I think this now: I thought this when I was in the Garden.
There were times when I was in the Garden, yes, when I did go with the woman with fair hair who was like a cave in a mountain: she would come and stand in the doorway of the workshop or kitchen where I worked; then I would follow her; we would go to the annexe of God’s house. She still did not speak much: she was half-Rumanian, half-Italian, I think: she was one of the women responsible for the day-to-day running of the Garden. All the practical running of the Garden God handed over to women. There was a connection (I mean literally!) between her annexe and God’s house.
Well, yes, it was as if she were the cave and I were the elephant in the mountain. She would He on her side and she would accommodate me as if I were (you know why there is this need for metaphors?) piglets, a whole brood: she would raise an arm here, a leg there (well, yes, the need is because the point of the thing is that it is going on slightly elsewhere) and it was, indeed, as if I had been starved of minerals. Perhaps they had been taken away from my mother when she had been in that Japanese prison camp and I had not had her – what – tinned milk, touch, taste, sound, smell? (I must forgive my mother.) Was it this that was going on elsewhere? But here, now, was not this body in the half-dark like the roof of a cave; like salt and wine; like nectar.
Perhaps there is not the same battle between women because there has already been (or should have been?) a circle: while the child feeds, the mother cleans; lifts it with her tongue: you have seen this? God can be still learning.
You do not talk about this because the words get it wrong. What is wonder? What is taste, touch, smell?
Perhaps I had never known about sensuality before: the girl with the wound in her throat is rather like a doll.
My friend who was like Lilith would say – You come alive, my little English girl: oh little bird in bush, who made you?
Before this I had been wondering, had I not, if I would stay in the Garden: could I be sure I was not playing with shadows even when the sun came up each morning in the enormous hall? There has to be some tap-root down into the dark – does there not? This woman had taken me in: I was happy devouring her. Alchemists, in their search for minerals, were hoping for miracles: they used minerals as symbols of the connections between themselves and the outside world. I found minerals, miracles, as lures that were bringing me home. When I was with this woman who was like Lilith in the hot afternoons it was as if there were being made tangible the things in the Garden that might otherwise seem to be going on elsewhere: the connections between space and time: love, birth, growth, death: the just-this-ness of things, which is like gravity.
One day when I had been some months in the Garden I thought I would use my day off to walk inland to the bridge over the river. I had been several times by boat to the town across the estuary: this town was comparatively modern, built around the harbour. But in the hills there were the remains of an old town built by the Jesuits and the Franciscans in the seventeenth century: you could get to this up a track across the river.
The bridge was three or four miles beyond the village – a single span like a rainbow. The rainbow was of steel and concrete: I thought – God’s covenant with men was that he would not destroy them, not that they would not destroy themselves. The other side of the river the road turned back to the new town by the harbour; the track went up into the hills. I walked between trees with huge roots like the feet of a monster; the trunks stuck up like legs; the body was far above with gaps in the green like stars. I thought – None of this will live, if men destroy themselves?
It took another hour to walk from the bridge to the old town in the jungle; it was a hot day; I was tired. I wondered why the Christians had built their churches so far from the sea (the remains of the old town consisted of four or five enormous churches): was it because they wanted to feel safe from marauders, or did they feel that their huge churches would look ridiculous by the sea?
When you come across the site of the old town it is like coming across a stage-set. Over the brow of a hill, round a corner (you have been passing the roots of trees wrestling with fallen stones) you see just there, popped up as it were in front of you, the façade of an enormous church: the church is in the baroque style; it is three or four storeys high, with scrolls and pediments and arches. This church is in fact one of four set round a central cobbled square; the square is as big as a parade ground; there is almost nothing left of the town except these four huge churches and the square. But it is this first church that springs up at you out of the jungle. It seems to be nothing to do with jungle; to have been dumped there by some film people.
Do you know those stage-sets, façades, that people built in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that were to do with the preservation of memory? I mean people did actually construct, at this time, theatres, or models of theatres, to help with the problem of how to remember; I mean you could not then easily check with written or printed words: people found it easiest to hold things in the mind if they could make up some story or drama. So they constructed these stage-sets: I mean not only in their minds but apparently actually, literally, complete with doorways, windows, porticoes, pillars, niches; so that in and out of these they could get people, objects, coming and going – and also in their minds: so that like this they could remember what they wanted. But then – how dependent humans are on making up stories! Did they remember this: I mean remember not only what they wanted to remember, but how much they were limited by their dependence on stories? The huge façades of churches are always, I suppose, to do with the preservation of stories.
