Wilson Harris - The Carnival Trilogy

It was then with deadly certainty and sensitivity that I knew he was speaking the truth. His confession was true, heartrendingly true. And I remembered the gate of Home and the masked king in it upon whom I had come, the leaf that had bruised my brow: I saw it flutter again in the corridor of space. I saw the flight of the thorn into Proteus’s brow in the gate, I saw its shadow all over again upon Harold’s in the corridor. I had secured Rose’s line of sight in the gate. I had helped her instinctively, involuntarily: as though she (Rose) symbolized a palatial twin-body, twinleaf, twin-petal, twin-flesh, twin-thorn, in which lay my involuntary shadow, the involuntary shadow of the carnival heir in his suit, masked suitor, unconscious suitor.

His suit rather than mine as if I were other than an incestuous lodger in Nature and lover of mother Rose, as if I were another newborn, confessional medium (however prone still to conflict), unborn, newborn, gestating stranger in her and myself.

As much as to say that his suit was both an unfinished garment upon all species in the body of nature and a spiritual contest, a spiritual repudiation of the abuse of mother nature that I sustained in others, shared with others through and beyond myself.

Thus it was I had instinctively, unconsciously, raised my hand against the beggar in the gate of Home, against Proteus’s masked king and all over again once more against Harold this time, Harold the masked proprietor of flesh and blood.

Raised my hand within a train of habit, involuntary, apparently incestuous habit; raised my hand within involuntary apparently stranger compulsion. Raised my twin-hand within a medium of passion, a medium of animus, the biting animus of mother nature ingrained into one’s blood that one directs against every abuser and exploiter.

Raised my hand to strike and kill: not so: not to kill: to bless my returned father, returned to me from the kingdom of the Dead.

How had it happened, when had it started, such unconscious arbitration and change within the suit of tradition, mysterious suit, mysterious Presence overshadowing the corridor of space? I could not say but I knew that in the twin-scales of nature lay a complex balance I would need to ravel/unravel/ravel between creation and violence, art and revenge. A difficult task but a true however precarious beginning had been made with others, through others …

What was remarkable about all this, I dreamt, was that in my sudden apprehension of an unconscious alteration within the hand of nature and spirit I felt pain, great pain, knew the terrifying pain in the desire to kill another, knew this now as I had never felt it before; yet in that very instant was held by a dialectic of confessional spirit that addressed me as the Presence appeared to speak –

‘Nature breaks into mysterious selfhood, breaks into what is itself yet other than itself. The twin-blow that Nature delivers through you, Anselm, may turn into art, into self-confessional art. May illumine afresh Penelope’s garment or tapestry of tradition. May illumine afresh your relationship to Ross. Ross is another suitor whom South American/English Penelope has named her “good angel” in seeking a key to repudiate the charisma of Simon’s ascendancy over them.’ The voice ceased.

Harold had now begun to fade within the corridor of space. I cried to him before he vanished — ‘The other child.’ I cried, ‘the other Rose’s child, twin-Rose’s child, your last child — my half-brother, my cousin — can you tell me of him? Who is he? Where is he? Born long after me yet he seems now my twin, my hand in his, his in mine

Harold was half-visible now, half-invisible now. I saw his remorse. He knelt at my feet. ‘Proteus will tell you or show you. I cannot. I cannot.’ He held his head in his hands then looked up into the Presence overshadowing us both. He had confessed. I had confessed. Had I confessed to Presence or Priest? The candle flickered and the flame went out. But a new match flared, the sudden lease of a new day upon the third bank of the river of space.

The sun was rising now: a new sobering lease of light, a new sobering homecoming day of the law conferred I dreamt by invisible Priest or Presence (invisible paradox because glimmeringly perceived) within the corridor of the third bank of the river of space.

The early morning radio was playing in the corridor: a marvellous invention. Conversation floated in space and time, present space and time, past space and time, re-voiced spaces, retraced echoes, within the archives of Alicia’s live fossil museum.

‘Confessional fabric of a universal homecoming when everybody talks to everybody on the airwaves,’ Proteus’s echoing radio voice was saying as I listened, criss-crossing stations, antiphonal voices within voices (rooted in or mimicking the Voice of Presence) beneath the crucifixion, the resurrection of the sun.

‘Let me warn you of the trial you shall face further along this airwave corridor when you shall be called to answer for the deeds of your brother

‘Who is my brother?’

There was no immediate answer. Proteus’s radio voice appeared to fade, to crackle into muffled gunfire, then to resume its ancient pitch within the corridor of space, the corridor of Home — ‘It’s a new, old newsgathering day, newsgathering confessional day of the homecoming of a carnival king (of whom everyone dreams) and the private and public anguish this occasions, the private and public business it brings, the daemons and furies we need to grasp, analyse, within a procession of events, natural events, man-made events. All this will emerge in the trial. A trial that started within Alicia on the day of your father’s death. To put a rough date on it! When does one’s trial truly commence? The day your father died a black Syrian magus, a ghostly merchant, appeared on the doorstep of the palace of the Rose. This was 1920. He offered Alicia a piece of sculpture which now stands, Anselm, in the corridor beside you. She paid him in tea, myrrh, gold and Demerara sugar. He bowed and accepted the precious gifts in return for a work of art that gave its purchaser a taste of ancient Greece in the modern world — in modern Palestine from whence he came — modern India, modern Asia, the modern United States, everywhere, the rebirth of refugee art seeking a home in the City of God, refugee kings seeking a new post-colonial home in the wake of the fall of many regimes, refugee family of Man. The sculpture was painted black, and when she asked its name or title he said black Agamemnon. She was startled. She took it inside, touched it, kissed it. Impulse, pure impulse! Alicia was a creature of immense practicality yet unpredictable impulse. Would you believe it? She hid it away after that, she locked it away from the sun in a dusty cupboard. I transported it into the corridor …’