Flame in the Snow

by Francis Galloway

  Evidence? So how did it go on Sunday, and did the thin ice crack? One can make out nothing from your beautiful letters. All I know is that the Van Riebeeck Hotel and Gordon’s Bay are going to be lovely, they wrote me a letter, I was so proud of it; they look forward to our arrival; they don’t know us yet! It’s summer in Cape Town; Friday night’s helluva storm is over; was dead scared all night long; we’re not used to such lightning and thunder. I have noted that I must not give my (uncompleted) lamentation to Contrast, but on the other hand I’m not much in the mood for that cowardly 60 – God, I was angry! You can help me with two reviews for The New African – Modern Poetry from Africa – and Poems from Black Africa.

  Glad, of course, that you’re staying till Friday! Booked for us at Van Riebeeck Hotel from Saturday till Monday and warned Anne that I’ll be sick on Monday; the rest of the time we can just stay in the castle. I have again forgotten how you look and how you laugh, my unfamiliar darling. In two days I will know everything again, because Friday isn’t a day; and then I’ll in any case be busy arranging my little feathers! For a week we can again forget everything, oh happy, huge fire of my loins … am I neglecting you with these shortish letters? … but your lovely letters I cannot mimic! Yet you are already a part of me, I call you by the name André Brink with love and tenderness and trust, till Friday.

  Your Cocoon.

  {PS: Thank you so much for your cheque, my treasure, which rescued Simonina for a week! Where do you get the money from? IJonker.}

  Grahamstown

  Monday, 18 November 1963

  My darling, my Cocoon,

  I should’ve written already, I wanted to, and yet everything was still so unsayable, too tender to touch with words. Especially because the return here was such a tumbling back into banal realities like marking exam scripts, making my way through piled-up work, and – so difficult – learning to adapt to a life without communication.

  Darling, all that remains of our last, almost surreal night is a strange, unbelievable and vaguely terrifying vortex. Were we involved in that? Did we say all that? From where – and why – did everything come down on us like that?

  And yet if I look at the week as a whole, then it remains one of revelation; we succeeded in seeing each other more deeply than ever before, despite – and through – all the surging passions. And I now feel more attached to you and more wholeheartedly in love with you than ever seemed possible before. “What a piece of work is a man …”

  I remember Gordon’s Bay especially, our crystal ball of wonder and happiness and fulfilment. It was in fact what we believed it would be before the time: unalloyed togetherness such as we’ve never known before.

  And the other things, darling, about which I can hardly speak, perhaps they were also necessary, in an irrational, cruel way, because it made us face up to each other in all our forlornness and importunity. About the unforgivable hurt that I inflicted upon you, I can say nothing and ask nothing that would be adequate. Only that it will remain a matter of acute conscience for me, always. Because I love you, and I’m devoted to you in my need, and cannot bear the thought of you being hurt.

  The trip back was a nightmare of guilt and longing and yearning. And I was tired – still am, now. As if this wasn’t enough, I was involved in a collision outside Knysna. Absurd, actually, and thank God only a slight mishap: I’d just begun accelerating from 35 m.p.h. when a scooter on the far left of the road swerved in front of me to turn right. I swung the car round and the one mudguard knocked him over. I thought the man was stone dead. But when I stopped to get out, the old bugger was standing upright next to his (almost undamaged) scooter. He was through-and-through Afrikaans, but in his shock he spoke English. Just wanted to know, in broken English: “Joer not gouing toe meik trabbel fôr mie hei?” And when it appeared that he and his scooter were unscathed, and that only my car had suffered a dent, I got back inside to drive away. At that point he let out a shout and came running up to me, his hands stretched pathetically out before him, uttering the classic complaint: “Maai paaip ies brouken, mên.”

  About that I laughed for the next 50 miles.

  I arrived home at eleven, completely exhausted. Had exams on Saturday and went to Port Alfred to see Naas, who was there for the day, so I could give him his copy of Die Ambassadeur. Yesterday I lay around in a swoon all day. Today I’m working like mad.