I stopped at some distance from this façade – a high pediment with scrolls like sea-shells at the top; round windows like eyes on the second floor; rectangles with pillars in the middle; an arched doorway at ground-level with heraldic decorations. I did not know what I wanted from my memory: what figures might emerge: Agamemnon and Clytemnestra? my father and my mother? myself as Electra waiting to get my revenge on – but whom? both, for being so much concerned with dying? There was in fact a figure standing within the arched doorway of the church looking up: he was studying, as tourists do, the decoration on the portico. But this was ridiculous. I mean, what did really happen in the seventeenth century? Did they hire actors to perform just the stories they wanted to make real? I had had the impression, you see (but was not this inevitable?), that I knew who this figure was in the doorway of the church: but could not almost anything be possible, given the likelihood of these enormous façades in the jungle. I thought I might go across the square and look at one of the other churches first: I had got out of the way of talking to people, whoever they might be. The figure was that of a man: he wore a tweed jacket in this hot climate; he had short legs. Well, who does this remind you of? Or you; or you. I walked towards the other side of the square. I had the impression that he might have turned and was watching me. Of course, he might have thought I was popping up like some actor in his theatre of memory. The man of whom I was reminded was, of course, one of those who ran Die Flamme magazine: he had short legs: I had last seen him, I supposed, bobbing backwards and forwards at the Die Flamme party: he was called Eccleston. I thought – Why on earth did people want to have theatres of memory? you mean, they liked being reminded about the boring trouble they took destroying themselves? The side-wall of the church that I was approaching across the square was like a fortress: I thought – Memories could take refuge here; you could never blot them out: they would defend themselves with boiling oil and arrows.
The interior of this church into which I went was huge and cavernous like a riding-school: decorations had been taken down or had never been put up: walls were white and soft and peeling like acid on skin. There was one huge and battered crucifix at the back of the altar: one of the nails had come out-not from the hands or feet but from the wall – so that the whole contraption seemed to be swinging round to deliver some blow. I had moved into the middle of the church: someone was coming in at the door behind me. I
felt I could not bear it if it was Eccleston: surely memories do not come down from their niches and pursue you? I thought I might take refuge behind the altar: swing round with that crucifix like a weapon in my hand – someone had come up behind me and put a hand on my shoulder. When I turned it was my Indian friend, Shastri. Shastri had taken to waiting and following me outside the Garden. I have not really explained about this: one does not explain, does one, when things become too boring. I had been with him once or twice to his uncle’s house: I would not go just when he wanted me. I suppose this was my fault: I suppose it was not my fault. Shastri said ‘What are you doing here?’ I thought – Now Eccleston will come in, will he, and he will see me having some fracas with an Indian boy: we will be back at the hostel behind Victoria Station. Do you not see that this might be boring? Shastri said ‘You are meeting someone here?’ Well this is the sort of thing that memories say, is it not. Shastri must have followed me all the way through the jungle. I said ‘No I’m not meeting anyone here.’ Shastri said ‘Then why didn’t you want me to come with you?’ I thought – Because you say things like: then why didn’t you want me to come with you. The door behind us opened and someone else was coming in. I thought – Now, it will be Eccleston: and he will not quite know, will he, what is real and what is memory: might we not be actors in the seventeenth century? Whoever it was began to walk very slowly up the centre of the church. I was sure it was Eccleston. Shastri remained holding me by the arm. I thought – Well, heigh-ho, let’s see what happens this time. When Eccleston was half-way towards the altar he turned and said ‘Hullo!’ I said ‘Hullo!’ He had this long knobbly face like a Jerusalem artichoke. He said ‘I wondered if it was you.’ I said ‘Yes it’s me.’ I thought – Do you think this is how people greeted their memories in the seventeenth century? like Stanley, or whoever it was, later, in some jungle. Shastri said ‘Excuse me I am with this lady.’ Eccleston had a way of looking at people as if he were enormously amused: I wondered how he would look if he were in fact amused. He said ‘I am so sorry, will you excuse me if I have just a quick word with this lady.’ Shastri said ‘Go ahead.’ Eccleston said ‘How are you?’ I said ‘All right.’ Eccleston said ‘I would like to talk to you: I wonder if you would come to the hotel this evening and have a drink?’ Shastri said to me ‘You told me you were not meeting this man.’ I said ‘I am not meeting this man.’ Eccleston said ‘Can I just ask you one or two questions about the Garden?’ I said ‘What story are you on?’ I thought suddenly – But in this memory-theatre, would you know what story you are on? Shastri said ‘No.’ Eccleston said to Shastri ‘But I’d be delighted if you came too!’ He did some sort of flashing of his eyes with Shastri. I thought – You mean, Eccleston is homosexual? Then – But of course, he would want to get stories that were harmful to the Garden! Shastri let go of my arm. He said ‘Thank you.’ Eccleston said to me ‘I knew you were here, but I didn’t know how to find you.’ I thought – Of course you would have known how to find me! Eccleston was smiling. I thought – But if you are in this theatre of memory, you have some message to tell me that is part of my story?
On my way back down the track with the cut-off claws of trees (I had begun by running: I had managed to get away from both Eccleston and Shastri) I tried to work out – What is it one is doing with memory? What falsifications result from the need for a story?
My mother and father, for instance (those old claws! those figures of autumn and winter popping in and out of doorways) –
How would I write about them if I started again: if I tried to see the way we make up stories?
