The Brooke-Rose Omnibus (5 page)

– Oh. But Mrs. Mgulu gave me to understand that you had no training, and no experience. An odd job man, she said. This is an odd job you understand.

– In my country –

– Excuse my asking but was your country Ukay?

– I was head gardener at the White House, I had twenty men under me.

– The white house. Which white house? The Ukayans have long had a bad reputation as workers, you know.
However
, I am not one for generalisations, as I always say to Polly, one must not be hide-bound by dogma, come what may, it’s the particular that counts. I understood from Mrs. Mgulu that your wife had told her you had been a politician in – er – London, would it be?

– That’s not true. Never. No, no, no. I was a gardener –

– I see. Well, it all comes to the same thing in the end, doesn’t it. I mean I’m not one for prejudice in these matters. One of my best friends was a Uessayan of Ukay extraction. On the other hand there is no hurry about this particular job. The hot season is not yet due, and much planting remains to be done. You may wish to think about it. I’ll let you know.

The feeling is one of heterotrophism. The left foot treads the length of a cemented line. Between the tiles, the right foot carefully selects another line of cement parallel with the edge of the path. The amount of free energy that becomes available for the performance of useful work does not
correspond
to the total heat change but is equivalent to about ten thousand calories per gram, molecule, the remaining two thousand being involved in the intra-molecular changes of the reaction. It is possible to walk on such parallel lines only, almost without touching the diagonals. It is possible, but
difficult
, and a little slow, for the molecules are closely linked and have to be either skipped or touched, democratically, each and every one, which leaves little choice. A periscope, held backwards, might perhaps reveal whether the turning away of the red network of veins and the moving off, beyond the red poinsettias, of the broad-brimmed hat over the deeply lined red neck has been totally accomplished, or whether there has been another turn, and a pause, and a watching there still. The green thermoplastic snake lies along the inside of the right-hand flower-bed, about twenty centimetres away from the cypress hedge, quite straight, and very long, leading towards the glossy black door in the white wall. The green thermoplastic snake comes to an end by a laurel-bush,
pointing
its brass nozzle-holder at the stem, without the
spray-nozzle
attachment. There is no water coming out of the hose. The glossy black door in the white wall, on this side, is painted yellow.

The end of the green thermoplastic hose, held downwards with the right hand six centimetres away from the brass nozzle-holder, and with the left hand further away still, pours an imagined jet of water straight at the spot where the strong stem of the laurel-bush comes out of the earth. The pressure of the water in the hose is not strong. It can be made stronger by holding the hose higher, about a metre or more above the plant, so that the jet of water goes straight down into the root, making a slight hole in the dry earth around the strong stem. The earth drinks quickly. It has been baked all day by the hot sun and it is thirsty. A small puddle forms around the laurel-bush. The baby castor-oil plants are next. The hose must be held much closer, the brass nozzle-holder almost touching the earth around each plant but not touching the plant itself. Held at this height, it gives a jet which does not remove or disturb the earth but flows gently into it.

The right hand has jerked. The right arm is a model of still control, and yet the hand that holds the hose six
centimetres
away from the brass nozzle has jerked sideways, so that the jet, following the movement, has fallen on the
delicate
reddish stem of the smallest castor-oil plant. The stem has not broken but the plant is uprooted. It is possible,
however
, to replant it quickly in the now softened earth.

– Conceited, lazy, unreliable. It is an article of faith.

– Ha! You dirty, you need washing. Ha!

– Aaah, sprtch, grrr, brrr, stop, shshtop, prshsh.

– Hee-hee-hee! The laugh is that of a delighted child. You have a heart condition. Symptoms? Verbal diarrhoea, sanguine complexion. Did you know that the dark patches on your cheeks are not flowers at all, but blood, belonging like words to the element of fire, quench it, quick, water, water, help fire. I am a doctor you see. Drench, drench.

