Flame in the Snow

by Francis Galloway

  And in four nights we’ll also celebrate the Lobola-thing. I was naturally expecting this development because Koos predicted something of the kind, but then talk was just that Bezige Bij would take over a few hundred copies and also bind them. But now they’re going to make it one of their Literaire Reuzenpockets, with a print run of 2 000. Financially it doesn’t mean all that much, as the Pockets sell for just 20c. Commission gets deducted, and Koos and company then share the proceeds 50-50 with me. But more important things are in play here. Bezige Bij is one of the Netherlands’ leading prestige publishers, and their Pockets are offered to the entire European market for translation; in addition, the assessor was Bert Schierbeek, a leading “modern” figure in experimental work in Holland.

  I have some other news too. This time it’s very, very funny. Moves are afoot to have me elected as an assessor-member of the Akademie!!! Keep this to yourself – it’s a state secret. In fact it makes me rather angry, because one day I’d like to receive a Hertzog Prize just so that I can turn it down; if they make me a member now and I don’t accept the nomination, I might never get a chance to refuse a Hertzog Prize. If, on the other hand, I become a member, I wouldn’t be able to refuse the prize. Ridiculously complicated.

  If only all our problems were of this nature.

  Meanwhile I’m working. Yesterday I finished Bartho’s first translation (I’ve done 20 000 words over the last two days), marked bladdy essays, read a manuscript for Bartho … there’s just no time for Orgie, but I’m not over-hasty. And lectures end on 20 October; then I can write until the end of February.

  I saw a little something I want to bring with me on Friday. A completely ordinary, but cute little object. This of course does not exclude our shopping expedition, my darling. Why can’t you always be with me so I can just give and give and then be in a position to f… away all our money?!

  Are you happy? Are you waiting, sweet and beautiful, full of light, fire and stillness?

  Divine beloved, light your little lamp, your groom is coming.

  Oh we’re going to celebrate, we’re going to be human beings amid all the delightful, unthinkable, wonderful things that reside in being human.

  I love you. Reservedly, quietly, with abandon and in wildness.

  Until Friday, until I see you, with love, Ingrid, Cocoon,

  Your André.

  Castella

  Wednesday, 2 October 1963

  Darling my André,

  Ten-thirty and home in Castella to a radiant Simonetta – with our living bed just like that untouched and the cups and the mess in the kitchen, in the bedroom and the bathroom – and by this time you’ve probably arrived in Grahamstown dead tired – and I just want to say hello and goodnight and be thankful for you and go and lie down as if in a massive sickbed, split apart and whole.

  … Het verleden is onzeker

  de toekomst is blind

  wat men in het oog houdt als heden: levende beelden

  die van minuut tot minuut verstenen

  rivieren onder onweer liefde

  die uitstroomt in het laagland in de zee

  wouden ben ik verdwaald in geluk of waanzin

  ik slaap in en het ontwaken is bitter als stilte

  steden waarin men zichzelf herhaalt en aanvult

  afvalt schaduwt verliest en weervindt

  …

  ik geef gaan raad ik wijs geen weg

  duizend sporen kruisen elkander

  het lijf vergaat ons eerder dan het lachen

  na de woestijn is water bovenaards.

  Stay happy darling tender moesie-man; I’m going to read your Huisgenoot now and amuse myself with our new memory and kiss all your little laughs.

  I miss you and I love you – André!

  Cocoon.

  PS: Later – Your article isn’t in Huisgenoot – just a bunch of revolting muscular Springboks! Still, divine five days – though Rook en Oker is jumping before my eyes – it’s completely irresponsible! I am a GLUTTON for talking to you – last night at the 191 was, I think, the most precious, or was it the bed, many times (thirteen), or on our walk when we were angry? Work today was actually “most kak” – but tomorrow I’ll be eating with Mrs Bouws and meeting Lena at five.

  Good night! Night, dearest, love my darling – Con. (nie?)

