Briefing for a Descent into Hell Part 1

DORIS LESSING.

BRIEFING FOR A DESCENT INTO h.e.l.l.

Doris Lessing is the author of numerous award-winning books of fiction and non-fiction, including The Golden Notebook and The Gra.s.s Is Singing. In 2007 she was awarded the n.o.bel Prize in Literature. She lives in London.

This is for my son John, the sea-loving man.

CATEGORY: INNER-s.p.a.cE FICTION.

For there is never anywhere to go but in If yonder raindrop should its heart disclose,

Behold therein a hundred seas displayed.

In every atom, if thou gaze aright,

Thousands of reasoning beings are contained.

The gnat in limbs doth match the elephant.

In name is yonder drop as Nile's broad flood.

In every grain a thousand harvests dwell.

The world within a grain of millet's heart.

The universe in the mosquito's wing contained.

Within that point in s.p.a.ce the heavens roll.

Upon one little spot within the heart

Resteth the Lord and Master of the worlds.

Therein two worlds commingled may be seen ...

THE SAGE MAHMOUD SHABISTARI,.

IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

(The Secret Garden) This minuscule world of the sand grains is also the world of inconceivably minute beings, which swim through the liquid film around a grain of sand as fish would swim through the ocean covering the sphere of the earth. Among this fauna and flora of the capillary water are single-celled animals and plants, water mites, shrimplike crustacea, insects, and the larvae of infinitely small worms-all living, dying, swimming, feeding, breathing, reproducing in a world so small that our human senses cannot grasp its scale, a world in which the microdroplet of water separating one grain of sand from another is like a vast, dark sea.

MARINE BIOLOGIST RACHEL CARSON,.

TWENTIETH CENTURY.

(The Edge of the Sea)

CENTRAL INTAKE HOSPITAL.

Friday 15th August 1969 ADMITTANCE SHEET.

NAME: Unknown s.e.x: Male AGE: Unknown ADDRESS: Unknown GENERAL REMARKS: At midnight the police found Patient wandering on the Embankment near Waterloo Bridge. They took him into the station thinking he was drunk or drugged. They describe him as Rambling, Confused, and Amenable. Brought him to us at 3 A.M. by ambulance. During admittance Patient attempted several times to lie down on the desk. He seemed to think it was a boat or a raft. Police are checking ports, s.h.i.+ps, etc. Patient was well dressed but had not changed his clothes for some time. He did not seem very hungry or thirsty. He was wearing trousers and a sweater, but he had no papers or wallet or money or marks of ident.i.ty. Police think he was robbed. He is an educated man. He was given two Libriums but did not sleep. He was talking loudly. Patient was moved into the small Observation ward as he was disturbing the other Patients.

NIGHT NURSE. 6 A.M.

Patient has been awake all day, rambling, hallucinated, animated. Two Librium three-hourly. Police no information. Clothes sent for tracing, but unlikely to yield results: Chain-store sweater and s.h.i.+rt and underclothes. Trousers Italian. Patient still under the impression he is on some sort of voyage. Police say possibly an amateur or a yachtsman.

DOCTOR Y. 6 P.M.

I need a wind. A good strong wind. The air is stagnant. The current must be pounding along at a fair rate. Yes, but I can't feel it. Where's my compa.s.s? That went days ago, don't you remember? I need a wind, a good strong wind. I'll whistle for one. I would whistle for one if I had paid the piper. A wind from the East, hard on to my back, yes. Perhaps I am still too near the sh.o.r.e? After so many days at sea, too near the sh.o.r.e? But who knows, I might have drifted back again insh.o.r.e. Oh no, no, I'll try rowing. The oars are gone, don't you remember, they went days ago. No, you must be nearer landfall than you think. The Cape Verde Islands were to starboard-when? Last week. Last when? That was no weak, that was my wife. The sea is saltier here than close in sh.o.r.e. A salt salt sea, the brine coming flecked off the horses' jaws to mine. On my face, thick crusts of salt. I can taste it. Tears, seawater. I can taste salt from the sea. From the desert. The deserted sea. Sea horses. Dunes. The wind flicks sand from the crest of dunes, spins off the curl of waves. Sand moves and sways and ma.s.ses itself into waves, but slower. Slow. The eye that would measure the pace of sand horses, as I watch the rolling gallop of sea horses would be an eye indeed. Aye Aye. I. I could catch a horse, perhaps and ride it, but for me a sea horse, no horse of sand, since my time is man-time and it is G.o.d for deserts. Some ride dolphins. Plenty have testified. I may leave my sinking raft and cling to the neck of a sea horse, all the way to Jamaica and poor Charlie's Nancy, or, if the current swings me South at last, to the coast where the white bird is waiting.

