Did your period arrive on Saturday – with all that fuss and the tears and so on?! Let me know so I can get my notes up to date.
I’m sending you another letter; this one came from an Indian. Send it back again, please! I believe that these naive, sincere little missives are, in the long run, one’s greatest reward.
Did I tell you that an English woman wrote to me saying she wanted to translate Lobola? I don’t mind, she can do it, and then I’ll do the final editing myself.
The Ambassador is now at page 130. God, it’s hard work! I’m sending you two sample pages to “evaluate”. (You can keep these.)
I’m also sending a small cheque, mainly to cover the phone call.
What’s going on with the job? Be careful of Cilliers.
But you always tread lightly, because you’re a girl; a small, intense, tender, absolute being “who does not even have to think of God”.
I love you. In you everything finds a form. Even the four elements: fire, water, air, earth.
I greet you in longing and secure love.
A kiss for the little chick.
Always,
André.
Castella
Tuesday evening, 17 December 1963
My dearest André André,
Thank you, liefsteling, for your two letters – the one of Friday, the one we spoke about on Saturday evening from Upington – heavens, I wrote back a piece or six that night, tore it all up and phoned – and the one that was waiting here on Monday afternoon when my Transvaal friends and I got back from the beach – the beautiful one with the story – the Bethlehem story about us. Tired tired tired. Left Sunday evening at six, drove through the night; home Monday morning at nine – safe – after an almost-accident at Hex River – my girlfriends were here and we chatted till eleven – slept till one-thirty and went to the beach. And last night only got to bed at two again – so you see, I am the most TIRED of all. But I want to say hello, and I hope you got my telegram today and don’t feel deserted because my quiet time (pray, pray) was so long. And with your driving to Potch, there’s even more of a delay, of course. I hope everything goes quietly and clearly – whatever happens. You are so lovely and precious. Hello mine!
Bonnie [Davidtsz]’s little friend [Iris] is nice; she’s an art student but can’t continue because she doesn’t have any money and first has to work for a year or two to save. For now, she’s going to stay here at Castella.
What else is happening …? Heavens, what’s going to happen? When are you planning to come? I live in your “pendulum existence”. The uncertainty of everything holds a kind of horror and enchantment. Just to be able to rest in your arms safe and without any questions and the tangled undergrowth of words.
I telegraphed about Nico [Hagen] – god! – Wednesday evening (afternoon), he sends me a little letter: “Meet me five o’clock at the hotel where we once had a drink. I have something to say. I’ll wait for you till half past five, maybe longer. Nico.”
So simple. I had an appointment with Freda but went to meet him first, because I immediately assumed that something was wrong. But we had very little time; then I had to leave. He couldn’t actually say much – inner problems, I think, and problems adjusting; wants to chat, get clarity. Made an arrangement then to talk the next evening – he didn’t arrive; on the way, a car accident; skull fracture; back; still unconscious. Only family allowed. And all those bladdy rubbishes are walking around in the sun outside. While the saints have to be maimed and mown down.
Er is een boom geveld met lange groene lokken.
Hij zuchtte ruisend als een kind
terwijl hij viel, nog vol van zomerwind.
Ik heb de kar gezien, die hem heeft weggetrokken.
O, als een jonge man, als Hector aan de zegewagen,
met slepend haar en met de geur van jeugd
stromend uit zijn schone wonden,
het jonge hoofd nog ongeschonden,
de trotse romp nog onverslagen.
He’s getting the gold medal for Art this year. (Maybe now, hey?)
Ag, my André, I don’t want to sound despondent. But daily the assaults and the shocks and the whys. “Like a lamb to the slaughter.” Immoral, humiliating.
And your light, lovely, loving, radiant letter of light. Your love. Your lovableness. Your surrender. Your sparkling youth. Your you-ness, my Other-me. André.
Sleep time. Tired time. Quiet time. Pray time.
Everything good and healthy again. Maybe just a sensitivity at certain times, maybe a lack of certain vitamins or something like that.
Why are you wearing jerseys now? It’s so warm here.
Why do you write to Castella, Philippus?
Why do you love me? “Come to my heart …”
You mustn’t work too hard. You must get rest. Please. And you must sleep with me lekker and often. I see you. And it puts me in the mood.
I miss your being-here. Far away, “begrijp ik het niet …”
Silly letter before bed. Good night, sweet prince.
Tender love from
Your lovely Cocoon,
Ingrid Jonker.
Grahamstown
(I almost wrote Green Point!)
premonition?
Wednesday, 18 December 1963
Dearest,
Very briefly, amid the bustle that precedes a holiday – and this with a pen that doesn’t want to write!
I’ll be posting your parcel(s) today. Please let me know if, and when, they arrive. By this time you should already have received the new bra-and-panties parcel that I re-ordered a week ago.
I need Anne’s vocabulary to describe life here. One HELL of a fight again this morning. (Is this what they call the Christmas feeling?!)
I’ll be on the road at the crack of dawn tomorrow – a fourteen-hour drive. And it looks like we’re set for murderously hot weather. So be it.
The translation [The Ambassador] has reached page 164.
But I’m not writing to give you “news”. I just wanted to say I love you impossibly, and I’m happy – no matter how strange this may sound in view of all the daily frustrations – because I’m living in a state of such complete certainty about you.
I’m looking forward to your letter about the Upington excursion. Where and how did Nico hurt himself? How does he fit into the picture?
Look after yourself nicely, be good, live in light and patience and grace, my lovely, lovely, indispensable person.
I’ll write again soon. Please also write.
Meanwhile, I hold you with love and fullness and continuous thankfulness.
André.
Potchefstroom,
Saturday afternoon, 20 December 1963
Most lovely child, my darling,
Thank you for your beloved letter of yesterday, arriving as it did in this impossible heat. And thank you for the beautiful parcel. I didn’t want to wait until Christmas, so I took a quick peek and tried it on. It fits wonderfully; it’s really lovely and I can see I’ll be wearing it a lot over here. (On this side – as there, too, it seems – the weather’s insufferably hot, literally unbearable. Grahamstown, on the other hand, is often cool in the summer, cool enough to wear a jersey sometimes.)
I’ve been wanting to write to you very badly, but the first day’s settling in here, and especially the lack of a much needed place to isolate myself, frustrated my efforts. Now, while the others are having a nap, I can be with you in quiet contentment. And maybe sleep with you a little later to heal me a little of my longing (although that also makes it more acute).
What a massive expedition this business of visiting the family is. One realises what a complete lack of connection there is. Nothing to talk about. I can’t even express modest outrage about a newspaper report on police abuse of convicts without causing an uncomfortable silence, as if it’s an “attack” – everyone here is of course NATIONAL, in capital letters. The same goes when it comes to the church. Even family bonds are nothing to write home about. My adolescent b
rother is an irritating little shit. My sisters wear very long, prim, calvinist dresses, and they wear their hair in frizzy little curls; my mother and her lot pick up hideous, monstrous “paintings” at bargain prices and think it’s culture.
That’s all there is here – just downcast Doppers who wear forced expressions of Christmas “goodwill” on their faces like OK Bazaars masks; self-righteous moral prigs who pronounce the word “Lobola” as if it means “Antichrist”. Platteland people. So Transvaal, so Afrikaans, and with a hot-as-hell God. Not even a sea in which to cleanse one’s sins, or those of one’s family.
I haven’t done any work yet. How can one? I first have to get into the “mood”. “Our delicate and tender souls.” “Sinful artists that we are.”
In this place I feel like a [Moses] Kottler statue on display at a public building.
(“Of course no one’s allowed to be open …” and there are so many PeePee-de-thises and PeePee-de-thats, it’s like the whole place is steeped in its own peepee.)
Thank the Lord we can laugh at the spectacle of humanity (oneself included!). Let us close the catechism for just a second, dear congregation, and laugh.
Let us laugh and fuck and be human.