  Your lovely, dear letter had arrived in the meantime; it lay open, with all the details about our week there for all to see. Estelle said nothing specifically. Just let it be known that it had come as a “shock” to her. Presumably she did in fact read it. When will the embankment collapse? “Blow, wind! Come, wrack!” I am tired. I don’t know what lies ahead. All I know is that I am impossibly in love with you, and that I’ve so foolishly hurt you.

  Your parcel ended up at this address – ridiculous! I got it today (the slip arrived last week). The black-and-white set looks especially nice. The rest are more ordinary. I’ll send them on to you. I would so love to see you in them, especially in the little bikini with the ribbons.

  January?

  “Lord, I am not worthy.”

  The spirit is dark across the darkening water.

  The stag calls out in the desert.

  Creation is unborn and waits, yearning.

  I say your name, Ingrid. Your tender, lovely, virginal name. I say it with love and painful tenderness. And I hail you with need and yearning.

  Your short hair with sun, sea, smoke, and with hair’s own fragrance,

  and the little curl on your forehead;

  your lovable ears that don’t always listen,

  that are so very sore, especially after car accidents;

  and your brown eyes, happy or sore,

  laughing and crying, quiet or cursing;

  and your soft mouth, kissing and talking;

  and your chin that teases and provokes;

  and your fragrant, smooth, speckled shoulders;

  your back, brown from the sun;

  your white, round breasts, full and with milk,

  with those lovable nipples – breasts that calmly move as you breathe and read;

  and your soft, labile little tummy;

  your little arms with their beautiful hands,

  the messy nails and the notch in your back;

  and your legs, enticing twist of calf-muscles when you wear black shoes;

  and your loveliest feet with the leucodendron, walking across mountains, refusing to take rides with strange men;

  your white backside that turns sitting into an enchantment;

  and your small, high hill, nestling confidentially under my hand

  and deep and warm and soft the cocoon

  my cocoon, eager and hungry, tender and passionate.

  Everything. You. You.

  Mine and also not mine.

  Mine.

  My darling I love you.

  Appallingly yours,

  André.

  Castella

  Monday, 18 November 1963

  My dearest André,

  What exactly I’m drinking this Martini to, I don’t know; your dust cover didn’t arrive; and you are not here. Then “to the sadness at the source of your valiant joy”. On Friday night the castle was so clean and bare with all your stuff gone that I decided to go with Chris after all – but the performance was terribly bad; you probably saw in the newspaper that Pietro [Nolte] disappeared on Saturday – they found him in the bushes that same night “battered” and without a shirt or jacket, in a state of shock. Poor thing! Phoned today, his mom says he’s playing again this evening, at least. He gets these “slumps”; apparently he had an argument with Laurie van der Merwe. We “artists” are probably quite a miserable lot? I missed you so much, especially on Friday night when there was a man in the audience who looked just like you. Thank you very much for Die Ambassadeur with its impressive cover (binding) and the BRINK on it. It looks LOVELY. I’ve lent the sewn one to Chris in the meantime. He can�
�t wait to start. And thank you again for everything last week, my dear treasure. There’s always so much that I’m grateful to you for that I feel completely embarrassed. I received your telegram on Saturday. Glad that you are at least physically safe. (“I who wanted to rescue you / with hands and feet forever safe / On bridges without danger.”)

  And on Saturday Marcelle du Toit (Varney) and I went to fetch the old know-it-all’s daughter and her little girls for Simone (with her beautiful “Cinderella”) – and went to the beach; on Saturday evening Jack had supper here; Sunday, dejectedly, I went to sleep at my sister’s flat from two to eight; no moesie-mine. I wonder what you’re thinking and doing and whether everything there also tumbles and plunges like here with me and at Van Wyk’s. Probably, how can it be otherwise? I am so sorry about my part in the tumult of inner tension that developed in you and which probably caused that sudden “crash” (be warned!). I wrote or tried to write to you so many times over the weekend; but at this stage we can probably just say, as you did in your little letter: just love. “Perhaps the heart will remain for us, perhaps the heart …” And: “Wij gaat dood, en wij leven …”

  Amusing: Anne was shocked at my bare hands: “Ag, Ingrid, and he was your last hope!”

