Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys [52]
Yes, better not to tell them. I won’t tell you that I scarcely listened to your stories. I was longing for night and darkness and the time when the moonflowers open.
Blot out the moon,
Pull down the stars.
Love in the dark, for we’re for the dark
So soon, so soon.
Like the swaggering pirates, let’s make the most and best and worst of what we have. Give not one-third but everything. All – all – all. Keep nothing back….
No, I would say – I knew what I would say. ‘I have made a terrible mistake. Forgive me.’
I said it, looking at her, seeing the hatred in her eyes – and feeling my own hate spring up to meet it. Again the giddy change, the remembering, the sickening swing back to hate. They bought me, me with your paltry money. You helped them to do it. You deceived me, betrayed me, and you’ll do worse if you get the chance … (That girl she look you straight in the eye and talk sweet talk – and it’s lies she tell you. Lies. Her mother was so. They say she worse than her mother.)
… If I was bound for hell let it be hell. No more false heavens. No more damned magic. You hate me and I hate you. We’ll see who hates best. But first, first I will destroy your hatred. Now. My hate is colder, stronger, and you’ll have no hat to warm yourself. You will have nothing.
I did it too. I saw the hate go out of her eyes. I forced it out. And with the hate her beauty. She was only a ghost. A ghost in the grey daylight. Nothing left but hopelessness. Say die and I will die. Say die and watch me die.
She lifted her eyes. Blank lovely eyes. Mad eyes. A mad girl. I don’t know what I would have said or done. In the balance – everything. But at this moment the nameless boy leaned his head against the clove tree and sobbed. Loud heartbreaking sobs. I could have strangled him with pleasure. But I managed to control myself, walk up to them and say coldly.
‘What is the matter with him? What is he crying about?’ Baptiste did not answer. His sullen face grew a shade more sullen and that was all I got from Baptiste.
She had followed me and she answered. I scarcely recognized her voice. No warmth, no sweetness. The doll had a doll’s voice, a breathless but curiously indifferent voice.
‘He asked me when we first came if we – if you – would take him with you when we left. He doesn’t want any money. Just to be with you. Because –’ She stopped and ran her tongue over her lips, ‘he loves you very much. So I said you would. Take him. Baptiste has told him that you will not. So he is crying.’
‘I certainly will not,’ I said angrily. (God! A half-savage boy as well as … as well as …)
‘He knows English,’ she said, still indifferently. ‘He has tried very hard to learn English.’
‘He hasn’t learned any English that I can understand,’ I said. And looking at her stiff white face my fury grew. ‘What right have you to make promises in my name? Or to speak for me at all?’
‘No, I had no right, I am sorry. I don’t understand you. I know nothing about you, and I cannot speak for you….’
And that was all. I said good-bye to Baptiste. He bowed stiffly, unwillingly and muttered – wishes for a pleasant journey, I suppose. He hoped, I am sure, that he’d never set eyes on me again.
She had mounted and he went over to her. When she stretched her hand out he took it and still holding it spoke to her very earnestly. I did not hear what he said but I thought she would cry then. No, the doll’s smile came back – nailed to her face. Even if she has wept like Magdalene it would have made no difference. I was exhausted. All the mad conflicting emotions had gone and left me wearied and empty. Sane.
I was tired of these people. I disliked their laughter and their tears, their flattery and envy, conceit and deceit. And I hate the place.
I hated the mountains and the hills, the rivers and the rain. I hated the sunsets of whatever colour, I hated its beauty and its magic and the secret I would never know. I hated its indifference and the cruelty which was part of its loveliness. Above all I hated her. For she belonged to the magic and the loveliness. She had left me thirsty and all my life would be thirst and longing for what I had lost before I found it.