Briefing for a Descent Into Hell. Doris Lessing
I’m breathing air now. I’m on the rock, you see.
See him then as the bird might see
Who rocks like pinioned ship on warm rough air, Coming from windspaced fields to ocean swells That rearing fling gigantic mass on mass Patient and slow against the stubborn land, Striving to achieve what strange reversal Of that monstrous birth when through long ages Labouring, appeared a weed-stained limb, A head, at last the body of the land, Fretted and worn for ever by a mothering sea A jealous sea that loves her ancient pain.
NURSE. Why don’t you go and sit for a bit in the day room? Aren’t you tired of being in bed all the time?
PATIENT. A jealousy that loves. Her pain.
NURSE. Have you got a pain? Where?
PATIENT. Not me. You. Jealously loving and nursing pain.
NURSE. I haven’t got a pain, I assure you.
PATIENT. He floats on lazy wings down miles of foam,
And there, below, the small spreadeagled shape Clinging to black rock like drowning man, Who feels the great bird overhead and knows That he may keep no voices, wings or winds Who follows hypnotized down glassy gulfs, His roaring ears extinguished by the flood.
NURSE. Take these pills dear, that’s it.
PATIENT. Who has not sunk as drowned man sinks,
Through sunshot layers where still the under-curve Of lolling wave holds light like light in glass, Where still a jewelled fish slides by like bird, And then the middle depths where all is dim Diffusing light like depths of forest floor. He falls, he falls, past apprehensive arms And spiny jaws and treacherous pools of death, Till finally he rests on ocean bed.
Here rocks are tufted with lit fern, and fish
Swim shimmering phosphorescent through the weed And shoals of light float blinking past like eyes, Here all the curious logic of the night. Is this a sweet drowned woman floating in her hair? The sea-lice hop on pale rock scalp like toads. And this a gleam of opalescent flesh? The great valves shut like white doors folding close. Stretching and quavering like the face of one Enhanced through chloroform, the smiling face Of her long half-forgotten, her once loved, Rises like thin moon through watery swathes, And passes wall-eyed as the long dead moon.
He is armed with the indifference of deep-sea sleep
And floats immune through sea-roots fed with flesh, Where skeletons are bunched against cave roofs Like swarms of bleaching spiders quivering, While crouching engines crusted with pale weed, Their shafts and pistons rocking through the green …
NURSE. Now do come on, dear. Oh dear, you are upset, aren’t you? Everybody has bad times, everyone gets upset from time to time. I do myself. Think of it like that.
PATIENT. Not everyone has known these depths
The black uncalculated wells of sea, Where any gleam of day dies far above, And stagnant water slow and thick and foul …
NURSE. It’s no good spitting your pills out.
PATIENT. Foul, fouled, fouling, all fouled up …
NURSE. One big swallow, that will do it, that’s done it.
PATIENT. You wake me and you sleep me. You wake me and then you push me under. I’ll wake up now. I want to wake.
NURSE. Sit up, then.
PATIENT. But what is this stuff, what are these pills, how can I wake when you … who is that man who pushes me under, who makes me sink as drowned man sinks and …?
NURSE. Doctor X. thinks this treatment will do you good.
PATIENT. Where’s the other, the fighting man?
NURSE. If you mean Doctor Y., he’ll be back soon.
PATIENT. I must come up from the sea’s floor. I must brave the surface of the sea, storms or no, because They will never find me down there. Bad enough to expect Them to come into our heavy air, all smoky and fouled as it is, but to expect them down at the bottom of the sea with all the drowned ships, no, that’s not reasonable. No. I must come up and give them a chance to see me there, hollowed in hot rock.
NURSE. Yes, well, all right. But don’t thrash about like that … for goodness’ sake.
PATIENT. Goodness is another thing. I must wake up. I must. I must keep watch. Or I’ll never get out and away.
NURSE. Well I don’t know really. Perhaps that treatment isn’t right for you? But you’d better lie down then. That’s right. Turn over. Curl up. There. Hush. Hushhhhhhh. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
PATIENT. Hushabye baby
lulled by the storm if you don’t harm her she’ll do you no harm
I’ve been robbed of sense. I’ve been made without resource. I have become inflexible in a flux. When I was on the Good Ship Lollipop I was held there by wind and sea. When I was on the raft, there was nobody there but me. On this rock I’m fast. Held. I can’t do more than hold on. And wait. Or plunge like a diver to the ocean floor where it is as dark as a fish’s gut and there’s nowhere to go but up. But I do have an alternative, yes. I can beg a lift, can’t I? Cling on to the coat-tails of a bird or a fish. If dogs are the friends of man, what are a sailor’s friends? Porpoises. They love us. Like to like they say, though when has a porpoise killed a man, and we have killed so many and for curiosity, not even for food’s or killing’s sake. A porpoise will take me to my love. A sleek-backed, singing, shiny, black porpoise with loving eyes and a long whistler’s beak. Hold on there, porpoise, poor porpoise in your poisoned sea, filled with stinking effluent from the bowels of man, and waste from the murderous mind of man, don’t die yet, hold on, hold me, and take me out of this frozen, grinding Northern circuit down and across into the tender Southern-running current and the longed-for shores. There now. Undersea if you have to, I can breathe wet if I must, but above sea if you can, in case I may hail a passing friend who has taken the shape of a shaft of fire or a dapple of light. There, porpoise, am I true weight? A kind creature? Kith and Kind? Just take me South, lead me to the warmer current, oh, now it is rough, we toss and heave as it was in the Great Storm, when my raft fell apart like straw, but I know now this is a good cross patch, it is creative, oh, what a frightful stress, what a strain, and now out, yes out, we’re well out, and still swimming West, but South-West, but anti-clockwise, whereas before it was West with the clock and no destination but the West Indies and Florida and past the Sargasso Sea and the Gulf Stream and the West Wind Drift and the Canaries Current and around and around and around and around but now, oh porpoise, on this delicate soap bubble our Earth, spinning all blue and green and iridescent, where Northwards air and water swirl in time’s direction left to right, great spirals of breath and light and water, now, oh porpoise, singing friend, we are on the other track, and I’ll hold on, I’ll clasp and clutch to the last breath of your patience, being patient, till you land me on that beach at last, for, oh porpoise, you must be sure and take me there, you must land me fairly at last, you must not let me cycle South too far, dragging in the Brazil current of my mind, no, let me gently step off your slippery back on to the silver sand of the Brazilian coast where, lifting your eyes, rise the blue-and-green heights of the Brazilian Highlands. There, there, is my true destination and my love, so, purpose, be sure to hold your course.
There now, there’s the shore. And now more than ever we must hold our course to true. There are no rocks, shoals or reefs here, porpoise, which could stub your delicate nose or take strips of blubber off your sleek black back, but there is the shining coast and of all the dangers of the Southern Current this one is worst, that if we keep our eyes on that pretty shore wishing we were on it, then the current will sweep us on in our cycle of forgetting around and around and around and around again back to the coasts of Africa with hummocks of Southern ice for company, so hold on now, porpoise, and keep your mind on your work, which is me, my landfall, but never let yourself dream of that silver sand and the deep forests there for if you do, your strength will ebb and you’ll slide