Round and round and round I go, the Diamond Coast, the Canary Isles, a dip across the Tropic of Cancer and up and across with a shout at the West Indies to port, where Nancy waits for her poor Charlie, and around, giving the Sarga.s.so Sea a miss to starboard, with Florida florissant to port, and around and around, in the swing of the Gulf Stream, and around, with the Azores just outside the turn of my elbow, and down, past the coasts of Portugal where my Conchita waits for me, pa.s.sing Madeira, pa.s.sing the Canaries, always en pa.s.sant, to the Diamond Coast again, and so around, and so around again and again, for ever and ever unless the current swings me South. But that current could never take me South, no. A current is set in itself, inexorable as a bus route. The clockwise current of the Northern seas must carry me, carry me, unless ... yes. They may divert me a little, yes they will, steering me with a small feather from their white wings, steadying me South, holding me safe across the cross not to say furious currents about the Equator but then, held safe and sound, I'd find the South Equatorial at last, at last, and safe from all the Sarga.s.soes, the Scillas and the Charibs, I'd swoop beautifully and lightly, drifting with the sweet currents of the South down the edge of the Brazilian Highlands to the Waters of Peace. But I need a wind. The salt is seaming on the timbers and the old raft is wallowing in the swells and I am sick. I am sick enough to die. So heave ho my hearties, heave-no, they are all gone, dead and gone, they tied me to a mast and a great wave swept them from me, and I am alone, caught and tied to the North Equatorial Current with no landfall that I could ever long for anywhere in the searoads of all that rocking sea.

Nothing from Police. No reports of any small boats yachts or swimmers unaccounted for. Patient continues talking aloud, singing, swinging back and forth in bed. He is excessively fatigued. Tomorrow: Sodium Amytal. I suggest a week's narcosis.

DOCTOR Y. 17TH AUGUST.

I disagree. Suggest shock therapy.

DOCTOR X. 18TH AUGUST.

Very hot. The current is swinging and rocking. Very fast. It is so hot that the water is melting. The water is thinner than usual, therefore a thin fast rocking. Like heat-waves. The s.h.i.+mmer is strong. Light. Different textures of light. There is the light we know. That is, the ordinary light let's say of a day with cloud. Then, sunlight, which is a yellow dance added to the first. Then the sparkling waves of heat, heat waves, making light when light makes them. Then, the inner light, the fast s.h.i.+mmer, like a suspended snow in the air. s.h.i.+mmer even at night when no moon or sun and no light. The s.h.i.+mmer of the solar wind. Yes, that's it. Oh solar wind, blow blow blow my love to me. It is very hot. The salt has caked my face. If I rub, I'll scrub my face with pure sea salt. I'm becalmed, on a light, lit, rocking, deliriously delightful sea, for the water has gone thin and slippery in the heat, light water instead of heavy water. I need a wind. Oh solar wind, wind of the sun. Sun. At the end of Ghosts he said the Sun, the Sun, the Sun, the Sun, and at the end of When we Dead Awaken, the Sun, into the arms of the Sun via the solar wind, around, around, around, around ...

Patient very disturbed. Asked his name: Jason. He is on a raft in the Atlantic. Three caps. Sodium Amytal tonight. Will see him tomorrow.

DOCTOR Y.

DOCTOR Y: Did you sleep well?

PATIENT: I keep dropping off, but I mustn't, I must not.

DOCTOR Y: But why not? I want you to.

PATIENT: I'd slide off into the deep sea swells.

DOCTOR Y: No you won't. That's a very comfortable bed, and you're in a nice quiet room.

PATIENT: Bed of the sea. Deep sea bed.

DOCTOR Y: You aren't on a raft. You aren't on the sea. You aren't a sailor.

PATIENT: I'm not a sailor?

DOCTOR Y: You are in Central Intake Hospital, in bed, being looked after. You must rest. We want you to sleep.

PATIENT: If I sleep I'll die.

DOCTOR Y: What's your name? Will you tell me?

PATIENT: Jonah.

DOCTOR Y: Yesterday it was Jason. You can't be either, you know.

PATIENT: We are all sailors.

DOCTOR Y: I am not. I'm a doctor in this hospital.

PATIENT: If I'm not a sailor, then you aren't a doctor.

DOCTOR Y: Very well. But you are making yourself very tired, rocking about like that. Lie down. Take a rest. Try not to talk so much.

PATIENT: I'm not talking to you, am I? Around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and ...

NURSE: You must be feeling giddy. You've been going around and around and around for hours now, did you know that?

PATIENT: Hours?

NURSE: I've been on duty since eight, and every time I drop in to see you, you are going round and round.

PATIENT: The duty watch.

NURSE: Around and around what? Where? There now, turn over.

PATIENT: It's very hot. I'm not far away from the Equator.

NURSE: You're still on the raft then?

PATIENT: You aren't!