Flame in the Snow

by Francis Galloway

  (“Play father”? Remember. It might sound crazy: but I would love to make a little daughter!)

  I’m sending you another verse or two. (“Dearest auntie, I bring you some roses.”) Laugh if you like. All that remains for me now, following [Friedrich] Schiller, is to write an “Ode to Joy”. {I wrote to Bartho asking him if he might be interested in a little volume. That is to say: if I can be convinced that it shouldn’t, like Caesar, etc. etc., actually have remained unpublished.}

  My love to you. And send my regards to Simone’s teddy bear, which I’m currently more jealous of than Chris! (But send him my regards, too.) And a kiss for the “little garden of Eros”.

  André.

  PS: I think I’ll send you the section of the book that has already been typed. The rest next week. Okay?

  My Wilder Kind [My Wild Child]

  Die Uiltjie [Little Owl]

  Hy Het met Goeie Bedoeling Gesê [He Said, with Good Intentions]

  Selfs Heiliges [Even Saints]

  Sunday, 5 May 1963

  André, my dear little heart,

  I write you quite a lot more than I actually post – an old habit. Thank you for your letter of Tuesday, which you “shouldn’t have” written! I hope you will never again feel that you “should” this or that with me – I particularly like your open, honest, spontaneous reactions. And so your letter was actually a delightful surprise and I let a mistake through on the front page of the Strydkreet. But I told the foreman it was actually only 50% my fault, which confused him a little until I could think of a better excuse.

  Guess what? My child arrived by plane yesterday and she is now sleeping nice and warm in the next room. She’s grown to be so cute and when I can’t bring myself to reprimand, I just have to laugh, especially when she calls me “little mommy”! I’m sitting here now at Jan’s table where we read Richard Rive’s letter, do you remember? Last night, with Richard – sorry – thought for a moment about Richard’s letter and wondered why I wasn’t intuitively “warned”! Last night I had a meal with Dan [Daniel] Kunene, such a civilised soul with an impressive kind of dignity and a quick mind. He is a lecturer in African languages at the University of Cape Town and at the moment head of the faculty. I am eager to introduce you to him when (when?) you come down to Cape Town. He is also the translator of the African poems in the Penguin edition of South African poetry. Trying to go overseas for a year for a study tour, but what a mess … it’s almost impossible for him to leave the country because of all the suspicion …

  Did my last letter depress you terribly? I am not a prose writer – but, as you say, there are a few things in life for which, thank God, no words are necessary. I’d also love to speak to you, but heaven knows, not with words on a piece of paper. Also want to tell you about my new poem based on the Dutch hex-text “You put a spell on me, magician …” then the poem moves in a kind of a dream atmosphere, I mow everything down and stand naked, all alone and happy, until the “spell” is broken and I must go “back to my blood relations / back to my kin / back to the pre-birth-death / where I belong” [“terug na my bloedverwante / terug na my naasbestaandes / terug na die voorgeboort-e-like dood / waar ek hoort”].

  André, you speak about renouncing things, is this an indication that they are being lost already, because “what is actual is actual only for one time / and only for one place / I rejoice that things are as they are and I renounce the blessed face …” Allowing something to endure, will you find a charm for that, Magician? Child, I feel frustrated and so I went off to look for your little portrait in Die Huisgenoot so that I could, at the very least, see how your “declared” face looks … it is rare to discover someone so suddenly and completely, and afterwards the physical distance as you call it, which everything now rests upon and where it happens …! In the meantime, I swim in the ice-cold water of Clifton and I work, and I receive, it seems, hundreds of people ... and sleep so terribly much!

