Singing Waters

by Ann Bridge

  “In England you know more of Europe,” Nils said.

  “Of course we do—we’re so much nearer to it. But our behaviour, though it may be fairly well-informed, is often awfully stupid and insensitive and unimaginative towards little European nations. We don’t really consider their needs or their feelings, a lot of the time. That’s why we alienate them, and throw away all sorts of chances. You must be well aware of that,” the writer said briskly to Nils. “We mean well, but we are careless and lazy and ignorant, fundamentally. At this moment we could buy the Italians right out of this country with a loan of five million pounds—Frasheri was talking to me about it—with all that that may mean in the future both for the Balkans and for our own interests. But Albania won’t get that loan—it won’t seem important enough, either to the Foreign Office or the Treasury! And all the prestige we’ve got through running the gendarmerie all these years will go by the board and we shall let the Italians have their way and allow our control to be terminated. Afterwards we shall be sorry, of course—when it’s too late, and the Wops are in full control.”

  “Anyway, though, you do take a hand,” the old Doctor said. “The British have the tradition of responsibility for Europe— the way you’re talking yourself, right now, shows it. We don’t; we stand aside. And yet we keep on telling the world how to go on. If I were a European I would feel the American strictures and exhortations to be insufferable, in the strictest sense of the word! If you are going to be like Pilate, and wash your hands of the world, then go the whole way with Pilate. Pilate asked what Truth was?—he didn’t keep on telling folks what he thought it was, and washing his hands at the same time!”

  The others laughed.

  “I think your press is partly to blame, that your people know so little,” Nils observed.

  “To whom do you say it! Of course it is. We have more reporters, and pay them more highly, than any country on earth—and know less! But that’s because of our false conception of what constitutes ‘news’. Facts aren’t news,” the old American said bitterly, “and good solid reportage on the elements of a situation, such as you get in even quite mediocre European papers, isn’t news either. News is sensation, or gossip, or attacks on some nation or person. If there is a piece of straight news we have to sensationalise it; in other words, to distort it. Why, men—our star reporters—are actually specially engaged and paid high salaries precisely for their known skill in dramatising—and distorting—what goes on. Our very phrase, a ‘news story’ gives the whole set-up away. When I was a child, telling a story meant telling a lie! And it still means that, I guess.”

  “Yes, but you know that tendency is growing with us,” said Miss Glanfield. “And I deplore these huge circulations, too. One man, or one group, shouldn’t have the power to mould the political conceptions of eighteen million people, as a paper with a daily circulation of two or three millions does. I would like to see the circulation of all papers limited by law to, say, 100,000 each. Then the rewards would be so small that people wouldn’t buy papers as a commercial speculation, like factories, and the power wielded would be too modest to tempt the political adventurers. And yet you would preserve the freedom of the press.”

  “Well, you may get that, but we shan’t—money talks too loud,” said the old Doctor. She rose as she spoke. “Now,” she said firmly to the writer, “you’re going to bed before your travels. Goodnight, Mr. Larsen, and goodbye. I hope we meet again some time.”

  When Nils had departed the old Doctor took out her despatch case and wrote for a long time, while the others prepared for bed. Gloire had settled Miss Glanfield and was already under her own red quilt, smoking a last cigarette, when the old woman finally screwed on the top of her pen, snapped her case to, and came over with an envelope in her hand.

  “I thought maybe I would worry you with some chores to do for me, when you get back to Tirana,” she said.

  “Why, of course, Dr. Emmeline. What is it?”

  The old woman put the envelope down on the bed.

  “There’s a list in there of a number of things I need—dressings and drugs and so on. Some you’ll get in Tirana, maybe; the others you’ll have to order from Bari. You’ll just have to hunt around. There’s a cheque in there—if it isn’t enough, I’ll send you along another; if it’s too much, you can send me back the balance.”

  Gloire was slightly taken aback.

  “You’re sure I’ll know what to get? I don’t know much about dressings and all that.”

  “Pretty well anyone can buy from a list, if they give their mind to it,” the old woman said brusquely.

