Patrick White - Voss

Then Jackie, whose position was obviously intolerable, raised his eyes, and said:

‘No good, Mr Voss.

‘These blackfeller say you come along us,’ he added, for he was still possessed by the white man’s magic.

Voss bowed his head very low. Because he was not accustomed to the gestures of humility, he tried to think how Palfreyman might have acted in similar circumstances, but in that landscape, in that light, not even memory provided a refuge.

The eyes of the black men were upon him. How the veins of their bodies stood out, and the nipples.

As they watched.

The white man was stirring like a handful of dry grass. He was remounting his horse.

In his feebleness, or the dream that he was living, as he was hauling himself up by the pommel he felt the toe of his boot slither from the stirrup-iron. He felt some metal, undoubtedly a buckle, score his chin for a very brief moment of pain, before he was back standing on the ground. It was an incident which, in the past, might have made him look ridiculous.

But the black men did not laugh.

Then Voss, behaving more deliberately, succeeded in seating himself in the saddle, swaying, and smiling. The blood which had begun to run out of his chin was already stanched by the dry atmosphere, and the flies sitting on the crust of blood.

Even so, the woman had ridden closer to him, and was about to make some attempt to clean the wound.

‘ Lass mich los ,’ he said, abruptly, even rudely, although the rudeness was intended, rather, for himself.

Now the party had begun to move forward over the plain of quartz, in which, it was seen, a path must have been cleared in former times by blacks pushing the stones aside. The going was quite tolerable upon this pale, dusty track. Some of the natives went ahead, but most walked along behind. Now there was little distinction between skins, between men and horses even. Space had blurred the details.

‘Good Lord, sir, what will happen?’ asked Harry Robarts, rising to the surface of his eyes.

‘ They will know, presumably,’ replied the German.

‘Lord, sir, will you let them?’ cried the distracted boy. ‘Lord, will you not save us?’

‘I am no longer your Lord, Harry,’ said Voss.

‘I would not know of no other,’ said the boy.

Again the man was grateful for the simple boy’s devotion. But could he, in the state to which he had come, allow himself the luxury of accepting it?

As he was debating this, Laura Trevelyan rode alongside, although there was barely room for two horses abreast on that narrow path.

‘You will not leave me then?’ he asked.

‘Not for a moment,’ she said. ‘Never, never.’

‘If your teaching has forced me to renounce my strength, I imagine the time will come very soon when there will be no question of our remaining together.’

‘Perhaps we shall be separated for a little. But we have experienced that already.’

They rode along.

‘I will think of a way to convince you,’ she said, after a time, ‘to convince you that all is possible. If I can make the sacrifice.’

Then he looked at her, and saw that they had cut off her hair, and below the surprising stubble that remained, they had pared the flesh from her face. She was now quite naked. And beautiful. Her eyes were drenching him.

So they rode on above the dust, in which they were writing their own legend.

*

The girl, Betty, was in tears the evening they took the hair from Miss Trevelyan by order of Dr Kilwinning. It was that lovely, she said, she would keep it always, and stuff a little cushion with it.

‘That is morbid, Betty,’ said Mrs Bonner.

But the mistress allowed the girl to keep the hair, because she was touched, and because it no longer confirmed her strength to deny other people the fulfilment of their wishes.

When they had put away the dressmaking scissors, Laura Trevelyan’s desecrated head lolled against the pillows. She was lying with her eyes closed, as she did frequently now, and Dr Kilwinning was taking her pulse, an occupation which filled a gap and prevented the ignorant from talking.

Of all those people who witnessed the removal of the hair, Mr Bonner was most stunned, who had never before seen a woman without her hair. It made him walk softly, and, shortly after the operation, he went out of his niece’s room, calculating that nobody would notice his absence.

When, finally, his wife came down with Dr Kilwinning, there he was, loitering at the foot of the stairs, near the stair cupboard, to be exact, as if he had been an intruder in his own house.

The doctor was for leaving with all speed of his patent-leather boots.

But these fleshy old people, who had wizened in a few days, were hanging upon him. The rather common old woman would have seized him by the cuffs. Alas, his status as fashionable physician failed to protect him from a great many unpleasantnesses. If anything, the fees he charged seemed, rather, to make some individuals aspire to get their money’s worth.

‘But tell me, Doctor, do you consider it to be infectious?’ Mrs Bonner was asking.

‘In a court of law, Mrs Bonner, I would not swear to it, but it would be as well to guard against the possibility of infection, shall we say?’

Dr Kilwinning, whose elastic calves had brought him mercifully to the bottom of the stairs, there encountered Mr Bonner, and they nodded at each other, as if they had only just met.

Mr Bonner hated Dr Kilwinning. He could have punched him on the nose.

‘Oh, dear, then if it is infectious ,’ Mrs Bonner was crying, ‘there is the danger of the little girl.’

‘I did not say it was infectious. Indeed, it should not be.’ Dr Kilwinning laughed. ‘But the will of God, you know, has a habit of overruling the opinions of physicians.’

‘Then,’ said Mr Bonner, who could not stand it any longer, ‘there is something wrong somewhere. If the physician receives the fee that some physicians do receive, he should form an opinion that the Almighty would respect. If that is blasphemy, Dr Kilwinning, I cannot help it. You have forced me to it.’

Mrs Bonner was aghast. Dr Kilwinning moistened his rather full lips, that were so fascinating to some women. Then he showed his fine, white teeth.

He said:

‘Please do not blame me for your own nature, Mr Bonner.’

And the front door was rattling.

‘He is gone, at least,’ said the merchant.

‘And very likely will not return. Oh, dear, Mr Bonner, look what you have done. The little girl upon my mind, too. Though I do declare still, it is a simple brain fever, if that can be called simple which people die of. Regularly.’

So that Mrs Bonner remained uncomforted.

She was continually washing her hands, but could not cleanse herself of all her sins. She had Betty walk about the house with a red-hot shovel, on which to burn a compound of saltpetre and vitriol, that was most efficacious, somebody had claimed, although Mrs Bonner had forgotten who. Then, when the fumes rose from Betty’s shovel, the mystery deepened, and everyone in the house was unhappier than before.

Except possibly Mercy, the little girl. Her world was still substantial, when it was not melting into dreams. Particularly she loved Betty’s game of smoke. She would try to catch the smoke. She loved doves. She loved the marbles from the game of solitaire. If she loved her mother less than all these, it was because she had not seen her lately.

But her grandmother did come instead.

In the beginning, Mrs Bonner had taken charge of Laura’s child perhaps as an act of expiation, but soon became enthusiastic. Before going about her duties, she would disinfect herself most rigorously, of course. She would lay aside her rings, trembling all the while, until her impatient skirts hastened through the passages, and she was free at last to snuff up the sweet smell of cleanliness from the nape of the childish neck. This elderly woman would grow quite drunk on kisses, although it was but a mixed happiness that her secret vice brought her, for she would be reminded of her own child, living, but married, and of the several others she had buried in their babyhood.