The Red Door (23 page)

There was no ship to be seen at all, only the weird rowing boat that had passed twice with the white bearded man in it.

They turned away from it, frightened.

As they were leaving, Allan said,

‘There is nothing more beautiful than a woman when her long legs are seen, tanned and lovely, as she drinks her whisky or vodka as the case may be.’

They bowed their heads. ‘You have found the answer, O spectacled sage of the west. Except that the battle there too is continuous.’

‘Except that everywhere the battle is continuous,’ said William. ‘Even in the least suspected places. But you are right nevertheless.’

They took one last look at the sea. In the smoky spray they seemed to see a fish woman, cold and yet incredibly ardent, arising with merciless scales.

‘I knew a girl once,’ said Allan. ‘We slept on the sofa in her sitting room.’

‘Both of you?’ said the others.

There was a reverent silence.

‘I knew a girl once,’ said William. ‘I remember her gloved hands on the steering wheel, and the dashboard light was green.’

Their clothes stirred in the breeze. Their flapping collars stung their cheeks. They passed the place where the dead seagull was.

‘We will bury it,’ said Allan. ‘It’s only fair.’

‘No,’ said William, ‘it would be artificial.’

‘Agreed,’ said Donny. ‘Motion carried, seconded, transformed and retransformed in some order.’

They saw a rat. It looked at them with small beady eyes and scurried out of sight.

‘Look,’ said William. A cormorant dived from a rock into the seething water. They watched for it to emerge and then it did so like a wheel turning. Also, they saw three seals racing
alongside each other at full speed, sleek heads and parts of the body above the surface.

‘They say it is the fastest fish in the sea,’ said William.

‘They say seals turn into women,’ said Allan, polishing his glasses. They watched the speedboats drilling through the water. The town with its spires, halls, houses, pubs, rose from
the edge of the sea, holding out against the wind. It was what there was of it. Nothing that was not unintelligible could be said about it.

1

It was in the morning that Joseph told his two dreams. Outside the tent, deserts and mountains could be seen in the distance.

His dreams were about stars and corn, familiar images.

His brothers and father ate heavily and rapidly, belching now and again. There were three brothers in particular, Simeon, Reuben and Judah. When he told his dreams he was hated by his three
step-brothers but not by Benjamin, who listened spellbound. Benjamin was younger than the others and was his real brother.

Joseph’s dreams were beautiful and gay but to his brothers they were dreams of power. And as well as that he had his coat which showed that Jacob, his father, had made him his heir. Jacob
listened sadly to the dreams for he himself had cheated his own brother many years before. He knew that in the world one must survive if one can. At night one heard the roar of the lion and the cry
of the hyena. Inside the mind and the heart there were wild animals as well. But he was now growing old and wished for peace. Not only had he cheated his own brother Esau by putting on the skin of
an animal, but he had himself been cheated by his father-in-law, whom he had cheated in turn. He remembered, however, meeting Rachel – Joseph’s mother – at the well in the morning
of the world, and falling out of the earth into the sky when he saw her standing there. A gift.

Joseph’s dreams were beautiful and his brothers hated him.

2

That same day Joseph made his way to where his brothers were guarding the sheep from the wild animals. They wore long cloaks and carried sticks.

When he made his way across the hot country towards them he met a man and asked him where his brothers were. The man pointed but said nothing. Then he turned sadly away as if he had done more
and less than enough. When Joseph looked back he couldn’t see him.

The sky was clear and blue and there were birds flying about. Joseph was carrying food to his brothers, cheese and bread. When he reached them, Simeon said: ‘Here is our
brother.’

Judah, the brutal one, was playing monotonously on a pipe. He had once fought a lioness and the scar remained near his heart. He was almost howling with boredom, for guarding sheep all day in
the heat of the sun among stones and thirsty land is not a very interesting job.

Simeon sat on the ground drawing diagrams with a stick. He said without looking up:

‘I have had a marvellous dream. In the dream I saw our brother Joseph being stripped of his cloak and sold to the merchants who go down into Egypt.’

‘Ah, Egypt,’ said Judah, dreaming of brothels. ‘That is a good dream,’ he said aloud.

