Tim Parks - The Server

I wondered how they did that, whether they had a broccoli-packing machine, or just people pushing them into place. The heads were a fine dark dull green and the stalks were pale and rubbery. It was an unbroken pattern that you needed to break to cook them. It seemed a shame.

I waited a moment before pulling one out. How could they fit together so well, even though, being living things, they must all be different? At least slightly. Not made to fit together. Not like factory things. I felt weirdly mesmerized looking at the dark broccoli heads and pale broccoli stalks. My breathing went softer and I was suddenly aware of it. I had the feeling I was seeing something that wasn’t the broccoli really, even though, as Dasgupta would say, when you are looking at broccoli, you are looking at broccoli, nothing else. I shook my head.

‘Break up the broccoli into small twigs,’ the recipe book said.

Why did it bother me that I’d have to break one and take it out of the pattern, if the whole purpose of pulling them out of the cold room was to chuck them in the pot? I didn’t know if I was blessing them, or adoring them or studying them. Or if they were just in my head. Why bother tugging feelings this way and that to fit this word or the other? Who cares what I was doing? Mum used to give us tons of broccoli because it was great against cancer, and as soon as he’d turned fifty that was exactly what Dad got.

I grabbed a stalk and yanked.

‘Elisabeth? Elisabeth, what on earth are you doing?’

I had found a pair of scissors to snip the branches into a big metal colander with the tap turned on over it. The running water must have masked her footsteps.

‘I couldn’t sleep, Mrs Harper.’

What was she doing here?

I went on working as she drifted nearer. She was wearing a baggy green nightdress. She always gives that strange impression of moving on wheels. You couldn’t see her legs. I snipped the broccoli into the bowl under the fluorescent light in the big empty kitchen. We understood at once there was a tension between us. It was the same tension I used to get with Mum. Love and impatience. Maybe I couldn’t speak to Mrs Harper because of her motherliness. It wouldn’t be like that with Mi Nu, I thought. Or with GH. I would definitely be able speak to GH, if I decided to go that way. He is as fucked up as I am.

I felt angry with Mrs Harper that I couldn’t talk to her. I wanted to yell. I went on with what I was doing. The broccoli offered the tiniest resistance, then the scissors snipped. The little branches tumbled into the colander where the running water frothed over them, shifting the pale stalks and dark heads this way and that. I said: ‘I love touching vegetables and washing them. It calms me down.’

She reached over and turned off the tap. The water gurgled away. The broccoli sucked and drained. There was quiet. I could hear her wheezing now. She must have a cold. Eventually she said: ‘I’m sorry you can’t sleep, Elisabeth.’ Her voice is kind and heavy with regret. I hate that. I hate regret. Mum’s regret. Carl’s regret. My regret.

Jonathan never regretted anything.

I picked up another head of broccoli and snipped harder. It’s the rubbery resistance then the sudden snap that drives you wild. Like baby’s fingers.

‘Sometimes when we meditate more intensely, as you have been doing for the last three days, Elisabeth, we find things getting harder rather than easier. We find we have more pains rather than fewer. And more thoughts perhaps. It gets harder to sleep.’

I knew when she stopped speaking she must be looking at me in an inquisitive way. She wanted me to confirm what she was saying.

I snipped the broccoli.

‘The reason is that our stillness, our sila, samādhi, paññā , have allowed the deep sankhara s of the past to rise to the surface, the things that really pain and trouble us. It is part of the process of purification we spoke about. You should feel encouraged rather than disappointed.’

I hadn’t said I felt disappointed.

I picked up a fresh stick of broccoli, then stopped. Something was coming to a head, but what? And when exactly? Something was about to change, about to change. Oh, but I’m always about to change and never do. I was not going to cry in front of Mrs Harper.

‘It’s my period,’ I told her. ‘I’m bleeding like a pig. I’ll have to go and get a tampon.’

That was true.

She wasn’t convinced. She waited, watching. It began to get on my nerves. In the end I asked: ‘Why do you pay me all this attention?’

She stood watching, very solid, very soft.

‘You don’t talk like this to the others. To Kristin. Or Ines.’

She was silent.

‘Is it because I’m a bad girl? You want to convert the bad girl.’

Mrs Harper smiled. ‘We have no desire to convert anyone at the Dasgupta, Elisabeth. You know that. I’m not even sure what the word means. I don’t want to change your mind about anything.’

‘My friends call me Beth,’ I said.

I wondered if she had got a whiff of smoke. I wondered what she was doing in the kitchen at three thirty a.m. Was she after a snack? You could see she didn’t starve herself.

‘Ian and I have the impression that although you have been at the Dasgupta a long time, it is not because you want to be here, but because you are afraid of leaving. We would like to see you choose to stay with enthusiasm, or go with courage.’

I could have killed her. Ian and I. Ian and I.

‘Why don’t you just ask what my problem is?’ I demanded. I slammed down the scissors. ‘Why don’t you ask? How can you pretend to help me without knowing anything about me? I could be a serial killer for all you know. Or a nymphomaniac.’

I looked her in the eyes. I meant to shoot arrows. If they hit home she didn’t show it.

‘I suppose we’re concerned that you might do something disruptive to get yourself thrown out. Because you can’t take the decision yourself.’

‘Like what?’

She smiled gently. ‘Hard to tell. Smoking on the premises. Going to the pub. Visiting the men’s side.

I stared at her. She was standing with her back slightly curved, her hands linked over her big belly. What if I rushed over and whacked her in the mouth?

I picked up the broccoli again and made five or six quick snips.

‘You don’t know anything about me.’

‘You’re standing in front of me, Elisabeth. With your scissors. At night. In the kitchen. Cutting broccoli.’

‘Beth.’

She said nothing.

‘That doesn’t mean you know me.’

‘You’re here,’ she repeated. ‘Now. What does it mean, to know someone?’

I thought how nice it had been working in the kitchen, alone, and how agitated I was now. Her calmness was driving me wild. I needed a scene. I should chuck the broccoli at her.

‘Why don’t you ask me something? Ask me what’s bothering me. Ask me why I feel bad.’

‘You said it was your period.’ She hesitated. Suddenly I was anxious she might really ask.

‘What are you doing here?’ I said quickly. ‘I’m bleeding. What’s your excuse?’

She sucked in her lips, smiling.

‘Do you need a bowl of cereal, like Ralph? He was here earlier. He eats like a horse.’

Mrs Harper turned, trundled to the water heater, took a mug and a green-tea teabag and filled it with steaming water.

‘I’ve got a sore throat. I need some tea.’ Again she hesitated. ‘You asked why I don’t want to know what’s bothering you, why I don’t ask you. But if you think about it, Elisabeth, why would I want to hear about your sankhara s? How would that help? My knowing. Your past sankhara s are not you. I’m not a psychologist. I have no expertise in analysing someone’s life history. You’ve been here a long time now. Your stories are no longer you. You can let them go.’