COV02 - A Proper Marriage

by Doris Lessing

  The audience was standing up. Someone was singing ‘The Red Flag’. The lights came on to show three small urchins draped in white sheets, shouting above the din from the hall. ‘I am Africa,’ yelled one determinedly. Miss Pattern appeared on the edge of the stage, waving her hands. Africa, India and Asia rushed off the stage, tripping over their sheets, while Miss Pattern smiled appealingly at the audience. The back rows were now singing ‘Sarie Marais’, while the delighted aircraftsmen in the middle were sitting with arms linked, swaying from side to side, and singing, ‘The people’s flag is deepest red …’

  Mrs Maynard rose to her feet, climbed up the wooden steps that led to the stage, and stood waiting for silence. At last she got it. She said it was a disgraceful exhibition and she was appalled at their irresponsibility.

  The khaki rows at the back hissed; and were at once answered from the Air Force blue with satirical cheers.

  ‘You will kindly have the goodness to stand up for the last item,’ Mrs Maynard said, and stood aside while the stage filled with the children waving Union Jacks. She lifted her hand - the rings flashed and glittered - and brought it down on the first chord of the National Anthem. The audience sang it boisterously through to the end, with undercurrents of ‘Sarie Marais’ and ‘The Red Flag’.

  Afterwards, the place seethed as if stirred by a vast stick. People hastily left; isolated groups of Air Force and the khaki-clad - some uniforms, some not - looked at each other and meditated whether it was worth while to fight. A couple of half-hearted dogfights were developing as Martha squeezed out, and saw Douglas waiting for her, smiling mistily, as if from emotion.

  ‘Wait,’ she said, ‘wait.’ She ran around to the back door, while he followed. She wanted to know what was going on behind the scenes. She found a dozen matrons energetically divesting the children of their stage clothes, while they congratulated each other on their courage: ‘It’s time they woke up.’ ‘Yes, I think we’ve broken the ice.’

  But it was not a united committee any longer. Mrs Lowe-Island, upright and sturdy in mauve chiffon, was whispering to Mrs Anderson that the Communists had introduced that disgraceful last item on to the programme, the whole town was full of Communists, they were everywhere. Miss Pattern leaned against a wall, half laughing and half crying, while Mrs Maynard gruffly urged her to pull herself together and the fat priest hovered by, making sympathetic tut-tutting noises.

  And now arrived six of the other committee, all fine open-necked sunburnt young Zambesians, all angry, but earnestly reproachful. Martha heard the note she had heard so often recently from Douglas, and looked at him involuntarily to see if he recognized it. It was that sentimental appeal, the note of goodness betrayed.

  Mrs Maynard confronted them, calm and majestic, and proceeded to point out that the art of good government was to make use of dissatisfaction for social ends. This being too abstract - it was countered with an indignant ‘But we can’t have the kaffirs doing as they like!’ - she translated it thus: ‘My dear young men, they will get out of hand unless you give them rope.’

  They looked at each other rather doubtfully, and Mrs Lowe-Island came in to support. With her hands on her hips, eyes burning, she said that people like them encouraged the Communists. Of course Communist influence had caused the last item on the programme, but why did they behave like that, the way to treat Communists was to take no notice of them, all they wanted to do was to make trouble …

  Mrs Lowe-Island’s speech and personality being more understandable to them, violent discussion continued, while Mrs Maynard stood on one side, watching thoughtfully, with no more than the faintest smile on her face. Finally, when her lieutenant ran out of breath, she stepped forward and invited all six of them up to her house for a discussion next afternoon ‘at six o’clock, mind, because I have to be at Government House for dinner.’

  They retired, prepared to control their indignation until they had heard the other side, like true democrats. Only then did Mrs Maynard allow herself to look exasperated. ‘And I’m so busy!’ she was heard to exclaim. Unfortunately nine-tenths of the time of any political leader must be spent not on defeating his opponents, but on manipulating the stupidities of his own side.

  Martha’s charges were soon delivered into her hands, in their faded rags and bare feet. She was thanked profusely by Mrs Brodeshaw for her kind co-operation, while Douglas grinned a bashful boy’s smile just behind her.

