?”
“It’s what they say.” Dik was going to ask how she knew, but she went on: “ I’ve read their literature. Some of it has been smuggled in. They believe we put up the wall to prevent people from fleeing the country. They say 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 we, our government, are 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 venturing into his territory, 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 myself clear. The duplicity of Hilde, and her lies. When Orfe—”
“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 Orfe 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 slightly to one side as she did so, dangling her fingers before the fire to warm them. She was guarded at first, watching Dik’s response to her words, 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 that there was a wall in the novel, a figurative barrier that lay between Orfe 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 Orfe and then Hilde tried to draw the other closer, because each 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 Orfe, 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 about the human condition. Orfe’s final decision was a declaration of freedom; the wall fell as the book ended. It was too late for Orfe 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. I get carried away when I talk about my writing.”
“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, whether she had ever visited the Dream Archipelago where the story was set, how long the book had taken to write . . .
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! Fm asking too many questions.”
“Then let me ask some of you.”
Dik had little enthusiasm for himself, and answered in an uninterested voice. 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 to her, even though he hugged its secret to himself like a beloved animal. The question that would have let him tell her did not seem to be forthcoming, so Dik moved away from the desk-top and stood up.
“Can I come and see you again tomorrow?” he said.
“If you are able to.”
“I have another day’s leave. If you’re not too busy—”
“Dik, the government intends these residences to allow people like you to meet writers. Yes, please come again tomorrow . . . and bring some of your friends.”
“No . . .” Dik said. “Not unless they ask.”
“Won’t you tell them?”
“If you’d like me to.”
“They have been told I’m here, haven’t they?”
Dik remembered the announcement on the notice-board. “I think so.”
“You seem to have found out without any difficulty.” She looked suddenly at his copy of The Affirmation, which he had put under his arm again. “As a matter of interest, how did you know I was coming to the village?”
And just as he thought his secret would stay intact, she had come to it.
“I saw the scheme announced in the Police magazine,” he said. “Your name was there . . . and I wanted to meet you.”
He confessed all. The scheme was intended to encourage the arts during the emergency, and in theory was open to any community on or near the front line. Dik, lowliest constable—or so he imagined himself—in one of the lowliest platoons in the Border Police, felt that any request he made would be refused automatically, but seeing Miss Kaine’s name listed as a participant had encouraged him at least to try. His request to the platoon-serjeant must have reached the burghers, because a few weeks later a notice had appeared in the common-room, describing the scheme and asking for nominations. Dik, who sometimes felt he was the only constable who ever looked at the notice-board, had written Moylita Kaine’s name on the form, and, for good measure, had written it in three more times in different hands.
He hadn’t known it at the time, but an additional grant was paid to the administrators of the communities—in this case, the Counc
il of Burghers—and this unexpected way of receiving money and prestige was probably what had decided the burghers. Moylita Kaine as writer would be of no interest to them; any writer or artist would have been sufficient.
She listened to his account—half-proud, half-shy—smiling faintly.
“So it’s you I have to thank?” she said.
“I’m sure I had very little to do with it,” Dik lied, his face burning again.
“Good,” Moylita Kaine said. “I wouldn’t like to think that you were responsible for giving me this.”
She waved her gloved hand to take in the grimy room, the one-bar heater, the frosty view.
“Are you sorry you came to the village?” Dik said.
“I was until today. I’m glad we’ve met. You will come tomorrow?”
“Yes, Miss Kaine.”
“It’s . . . Mrs Kaine,” she said.
“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t know—”
“You had no reason to know. It doesn’t matter.”
But it did, unexpectedly, to Dik. That night he could hardly sleep for thinking about her, and loving her with a passion that astonished him.
A time for reflection, unwelcomely. Dik’s intention had been to return to the saw-mill straight after breakfast, but he was “volunteered” for cookhouse duties by a sharp-featured caporal who waylaid him outside the canteen. Given a morning of tedious chores, Dik retreated into his usual state of inner contemplation, and in the clattering, steamy cookhouse he saw the conversation of the previous day in a new light. Far from the heady euphoria of his night’s dreams, Dik thought more analytically about what Moylita Kaine had said.
While he was preparing himself for college, Dik had taken to reading literary criticism in the hope of gaining new insights into the literature he read. One book had made a particular impression on him. In it, the author made out the case that the act of reading a book was just as creative an act as writing one. In some respects, the reader’s reaction was the only reliable measure of the book. Whatever the reader decided became the definitive assessment of the book, whatever the intentions of the author.
To Dik, who was largely untutored in literature, this approach to reading struck him as being of great value. In the case of The Affirmation—a novel not mentioned once in any of the criticism he read—it gave further weight to his belief that it was a truly great novel; by this critical method, whatever objective values might be placed against the book by other people, it would remain a great novel because he interpreted it as such.
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