The Brooke-Rose Omnibus

by Brooke-Rose, Christine

  The slab breaks into three pieces, one of which is an isosceles triangle. The other two are right-angled triangles with one angle cut off. The lines of breakage are not, however, quite straight, but follow the course of nature. The edges, also, of the breakage lines, are not always vertical, like a canyon side, but more often oblique.

  The sun pours into the room, inducing a state of pyrexia. The room must be very high, under the flat roof perhaps, for the long narrow window is full of sky, intensely blue if not as blue as on a picture postcard. It is necessary to close the shutters.

  The plane-trees along the straight drive make a thick long crocodile up to the house, the jaw disappearing into a long wide coast of foliage below, the tail into a haze of distant trees and shrubs in green and red and yellow. On either side of the crocodile are smooth green lawns, like water, islanded with flower-beds in great clusters of colour, mostly mixed but one oblong a mass of red. Flower-beds give way to clumps of laurels, pink and crimson azaleas, pink and blue hibiscus, fuchsia, palm fronds, pomegranates and green bay. Beyond the flowering shrubs and trees the mimosas are still in bloom. The white wall is only guessable behind the yellow fringe, which curves imperceptibly to the left until the white wall becomes visible again, and becomes two white walls, the first much further forward, separating the expanses of lawns, flower-beds and bush-clumps from the olive-grove and the vegetable gardens, the other beyond the vegetable gardens along the edge of the property, where the head gardener’s cottage is. The path bordered with cypress-hedge is a small dark snake to the large crocodile. Both walls are edged with red and blue and yellow here and there, the bougainvillaea perhaps, and the red poinsettia which are leaves not flowers.

  To the right of the coast of foliage around the house, the gazebo is just visible on the lawn. The new pavilion is hidden in the trees.

  Beyond the pale yellow fringe of the mimosas bordering the property the olive groves tumble away in a silvery green sea. Taking one step to the left of the window, it is possible to see the Settlement of dark brown shacks, each sloping corrugated roof straddling its minute verandah like a fornicating fly, its wings shining patchily in the sun. The flies are regimented on a flat ground just outside the town. The individual couples are not distinguishable. The fig-tree cannot be seen at this distance. Perhaps it has been blasted. The town sprawls in a haze, tall where it is not squat, grey where it is not golden. The sunlight must be directly on it because the haze makes it indistinct. Taking one step to the right of the window, it is possible to see, far out to the left beyond the maize fields but clearly delineated in the more indirect light, the Colourless Hospital and, next to it, the Colourless Cemetery, a miniature town of miniature sky-scrapers. The gesture is one of careful investigation. The black fingers move swiftly over the white abdomen, palpating the left side or knocking gently through black fingers. The dark nurses move stealthily along the beds in pink stiff calico and silent knowledge. The Colourless are dying of the malady.

  Out of the trees immediately below, the garden-party spills its molecules over the lawn.

  Daily at five a.m. is the moment of truth. The body lies under the army blanket, as close to its objective self as it is possible to be, listening to the lack of dialectic that strengthens it from within. The body lies under the army blanket, comfortably enclosed in the absolute knowledge that it lies under the army blanket in the dark on a large square mattress on the floor of a small rectangular room through the rectangular window of which a dim daybreak slowly unrounds the murkiness back to angles. Sooner or later some interruption will be inevitable, a movement upwards of the knees and sideways of the feet, a lifting of the torso, a leaning on the elbows perhaps, a crouching of the legs, a pushing-up of the body with the arms, a stepping to the window that gives out on to Mrs. Ned’s shack and, from a certain position, on to the fig-tree that looks blasted. Everything that moves increases risk. But now there is only immobility and in the dark a state of comatose suspension. The body lies under the army blanket, a long way from the small high window, comfortably enclosed in the absolute knowledge that Mr. Swaminathan has not nodded and will not nod ever at any time, and that it doesn’t matter in the least. The absolute knowledge wraps the body from outside, leaving no trace of error in it.