  “Why, yes. Well anyway I’ll try,” Gloire said, fingering the envelope hesitantly.

  “Don’t open it till you get down, either,” said the Doctor, “or the cheque will fall out and get lost.”

  “O.K. Oh, how will I get them up to you?” the young woman asked—“Where will you be?”

  “I haven’t an idea! You’ll just have to find that out,” said Dr. Crowninshield, still brusquely, but with a queer little smile.

  Now what’s she up to? the writer thought; she had watched the little scene with interest. Gloire seemed rather an odd choice for this task. But she was sleepy, and only gave it a passing thought. Before the American had completed her old-fashioned and rather elaborate nocturnal toilet, Miss Glanfield and Gloire were both asleep.

  Chapter Sixteen

  They made an early start next morning, for the journey was to be in easy stages. Lek-Gionaj had lent a sure-footed pony of his own for Miss Glanfield’s use, with a better saddle than those of the usual caravan ponies, and one of his own men to lead it; the leg, still in a splint, was supported in a broad canvas sling with a loop to pass over a man’s shoulder—Fran and Larsen took turns at carrying this, or walked beside the writer, to steady her if the pony should stumble. A couple of gendarmes from the post at Torosh were to escort them half-way to that night’s camp; these included the cheerful corporal who had given Gloire coffee and played the accordion to her before High Mass on Whit-Sunday.

  They took the steep path through the pine woods up onto the pass; then, after a rest, followed a track which contoured round the head of the valley, keeping practically to the watershed. From the pass onwards the country was new to all of them; there were splendid and unfamiliar views, back towards Mali Shënjt and Torosh, ahead and to their left out over Kthelië, to range upon range of huge tumbled mountains; bare limestone ridges, a cold blue in shadow, with black blurs of forest on their lower slopes. The forests interested Larsen—a lot of felling had recently been done, rather casually, to his trained Scandinavian eyes—of P. pinaster, but there was no sign of re-planting; this appeared to be left to the processes of natural regeneration. However these seemed to work fairly well; everywhere where clearing had taken place a healthy, if patchy, undergrowth of young trees was springing up.

  At length they reached a spot where a track plunged down towards Kthellëe Epër—Upper Kthelië. Here fresh gendarmes should have met the party, but there was no sign of them, so they lunched, and waited. And here the forestry-minded soul of Nils Larsen was vexed by the behaviour of the pony-men. There was at this place a fine growth of young pines, about six feet high, in the clearings; having eaten, the Albanians pulled long knives from their belts, and proceeded to cut off the leader of tree after tree, just below the junction with the first lot of lateral shoots. His interpreter at his earnest request elicited the reason for this wanton destruction of future forests. The leader, soft and tender still, could be hollowed out to make the stem of an excellent pipe, and one of the lateral shoots, cut short, would be similarly scooped out to hold tobacco—indeed, Fran proceeded to fabricate the rough draft of such a pipe on the spot, to demonstrate.

  “That’s clever!” Gloire said admiringly, watching Fran’s brown hands at work.

  “For the trees it is disastrous,” Nils said sombrely.

  Presently, hot and out of breath, there appeared on the track above them one gendarm
e and two peasants, the latter in the customary fancy dress and even more heavily armed than usual—their belts bristled with long-barrelled revolvers and daggers, they carried their rifles in their hands, not slung at their backs. All three were evidently in a high state of excitement, and gabbled out a long story to the corporal from Torosh, of which Larsen’s interpreter passed on the gist to his employer. They had been waiting further along by the head of the track down to Kthelië e Posht; the two peasants, the single gendarme explained, were stout-hearted men, who had come to guard the travellers; no more gendarmes could be spared, for a murder had taken place between Kthellë and Rësheni that morning, and they were all out hunting the murderer.

