Nuns and Soldiers

by Iris Murdoch

  ‘Why God, why not the devil? We walk as evil things in the minds of others, we are devils to them, we torture them by what we are and do.’

  ‘You torture nobody,’ said Anne.

  ‘Because I am nobody and nothing.’

  Anne laughed. She got up and came to him at the window. She took hold of the sleeve of his jacket as she had done when they were coming back from France. She said, ‘Peter, this is what Polish heroism is for, to be nobody and nothing and try after all to enjoy it. Let me try to teach you how.’

  The telephone rang.

  Anne left him and picked it up.

  ‘Anne -’ it was Gertrude’s voice.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s me. Anne, can you come to a party tomorrow? Manfred has just brought the car back from France, and it’s absolutely full of champagne -’

  Gertrude’s voice was clearly audible in the room. Peter had picked up his coat and was making for the door. He waved to Anne and disappeared.

  ‘I’ll try to get along,’ said Anne. She wondered, shall I put the phone down and run after him?

  ‘Don’t try, succeed. Darling, you haven’t come, I’ve wanted you so much and you haven’t come. It isn’t because - ? I mean, don’t feel that we want to - exclude anybody, least of all you. I want to see your blessed face. I dreamt about you last night. You do love me, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, you idiot.’

  ‘Then tomorrow about six.’

  ‘Yes - tomorrow then.’

  Anne replaced the ’phone. Would Peter commit suicide? Would he commit suicide tonight?

  She got up and walked to and fro. She did not believe he was really contemplating suicide, he was just externalizing his gloom. He was soothing his pain with the idea of nothingness. She went into the kitchen and began to try to prepare herself some supper. It was impossible.

  After a while she put her coat on and went out into the street. It was still raining. She found a taxi which took her to Chelsea and dropped her near the big ugly block of flats where Peter lived. She walked along the wet shining pavement looking up at the light in his window. It was not the first time that she had done this. She imagined herself ringing the bell, running up to his room, enfolding him in her arms.

  She saw a lighted telephone box and went to it and dialled his number.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Peter, it’s Anne.’

  ‘Oh -’ He sounded surprised. ‘Anne - hello -’

  ‘Peter, I want you to promise me something. Will you solemnly promise me that you will not commit suicide?’

  ‘Oh - Anne-I-I can’t just like that - it - who knows -’

  ‘All right, when you’re eighty-eight with cancer, but I want you to promise me that you won’t commit suicide now because of your troubles now.’

  There was silence. He said, ‘All right -’

  ‘Swear it. Swear it by the precious lifeblood of Poland.’

  He said, ‘I swear by the precious lifeblood of Poland that I will not commit suicide now because of my troubles now.’

  ‘This year or next year.’

  ‘This year or next year.’

  ‘Good. That’s all then. Good night, dear Peter.’

  ‘Good night, dear Anne.’

  She came out into the rain. It was a solemn moment. She imagined Peter’s grave face as he sat beside the telephone. It was a moment which made a new bond between them. They had moved a step nearer to each other, perhaps the crucial step. I shall tell him everything soon, she thought, very soon. She stood watching in the rain until his light went out.

  The Count lay sleepless. Ahead of him lay seven hours of moving his body from one comfortless position to another, closing his eyes, opening them again, gazing at the ceiling. Thinking. Picturing. The curtains did not keep out the diffused lamplight from the street below.

  Earlier in the evening he had tried to distract himself by reading Horace. But the elegant frivolous fierce sublime poet seemed to be talking only of Gertrude, whether in memories of happier days, or in bitterness of loss and premonitions of age and death. The old beloved tags expressed and needled his sorrow. Eheu fugaces ... Quis desiderio ... Then digging deeper into the Latin like a mad surgeon the Count, oblivious now of the poetry, found many a gobbet to match the increasing savagery of his mood. Not only linquenda tellus et domus, but also mox iuniores quaerit adulteros, and best of all: quae tibi virginum sponso necato barbara serviet? By the time he went to bed the Count had become Frederick the Great.

  Longing for Gertrude, for her sweet presence, consumed him as he writhed. He imagined being with her, being held in her bright warm attention, holding her hand. He saw again the room in France where he had started to tell her of his love, at least he had stammered something, and she had held his hand so tenderly, saying little, but not saying no. What joy he had felt that night, with what joy and peace in his heart he had gone to sleep. Peace, Gertrude had always somehow given him that in the past, when she was married to Guy, and when he could live securely close to her, loving her, but not tortured by these intolerable desires and hopes.

  The apparition of Tim, bruised and bleeding, in torn dishevelled clothes, had seemed to the Count pure nightmare, a sort of guy or faked-up devil, unreal and yet fateful, terrible. The Count had entered the sitting-room just after Gertrude had emerged onto the terrace. He had, like Anne, witnessed the embrace, but had not so quickly taken in what had happened. He could not clearly remember the journey back. He had felt all the time as if he were calculating, and as if by some calculation he could slip himself and Gertrude back into the slot in time before Tim’s return. Had it been simply nullified, that tender moment? Was it not something sovereign, absolute? Could something which had a future be made not to by something else quite (as the Count felt) fortuitous? Surely there were some moments which determine the future and keep it safe? He was owed Gertrude’s love. Tim was a traitor, a renegade, a cruel faithless villain. Tim was imprisoned, fixed in his own world, the world he had chosen and returned to: that world of drink and idleness which Anne Cavidge had cursed. The Count had done his best, and how nobly he had done had made the result seem all the surer. He had tried to persuade Tim to return. Tim had replied, ‘I live in a swamp,’ and he had said, ‘Perhaps Gertrude will find a better husband.’ Hadn’t that finished the matter, was not Tim over and done with? How could he then appear like a bloodstained dummy, and so easily become Gertrude’s husband once again? For the Count had no doubt now about the situation. He had received a letter from Gertrude saying that she and Tim would love to see him. She had also telephoned briefly in the same style. The Count had answered evasively.

  And now what would be? He could not stay in London having dinner with the Reedes once a month. He could not live among new strangers in Harrogate or Edinburgh, working in his office all day and listening to his radio at night, he could not live so. The absolute loss of Gertrude had made him realize what a desert his life was. Little simple things which had pleased him before were now seen as trivial and dry. Herein, in describing his impressions, he had not exaggerated to Anne. On the other hand, and herein Anne was right, he did not really intend suicide, or at least not now. He was sorry, however, that he had promised good dear Anne that he would not kill himself. He had promised because he was startled by her sudden urgent voice and could not think how to refuse. He had not been intending to seek death, but the near presence of it had immensely consoled him. To die, to rest. He said to himself that he was a spineless coward, but these words no longer bit. The concept was flabby for him. What can morality, what can philosophy achieve, against the volatile faithlessness of the human mind? He wondered if, later, even the concept of a solemn promise might not become meaningless and flabby and soft. Even now he could not inspire himself with the idea of honour. His whining to Anne had been contemptible. It was even more contemptible that he really did not care what he had said.

  Wide-eyed and tense he twisted and turned. The horrors, the horrors ahead. Why did the Red
Army not cross the Vistula? Why did Hannibal not march on Rome? He closed his eyes and tried to go through one of his sleeping routines. He imagined he was on a country road, a grassy track, approaching a five-barred gate. Only Gertrude, dressed in that light yellow robe, with the blue beads round her sun-blazed neck, was leaning on the gate. He tried a garden, a big lawn with a distant huge tree, a great copper beech, which he was slowly approaching. But Gertrude was standing under the tree, with a little white sun hat on, and reaching up to touch the spread-out transparent leaves, then turning to him with a smile. He tried moving through the rooms of a house, but his heart beat violently because he knew that somewhere in that series of rooms she was waiting. He was in a park, she was there, in a wood, she was there. The birds were singing and the sun was shining. Oh that we two were maying.