  She took the children to the car. Douglas came with her.

  ‘Well, Matty?’ he inquired eagerly. It really seemed that he expected her to show enthusiasm.

  ‘Everything that happens in this place is like a caricature - it simply isn’t possible that it should happen at all.’

  She heard his breathing change. She said hastily, ‘Were you there? Did you see it?’

  ‘I saw the last part. But, Matty - it’s a beginning. It would have been impossible to have Coloured people entertaining the whites even a year ago.’

  ‘The beginning of what?’ she inquired reasonably. She noted with dismay how amusement and indignation, any emotion she might have been feeling, vanished instantly under the calm cold anger that rose in her the moment she heard him begin to breathe deep, saw his face redden and swell. ‘Don’t let’s start again until we’ve dropped the children,’ she said quickly.

  The house in the slum was in darkness. Martha shepherded the children over the rough court, under the bits of washing. A slit of yellow showed under a door. It opened slowly. From the light of a stub of candle stuck in a bottle, she saw a room full of sleeping breathing bodies. The large woman, still dressed, came forward and received the children, who began bolting along the veranda this way and that like so many rabbits into their doors. The woman began curtsying and bobbing, while she took her child to her skirts. ‘Thenk-you, missus, thenk-you, missus.”

  Martha said good night, and went back to the car.

  Douglas said: ‘My mother’s come.’

  ‘Oh - well, that’s good,’ she said flatly.

  ‘Now, do let her talk to you, Matty,’ he implored in that lover’s tone.

  Mrs Knowell was sitting in the drawing room, reading. She rose at the sight of Martha, smiling uncertainly. Martha also hesitated. Then she realized they were both bothered by a problem of etiquette: Was it suitable for a young woman on the verge of leaving her husband to kiss that husband’s mother? She went forward and kissed Mrs Knowell on the cheek. The older woman grasped Martha to her in a quick anxious embrace, and then released her.

  ‘Matty,’ she said urgently, ‘Matty …’

  They looked around. Douglas had gone into the next room, leaving the door open. He called out in a loud, hearty voice, ‘You two girls would like to have a nice chat!’

  Martha glanced towards Mrs Knowell, embarrassed. That lady, as tired, bony and yellow as ever, looked indignant, and then involuntarily smiled and sighed. Both women flushed guiltily, and became solemn, conscious that they were disliking each other.

  ‘I’ve come to stay a few days,’ began Mrs Knowell quickly. ‘I hope you don’t mind, Matty.’ She glanced towards the open door.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Martha politely. She smiled again; she realized that she wanted to burst into hysterical laughter. She noted that upwelling of hysteria with terror. She controlled herself and said coldly, ‘Well, this is a mix-up, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, it is, Matty - it is. Awful,’ agreed the elder lady sullenly. She was about to say something else; then Martha could see that she was thinking, I must not interfere. She settled back in her chair, and said, ‘You must be tired.’

  Martha at once said she was, She looked nervously away; she wanted to escape.

  Then Mrs Knowell scrambled up, came close, and said in a low, angry voice, ‘Matty - must you? Must you, Matty?’

  ‘Yes, I must,’ said Martha at once.

  Mrs Knowell’s face twitched, then she smiled a cold, disapproving appeal, and said, ‘You must do what you think is best.’

&nbs
p; Martha was deeply touched. She impulsively embraced the old lady again, suppressing the distaste she felt at touching the emaciated body. The skin felt cold and clammy. And Mrs Knowell was trembling with emotion. Martha could not stand the emotion. She gave the elder lady a quick apologetic smile and went to the bedroom.

  Douglas immediately followed. ‘I think you might have spared her a little more time,’ he began.

  ‘Douglas,’ she suddenly wailed, ‘do for God’s sake shut up.’

  She saw a look of satisfaction come on to his face at that despairing wail. He began firmly, ‘Matty, I must talk to you.’ His eyes were stern and calm, his voice steady. This, in fact, was that sensible and brotherly young man. ‘We must get this thing sorted out. Tonight.’