The white wall is gently rounded as the road curves, and continues to curve, but almost imperceptibly. It is impossible ever to see whether things are different round the corner. The bougainvillaea clusters over the top of the wall, backed by young palm trees that sway a little in the luminosity of the white winter sky, and the white wall continues to curve along the curving road. It is impossible to tell when the mimosas will come into view. Sooner or later they will flare brightly into view. The red flowers of the poinsettia, or what appear to be red flowers, which will be coming out shortly, are not flowers at all but leaves. Did you know that? Well of course, I am a gardener. Feathery green branches droop down like ferns over the white wall that separates the property from the road, clustered here and there with yellow dots. Beyond the closed wrought-iron gates the mimosas are just beginning to bloom. Sooner or later they will be a mass of yellow. Sooner or later they will be a mass of gold against the post-card blue sky. It is difficult to revisualise the exact degree of blueness in a summer sky, or to re-imagine the exact degree of heat. You may wish to think about it, I’ll let you know. The hot season is not yet with us and much planting remains to be done.

– Yes, well, as a matter of fact I would like to think about it. I hadn’t quite visualised the exact degree of, I hadn’t quite visualised the degree of heat that would be applied. The fire of cosanguinity is excessive. The pressure of the water is low. Pulse diagnosis shows that the plant is uprooted, although the delicate stem has not been actually broken. It would be possible to replant it quickly in the now softened earth.

– Yes, well as a matter of fact I would like to think about it. I hadn’t quite visualised the degree of – servility implied. I am a doctor by training, and although circumstances have, through no fault of theirs, forced many of my countrymen to open the great wrought-iron gates, slowly, by remote control, the plane-trees lining the drive form with their bare and
upward
branches a series of networks, like a map of the nervous system, that become finer and finer as the drive recedes
towards
the big house, just discernible through the leaflessness. Beyond the thick network of bare branches there is a finer network, closing in a little over the drive, and beyond that a finer network still. The network of bare branches functions in depth, a corridor of cobwebs full of traps for flies. At the distant centre of the corridor of cobwebs the spider is advancing.

The spider is advancing with sparkling teeth bared in a wide flattened grin that blares white as it catches the luminosity of the white winter sky. Nearer and nearer it smoothly advances, apparently stretching across the whole width of the drive, broadening as the drive broadens, approaching with an engulfing threat to the wrought-iron gates until suddenly the gates dwarf it with their own tall fangs that close slowly behind it as it passes through. A pale blue face floats in a blue glass globe above the wide metallic grin. Beyond it, outlined against more light, more glass and moving fronds, a cavern-blue chin-line curved like a madonna’s and pale blue teeth flashing in wide mauve lips under a wide mauve hat of falling plumes, all of it cut, swiftly, by a shaft of light reflected in the glass, and then away, only a purple blob in a moving bubble of quickly shifting blue and green. The number of the vehicle is 24.81.632. There is no numerical significance in such a number. Beyond the vertical bars of the closed wrought-iron gates there is the thick
network
of the first plane-trees on either side of – oh hell. The number of the vehicle is, the number of the vehicle, the
number
of the vehicle is gone. The number of the vehicle is insignificant.

Daily from 8 a.m., at the Labour Exchange, a gnarled left hand lies stretched like a claw on the neighbouring human thigh. A fly straddles the high blue vein that comes down from the middle finger towards the thumb. The vein must seem like a rampart to the fly, unless perhaps the fly has no conception of a rampart, any more than it has of love, and does not even know that the vein is blue. Sooner or later the thumb, or even the whole hand with a flick of the wrist, will twitch the fly away. Sooner or later a group of five names will be called out and the thigh will slope up into a vertical
position
, slowly or suddenly according to the age and the humour and the health, according to the degree of sanguinity or melancholia, according to the balance or imbalance of hope and despair.

