Doris Lessing - The Grass is Singing

'Complete nervous breakdown' diagnosed Tony, who was just off to bed. He had the kind of mind that is relieved by putting things into words: the phrase was an apology for Mary; it absolved her from criticism. 'Complete nervous breakdown' was something anyone might have; most people did, at some time or another. The next night, too, Dick packed, until everything was ready. 'Buy yourself some material and make a dress or two,' said Dick diffidently, for he had realized, handling her things, that she had, almost literally, 'nothing to wear'. She nodded, and took out of a drawer a length of flowered cotton stuff that had been taken over with the stock from the store. She began to cut it out, then remained still, bent over it, silent, until Dick touched her shoulder and roused her to come to bed. Tony, witness of this scene, refrained from looking at Dick. He was grieved for them both. He had learned to like Dick very much; his feeling for him was sincere and personal. As for Mary, while he was. sorry for her, what could be said about a woman who simply wasn't there? 'A case for a psychologist,' he said again, trying to reassure himself. For that matter, Dick would benefit by treatment himself. The man was cracking up, he shivered perpetually, his face was so thin the bone structure showed under the skim lie was not fit to work at all, really; but he insisted on spending every moment of daylight on the fields; he could not bear to leave them when dusk came. Tony had to bring him away; his task now was almost one of a male nurse, and he was beginning to look forward to the Turners' departure.

Three days before they were to leave, Tony asked to stay behind for the afternoon, because he was not feeling well. A touch of the sun, perhaps; he had a bad headache, his eyes hurt, and nausea moved in the pit of his stomach. He stayed away from the midday meal, lying in his hut which, though warm enough, was cold compared to that oven of a house. At four o'clock in the afternoon he woke from an uneasy aching sleep, and was very thirsty. The old whisky bottle that was usually filled with drinking water was empty; the boy had forgotten to fill it. Tony went out into the yellow glare to fetch water from the house. The back door was open, and he moved silently, afraid to wake Mary, whom he had been told slept every afternoon. He took a glass from a rack, and wiped it carefully, and went into the living-room for the water. A glazed earthenware filter stood on the shelf that served as a sideboard.

Tony lifted the lid and peered in: the dome of the filter was slimy with yellow mud, but the water trickled out of the tap clear, though tasting stale and tepid. He drank, and drank again, and, having filled this bottle, turned to leave. The curtain between this room and the bedroom was drawn back, and he could see in. He was struck motionless by surprise. Mary was sitting on an upended candle box before the square of mirror nailed on the wall. She was in a garish pink petticoat, and her bony yellow shoulders stuck sharply out of it. Beside her stood Moses, and, as Tony watched, she stood up and held out her arms while the native slipped her dress over them from behind. When she sat down again she shook out her hair from her neck with both hands, with the gesture of a beautiful woman adoring her beauty. Moses was buttoning up the dress; she was looking in the mirror. The attitude of the native was of an indulgent luxuriousness. When he had finished the buttoning, he stood back, and watched the,woman brushing her hair. 'Thank you, Moses,' she said in a high commanding voice. Then she turned, and said intimately: 'You had better go now. It is time for the boss to come.' The native came out of the room. When he saw the white man standing there, staring at him incredulously, he hesitated for a moment and then came straight on, passing him on silent feet, but with a malevolent glare. The malevolence was so strong, that Tony was momentarily afraid. When the native had gone, Tony sat down on a chair, mopped his face which was streaming with the heat, and shook his head to clear it. For his thoughts were conflicting. He had been in the country long enough to be shocked; at the same time his `progressiveness' was deliciously flattered by this evidence of white ruling-class hypocrisy. For in a country where coloured children appear plentifully among the natives wherever a lonely white man is stationed, hypocrisy, as Tony defined it, was the first thing that had struck him on his arrival. But then, he had read enough about psychology to understand the sexual aspect of the colour bar, one of whose foundations is the jealousy of the white man for the superior sexual potency of the native; and he was surprised at one of the guarded, a white woman, so easily evading this barrier. Yet he had met a doctor on the boat coming out, with years of experience in a country district, who had told him he would be surprised to know the number of white women who had relations with black men. Tony felt at the time that he would be surprised; he felt it would be rather like having a relation with an animal, in spite of his `progressiveness'.

And then all these considerations went from his mind, and he was left simply with the fact of Mary, this poor, twisted woman, who was clearly in the last stages of breakdown, and who was at this moment coming out of the bedroom, one hand still lifted to her hair. And then he felt, at the sight of her face, which was bright and innocent, though with an empty, half-idiotic brightness, that all his suspicions were nonsense.

When she saw him, she stopped dead, and stared at him with fear. Then her face, from being tormented, became slowly blank and indifferent. He could not understand this sudden change. But he said, in a jocular uncomfortable voice: "There was once an Empress of Russia who thought so little of her slaves, as human beings, that she used to undress naked in front of them.' It was from this point of view that he chose to see the affair; the other was too difficult for him.

`Was there?' she said doubtfully at last, looking puzzled. `Does that native always dress and undress you?' he asked.

Mary lifted her head sharply, and her eyes became cunning. `He has so little to do,' she said, tossing her head. `He must earn his money.'

`It's not customary in this country, is it?' he asked slowly, out of the depths of his complete bewilderment. And he saw, as he spoke, that the phrase `this country', which is like a call to solidarity for most white people, meant nothing to her. For her, there was only the farm; not even that – there was only this house, and what was in it. And he began to understand with a horrified pity, her utter indifference to Dick; she had shut out everything that conflicted with her actions, that would revive the code she had been brought up to follow.

She said suddenly; `They said I was not like that, not like that, not like that.' It was like a gramophone that had got stuck at one point.

`Not like what?' he asked blankly.

`Not like that.' The phrase was furtive, sly, yet triumphant. God, the woman is mad as a hatter! he said to himself. And then he thought, but is she, is she? She can't be mad. She doesn't behave as if she were. She behaves simply as if she lives in a world of her own, where other people's standards don't count. She has forgotten what her own people are like. But then, what is madness, but a refuge, a retreating from the world?

Thus the unhappy and bewildered Tony, sitting on his chair beside the water filter, still holding his bottle and glass, staring uneasily at Mary, who began to talk in a sad quiet voice which made him say to himself, as she was speaking, changing his mind again, that she was not mad, at least, not at that moment. `It's a long time since I came here,' she said, looking straight at him, in appeal. `So long I can't quite remember… I should have left long ago. I don't know why I didn't. I don't know why I came. But things are different. Very different.' She stopped. Her face was pitiful; her eyes were painful holes in her face. `I don't know anything. I don't understand. Why is all this happening? I didn't mean it to happen. But he won't go away, he won't go away.' And then, in a different voice, she snapped at him, `Why did you come here? It was all right before you came.' She burst into tears, moaning, `He won't go away.'