Reuben, who was a liberal, said: ‘What will our father say? He will kill us all for though he is old he is still strong.’

‘Are you on our side or not?’ said Judah carelessly. Reuben knew that Judah might kill him, so he said, ‘I protest against this on moral grounds but I cannot save Joseph by
dying myself.’

Simeon laughed. They stripped Joseph of his cloak and when the merchants came they sold him.

Joseph didn’t know what was happening. He was being sold for his gay dreams. He listened in the caravan to the sad romantic songs of the camel drivers. In the morning he arrived in Egypt
where there was the Nile and the Pyramids and a sense of movement combined with massive power.

3

He was sold at the market place along with some apes, a few Negroes from the south, and a dwarf who would dance if you poked at him through the bars with a pointed stick. He
was sold to Potiphar, a small bald man who was chief executioner to Pharaoh. Potiphar was always cracking nuts with his teeth and telling broad jokes, which were not at all funny. After some time,
Joseph was made a steward over the household, in charge of the servants and everything to do with the house. Potiphar’s wife was sultry and lovely. Joseph was tall, handsome and had eyes the
colour of figs. He wore the Egyptian white tunic which was rather like that of a Greek. He was clever and competent and he had almost ceased to dream, mainly because he was in a foreign country but
also because he didn’t have the time.

4

One day he and Potiphar’s wife were sitting in the garden where there grew a lot of flowers, including poppies and forget-me-nots. She was sitting in the green shade of a
tree. Because of the lack of water trees had to be imported, but Potiphar and his wife were rich and had a big white house with colonnades and porches. Joseph, of course, was used to tents and to
deserts.

Potiphar’s wife suddenly said:

‘I am bored. Potiphar is away from home all day and he comes home worried at night. He is no use to me. He takes his work too seriously. Who would have thought there would be so much
documentation connected with hanging? In the old days we used to hunt in the marshes with cats. Now my husband has no time for anything. He is afraid all the time. Are you afraid?’

‘Afraid?’ said Joseph. ‘Sometimes.’

‘You are more intelligent than my husband. When you came here you were illiterate. Now you can read and speak our language, and you can also count. Tell me, do you still write
poetry?’

‘Not much now, madam,’ said Joseph correctly, looking at a bird which had perched on a branch beside him, its little body expanding and contracting as it sang.

‘Oh, I’m bored,’ said Potiphar’s wife. ‘In the old days I used to be a dancer. Now I am nothing. Nothing at all. I am surrounded by flowers when I should be
surrounded by people who would offer me drinks and admire my beauty. Also, I would be happily drunk.’ Joseph said nothing. She continued, ‘Joseph, I have a fine dream. My husband is
away from home. There is a cool room upstairs and a big bed. I dream that I am sleeping there with a handsome young foreigner called Joseph.’

Joseph felt a sudden coldness at his heart as cold as the water in a very deep well.

But she was attractive. She was tall and dark-haired and she had beautiful long legs and her eyes were brown.

‘No,’ he said, ‘I must be loyal to your husband.’

‘Honour,’ she laughed. ‘What a strange word! In another fifty years we will both be dead. My cheeks have fallen in. I will not dare to look in my copper mirror. You will have
died of servitude for I can tell that you do not really like to be a slave. There is something about the way you speak and the way you walk. You will never learn to be a slave. In any case, the
trees and the flowers will be here and the sun will shine. But we will both be dead. Our heads will be reduced to their skulls. Do you never think of that?’

‘I never used to do,’ said Joseph.

‘Come,’ she said rising, ‘let us go to bed together. The servants will say nothing. I shall see to that.’

Her perfume almost overwhelmed him, but he remained faithful to his honour learned in the desert. He did not move.

She said: ‘Do not antagonise a bored woman. I will give you one more chance.’

‘My answer, madam, has to be no,’ he said.

‘I see,’ she said contemptuously. ‘So that is the kind you are. Afraid of living.’ She tore at her clothes and began to scream. Servants came running. In a short while
Joseph found himself in prison.

