Ben, in the World: The Sequel to the Fifth Child

by Doris Lessing

  It was the kind of restaurant they have in Rio where on the tables are already waiting plates of tomato, pickles, sauces, but it was meat that people went there for, with haunches and joints of every kind of meat, but mostly beef, displayed on platters or on skewers. Ben had never seen such a variety and amount of meat, and he was pleased, but his unhappiness was too strong for him really to enjoy himself. He felt out of things, the chattering, the embraces, the talk he did not understand, when it was in Portuguese, and even the English was mutilated and hard to follow. Soon it was over, and then he was in a car with Alex and some of the others. They were sweeping along the sea front, with the moonlight moving on the waves, and tall buildings pouring out light. At the hotel he heard arrangements being made for the days ahead: all these people were happy Alex was here, and it was as if they were expecting a holiday.

  In the hotel room Ben took off his clothes, remembered to put them on hangers, and climbed, as usual, naked into bed. He watched Alex putting on pyjamas: clothes to go to bed in. Like his parents. Like himself when he was very small, but he had hated them. He fell asleep.

  Now Alex did what Ben had, earlier. He sat on his bed’s edge and bent forward to stare. He even held out an arm, as Ben had, and pulled up his pyjama leg to match it with Ben’s, that lay outside the bedclothes, because it was so hot. Ben had a sheet pulled across his middle. Alex thought, So he has an instinct to hide his private parts—that’s strange for an animal. But he’s not an animal. But if he is not an animal then…This soliloquy seemed in danger of repeating itself, as it did, far too often, in Alex’s head—and in most people’s.

  Alex slept. Ben slept. In the morning they ate fruit and more fruit at the hotel breakfast, and then they took their things and went to the flat Alex had rented, in a street not far from the sea front. In the lift Alex explained their flat was on 3—not too high up: Ben still didn’t like lifts. Two good-sized rooms, bedrooms, separated by a larger room that was the sitting room. A kitchen, not large; bathroom with shower and lavatory. Ben was to have his own room. Alex thought this was possibly dangerous, but he needed a room to himself: for one thing, he had a girlfriend here, Teresa. This was the first room Ben had had to himself since he had been at home with his family, and he was instinctively looking for bars in the windows: no bars. But he was feeling confined: kept testing the door—yes, he could go out and come back, he had a key. This was no trap…But this room, with its single bed, the big windows, was like the room he had when he was a child. It was midday. Alex said he was jet-lagged and Ben thought this meant Alex was ill: he himself did not remember being ill. Alex went to his room, saying there would be a lot of people coming around later, and that when he woke he would take Ben out and they would buy food to prepare in the kitchen. Ben was restless in his room…looked down into the street from where he could just hear voices talking that slushy language…looked across at windows opposite, where he could see people moving about there, but not know what they did. He went to the sitting room. There were some magazines there, but pictures and photographs were always of kinds of people that were not his friends, and he knew could never be. I want to go home, he was repeating, silently, in his head. Home, home.

  To test if he was a prisoner he let himself out, managed to remain calm in the old, noisy lift, walked to the end of the street and back. Not many people in this side street. They all looked at him, and one followed, a young boy with a sharp angry face. Ben did not run—he knew better, but returned fast to the building where his room and safety were, and waited at the lift knowing the boy was creeping in behind him, staring, in a crouch Ben understood very well. He must not turn and grip that boy by the shoulders… The lift rattled down as the boy had almost reached him—what did he want?—and Ben was in the lift, and then fitting his key into the flat door, which opened, and Alex was there. ‘Oh, there you are…I was wondering…’ Alex smiled, but Ben knew he had not liked finding Ben gone. Then Alex asked if he wanted to go back to the pavement outside the hotel where the tables were, and Ben said yes, he would. They sat there eating sandwiches and drinking juice, watching people of all colours, black and brown and pale brown and white, go wandering past. A lot of girls, some of them with hardly any clothes on. There were girls at these tables, sometimes in pairs, or by themselves. Ben could not stop himself watching them, and wanting. He was thinking of Rita, and how she liked him. Alex told him to be careful, because the girls usually had men who protected them. ‘Like Johnston,’ Ben said, adding another ingredient to Alex’s view of this Johnston. ‘Did he take her money?’ he asked. ‘She never asked me for money,’ said Ben. ‘She liked me.’ ‘I think you’d find these girls would ask for quite a lot of money.’

