The Children's Book - A. S. Byatt [255]
She did not think Tom knew any more than she did. He had most innocently made great friends with the unacknowledged German brothers. He was uneasy, yes, but this was because he felt people thinking he himself ought to be, or do, something.
A metaphor for herself came into her mind, which was the equivalent of her metaphor for Dorothy. Dorothy she perceived as a doorless, windowless hut, encountered by a lost soul in a deep forest in need of shelter. The quester prowled around and around, and the blind brick walls emitted no light or sound, and there was no way in.
Sometimes she moved the brick tower to a distant place on the plain. Surrounded—her mind worked busily—by the dried-up skeletons of those who had seen it as a refuge and arrived thirsty and starving.
Opposite it, on the plain, stood a building which was made of hard porcelain, which had once had the shape of a capacious wardrobe, and was now carapace, in which a living creature was enclosed, or self-enclosed, had perhaps excreted the shell, which had graded colours and ridges and frills, as a whelk might, or a monstrous hermit-crab.
There were things—many things—she did not wish to know, was appalled to think of knowing.
The porcelain was light, lighter than air. The wind took it over quicksands. The porcelain was painted with eyes, but they did not see as a peacock’s tail does not see, or a moth’s wing.
If she stopped spinning, the thing would sink.
Another part of the problem was Anselm Stern. When he had first come to England, she had treated him gracefully as an acquaintance, and he had accepted her lead. There was a sense in which he was no more than an acquaintance. They had met in masks, amidst music, in an unreal world where everything is permitted, which seemed more real than the real world, which was always happening to Olive, whether at Todefright, or in Munich, or anywhere, almost, except the Yorkshire coalfield. But now, he too had acquired a lacquered surface, like the faces of his puppets, with their single, fixed expressions to which the lights and shadows added meanings. She had seen him look at Dorothy—quick, quick, think of a story about someone who had a child they never knew they had—stolen away by a witch—would they recognise each other if no one told them, or pass unacknowledged in the street? It was a good story, but it made her profoundly unhappy to see the two smiling secretively at each other. She thought of a story of a puppeteer for whom all human creatures had strings to pull and batons to direct. That was a good story too, but its impulse was unjust. The damned couple were happy. They did not intend her to share the happiness.
There was a kind of relief, and a kind of anguish, to her, to understand that all principal actors intended to maintain this state of affairs.
She was surprised when August Steyning asked her to collaborate on a kind of pageant or play to be worked on during the arts and crafts camp. He had an idea for a play about magic that would use human actors and puppets—puppets moreover, of two kinds, both life-size, with a dark human moving them, and glittering small marionettes, with their own stage. He had in mind one of Olive’s magical tales. Something like The Shrubbery, the human boy entering the land of the Little People, which could be represented by marionettes.
Mrs. Wellwood sat and stared at her teacup; she looked at Anselm Stern, to see what he thought, and he was looking out of the window, with a carved, motionless face, inscrutable. She liked August Steyning. She felt safe with him—he liked her work, there was no human mess or muddle.
“Mr. Stern?” she said, lightly, lightly.
“I think this idea of August is a very good idea. We might make a new art. An art of two worlds.”
“I am so happy to be included,” she said sincerely, sounding insincere, because she was in two worlds.
August Steyning, English and urbane, poured tea.
One advantage of putting on a play—or performance—at a summer camp is that it is possible to use a huge cast, and a large crew of wardrobe and