Beloved child, I miss you. But my longing comes from purity and quietude, without the distress of a while ago.
I’m shocked about Nico’s news. I hope things are going better now. It’s always so perverse, this “family only” attitude. If something like that were to happen to me, family’s the last thing I’d want around me; just you. My little sister – oh your dance is delightful, with the mountain eagle’s fire-plume on your forehead, blessed are you among women.
I’m sending this to Castella, minx, because I haven’t yet heard from you what eventually became of the Citadel job; and I don’t want any of my letters to have to pass through those corridors (or tunnels).
Have you phoned the Van Riebeeck yet to book a room for us? If you don’t, we may have to “lie low” in the little castle (or lie flat) – and you now have a chaperone!
How are things with our little blonde child?
And with my soft, fiery, virginal little whore?
Write – a lot.
I love you and live quietly for you and remain happy for you; soon I’ll be with you again.
I hail everything, with tenderness and enthusiasm,
In fulfilment and longing,
André.
Castella
Saturday night late, 21 December 1963
My precious André,
With your hands that have a future
that burn like dew
that live like weighty birds …
A few lines for you. Heavens, child, Cape Town is alive! People. Bonnie and Iris still here. Bonnie is out; Iris was – Simone asleep – me, you, with our kind little candle, now. Liefsteling, thank you for the beautiful beautiful gifts you sent me – that Jean Patou Amour Amour is the most precious perfume – and the Van Ostaijen wonderful – I haven’t begun my voyages of discovery with it yet; but you spoil me so. And you’re naughty. You don’t register your parcels. No, the little bra and things haven’t arrived yet. You refuse to learn, don’t you? But that’ll probably come later. And thank you for the cheque. I always have to say so many thank yous, and they’re so inadequate, because one lives so completely in prayerful gratitude and compassion and tenderness and concern.
News. I saw Bartho and the rest of them – he told me openly that the choice is between me and Jan – I tried to look surprised – everything very secret – the award has to be an absolute surprise – the writer will be notified confidentially about a month before and be given an airline ticket – it’s going to be a real occasion in March; Jan and I made an agreement at the party last night – if he wins, he gives me R50; and vice versa. The dear old crowd were all at Stephen [Etienne Leroux] and company’s place. Jack friendly and concerned; he was here when your Patou arrived; I opened it and, thrilled, showed it to him and Bonnie – he brazenly says it’s rubbish (!). Organised the house thoroughly today; everything in its place – washed and combed and dressed Cinderella – everything down to the last detail. Iris can stay here; a fine, especially sensitive little person, I think we’ll get on well …
Booked at the Van Riebeeck; child, love-child, it’s not too long any more – they have to write me a confirmation letter, Castella. Heavens, it’s going to be an island with your laughter, desirable, disarming, you. But tell me more, are you all in Cape Town then? And how …? Sleepy, man. I’ll write more tomorrow. And I can’t even sleep with you, because Simone and Iris are sleeping in the same room; but still, I am with you so unutterably often – participating in your existence.
Dates: Early; period 11 December; 17 January will be about “right”. Dearest my own papie, for now I’m saying Good night, sweet prince. Tomorrow, bright blue day, I’ll write more – but first I urgently want you to know that you are a part of me – in love and an unbearable tenderness – and for you, ag, du … du … in my arms, in my bed, nightly, beloved …
Till tomorrow,
Your own Cocoon.
PS: Do you like your little gift? You’re bound to look very impressive in it! I see you.
IJ.