  Saturday, 5 October 1963

  Darling mine,

  I’ve been walking around for three days now feeling guilty about not writing, but it’s simply a case of yielding to the final, hectic acceleration of the academic year. However, right now everything will just have to wait until I’ve conversed a little with you. Last week this time we were in the little castle. Or on our way there after the morning’s shopping, you with your white bathing suit (have you broken it in yet on your gorgeous little body?) and me with my red pyjamas. And now? Now I’m sitting here with a few strategically located scabs and a heart full of love and quiet longing.

  Here, everything has become so very ordinary, after that night’s inexplicable little drama, in fact upsettingly ordinary. And who can live “ordinarily” after drinking from your fountain? “Who can live on as a person after he’s played the role of God –?”

  My love, my love, with a stillness and compassion and breadth, a kind of untouchable happiness. I’ve not yet had any time to sit and think about our nearly six days together, sort it all out, form a precipitate. Yet it’s been there all the time, behind all my daily doings – a process of assimilation, of absorbing, of discovery. While there with you I was all too aware, throughout, that our sexual togetherness couldn’t be as fully a surrender-filled orgy as I wanted it to be, all because of something as banal as an abrasion! But nonetheless we did, once again – and it remains a wonder, every time – liberate another angel from stone, gave form to a new word (and allowed a new word to become flesh); and we discovered our own island in the sea.

  Your letter has still not arrived (I don’t mean the long one of a while ago, or the short one you talked about on the phone); I wonder what’s going on with the post. Everything’s wonderfully quiet.

  What will you do on Monday night at the Cultural Society or whatever? Did Jack convince you in the end? And when I phoned the other night, was there fighting and tension and frustration again?

  Darling Cocoon, you who took shelter so deep in my arms, hid away underneath me, and took me so deeply into yourself – you are not allowed to be unhappy.

  Without a certain degree of agony, we cannot exist. May not, perhaps, because one must always know life is precious, wonderful, and therefore dangerous; without this acute awareness (anxiety, even), we wouldn’t be able to feel or experience things so deeply. However, mere unhappiness, which is really just frustration, and being trapped in a sterile and destructive way – that is not something you should have to endure. I’d like to protect you against it; to make a fire around you with my love to counter it, “ward off the pestilence that walks in darkness”.

  I’ll write again, a longer and more rounded letter. This note was just to make contact so that you won’t be abandoned to silence, and so you know – as if you dare doubt it! – that I love you, how much I love you, and how I carry you with me, as if I were a mother and you my little child: with confidence, tenderness, faith, hope and love; and with great thankfulness for everything you continue to be for me, and for what you have been for me once again in the past few days. You have become a “home” for me, and with you, always, everything is beautiful.

  With much love,

  Your André.

  Castella

  Saturday night, 5 October 1963

  My darling André,

  It is absolutely unbelievable to think that last Saturday night we were at the Cederwood – I think we’d just started having our drinks – it’s so dusky and warm – tomorrow I’m going for a swim in your beautiful white bathing suit – eventually, because tomorrow has to be nice weather – I have Simone here (this sad little solace has just knocked over her glass of milk): this morning we went
to take measurements and have a fitting for her flower-girl dress – and do you know what? I tidied the desk and put all your hundreds of letters neatly together in their envelopes – and your documents in files and my documents in files and our newspaper clippings in files … “sorting”. Even Rosa Nepgen’s nasty review of Sempre. “He should cleanse it of the offensive little things which make one keep it from young children”! God! (In any case, a person who gorges to the extent that she is as fat as a pig is offensive to society.) Darling! I miss you. Miss you so much that I took everything away from you for myself, and last night after Jan and Marjorie – wrote you a poem, like this:

  My embrace redoubled me

  my breasts call to each other

  the two prancing friends

  and my hands enclose my secrets

  in a room far away

  behind the spilled autumn

  your eyes gaze astounded

  at the mirror of your body

  Nice? Of course, they were very inquisitive last night when I went to visit them – it’s so hard for me to lie about you – “a lie in the soul” – if I deny you, I deny myself. Marjorie says: “I suppose he finds it difficult to choose between you.” And then I honestly have to keep quiet! And the night you called, Jack was quite chilly, and says he doesn’t care about me any more. And what news from your side?

