Foe Page 6

  * *

  ‘How much of my life consists in waiting! In Bahia I did little but wait, though what I was waiting for I sometimes did not know. On the island I waited all the time for rescue. Here I wait for you to appear, or for the book to be written that will set me free of Cruso and Friday.

  ‘I sat at your bureau this morning (it is afternoon now, I sit at the same bureau, I have sat here all day) and took out a clean sheet of paper and dipped pen in ink – your pen, your ink, I know, but somehow the pen becomes mine while I write with it, as though growing out of my hand – and wrote at the head: “The Female Castaway. Being a True Account of a Year Spent on a Desert Island. With Many Strange Circumstances Never Hitherto Related.” Then I made a list of all the strange circumstances of the year I could remember: the mutiny and murder on the Portuguese ship, Cruso’s castle, Cruso himself with his lion’s mane and apeskin clothes, his voiceless slave Friday, the vast terraces they had built, all bare of growth, the terrible storm that tore the roof off our house and heaped the beaches with dying fish. Dubiously I thought: Are these enough strange circumstances to make a story of? How long before I am driven to invent new and stranger circumstances: the salvage of tools and muskets from Cruso’s ship; the building of a boat, or at least a skiff, and a venture to sail to the mainland; a landing by cannibals on the island, followed by a skirmish and many bloody deaths; and, at last, the coming of a golden-haired stranger with a sack of corn, and the planting of the terraces? Alas, will the day ever arrive when we can make a story without strange circumstances?

  ‘Then there is the matter of Friday’s tongue. On the island I accepted that I should never learn how Friday lost his tongue, as I accepted that I should never learn how the apes crossed the sea. But what we can accept in life we cannot accept in history. To tell my story and be silent on Friday’s tongue is no better than offering a book for sale with pages in it quietly left empty. Yet the only tongue that can tell Friday’s secret is the tongue he has lost!

  ‘So this morning I made two sketches. One showed the figure of a man clad in jerkin and drawers and a conical hat, with whiskers standing out in all directions and great cat-eyes. Kneeling before him was the figure of a black man, naked save for drawers, holding his hands behind his back (the hands were tied, but that could not be seen). In his left hand the whiskered figure gripped the living tongue of the other; in his right hand he held up a knife.

  ‘Of the second sketch I will tell you in a moment.

  ‘I took my sketches down to Friday in the garden. “Consider these pictures, Friday,” I said, “then tell me: which is the truth?” I held up the first. “Master Cruso,” I said, pointing to the whiskered figure. “Friday,” I said, pointing to the kneeling figure. “Knife,” I said, pointing to the knife. “Cruso cut out Friday’s tongue,” I said; and I stuck out my own tongue and made motions of cutting it. “Is that the truth, Friday?” I pressed him, looking deep into his eyes: “Master Cruso cut out your tongue?”

  ‘(Friday might not know the meaning of the word truth, I reasoned; nevertheless, if my picture stirred some recollection of the truth, surely a cloud would pass over his gaze; for are the eyes not rightly called the mirrors of the soul?)

  ‘Yet even as I spoke I began to doubt myself. For if Friday’s gaze indeed became troubled, might that not be because I came striding out of the house, demanding that he look at pictures, something I had never done before? Might the picture itself not confuse him? (For, examining it anew, I recognized with chagrin that it might also be taken to show Cruso as a beneficent father putting a lump of fish into the mouth of child Friday.) And how did he understand my gesture of putting out my tongue at him? What if, among the cannibals of Africa, putting out the tongue has the same meaning as offering the lips has amongst us? Might you not then flush with shame when a woman puts out her tongue and you have no tongue with which to respond?

  ‘I brought out my second sketch. Again there was depicted little Friday, his arms stretched behind him, his mouth wide open; but now the man with the knife was a slave-trader, a tall black man clad in a burnous, and the knife was sickle-shaped. Behind this Moor waved the palm-trees of Africa. “Slave-trader,” I said, pointing to the man. “Man who catches boys and sells them as slaves. Did a slave-trader cut out your tongue, Friday? Was it a slave-trader or Master Cruso?”

  ‘But Friday’s gaze remained vacant, and I began to grow disheartened. Who, after all, was to say he did not lose his tongue at the age when boy-children among the Jews are cut; and, if so, how could he remember the loss? Who was to say there do not exist entire tribes in Africa among whom the men are mute and speech is reserved to women? Why should it not be so? The world is more various than we ever give it credit for – that is one of the lessons I was taught by Bahia. Why should such tribes not exist, and procreate, and flourish, and be content?

  ‘Or if there was indeed a slave-trader, a Moorish slave-trader with a hooked knife, was my picture of him at all like the Moor Friday remembered? Are Moors all tall and clad in white burnouses? Perhaps the Moor gave orders to a trusty slave to cut out the tongues of the captives, a wizened black slave in a loin-cloth. “Is this a faithful representation of the man who cut out your tongue?” – was that what Friday, in his way, understood me to be asking? If so, what answer could he give but No? And even if it was a Moor who cut out his tongue, his Moor was likely an inch taller than mine, or an inch shorter; wore black or blue, not white; was bearded, not clean-shaven; had a straight knife, not a curved one; and so forth.

  ‘So, standing before Friday, I slowly tore up my pictures. A long silence fell. For the first time I noted how long Friday’s fingers were, folded on the shaft of the spade. “Ah, Friday!” I said. “Shipwreck is a great leveller, and so is destitution, but we are not level enough yet.” And then, though no reply came nor ever would, I went on, giving voice to all that lay in my heart. “I am wasting my life on you, Friday, on you and your foolish story. I mean no hurt, but it is true. When I am an old woman I will look back on this as a great waste of time, a time of being wasted by time. What are we doing here, you and I, among the sober burgesses of Newington, waiting for a man who will never come back?”

  ‘If Friday had been anyone else, I would have wished him to take me in his arms and comfort me, for seldom had I felt so miserable. But Friday stood like a statue. I have no doubt that amongst Africans the human sympathies move as readily as amongst us. But the unnatural years Friday had spent with Cruso had deadened his heart, making him cold, incurious, like an animal wrapt entirely in itself.’

  ‘(June 1st)

  ‘During the reign of the bailiffs, as you will understand, the neighbours shunned your house. But today a gentleman who introduced himself as Mr Summers called. I thought it prudent to tell him I was the new housekeeper and Friday the gardener. I was plausible enough, I believe, to convince him we are not gipsies who have chanced on an empty house and settled in. The house itself is clean and neat, even the library, and Friday was at work in the garden, so the lie did not seem too great.

  ‘I wonder sometimes whether you do not wait impatiently in your quarter of London for tidings that the castaways are at last flitten and you are free to come home. Do you have spies who peer in at the windows to see whether we are still in occupation? Do you pass by the house yourself daily in thick disguise? Is the truth that your hiding-place is not in the back alleys of Shoreditch or Whitechapel, as we all surmise, but in this sunny village itself? Is Mr Summers of your party? Have you taken up residence in his attic, where you pass the time perusing through a spyglass the life we lead? If so, you will believe me when I say the life we lead grows less and less distinct from the life we led on Cruso’s island. Sometimes I wake up not knowing where I am. The world is full of islands, said Cruso once. His words ring truer every day.

  ‘I write my letters, I seal them, I drop them in the box. One day when we are departed you will tip them out and glance through them. “Better had there been only Cruso and Friday,�
�� you will murmur to yourself: “Better without the woman.” Yet where would you be without the woman? Would Cruso have come to you of his own accord? Could you have made up Cruso and Friday and the island with its fleas and apes and lizards? I think not. Many strengths you have, but invention is not one of them.’

  * *

  ‘A stranger has been watching the house, a girl. She stands across the street for hours on end, making no effort to conceal herself. Passers-by stop and talk to her, but she ignores them. I ask: Is she another of the bailiffs’ spies, or is she sent by you to observe us? She wears a grey cloak and cape, despite the summer’s heat, and carries a basket.

  ‘I went out to her today, the fourth day of her vigil. “Here is a letter for your masters,” I said, without preamble, and dropped a letter in her basket. She stared in surprise. Later I found the letter pushed back under the door unopened. I had addressed it to Wilkes the bailiff. If the girl were in the bailiffs’ service, I reasoned, she could not refuse to take a letter to them. So I tied in a packet all the letters I had written you and went out a second time.

  ‘It was late in the afternoon. She stood before me stiff as a statue, wrapped in her cloak. “When you see Mr Foe, give him these,” I said, and presented the letters. She shook her head. “Will you not see Mr Foe then?” I asked. Again she shook her head. “Who are you? Why do you watch Mr Foe’s house?” I pursued, wondering whether I had to do with another mute.

  ‘She raised her head. “Do you not know who I am?” she said. Her voice was low, her lip trembled.

  ‘ “I have never set eyes on you in my life,” said I.

  ‘All the colour drained from her face. “That is not true,” she whispered; and let fall the hood of her cape and shook free her hair, which was hazel-brown.

  ‘ “Tell me your name and I will know better,” said I.

  ‘ “My name is Susan Barton,” she whispered; by which I knew I was conversing with a madwoman.

  ‘ “And why do you watch my house all day, Susan Barton?” I asked, holding my voice level.

  ‘ “To speak with you,” she replied.

  ‘ “And what is my name?”

  ‘ “Your name is Susan Barton too.”

  ‘ “And who sends you to watch my house? Is it Mr Foe? Does Mr Foe wish us to be gone?”

  ‘ “I know no Mr Foe,” said she. “I come only to see you.”

  ‘ “And what may your business be with me?”

  ‘ “Do you not know,” said she, in a voice so low I could barely hear – “Do you not know whose child I am?”

  ‘ “I have never set eyes on you in my life,” said I. “Whose child are you?” To which she made no reply, but bowed her head and began to weep, standing clumsily with her hands at her sides, her basket at her feet.

  ‘Thinking, This is some poor lost child who does not know who she is, I put an arm about her to comfort her. But as I touched her she of a sudden dropped to her knees and embraced me, sobbing as if her heart would break.

  ‘ “What is it, child?” said I, trying to break her grip on me.

  ‘ “You do not know me, you do not know me!” she cried.

  ‘ “It is true I do not know you, but I know your name, you told me, it is Susan Barton, the same name as mine.”

  ‘At this she wept even harder. “You have forgotten me!” she sobbed.

  ‘ “I have not forgotten you, for I never knew you. But you must get up and dry your tears.”

  ‘She allowed me to raise her, and took my handkerchief and dried her eyes and blew her nose. I thought: What a great blubbering lump! “Now you must tell me,” said I: “How do you come to know my name?” (For to Mr Summers I presented myself simply as the new housekeeper; to no one in Newington have I given my name.)

  ‘ “I have followed you everywhere,” said the girl.

  ‘ “Everywhere?” said I, smiling.

  ‘ “Everywhere,” said she.

  ‘ “I know of one place where you have not followed me,” said I.

  ‘ “I have followed you everywhere,” said she.

  ‘ “Did you follow me across the ocean?” said I.

  ‘ “I know of the island,” said she.

  ‘It was as if she had struck me in the face. “You know nothing of the island,” I retorted.

  ‘ “I know of Bahia too. I know you were scouring Bahia for me.”

  ‘By these words she betrayed from whom she had her intelligence. Burning with anger against her and against you, I turned on my heel and slammed the door behind me. For an hour she waited at her post, then toward evening departed.

  ‘Who is she and why do you send her to me? Is she sent as a sign you are alive? She is not my daughter. Do you think women drop children and forget them as snakes lay eggs? Only a man could entertain such a fancy. If you want me to quit the house, give the order and I will obey. Why send a child in an old woman’s clothes, a child with a round face and a little O of a mouth and a story of a lost mother? She is more your daughter than she ever was mine.’

  * *

  ‘A brewer. She says that her father was a brewer. That she was born in Deptford in May of 1702. That I am her mother. We sit in your drawing-room and I explain to her that I have never lived in Deptford in my life, that I have never known a brewer, that I have a daughter, it is true, but my daughter is lost, she is not that daughter. Sweetly she shakes her head and begins a second time the story of the brewer George Lewes my husband. “Then your name is Lewes, if that is the name of your father,” I interrupt. “It may be my name in law but it is not my name in truth,” says she. “If we were to be speaking of names in truth,” say I, “my name would not be Barton.” “That is not what I mean,” says she. “Then what do you mean?” say I. “I am speaking of our true names, our veritable names,” says she.