Dear Madam, your head gardener. Dear Madam, in an age of international and interracial enlightenment such as we have been privileged to witness and partake of on this continent since the displacement, it is a shock and a
disappointment
for me to have to report to you that your head gardener. Dear Madam, you will only know the name at the bottom of this letter through my wife who serves you, and for whom you were kind enough to arrange an interview with your head gardener. And on behalf of whom you were kind enough. And for whom you were kind enough to arrange an interview between me and your. Between your head gardener and. For whom you were kind enough to ask your head gardener to see me with regard to a job. Dear Madam – you will only know the name at the bottom of this letter through my wife, who works for you, and for whom you were kind enough to ask your head gardener to see me with regard to a job, as I understood it, a job presumably as assistant gardener. In an age of international and interracial
enlightenment
such as ours, the gnarled left hand lies on its side, with the fingers curling in under the stretched out thumb, as if the hand were holding a bunch of flowers or a stemmed glass. The high blue vein from the middle finger curves upwards towards the thumb.

In an age of international and interracial enlightenment such as we have been privileged to witness on our continent since the displacement, the fly moves jerkily on the canvas shoe of the left foot, between the bump made by the big toe and the first hole of the grey shoe-lace. The shoe-lace though grey, is brand new. The blue of the canvas is faded, the shoe is well worn but not in holes. The other shoe, half hidden by the left foot which is crossed over it, may be in holes.

The fly takes off. Perhaps the left canvas shoe has twitched slightly with the long waiting. The fly climbs up the air as if the air had steps, and at each stage it rests a little in a state of comatose suspension. From about eye-level it swoops to land on the left knee of the neighbouring human thigh whose leg has a foot that wears a blue canvas-shoe, well-worn but not, to the naked eye, in holes. The fly lands about fifteen centimetres away from the hand that holds an invisible bunch of flowers. Sooner or later a group of five names will be called out. It is a shock and a disappointment. It is with dismay that I have to report to you that your head gardener is still governed by reactionary prejudice. Ha! you dirty! Aaah, grrr.

– Please?

The neighbour’s face is as gnarled as his left hand. His eyes–the tiled floor is mottled. Up by the counter some twenty men stand in four short queues of five at each of the four grilled partitions. Further towards the door men mill about in murmuring groups of mostly Colourless faces, some detaching themselves to go out, some detaching themselves to come in. Above the door the notice says Do Not Spit. A Colourless boy pushes through the groups, looks around at the benches along the walls, hesitates then walks towards one of them along the opposite wall. The fly has left the mottled floor, frightened, perhaps, by the banging of metal cupboard doors and filing cabinets. The sound in the air, however, is mottled with human voices. It is all the more astonishing in view of the fact that your head gardener seems to be, to all appearances, himself an ex-Ukayan. The only possible explanation I can think of is all the more astonishing in view of the fact that the wall is dirty green and peeling. The portrait of the Governor on the far wall beyond the strong black heads of the employment clerks at their grilled
partitions
, the portrait of the Governor with his vain Asswati face, the fly sits like a wart on the corner of the Governor’s stalwart lips. The fly is reflected in the glass, like two warts. Unless perhaps it is a different fly, there being one fly inside the glass and one outside, the female fly seeking its mate on the mottled floor, the male fly on the Governor’s portrait, contemplating its image. The only possible explanation is that your head gardener is of a sanguinary complexion still uncontrollably radiating a reactionary prejudice.

Dear Mrs. Mgulu.

The neighbour’s gnarled hand that held an invisible bunch of flowers stretches out and lies flat on the left thigh. The far hand, which is also gnarled, and which may or may not have held an invisible bunch of flowers or even the stem of a glass, does the same. There is a tension in both the hands, as if the human mind in control of their movements expected at any moment to use them, perhaps for raising the body by means of pressure on the two knees. The thighs are thin and tightly trousered in faded denim. Creases starring out from the loin vanish under each wrist.

Dear Mrs. Mgulu. I hope you will not mind my writing to you, but through my wife I feel I am already acquainted with your great kindness and generosity and understanding. No doubt you know a little about me also. It is therefore in appeal to your well-known humanity-y-y-y

– You feel all right?

– Why?

– You groan much. It is long waiting.

– I’m in a state of comatose suspension.