Voss

by Patrick White

  By the time the sun had mounted the sky, their own veins had begun to run with fire. Their heads were exact copies of that same golden mirror. They could not look into one another for fear of recognizing their own torments.

  Until the head of Harry Robarts was rendered finally opaque by the intense heat of the sun. He had acquired the shape and substance of a great reverberating, bronze gong.

  ‘I do not want to complain,’ he mumbled and throbbed. ‘But it is going on and on.’

  Then he was struck.

  ‘I am beaten!’ he shouted, and the bronze doom echoed out through many circles of silence.

  ‘Listen,’ said Voss. ‘Did you not hear some sounds at a distance?’

  His lips would just permit words.

  ‘It is my own thoughts,’ said Le Mesurier. ‘I have been listening to them now for some way.’

  Nor would he look up from the desolate ground to which his eyes had grown accustomed. He would not have asked for more than this.

  ‘It is the devils,’ shrieked Harry Robarts, who was rolling upon a steed of solid fire.

  It was often the simple boy who first saw things, whether material or otherwise. Now the German himself noticed through that haze of heat, the deeper haze, then the solid evidence, it appeared, of black forms. But still at a considerable distance. And always moving. Like corporeal shadows.

  Voss dared to smile.

  As the expedition advanced, it was escorted by a column at either side.

  ‘When we run together,’ said Le Mesurier, whose attention had been drawn, ‘that will be the centre of the fire.’

  For the present, however, there was no sign that any fusion of the three columns might occur.

  While the white men, with their little trickle of surviving pack-animals and excoriated old horses, stumbled on through the full heat of day, the blacks padded very firmly. Sometimes the bodies of the latter were solid as wood, sometimes they would crumble into a haze of black dust, but, whether formless or intact, they expressed the inexorability of confidence. By this time, each party was taking the other for granted. Women had come up, too, and were trailing behind the men. There were several dogs, with long, glistening tongues, from which diamonds fell.

  Feeling his horse quiver beneath him, Voss looked down at the thin withers, at the sore which had crept out from under the pommel of the saddle. Then he did begin to falter, and was at last openly wearing his own sores than he had kept hidden. Vermin were eating him. The shrivelled worms of his entrails were deriding him. So he rode on through hell, until he felt her touch him.

  ‘I shall not fail you,’ said Laura Trevelyan. ‘Even if there are times when you wish me to, I shall not fail you.’

  Laying upon his sores ointment of words.

  He would not look at her, however, for he was not yet ready.

  In spite of his resistance, their stirrup-irons grappled together as they rode. Salt drops of burning sweat were falling upon the raw withers of the horse, making the animal writhe even in its weakness.

  So they rode through hell, that was scented with the Tannenbaum, or hair blowing. His mouth was filled with the greenish-black tips of hair, and a most exquisite bitterness.

  ‘You are not in possession of your faculties,’ he said to her at last.

  ‘What are my faculties?’ she asked.

  Then they were drifting together. They were sharing the same hell, in their common flesh, which he had attempted so often to repudiate. She was fitting him with a sheath of tender white.

  ‘Do you see now?’ she asked. ‘Man is God decapitated. That is why you are bleeding.’

  It was falling on their hands in hot, opaque drops. But he would not look at her face yet.

  They had come to a broad plain of small stones, round in shape, of which at least some were apparently quartz, for where the swords of the sun penetrated the skin of the stone a blinding light would burst forth. These flashes of pure light, although rare, brought cries to the mouths of the three white men. The light was of such physical intensity. Laura Trevelyan, who had experienced sharper daggers, was silent, though. She rode apart, and waited.

  When the men had recovered from their surprise, it was seen that the two columns of natives had come upon their rear, and were standing ranged behind them in an arc of concentrated silence. Voss dismounted, and was waiting. For ages everybody stood, and it seemed that nothing would ever happen beyond this commingling of silences, when there was a commotion in the ranks of the blacks, and an individual was pushed forward. He came, looking to the bare ground for inspiration, and when he had approached, Voss addressed him.

  ‘Well, Jackie, I do not blame you,’ he said. ‘I knew that this would have to happen. What next?”