  Do you want to send my little poem to 60 or do you have objections to it? How are things going with Orgie and please send your darling tape soon, my hello my André?

  I found the poem “Prayer before Birth” (the old [Louis] MacNeice (lovely old woof) died of drink the other day).

  God or whatever means the Good

  Be praised that time can stop like this

  That what the heart has understood

  Can verify in the body’s peace

  God or whatever means the Good.

  But I am not in the mood tonight to quote “Prayer” for you – it’ll come! Heard old Louis himself read it but unfortunately he was a bit drunk, and struggled …

  It’s silly to say I miss you. I even miss your irritating scratching, and such a long wet sleep! Do you think that there’s a moesie-chance that we will have a child?

  Now I’m going to sleep in “our” bed with Simone, and on Monday I will try to find the lost letter – imagine if someone reads it? – and tomorrow I’m going for a lovely swim – and, as Abraham de Vries said that night (vulgar!) “perhaps you’ll get another collection from this”. I am in the mood to write again. ’Night beautiful, beloved, tender precious mine. And write soon-soon, or I’ll send you a writing pad. And thank you for the phone call. Tell everything, everything. Love, my darling, and kiss the papie inside me!

  Your Cocoon.

  Sunday, 11.30 pm

  Dearest André, had a swim, in the lovely white swimming costume; dropped Simone off and had a meal with Chris till pm, lay around at his flat and laughed and chatted about everything and more, and loved you, always. Come back soon.

  Cocoon my André,

  Cocoon.

  {Your letters are now almost as numerous as our other total: 69.}

  Grahamstown

  Monday morning, 7 October 1963

  My most lovely, precious Connie,

  It’s as if my reactions this time are slower than usual – perhaps because I fell back into work so swiftly. It’s only now, and especially over the past weekend, that I’ve been fully able to understand, “in soul and body”, just how precious was our handful of days together, how indispensable you are to me, and what a continual, inarticulable wonder you are. This long, barren and frustrating separation from each other, along with all the yearning that it caused, has also – over time – almost accustomed us to the fact that we’re not together (even though this has been a rebellious acceptance). But our six days of togetherness, with their quiet time, conversations, going to bed, sleeping, eating, and being, have created a deep new realisation of the unutterable value of sharing things so directly. It’s as if we’ve been driven into a bigger space, like a bubble blown from a little pipe. I need you more than I ever did before, you are more precious, and everything is more tender; and: it’s all more secure, less likely than ever to be taken away. I live and breathe in the assurance of our love, and the days are beautiful; I long to return. You are the world outside my room – a clear summer’s day that I’m always aware of, and to which my window is always open. Sometimes I climb out the window, go into the world, and become sun-drunk, happy, complete.

  Yesterday especially was a day for sharing with you: an outing to a coastal farm (Naas Steenkamp’s parents). It was a real little paradise. This is how we should be able to live one day: in an old-fashioned, sturdy little house with thick walls. It’s all white, with a cellar and broad wooden floorboards, and it nestles on a mountain slope, facing a valley and a river that cuts through brushwood and palms, with open pasturage among poplars, and winding paths trodden by oxen. Anton should really tell you about it – this son of mine who yesterday, for the first time, actually did smell “like a billy-goat and flowers”. This was after trampling through the cowshed with its milk buckets, playing with a large Alsatian, and rolling around in cool, green sunny grass before trailing after Muscovy ducks. “The good earth” is more than just a romantic fiction!

  This morning it was back to the lesser reality of marking essays – and reading Rosa Nepgen’s review of Sempre in Die Burger. Did you see it?! (“Is André Brink still seeking a doubtful martyr’s crown by getting one of his books banned?” For shame!)