5

When he got there the governor interviewed him. He was a fat man with fat jowls and had large rings on his fingers. He studied Joseph as if he were a bull at a fair. He said,
picking delicately at a sweetmeat:

‘I try to do my best here. I think the prisoners like me. You have offended a great man or at least a man in a high position. You are lucky not to be dead. The régime here is not
harsh. I pride myself on that. The man before me was brutal but things are changing. There are political prisoners who are confined to their cells most of the time. You are a sexual prisoner, if I
may so refer to you. Some time when we get to know each other better you may tell me why you did not go to bed with Potiphar’s wife. If I had been in your place I would have done so. In order
to get promotion I might even go to bed with Potiphar.’

He laughed shortly, his belly bubbling up and down. He did not offer Joseph a sweetmeat. He continued:

‘Everyone knows about Potiphar’s wife. She is bored and beautiful. I am a lazy man myself. I hear that you are intelligent, so if I like you you can do a lot of useful work for me. I
want the prisoners to like me. I want everybody to be happy. That makes less work for me. My hobby is collecting old pottery. I also like fishing. Is it a bargain?’

Joseph nodded and was taken to a cell.

6

All that night he sat in his cell and brooded. He thought as follows: During the period when I had my gay dreams and when I was innocent and happy I was envied and yet I harmed
no one. Then I was sold into slavery along with apes and a dancing dwarf. When I was sold to Potiphar I did my best to be useful and efficient. I forgot my dreams because I was too busy learning
how to read and how to count. Then, because of my sense of honour, I was put in prison. He stopped and considered.

My counting tells me as follows. If I had not done all the right things then I would not be in prison. Therefore there must be some reason why I am here, since my counting tells me that there is
a logical reason for everything. I have a destiny. This I must believe since any other course would lead to suicide. My star, though broken, is shining. I have come a long way in a short time from
the desert into a foreign prison. So be it. I shall wait and I shall study. The governor seems to be a fool, and since power seems to be the only important thing in life I shall gain it. However, I
may be here for a long time. I shall therefore have to be patient, where once I was gay. That is the difference between a pool which reflects and a stream which runs.

The night was cold and he wrapped himself in his cloak and lay down on the floor. In the sky there shone a star named Joseph.

7

One day, after he had been in prison for some years, he was sitting in the garden watching a little bird. He was saying:

‘All you have to do is fly over that hedge and you will be free. Why do you haunt a prison of all places?’

As he watched it and philosophised he saw two men walking up and down in the garden. One looked well and the other ill. Finally, the well one made the ill one sit down on a bench.

Joseph said to the ill one:

‘What are you doing here?’

The well one said:

‘I am a butler and my friend here is a baker. We were put in prison by the Pharaoh.’

‘I haven’t seen you before,’ said Joseph. ‘Are you political prisoners?’

‘Yes,’ said the butler. ‘You know what powerful men do. Powerful men are unpredictable, especially if they are gods as well. One day the Pharaoh thought that the two of us were
poisoning him, so he said, “Take these men to prison”. He did this while cleaning his teeth with a toothpick. Immediately he had condemned us he had forgotten us. He sent us to prison
because he was bored.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’ said Joseph.

‘Because soon we’ll be dead anyway. I will tell you something. We both have dreams. My dream is as follows. I see myself picking grapes from a tree and handing them to the Pharaoh.
My friend also has dreams.’

‘Tell me your dreams,’ said Joseph to the baker who was sitting white-faced and silent on a bench.

The baker said, ‘I’m frightened. I feel that my dream will doom me. I have a wife and two children and I am afraid to die.’

‘I am not afraid to die,’ said the butler. ‘Death is better than the life we lead.’

The baker said, ‘I dream that I have a basket on my head and the birds of the air peck at the bread inside it.’ His head sank listlessly on his chest.

Joseph studied the two of them for some time, the ruddy butler and the white faced baker and then said:

‘The dreams mean that the butler will be saved and the baker will die.’

The butler said to him: ‘You shouldn’t have said that. You have taken away his hope.’

‘The truth must prevail,’ said Joseph. ‘It’s like counting. It has nothing to do with hope.’