  I don’t think we should deliberately break off or “decide”. God, not again! Also, not that our “row” isn’t important in its own right, but that the circumstances are dangerous. Will all this thinking actually matter when you’re standing in front of me again one day? Probably not. But form and direction we’ll always seek, because we are born to give form and direction. My beautiful and precious André, I still love you and you love me, I am still your friend and I am still here.

  Love for your red hair;

  Love for your beautiful tooth;

  Love for your moesies and your navel

  And your long hands and the papie;

  For your singularity, and your purity,

  Love for your love,

  Cocoon.

  Tuesday, 19 November 1963

  NO MOESIE-GIRL JUST LOVE ALWAYS = COCOON

  Castella

  Wednesday night, 20 November 1963

  My dearest André darling,

  Thank you for your heavy letter this morning at 9:15. My God! Child! And in a while you’ll call; the Oxleys have just come back, and I from Simonetta – I have finally decided – the child must come back to me, she feels “cut off” without me – I’ll simply have to make a plan to get her here, whatever it costs.

  Dear man – so the car accident happened after all – thank God you were only driving at 35 m.p.h.; you probably got quite a big fright though, my dear lost darling.

  Last night when I was preparing the meal, strangely calm – chicken – sacrifices – for Jack – you were wandering around the kitchen with me – I was so acutely aware of you and your need – “how sensitive to the details is pain”. You mustn’t feel so guilty – I must have needed punishment. Try not to worry about it. Thank you, treasure-mine, for the call earlier. Had to have tea after that with the Oxleys. There’s in fact little time for oneself. It’s 9:30 again and then I still have to sleep to be prepared for the MADHOUSE tomorrow. It was lovely chatting to you earlier; if you were here now, you’d be lying sleeping on that little bed and tomorrow I’d have written a beautiful poem and you your engrossing Orgie – I hope you’re chatting nicely with Frieda and sleep sweetly and serenely, thank you for your voice and laugh and impossible analyses, and for the parcel that’s on its way and for the love that endures and compensates for everything. And thank you for the letter.

  On Friday I’ll celebrate Die Ambassadeur again. Tomorrow I’m having a meal with Mrs Bouws. Saturday I’m going to go and thrash the lawyer about my money for Simone. On Sunday I’m going for a swim, longing but comforted. One wants, after all, to live “quietly”. I bless you with love and tenderness. My André.

  ’Night my beautiful,

  Cocoon.

  Grahamstown

  Friday morning, 22 November 1963

  Cocoon, darling,

  This is happiness. It’s ephemeral and quite soon everything might – probably will – be quite different again. But as I sit here, now, I’m happy; suddenly whole again, and completely and entirely yours. In spite of a sleepless night (because I lay there all the time thinking: last week this time, on this night ...) I woke up feeling well-rested. It’s as hot as Hades outside. Here in my study it’s a little cooler. When I look up, I see the picture of you on the bookshelf on the other side of the room – so tender, so intensely vital. The fine raindrops of a Mozart composition playing on the turntable are nothing short of scintillating. Below my left elbow lies Tristia, on my typewriter, to my right, are the first rough notes on Die Ambassadeur, which I’ve just finished sorting out. This afternoon my first copy of Die Ambassadeur will be arriving by plane (the rest have been delayed and will be arriving in Port Elizabeth; Koos arranged – guiltily – for a taxi to bring them here. It’s 84 miles, but I think I’ll fetch them myself). Koos read W.E.G. Louw’s review over the phone to me yesterday (he received a proof).

