John Berger - Lilac and Flag

What did he do wrong?

He hasn’t told me.

The Russian in the next bed opened his eyes. There’s a Russian proverb, he said, When you cut down trees, the chips fly. He shut his eyes again and added, One of them fell on my head.

This silenced all three men. Further along the ward a man was calling for a nurse. His voice was broken; the self-respect gone.

Sucus couldn’t take his eyes off his father’s face. It was burnt all over, as brown as a chicken left too long in the oven. A brown crust had smoothed over the pouches of the face. More than this, it hid the lines and wrinkles, and disguised the dome of the forehead where his father was going bald. The marks of strain and effort, pain and tear, had been burnt away. The blue eyes, peering through the two narrow judas slits, and his pink tongue, were those of a young man.

I looked at the burnt-out TV, Sucus said.

It was faulty wiring.

You were lucky.

The truth about those machines, and it’s the same everywhere today, everywhere you turn you find monkey work. We called it monkey work, son, in the village.

So you’ve been telling me for twenty years. But assembling TV sets isn’t like opening oysters.

Shut your mouth.

His huge bandaged hands were lying on the bedspread and looked bigger than ever.

Insert the point of the knife! Crack! said Sucus. Cut round the frill. Sever the nerve. And there’s your oyster! One operation. What I don’t understand is why it suddenly went Phut! It wasn’t as if it was a new one.

Faulty wiring. And faulty wiring means monkey work. Incompetence. From competere , in Latin to compete, from cum , with, and petere , to go towards. To go somewhere together, son. There are so few places to go to now. Incompetence, to go nowhere, to be with nobody. To do monkey work.

After speaking, Clement laid his head back on the pillow. He was having some difficulty in breathing.

Your mother and I have tried to do our best for you, he said. Inculcate certain principles.

In-cul-cate, said Sucus, from the Latin inculcare , to tread upon.

Over the iron frame of the bed, above Clement’s head, was draped a scarf with blue gentians on a green ground. Wislawa had brought it for him on the first day. She had a whole collection of scarves. Many of them she pinned over the walls of the kitchen at home to hide the damp stains. This gave the tiny room on the fourteenth floor the look of a fortune teller’s caravan. Now, in the hospital ward, he rubbed the back of his bandaged hand against the gentians. After a moment he spoke again and opened his eyes.

When you’ve opened a million oysters, every oyster on this earth is the same. I started near the Opera, my boy. I worked for a man who said he’d been a sailor. In any case, he wore a sailor’s hat. He looked at my hands and said, They’re big enough, you’ll do.

Why should it suddenly go Phut?

Because my hour had come.

Phut! Phut!

You believe in nothing!

You’ll get better!

When your hour strikes, there’s nothing to be done.

Nothing to be done! One minute you’re accusing the women who assemble your TV of monkey work—

Women?

Sure, it’s all done by women.

The monkey work?

You didn’t know it was done by women, did you?

I never thought about it.

It’s their fingers.

I’ve lost the feeling in my hands. So they’re all put together by women?

Yes, put together by women. And the next moment you’re talking about fate and your fucking hour striking.

What do you mean by their fingers?

Nimble. Women have nimble fingers.

You’ve always been the same, Sucus.

Clement succeeded in doing what he wanted with the scarf. With his two bound hands he pulled it off the bars of the bed and held it against his cheek.

I stayed with the sailor by the Opera for a year. I learnt the trade. You weren’t even thought of. Then I started on my own. Now it’s all over.

Don’t talk like that.

I’ve always tried to be philosophical. Philo , love of, sophos , wisdom. Open the drawer. Clement indicated the locker beside the bed. I want you to have the knife.

Inside was an identity card, blue like the colour of the Trojan sky before the traffic begins on a summer morning, its corners dog-eared, its edges frayed, its code number of three letters and eight numerals too faint for anyone to read, a cigarette lighter, a key ring, a bottle opener, and a fisherman’s knife with a handle made of reindeer horn.

You know it, son, so take it.

Sucus took it out of the drawer and examined the handle.

Yes, I know it, he said obediently, and here’s the mark the knifemaker made because it was no ordinary reindeer.

Now you must pay me, said Clement, a knife can only be sold.

How much?

Ten.

Sucus laughed. They don’t exist any more, Papa, ten pieces! The smallest coin now is a hundred.

Then give me a hundred.

Sucus searched in the pockets of his jeans. I haven’t got a sou.

So pay me tomorrow, Sucus, and never use it against a man unless he threatens your life.

Sucus noticed that in the corners of his father’s mouth a little white foam was collecting.

I’ll sell it back to you when you’re better, he said, for five hundred!

One day your hour will strike too. Take the knife.

All this because a TV goes Phut!

My hour has struck.

I’ve brought you some gnôle.

Pass it here, son, under the cover. Have you found a job yet?

There are no jobs, said Sucus, except the ones we invent. No jobs. No jobs.

Clement couldn’t hold the bottle to his mouth with his hands, so Sucus held it for him.

It was the first time Sucus had been in a hospital. Nothing in the ward or in the ablutions or in the corridors, whether it was flesh or metal, remained unwashed for more than a few days; the ward smelt of soap and its powerlessness against the afflictions of age.

Take a mouthful, Sucus. Plum brandy. Prunum . Slivovitz. Go back to the village, that’s what I’d like to do.

It’s thousands of miles away.

See the mountains for the last time.

Are you serious?

I’ll never see the village again. I’ll never set eyes on it again. There are people, I’m sure, who drive through it, without even noticing it.

When you’re better—

Listen to the name of our village! It means lucky-horse-with-a-broken-leg.

It always sounded like nonsense to me.

To you it would, Sucus. There’s only you who makes sense, according to you. In this sad wide world there’s only you. The rest of us are fools who know nothing.

Tell me how you think it can be lucky to have a busted leg!

When I was fifteen I was looking after four hundred sheep.

How’s it lucky to have a broken leg?

If your horse breaks a leg, you have to stay where you are.

So?

That’s how our village was founded centuries ago.

And what was so good about that?

I’ve thought about it. I’ve given the matter some thought. They came from the south over the mountains.

Why not from the lake to the west?

It would have been summer, like now. They had some difficulty fording the river. They wanted to cross to the sunny side.

What you call the adret—

So you do remember some things! Yes, the adret . I think they would have tried to cross by Sous-Chataigne, where the old man Digue lived. He drank five litres a day and could carry a mare on his back. Yet when he grew old, like me now, he couldn’t move out of his chair, poor man, and when he spoke, people told him, Careful what you’re saying, Digue, and don’t exaggerate! They would have tried to cross by Sous-Chataigne; it’s the shallowest reach of the river. The chief was in the lead, picking his way, and his horse slipped on the boulders and broke a leg. Foreleg, I’d say, wouldn’t you?