Tales of Freedom (6 page)

‘To what grows.’

‘To sunlight.’

‘And flowing water.’

‘To inner light.’

‘And fresh air.’

‘Good breathing.’

‘And sweet silence.’

‘To new dancing.’

‘And music.’

Two

‘LET’S GO BACK
to the source,’ said New Woman.

‘Of rivers.’

‘Of worlds.’

‘Of dreams.’

‘Of realities.’

‘Of friendship.’

‘Of fellowship.’

‘Of what the heart feels.’

Three

‘LET’S DREAM AGAIN,’
said New Man.

‘Like we used to as kids.’

‘Of Eden when it was new.’

‘And after we have restored it.’

‘With love.’

‘And courage.’

‘With patience.’

‘And wisdom.’

Four

‘LET’S PLAY AGAIN,’
said New Woman.

‘As on the first day.’

‘When we were the garden.’

‘And the garden was us.’

Five

‘LET’S BE HAPPY
again,’ said New Man.

‘As on the first day.’

‘When all love was ours.’

‘As it still is.’

‘And always will be,’ they both said together, as one.

A Note on the Form

THE FOLLOWING TALES
are properly ‘stokus’. A stoku is an amalgam of short story and
haiku
. It is story as it inclines towards a flash of a moment, insight, vision or paradox.

Its origin is mysterious, its purpose is revelation, its form compact, its subject infinite. Its nature is enigma as it finds tentative form in fiction, like the figure materialising from a cloud, or a being emerging from a vaporous block of marble.

By means of the stoku, that which was unknown reveals, in the medium of words, a translated existence. Thus worlds unknown can come into being in a lightning flash from the darkness of the mind.

Stokus are serendipities, caught in the air, reverse lightning.

I offer them humbly as tales found on the shore, in enchanted dawns.

Belonging

I HAD GONE
into a house by accident or maybe not. Originally I was searching for Margaret House, a mansion block. Anyway I went into this flat and the man of the house took me for his in-law, whom he had never met, or had met once before, a long time ago. He began saying things to me confidentially, telling me how he disapproved of some acquaintance, and how we should do this that or other, and how my wife did or didn’t do what she was supposed to do, and he bared his heart and said many intimate things.

I watched him. When the misunderstanding began I tried to correct his error, but he seemed so keen to believe who I was and he was so absent-minded and yet single-minded in his rattling on that I didn’t get a moment to correct his mistaking me for someone else.

Besides, I found I rather began to enjoy it. I enjoyed being someone else. It was fascinating. It was quite a delight suddenly finding myself part of a ready-made family,
finding
myself belonging. The thrill of belonging was wonderful.

The flat was cluttered with items of a rich family life. It was obviously a large extended family. The man who was addressing me was making food for a feast, adding ingredients for a cake, mixing condiments for a sauce, and it all smelt good. The enveloping party and family mood quite intoxicated me.

I began to think that maybe I was the man he took me for. And that if he saw me as another then maybe I
was
that other. Maybe I’d just woken from a dream into a reality in which I was who he thought I was, and that my old identity belonged to the dream. But as I toyed with this notion there was a growing sense in me that any minute the real person that was expected would turn up. Or, if not, that the wife of the real person would turn up, and would not recognise me.

The fear increased in me. Any minute now I would be unmasked. What would I do then? I felt awful. I dreaded it. I hadn’t got myself into this deliberately. I hadn’t even spoken a word during the whole time I was in that room, being mistaken for someone else. I wanted to belong. I wanted to belong there.
A
sentence of unmasking, like death, hung over me. I waited, and listened to the man of the house talking, as time ticked away, bringing closer my inevitable disgrace.

Before I had strayed into that flat I had been going to meet a relation, my last living relation. It was, it seemed, the last stop for me in the world. I had nowhere else to go. Now I had this family, with food and a festival atmosphere promised. And yet …

And then, as I stood there, the door behind me opened. A black, Arabic, pockmarked, elderly gentleman came into the room, and I knew instantly that this was the man I had been mistaken for. He had the quiet and unmistakable authority of being who he was, the real in-law. And my first shock was that I looked nothing like him at all. I was younger, fresher, better-looking. I had vigour and freedom. I wasn’t trapped by tradition. I was lithe. I could go any which way. I had many futures open to me. This man seemed weighed down. There was an air about him of one whose roads were closed, whose future was determined, whose roles were fixed. He was, in the worst sense of the word, middle-aged; with
no
freedom, even to think independent thoughts. All this I sensed in a flash, but realised fully only afterwards. But I was profoundly shocked to have been mistaken for this man.