  But Jackie would not lift his head. Subtle thoughts that he had learnt to think, thoughts that were other men’s, had made it too heavy. His body, though, shone with a refreshed innocence.

  Then he said:

  ‘No me. Jackie do nothun. These blackfeller want Jackie. I go. Blackfeller no good along white men. This my people.’ The renegade waved his arm, angrily, it seemed, at the ranks behind him. ‘Jackie belong here.’

  Voss listened, touching his beard. He was smiling, or that was the shape his face had taken.

  ‘Where do I belong, if not here?’ he asked. ‘Tell your people we are necessary to one another. Blackfellow white man friend together.’

  ‘Friend?’ asked Jackie.

  The word was twanging in the air. He had forgotten its usage.

  Now the tribe began to murmur. Whether asking, urging, or advising, it was not clear.

  Jackie had grown sulkier. His throat was full of knots.

  ‘Blackfeller dead by white man,’ he was prompted to say at last.

  ‘Do they wish to kill me?’ asked Voss.

  Jackie stood.

  ‘They cannot kill me,’ said Voss. ‘It is not possible.’

  Although his cheek was twitching, like a man’s.

  ‘Tell them I will not die. But if it is to deprive them of a pleasure, I offer them friendship as a substitute. I am a friend of the blackfellow. Do you understand? This is the sign of friendship.’

  The white man took the boy’s hot, black, right hand in both his, and was pressing. A wave of sad, warm magic, and yearning for things past, broke over the blackfellow, but because the withered hands of the white man were physically feeble, even if warm and spiritually potent, the boy wrenched his hand away.

  He began gabbling. Two men, two elders, and a younger powerful native now came forward, and were talking with Jackie, in words, and where these failed, with signs. That of which they spoke was of great importance and, even if deferred by difficulties, would, it appeared, take place.

  Then Jackie, whose position was obviously intolerable, raised his eyes, and said:

  ‘No good, Mr Voss.

  ‘These blackfeller say you come along us,’ he added, for he was still possessed by the white man’s magic.

  Voss bowed his head very low. Because he was not accustomed to the gestures of humility, he tried to think how Palfreyman might have acted in similar circumstances, but in that landscape, in that light, not even memory provided a refuge.

  The eyes of the black men were upon him. How the veins of their bodies stood out, and the nipples.

  As they watched.

  The white man was stirring like a handful of dry grass. He was remounting his horse.

  In his feebleness, or the dream that he was living, as he was hauling himself up by the pommel he felt the toe of his boot slither from the stirrup-iron. He felt some metal, undoubtedly a buckle, score his chin for a very brief moment of pain, before he was back standing on the ground. It was an incident which, in the past, might have made him look ridiculous.

  But the black men did not laugh.

  Then Voss, behaving more deliberately, succeeded in seating himself in the saddle, swaying, and smiling. The blood which had begun to run out of his chin was already stanched by the dry atm
osphere, and the flies sitting on the crust of blood.

  Even so, the woman had ridden closer to him, and was about to make some attempt to clean the wound.

  ‘Lass mich los,’ he said, abruptly, even rudely, although the rudeness was intended, rather, for himself.

  Now the party had begun to move forward over the plain of quartz, in which, it was seen, a path must have been cleared in former times by blacks pushing the stones aside. The going was quite tolerable upon this pale, dusty track. Some of the natives went ahead, but most walked along behind. Now there was little distinction between skins, between men and horses even. Space had blurred the details.

  ‘Good Lord, sir, what will happen?’ asked Harry Robarts, rising to the surface of his eyes.

  ‘They will know, presumably,’ replied the German.

  ‘Lord, sir, will you let them?’ cried the distracted boy. ‘Lord, will you not save us?’

  ‘I am no longer your Lord, Harry,’ said Voss.

  ‘I would not know of no other,’ said the boy.

  Again the man was grateful for the simple boy’s devotion. But could he, in the state to which he had come, allow himself the luxury of accepting it?

  As he was debating this, Laura Trevelyan rode alongside, although there was barely room for two horses abreast on that narrow path.

  ‘You will not leave me then?’ he asked.

