Flame in the Snow

by Francis Galloway

  Thank you for Friday’s beautiful letter – simultaneously hurts and heals, actually. Thank you for your telegram, and thank you for your pills and your sponge. This time you forgot fewer things, but you left far more behind. As long as there is hope there is love, and while it’s there I unlearn nothing, love is, as you know, too precious.

  Thank you for Bonjour Tristesse. You mustn’t worry about me. Like you, I say that (see Bonjour Tristesse) to myself, and I live like that. But I didn’t, for instance, take dreams into account:

  Ik heb vannacht met u gewandeld

  in de dove lanen van de slaap

  en nu het morgen is geworden

  is er niets veranderd

  dan dat die twee, die in de nacht tesaam

  volkomen bij elkander waren

  mij weer alleen gelaten hebben in de morgen

  en samen verder zijn gegaan.

  Last night, e.g., Jack and I went to see some people in Llandudno: I couldn’t get far enough away from the city and the daily doing and talking. We slept in the same room – the usual test of my refusal – but this was accepted. When, half-asleep, I heard something moving and asked, “Darling, what is it, my André?” the door slammed shut; but when he came back in the early hours, he was calm and friendly, we walked ten miles in the foul weather, next to sand dunes and mountain paths, swam twice in the ice-cold water and had a lovely peaceful supper, without anything being mentioned again regarding my enquiry. Now I am liberatingly physically tired, and want to fall into bed, and I am not unhappy. And before I carry on writing, because it is already twelve o’clock – I want to make some tea and take a bath. With your lovely sponge. So you see, God is a God of grace. Love keeps waiting, darling.

  12.30 am. Beautiful blue pyjamas with the memory of your secrets and the colour of absence. And outside it’s raining a grey hell. I suppose I should also tell you some news – such as it is. Chris sends many regards and thank yous for the book. He and Jannie [Gildenhuys] apparently “enjoyed” us “terribly” that intimate Saturday afternoon. He brought me a milk tart and listened to your lovely recording of “Groet in Bruin” [“Salute in Brown”] and oh, the restless child. Uys beginning to talk again, though somewhat businesslike: apparently has been meaning to talk to me. Wrote you a note the other day – lying here in my desk with all the evidence – that sombre Thursday: “Lord, you have hedged me behind and before.” The whole thing sounds far too light-hearted now: will show it to you one day. My telegram: surely it can be poet or writer (prose)!

  I’ve started to write poems – about the “stones”. The form isn’t good enough yet.

  And I’m looking after my little chick.

  And I gave Simone a little kiss from you.

  And I love you. Very much.

  And “hierdie las van reën wil ek nie sien nie

  Op die water van jou voorkop

  Op die water sonder bodem van ons eenheid.”

  And I’ll let you know, on the eighth.

  Be happy, and patient, tender love, good man.

  Your Ingrid and Cocoon.

  PS: Why do you write to me ordinary mail?

  Funny!

  Love, my little treasure,

  I Jonker.

  Grahamstown

  Thursday, 1 August 1963

  God, thank you, most precious little cocoon,

  For yesterday’s letter. The last few days, especially since the weekend, I’ve not known which way to turn. I try to work just to keep everything under control – mind over matter – but I feel overwhelmed all the time by the finality of everything (and the impossibility of finality). The night before last I wanted to phone you (Estelle now works three nights a week in the library, and the awareness of an empty house becomes too much for me; then I’m also physically aware of my loneliness). But in the end I didn’t, mainly because I feared the futility of this inadequate way of communicating. And then, yesterday, your letter arrived. I was already on my way to class and could read only a phrase or two here and there. I can’t remember at all what I said to my students after that!

  Because, darling: I love you.

  What you wrote about the Llandudno episode first touched me, then made me rudely, horribly jealous; and finally so amused me that I had to go sit in my study and laugh out aloud. I can just see it happening. Actually it’s strange that the same thing hasn’t yet happened here, because I wake up with you almost every night, and try to touch you, or talk to you – and then lie awake for hours afterwards just longing.

  All in all, our three months are actually a poem. As Robert Frost (who has suddenly “opened up” for me) says in an essay on poetry: “Poetry is a momentary stay against confusion” – and that’s so exactly what our little island of togetherness is. (He also says: “It begins with delight and ends with wisdom –”)

  Yesterday I received a lovely little Penguin book, Modern Poetry from Africa. And in it I found this piece – “Love Apart” – which was an immediate “fit” (even though it’s probably a little sentimental):

  The moon has ascended between us,

  Between two pines

  That bow to each other;

  Love with the moon has ascended

  Has fed on our solitary stems;

  And we are now shadows

  That cling to each other

  But kiss the air only.

  Thank you for the clipping about your “The Child”. That’s the kind of naive, sincere commentary that has far more value in the long run – it’s more human – than a long literary analysis. And you are a very precious person.

  Talking about “The Child”: may I send it to a friend in Sweden so he can try to have it published there – in Swedish?

  I finally found some time to start revising Die Ambassadeur. I’ve been reworking it quite radically – and enjoying every moment; in fact, working myself half to death. But now I must get those last few pages back U R G E N T L Y !!!!!, you hear? Try to finish reading it this weekend, please, bigbladdyplease.

