The Winter Vault - Anne Michaels [60]
I come from a country where men begged not for their lives but not to be murdered in front of their children. Where people, ordinary in every way, learned what it is to look into the face of a man who knows he is going to take your life from you. Where people were afraid to close their eyes and also afraid to open them again. Of course this was true in many other places in the world. Afterwards, in Canada, a colleague of William said to me: you must paint these things. And I said no, I do not want to give them soil, another place to take root.
Even in horror, there are degrees. And that is where the details matter most, because degrees are the only hope. And that's what keeps a man alive until the last second. Knowing that if he's lost one leg, at least it's not two. Or lost all his fingers, at least not his arm. To live a moment longer. That's often what belief is – the very last resort.
After the war, I painted for children who saw nothing but terror in whatever I painted, no matter how innocent the scene. Once a child has known this, he cannot see any place, not a room, without terror in it. Even if it can't be seen, he sees it; he knows it is hidden. Now I paint for children who have not known this; I try to paint beautiful things, to arm them with images in case they'll need them. So that some of this beauty perhaps might become a memory, even if it is only a picture in a book. So that even if that child grows up to be the killer, he might suddenly recognize something in himself when another man begs to be taken outside so he won't be killed in front of his family.
I have so few seconds to capture a child's attention. I will not waste the chance.
Jean had been sitting still, listening, looking down at her lap.
– We make cuttings, said Jean. I think that is what we do. It is cuttings we take with us.
At the market in Wadi Halfa, Jean had found a wooden box – once, it had contained three cakes of Yardley soap – that now held an assortment of humble treasures that could only have belonged to a child: glass marbles, an acorn, a feather, a length of twine with a bead knotted at one end, a silver belt buckle, a penknife, some polished stones, playing cards, a key. It hurt her to hold it, the ghost of the child still owned it. But she could not bear to leave the little box of possessions behind in the rubble of the market, so she bought it.
Back in the camp, she took to carrying it with her, in case she saw Monkey.
Pah! said the boy and knocked the contents into the sand. He stood looking at her and made it clear he would certainly never stoop in front of her to retrieve them. One of the Egyptian engineers who had seen the little scene unfold came over to the boy and took him by the shoulder, but Monkey was strong and squirmed from under the man's hand and ran off. The man bent down. Jean would not let him kneel for her and she fell to the sand herself and gathered up the pitiful treasure.
– He's wild. He should be punished for his rudeness.
– No, please, said Jean. I didn't mean to offend him. I should have known such things would not interest a boy his age. It is my mistake.
– The boy acts too free. If he were my son – But my son would never behave in such a way.
Jean held the box out to him.
– Perhaps your son would like these little things.
The man laughed uproariously.
– My son is thirty years old!
And Jean, ruefully, laughed too.
A child is like a fate; one's future and one's past. All the stories Jean told the child inside her as they walked by the river under the depthless sky … and the child took in nothing but the sweet sound of her mother's voice, a world entire. There was nothing Jean did not speak of those first months of pregnancy. She told her about Canadian snow and Canadian apples, about Egyptian boats, about techniques of grafting, topiary, and espalier. She told the child of her first