  She felt fear rising in her. ‘You don’t think we should have a jury of Mrs Talbot and your mother and my mother?’ she asked sarcastically.

  The moment was over - his eyes reddened, his lips shook.

  ‘I’m going to bed to sleep,’ she said. She was in bed in a few moments, She turned away from him and thought, I must sleep, I’ll go mad if I don’t sleep. She was drifting off when - as she put it - it began again.

  That night was a repetition of the last. Again he worked himself up into a rage of misery, cross-questioning her about every man she might have casually met during the last four years. And again she was astounded and appalled - it was like listening to a madman talking. Towards dawn she did what she had done the night before. She recited a list of about forty names, enthusiastically admitting guilt with all of them. And at once he was satisfied and went to sleep.

  It was all impossible - but it was happening.

  Several days went by. She went to meetings, worked at the office, spent as little time as possible in the house. She returned at night to sleep broken every five minutes by a tug at the elbow and that stupid, maudlin questioning.

  But why did she not leave? All she had to do was to take a suitcase, put a few clothes into it, and go. But she could not. She still felt that something must happen: someone would say something, and she would be released.

  She was now in a condition of tense, heightened exhaustion. Her brain ticked over steadily, with a clear, cold analysis. She was watching the situation from outside, as if she were not implicated in it, and even with absorbed fascination.

  She was considering such questions as, What did the state of self-displaying hysteria Douglas was in have in common with the shrill, maudlin self-pity of a leader in the Zambesia News when it was complaining that the outside world did not understand the sacrifices the white population made in developing the blacks? For there was a connection, she felt. Not in her own experience, nor in any book, had she found the state Douglas was now in. Yet precisely that same note was struck in every issue of the local newspapers - goodness betrayed, self-righteousness on exhibition, heartless enemies discovered everywhere.

  But she was being heartless; she was as cold as a stone; and had to be.

  She would even begin making such dispassionate comparisons to her mother-in-law, who would watch her, disquieted and disapproving, and murmur, ‘But, Matty, men are like this, you know.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘All you young people,’ she cried, in her sad yellow voice, ‘you have such awful ideas.’ And then: ‘Life is so terrible, Matty, it’s so sad, and you make it worse.’

  ‘It isn’t,’ snapped Martha, frightened.

  She made resolutions not to talk thus to the old lady. It was cruel and stupid. But at the bottom of it, she knew, was a vengeance against Douglas: You drag your mother into this, so that I can talk to her - well, then, I shall! She was playing that female role to its limit.

  And all the time it was as if it were happening to somebody else.

  She was surprised that all the women of the set had come to her, one after another, in secret, to say that they admired her courage, and wished they could do the same. They saw it simply as escaping from an unsatisfactory marriage: the political side of it did not exist. They were not political, and besides, at this particular point in history. Communism was respectable. All of them, however, began telling stories of their intimate lives which she had never suspected as possible. With what low-voiced and eager relish did they divulge these secrets! Then it occurred to her that what unpleasant things had not happened it was necessary to invent - precisely because they wanted her, Martha, to share with them the enjoyable crises that were taking place in her life.

  She made one discovery. It was this. That her feeling that she was being moved along a process which had its own laws was justified. When a woman left her husband, or threatened to leave him - that is, a woman of her type, who insisted on her rights to behave as a man would - then the husband went through certain actions like an automaton, beginning with confiscating the contraceptives, threatening to make her forcibly pregnant, accusing her of multifarious infidelities, and ending in self-abasing weeping appeals that she should change her mind and stay. The thought that Douglas might weep and appeal horrified Martha. She felt she could not withstand it. But even more frightening, because it was so humiliating, was the idea that what she did and what Douglas did was inevitable, they were involved in a pattern of behaviour which they could not alter.