  Where can I go, he thought, where in the end can I go? I don’t want to go to America, I don’t want to go to Poland, I couldn’t live in Poland, it would be impossible. Then he thought, I’ll go to Belfast. Ireland is a bit like Poland after all, a miserable stupid mixed-up country betrayed by history and never able to recover from the consequences. I’ll get myself transferred to a government office in Belfast. And when I am there perhaps some merciful terrorist bomb will kill me. And I shall be dead and I won’t have broken my promise to Anne.

  Tim was standing, Gertrude was sitting, and he was holding her hands. They had been making the preparations for the party. His dear wife was wearing a new dress which they had chosen together, a lovely light wool dress with a pattern of cream and brown leaves, with fine smocking, which she wore loosely over a high-necked white silk blouse. He stooped and kissed her hands again and again, then released her and stood back. Yes, she was all there, body and soul. He said, ‘Whatever you want, angel, darling, my love.’

  ‘Yes, but - You do see? You don’t mind?’

  ‘I do see. I don’t mind.’

  ‘It would make me perfectly happy.’

  ‘Aren’t you perfectly happy, damn it?’

  ‘Yes. That’s not the way to put it. It’s more like a duty, a task undone, a flaw.’

  ‘A flaw?’

  ‘Not exactly that either. I just can’t stop thinking. I’ve always looked after people, Guy and I always did.’

  ‘I’m not so good at looking after people as Guy was,’ said Tim. ‘I had my work cut out looking after myself.’ He was feeling very happy and this kept distracting him from the conversation.

  ‘We’ll look after people. I’d like that.’

  ‘OK, so long as they don’t always have to be coming to dinner. Can’t we do it by post?’

  Gertrude laughed. ‘Oh darling! Here, come and sit beside me. I want to hold onto you. You’re my Tim.’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ He sat, pulling up a chair close. ‘Oh heavens I do love you.’

  ‘We mustn’t be selfish, Tim.’

  ‘Why not? I want to be happy and selfish. I’ve been unhappy and selfish for long enough.’

  ‘No, but you know what I mean. And you like him too, after all, very much you once said.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tim, trying to concentrate. ‘I like him. And I don’t want him to be unhappy.’

  ‘He’s a poor exile. And like poor exiles he can live on very little. ’

  ‘That’s what you’ll give him?’

  ‘It will be for him, a lot. I just mean - well, you know what I mean.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not worrying about us,’ said Tim, ‘we’re cosmic. I’m worrying about him. Won’t it bother him?’

  ‘No. Because he’ll understand. It’ll be like before only a little better.’

  Tim recalled the scene in France, the icon which he had thought would kill him with pain, of Gertrude holding the Count’s hand. The vision was painless. ‘But doesn’t he already know that he’s not sort of out of it, not on the rubbish dump, I mean?’

  ‘No, on the rubbish dump is just exactly where he thinks he is. And, Tim, very little is able here to change very much.’

  ‘Such is your power.’

  ‘Such is my power.’

  ‘Proceed then, queen and empress. So long as you think he won’t be more unhappy sort of seeing you occasionally like -’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Then I’ll leave you. I’ve got the shopping list. Do you really think they’ll eat all those biscuits and pies and stuff?’

  ‘Yes. They are insatiable.’

  ‘Perhaps they’ll bring plastic bags with them, perhaps they’ll even raid the fridge, the blighters.’

  ‘Tim, I want you to paint.’

  ‘You mean now? I’m going shopping.’

  ‘No, not now, I mean later. Forever.’

  ‘All right. I’ll paint forever.’

  The Count came into the drawing-room. He had left his overcoat and his ridiculous woolly cap in the hall. Gertrude was alone. She had telephoned to say that she and Tim were giving a party and please would he come a little earlier before the others? Something in her voice had made him come.

  ‘Oh Count - sit down - have a drink. Your usual, white wine?’

  The Count clicked his heels and bowed. He accepted the drink. He waited till Gertrude had sat down, then took a distant chair and waited.

  ‘Count - may I call you Peter?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Don’t be angry with me.’

  ‘I am not, Gertrude.’

  ‘Yes you are. But stop it, we must be at peace.’

  ‘We are at peace, so far as I know.’

  ‘You are planning to go away, I’m sure you are, you are going to Africa to hunt lions.’

