Chapter
Twenty-Five
Yes, the whole universe was laughing with
him. Laughing
cosmically at the cosmic joke of its own self-frustration, guffawing from pole
to pole at the worldwide, age-old slapstick of disaster following on the heels
of good intention. A counterpoint
of innumerable hilarities - Voltairean voices,
yelping in sharp shrill triumph over the bewildered agonies of stupidity and
silliness; vast Rabelaisian voices, like bassoons and double basses, rejoicing
in guts and excrement and copulation, rumbling delightedly at the spectacle of
grossness, of inescapable animality.
Shaking
in unison with the universal merriment, he laughed through long durations of
increasing pleasure, durations of mounting exhilaration and glory. And meanwhile here was that light again, here
was that crystal of luminous silence - still and shining in all the interstices
of the jagged laughter. Not at all
formidable, this time, but softly, tenderly blue, as it had been when he caught
old Bruno at his tricks with it. A blue
caressing silence ubiquitously present, in spite of the yelping and the
bassoons, but present without urgency; beautiful, not with that austere,
unbearable intensity, but imploringly as though it were humbly begging to be
taken notice of. And there was no
participation in its knowledge, no self-compulsion to shame and
condemnation. Only
this tenderness. But Eustace was
not to be caught so easily, Eustace was forearmed against all its little
stratagems. To the entreaty of that blue
crystal of silence he returned only the explosions of his derision, more and
more strident as the light became more tenderly beautiful, as the silence ever
more humbly, ever more gently and caressingly solicited his attention. No, no, none of that! He thought again of the Triumphs of
Education, the Triumphs of Science, Religion, Politics, and his merriment
mounted to a kind of frenzy. Paroxysm after cosmic paroxysm. What pleasure, what power and glory! But suddenly he was aware that the laughter had passed beyond his control,
had become a huge, autonomous hysteria, persisting against his will and in
spite of the pain it was causing him, persisting with a life of its own that
was alien to his life, with a purpose of its own that was entirely incompatible
with his well-being.
Out
there, in here, the silence shone with a blue, imploring tenderness. But none of that, none of that! The light was always his enemy. Always, whether it was blue
or white, pink or pea-green. He
was shaken by another long, harrowing convulsion of derision.
Then
abruptly, there was a displacement of awareness. Once again he was remembering something that
had not yet happened to somebody else.
Shuddering
in the universal epilepsy, an open window presented itself; and there was poor
old John, standing beside it, looking down into the street. And what confusion down there, what a yelling
in that golden haze of dust! Dark faces,
open-mouthed and distorted, dark hands, clenched or clawing. Thousands and thousands of
them. And from the bright sunlit
square on the right, from the narrow side-street immediately opposite the
window, squads of turbaned and black-bearded policemen were shoving their way
into the crowd, swinging their long bamboo staves. On heads and shoulders, on the bone of thin
wrists upraised to protect the frightened, screaming faces - blow after blow,
methodically. There was another
convulsion. The figures wavered and
broke, like images in a ruffled pool, then came together again as the laughing
frenzy died down. Overhead, the blue
tenderness was not mere sky, but the bright crystal of living silence. Methodically the policemen hammered on. The thought of those sharp or cushioned
impacts was nauseatingly distinct.
'Horrible!'
John was saying between his teeth.
'Horrible!'
'It
would be a damned sight worse if the Japs were to get
to
Slowly,
reluctantly, John nodded his head.
The
professional Liberal condoning a lathi charge! There was another convulsive seizure, and
another. Derision kept on tearing at
him, like the gusts of a hurricane among tattered sails; kept on carding the
very substance of his being, as though with combs and iron claws. But through the torment Eustace was
unsteadily aware that, immediately below the window, a boy had dropped
unconscious, felled by a blow on the temple.
Two other young men were bending over him. Suddenly, through the yelping and the
bassoons, there was as it were a memory of wild shrill cries and the frightened
repetition of one incomprehensible phrase.
A line of steel helmets was moving forward across the square. There was a panic movement of the crowd, away
from the approaching danger. Jostled and
staggering, the two young men succeeded nonetheless in raising their companion
from the ground. As though in some
mysterious rite, the boy's limp body was lifted shoulder-high towards the blue,
imploring tenderness of the silence. For a few seconds only.
Then the rush of the frightened mob toppled them down. Rescuers and rescued, they were gone, engulfed
in the trampling and the suffocation.
Blindly, in terror, the crowd moved on.
A gale of mirthless lacerating laughter blew them into oblivion. Only the luminous silence
remained, tender, beseeching. But
Eustace was up to his tricks.
And
suddenly there was another bleeding face.
Not the face of the nameless Indian boy; but, of all people, Jim Poulshot's face.
Yes, Jim Poulshot! That vacant pigeonhole which was so obviously
destined to contain the moderately successful stockbroker of 1949. But Jim was in uniform and lying at the foot
of a clump of bamboos, and three or four little yellow men with guns in their
hands were standing over him.
'Wounded,'
Jim kept saying in a thin cracked voice.
'Bring doctor, quick! Wounded,
wounded ...'
The
three little yellow men broke out simultaneously into loud, almost
good-humoured guffaws. And as though
moved by a kind of secret sympathy, the whole universe shook and howled in
chorus.
Then
suddenly one of the men raised his foot and stamped on Jim's face. There was a scream. The heel of the heavy rubber-soled boot came
down again and, with yet more force, a third time. Blood was streaming from the mangled mouth
and nose. The face was hardly
recognizable.
Horror,
pity, indignation - but in the same instant a blast of frantic laughter clawed
at his being. 'The empty pigeonhole,'
his memories kept howling, and then, with irrepressible glee: 'The stockbroker
of 1949, the moderately successful stockbroker.'
Under
the bamboos the stockbroker of 1949 lay still, moaning.
Under
the bamboo,
Under
the bamboo,
Probably
constipaysh ...
The barrel-organ outside
the Kensington Registry Office, and Timmy's explanation of what had happened on
the cricket field.
Probably
constip,
Probably
constip
...
Among the little yellow men there had been
a short, gloating silence. Then one of
them said something and, as though to illustrate his meaning, drove his long
bayonet into Jim Poulshot's chest. Grinning, the others followed suit - in the
face, in the belly, in the throat and the genitals - again and again, until at
last the screaming stopped.
The
screaming stopped. But the laughter
persisted - the howling, the epilepsy, the
uncontrollable lacerating derision.
And
meanwhile the scene had repeated itself.
The bleeding face, the horror of the bayonets, but all somehow mixed up
with Mimi in her claret-coloured dressing-gown.
Adesso comincia la tortura
- and then the dandling, the fumbling, the fondling. And at the same time the
stamping, the stabbing. With St Sebastian among the Victorian flowers, and poor dear Amy,
tremulous before the Kensington Registrar, and Laurina
at