  To Mrs Knowell she remarked: ‘I’m beginning to see how the whole thing works. When a woman leaves her husband she is forgiven on one condition: that she complain shrilly about how badly he treats her. Then certain women will champion her. They are the women who themselves would like to leave and don’t. It is these women who will reestablish her, provided she marries another suitable man. But it all depends on whether she complains and arouses sympathy. They won’t forgive me, because I have no intention of complaining. It’s disgusting,’ she said firmly and shrilly. Then she hated herself for that shrillness. For that group of women, in their secret interviews with her, were such a bunch of self-righteous and outraged feminists - and there was nothing she hated more!

  ‘Oh, but, Matty,’ said the old lady apprehensively, ‘surely my Douggie doesn’t ill-treat you.’

  ‘No, of course he doesn’t,’ said Martha angrily. Then she felt overwhelmed with guilt because she was making the old woman so unhappy.

  If only Martha would weep! If only she would drop her voice and nervously complain of small unhappinesses! With what delicacy and kindness would the old lady then comfort, and approach Douglas; how gently she would have brought the young couple together again; and then, having fulfilled her function as an old lady who was allowed no other, with what pride and tact would she have effaced herself! But, instead, here was this set-faced, cold-eyed, satirical young woman who never, not for a moment, allowed herself to weep or to soften.

  The old lady lay awake at night, thinking of her life, and particularly of those children she had borne and lost. Inside her, even now, there were spaces of dark pain because of those children; even now her arms ached with emptiness when she remembered them. Whatever loneliness and disappointment she had felt had flowed long ago into those small lives, cut off so soon. She had never allowed herself to say, I was lonely, I am unhappy. She wept for the dead children who ought now to be a group of tall and strong young men and women around her. Small Caroline was so like the daughter who had died of malaria that swampy hot rainy season. And Martha was prepared to leave Caroline, leave everything - for what? Mrs Knowell lay awake night after night, looking into the darkness, crying steadily, tears soaking down a set, unmoving face; she felt betrayed by Martha. Her own life was made to look null and meaningless because Martha would not submit to what women always had submitted to. She longed for that moment when Martha would fling herself into her arms and cry out that Douglas could not understand her, but she would stay with him, that she was unhappy, but would make the best of it.

  As for Martha, it had occurred to her that this compulsive process of analysis and comparison was nothing but an excuse for doing nothing. She was retiring to that bed each night for the sheer fascination of see
ing what would follow, and because she was able to think contemptuously of Douglas, Aren’t you ashamed to behave like a self-pitying child - look at yourself!

  She was so disturbed by this thought that she set off to see Jasmine, having first made an appointment, since she would otherwise be at a meeting.

  Until this moment Jasmine had appeared only in her public guise - a secretary on a platform, a girl never without files and papers. She was now revealed to be the daughter of a prosperous Jewish family. It was a large house, very comfortable, and secluded from the street in a well-kept garden. Inside this house Jasmine had a suite of rooms, filled with books, files and typewriters.

  She was calm and sympathetic. She listened without comment while Martha made a long self-critical speech about how intellectuals were doomed to futility because they always thought about things instead of doing them. For one of the advantages of living in the suburbs of the world is that commonplaces which are too tedious for repetition anywhere else come as overwhelming discoveries. From the fact that the working people are destined to deliver the world follow certain other conclusions as night follows the day. Martha had discovered, rather to her surprise, that she must be an intellectual. Therefore: Was it, then, the case, she inquired, that intellectuals were bound to be useless to the revolution because their behaviour would always inspire such disgust in the onlookers that no one would take them seriously? She was developing this with all the fervour of someone on the track of a completely new idea, when she saw that there was a look of patient irony on the small, sedate face.

  ‘Now, Matty,’ said Jasmine reproachfully, ‘why don’t you just leave him and be done with it?’ Martha was checked.

  ‘We simply can’t understand,’ said Jasmine firmly, ‘why you don’t just leave. You really look awful, Matty.’

  ‘Well, I don’t get much sleep,’ admitted Martha.

  ‘Naturally not. And it’s not doing you any good. You’re quite useless at meetings - you talk the most dreadful nonsense, you know. We are all very sympathetic, but we do wish you’d get it over with.’ And then, the calm, demure little face changing not at all: ‘Besides, there might be a revolutionary situation at any moment - and here you are wasting time on personal matters!’