  ‘I have no plan to go to Africa,’ said the Count.

  ‘Sorry, that was figurative.’

  ‘Figurative?’

  ‘I mean, you’re planning to go away to forget. Where are you planning to go?’

  ‘To Ireland,’ said the Count.

  ‘To Ireland? Peter, what rubbish is this? Anyway, I asked you to come because I have to tell you you don’t have to go anywhere. ’

  ‘What do you mean, Gertrude?’ said the Count. He spoke stiffly, formally. Gertrude’s suggestion that he was angry was indeed not far from the truth. He was angry with Gertrude for making him come, and with himself for coming.

  ‘Listen, Peter, dear, let’s talk plainly. When we were in France, and you reached out your hand to me across the table - you -’

  ‘I’m sorry. That was a mistake.’

  ‘No, it was not a mistake. And I wanted to say that of course you didn’t tell me anything then that I didn’t know already.’

  ‘When I say a mistake I mean it was improper, a faux pas. I ought not to have expressed -’

  ‘Your feelings. But your feelings existed - and exist.’

  ‘They are my own concern. Gertrude, I am sure you mean well, but I do not want to discuss this matter.’

  Gertrude was silent. She was in fact intimidated by Peter’s stiff bearing, by his grim stern face. For a moment she felt that she had made a mistake, a faux pas. She looked away, confused, not knowing what to say next.

  Her silence did its work upon the Count. Terrible emotions clawed about inside the steel of his demeanour. He leaned forward slightly and said, ‘Forgive me.’

  ‘Forgive me. Peter, listen, you may want to go away and not see me any more. I must even - myself - understand that it might be wiser. It’s hard to say this-I feel - oh so much - I’m sorry -’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘It’s only me.’

  ‘Oh Peter, you darling. Listen. Let me put it just awfully clearly. I love Tim and we are married and that is an eternal fact.’

  The Count nodded, bowing his head formally.

  ‘But I care for you and you are an old friend. Well, you are an old friend and I love you. Why should love be classified and constrained and denied and destroyed all the time? People can love each other honestly and truthfully in all sorts of situations and all sorts of ways. Of course I’m selfish. I’m not really thinking about yo
ur welfare. I’m thinking about mine. I’ve talked this over with Tim of course. Oh don’t be hurt. I don’t want to waste your love, I don’t want to lose your love, I don’t want you to go away into some desert in Ireland or somewhere and just feel rejected. You aren’t rejected. Why should you go off miserably instead of staying here and giving and receiving affection and being happy? Why? It’s as simple as that. Oh it is so simple. I love you, I have love for you, it’s not rationed. Tim likes you very much, I’m sure you know that. But I’m talking now about you and me. Let us be sometimes together in truth and in love. I don’t mean anything wrong or crazy. I mean just to talk, to be with each other and for each other. Let your love for me go on existing, and we’ll go on through life not losing each other, but knowing each other. Sorry, I’m not explaining it very well -

  ‘I think you are,’ said the Count, ‘explaining it very well.’

  ‘We have known each other a long time, Peter, and in a way we have known each other well, but there has always been a barrier between us. I don’t mean the barrier of marriage, that of course, I mean the one that distinguishes a friend from a close friend, you understand. I want that barrier to go. I want us to meet and talk together as we have not done before, just us two, to love each other and give happiness to each other and be without reserve. Peter, I want this, I ask for it.’

  What could the poor Count do? He said, but still stiffly, ‘I cannot deny you what you ask.’

  ‘That’s all right then,’ said Gertrude. She had been more moved than she expected. It had not occurred to her to fear a rejection, but now her heart beat with a strange alarm.

  They were silent, looking at each other, she flushed and wide-eyed, he glaring with a stern cold intensity.

  ‘Gertrude, some things must be laid down, I mean understood -’ So he was now dictating conditions. He went on, ‘What you suggest might be regarded as-a recipe for folly and madness suggested by a woman’s vanity.’ He paused. ‘But because you are you -’

  ‘And because you are you -’

  ‘I think -’

  ‘That it will be all right, possible?’