  Sooner or later the observation of phenomena will be inevitable. But now there is only the listening to the shadow which, however, rapidly curls up its film-reel and goes to sleep. The fig-tree’s grey framework of trunk and branch, that leans along the edge of the bank at an angle of forty degrees, is further framed by a mass of deep green foliage. Inside the angle, the road may be seen. From ground level, near the fig-tree, the arch formed by the leaning trunk and the downward sweeping branch frames a whole landscape of descending olive-groves beyond the road, which itself disappears behind the bank. The U-shape of the thick and long grey twigs on the downward sweeping branch, which grow first downwards and then curve up, is partly camouflaged in the deep green foliage.

  If the grey trunk is further framed by deep green foliage the fig-tree cannot look blasted.

  If the clumps of laurel are in full pink and crimson flower the mimosas cannot still be in bloom.

  The dim daybreak slowly unrounds the murkiness back to angles. Sooner or later the immature cells will begin to circulate, the myeloblasts and myelocytes, the promyelocytes and metamyelocytes.

  Daily at eight a.m. the hope has grown that Mr. Swaminathan will perhaps nod today after all. The hope has grown with the indwelling of Mr. Swaminathan as he cohabits the body, sharing the observation of phenomena, along the passage that is angular when curving is desired, into the kitchen with the red and still stone floor, you see how still it is, Mr. Swaminathan, because the sun cannot as yet stream through the bead curtain, between Mrs. Ned’s verandah, it is dilapidated isn’t it, and the large-leafed fig-tree on the right, I told you it couldn’t look blasted now, on to the road, past the Settlement, along the road with the town behind, through the olive groves and the carefully terraced, carefully irrigated vegetable gardens, but as you know they’re always dry, dry, the vegetable gardens, there’s never enough to go round, along the road, through the village of smart concrete huts, past the concrete post office and past the grocer, through the averted looks and eyeless smiles, along the road, past the big white houses, along the white wall that is gently rounded, so you see it’s impossible at any one moment to know whether things are any different round the corner, into the tradesmen’s gate that leads up to the back of the big house, the hope has grown that Mr. Swaminathan will perhaps nod today after all. The servants’ stairs are steep and stony. Up the five flights the body suffers from dypsnoea. The pink marble bathroom is short of air. There are seven steps to the step-ladder, then five more up the ladder and the body leans against the top of it, heavy with the absolute knowledge that Mr. Swaminathan has not nodded and will not nod ever at any time, and that it hurts. The absolute knowledge has entered the body at the back of the neck somehow, in the medullary centres, down the glosso-pharyngeal nerve no doubt, or the pneumogastric, at any rate forward and down into the throat, which tightens as enlargement of the lymphatic glands occurs and the knowledge spreads into the chest and down into the stomach, nauseous. Sooner or later it will reach the spleen, which will increase in size until it fills most of the abdomen, though remaining firm and smooth on palpation. Anaemia, fatigue, pyrexia, tachycardia, dypsnoea, cachexy, the onset is insidious and well advanced before diagnosis. The prognosis is poor, continuing to a fatal termination. Splenectomy contra-indicated, treatment unsatisfactory, no therapy, but the blood-count, marrow biopsy and glandular biopsy will furnish a firm diagnosis. These organs on section appear grey or reddish grey, packed with myeloid cells, mainly polymorphonuclears and immature cells such as myeloblasts, promyelocytes, myelocytes and metamyelocites. The marble chips fall chirpily to the floor. It is possible to detach the larger pieces of vertical slab by holding the left forearm against them while hammering on the chisel, but more often than not th
ey crash to the floor, breaking into much smaller and unusable pieces.

  – Mr. Swaminathan, you said in the street that memory is a primitive weapon.

  – My dear chap, memory is not a place but a racing function of neural cells giving off dismal rhythms at less than ten microvolts, which are driven into by the high-pitched ring of hammer on chisel into marble. What did you say your occupation was before the er –?

  – I was a humanist.

  – I didn’t mean your politics. And in any case, which humans? Which section of humanity were you for? The weak or the strong? Quick, two seconds to answer. One, two. You’re a square peg in a round hole aren’t you?