  This news produced a highly stimulating and agreeable sensation. Fran, the caravan men, and the two Toroshi gendarmes gathered round the newcomers, pressing them eagerly for details, The aggressor, it seemed, had just completed a term of three years’ imprisonment in Scutari for attempted murder, and had returned home the previous day, when he had got his rifle out of the thatch, oiled it and loaded it, and gone off at daybreak that morning to lie out for the enemy whom he had failed to finish off on the previous occasion! And this time he had got him, on the long valley track between Kthellë and Rësheni. No, the man was not quite dead yet; he had been carrying a satchel of bread on his back, which had slowed down the bullet—“but he will die” the men said, in tones of gloomy satisfaction.

  Rather to Larsen’s surprise, both his companions seemed to find these tidings almost as exhilarating as the Albanians did, when the interpreter gradually unfolded them.

  “Well good for him!” Gloire exclaimed, slender and European once more in her shirt and renovated grey trousers.

  “How fascinating!” Miss Glanfield, more suo, observed. “I suppose we ought to be sorry for the poor man with the load of bread, but really it is rather fun to run into a real full-grown feud and murder. Do try, Nils, to find out what it was all about, originally.”

  But there they failed. After the first burst of excitement, the clannish suspicious caution and clam-like silence of the mountaineer descended on their escort. They would tell a compatriot, they might have told Colonel Robinson—but they were not going to tell foreigners, or a townsman from Tirana like the interpreter, any more than they could help. The Toroshi gendarmes saluted and departed on their homeward road and the caravan pursued its way, dropping down through pine woods into the summer green of deciduous trees, and emerging from these onto valley fields and pastures, where the hay was cut and flowers few. Below an open slope of grass starred with bushes, still some distance above the valley floor, where a grey river sang its loud song, the gendarmes showed them the suggested site for their camp—a level lawn-like space of smooth turf, at one side of which stood a single tree, some species of pear or plum, with a surprising spread of branches and a strong elegant trunk. Here Miss Glanfield was lifted off her pony and set down on the grass; the tents were pitched, a fire started, and Fran, after serving tea, produced the usual delicious supper. They sat—Miss Glanfield reclined—round an upturned case which served for a table; above the green of the valley pearl-pale hills rose into a pale sky of tenderest grey-blue—sharply cut, behind them, by the grey-green of the slope down which they had come; the bushes on it, in the muted late light, detached themselves from their background as dark significant shapes, of a beauty impossible by day.

  Gloire was rather silent at supper. She was heavy with emotion; half-stifled with it, to the point of finding it hard to eat. This was her last night in these pale mountains that she had learned to love, and it might well be her last night in Larsen’s company. She was considering, with a painful urgency, whether she could inveigle him into a stroll in this singing valley, loud with the river’s voice; she wanted, for once and finally, to tell him what it had all meant to her, to thank him. Oh yes, she had done that once already, on the spur below the Kapidan’s house, the evening that he arrived—but it was different now. He was more important to her now.

  She succeeded. Aware of a slight reluctance on his part to leave Miss Glanfield, nevertheless she persevered; among the bushes about them the grey-green shapes of gendarmes were occasionally visible, mounting guard—returned from their fruitless pursuit of the murderer, they had closed in to protect the foreigners, in a silent unobtrusive circle. This in itself put a curious little edge of tension onto the evening—but it also made it reasonable to leave the writer. Larsen fussed over her, propped her up with coats against the tree-trunk, asked if she was all right?—Miss Glanfield, amusedly gracious but brusque, shooed them off for their walk.

  Poor Gloire! She was happy in a way when they set out—happy and yet burdened. It mattered terribly to her, tonight, to know if she would see the Swede again, and if so, when, and when he was leaving Albania—and she didn’t know. She had got to find that out, and she wanted to tell him all those things she had thought of at supper, thought of so hard that she couldn’t eat. She must use, skilfully, this moment that she had manoeuvred for and obtained, this exquisite evening in an exquisite place. They walked along the slopes above the river—the nightingales were still singing, but less furiously than five weeks before; only delicate isolated voices, sending clear jets of liquid notes out into the cool evening air, like violin solos above the orchestration of the river’s strong music.

