Maggie Gee - Virginia Woolf in Manhattan

ANGELA

‘Do you think those are normal crows, Virginia? I mean, are they the same as British crows?’

VIRGINIA

‘Let’s go and have a look. I’m fond of crows. One saw them in Sussex.’

Crows were allies, somehow — one always felt that. But as we approached, they broke ranks, and we saw the dark-grey of their bodies (not quite British) as their wings part-unfolded and they hopped and skipped sideways, tumbling ungracefully, only half-bothered, cawing harshly. Then two little boys in matching blue jumpers took their lead from us and ran at the birds, with their mother, who was veiled, calling vainly after them, and soon all the crows, with a loud batting of wings, had flown far away over the walls of Topkapi.

‘It creeps me out, when he looks at me,’ Gerda told Lil, ‘the boy with the beard.’

‘Tell him to fuck off.’ Lil wasn’t bothered. ‘I tell him to fuck off all the time.’

They were walking in the sunlight with a huge grey deerhound that was there when Gerda woke the first morning. The golden-skinned girl claimed it was hers. ‘I call him Wolfy.’ Fortunately Gerda was OK with animals. She gave him the Three Musketeers chocolate bar she had half-eaten in the taxi from the airport, and the dog wolfed it, and licked her hand. She felt at home with him after that. Gerda got credit from Lil for courage as she walked along with her fingers plunged into the wiry curls at the base of his neck, which meant she had to hold her arm up. He was awesomely tall, with a noble head and oddly long, speedy hindquarters. ‘The others are scared of Wolfy. You’re not.’

It’s not really true, Gerda thought to herself. The others aren’t scared, or not very scared, and I am, slightly, but I’m hiding it. Lil made this up so she can think I’m special, so she has a good reason to feel what she feels.

The truth is, the feeling’s about her, not me. Lil is lonely among all those Divs. She just needs someone she can have fun with. It’s not really about me at all.

(But I like her . So is that about me?)

‘He’s not your boyfriend, is he?’ Gerda asked. Suddenly it mattered that he was not.

‘Boyfriend? Him? I haven’t got a boyfriend. Why would I want a boyfriend? ’ Lil said the word as if squeezing it in tweezers prior to disposing of it in toxic waste.

‘Well, on your rock there’s a lot of boys.’

‘On the rock it’s a different world.’ Lil reached out without warning and grabbed Gerda’s wrist, quite painfully tight, then let it go and interlaced their fingers. They walked along with the dog between them, a bridge of hands over giant Wolfy, arms too high to be relaxed, like a flying buttress on a church. Gerda felt awkward, glad and proud. Lil queened it over all of them, but she saw Gerda as an equal.

Somebody’s noticed I’m special, thought Gerda. Someone from the other side of the world. ‘Do you think life would be better if it was just girls?’ she asked cautiously.

‘Obviously,’ Lil Robber said. ‘But boys are useful to do things for us.’

Gerda suddenly remembered something. ‘I went to an allgirls’ school,’ Gerda said. ‘It wasn’t better, it was actually awful.’

‘That’s school ,’ said Lil. ‘School’s awful. It’s prison, isn’t it.’

‘Still you have to learn things,’ Gerda said.

‘School is prison for innocent people.’ (Gerda thought: she’s said that before.) ‘I pity you for being locked up,’ Lil added, but her face said something more complex, more resentful.

‘One of the teachers was good,’ said Gerda. Lil was so sure of her opinions, and Gerda needed to hang on to her own.

‘That’s like saying “I had a nice prison guard”.’

‘It’s — all about your point of view,’ said Gerda. ‘It’s an Assertion, not a Fact.’ She could feel the mute force of Lil’s anger. The Robber Girl couldn’t answer her.

The dog was loping along by the lake, blue-grey-black against the blue-dark water. He had escaped their arch of hands, which had collapsed into a hanging garland that they swung, swung as they kept in step.

Then an army of crows landed in the shallows, splashing, pecking at the brightness, chattering. Suddenly the dog leaped into the lake.

Lil rounded on Gerda, eyes blazing topaz, hands on hips, cheeks heavy and red.

‘Now you got to get him back. Fact.’

ANGELA

I was watching our shadows as we walked towards the gates. Did they look frail and elderly? Were both of us slightly bent forward, from writing? I pulled my shoulders back and looked at her. We had pitied the women of the Harem, but I suddenly knew they wouldn’t want to be us. No, they would have pitied Woolf’s childlessness.

VIRGINIA

‘What are you staring at?’

ANGELA

‘Nothing. I was wondering what the women of the Harem would have thought of you, Virginia.’

VIRGINIA

‘I would have been beyond their comprehension. And what would they have thought of you?’

(They would have asked her if she had a husband, and when she said ‘Yes’, they would have asked ‘Where is he? And how old is your child? She isn’t with you?’ They might have thought she had missed the point.)

ANGELA

‘Have I tired you out, Virginia?’

‘Certainly not!’ She struck out towards the arch more energetically than before.

VIRGINIA

We walked over the gate’s massive threshold, a great metal sill, burnished in the middle to dazzling smoothness by the endless passage of the little people, their shoes humbly passing and polishing. Thousands of shadows of the living and the dead. We are cotton-fluff: dandelion; we blow on the wind.

Aya Sophia glowed into view, its central dome like an enormous gold-tipped breast on a cream and pink, sprawled, stucco body.

New York is a man, I thought to myself, cool, straight, confident.

And Istanbul’s a middle-aged woman. Watery. Supple. All tides and inlets.

ANGELA

‘Of course the wives plotted against each other. It was politics, and that’s what male politicians do — oh look at the queue for Aya Sophia.’

VIRGINIA

The queue stretched out in restless motion towards the flowerbeds and fountains of Sultanahmet Park, which rose and fell, rose and fell, bowing and aspiring to the Blue Mosque in the distance. A shifting succession of people crossed the bright expanse of paving-stones in front of the water, flickering and fading like the fountains.

ANGELA

So many people. Ants, midges. Why should I mind so much about Edward? Surely I would find another man.

‘It wasn’t a story of sisterhood, was it?’

VIRGINIA

‘Sisters do feel rivalry.’

ANGELA

Now we were in the queue behind a young Chinese man who was doing a full Kung Fu routine to pass the time. He kept doing lunges, and shouting ‘Ha’, which was wearing.

‘I never had a sister. I imagined I would love her. Were you really jealous of your sister? Did you ever, for a moment, hate her?’

VIRGINIA

‘I didn’t dare to hate her, you see. After Mother died, Vanessa mothered me. Even before, I ran to her for kisses. For me, Nessa always meant kisses. But we were both artists. Of course, I was jealous. Artists are always jealous of each other.’

ANGELA

(

suddenly very earnest

)

‘I hope you don’t think I am jealous of you. I’m not, I promise. I admire you, Virginia. You’re like my mother, honestly. All modern writers look to you. That’s what you are, our foremother.’

I felt so hurt when she hooted with laughter. The sweating Chinese man paused mid-kick and looked at her sharply, but she was oblivious.