  ‘Not for a moment,’ she said. ‘Never, never.’

  ‘If your teaching has forced me to renounce my strength, I imagine the time will come very soon when there will be no question of our remaining together.’

  ‘Perhaps we shall be separated for a little. But we have experienced that already.’

  They rode along.

  ‘I will think of a way to convince you,’ she said, after a time, ‘to convince you that all is possible. If I can make the sacrifice.’

  Then he looked at her, and saw that they had cut off her hair, and below the surprising stubble that remained, they had pared the flesh from her face. She was now quite naked. And beautiful. Her eyes were drenching him.

  So they rode on above the dust, in which they were writing their own legend.

  *

  The girl, Betty, was in tears the evening they took the hair from Miss Trevelyan by order of Dr Kilwinning. It was that lovely, she said, she would keep it always, and stuff a little cushion with it.

  ‘That is morbid, Betty,’ said Mrs Bonner.

  But the mistress allowed the girl to keep the hair, because she was touched, and because it no longer confirmed her strength to deny other people the fulfilment of their wishes.

  When they had put away the dressmaking scissors, Laura Trevelyan’s desecrated head lolled against the pillows. She was lying with her eyes closed, as she did frequently now, and Dr Kilwinning was taking her pulse, an occupation which filled a gap and prevented the ignorant from talking.

  Of all those people who witnessed the removal of the hair, Mr Bonner was most stunned, who had never before seen a woman without her hair. It made him walk softly, and, shortly after the operation, he went out of his niece’s room, calculating that nobody would notice his absence.

  When, finally, his wife came down with Dr Kilwinning, there he was, loitering at the foot of the stairs, near the stair cupboard, to be exact, as if he had been an intruder in his own house.

  The doctor was for leaving with all speed of his patent-leather boots.

  But these fleshy old people, who had wizened in a few days, were hanging upon him. The rather common old woman would have seized him by the cuffs. Alas, his status as fashionable physician failed to protect him from a great many unpleasantnesses. If anything, the fees he charged seemed, rather, to make some individuals aspire to get their money’s worth.

  ‘But tell me, Doctor, do you consider it to be infectious?’ Mrs Bonner was asking.

  ‘In a court of law, Mrs Bonner, I would not swear to it, but it would be as well to guard against the possibility of infection, shall we say?’

  Dr Kilwinning, whose elastic calves had brought him mercifully to the bottom of the stairs, there encountered Mr Bonner, and they nodded at each other, as if they had only just met.

  Mr Bonner hated Dr Kilwinning. He could have punched him on the nose.

  ‘Oh, dear, then if it is infectious,’ Mrs Bonner was crying, ‘there is the danger of the little girl.’

  ‘I did not say it was infectious. Indeed, it should not be.’ Dr Kilwinning laughed. ‘But the will of God, you know, has a habit of overruling the opinions of physicians.’

  ‘Then,’ said Mr Bonner, who could not stand it any longer, ‘there is something wrong somewhere. If the physician receives the fee that some physicians do receive, he should form an opinion that the Almighty would respect. If that is blasphemy, Dr Kilwinning, I cannot help it. You have forced me to it.’

  Mrs Bonner was aghast. Dr Kilwinning moistened his rather full lips, that were so fascinating to some women. Then he showed his fine, white teeth.

  He said:

  ‘Please do not blame me for your own nature, Mr Bonner.’

  And the front door was rattling.

  ‘He is gone, at least,’ said the merchant.

  ‘And very likely will not return. Oh, dear, Mr Bonner, look what you have done. The little girl upon my mind, too. Though I do declare still, it is a simple brain fever, if that can be called simple which people die of. Regularly.’

  So that Mrs Bonner remained uncomforted.

  She was continually washing her hands, but could not cleanse herself of all her sins. She had Betty walk about the house with a red-hot shovel, on which to burn a compound of saltpetre and vitriol, that was most efficacious, somebody had claimed, although Mrs Bonner had forgotten who. Then, when the fumes rose from Betty’s shovel, the mystery deepened, and everyone in the house was unhappier than before.