At the very moment the in-law entered the flat, the man of the house, who’d mistaken me in the first place, looked up, saw the real in-law, and knew him to be the one. I think he recognised him. How unobservant can people be! Anyway, at that instant he turned to me and, in outrage, said:

‘And who are you?’

I think events swam before my eyes after that. My unmasking was very public. Suddenly people appeared from thin air, and were told in loud voices about my impersonation of the in-law. There were vigorous comments and curses and stares of amazement. People glared at me as though I were a monstrous criminal. Women regarded me darkly from behind veils. I feared for my life. Soon I was out in the street, surrounded by a crowd, by the community of an extended family. I was holding out a map and was saying:

‘It was a mistake. I was looking for Margaret House, or Margaret Court.’

During the whole commotion I saw the name of the place I’d been looking for on the next building. I bore their outrage and their loud comments silently. Then after a while I set off for the building next door, my original destination. But the man of the house, who’d mistaken me for the in-law, said:

‘Don’t go there. You don’t want to go there.’

Then I looked towards Margaret House. I looked at the grounds. I saw people milling about, in aimless circles. They twitched, moved listlessly, or erratically. They were dark forms, in dark overcoats, and their bodies were all shadows, as if they were in Hades. They moved as if they had invisible lead weights on their feet. They seemed to have no sense of anything. The courtyard was of concrete, but their collective presence made it look dark and sinister and touched with unpredictable danger. There was the merest hint that they were mad …

I started to go in that direction, but, after the man of the house spoke, I stopped. I could feel the disturbed wind from the people milling about in an evil shade, in the courtyard of Margaret House. Then I changed
direction
, and went back towards the crowd, then out to the street, towards a life of my own.

The
Mysterious
Anxiety of
Them and
Us

WE WERE IN
the magnificent grounds of our mysterious host. A feast had been laid out in the open air. There were many of us present. Some were already seated and some were standing behind those seated. In a way there were too many of us for the food served, or it felt like that.

There was a moment when it seemed that everyone would rush at the food and we’d have to be barbaric and eat with our hands, fighting over the feast laid out on the lovely tables. The moment of tension lasted a long time.

Our host did nothing, and said nothing. No one was sure what to do. Insurrection brooded in the wind. Then something strange happened. Those who were at table served themselves, and began eating. We ate calmly. My wife was sitting next to me. The food was wonderful.

We ate with some awareness of those behind us, who were not eating, and who did not move. They merely watched us eating.

Did we who were eating feel guilty? It was a complex feeling. There is no way of resolving it as such. Those who were at table, ate. That’s it. That’s all.

We ate a while. Then the people behind us began to murmur. One of them, in a low voice, said:

‘The first person who offers us some food will receive …’

I was tempted to offer them some food. But how could I? Where would I start? The situation was impossible. If you turned around, you would see them all. Then your situation would be polarised. It would be you and them. But it was never that way to begin with. We were all at the feast. It’s just that you were at the table, and you began to eat. They weren’t at table, and they didn’t eat. They did nothing. They didn’t even come over, take a plate, and serve themselves. No one told them to just stand there watching us eat. They did it to themselves.

So to turn around and offer them food would automatically be to see them, and treat them as inferior. When in fact they behaved in a manner that made things turn out that way.

And so we continued to eat, and ignored the murmurs. Soon we had finished eating. We were satisfied, and took up the invitation to explore other parts of the estate. There was still plenty of food left, as it happened.

My wife and I were almost the last to leave the table. As we got up, I looked behind us. I was surprised to see only three people there. Was that all? They had seemed like more, like a crowd. Maybe there had been more of them, but they’d drifted off, given up, or died.

While we had been eating it had often occurred to me that there was nothing to stop them from sticking knives into our backs.

My wife and I filed out with the others, towards the gardens, in the sumptuous grounds of that magnificent estate.