The Journal of Dora Damage(134)

‘A little bit of revenge, maybe?’ I goaded. His lips moved up and down together, his chin twitched. And then I froze. ‘No. Is that what – this – is all about?’

‘What?’

‘You and me?’

‘Oh, Dora, Dora no.’

I sat up and disentangled myself from him. ‘Yes! Yes! You horrible man! Go! Get away from me!’ I seized my chemise and held it over my nakedness.

‘Dora, listen! Way back, back in the homestead, the men used to talk ’bout white women in a way that made my ears burn. And I’m ashamed to say, I joined in, more than most at times.’ He took my hands in his, the chemise still bundled between us.

‘I don’t want to hear it! You, you violator! How could you? I want to spit on you!’ Actually, I wanted to vomit, and gouge his eyes out at the same time. ‘Was it good, your triumph, your revenge, hmm? Oh!’ I shook out my chemise and climbed into it, then searched for my dress.

‘Dora, Dora, hush. Do me some justice. Let me finish. What we have just done is nothing to do with triumph, or revenge. I am not those men, I am not the man I was back in the homestead, and I am not the men in your books, either. I have seen – I have seen countless livin’ bodies, bodies of my friends, semi-strangled, their backs laid open, every limb mutilated, with veins drainin’ and arteries pumpin’ out into the soil, and thrashed to within an inch of their life, beyond the point at which every onlooker is beggin’ for their spirit to give up the fight and take their freedom. Yet their soul chooses to stay, and their body comes back with it. Life is tenacious, and it is a wonder. The soul loves the body; and if you love one, you cannot help but love the other. I will kill a man who has killed those I love, black or white; but I will not harm any one of any colour just because they are of his colour! Do you hear me, Dora?’

I stepped into his arms, my dress still unbuttoned behind.

‘Do you hear me Dora?’

‘Yes.’ I believed him, and he was right. There was nothing of transgression or power in our afternoon of bliss. On the contrary, it was a time of healing and forgiveness. In the gloom, we glowed; our union   had only made us more beautiful.

‘Odi et amo.’ He turned me round and started to do up my buttons.

‘I hate and I love?’ I asked.

‘ I hate and I love: why I do so you may well ask. I do not know, but I feel it happen and am in agony. ’

‘Ovid?’

‘Catullus. Why make love, Dora, if it is not in the spirit of love?’ He sat me down again next to him on the floor. He was still naked. ‘Our congress is the most precious thing we have; I will never, ever, confuse it with hatred. You’re tremblin’, Dora. I am sorry.’

‘No, I’m sorry. I don’t know what we’ve done here today, but it scares me. I feel I know you so well, and yet I don’t understand you at all. Two human beings met here today, not just a white woman and a black man. You happen to be black and I happen to be white.’

‘An’ you happen to be in mourning for your husband,’ Din said, and kissed me on the tip of my nose. ‘An’ I am a black man, Dora, and it defines me more than your skin will ever define you. I am black, an’ I must fight for its recognition an’ acceptance, an’ for the freedom of my country.’

‘But this is what I do not understand. It is not your country. You were taken there, or at least your forefathers were.’

‘It’s the land o’ my birth.’ He rolled onto his back, and stretched his arms above his head. I wanted to kiss his armpits, to stretch myself like a cat along the length of him. I loved his nakedness. I was no longer afraid of his body, only of the rules that surrounded me.

‘So?’ I answered. ‘It does not have to be the land of your life! You are free here. Would you stay with a mother who tortured you? You would leave, and find someone else to love you. Why stay with your motherland, when all she can do is abuse you?’

‘I am bound by my past, an’ the past of my race.’

‘You have a responsibility to your future, and the future of your race.’

‘Who are still in captivity in the land of my birth. Tell me, Dora, the opposite of slavery?’

‘Freedom.’

‘Is it? Could be. Or is it mastery? Self-mastery, I mean. Or are they one and the same?’

Self-mastery. I thought about the books of our lives, the choice presented to our souls at birth by St Bartholomew. Freedom has its responsibilities; we are bound to write our books well.

And then we heard the noises in the sitting room, and it was more of a commotion than Pansy and the children would ever have made simply by returning from a puppet-show. I laid a finger on Din’s lips, and he clasped it and kissed it, before seizing his clothes and dressing quickly. I watched as he went over to the bindery door, raised his hand, and fled into the night with the silence of snow, on which we had to leave not a trace.