  All that is urgently lacking is you: your beloved, fiery, soft presence. I very nearly took to the road this morning with Rob – he left for the Cape to do examining work. But two members of the department are not allowed to be away at the same time. This of course did not prevent me from wanting very rebelliously to go along – I still do – and to arrive at your doorstep; this time we’d celebrate properly, in full knowledge of each other.

  I know I should’ve written yesterday already, but it was one of those tasselled days when one sits and picks at all manner of disparate things that don’t form any meaningful pattern, until you yourself just unravel.

  I want to walk through town with Simone again, feed the squirrels and watch her offer Koos a single peanut from a warm, clammy hand; I want to lie with you on the warm sand, in the beaming blue sun, or in a cool little cove under a rocky overhang, and let my secrets disappear deep inside you while the light and dark make patterns on our half-closed eyes. I want to walk again with you in the dark, fragrant evening, through avenues of blossoms, laugh and be irresistably happy; I want to sit on the settee’s red cushions in the little castle and think and listen as you busy yourself companionably somewhere or get fed-up and say ‘God!’ I want to see you in your black-and-white bra and panties. I want to bath with you and kiss the leucodendron.

  And I never again want to fight with you.

  I love you, delightful person, indispensable person, woman, girl, child.

  This afternoon I have to deal with the second section of Tristia in my honours class – “Groet in Bruin” [“Salute in Brown”] and all the other divine stuff he wrote for you, on my behalf.

  These days offer summer sun, but they don’t offer your presence. Little bride, little Ohola, little virgin, I wander about in terrible – but cathartic – longing for you; it’s a kind of penitence, my purgatory; I drift like Dante’s figure of the lover, yearning, on the dark wind. But on the other side of this purgatory awaits the holy wound, paradise, heaven, you.

  I don’t want to bind you. I just want to love you, always, always, always.

  I want you to be happy. Little swift lost in the sky: sing.

  Forgive my unforgivableness. Love me the way I love you.

  Man and woman: so the Lord God of the hosts created us and nothing can separate us. Let me always love you.

  And this small human happiness,

  Let it last, oh Lord, let it last long.

  I’m sending you a small cheque because I know you need it, with Simone’s birthday just around the corner.

  Always with yearning love,

  André.

  Friday, 22 November 1963

  BRAVO CITIZEN BRILLIANT AMBASSADEUR BRILLIANT CAREER ALL LOVE ALL CONFIDENCE CONFIRMED = COCOON

  Castella

  Saturday night, 23 November 1963

  My dearest André,

  A mad day yesterday, mad today, sand su
n sea, and Simone and I wonderfully burnt; I have just fallen into her little bed. Dearest man, firstly, congratulations and once again congratulations on Die Ambassadeur, which only appeared today; and for which you had to drive all the way to PE; and now you’re having a party; who’s there? Since Guy [Butler] is in Cape Town, not him of course, but Rob and company and Frieda … I hope you got my telegram yesterday; the dust cover I have not yet seen – definitely Monday; when our lost parcel will probably also arrive. W.E.G Louw’s review is of course very favourable; but as a review it is not clear and not good enough; I read Die Ambassadeur again; quick this time, hey? and once again found it revelatory in every respect; my only objection remains that if the ambassador was in reality confronted with our situation, it would contribute to his fall. W.E.G.’s objection, therefore. But the human relations are fine, true, good, and the characters grow on one – even this Stephen; though not yet Gillian; but maybe personal – because this “conflict with God” is for me, personally, such an unthinkable situation.

  It is exactly the objection that I have against Jack’s new book, from the first page; the actual MS is lying here in front of me: Ag, child! I miss you – Antje, a Dutch woman who read the cutting about Die Ambassadeur with Uys today – says you look like me. For some stupid reason, this touched me. Are your shoulders better again and where did you swim? The Caligenic is still on the window sill behind the yellow curtain. Mercilessly cruel words. Can anyone hate them more than a writer? Words instead of your hands, instead of your beautiful red head against my breast. I wish we could be together just once without feeling that we’re buggering up other people and ourselves in the process, free and peaceful and responsible and whole.