Doris Lessing - The Sirian Experiments

And that was the setting of my encounter with Tafta. We were there for a long time, all that day, and on into the night, and I shall give a summary of what was said, what I understood.

First, it is necessary to establish my emotional condition—though that is hardly the kind of statement with which I normally preface a report! Tafta, who when he had been “the eighth man” had struck me as an acceptable barbarian, compared with obviously evil priests, was now seeming to me a savage, but a not-unattractive one, compared with Rhodia, of whom I was thinking with reluctance, as if this was a duty. I did not want to think of her at all. There was something intractable, stubborn, even meagre about my memory of that elderly female. As if she had refused me something that was my due, and which I had earned: yes, this was a recurrence, in a milder form, of my old reactions to Klorathy. It was as if she were determined to keep herself out of my reach and not let me encompass her with what I was convinced was a reasonable demand. I felt thwarted by her, refused.

And now, by contrast, here was this Tafta, about whom she had warned me. He was her enemy, the enemy of Canopus. And therefore of Sirius. But here I was sticking, in my thoughts. She had said that we had been enabled to escape from that dreadful city because of our enemy—that meant he had helped, or at least allowed our escape. She had said… and implied… not said…

Tafta was doing everything to win me—I could see that, of course, but did not dislike this, or even resent it—provided he kept at a good distance. The physical presence of the creature, this great hairy barbarian, glistening with crude strength, affected me as if I was being threatened by the smell of their blood, or at least by something too hot, too thick, too pressing. As he leaned towards me, where he sat in his characteristic swagger on a low seat—this little patch of roof was used for sitting out on—and smiled, showing the great glistening teeth of a healthy animal, and compressed his features in a smile that was like a snarl—even so, I found myself reassured. The snarl, after all, was only what I saw with my experience of these lower species: it was their expression of friendliness: the shining white teeth, like the exposed teeth of the lower animals, meant I need not expect attack. The light, almost colourless eyes, surrounded by fringes of yellowy hair were not unfamiliar to me: these were to be seen even among the favoured class of our Home Planet. Provided I was able to hold off in myself a strong reaction to this animality, I was able to regard him steadily—and to regard myself, too. I was not unconscious of the contrast between us, and of how he must be seeing me, Sirius, in the light of our long history of domination of Shammat. What I was thinking most strongly was that this almost overpowering vitality of his, which he was using like a weapon, was at least not a symptom of decline as were the inner doubts and dryness that was afflicting our Empire. At least this one was not likely to let his magnificent confidence be assailed by existential confusions! And when he spoke to me of what I, Sirius, could do here, in this city, to prevent its decline, I found myself unable to stand up to him. That is the truth.

He was speaking to me as if he, Tafta, this enemy of Sirius, had somehow become the voice of my most inner feelings. As if he had laboured, with me, devising my last tour of duty in our outermost planets, asking himself why, and what for, and what next. As if he wandered, with me, through Lelanos, inwardly grieving for its imminent overthrow.

I had hardly to speak! As the day passed and the blue went out of Rohanda’s sky, I was feeling that this enemy was myself. As if some part of my mind, or inner self, had been occupied by this Tafta without my knowing it. And long before the Rohandan sky had filled with its stars and I had signalled a private greeting to my home, I had agreed, at least by silence, to the following:

That I would put myself at the head of the government of this city. That he, Tafta, would maintain me in power for as long as I needed to restore Lelanos to its former balance and health. That I would set up a governing body with his aid, of the best individuals to be found in Lelanos. And that when all this was done, I would either stay as ruler, or queen, or whatever I wished, or he would see me to my own part of the continent.

He told me I might now return to my room in Rhodia’s house, without fear since I was “under his protection” and that he would meet me again next day for further discussion of “our plans.”

I spent the night seated at a window, star-bathing, as if I were safely home. I was immersed in my plans for the re-establishment of Lelanos.

And next day, when I walked quite openly and at ease through the green spaces to the same airy building, and went up to our little platform among those stone symmetries, my mind was at work on management: the exercises and uses of management.

He was not there as he had said he would be. I did not think anything of this, then. I was considering the causes of the falling away of Lelanos, among which Rhodia had indicated was the failure to maintain the independence and integrity of money. Well, that was easily put right! An enforcement of the law… if necessary an enforcement by the power of Tafta’s troops… the strengthening of the Scrutiny, and its powers… perhaps Tafta should be made a member of the Scrutiny…

Tafta did not come at all that day. I felt as if I had had something snatched from me: and I was again full of grief on behalf of Lelanos, the deprived—the deprived of me, and my expert and benevolent guidance. But as I waited there on my little platform among the snowy and bluish cubes and spheres, the deep blue of the Rohandan sky enclosing the lovely scene, I looked down on little people far below, and it was as if I held them in my protection; as if I was promising them an eternal safety and well-being.

It is not that I am proud of this: I have to record it.

By the end of that day, I was in the sort of mood where, had I been on my own ground, within my own frame of understanding, I would have had to watch myself so as not to punish unjustly. I was feeling about Tafta as about a delinquent servant. That night, my contemplation of our stars was hazed, I seemed not to be able to find their shadow within myself, and at the back of my mind, where the shores of Sound begin, I could hear the warning whisper, Sirius, Sirius, Sirius, and I was shaking my head as an animal does when its ears are full of irritating water. Sirius, Sirius—and I shook my head so as not to hear the echo of: Be careful, be careful, be careful.

I was late going to my high watching place next day, and it was from calculation, and when I reached it, Tafta was there, and bent in a gesture of submission that I had always previously found slavish. He applied his lips to my hand, and then glanced up from this humble position with a winning glance and a baring of his white teeth. “My apologies,” he said. “But it was for the sake of our cause.”

And that did begin to shake me out of my illusion. He stood before me, all confident physicality, all glisten and shine, the sun on his whiskers and the smooth curls of his head, his brown skin where you could see the red blood running underneath shining, too. This type of animal, when overheated, produces a greasy secretion to cool itself: the exposed areas of his skin, cheeks, brow, nose, arms, hands, even his ears, were beaded with globules of liquid. It had a salty smell. And yet there something in me even then that said: this is health, this is vitality, you need it!

He told me that his absence was due to his having to bring in from outside the city the troops that would guard us. And to his having to organise their safety and their shelter. And he said that on the next morning he would come to my lodging for me and we—he and I and the guards—would make a public display of ourselves through Lelanos, to the place of government of the city and its environs, where we would be installed as rulers. This was not at all as I had been imagining events. But meanwhile we were standing on the very edge of the little platform, overlooking the whole plain and its focal city, and he was flinging out his arm and saying “It is yours, all yours. And together we will restore it and make it everything it was.” There was such a glossy insolence about him! He could not stop the triumphant grimace that showed his teeth, he could not control his glances down at me, as if he had already swallowed me whole, and finding me negligible, was about to spit me out again.