  The conversation cannot take the form of the hammering because during the hammering there is no conversation, and during the conversation, if it occurred, there was no hammering. Without a recording engineer no chemistry of identity can put those two elements together in time. The pressure of the forearm on the vertical marble slab is difficult to estimate accurately. Either it prevents the chisel from penetrating beneath the slab, or it is too loose to hold the slab to the wall. Either the conversation has partially occurred, the beginning for instance, the remainder being suppressed, selected, manipulated, transformed, schematised, because inunderstood. Or the conversation has wholly occurred, and been wholly manipulated, transformed, schematised, because inunderstood. The marble slab breaks into three large pieces, two of which fall crashing to the floor. A corollary to that is that the conversation has wholly occurred and that Mr. Swaminathan is mad. The gazebo is fully visible on the lawn, to the right of the coast of foliage around the house. The new pavilion is hidden in the trees. A second corollary is that the conversation has wholly occurred and is wholly sane but beyond the grasp of sick white reasoning. A pigeon lands on the parapet of the lower terrace roof above the entrance colonnade and shifts from one leg to another. A second pigeon lands a half metre or so away on the same parapet and waddles cautiously with an occasional bold side-hop, up to the first pigeon, who flies to the curlicew top of a jar on the parapet, followed after a pause by the second pigeon in a flutter. There is not enough room for two on the curlicew top of the concrete jar and the first pigeon takes off, swoops down towards the green crocodile and then veers upwards suddenly and close past the window, to land presumably on the roof immediately above. The second pigeon flies across the crocodile below and into a tall pine-tree.

  Mr. Swaminathan stands hugely in the dusty bathroom, swaying from one foot to another. With one sweep of the hand he wipes the pink marble off the wall to the right of the window. At the gentle pressure of his outspread hand the wall crumbles down in a cloud of dust. The dust fills the head, bombarding the cells that run riot, emit helium particles until the leaden head disintegrates to bismuth, lead, thallium, polonium, bismuth, emanation 222, radium, thorium, uranium, on and on, in a hundred and sixty microseconds, or three million two hundred and thirty one thousand six hundred and forty two years one hundred and seventy three days point nine.

  – You know very well that that is not how it occurred. Look around you, does this resemble what you know of prehistory?

  – It is pitch-black. There is no mind to perceive it.

  – You are perceiving it now, by special licence.

  – Ah, but I have a blind spot. It’s not my fault, it’s due to non-existence.

  – Don’t boast. We haven’t built you up yet. There will be a period of initiation. You must learn to participate you know. Nothing less than symbiosis will do, a participation so effective that it cannot be imagined, for it is not only pre-logical but pre-mythical and anterior to all collective representations. Now then, merge.

  – I suppose you’re marking time really.

  – Time, what’s that?

  – Time for the black and white image to percolate. We can always add the colours later, as they crop up.

  – White? If you can see any white about you’re already hopelessly corrupt. I said anterior to collective representations. Nothing less than symbiosis will do, between the totemic group and the totem. Now then, merge.

  – It’s pitch-black.

  – That’s better.

  – But great white penguins are waddling in. No. They’re crocodiles, white bellied, up on their hind legs, they fill the whole corridor, help, help.

  – There you go again with your sick talk. I said anterior to collective representations. What did you say you were, a physicist? You must know very well that the development of phenomena is correlative to that of consciousness. And that therefore the prehistory of the earth as described by modern science was not only never seen, it never occurred.

  – But carbon 14 –

  – There you go, assuming that the behaviour of particles remained unchanged over aeons. All you’re entitled to assume is that phenomena would have been as now described if they had been seen by people with the same kind of perception as man has evolved only quite recently. A mere few hundred years.

  – Help, help! The crocodiles! They’re slimy. They’re crowding in down the corridor on their hind legs. I’m strangling one. I’m strangling the second. I’m strangling the third. The fourth. I’m strangling the fifth. After five is numberlessness. They go into the collective genitive. They crowd in, help, help.

  – Merge, you fool, merge.

  – Help!