  All that went along well, sitting there under the umbrellas, watching the people, Alex sometimes greeting friends, and then Alex bought food, and Ben helped him carry it all back to their place. Alex cooked, and Ben said he could help, he knew how to cook—but he was thinking of the toast and porridge and bits of this and that he had made for the old lady, and soon saw this was more difficult cooking. Ben sat in the living room, smelling the aromas of spices and hot meat, and then in came a lot of people, and he watched them all kissing and hugging and holding each other; and talking and chattering, their teeth flashing and gleaming. The light had gone outside. This was a different night from the ones in Nice: it was hot, and slow, with sometimes a strong smell of sea. Some of these people were the same as last night’s, but to each newcomer Alex said, ‘This is Ben, we are going to make a film together.’ And as they said, ‘Como vai?’, ‘Welcome’, ‘Hello’, each gave him the surprised curious look he knew, and then they were careful not to look, or he caught them staring, hoping he wouldn’t notice. The food came in, piled on platters, a lot of it, and wine was in every glass and bottles of wine stood about the room. There was such a noise, such a clamour of voices, and Ben did not understand much of what was said, even when they spoke English. There were plans being made, and he was in them. The talk, the eating, the drinking, went on till late.

  Ben slept lightly in that room which made him think of his old home, and woke early. He did not dare go out into the street for fear of another killer boy, stalking him. He ate fruit, he stood at windows looking out. Alex did not get up till late, and when he came into the sitting room Teresa was with him: Ben had failed to notice that this female had gone with Alex into his room last night.

  But she was friendly, and helpful, making food for him, offering him juice, and when he sat silent and doleful included him in what she said, in her quick, but difficult English. ‘What do you think about it, Ben?’ ‘Would you like that, Ben?’ ‘What do you want me to get you?’ He liked her very much, but knew she belonged to Alex.

  And so the days went, slowly, and Ben slept a lot, from boredom. The evenings were full of people, who arrived loudly, laughing and talking to each other in Portuguese but to Alex and Ben in their hard-to-understand English. They sometimes brought food, not always. Ben sat apart and watched. He was trying to understand why when they were all so different, they could so easily be together, as if they did not know how different they were. Mostly they had smooth darkish skins, and dark eyes, contrasting with Alex, who was pale, a thin, thin-boned man, with pale hair, and his clothes were pale blue, trousers and shirts, or white. Over the eyes were brushes of short fair hair, but the face said Alex was not as young as he wanted to seem: the eyes had wrinkles under them. He was forty, five years more than Ben’s passport said he was. No one who came to this place was as young as Ben really was, eighteen. Though that was confusing to think about: he knew he did not look like one of their eighteen-year-olds: he did not have that young face. Yet whenever he thought about his age, how he was, he remembered the old woman’s, ‘You’re a good boy, Ben.’

  Teresa was a tall young woman, with a big bottom and big breasts, but her waist was small, clinched with a belt to show it off. She had black hair, loose to her shoulders. Her eyes were dark. She was always smiling, laughing, and
her voice was soft and easy on Ben’s feelings. She put her arms around Alex, around people who came in, and, too, around Ben. ‘Dear Ben,’ she said often, hugging him, making him want to do what he knew he must not. But no one else touched him. Only Teresa came inside the distance all the others set between them and him. Only Teresa would take his hand, swing it, drop it; squeeze his big shoulders and say, ‘Oh, your shoulders, what shoulders, Ben,’ or put her arm around him as she stood talking to someone.

