Read Online Madame Sousatzka by Bernice Rubens - Free Book Online Page A

pole, ‘I was convinced that they were arrows. The blood was pouring through the body because of them. And there he was, hanging by my bed, crucified with labels, dying a little more every day, and there was nothing I could do about it. My mother came in one day to kiss me goodnight, and she saw that I was crying. She asked me why and I told her it was because of the man dying on my wall. She laughed and stroked my cheek and told me I was too imaginative. I saw a picture of myself in my mind, like the man on the chart, and at the end of the line it said, Imagination. You can kill a man with labels, Marcus. That was the first time in my life that I started to die. That was my first arrow. I’ve had lots since and each time it hurts a little more. Dying gets harder and harder,’ he murmured, and Marcus was horrified to hear a break in his voice. Marcus only vaguely understood what Mr Cordle was getting at. He wished he’d never mentioned the genius business. It was bound to lead to some theory or another.
    â€˜Lie on the couch,’ Mr Cordle said softly. His tone of command frightened Marcus. For some odd reason, he felt he was about to sacrificed. He walked towards the couch and felt Mr Cordle’s hand. But Mr Cordle turned his face as if to hide something and lightly lifted Marcus on to the bed. Marcus lay there, terrified. Mr Cordle looked down onhim and a tear from his cheek dropped on to Marcus’s shirt. At the sight of Mr Cordle’s weeping Marcus felt safer. He stretched out his hand and clasped Mr Cordle’s knuckles, as Madame Sousatzka so often did to him.
    â€˜I’m burdened with labels, Marcus,’ Mr Cordle confided. ‘I have to shake them off before I die. That’s the process of dying, Marcus. Shaking them off, shedding the labels one by one, until Man is free, pure and in space, until he is free of all his packaging. Until there is room for the only label that really matters.’
    â€˜Which one is that?’ said Marcus, who felt he ought to keep the conversation going if for no other reason than to divert Mr Cordle’s attention from anything more violent.
    â€˜When I die,’ Mr Cordle went on, ‘I want to be lying unburdened, except for that one label.’ He put a finger gently on Marcus’s navel. ‘Here the label will be,’ he whispered, ‘and the label will be called Man, the centre of the Universe.’
    Marcus stared at Mr Cordle’s bent head. The crown was completely bald, shining like a peeled hard-boiled egg. There was a tiny speck of dirt in the middle, and Marcus’s eyes were riveted on the black dot in the centre of all that shining cleanliness. He stared at it for what seemed an eternity, and a surge of compassion overcame him. And out of pity for that poor little speck of dirt in the middle of all that whiteness he began to cry.
    â€˜Turn over,’ Mr Cordle suddenly said. ‘Back to business. Let’s go back to the North Pole.’
    Marcus gratefully turned over. He wanted to shut out the last five minutes from his mind. He tried to think of Jenny, but when he imagined her, he saw her cluttered up with labels. He closed his eyes and the portly figure of Madame Sousatzka blotted his vision. But he fared no better with her. The labels dangled from her as from a giant Christmas tree. Then he thought of himself. Where was the label that Madame Sousatzka had pierced him with? His heart, his head, his finger maybe? He felt suddenly tired and overburdened with scraps of knowledge and experience that lead a child to think he understands everything. Mr Cordle’s hands were gentle on his back. He knew he was going to falloff to sleep, but he wanted to do nothing about it. He heard Mr Cordle call his name, once and then twice, very softly. He thought he heard a door close, and even a fleeting thought of Jenny couldn’t keep him from sleep.
    Marcus’s first thought on waking up was that he had