  “News”?

  In a certain sense everything’s quite neutral here. There’s no active resistance from my side, or from hers. It’s a kind of “working arrangement”; a surface equability – which can actually be far more exhausting, more sterile than conflict. But it has to be like this. I don’t always know just how to pull it all off. So often I feel like throwing in the towel and letting everything just “go to hell” so I can come to you. But one must learn to live with blinkers on, to adapt, prune, and prune even more. Being human does not mean being great or good.

  There have been no moves toward physical conciliation yet, not even a single attempt. I don’t see my way clear to doing it. You are too full, and fully-fledged, inside of me.

  And I’ve had so many secrets that I wanted to give you, again –!

  Maybe the previous ones did in fact reach some “destination”? As I worked things out, there’s a possibility that Friday’s and Saturday’s could’ve made a little baby. We’ll know between the 6th and the 8th!

  I want to know immediately if you find other – more human – work. I want to know everything, even if it hurts me. That also means: everything about Jack.

  Silly, silly letter. It’s a result of all this deprivation: one is crammed so full with everything that it all becomes incoherent on paper, even fatuous, because one’s in a hurry to get everything said.

  I am certain of one thing only: after all the straying, and the restlessness, I now feel happy, sitting here and conversing with you. Clarity has returned. Because there is always “hope, faith and love”. And the greatest always comes last. Has the little chick grown new feathers yet?

  Is Simone well behaved?

  Are you?

  Are you happy?

  Write everything, everything, child, girl, woman. My cocoon.

  Your André.

  PS: I want to make another tape for you, but I’ve been looking in vain for the one I gave up on in Potch; and I’m too broke to buy another. (But maybe I can get by for
a few days without chocolate and buy a tape after all!) Meanwhile I’ll have to project onto my miserable old yellow sponge and at least take a bath with you!

  PPS: I include a copy of what I wrote about Uys for the Penguin thing. Give it to him: maybe it’ll protect your precious little head from his wrath.

  PPPS: I love you.

  PPPPS: André.

  PPPPPS: Have you realised that your signature, under your letter’s PS (IJonker) actually looks like this: Tjanker!? [Cry-baby] (If that’s the case: don’t, be happy, be light, be free, be you.)

  PPPPPPS: I have handed out all five Rook en Okers already. They were all received with great delight.

  A.

  Grahamstown

  Sunday night, 4 August 1963

  My little angel, my loveliest,

  A sense of satisfaction tonight, because I have completed a big, intensive shift of revision on Die Ongedurige Kind; in the process, I did some drastic rewriting, too.

  Since your letter arrived last week, my “emotional curve” has slowly begun to head upwards – mainly as a result of your letter. (The preceding days had been hellishly uncertain.) And now there is, even in our separateness, a certain something that cannot be taken away; I have taken everything up inside me, and it’s so much a part of me now that I could never lose it. And I’m taking care, even while revising the book, to add little pictures of you: your speckled shoulders, the little freckle high up on your left thigh, the lovable habit you have of twirling a curl around your finger whenever you’re sad or upset –

  Girlie, I’m so angry and sorry about Rook en Oker! Bartho has written to say – as he no doubt told you too – that the second run was also pulped because the print was smudged and the upper lines uneven. And now it will apparently take at least another month … But I went and wrote to him immediately (a little presumptuous of me?) and said he should try, now that there’s been even more negligence, to make a slight change to the order of poems; for the sake of costs, it will have to be limited to a minimum – and so I proposed only the following: “Liedjie van die Troebadoer” [“Song of the Troubadour”] and “Ramkiekieliedjie” [“Ramkiekie Tune”] should be shifted to part 5 (the “Coloured Songs”); “Die Kind” should be placed in part 3 (together with a group of poems with greater reach and intention); and “L’Art Poétique” must go in part 1, where it should fit well. Do you agree?

  And then I unexpectedly received a cheque from the insurance people for the stuff that got stolen during the holiday – see, the police do sometimes help! – and I was able to go and buy planks and bricks to extend my bookshelf along another wall; in the last while my study has begun to look rather miserable with piles of books all over the floor; now one can walk freely again.

  God, my love, I shouldn’t even write such things, because then I realise anew how much I want to share it all with you. Do you know the poem – “Lonely” – by the SA “African” [William] Bloke Modisane?:

  it gets awfully lonely,

  lonely;

  like screaming,

  screaming lonely;

  screaming down dream alley,

  screaming of blues, like none can hear;

  but you hear me clear and loud:

  echoing loud,

  like it’s for you I scream.

  Especially these days, now that it’s getting warmer, the days longer, and the twilight evenings so abundant and full of far-off sounds, I want to go walking hand in hand with you for miles and miles along my pine-tree path; get tired with you; and then lie down on the soft carpet of pine needles, under the trees, to become one with you and the trees and the heavens.

  That early morning before Jan and them arrived: I think that was still one of our richest “sharing of secrets”. But it’s almost impossible to single any one out. The Sunday morning when you started crying when I was still inside you – remember? – was also very intense and irreplaceable; and the afternoon at Chris’s – so many moods, so many notes on such a wide range. When I look back I always find myself wondering: is it possible that one can live so much, and so deeply, in just three months?