  – All right, if you must have your crude symbols and your schematisations, there’s only one way out. You see these cabins along the corridor. They’re for changing. We’ll shepherd the crocodiles into them. That’s it. One by one. You see, they’re quite gentle really.

  – The floor’s wet.

  – Well of course, this is an indoor swimming-bath. Now you listen to me, there are three floors, we’re in the basement. Above us, people slide in to the swimming-pool from the same level. Above that, there is a gallery, and they dive in. Down here however, we have to go in through these round glass portholes. They’re like submarine escape-hatches, only you can swim straight across the two membranes and up through the water. The process is known as osmosis. It’s quite a long way up, so take a very deep breath, now, come along, don’t be afraid, in you go, merge, in you fool, go on or I’ll have to push you.

  – No! No! No!

  The ceiling is pink and veined in white, and a long way away. The wall ahead is pink above a glossy and pale orange door. To the immediate right, very close to the eyes is a wall of pink veined marble. The veins are enormous, they leap out like a white network made to catch floating eyes. The wall is not very high, half a metre perhaps or a little more, edged by a two centimetre mud-coloured band where the marble has been removed. To the immediate left, very close to the eyes, is another wall of pink veined marble, half a metre high or a little more, also edged with a mud-coloured band where the marble has been removed. Beyond this low wall, some way away, is a high pink marble wall, joining the pink marble ceiling. Inside the head is a hammer striking at a chisel. The wall beyond the low wall to the right is mud-coloured, with some of the pink stripped off, the frontier between the pink and the mud being straight and vertical half way up the wall, then zig-zagging to the ceiling. The straightness of the line to the floor is an item of returning knowledge, for it cannot be wholly seen from this position. The body lies in the sunken marble bath. Inside the head a hammer is striking at a chisel.

  – Oh! I’m sorry, I forgot – good heavens! What a funny place to rest. You look as if you were lying in a coffin. No don’t move, I’m sure you’ve earned your break. I forgot this bathroom was being done, you see. Oh, yes, you’ve done a lot already. Are you alone?

  – Erm, yes … yes, ma’am.

  – I say, are you all right? You look terribly white.

  – I am white.

  – Now, now, no inverted snobbery, you know what I meant. Aren’t you … yes, you are, aren’t you … Lilly’s husband?

  – Yes, ma’am.

  – No, don’t get up. I say, you do look ill. Anything wrong?

  – I – e
rm – I think I must have fainted. The last thing I remember, I was on top of that ladder. Then I was in here. And my head –

  – Give me your hand, you’d better sit up. There. Can you try and get to your feet and sit on the edge of the bath? That’s better. I want you to put your head down between your knees. There. No? You feel sick. Yes of course. Look, I’ll sit down here with my feet in the bath and you lie down alongside it with your head on my lap. Stretch your legs out, that’s right. Or raise your knees perhaps, it might be more comfortable on this hard floor. You poor old thing. Just relax. Don’t keep turning your head.

  – Mr. Swaminathan –

  – Oh don’t worry about him, he’s gone up country to the Farming Estate.

  – He has? How long?

  – Did you say how long for?

  – How long has he been gone?

  – I’ve no idea, a week, ten days. How are you feeling?

  – Oh, better, much better. If I could, if you don’t mind, just a moment longer –

  – Close your eyes then, and relax.

  Under the red networks of the eyelids in the sunlight, the dark curves of chin and lips and nose seen from below the breasts that are ensilked in orange fill up the eyespace shimmering with black and yellow and pink. Nevertheless it bears a close resemblance to the real thing, as a mere lifting of the lids can prove and does. The face looks down. The left nostril wears a blue-green stone set in gold. The eyes strike deep, a rich, chromatic chord. The ceiling is pink and veined in white, and a long way away. The wall ahead is pink above and around a glossy and pale orange door. To the immediate right –

  – How are you feeling?

  The thick lips are unsmiling. The expression is one of concern.

  – All right, I think. I’m very sorry. You’ve been so kind. So very kind. Woops. Oh, thank you. It is Mrs. Mgulu, isn’t it?