Forward.
The attic. On my return it will be nearly empty. The acoustics will be different, but that will not matter. There will be very little left. My computer, printer, wardrobe door, the volumes, and so on. That is all. That will be all. It is a moment I have been working towards for months. I will rebuild my desk. I will open my computer. I will choose one of my papers and begin to copy. Every now and then, as I work, I will print my transcriptions out and tape them over the skylight. And at the sight of those words which I will look at without knowing what they mean, I will feel happy, happier than I have done in years. A fresh start. I will live in my attic. I will never go out. I will take my supply of beans by delivery. I will sleep on my mattress, unless I decide to burn that too. In that case I will sleep on the floor, under my desk, my heater beside me. Perhaps, on occasion, a few faint sounds will break the calm, a little cry perhaps, a clock ticking. I will hear them. But I will not let them affect my work. The din of myself? It has not gone away, although it has lessened, now that I have begun to transcribe. That is not to say it will always be so. It will come and go, as it has always done. I am still terrified of it. Perhaps I will get to know it better, to understand what it wants. I will feel calm. Happy. Sometimes I will think of the silence. Knowing there is no such thing, I will think of it. I will listen. I will not hear. I will listen. I will listen into the silence, into its centre. That absence too will have to be imagined. There have been times in writing this history when I have asked myself what the first thing was that I ever heard. Once, when I was lying in the elephant grass, I tried to imagine the world before it was made. I was unable. I am no closer now. I will continue to try. I will continue to try to imagine the world as it was before the great noise which formed it, this world which could not have known such a noise because it existed — if that is the word — in silence.
Postscript
This book contains passages, all of them slightly altered, from the following works:
Charles Allen, Tales from the Dark Continent, part of the trilogy, Plain Tales from the British Empire, Little, Brown, 1998.
Isaac Babel, Red Cavalry, trans. David McDuff, Penguin, 2005.
Günter Grass, The Tin Drum, trans. Ralph Manheim, Vintage, 2004.
George Perec, Life A User’s Manual, trans. David Bellos, Harvill, 1996.
Bruno Schulz, The Street of Crocodiles, trans. Celina Wieniewska, Penguin, 1992.
Joan Sharwood-Smith Diary of a Colonial Wife: An African Experience, Radcliffe Press, 1992.
Robert Louis Stevenson, ‘From a Railway Carriage’.
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions and would be grateful to be notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future editions of this book.
Acknowledgements
My first debt goes to Natasha Soobramanien. I couldn’t have written this book without her — literally. She was my first reader throughout and consequently knew the book, and Evie, better than anyone else bar me. It seemed natural, then, and wholly in keeping with her contribution thus far, when, on completing the second part, I asked her to write Damaris’ diary. I gave her some dates and a few sketchy plot lines; other than this, she conceived and wrote what turned out to be chapters twenty-five and twenty-six entirely without my meddling.
Enormous thanks must also go to my family, Glenna, Derek, Hilery, Martin, Saul and Thea.
Tracy Bohan at the Wylie Agency was amazing: enthusiastic, encouraging, patient and a great reader.
Thanks also to my editors at Hamish Hamilton: Simon Prosser, Juliette Mitchell and Anna Kelly.
I am grateful to the Arts Council East and the Charles Pick Fellowship for their generous financial support of this project.
Many others helped in the process of writing, each in their individual ways. Thanks to you alclass="underline"
Sara De Bondt, Fiona Bowden, Lawrence Bradby, Jon Cook, Andrew Cowan, Owen Dudley Edwards, Oliver Emanuel, Alex Graves, Sara Heitlinger, Sophie Logan, Robert McGill, Richard Misek, Sam Mungall, Paul Nugent, Martin Pick, Chris Power, Max Schaefer, Michal Shavit, Ali Smith, Lucy Steeds, Mada Vicassiau, Yair Wallach and Josh Warren.