Under The Net - Iris Murdoch [18]
of it if you'd ever lacked the love of others,' I said. She met my look now, and there was something detached and theoretical in her eye which I had never noticed there before. 'No really, Jake,' she said. 'This talk of love means very little. Love is not a feeling. It can be tested. Love is action, it is silence. It's not the emotional straining and scheming for possession that you used to think it was.' This seemed to me very foolish talk. 'But love is concerned with possession,' I said. 'If you knew anything about unsatisfied love, you'd know this.' 'No,' said Anna strangely. 'Unsatisfied love is concerned with understanding. Only if it is all, all understanding, can it remain love while being unsatisfied.' I was not listening to this serious speech because my attention had been caught by the word 'silence'. 'What is this place, Anna?' I asked. 'That's one of the things that would be hard to explain, Jakie,' said Anna, and I could feel her hands seeking each other in the small of my back. She locked me to her, then she said, 'It's a little experiment.' This phrase grated on me. It didn't sound like Anna at all. 'There was some other voice here. I thought I would pick my way round this. 'What about your singing?' I asked. 'Oh, I've given up singing,' said Anna. 'I shan't sing any more. 'Her glance fled away over my shoulder and she withdrew her hands. 'Why in heaven's name not, Anna?' 'Well,' said Anna, and I could still sense the curious artificiality in her tone, 'I don't care for that way of earning a living. The sort of singing I do is so'--she searched for the word--'ostentatious. There's no truth in it. One's just exploiting one's charm to seduce people.' I took her by the shoulders and shook her. 'You don't believe what you're saying!' I cried. 'I do, Jake!' Anna looked up at me almost imploringly. How about the theatre?' I asked. 'How does that come in?' 'This is pure art,' said Anna. 'It's very simple and it's very 'Anna, who's been getting at you?' I asked her. 'Jake,' said Anna, 'you were always like that. As soon as I said Anything that surprised you, you said that someone had been getting at me!' During the last part of our conversation she had laid her hand lip, in my shoulder so that her wrist watch was just in sight, and I could see her gaze passing lightly over it from time to time. I felt humus. 'Stop looking at your watch!' I said. 'You haven't seen me for wins. You can spare me a little time now!' I guessed that Anna had it in mind that very soon our t�-a-t� would be interrupted. Our interview had a schedule of which Alum was continuously aware. All Anna's life worked to schedule, like a nun, she would have been lost without her watch. I took the wrist with the watch upon it, and twisted it until I heard gasp. She faced me now with an intensity and a bright silent defiance which I remembered and loved from long ago. We regarded each other so for a moment. We knew each other very well. I kept her pinioned, but released the tension enough for us to kiss. Her body was tense again, but now it was as if my grip had communicated to it some positive force, and it was like a rigid missile to which I clung as we hurtled through space. I kissed her stiffened neck and shoulder. 'Jake, you're hurting me,' said Anna. I let her go and lay heavily upon her breasts, completely limp. She stroked my hair. We lay so in silence for a long time. The universe came to rest like a great bird. 'You're going to say that I must go,' I said. 'You must,' said Anna, 'or rather, I must. Now get up, please.' I got up, and I felt as if I were rising from sleep. I looked down on Anna. She lay amid the coloured debris like a fairy-tale princess tumbled from her throne. The silks were at hip and breast. A long tress of hair had escaped. She lay still for a moment, receiving my gaze, her foot arching with consciousness of it. 'Where's your crown?' I asked. Anna searched under the pile and produced a gilded coronet. We laughed. I helped her up and we dusted bits of tinsel, gold dust, and loose spangles off her dress. While Anna did her