  I wish – to the point of bursting, actually – that I could once again come up with a poem. But “my words are too few”, I am not a poet, delightful, free, deep, radiant person. You are.

  I love you so much, so very much. In my thoughts I want to touch you softly again and say goodbye to all of you – salut d’amour!

  To your little tummy.

  And your soft thighs.

  And your tiptopnippletitties.

  And your eyes.

  And your ears.

  And your little chick.

  My regards to all that is mine. (Thus also to the poor old leucodendron!)

  And, even though we don’t belong to each other, let us be each other’s. More: let us be each other. Now. And therefore – always.

  I am now – you must please forgive me – going to sleep with you.

  With love,

  André.

  Tuesday, 6 August 1963

  My dearest Treasure,

  Wrote to you last night but once again it was one of those letters for the desk; and now here in this grey pit I hurriedly try to establish communication [“kommunikatie tref”]. Enclosed the small poem – our moesie-child isn’t there, as you will see in the little poem. Sorry. Had begun writing to you to save money for me to slip over the border to Swaziland had things gone differently. Another reason why Swaziland looks so alluring is because I am now truly cornered – should have considered a long time ago that Piet Venter has been lying low and lurking in Johannesburg. He has just sent me an ultimatum: hand Simone over to me, sign the documents … or else! So I went to the lawyer immediately yesterday to let him know that I will defend any case he attempts to bring against me. It’ll be horrible if it comes to that, but what does one pay for one’s child? Also, thank [Bill] de Klerk for spreading “news” in Johannesburg! But back to our “island”.

  Thank you, liefsteling, for your letter of Saturday. And so, why were you so jealous? I made my refusal quite clear! I am still Cocoon! In your letter my eyes dwelt on this yet: “There have been no moves toward physical conciliation yet”. “What a miserable thing man is.” For another half an hour this word kept flashing before me, I looked at it as, years ago in our beautiful Hout Bay room, you had looked at “eventide” in Aunt Gertie’s poems, and repeated this repulsive word again, once, softly: “eventide”. And so on Saturday in the godly golden sun on my way to a swim I said yet yet yet!

  You want to know everything about Jack. It would take a book to explain everything, but let us trust each other in some essentials. Jack is dear and friendly and I see him often: unfortunately there are times (like Sunday night from nine to one o’clock) when we have words, he says he doesn’t understand and apparently thinks that we have an “arrangement” and “you’re marking time”.

  I don’t know what to say to him. And now there are still the things in the poem. Our moesie-child! But please tear up my letter rather than your clothes!

  I wish clarity would come again – everything of the last three days is so muddled. I wanted to make a little tape for you too and didn’t have any money. I wanted to read “Us” to you – it sounds nice on the tape and Mrs Bouws says it’s beautiful, but sad. Probably. My book (ridiculous!) has been postponed for another month or two. Bartho said they didn’t use “nice Finnish paper” and hadn’t cleaned the lead type. Now it has to be reprinted. My six and your six were sent down before he had seen the book.

  So! Your Ambassadeur is on its way. This last part is brilliant: did you also want to work on that? Why?

  Bladdy Barend Toerien was here on Friday night, he has a new volume at the press, said to Jack: “You’re too good for her.” And that’s all the news. Chris [Lombard] got your letter and told me about it, he doesn’t really know how to answer! He said I am slightly “disturbed”. Almost went MAD the night he was there.

  You mustn’t be cross with me about this disap
pointing piece of writing: one can hardly think in this grey little cage. Make me a tape and tell all – you’re alone three nights a week now, aren’t you, and it’s so awful!

  And how are things with the papie? And are you generally happy, resigned, or are you rebellious? No, you in fact wrote that there’s no resistance there … Stay well and write to me.

  Love darling,

  Cocoon.

  Castella

  Wednesday, 7 August 1963

  My darling André,

  Thank you for your greeting this morning just when I was feeling so grey – like my last letter to you with the poem. You have to use it for Sestiger, okay? (The poem.) But is the dedication too personal? If it’s still in time for the unlucky Rook en Oker you may – since you are now acting as my “business manager”! – send it on to Bartho. But maybe the title should be changed to “So” and the dedication omitted. There are others I can dedicate to you more openly. Yes, liefsteling, I agree with your rearrangement of the verses, although of course in the one case I think that “L’Art Poétique” should be the last poem – but it doesn’t make much difference to me. A friend of mine, Marcelle du Toit, whose judgement I rate highly, thinks some of the love poems are “too sensitive”. Writing is just such a delicate affair. Bartho’s letter about the reprint actually amused me at this stage. He should just have sent each of the critics a proof copy so that they’d have something by publication date. Wonder whether he thought of that. Hell but it’s nice to be able to chat to you for a change! It’s not unlikely that you’re sitting inside there on the couch reading Tristia and getting hungry! And perhaps you’ll phone later – it is Wednesday, after all – but you’ll be disappointed about the moesie-child. I’d love to hear your voice again – although I play the little recording of Van Wyk’s poems so often that I can imitate you perfectly!