  The poems you sent me are once again proof of your astonishing receptiveness and high emotional tempo – which is of course absolutely essential to the whole complex organisation of an artist’s tools. What this poem still lacks is the technical expertise, which will come later (if you kept it up and I know you should and now you must keep it up). Poetry lies just under the surface of your highly lyrical prose in Lobola and Caesar. I’m looking greatly forward to Die Ongedurige Kind, you will in no way burden me with it, I await its arrival with joy, to which I also have a right. To get back to the poems … Most of them are successful, “Through the Looking Glass” and especially “the earth” that drifts away “like a dandelion seed” [“die aarde wat soos ’n sydisselsaadjie” wegdryf]. (The two people I showed the poems to in confidence – Freda Linde and Chris – both said almost without hesitation in the same words, although they didn’t see the poems as successful as a whole: “But there’s no doubt; he’s our man.” I also like “Meisie” [“Girl”] from: “you: you play with the sky” and especially “little Midas-child / under your fingers / everything becomes poetry …”

  Also “come and sleep with me” and some of the words that play like naughty children in dark rooms.

  I hope you will continue, long, very long, after the original inspiration has dwindled … Send me everything you write, and when we are together again, I would like to examine everything, line by line, also because I, I already know this, can learn so much from you.

  But now I’m not writing another word. Soon you’ll believe that I am in love with you! But call me one night (when you get this letter).

  Fixed time and Personal. Then I will hear your voice and see whether this is true!

  Until then, darling,

  Ingrid.

  PS: What is your second name? IJ.

  Grahamstown

  Monday, 6 May 1963

  Dear Ingrid,

  Perhaps you know what it feels like to have typed up a book of 341 pages? I’d rather be with you to share it. Meanwhile, all I can do is send you the last bunch of pages and start chewing my nails, hoping it won’t be too much of a trial for you. Please don’t keep me in the dark for too long (but you should also not neglect more important things for my sake!).

  I would like it especially if you could look out for certain things:

  a)The consciously heavy, semi-official style of Part One – which gradually dissolves during heartfelt talk as Keyter pulls himself out, against his better judgement, from behind his mask: is this perhaps too “heavy”? Do the first 10 pages make too hard a read?

  b)The adaptation of Dante: the Inferno in para. 2 of the section entitled “Ambassador”; the Paradiso, no more than synoptically in the visit to the Champs-Élysées on 322 et. seq.; and Canto {26 of the Purgatorio} in the conclusion – is this once again a case of a “poster comparison”, or is it unobtrusive enough here?

  c)Are all the episodes in the section “Ambassador” necessary? (I have some doubt especially about the visit to the fashion boutique.) Otherwise: anything you can put your finger on.

  I worked myself half to death to finish the job by today. In the process, my weekend went down the drain. But maybe this was a good thing: on weekends I suffer too much longing. Meanwhile, life here is not without its own crises. I feel a need to get away, go sit somewhere and think, sort things out and seek answers to many questions.

  Write to me. I await your letters. And please send me the title of that lovely anthology of modern American poetry; I must get a copy. Thank you for the beautiful quotation the other day (“Before the battalions …”).

  And love,

  André.

  Citadel Press

  145 Bree Street

  Cape Town

  Tuesday, 7 May 1963

  André, my fiery, rebellious thing!

  What on earth does your remark about my modest little journalistic article specially written for Drum mean? You call it “a note, a declamation etc!” Of course, I didn’t write the captions – I’d be more precise if I had to do anything like that! I did in
deed give them the photo … and why don’t you recognise me? Because my hair is done up? You frighten me with that “I’ll have to get to know you anew” or something like that. I hope you aren’t disappointed! And above all, do not make me “a thing with one face … Like water held in the hands would spill me / Otherwise kill me …”

  Just back from work – received your letter and poems last night – thank you for everything – and also for the MS, which is lying here on the table next to me. The house is untidy; I am terribly tired. May I tell you what a “normal” day is like for me – wake at 6.30, rush to feed Simone, get dressed, both of us – wait for the bus – five drive past, all full – catch one, drop her at nursery school – wait for another bus – another five drive past, all full, clock in at eight o’clock and read non-stop for ten hours. Back, fetch Simone, another bus, home, a drink, and then quite busy again till ten, eleven or twelve o’clock. Child, one could go mad from it! And on top of that, someone tried to steal my poor purse on the bus – got it back from him, then the conductor asked what was going on, everyone making a noise, I said I simply fell against the man, got off, tired, amused, and yet … it’s probably part of life!