  Thank you for your sunny, lovely letter that arrived this morning, with its beautiful poem and its tender certainty, “split apart and whole”.

  Now you must please look nicely after your little split, pamper it, let it rest quietly so it will be ready for the next time, for another day … my scabs have come off and I am once again “whole” – and ready, always full of love.

  Have you had any more trouble with creditors? Please write to me if you need help. And you may not, must not try to “pay back” any of the rent, as you threatened, because after all I also stayed in the little castle!

  I’m going to make you a tape this week. And I’ll phone you on Wednesday night.

  I’m saying “good morning” to you in the early morning, hailing everything, with joy and light and playfulness, and with the laughter of love,

  Yours, always.

  Castella

  Tuesday, 8 October 1963

  My darling André,

  This grey weekend time – six o’clock – after the newspaper is done with – luckily I still have some of your lovely gin and carnations – and asparagus. Thank you for your letter. And the telegram. How on earth do you manage to write on a Saturday (twelve o’clock) and make sure that I get the hand-delivered letter on Monday morning? If you send it to my postbox it arrives even earlier. [PO Box] 707. (I think.) And I’ll send you a telegraphic address as soon as I find out what it is.

  Dearest mine! Last Tuesday – when I was so horrible – that time – before the 191 and the long long sleep. It feels as though you are years away. Here the usual storms and floods – with a lovely Sunday in between – so I wore the white bathing suit – it’s beautiful – I could run and climb and swim swim swim in it – the bikini always falls off – it is beautiful! And then, with Chris to the El P. [El Picador] in Sea Point, and a bottle and a half of white wine, we sat at our table, the one in the corner, and had the braised duck – I missed you so much!

  Yesterday evening after the Cape Culture Group [Cultural Circle] – Jan (and Marjorie), who had already infuriated me at the dinner table – said they were going to Bill tomorrow evening – and carried on like this as though I’ve got something against him – till I said sulky bastard or something like that – and then Jan was angry – and I was angry – and then in front of everyone he said I probably don’t know Afrikaans, because Jan S. Cilliers [Jan F.E. Celliers] (the darling) definitely did not mean bastard breed when he said bastard breed (
I like a man who can stand his ground) but in fact meant the “Royal Dutch”. Well, I had to accept this, but after the meeting he again referred to it twice (such a dear) and then I was angry again and fell asleep angered. And then I didn’t want to show him your document that he has to sign; I think you must, in any case, write to him yourself, I’ll sign my name; and write to Adam [Small] – I’ll speak to Uys tomorrow. (Unless he went to Onrus, as he’d planned.)

  One little part of your letter vaguely disturbed me – you mentioned it on Wednesday morning before you left (around 8:15 to be precise): “While there with you I was all too aware, throughout, that our sexual togetherness couldn’t be as fully a surrender-filled orgy as I wanted it to be, all because of something as banal as an abrasion!” André, I think I’ve told you this before, and maybe often made you feel – that you are, each wonderful new time, a sexual-spiritual surprise to me – though I’ve been chafed and sore I’ve never made such an issue of it! But your image of the angel from the stone is beautiful. Angel? I don’t know either why it is so “wonderfully quiet” on your side, but you should at least have received a letter from me on Saturday and again today. I’ll post your letters myself now – because the express one is lying around somewhere in Cape Town it seems. And why, while I’m scolding now, the “inexplicable little drama” of Wednesday night? Dear darling CHILD, do you know they’re even writing about me in the newspapers now … “Ingrid Jonker (‘The Child’)” – do you know that it is LOBOLO and not Lobola? See Hiemstra.

  Darling my André, against whom I drowned so wonderfully just last Tuesday, I am not unhappy. Just rather saddled with energy. I want to go up the mountain. And all the while I am busy “skryven en skryven en skryven almaar die heilige Name van God”.

  And I also want a tape, dearest one of all. This Sunday Jack again said he loves me, but when I showed him the poem “My Embrace Redoubled Me”, he said, “It’s for André. Hurry up, will be late, you little bitch.” Strange …?