Maggie Gee - Virginia Woolf in Manhattan

Here things were slower, more communal. Cats and people wove about like smoke. I looked in vain for the golden kittens. The shops were small and all of them were open, although it was nearly 8 PM. Sacks and boxes spilled on to the pavement — it was untidy — it was human. Shopkeepers chatted to customers.

‘The Hippodrome,’ Angela announced. We were climbing up into a rectangular open space with an enormous mosque to our right. Above us, violet sky. Things flickered across. Owls, bats? Only a few people on the edges.

‘This is where the Romans had chariot races,’ Angela said. ‘And there’s the Blue Mosque. By day, it’s crowded. We might go together.’

I thought, perhaps I will go alone.

‘Aya Sophia’s down there,’ she waved vaguely, ‘and that’s the Topkapi Palace. Once we’re sat down, we’ll make a plan. There’s so much you should see, Virginia. So little time before the conference. And of course, I need to finish my paper.’

At the far end of the Hippodrome, the crowds began. There were minor key bells and a scream of metal as a huge tram like an ocean-liner hove up the main street from the sea below, its bright windows crammed with people. We turned to follow in its wake. ‘I could help you with your paper,’ I said.

‘I doubt it,’ she said, ‘it’s … specialised.’ Then ‘Come to think of it, though, perhaps you could. Yes, a read-through would be useful.’

‘If the paper’s about me, I’m a specialist,’ I said, and laughed at my wit, but she did not.

‘You have to understand,’ she said, and then ‘ — no, I can’t possibly explain it.’

‘What?’

‘Oh, just something about the conference. Something about the academics. Don’t say you’re a specialist.’

‘I need to know about modern academics!’

She looked perplexed and cross, and the crowds pouring down the street were so thick we could hardly make headway, let alone converse. ‘I know this will sound strange to you, but they won’t believe what you say about your work.’

‘Because — because I am dead?’ It was obvious. ‘Because they won’t believe it’s me?’

‘No, nothing as simple as that, Virginia.’

When the trams hove past, the crowds squashed back on to the pavements, and elbows, shoulders, feet shoved us. I was surrounded, enveloped, by Turks, I had lost my edges, I was almost Turkish.

‘It’s because — some modern scholars think authors don’t know anything about their work,’ she panted, over her shoulder.

‘That doesn’t make sense. We are the ones who wrote it.’

‘It’s not about sense. Or sensible. Sense is considered to be old hat. Rather a dull, Anglo-Saxon idea. This is a concept. A critical concept,’ she said. ‘You can’t expect to understand it, Virginia, so don’t dismiss it before you do.’

‘It’s obviously ridiculous.’

‘You see? I knew you would sneer at it. It’s “The Death of the Author”. It’s — well, it’s French.’

‘But I’m the living embodiment of that. I’m a dead author,’ I said, and started laughing again, because, really, it was quite funny.

‘You don’t know everything about your work. It’s the intentional fallacy,’ she said. ‘That is a critical concept, too.’

‘You mean we don’t know what we’re doing?’

She nodded. ‘It’s not what I believe,’ she added. ‘I just ought to warn you.’

‘Our conscious intentions do not count? I see the influence of Dr Freud.’

Her eyes were defiant, and slightly nervous.

‘Then how can critics know their own intentions? Maybe, unconsciously, they want to kill us. Yes, of course. Then they have the power.’

‘No, Virginia. That’s just — glib. I hope you won’t say that at the conference.’

With that she hared ahead of me, furious, her strong calves powering her on through the crowd, seemingly indifferent to whether I followed.

Odd how they hated a judgement from the past, these modern young people, so sure of themselves!

‘Can we go on a tram?’ I tried to change the subject. She pretended not to hear me. I said it louder, trotting to catch up with her.

‘Not tonight, Virginia.’

‘Why not?’

‘No.’

Her job was mostly saying ‘No’ to me.

Soon she plunged into a net of bright tables in a small street entirely lined with restaurants. Black-and-white waiters bobbed in and out like magpies. A lot of the diners were speaking English. She sank into a chair, and motioned me to join her. ‘Will you be warm enough?’ she asked. ‘Look, there’s an outdoor heater thingy. They’re not ecological, but they work. Edward would be furious! First, I need a bucket of wine.’ Suddenly friendly, she smiled at me. ‘I’ve got my notebook. Let’s make a plan.’

We were two women, making a plan, this freedom to sit and eat and drink wine had become normal, all over the planet; all around us, younger women did the same thing. I liked the new world where this could happen. I wanted this moment of warmth to linger. ‘Thank you. I would like wine, Angela.’

Lil and Gerda were drinking warm Coca-Cola. Normally Gerda would have shunned it, or rather her parents would have shunned it for her. When Lil held out the can, Gerda shook her head. Lil was astonished and indignant. ‘Everyone likes it,’ she said. ‘Course you do. Try it.’ To be friendly, Gerda had a sip. To her surprise, it was delicious. They shared a can, shuttling it to and fro. Gerda watched Lil’s lips and teeth against the metal. She had big white teeth and her mouth was very red ( Mum says Coca-Cola eats your teeth . Gerda took the can and sucked it down. This was another world, with different rules.)

From where they were sitting, on top of the rock, Gerda could see other rock islands through the trees, with little figures enjoying themselves, but as the kingdom of the sun shrank up towards her feet and the evening chill settled, they disappeared. Now it was just the two of them. Gerda knew she depended on Lil.

Lil revealed she was Danish. (My dad is half-Danish,’ said Gerda, excited.) Lil’s English sounded weird, the words were OK but the accent was a mixture of every accent you had ever heard. Quite quickly Gerda got used to it. Lil told her she lived in Central Park ‘when I’m not on the subway, working.’

Gerda thought, ‘She is not a ticket collector.’ She knew without asking what Lil Roberta did. It was very exciting. Now she knew a thief. But her gold bracelet burned a line on her wrist.

‘This rock is ours,’ Lil Robber said, ‘The birds. The shit.’ (A bulky pile was covered with a violently blue tarpaulin.) ‘Everything’s ours. No-one will bother us. You sleep with me. Put that thing’ (indicating, with a wealth of scorn, the pink case Gerda was trying to ignore) ‘under the tarp.’

‘That’s kind of you, thank you,’ Gerda said. It sounded very formal (Lil Robber’s mouth dropped open) and stupidly English, and she didn’t want Lily to think she was a twat, so without thinking, Gerda reached forward and kissed the other girl full on the mouth, and felt Lil pull away, and then kissed her again, and they stood on the rock like two gladiators, halfkissing and half-wrestling, and when they stopped, Lily was laughing.

‘You’re very full on,’ she said. ‘I like that. Come on, I’ll take you on a tour of the park.’

‘If I leave my mum’s case, won’t it get stolen?’ Gerda asked. ‘There’s no-one watching it.’

‘First, my people are watching it,’ said Lil, grandly gesturing towards the trees. ‘Secondly, no-one goes under that tarp.’

‘Why not?’ asked Gerda.

‘Because it pongs.’

‘What’s in that box next to it?’