Nicholas Mosley - A Garden of Trees

So there is tragedy. A conflict is irrelevant, because I do not know. I do not know what I am feeling. Emotion is not like this, it is what is known. Get rid of the conflict and then I shall know. This is the one thing I have learned. Now, at every moment, there is something to do.

I rang up Annabelle. The glass was broken in the window of the call box, so that the noises of the street came in in waves. “Hullo,” she said.

“I want to ask you something, something about Marius.”

“Where are you?”

“When Marius told you about him and his wife, what did he say?”

“Can’t you come round here or can I meet you?”

“I don’t think so, I’m sorry, I have to get back. . ”

“Are you there now, at the hospital?”

“I have been, I have to. . ”

“Can’t I see you?”

“No.”

A pause, then: “He told me that when. . ”

“I am sorry, I can’t hear you.”

“Surely it is not what happened then but what happens now,” she shouted.

“What?”

“I said surely. . ”

“I hear you. But what can I do now when I do not know what Marius is?”

“Don’t you know what Marius is?”

“No,” I said.

“You do, you do, and you must not. . ”

“I can’t hear you.”

“I said you must not take a failure. . ”

“Did he say it was a failure?”

“Of course he did. Wasn’t it a failure?”

“He seemed to think. . ”

“Is not everything both a failure and not a failure, and what has that got to do with it?”

“Everything. . ”

“No nothing, nothing, surely, you know what you feel about Marius, you know what Marius is, you cannot judge. . ”

“If I cannot judge what can I do?”

“Do? Can’t you do what you have to do and it is not a quibble over words that will decide you?”

“What have I to do?”

“What you feel and what Marius is to you, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’ll see you.” I went out of the call-box and walked among the streets.

A green day. Emotion is not describable. But if I cannot judge what is a failure and what is not a failure what is there to judge and what to know? And if I cannot know what is a disaster and what is not a disaster can I judge what is right and wrong just by looking inwards to the inmost soul, he said, but we can never know about ourselves, she said, and what is there to do? But can we know about others then, what to do at least and thus to everyone yes everyone but Marius especially who is close to me and who has helped me and who has given to me these days and this part of him this whole of him and this should I, I know, but can I? And what is this failure except that everything both is and isn’t, and to him what am I to do but give — he who has been five years with a dying wife, who saw her die, who saw her kill, who saw him kill, five years looking inwards to ask a question that cannot be answered, a question like that, too, was it or was it not, am I or am I not, O God, and what can he do except pray to his God O God if it was then it was and I did, and if it wasn’t then it wasn’t and I did, and the prayer is the same whether it was or wasn’t. And forgiveness is the same, too, so that it doesn’t matter except that he asks to be forgiven, which he does, from his God, and from me too, from me, and who am I to walk about the streets asking a question that even his God does not answer because it is not necessary to be answered but only to have something done about it, and this is what I can do here and now because I have seen this suffering and hers too and it is not for me to ask about it but only to help it. This I accept and must do although I do not know how and I do not know why and I do not even know if it will be right or wrong, but that doesn’t seem to matter any more, I don’t know why, it is the doing that matters, and for the how and why and right and wrong I trust to luck and whatever there is between us and whatever there is between everyone in the world and that indeed he has given me. What they have done for others I can do for them. It is a green day. I must do for what he is and what he requires.

I went back to the hospital. “I hope I am not disturbing you,” I said.

“I did not expect you,” she said.

“No.” She raised herself.

“Why have you come back?”

“I have had a row with Marius,” I said.

“A row? Have you?”

“Yes.”

“I did not mean. . ” She looked frightened. “I am afraid I was rather dramatic this morning,” she said.

“So was I.”

“Perhaps after all. . ” She paused, and I knew that I had to begin.

“It is a fault of mine — being dramatic,” I said.

“Yes?”

“It is what happens when you don’t know what should be happening really. Why can’t you get well?”

“Because they say so.”

“Who?”

“There is a man called Dr. Livingstone.”

“There is? I shall make you laugh. When was the last time you laughed?”

“Why do you want me to get well?”

“Isn’t that what matters?”

“Is it?”

“Perhaps because I am in love with Annabelle,” I said.

“Oh,” she said. I knew that it was imperative that there should be no silence.

“Do you know what Peter said once? That if one makes a business of tears then one is free to laugh at one’s leisure.”

“Did he? And does he laugh?”

“No, he makes other people laugh, he is the clown that cries by night.”

“And what are you?”

“Just at the moment I don’t know.”

“Why did you say that about Annabelle?”

“Because I have got to think of a joke.”

“That wasn’t a joke.”

“No, that is the terrible thing, I can’t think of a joke.”

“Please, it is not necessary.”

“It is, I am sure, I am like the fools that prattle in tragedies, they have to think of jokes. I hope they find it easier.”

“Is this what Marius has done to you? Is this what happens now?”

“I think so, yes. This room is like a diving-bell. Shall I send you flowers?”

“Marius brings me flowers.”

“Marius would bring you a wreath of last year’s laurel. What do you do with them?”

“I have them taken away. I do not like to see them out.”

“You can have them in pots. I will bring you a tree planted in a tub.”

“A tree would wither in a room like this.”

“It would not if you liked it. It would be your tree. When the nurses came they would get caught up in its branches like Absalom.”

“They would look funny without their hats.”

“Yes. And Marius could sit in it and then he would look funny too.”

“Marius has never looked funny. Perhaps that is what. . ”

“Yes, we must make him look funny.”

“He would not look funny in a tree.”

“He would if you laughed.”

“I laughed about the nurses,” she said.

I sat by her bed. It was as if I were dreaming. “Marius is all right,” I said.

“What can you do for him?”

“I will do something,” I said.

“And Annabelle?”

“I will do what I can.”

“You are too good to us.”

“No,” I said.

“It is worse for him than for anyone.”

“He has been very good to me.”

“Has he?”

“Yes, he has made things possible.”

“For others?”

“Yes, yes, for others, and by that and nothing else for himself.”

“Does he suffer?

“You know about that sort of suffering.”

“It won’t destroy him?”

“It didn’t destroy you,” I said.

She looked at me. I know what it was that I had to answer. “And if I should die?” she said.

“You won’t die,” I said.

“If I did?”