‘They were twins‚’ he said at last, ‘women of the estate, the estate of nature, in which one buys or plunders the beauty of the world. The slave-Roses. Believe me! I saw it all when it seemed so late, too late. Perhaps it’s never too late, Anselm. That’s why we need one another. But it seemed desperately late for me when I learnt you were the child of … my child …’ He stopped. Unable to speak. Then continued — ‘The first Rose I bought … She left me. She said I was a mean bastard. And then some seven or eight years later when I was dying (I had less than a couple of months to live though I did not know it) the other Rose came. She slept with me. No word of meanness. She said I was generous. I paid her handsomely. And then she turned on me. Six weeks to the first night we slept together she knew she was pregnant. She turned on me. What is meanness, what is generosity, when one buys or sells souls? I did not listen for I was transported by the news that she was pregnant, that at last I had hunted and cornered the wild beauty of the world, that she was mine,a pregnant vessel, pregnant with my child, my first child. Rose said: your first child? Not your first child. Your first child has lived in your house for eight years and you have been blind to it. Your first child was my sister’s child. Remember her? You bought her too. She was staring at me. She knew, I swear, my days were numbered. Less than two weeks to live. You cannot seize, or buy, or conquer, the wild beauty of nature, Harold. I have been waiting to tell you this for a long time. My twin-sister has been waiting for eight years. You were blind to your first child. You shall never see your last. They have inherited the thorn and the knife.’
It was then with deadly certainty and sensitivity that I knew he was speaking the truth. His confession was true, heartrendingly true. And I remembered the gate of Home and the masked king in it upon whom I had come, the leaf that had bruised my brow: I saw it flutter again in the corridor of space. I saw the flight of the thorn into Proteus’s brow in the gate, I saw its shadow all over again upon Harold’s in the corridor. I had secured Rose’s line of sight in the gate. I had helped her instinctively, involuntarily: as though she (Rose) symbolized a palatial twin-body, twinleaf, twin-petal, twin-flesh, twin-thorn, in which lay my involuntary shadow, the involuntary shadow of the carnival heir in his suit, masked suitor, unconscious suitor.
His suit rather than mine as if I were other than an incestuous lodger in Nature and lover of mother Rose, as if I were another newborn, confessional medium (however prone still to conflict), unborn, newborn, gestating stranger in her and myself.
As much as to say that his suit was both an unfinished garment upon all species in the body of nature and a spiritual contest, a spiritual repudiation of the abuse of mother nature that I sustained in others, shared with others through and beyond myself.
Thus it was I had instinctively, unconsciously, raised my hand against the beggar in the gate of Home, against Proteus’s masked king and all over again once more against Harold this time, Harold the masked proprietor of flesh and blood.
Raised my hand within a train of habit, involuntary, apparently incestuous habit; raised my hand within involuntary apparently stranger compulsion. Raised my twin-hand within a medium of passion, a medium of animus, the biting animus of mother nature ingrained into one’s blood that one directs against every abuser and exploiter.
Raised my hand to strike and kilclass="underline" not so: not to kilclass="underline" to bless my returned father, returned to me from the kingdom of the Dead.
How had it happened, when had it started, such unconscious arbitration and change within the suit of tradition, mysterious suit, mysterious Presence overshadowing the corridor of space? I could not say but I knew that in the twin-scales of nature lay a complex balance I would need to ravel/unravel/ravel between creation and violence, art and revenge. A difficult task but a true however precarious beginning had been made with others, through others …
What was remarkable about all this, I dreamt, was that in my sudden apprehension of an unconscious alteration within the hand of nature and spirit I felt pain, great pain, knew the terrifying pain in the desire to kill another, knew this now as I had never felt it before; yet in that very instant was held by a dialectic of confessional spirit that addressed me as the Presence appeared to speak –
‘Nature breaks into mysterious selfhood, breaks into what is itself yet other than itself. The twin-blow that Nature delivers through you, Anselm, may turn into art, into self-confessional art. May illumine afresh Penelope’s garment or tapestry of tradition. May illumine afresh your relationship to Ross. Ross is another suitor whom South American/English Penelope has named her “good angel” in seeking a key to repudiate the charisma of Simon’s ascendancy over them.’ The voice ceased.
Harold had now begun to fade within the corridor of space. I cried to him before he vanished — ‘The other child.’ I cried, ‘the other Rose’s child, twin-Rose’s child, your last child — my half-brother, my cousin — can you tell me of him? Who is he? Where is he? Born long after me yet he seems now my twin, my hand in his, his in mine
Harold was half-visible now, half-invisible now. I saw his remorse. He knelt at my feet. ‘Proteus will tell you or show you. I cannot. I cannot.’ He held his head in his hands then looked up into the Presence overshadowing us both. He had confessed. I had confessed. Had I confessed to Presence or Priest? The candle flickered and the flame went out. But a new match flared, the sudden lease of a new day upon the third bank of the river of space.
THE THIRD BANK (The Trial)
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
The task of perceiving the other in his (or her) authenticity, or of identifying the essential ‘configuration’ of a given culture, is more difficult in the twentieth century than it was in earlier epochs‚… the most obvious reason being the interpenetration of multiple modes of thought and discourse that has attended the swift expansion and intensification of international relations on every level of human activity throughout the world. To know… just which vocabulary supplies the governing value references…; to discern which grafts are likely to be rejected and which, by contrast, are fit to be accommodated in some form or another — these and the like are questions of major significance …
The sun was rising now: a new sobering lease of light, a new sobering homecoming day of the law conferred I dreamt by invisible Priest or Presence (invisible paradox because glimmeringly perceived) within the corridor of the third bank of the river of space.
The early morning radio was playing in the corridor: a marvellous invention. Conversation floated in space and time, present space and time, past space and time, re-voiced spaces, retraced echoes, within the archives of Alicia’s live fossil museum.