  A man who came often was Paulo, who had worked with Alex before. They were writing a script for this film about Ben, but not always in the flat. The two might sit for a while at the table in the sitting room, talking, not looking at Ben, while Teresa tidied up the place, or cooked something, or sat on a chair-arm swinging her legs, watching the men, or reading the magazines, or sometimes singing. Then the men went out and Ben knew it was because they found his presence there wrong for what they were doing, or thinking. He knew that the story was changing all the time, because Brazil was not like the north: Ben knew now he had come from the north. Paulo was different in every way from Alex, being large, with soft brown flesh, big brown eyes, dark hair, and little fat hands with rings on them. Paulo wanted to please Alex, Ben knew: they all did. Alex was the one they all turned to, watched; they waited to hear what he thought.

  Sometimes on those evenings there were as many as fifteen or twenty people for supper. Every day Alex bought a lot of food, and Teresa and he cooked it. Ben heard Teresa arguing with Alex about feeding so many people, some of them he did not even know, but they came because they knew there would be food. He always said, ‘Sure, come in, sit down, what’ll you drink, you’re welcome.’

  ‘You talk like my wife, Teresa, now shut up,’ said Alex.

  When he had been here before, working on the play, he had a flat like this one, and the cast and their friends spent free time with him and he fed them. This happens with Americans, or, for that matter, with anyone who has more money than others, who are often poor, like most of the people who came to this flat, actors, dancers, singers in work or out of it, and it was natural for Alex to feed them, and often find reasons to give them money—asking them to advise him, translate something, show him a possible site, take him to a museum.

  But the development money was not a great amount; Alex had had more last time he was here, working on the film or on the play. Teresa knew how much there was, and that it was going fast. And still there was no script, although Paulo and Alex worked on it every day.

  There was a story, but not much of one. In a wild and beautiful part of Brazil, in foothills beneath great mountains, lived a tribe of people like Ben. They fed themselves from the forests on fruits and vegetables, hunted game with clubs and bows and arrows, and knew fire—in fact, in the course of the film they would see lightning strike a tree and make a fire.

  The trouble was, apart from the discovery of fire there wasn’t much going on, once you had grasped the basics: caves, the hunt, mating, gathering plants. Ben listened to all this and knew it was wrong, but not how or why: they didn’t ask what he thought. Sometimes Alex and Paulo would lift their gaze from a worried inspection of their notes, scribbled over sheets of paper, their by now many drafts, outlines, developments, and, not knowing they were doing it, stare deeply at Ben, frowning, but not seeing him.

  Well, how were they going to go on? Perhaps into this on the whole pleasant scene would come a tribe of more advanced people, and…what? The two races would mate and make a new one? The newcomers could kill out Ben’s people, and Ben with them, who would die a hero defending them? Perhaps better if Ben’s people killed all the newcomers, postponing an inevitable fate, for everywhere over this land were spreading the new people. No trouble about casting these. They would be the native Indians of the area. What area, though? A trip must be made, locations determined, and discussions begun with a sympathetic tribe who would be pleased to get some money: about that they need have no doubt at all.

  The area they had decided on, Paulo advising, the hills of Matto Grosso, was meanwhile afflicted with bad weather, storms and flooding. The reconnaissance trip was postponed for a week, and during that time discussions went on about taking Ben to a certain town on a regular plane service, and then on from there, in a privately chartered little plane. Alex and Paulo took it for granted that they must have Ben. He heard the two men talking, in the next room, and the miserable anger that already had him in its grip deepened. Where were they going to take him? Yet again he was going to leave behind a familiar place, and get into a plane and then into another. New places, perhaps another language.

  He asked Teresa when they were going to take him away and she said it would be soon. She was arguing with Alex that it would be cruel to take Ben. Couldn’t he see how unhappy Ben was?

  One evening, when it was late and guests were thinking of leaving, they heard a regular thud, thud, thud from next door—from Ben’s room. They had not noticed he had quietly left the company, all talking about the hills and mountains of where the film-makers intended to be. Teresa quietly opened his door, and saw that he was squatting on the floor, his fists supporting him, and he was banging his head on the wall, thud, thud, thud. Teresa shut the door, came back and told what she had seen.

