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Authors: Anthony Burgess
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course, what the answer would be: first things first, the first thing being survival. He sighed, patted the boy’s head, then went back to the front of the class. ‘This morning,’ he said, ‘we’re going to draw a map of the Sahara Reclamation Area. Take out your pencils.’ Morning indeed. Night, that sea of school ink, flowed strongly away outside.
Two
B EATRICE -J OANNA sat writing a letter. She wrote in pencil, unhandily through desuetude, using the paper-saving logograms she had learned at school. Two months, and she had seen both nothing and too much of Derek. Too much of the public television image – Derek as black-uniformed reasonably exhorting Commissioner of the Population Police; nothing of Derek the lover, wearing a more becoming uniform of nakedness and desire. There was no censorship of letters, and she felt she could write freely. She wrote: ‘Darling, I suppose I ought to be proud of the great name you’re making for yourself, and you certainly look lovely in your new clothes. But I can’t help wishing things were as they were before, when we could lie together loving each other, and not a care in the world except making sure that nobody knew what was going on between us. I refuse to believe that those lovely times are over. I miss you so much. I miss your arms around me and your lips on mine and –’ She deleted this ampersand; some things were too precious to give to cold logograms. ‘– and your lips on mine. Oh, darling, sometimes I wake in the night or afternoon or morning or whenever it is we go to bed, according to the shift he’s working, and want to cry out with desire for you.’ She crammed her left fist in her mouth as if to stifle such a cry. ‘Oh, dearest one, I love you, love you, love you. I long for your arms around me and your lips –’ She saw that she had already said that, so she crossed it out; but the crossing-out made it appear that she had thought better of wanting his arms, lips and so on. She shrugged and went on. ‘Couldn’t you get in touch with me somehow? I know it’s too risky for you to write to me, as Tristram would be sure to see the letter in the block letter-rack, but surely you could somehow give me a sign to show you still love me? And you do still love me, don’t you, dearest?’ He could send her a token. In the old days, the days of Shakespeare and steam radio, lovers had sent their mistresses flowers.Now, of course, what flowers there were were all rendered esculent. He could send a packet of dehydrated cowslip broth, but that would mean cutting into his meagre rations. She longed for something romantic and daring, some big heretical gesture. In inspiration she wrote, ‘When next you are on the telly please, if you love me still, bring in some special word, just for me. Bring in the word “love” or the word “desire”. Then I’ll know that you go on loving me as I go on loving you. There is no news, life goes on as it always does, very dull and dreary.’ That was a lie: there was, she thought, a very definite item of news, but that had to be kept to herself. The straight line within her, the eternal and life-giving lance, wanted to say ‘Rejoice’, but the circle counselled caution; more than that, it span in a selfmade breeze of apprehension. She refused to worry; things would work out all right. She signed the letter, ‘Your eternally adoring Beatrice-Joanna.’
She addressed the letter to Commissioner D. Foxe, Population Police HQ, Infertility Building, Brighton, London, feeling a slight tremor as she wrote ‘Infertility’, that word which contained its opposite. She added in big bold logograms ‘PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL’. Then she went on the long vertical journey to the post-box by Earnshaw Mansions. It was a lovely July night, high moon riding, stars, earth-satellites wheeling, a night for love. Five young greyboys, lit by a streetlamp, were laughingly beating up a bewildered-looking old man who appeared, from his lack of
Two
B EATRICE -J OANNA sat writing a letter. She wrote in pencil, unhandily through desuetude, using the paper-saving logograms she had learned at school. Two months, and she had seen both nothing and too much of Derek. Too much of the public television image – Derek as black-uniformed reasonably exhorting Commissioner of the Population Police; nothing of Derek the lover, wearing a more becoming uniform of nakedness and desire. There was no censorship of letters, and she felt she could write freely. She wrote: ‘Darling, I suppose I ought to be proud of the great name you’re making for yourself, and you certainly look lovely in your new clothes. But I can’t help wishing things were as they were before, when we could lie together loving each other, and not a care in the world except making sure that nobody knew what was going on between us. I refuse to believe that those lovely times are over. I miss you so much. I miss your arms around me and your lips on mine and –’ She deleted this ampersand; some things were too precious to give to cold logograms. ‘– and your lips on mine. Oh, darling, sometimes I wake in the night or afternoon or morning or whenever it is we go to bed, according to the shift he’s working, and want to cry out with desire for you.’ She crammed her left fist in her mouth as if to stifle such a cry. ‘Oh, dearest one, I love you, love you, love you. I long for your arms around me and your lips –’ She saw that she had already said that, so she crossed it out; but the crossing-out made it appear that she had thought better of wanting his arms, lips and so on. She shrugged and went on. ‘Couldn’t you get in touch with me somehow? I know it’s too risky for you to write to me, as Tristram would be sure to see the letter in the block letter-rack, but surely you could somehow give me a sign to show you still love me? And you do still love me, don’t you, dearest?’ He could send her a token. In the old days, the days of Shakespeare and steam radio, lovers had sent their mistresses flowers.Now, of course, what flowers there were were all rendered esculent. He could send a packet of dehydrated cowslip broth, but that would mean cutting into his meagre rations. She longed for something romantic and daring, some big heretical gesture. In inspiration she wrote, ‘When next you are on the telly please, if you love me still, bring in some special word, just for me. Bring in the word “love” or the word “desire”. Then I’ll know that you go on loving me as I go on loving you. There is no news, life goes on as it always does, very dull and dreary.’ That was a lie: there was, she thought, a very definite item of news, but that had to be kept to herself. The straight line within her, the eternal and life-giving lance, wanted to say ‘Rejoice’, but the circle counselled caution; more than that, it span in a selfmade breeze of apprehension. She refused to worry; things would work out all right. She signed the letter, ‘Your eternally adoring Beatrice-Joanna.’
She addressed the letter to Commissioner D. Foxe, Population Police HQ, Infertility Building, Brighton, London, feeling a slight tremor as she wrote ‘Infertility’, that word which contained its opposite. She added in big bold logograms ‘PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL’. Then she went on the long vertical journey to the post-box by Earnshaw Mansions. It was a lovely July night, high moon riding, stars, earth-satellites wheeling, a night for love. Five young greyboys, lit by a streetlamp, were laughingly beating up a bewildered-looking old man who appeared, from his lack of
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