My father in the front of the Land-Rover, talking and talking. Sometimes to illustrate a point he would take his hands from the wheel: we would be driving round corners where a lorry as wide as the road was likely to come: my mother would hold on to the sides of her seat as she sometimes did when she came across Japanese who reminded her of prison. My father saying – What distinguishes humans from non-humans is when they begin to use symbols; when they begin to use language. My mother said – Language is not symbols. My father said – Yes it is. My mother said – Look out! My father said – Before language, you just grunt and roar. My mother said – I am not grunting and roaring! My father said – I didn’t say you were. And so on.
I was lying at the back of the Land-Rover among the pots and pans and camping equipment.
I would think – I will never be like this! I will be on my own, and make symbols I will talk to.
I was crossing the river by the road-bridge. I thought – One day I will forgive my father and mother: I will see them as if they are in a painting?
On my way back to my hut I walked along a path at the back of the Garden where the wire fence of the perimeter came to within a few feet of the fence around God’s inner garden. The wire mesh of both fences was usually covered with climbing plants so that one could not see through; however, recently some of the greenery had died so that there were patches of brown. It seemed that if I pulled at one of these with my fingers gently I would make a peephole.
I thought – If this were the theatre of memory, I would be seeing behind the scenes?
Across a small lawn there was a loggia, with pillars, at the back of God’s house. In front of this, half-facing me, was a girl, of about my own age, with long fair hair: she was standing in front of an easel: she appeared to be painting something just out of my sight near the hedge on my left. You know those paintings in which the painter paints himself painting a scene which is reflected in a mirror in the background of the painting? – there is that huge one by Velázquez, in the Prado – it seemed to me that this girl, painting, might be some reflection of myself: it might be myself painting myself painting the scene: but still, what was it that was being painted? Behind the girl at the easel (she had fair hair; she could not, except by some trick of the light or the imagination, be like me) there was a plate-glass window; within this window in the loggia (the regressions might be endless) there was another image, I mean an actual reflection, which was of God, who appeared to be seated in a garden chair with his back to the hedge or fence and facing the window. I mean that this was what was reflected in the plate glass at the back of the loggia: this was what the girl seemed to be painting. But with God there was another figure kneeling or seated on the ground: she had her arms over God’s lap. I thought – This is what you usually do not see of God; the other part of him. The figure was that of my friend who was like Lilith. The girl in front of the loggia, half-facing me, was painting this scene; God-and-Lilith were reflected in the window behind her: they were somewhere just out of sight to her right on my left. I thought – I am seeing – what – not a symbol, but a symbol of symbols? Am I watching myself watching – or myself creating it? It seemed that if I moved the dead strands of climbers carefully I might see God face to face: I mean I saw God at his discourses every day, but that was a story-God: this would be God without his smile or mask: he would be together with his, and my, Lilith. I mean Moses, did he not, only saw God’s arse? There was one of God’s acolytes, like a gardener, on his hands and knees just beyond the fence: he was replanting the hedge: he was watching me. I thought – It is all right: we are both of us angels. I pressed my head as close as I could against the fence. I did then have a glimpse of God and Lilith with her head on his knee: she was wearing her flame-coloured dress; he had his hand on her hair. I thought – But of course they are together, at one, beyond the walls of the cave: they are what we talk about as the sun, are they? And now I have seen them: been with them: I mean, there is that girl painting them. So you do not get burned outside the walls of the cave, do you? You set up your easel perhaps, which is the back way.
‘Hullo.’
‘Hullo.’
‘It was good of you to come.’
‘Not at all.’
‘Would you like a drink?’
‘Orange juice please.’
‘Not “Save the Oranges”!’
‘No.’
I have not
explained about this hotel. It is a grand tourist hotel not far from the Garden on a promontory between the estuary and the sea. People in the Garden used to pretend it wasn’t there, though people with money stayed there when they visited the Garden. It and its grounds were surrounded by a high wire fence rather like that which surrounded the Garden. I used to think – It is some sort of alternative or anti-Garden. I tried not to go there, perhaps because I thought I might want to stay.
Eccleston said ‘You’ve been in the Garden – what – four or five months?’
‘Yes.’
‘And how do you find it?’
‘All right.’
‘What made you choose it?’
‘A story that you once printed about it, as a matter of fact.’
We were sitting on a lawn by a bright-blue swimming-pool. There were palm trees hung with fairy lights.
Eccleston said ‘An orange juice and a large vodka and tonic, please.’
I said ‘You printed a story, months ago, about sex and drugs. But there are no drugs in the Garden. You made the people in the Garden sound so wonderful.’
Eccleston said ‘Lovely lovely sex and drugs.’
Eccleston was a middle-aged man with a heavy, handsome face set so low on his shoulders that it was as if a sculptor had miscalculated and found himself short of stone.
I said ‘What story are you doing now?’
He said ‘You’re still starry-eyed –’
I said ‘What is starry-eyed –’
I thought – I’ve forgotten how to do this.
He said ‘All things bright and beautiful.’
I said ‘You do think you’re learning something, yes.’
The people round the swimming-pool were at tables in twos and fours. It was as if they were ready to play some game that they had forgotten. I thought – Perhaps they should be making up the game.
He said ‘What are you learning?’
Judith Page 16