  Except possibly Mercy, the little girl. Her world was still substantial, when it was not melting into dreams. Particularly she loved Betty’s game of smoke. She would try to catch the smoke. She loved doves. She loved the marbles from the game of solitaire. If she loved her mother less than all these, it was because she had not seen her lately.

  But her grandmother did come instead.

  In the beginning, Mrs Bonner had taken charge of Laura’s child perhaps as an act of expiation, but soon became enthusiastic. Before going about her duties, she would disinfect herself most rigorously, of course. She would lay aside her rings, trembling all the while, until her impatient skirts hastened through the passages, and she was free at last to snuff up the sweet smell of cleanliness from the nape of the childish neck. This elderly woman would grow quite drunk on kisses, although it was but a mixed happiness that her secret vice brought her, for she would be reminded of her own child, living, but married, and of the several others she had buried in their babyhood.

  ‘Who am I? Who am I, then?’ she would ask, tickling the child’s stomach, while looking over her shoulder to make certain that nobody had seen or heard. ‘I am your Gran. Your Grand-mother.’

  The child knew.

  So Mrs Bonner was appeased.

  In the first stages of her illness Laura Trevelyan had seemed to forget Mercy, but on the night when they cut off her hair, she roused herself, and said:

  ‘I would like to see her.’

  ‘Whom?’ they asked.

  ‘My little girl.’

  ‘But it would not he wise, dear,’ said the aunt, ‘on account of the possibility of infection. Dr Kilwinning would bear me out.’

  The sick woman was thinking of something. Her face was giving it painful shape.

  ‘But if it were to be for the last time?’ she asked.

  ‘That is morbid talk,’ said Aunt Emmy, ‘when Dr Kilwinning is so particularly pleased with your progress.’

  Then Laura Trevelyan began to laugh, except that she could not bring it out.

  ‘Oh, I shall not die,’ she did just manage. ‘Or you will not bury me.’

  ‘Laura
, Laura!’ cried the aunt, horrified by the suffocated words that had struggled out of the scorched lips.

  ‘Because, you see, I am the only survivor of you all.’

  ‘Will you take a little cold broth if I bring it?’ asked Mrs Bonner, in self-defence.

  Although her niece did not reply, she brought the soup, and was less troubled than usual when it was refused, as if the drinking of it had been but of secondary importance.

  Presently Laura said:

  ‘Let us return to the subject of Mercy. Do you remember those people, those Asbolds?’

  ‘Only now that you have reminded me,’ Aunt Emmy said, but coughed a little wheezy cough.

  Laura was silent again for quite an appreciable space, until Mrs Bonner began to suspect the presence of some terrible danger. There was, moreover, a heavy, cloying smell that had begun to irritate and worry her, inasmuch as she was unable to trace its origin. Her niece’s silence and the musty smell did fill the room with foreboding.

  Laura opened her eyes. The aunt had never seen them so fine, nor so revealing. It was just for this reason that Mrs Bonner would not allow herself to look at them. She began to arrange the hairbrushes.

  ‘If I were to make some big sacrifice,’ Laura was saying. ‘I cannot enough, that is obvious, but something of a personal nature that will convince a wavering mind. If it is only human sacrifice that will convince man that he is not God.’

  She began to cough. Mrs Bonner was frightened.

  ‘Oh, dear, it is my throat. It is the terrible Sun that he is imitating. That is what I must believe. It is a play. For anything else would be blasphemy.’

  When her aunt had held water to her lips, again Laura opened her eyes very wide in her molten head.

  She said:

  ‘So we must make this sacrifice, if necessary, over and over, till we are raw and bleeding. When can she go?’

  ‘Who?’

  Mrs Bonner trembled.

  ‘Mercy.’

  Laura Trevelyan moistened her lips.

  ‘To the Asbolds, as we have arranged. She is such a kind woman. She has such cool cheeks. And plum trees, were they? You see, I am willing to give up so much to prove that human truths are also divine. This is the true meaning of Christ. As Mrs Asbold will tell you. Won’t she? It is the secret we have had between us, all this time, since she would not look at me, and I saw that it was only a question of who should make the sacrifice.’