Monday, 23 December 1963
THREE O’CLOCK 399363 STOP THANK YOU AMOUR STOP OUTSTANDING CHRISTMAS JANUARY LIES AHEAD MY LITTLE ELEPHANT LOVE = COCOON
Potchefstroom
Christmas night, 1963
Beloved, beautiful, “fairly good” child,
Finally, some seclusion in which to converse with you, as I promised this afternoon. Thank you for your voice, your light, and your happy spirit. It brought a certain radiance to the rest of the day. I know how clichéd it sounds to say that I miss you; but it’s true, dearest darling. Things are going badly here. Today we said “good morning” to each other – just perfunctorily, because there were other people around – and since then not another word has passed between us. She knows I phoned you this afternoon; and she knows about your lovely gift, which I stored, with note and all, right at the top of the drawer. Oh god, child, it’s not the alienation that upsets me – I welcome that. It’s the frustration of keeping up appearances in front of my parents, for my father’s sake especially – and for the sake of the general good, given the situation. But how much longer can it go on like this? I want to break free, come to you and stay with you; and be with you always.
This is the reason why you should remain good, rather than just “fairly good”. Entirely. Yes: I am jealous. But it would be unnatural for me not to be!
Last night I knew you were sleeping at Jack’s (even if it was just sleeping over!), because I was restless and upset, and I lay awake almost the whole night.
I believe you. (All your lies –?) But if you do sleep with him, please don’t ever hold it back from me just to make things “easier”, or because it’s too hard to explain. It would be hell to know, but necessary. This is an honesty that keeps things unsullied – I’d much rather have it this way than let it be unspoken out of “consideration”, thereby creating “suspicions”. PROMISE?
I’m happy to hear you’ve found a flatmate, but how on earth can you afford it, my generous, open-hearted little thing? Shouldn’t I help you again? Just say the word.
I said to you my plans for the trip to the Cape hadn’t been finalised. But it now looks like I’ll be back in Grahamstown on 10 Jan (evening). That’s a Friday, and I’ll probably spend the weekend there, arriving in the Cape on Wednesday (15 Jan). Our island of quiet and rapture will thus be from the 17th to the 20th. In all likelihood I’ll be gone again by the 22nd.
We can talk – must, in fact – about the possibility of you visiting Grahamstown when you get your vacation-cum-bonus (though obviously I’ll cover your expenses).
Are the people at the Citadel treating you more humanely these days? Do you still get your tea? Does your boss still accompany you to the bathroom? Who’s reading with you now, in Anne’s place? There’s nothing
that’s not important for me to know!
Chris is probably out of town, Uys busy with translation. Jan and Marjorie? And: Jack …?
Now begins that really awful wait for the prizes. If I only had your sense of certainty. But I have strong doubts. Even so: I dream about next Christmas, the two of us in a sunny Spanish fisherman’s village (in spite of the winter); God, so happy.
Yesterday morning I woke up with such a strong sense of you that the papie almost got me into an embarrassing situation – with untimely secrets. And this despite the fact that I sleep with you a lot as it is. (If you want to know, that’s when I say: “Darling, darling, darling – ”)
I’m still carrying my little scar, proudly and happily; and I hope it stays there always.
I want you; I love you. All of you, which I hail with passion – the way I’m doing it now at the end of Orgie:
A vivid salutation to all your vivid parts:
your fair head
and the faraway tenderness of your half-closed eyes
the mysterious pain and happiness of your mouth
the tension in your arms
your beautiful hands
your legs
and your speckled shoulders
the shy, intimate touch of your breasts
your smooth back and stomach
and the narrow, hidden path to the anemone.
This is how much I love you.
And I ask you to remain chaste and lovely.
“My girl, I appoint you with an appointment.”
Always, for ever,
Your André.
Castella
Boxing Day, 1963
My delightful little sparring partner,
Your voice (rather dejected) yesterday afternoon on the phone; we should’ve been able to go up the mountain; and you should have been an interrogator: dearest my André, it feels as if it’s been years since I last wrote to you and yet it was Sunday; you have been entirely assimilated into my existence – my existence, at the moment; Christmas rounds; presents – Pa let me know that Simone may “come home” if she’s at Anna’s – which is why my Christmas Day was with Jack and Uys and the rest of them (the old lady hates me and the children are stiff and unfriendly). I think stiffness and (usually false) obtuseness are sins. I turn away from you (like a swinish God). And the stiffness yesterday after your phone call; that’s also sinful. “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin.” Reading for today.
Flame in the Snow Page 31