  And did you get my other letter? And was it at least better received?

  We must go and see Douglas again, I left there when I was about three and can only remember a little. There’s a river, isn’t there? I have a photo of us children, naked, on the riverbank and I have a swallow’s nest in my hand.

  I’m very happy to hear you’re coming down soon; let me know if it’ll be the 17th or the 19th – there’s a complication in terms of my flat – I can only move in after the 25th. From the 15th I want to go to a boarding house here in Green Point – near the nursery school – I can reserve a place for you there too. Good heavens, André, I just had to find time to look for a flat – I’m convinced that your concern about it and about me was an inspiration to get such a lovely place – besides, I plan to entertain you there! And on top of that I managed to get my little daughter back! And of course you can help, you already help through your at times almost physical nearness, all your books, letters, poems, thoughts.

  Now it’s time again for Simone’s bath and the whole evening’s organisation, before I can continue to write calmly.

  11:30: Do you see how long it takes to get little children into bed and to chat and eat with Erik Laubser Laubscher and Claude [Bouscharain]. Darling, hello – have since Sunday, I think, picked up some or other infection and already have a rising fever which I must take (if they will allow me at the Press) to my Dr Katz. Congratulations on your Italian volume – was at Uys [Krige]’s last night to fetch your letter – then told him about it and almost killed myself laughing – he was so wonderfully indignant because his travel sketches have been lying around for twenty years waiting to be published – I actually laughed at both of you then – your wonderful drive and his … fear?

  Busy reading your France sketches and find them highly readable – not sure when I’ll get to Oupa en Ouma se Boererate [Grandpa and Grandma’s Traditional Remedies] – or are you cross with me again?

  The one I like most (now speaking about your poems) is “Even Saints” so far … a lot … maybe because my own feelings connect so closely to it … “small forgettable futile signs” … It screams to high heaven! If only it wasn’t that way, Magician! Don’t you know, some nights I pace up and down, raging, crazy from loneliness … precisely because of the small forgettable futile signs …! (Still, you must be careful of the influence of [N.P.] Van Wyk Louw!) (Sometimes it looks as if my whole life is made of exclamation marks – there are so many ways one can use them – mockery, irony, teasing, lies, happiness …! Etc. Etc.) I especially also like: “the way in which your little dove breasts nestled / in my hands.”

  André! Good night, until the day after tomorrow? Or when will you write again? I still want to tell you so, so much more, when we are alone and without damning blue words on paper between us – they look so banal, so crass, so unaccounted for.

  Love, darling,

  Ingrid.

  Grahamstown

  Wednesday, 8 May 1963

  Lovely, much needed Ingrid,

  Forgive the technicolour-effect of the bladdy typewriter ribbon; it’s unintended, and should not be used as a Rorschach test. Typing has actually been a kind of last resort today. You should see the pile of scored and scribbled paper I’ve already produced this morning. Anton, meanwhile, has begun chomping the things, licking and devouring them – little understanding how incriminating is the corpus delicti he’s chewing over! But I find I no longer manage to say, with a ballpoint pen, what I want to say (in so far as I ever get to say what I want to say!). For that reason, please excuse my recourse to typing. A rose will smell as sweet in any print, to mix my metaphors. (At least I’m in good company: keeping in mind Abel [J.] Coetzee’s mug of sour milk!)

  Thank you for your letter: for you, behind the letter (a very unliterary approach!) and for all the gladness the letter awakened in me (a very psychologistic approach!). All the more because it arrived here in the midst of the day’s ordinary, unavoidable, chronological things: a student’s precious “appreciation” of “Oom Gert Vertel” [“Uncle Gert’s Stories”]; buying meat, along with yet another comment about getting a piece pasella; making sure the gardener is doing what he’s supposed to be doing (something he knows much better than I, who alas am by no means a “boer in heart and spirit”, failing to tune in to agricultural radio shows); marking essays; forgetting to put petrol in the car.

