Chaconne. Diana BlackwoodЧитать онлайн книгу.
“Mavis,” the grandmother said once, “for heaven’s sake, calm down. You’ll frighten the horses.” (What horses? Had they found out about the imaginary pair of ponies that Eleanor fed and watered in the back yard?) “We don’t know for certain that the priests tell their flock how to vote. Besides, Catholics don’t all vote DLP. And there is no hell, remember?”
Fear of Catholic hegemony did not prevent mother or grandmother from sending Eleanor next door with neighbourly gifts of vegetables and eggs, even though the old widow had indeed voted DLP. Mrs Moynihan had a photograph of the pope on her mantelpiece and a watercolour of an insipid Virgin on a wall. She always ate fish on Fridays and seemed to Eleanor to totter off to Mass more often than was sensible for someone her age. Eleanor’s grandmother, by contrast, hardly ever set foot in church. Sometimes, though, she would take a plate of scones next door for afternoon tea, and the two women would discuss the latest goings-on in Blue Hills as if the characters were people who lived in their street. When Mrs M. died, Mavis said she wasn’t a bad old stick, just a bit brainwashed by all that mumbo jumbo. Mother and grandmother attended the funeral. And if there were haitches flying about among the popery that day, Eleanor did not hear a word about it from either of them.
October 6th, 1981
Dearest Eleanor,
Quel bore about the ablutions cupboard. I would send you a bush shower, but you’d have to put a hook in the ceiling, and what would the landlord say about that, indeed? Anyway, the hose thing for washing your head – didn’t Mr Salteena encounter one of those at Bernard’s house? – and the washing-up basin are an excellent solution. Happy mopping.
Now, I have something Of Great Moment to tell you – and only you. God I wish you had a phone in that hole in the wall. Vati said to tell you to phone reverse charges from the post office whenever you feel like it, but chances are Mutti would be hanging around listening. She’s gone all peevish on me; you’ll see why. (I adore the semicolon; I’m so glad you taught me how to use it.) She wasn’t, it goes without saying but I’ll say it anyway, peevish when I was away for a year in Israel, because it’s full of robust Jewish boys, unlike the federal capital, home of the scruffy-bearded boffin. But I’m jumping ahead.
I had a message that Iain wanted to see me. I was wondering where he’d been because he’d cancelled one appointment. I was only five minutes late, but he seemed agitated. What’s more he was wearing long trousers, as if he’d been doing something official. Ah Ruth, he said gravely, and then something to the effect that perhaps I’d like to sit down because he had some important and rather difficult things to tell me. Have you noticed, or is it just me, that when something really matters you don’t take in the exact words and later you can’t remember them even though you want to, perhaps because at the time you’re focused on non-verbal signs or your own reactions or whether you really do want to sit down to hear it, which I didn’t. So this is the gist of it, brutally to the point. His wife has advanced ovarian cancer, misdiagnosed by at least two doctors. I’m afraid it’s in the peritoneum, diaphragm, liver, bowel and god knows where else. She didn’t have much in the way of symptoms – some abdominal bloating, occasional bleeding, which she ignored. She put her exhaustion down to motherhood. No one is prepared to say how long she has left – I said it was brutal – but no oncologist is saying she has even a slim chance. The little girl is only three.
I couldn’t say anything except “I’m so sorry” about ten times. In case you’re wondering – and I know you’d never ask in a million years – if I thought “he’ll be free at last” (ugh, that was hard to write) or something along those selfish lines, the answer is no, I don’t believe so. If you’d seen the grief in his face, you would understand. There just wasn’t room for me and my fantasies. Witnessing real suffering is somehow so shocking that you move beyond your ego. So in a way it was almost a relief to hear the rest of it. Annette wants to go home to Canada to die, and he’s worked something out with the dean (sabbatical plus leave without pay). He’ll be gone from the end of this month and for the whole of next year, which means I need a new supervisor.
The best prospect is in Canberra, with someone called Peter Ashbury. Iain sang his praises, said he’d spoken to him at length about me. Peter is keen to take me on and enthusiastic about my rare interest in grassland ecology. Then, conscientious to the last, Iain handed me an envelope with all the information I needed. He apologised for the disruption to my life. He said I was the best student he’d ever had, that he expected great things from me in the future, and so did the natural environment. I said I owed everything to him. You get the drift …
I didn’t know what to do then, so I stuck out my hand. He grasped it with both of his, and the next thing I knew – I always forget he’s an inch shorter than I am – his arms were around me and he was sobbing into my neck, and so of course my arms had to go around him. (Where else could they go?) I just wanted to take all his pain away but at the same time to burrow into him and never, ever, have to remove myself. My body, my traitorous body, was electrified, but my mind was terrified I’d do something I’d regret. So when his sobs had died down I said, “You have to be brave.” Assault by the bleeding obvious, but it worked. He released me and apologised. “You have nothing to apologise for,” I said, “but I really should go.” He probably thought I was embarrassed by his emotional display; maybe he doesn’t know many Jews. I don’t imagine he had a clue about my turmoil. When I reached the door he said, “Ruth … have a happy life”, which struck me as odd. He’s not conventional. “I don’t know about happy,” I said, “but I’ll make it a good, useful life.” (God, oh god, how insufferably pompous!) Then the old, droll Iain smiled briefly out at me from the new, sorrowful one and said, “Spoken like a true Methodist”. And that, as they say, was that.
On the bus trip home I was a sodden heap of misery. People must have noticed because no one sat beside me. Base over apex, I thought; everything’s gone base over apex. I’ve never heard anyone but Mavis say that. Mutti was out, Gott sei dank, so I had the house to myself. I put on some Bach (the suites for solo cello, in case you’re wondering) and wept and wept, for Iain and the child and poor Annette, who will have to endure so much. And for myself too, fool that I am.
Sometime in the middle of the night I began to see that life was handing me the kind of freedom that you, Ms Weston, take for granted. I’m outta here, I thought: no more nice Jewish girl staying close to her family and the community. I feel Jewish to the core – whatever that means – but I’m not tribal. Israel taught me that. And more to the point, it’s my good fortune to be the grand-daughter of people who had the wits and the wherewithal to get out of Germany in ’33, and then out of Europe. I’m not the child of Holocaust survivors (although we lost our share of relatives, as you know). If I were that child, I wouldn’t be going anywhere. I’d be studying medicine just as Mutti wanted, as if that could keep us safe. I’d be dutiful and neurotic and deeply resentful, because I didn’t want to do medicine any more than you did. Of course I don’t have to leave Sydney, but it’s time I did. I want a little house with a garden and chooks and Eastern grey kangaroos over the back fence. Frosty mornings, a woodfire, a bicycle … Oh yes, and lovers. Lovers to go with the woodfire, a succession of them. I’m being determinedly realistic, not greedy. No man will ever come close to Iain for me. I WILL bury the hopeless longing, but I can’t forget him. Does that sound adolescent, a bit overwrought and Herz / Schmerz? Did we listen to too many Lieder when everyone else was listening to Sid Pernicious? But you of all people should understand. You’ve seen how quickly I become disenchanted with young men, how nothing ever seems to get off the ground.
I’ll feel closer to landscape in Canberra, and the university is excellent for my sort of science. The truth is that I should probably have gone there in the first place to do my PhD. I considered it, but not very rationally. You see, I’m not as smart as you think I am. Anyway, my quadrats won’t change, and it will be an easier drive to my patch, as Mavis calls it. When I took that research assistant job last year instead of going straight into postgrad work, I wanted to be sure that being in the lab all the time wasn’t my thing. It isn’t. I’m an ecologist: