Nuns and Soldiers

  ‘But how did you know?’

  ‘The Count told Anne. Anne then asked me.’

  ‘Asked if we were having an affair?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you told her we were?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Christ -’

  ‘But she didn’t tell me then about the letter, she pretended she’d guessed.’

  ‘Then she told you later?’

  ‘She told me when I saw her yesterday. I meant to tell you but I simply forgot - which shows how little it worried me!’

  ‘It worries me,’ said Tim. ‘Did she show you the letter, was it typed?’

  ‘I don’t know, I didn’t see it.’

  ‘Has she told the Count she’d told you?’

  ‘I didn’t ask, it all just came up as I was leaving.’

  ‘But who could have written him a letter?’

  ‘I simply can’t imagine. Could Manfred have guessed? Surely not. Anyway Manfred would never write an anonymous letter. You didn’t ever tell anyone, well of course you didn’t, or sort of let anyone perhaps guess?’

  ‘No.’ Could Daisy write an anonymous letter, Tim wondered. If so she was capable of a degree of vindictiveness which he would never have expected. Could she threaten his love, his happiness?

  Jesus Christ came to Anne Cavidge in a vision. The visitation began in a dream, but then gained a very undreamlike reality. And, later, Anne remembered it as one remembers real events, not as one remembers dreams.

  The dream part opened in a beautiful garden, a rose garden with the roses in flower and the sun shining. It was not a place that Anne knew. The garden was upon a slight slope and above where Anne was standing, upon a higher level, there was a stone balustrade with a criss-cross diamond pattern. Some way beyond this there was a large stone-built eighteenth-century house. Anne began to walk slowly up the slope in the direction of the house. She felt lazy and happy. She mounted some stone steps to the level of the balustrade. Here the ground was flat and a close-clipped lawn stretched away towards a gravelled terrace which surrounded the house. To her right, a large copper beech tree threw its shadow upon the grass. To her left, where she did not look, she was aware of a tennis court enclosed by wires, and beyond it some flowering bushes and a wall with a door in it, perhaps surrounding a walled garden. There were two eighteenth-century-style statues upon pedestals, one at either end of the terrace.

  As Anne walked on across the lawn she became aware of something very strange. The two statues, which represented angels, appeared to be gaudily painted. Then she realized that the statues were alive, they really were angels, very tall angels with splendid huge golden-feathered wings and wearing elaborate and brilliantly coloured silk robes. When Anne saw the tall angels she began to feel frightened. She wanted to run away, but she knew that she must continue to advance, and she went on across the grass, but more slowly and cautiously as if she were stalking some rare and interesting birds; and the angels did behave as if they were wild birds, for, being aware of Anne’s approach, they quite quietly came down from their pedestals and began to walk away along the gravel of the terrace, past the windows, in the direction of the corner of the façade. When she saw them moving away, Anne was filled with a terrible anguish, as if the most wonderful things she had ever possessed were being taken from her. She did not run, but she hastened now towards the terrace and mounted the step which separated it from the lawn. By now the angels, walking with dignity, had reached the corner of the house and were about to round it. Anne called after them, ‘Tell me, is there a God?’ One of the angels, turning back to her rather casually, said ‘Yes.’ Then the two great bird-like figures vanished round the corner. Anne now ran after them along the terrace and reached the corner where she could see another similar terrace stretching along the side of the house. The scene was empty. The two angels had disappeared. Filled with a kind of elated sadness Anne began to walk slowly on. When she was about halfway along the terrace whence the angels had vanished she heard a sound behind her. She could distinctly hear the crunch of footsteps upon the gravel. She knew that the person following her was Jesus Christ. She did not turn, but fell straight forward onto her face in a dead faint.

  It was at this point that her dream changed into a veridical vision. She woke up in her little bedroom in her new flat and at once remembered the dream. She sat up quickly in bed, filled with a vivid sense of the beauty of the dream and its significance. Then again she became aware, she knew, that there was somebody in the next room, somebody standing in her kitchen in the bright light of the early summer morning. And she knew that that person was Jesus.

  Anne got out of bed and put on her dressing-gown and slippers. She felt extreme fear. Then she quietly opened the bedroom door. The kitchen was opposite, across a little landing, and the door was ajar. She pushed open the kitchen door.

  Jesus was standing beside the table, with one hand resting upon it. Not daring yet to raise her eyes to his face, she saw his hand pressed upon the scrubbed grainy wood of the table. His hand was pale and bony, the skin rough as if chapped. Then he said her name, ‘Anne’, and she raised her eyes and simultaneously fell on her knees on the floor.

  Jesus was leaning with one hand upon the table and gazing down at her. He had a strangely elongated head and a strange pallor, the pallor of something which had been long deprived of light, a shadowed leaf, a deep sea fish, a grub inside a fruit. He was beardless, with wispy blond hair, not very long, and he was thin and of medium height, dressed in shapeless yellowish-white trousers and a shirt of similar colour, open at the neck, with rolled-up sleeves. He wore plimsolls upon his feet with no socks. Though the shape of the head seemed almost grotesque, the face was beautiful. It did not resemble any painting which Anne had ever seen. The mouth was thoughtful and tender and the eyes large and remarkably luminous. Anne did not notice all these details at once, but she remembered them well later, except that she could not recall the colour of the eyes. It was a brilliant darkish colour, a sort of blackish or reddish blue she felt inclined to call it later.

  Anne felt very afraid and yet filled with a thrilling passionate joyful feeling that passed through her like an electric current while making her absolutely still.

  He said again, ‘Anne -’

  ‘Sir -’ Anne had never used this mode of address before in her life. Why do I not call him ‘Lord’, she wondered, or ‘Master’?

  ‘Who am I?’

  ‘You are the Christ,’ she said, ‘the Son of the living God.’

  He said, ‘Get up.’

  Anne rose and moved slightly forward, facing him across the table. As soon as her knees lost contact with the floor she began to feel different, more vulnerable and terrified. She trembled. She looked into his face, and whereas before she had seemed to see only the luminous eyes and the tender mouth, she now saw his expression which was quizzical, almost humorous.

  ‘How do you know?’

  Anne said, ‘Who else could you be, Sir? Unless you are the Other One.’ This seemed a terribly rude thing to say - she lowered her eyes, unable to sustain his gaze. She looked at the white hand which rested on the table. It was unscarred.

  She said, ‘Your wounds, Sir -’

  ‘I have no wounds. My wounds are imaginary.’

  ‘But indeed you were wounded, Sir,’ said Anne, raising her eyes. ‘Indeed you were. They pierced your hands and feet with nails and your side with a spear. They shot your kneecaps off, they drove a red-hot needle into your liver, they blinded you with ammonia and gave you electric shocks -’

  ‘You are getting mixed up, Anne. And they did not pierce my hands. They drove the nails through my wrists. The flesh of the hands would have torn away.’

  Anne looked at the wrist. The wrist was unscarred too.

  ‘You do not need to see my wounds. If there were wounds they have healed. If there was suffering it has gone and is nothing.’

  ‘But your pain - is not that -’

  ‘The point? No, though it has
proved so interesting to you all!’

  ‘But then - what was it -’ said Anne. She could not find words for the terrible pressure of her questions, she thought, I have such a chance to ask but I cannot find the right thing to say.

  He went on, ‘Of course the way to Jerusalem was not a state progress. Only the women didn’t run, they loved me for myself. The rest were ashamed, they felt degraded and let down. Yes, pain is a scandal and a task, but it is a shadow that passes! Death is a teaching. Indeed it is one of my names.’

  ‘But there is pain,’ said Anne. ‘Animals suffer -’ She was not sure why she said this.

  ‘I had a pleasant life until the end. The Sea of Galilee is one of the most beautiful places in the world. Have you been there?’

  ‘Thou knowest, Sir,’ said Anne, ‘that I have not visited Israel.’

  He smiled. ‘Do not fear, I know who you are, all that concerns your salvation I know.’ He removed his hand from the table and tossed back some strands of the wispy straight blond hair. His hair was just long enough to touch the collar of his open shirt. He now put both hands behind his back and stared at Anne with his dark brilliant eyes, his mouth whimsical as if he was teasing her.

  ‘So there is salvation?’ said Anne.

  ‘Oh yes,’ but he said it almost carelessly.

  ‘Sir, what shall I do to be saved?’ Anne had now put her hands on the table and was leaning forward. She had turned up the cuffs of her blue dressing-gown.

  He looked at her for a moment. ‘You must do it all yourself, you know.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Anne. She said it almost crossly. Then she said, ‘I can’t.’ Then she said, ‘Oh my dear, my dear.’ She thought he is here, he is here; and she was suddenly shaken with a great shock of love so that she quaked and had to hold onto the edge of the table to stop herself from falling. She was filled with urgent desire almost as if she would seduce him. She wanted to touch him. She said, ‘Do not go away from me, how could I live without you now that you have come. If you are going to leave me, let me die now.’

  ‘Come, come, Anne, you will die soon enough.’ He spoke briskly. ‘As for salvation, anything you can think about it is as imaginary as my wounds. I am not a magician, I never was. You know what to do. Do right, refrain from wrong.’

  Anne gave a groan and closed her eyes for a moment.

  ‘What am I holding in my hand?’

  Anne opened her eyes and saw that he was holding his right hand, closed, up against his shirt.

  She thought, then said with confidence, ‘A hazel nut, Sir.’ ‘No.’ He opened his hand and put something down on the table. Anne saw that it was an elliptical grey stone, a little chipped at the end. It was, or was very like, one of the seaside stones which had so much appalled her upon the beach in Cumbria. She had brought one or two back with her as souvenirs, but she could not make out whether this stone was one of the ones she had brought or not.

  Still holding hard to the edge of the table, Anne stared at the stone. Then she said slowly, ‘Is it so small?’

  ‘Yes, Anne.’

  ‘Everything that is, so little -’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But, Sir - how can it not perish, how can it be? How can I not perish, how can I be, if all this -’

  ‘Ah, my dear child, you want some wonderful answer, don’t you?’

  Yes, thought Anne, I do.

  ‘Have you not been shown enough?’

  ‘No, no, I want more,’ said Anne, ‘more, more. Tell me - what are you - where are you -’

  ‘Where do I live? I live nowhere. Have you not heard it said that birds have nests and foxes have holes but I have no home?’

  ‘Oh Sir, you have a home!’ said Anne.

  ‘You mean -’

  ‘Love is my meaning,’ said Anne.

  He laughed. ‘You are witty, my child. You have given the wonderful answer. Is that not enough?’

  ‘No, not without you,’ she said, ‘not without you.’

  ‘You are spoiling your gift already.’

  ‘But what am I to believe,’ said Anne, ‘you are so real, you are here, you are the most real, most undoubtable of all things - you are the proof, there is no other.’

  ‘I prove nothing, Anne. You have answered your own question. What more do you want? A miracle?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘You must be the miracle-worker, little one. You must be the proof. The work is yours.’

  ‘No, no,’ she said fiercely, leaning forward and staring at the long pale elongated head and the eyes, full of a bright darkness, which now looked grave; almost sad. ‘It is I who need you. Oh give me words. I am deep in sin, I live and breathe the horror of it. Help me. I want to be made good.’

  ‘Oh, I’m afraid that’s impossible,’ he said, looking at her sadly.

  ‘No, no, please understand, please-I mean-I want-I want to be made clean like you promised, I want to be made innocent, I want to be washed whiter than snow -’

  ‘Go then,’ he said, ‘and wash.’ He pointed towards the sink.

  Anne could hardly walk. She moved, holding onto the table, then onto a chair. She turned the tap on and found the soap. The sun had risen and was now shining brightly into the room. She began to wash her hands under the tap. She looked at her hands. Then she dropped the soap and turned the tap off. She could not find the towel because her eyes were blinded with tears. She said, ‘It’s - no good - it - won’t work -’

  ‘All right, why are you surprised? Don’t cry. Are you really so sentimental? Art thou well paid that ever suffered I passion for thee? If I could have suffered more, I would have suffered more.’

  ‘Don’t, don’t -’ cried Anne, and her eyes were all tears, blurring her sight. ‘I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it!’ She reached out her dripping hands towards him.

  He said gently, ‘Love me if you must, my dear, but don’t touch me.’

  Anne thought, is he real, is this real flesh? Oh I love him so much, I must touch him, I must kneel and embrace his knees, lie and kiss his feet. But she did not kneel. She took a staggering step forward and tried to touch his arm with her right hand. He moved back and one of her fingers just brushed the rolled-up sleeve of his shirt, she felt the texture of the rough material. Then she felt a searing pain in her hand and her eyes closed and she fell to her knees and then flat to the ground in a sudden faint.

  Anne woke up in her bed. She recalled the scene in the kitchen and how, when she had become conscious again, she had found the room empty, and how, weak with exhaustion and still giddy, she had come back to her bed and instantly fallen asleep. She leapt quickly out of bed. She was still wearing her blue dressing-gown with the cuffs turned back. She went into the kitchen, but of course there was no one there. She dried her hands on the towel and then thought, my hands are still damp, so he cannot have been long gone. She sat down heavily on a chair beside the table. Then she saw upon the table the elliptical grey stone with the chipped end which he had put there to show her. She picked it up. Was this one of her stones, or another one? She was not sure. She turned it over. It was just an ordinary grey stone, and she put it down again. Then she noticed that one of the fingers of her right hand was raw, the skin abrased, as if it had been burnt. She gazed at it. Then she began to cry and cry as if her heart would break.

  ‘How is your toothache?’ said the Count.

  ‘Oh, better,’ said Anne, ‘I keep taking aspirins. I’ve got an appointment with Mr Orpen.’

  ‘You’ve hurt your hand.’

  ‘It’s nothing, I burnt it.’

  ‘Oh Anne, Anne -’ The Count was thinking of his own pain.

  It was seven o’clock in the evening and they were drinking sherry in Anne’s little sitting-room. The sun, blazing through the window, made the room seem dusty and cramped and gaunt. The kitchen received the morning sun, the sitting-room the evening sun.

  Anne’s flat was very small, the whole area of it was no larger than the drawing-room at Ebury Street. I
t consisted of the kitchen and bathroom, the sitting-room and Anne’s bedroom which was almost a cupboard. The scanty furniture was Gertrude’s, which she had got out of store for Anne. There were trees outside the window. The early morning birds reminded Anne of plainsong.

  The Count was sitting hunched on a tiny sofa, his long legs bent, his knees sticking up towards his chin. He had asked Anne’s permission to take his jacket off. His immaculate office shirt, white with a thin blue stripe, was tucked neatly into the belt at his narrow waist and a skinny dark blue tie hung from his tightly buttoned collar. His colourless blond hair flopped in a heavy curve over his brow and he blinked helplessly into the sunlight. He was perspiring and plucked now and then nervously at his shirt. Anne wondered if she should tell him to take his tie off, or whether this would distress him.

  ‘Are you all right, Peter? Is the sun bothering you? Shall I pull the curtain?’

  ‘No, no, I’m fine, thank you, thank you.’

  Anne was sitting on an upright chair on the other side of the tiny fireplace where a gas fire had been fitted in front of a black cast-iron grate. On the mantelpiece above there was a blue and gold Worcester cup, a present from Gertrude.

  It was two days since Anne’s Visitation, and she was living her ordinary life again; except that her ordinary life was so extraordinary. She had thought to herself, he never mentioned this; I suppose because he thinks it’s irrelevant, like his not remembering I had never seen the Sea of Galilee. Sometimes she felt that she was going mad.

  Something terrible had happened to Anne. It had happened some time ago and it was going on happening. She had fallen terribly terribly in love with the Count. Of course she had told no one of this dreadful love.

  Sitting alone, walking alone, for she shunned company and was often by herself, she had with meticulous care recalled and examined every minute, every moment, which she had spent in Peter’s company since she had first met him (introduced by Manfred) at an evening gathering at Ebury Street just after her arrival there. She had thought him tall and strange, oddly foreign. But he was invisible to her. Her mind had been filled with Gertrude’s sorrow. The first time, she thought, that she had really seen Peter was when, in the spring, on her return with Gertrude from Cumbria, she had noticed that he was in love with her friend, and had felt an instant pang of irritation. She had attributed this feeling to the old aboriginal possessive love which she felt for Gertrude and upon which the Count had seemed for a moment to be an intruder. However, reinterpreting the past, Anne now saw this little pang as the first symptom of the terrible illness, the first onset of the terrible pain, that now entirely occupied and composed her heart and darkened her heaven with a lurid cloud. Of course she did feel possessive about Gertrude. But what she had felt then had really been: and must she be loved by him as well?