  I wanted to sit down and write back immediately. But letters and words are becoming more fraudulent by the day. I can’t remember ever experiencing the insufficiency of words as agonisingly as in the past while. (But the more I despair about the gulf between what I want to say and what I do say, the more luminous and precious your words-on-paper become. “Little Midas-Child …”?!) Perhaps, also, it’s wrong to try saying things; one should just say them. As Henry James once said: Do not describe what is happening: Let it happen!

  But writers are of course mad, sick beings who will not rest just knowing things – sometimes deliciously, at full throttle; they must go and contaminate the experience with words, too, say it. One wants to signify the synaesthetic sensation.

  {Or is it a case of: How can I know what I want to say until I see what I’ve said?}

  (In service of an invisible fellow person? Nonsense. One doesn’t think about fellow people when one writes.) One should learn to make peace with the meditative experience of a thing itself, in and of the moment, far beyond reason and reasoning. The unquestioning happiness with which we lay together at six on our Sunday morning, for example, you in your white pyjamas with their open little fly. Outside of this kind of knowing one another in the essence of being (and it happens so seldom), everything else is incidental: a mere accumulation of givens; statistics (birth dates; youth; all the little segments of a person’s “history”; all one’s judgements and prejudices and opinions). These are at most mere symptoms of a deeper life. How sad – scandalous, actually – that such superficial things so often act as replacements; that for the masses it even confuses the issue of sex – which is in fact the only pure meeting place where the whole I-as-I encounters the whole you-as-you. (A result of civilisation? – Henry Miller said: “To be civilised is to have complicated needs; and a man, when he is fullblown, should need nothing” … i.e.: nothing but this essence-of-life itself.)

  I’m happy about Simone. I look forward to seeing her. One of my biggest yearnings in life has always been to have a daughter. The Stellenbosch business has now been arranged in such a way that I’ll be coming down by car; so, expect me at about four on the afternoon of Sunday (the 19th … still ten days away!). If I don’t come alone, there will be other complications, but nothing insoluble (in that case I’ll still stay with you at least from Wednesday evening until Friday morning). I think, however, that I’ll come alone. For several reasons, it’s become necessary f
or me to get out again, go somewhere; I need space in which to add things up and see if I still come out as myself. I will in any case let you know in good time what the final decision is.

  Phone you? Have you any idea how often I’ve walked up to the telephone? But what holds me back is knowing all too well that few things on god’s earth are more frustrating than a telephone conversation. (“How are things going?” “Is the weather there also good?” “What did you do today?” “I’m working my fingers to the bone.” “I miss you.” “Have you written anything since last time?” Three minutes go by. Or six, nine or twelve, as the case may be.) And as our telephone is situated in the middle of the house, everywhere audible, such a conversation will be limited to precisely those things in which we have no interest. But that doesn’t mean I won’t maybe phone you, on impulse! Will you, by the way, have a phone in your new flat?

  And so you had to use the little Huisgenoot photo (that same loathsome, know-it-all picture) to supplement your memory? Like I have to rely on the picture in Drum: in itself it’s actually very pretty – I wasn’t trying to be “rude” the last time, I promise! It’s just so unsatisfying. Luckily I sometimes see you again, at night – your smile or your being unhappy – and then I can lie half-awake and reminisce. But I think I’ll bring my own bundle of apparatus along with me this time (photography’s actually one of my favourite occupations), and see if I can improve on the Drum picture. Will you model for me?

  Please send me the whole of your magician poem. The incantation effect of the repetitions “back to … back to …” is excellent. Meanwhile, I dip into your little pile of papers all the time. The cyclicality of “Bitterbessie Dagbreek”, where the echo in the poem itself becomes an echo, grows ever more charming to me. I know there are even better poems in the collection, but my favourite remains “Begin Somer”. (Its only dull spot is the phrase “people like ants” which, among the novel, clear imprints of the other “images” – they’re actually more concrete than images – doesn’t radiate quite enough.)