Read Online A Jest of God by Margaret Laurence - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Margaret Laurence
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for them. They don’t know.
As she goes out with him, I wonder if James has told her he got the strap. He couldn’t have. She would have mentioned it. Why didn’t he tell? Didn’t he know how unfair it was? Or did he know only too well?
I’m tired, tired, tired. And this wretched headache won’t go. I promised Mother we would go to a movie tonight, but I don’t feel up to it. I think I’ll postpone it. I’ll take two aspirins and go straight to bed.
Some days it seems more difficult to be patient. There are times when they could riot, or shriek with twenty-six voices simultaneously, and I wouldn’t be upset. Other times, the slightest thing will be enough to set me off. I must try to be more equable. It’s the only way – it’s only right. But some days the slightest snick of a door latch, the slightest sign of scrabbling, will set my teeth on edge. This morning is one such day. I don’t know what’s the matter. Just that they seem to make so much noise.
Just – noise. The scraping of their feet on the floor. The juggling of books from inside the desk to outside – such aneasy procedure – how can it be so complicated for them? The trading of crayons back and forth, someone having a more exotic colour than someone else. The whispering that grows to a hissed largeness until finally in justice I cannot ignore it but have to deal somehow with it, nicely and reasonably, not doing as probably any distracted parent would be bound to do, shouting
Shut up! Just
shut up. Please.
“Peter, have you finished your arithmetic?”
Stoic silence. No reply.
“James – are you finished?”
Without warning, he puts his elbows protectively over the page. No speech. No explanation. Only this indrawing of his arms over the paper.
“Let me see.”
As soon as I’ve said it, I know it was mistaken, the last thing I ought to have laid claim to. But now I can’t turn back.
“Let me see how far you’ve got.”
This is all wrong, and I know it. He doesn’t intend to let me see, and I’m intruding and ought to approach him in another way, cool, unheated.
But his uncombed and untidied sorrel hair, and his self-protected face which seems to warn everyone away – there is something I cannot bear here.
There. I’ve pushed aside his arms, not with my hands, but with the ruler I’m holding. At first he offers no resistance. His elbows go slack, allowing themselves to be shoved across the desk surface. Then he changes his mind and his finger ends curl around the page, determined I should not see.
What’s there? What has he done instead of simple subtraction? A caricature? An unendurable portrait? He looks at me with a sly gopher-like idiocy, all innocent nothingness –
see, I’m too dumb to have anything here worth looking at.
Thecunning nonentity of his face. Is this necessary? Does he feel this is necessary with me?
He does not give a damn. He hates me. I am the enemy. God damn, what is this child hiding?
He won’t give in. All right. I’ll have to wrench it from him. What right has he? If he despises me, I must go on anyway. What is being hidden from me?
I must not tear his page, though. As I put my hand on it, his hand clamps down, firm, absolute. What is he doing? Why does he fight me so? Then he looks at me. His eyes are extremely blue, not the translucent blue of water or sky, but the assertive and untransparent blue of copper sulphate, opaque, not to be seen through. I do not know at all what is going on in those eyes.
“Have you finished your subtraction questions, James?”
No voice. I cannot get any response. He holds everything very still within himself. He will not let me see. He does not intend that I should ever see.
Crack!
What is it? What’s happened?
The ruler. From his nose, the thin blood river traces its course down to his mouth. I can’t have. I can’t have done it. Slowly, because a reason for all things must be found, I take the unresisting page between my fingers and force
As she goes out with him, I wonder if James has told her he got the strap. He couldn’t have. She would have mentioned it. Why didn’t he tell? Didn’t he know how unfair it was? Or did he know only too well?
I’m tired, tired, tired. And this wretched headache won’t go. I promised Mother we would go to a movie tonight, but I don’t feel up to it. I think I’ll postpone it. I’ll take two aspirins and go straight to bed.
Some days it seems more difficult to be patient. There are times when they could riot, or shriek with twenty-six voices simultaneously, and I wouldn’t be upset. Other times, the slightest thing will be enough to set me off. I must try to be more equable. It’s the only way – it’s only right. But some days the slightest snick of a door latch, the slightest sign of scrabbling, will set my teeth on edge. This morning is one such day. I don’t know what’s the matter. Just that they seem to make so much noise.
Just – noise. The scraping of their feet on the floor. The juggling of books from inside the desk to outside – such aneasy procedure – how can it be so complicated for them? The trading of crayons back and forth, someone having a more exotic colour than someone else. The whispering that grows to a hissed largeness until finally in justice I cannot ignore it but have to deal somehow with it, nicely and reasonably, not doing as probably any distracted parent would be bound to do, shouting
Shut up! Just
shut up. Please.
“Peter, have you finished your arithmetic?”
Stoic silence. No reply.
“James – are you finished?”
Without warning, he puts his elbows protectively over the page. No speech. No explanation. Only this indrawing of his arms over the paper.
“Let me see.”
As soon as I’ve said it, I know it was mistaken, the last thing I ought to have laid claim to. But now I can’t turn back.
“Let me see how far you’ve got.”
This is all wrong, and I know it. He doesn’t intend to let me see, and I’m intruding and ought to approach him in another way, cool, unheated.
But his uncombed and untidied sorrel hair, and his self-protected face which seems to warn everyone away – there is something I cannot bear here.
There. I’ve pushed aside his arms, not with my hands, but with the ruler I’m holding. At first he offers no resistance. His elbows go slack, allowing themselves to be shoved across the desk surface. Then he changes his mind and his finger ends curl around the page, determined I should not see.
What’s there? What has he done instead of simple subtraction? A caricature? An unendurable portrait? He looks at me with a sly gopher-like idiocy, all innocent nothingness –
see, I’m too dumb to have anything here worth looking at.
Thecunning nonentity of his face. Is this necessary? Does he feel this is necessary with me?
He does not give a damn. He hates me. I am the enemy. God damn, what is this child hiding?
He won’t give in. All right. I’ll have to wrench it from him. What right has he? If he despises me, I must go on anyway. What is being hidden from me?
I must not tear his page, though. As I put my hand on it, his hand clamps down, firm, absolute. What is he doing? Why does he fight me so? Then he looks at me. His eyes are extremely blue, not the translucent blue of water or sky, but the assertive and untransparent blue of copper sulphate, opaque, not to be seen through. I do not know at all what is going on in those eyes.
“Have you finished your subtraction questions, James?”
No voice. I cannot get any response. He holds everything very still within himself. He will not let me see. He does not intend that I should ever see.
Crack!
What is it? What’s happened?
The ruler. From his nose, the thin blood river traces its course down to his mouth. I can’t have. I can’t have done it. Slowly, because a reason for all things must be found, I take the unresisting page between my fingers and force
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