  ‘Kids do that,’ said Alex. ‘A neighbour’s kid did that. He banged his head against the wall, sometimes for hours. The doctor said it was OK, it wouldn’t hurt him.’

  Teresa said, ‘He doesn’t want to go. He’s frightened.’

  The company was silent, listening: thud, thud, thud.

  ‘It’ll scramble his brains,’ said someone.

  ‘No, no,’ said Alex, ‘leave him, it’s all right.’

  The guests left. Alex and Teresa sat on, listening. It was disturbing. Teresa’s eyes were full of tears. Her heart hurt her, listening. On it went, the banging. She went back into Ben’s room. He was whimpering as he banged his head, a small child’s whimper, and Teresa put her arms around him, kneeling beside him, and said, ‘Ben, dear Ben, poor Ben, it’s all right, I’m here.’ He gave a big shout of pain and anger and turned to her, and she felt that hairy face on her bare upper chest, and knew that this was a child she was holding, or at least a child’s misery. ‘Ben, it’s all right. You don’t have to go anywhere. I promise you.’

  She stayed there beside him, on the floor, holding him, while he whimpered himself into stillness. Alex, concerned for her, peered in, withdrew. Then Ben was quiet, and Teresa got him up and on to his bed. She came out to Alex and challenged him with defiant tear-filled eyes and said, ‘You can’t take him. I’ve promised him. You cannot do it.’

  ‘Well, I suppose we don’t really need him,’ said Alex.

  But it was still raining in the hills where they were expected, and every evening the people sitting around the table eating, drinking, arguing, laughing, heard from next door, on the wall that separated this room from Ben’s, the thud thudding of his pain, his rage.

  His anger was threatening to come roaring up out of him and into his fists; he wanted to hit and to bite and destroy—mostly Alex. Ben did not believe Teresa when she said Alex would leave him here: he was tricking Teresa, just as he had tricked him, Ben, to bring him here.

  That thudding: it was awful, it spoke direct to the nerves of anyone listening, it was not possible to ignore it. They all tried to but their talk stopped, and became a listening. Alex would say, ‘Take no notice; he’s not harming himself.’ So the talk began again, rose in a crescendo, in opposition to the thudding, but all those faces showed apprehension, irritation, even fear, and soon they were silent again, their glasses resting in their hands, their food ignored on their plates. Bang, bang, bang, on the wall.

  ‘He must be hurting his brain,’ Paulo protested, but Alex said again, ‘No, kids do it, it means nothing.’

  But the truth was, that nightly bang-banging was telling Alex that the vision that had been inhabiting his imagination in the hotel in Nice, was not enough to carry this film on through
its many stages, the inevitable difficulties, crises, contingencies. And he still had to get together a script, or at least a detailed outline, which would extract more money, enough to actually make it.

  Alex and Paulo decided to fly off, although the rain was still falling in the hills where everyone agreed they would find the landscapes they wanted. They were to leave on a Monday, and on Sunday, from midday onwards the convivial communal room was full of people. The film-makers would be gone at least a week. In this hospitable flat would remain Ben and Teresa, who would look after him.

  Ben could hear the talk, talk, talking about the arrangements, and he was walking about the room as if in a cage. He came out of his room and stood looking at them all. They did not see him there. They were all a bit drunk, affectionate with each other, noisy. Teresa had her arm around Alex, and her black hair was falling on his neck. Ben went to the door and let himself out. It was late afternoon, the light slanting and radiant, but not as bad as the midday glare. He did not know what he meant to do. He walked down to where the sea showed as a blue dazzle. His eyes were hurting inside his dark glasses, but not too much. Then, in front of him, was the long white beach and on it so many people lying or playing. Jumping about among the waves were more. The girls were wearing so little he had to look to determine: yes, there was a patch of covering there in front, and those little scraps of stuff hid nipples. He was energized with anger, the need to hurt, to kill. He was walking along the top part of the beach, trying not to let the splinters of light get into his eyes, listening to the noise of waves, voices, laughter—that mass of people, so many people, who knew how to be together, all the same as each other even though they were of different colours, sizes, shapes—no one stared at them for their strangeness.