  ‘She returns to the story of the brewer. The brewer haunts gaming-houses and loses his last penny. He borrows money and loses that too. To escape his creditors he flees England and enlists as a grenadier in the Low Countries, where he is later rumoured to perish. I am left destitute with a daughter to care for. I have a maidservant named Amy or Emmy. Amy or Emmy asks my daughter what life she means to follow when she grows up (this is her earliest memory). She replies in her childish way that she means to be a gentlewoman. Amy or Emmy laughs: Mark my words, Amy says, the day will yet arrive when we three shall be servants together. “I have never had a servant in my life, whether named Amy or Emmy or anything else,” I say. (Friday was not my slave but Cruso’s, and is a free man now. He cannot even be said to be a servant, so idle is his life.) “You confuse me with some other person.”

  ‘She smiles again and shakes her head. “Behold the sign by which we may know our true mother,” she says, and leans forward and places her hand beside mine. “See,” she says, “we have the same hand. The same hand and the same eyes.”

  ‘I stare at the two hands side by side. My hand is long, hers short. Her fingers are the plump unformed fingers of a child. Her eyes are grey, mine brown. What kind of being is she, so serenely blind to the evidence of her senses?

  ‘ “Did a man send you here?” I ask – “A gentleman of middle height, with a mole on his chin, here?”

  ‘ “No,” she says.

  ‘ “I do not believe you,” I say. “I believe you were sent here, and now I am sending you away. I request you to go away and not to trouble me again.”

  ‘She shakes her head and grips the arm of her chair. The air of calm vanishes. “I will not be sent away!” she says through clenched teeth.

  ‘ “Very well,” say I, “if you wish to stay, stay.” And I withdraw, locking the door behind me and pocketing the key.

  ‘In the hallway I encounter Friday standing listlessly in a corner (he stands always in corners, never in the open: he mistrusts space). “It is nothing, Friday,” I tell him. “It is only a poor mad girl come to join us. In Mr Foe’s house there are many mansions. We are as yet only a castaway and a dumb slave and now a madwoman. There is place y
et for lepers and acrobats and pirates and whores to join our menagerie. But pay no heed to me. Go back to bed and sleep.” And I brush past him.

  ‘I talk to Friday as old women talk to cats, out of loneliness, till at last they are deemed to be witches, and shunned in the streets.

  ‘Later I return to the drawing-room. The girl is sitting in an armchair, her basket at her feet, knitting. “You will harm your eyesight, knitting in this light,” I say. She lays down her knitting. “There is one circumstance you misunderstand,” I continue. “The world is full of stories of mothers searching for sons and daughters they gave away once, long ago. But there are no stories of daughters searching for mothers. There are no stories of such quests because they do not occur. They are not part of life.”

  ‘ “You are mistaken,” says she. “You are my mother, I have found you, and now I will not leave you.”

  ‘ “I will admit I have indeed lost a daughter. But I did not give her away, she was taken from me, and you are not she. I am leaving the door unlocked. Depart when you are ready.”

  ‘This morning when I come downstairs she is still there, sprawled in the armchair, bundled in her cloak, asleep. Bending over her I see that one eye is half open and the eyeball rolled back. I shake her. “It is time to go,” I say. “No,” says she. Nevertheless, from the kitchen I hear the door close and the latch click behind her.

  ‘ “Who brought you up after I abandoned you?” I asked. “The gipsies,” she replied. “The gipsies!” I mocked – “It is only in books that children are stolen by gipsies! You must think of a better story!”

  ‘And now, as if my troubles are not enough, Friday has fallen into one of his mopes. Mopes are what Cruso called them, when without reason Friday would lay down his tools and disappear to some sequestered corner of the island, and then a day later come back and resume his chores as if nothing had intervened. Now he mopes about the passageways or stands at the door, longing to escape, afraid to venture out; or else lies abed and pretends not to hear when I call him. “Friday, Friday,” I say, seating myself at his bedside, shaking my head, drifting despite myself into another of the long, issueless colloquies I conduct with him, “how could I have foreseen, when I was carried by the waves on to your island and beheld you with a spear in your hand and the sun shining like a halo behind your head, that our path would take us to a gloomy house in England and a season of empty waiting? Was I wrong to choose Mr Foe? And who is this child he sends us, this mad child? Does he send her as a sign? What is she a sign of?