  But she could not do it skilfully, when it came to the point. She did it pathetically badly. She had become defenceless where Larsen was concerned; even her little futile fortifications of boredom and contempt were no longer available to her. Her very spiritual development stood in her way; for, as on the day below Mali Shënjt, she could not bring herself to employ the devices of physical attraction, or the deliberate appeal of the pathetic. Gloire had stopped using vulgar means to any end even a high one—and for her a high end was involved. Paradoxically, she was frustrated in her attempt to make a fundamental communication to Larsen by her sense that he was the one person living who could be to her and do for her what Tony had been, and could have done. And—insistent, bitter, and urgent—was the feeling, pulsing up through all her endeavours to clear her mind and say what she meant, that she couldn’t lose him, just couldn’t!—and perhaps she had got to.

  All this confused her and hindered her speech, never good. She was banal. Nils recognised some at least of the feelings that lay behind her inadequate words, and he was moved—but by the pathos of them, not by herself, as he had been when they met on the bridge below the church. And gradually her sixth sense for men made her aware of this. Still she struggled on—this wasn’t just the ordinary straightforward battle of the sexes; it was worth struggling on. But at last one thing told her that she was done. Nils, honest and tactless, perhaps a little perversely blind, to show that he understood what she was trying to express quoted a sentence from one of Miss Glanfield’s books, with acknowledgements—“it is the sort of thing she puts so well.”

  The young woman turned away sharply, at that, and put her face into a flowering bush; she pulled off a spray and held it before her face, sniffing at the white scentless blooms, before she attempted to answer. The pathos of that particular gesture was lost on Nils; he thought she was hesitating over her words, as she often did. And when at length she said—“Yes, frightfully well, doesn’t she?” in a conversational if slightly stifled voice, he was perfectly satisfied.

  Nor did Gloire, even then, feel that it was Miss Glanfield’s fault in any way, this defeat of hers—as perhaps it wasn’t. She just accepted it as inevitable. She lay outside her tent, the Methodist chapel—it was so warm—later that night, watching the stars through the fine small branches of the spreading tree, thinking how wonderful Miss Glanfield was, and how natural that a person like Larsen, who was wonderful too, should be unable even to concentrate on anyone else while she was around—especially when she was his friend, and of such long standing. She, Gloire, had probably been a fool to think that he might ever fall for her; she wasn’t his type. Only, she needed him so badly! The ho
t tears slid out over her tanned cheeks; she brushed them away, and went on doing some pretty hard thinking. She had got something out of all this; she had got a lot—and she would just have to do without the so much more that Larsen might have given, and carry on with what she had, alone. Gloire was quite unclear as to what form this carrying-on should take, but quite definite as to the internal substance of it. But doing it alone, but losing Larsen—that, as she faced it, was a heavy, a gnawing pain. She felt tired with it—and after a time, in that fatigue, slept.

  Miss Glanfield, while they strolled, had been thinking about them. She saw much more clearly than Nils what was going on in Gloire, and she didn’t think she would make the grade, poor child. But her thoughts presently turned altogether to Larsen. It was a most curious business, his turning up again like this—and it had been a very happy thing, finding him again. He was part of her youth and her past—her lovely climbing past—and a very important part of it. She was convinced that there had never been any emotional nexus on his side; and on hers, he had been so much mixed up with the whole emotional and spiritual adventure of mountaineering that she had never been able to disentangle them. She had been so young then, too, she reflected; and her generation, the educated young women of the first decade and a half of the century were singularly unemotional while they were young. There was none of the intellectual curiosity about sex which the films and the psychological novels had brought in immediately after the war, let alone the cheerful mixed discussion of it, over drinks, which was now so prevalent. A good thing or a bad thing? She didn’t know, and to her immediate thoughts the question was irrelevant. The point was that in her youth emotion—how deliberately she could not, at this distance of time, be sure any more—had been kept out of the picture in one’s relations with serious men, as a rule; and indeed the avoidance of it had been quite as much on the men’s side as on the girls’, unless they decided to marry you.