Shikasta

And then suddenly, usually when the family is together at table or on the roof, he gets very fu

I hope I am not such a weight on Simon and Olga as Benjamin is.

I have just shut my eyes and looked at the expression on their faces when they look at Benjamin. It is patient and humorous. When they look at George their faces are sweet, and joyful. That is the exact word. I love looking at their faces when George is being fu

I see that this piece about Facts is all about George. I didn't know that was going to happen when I started.

It Was Hasan who said I should write this journal.

I hadn't actually forgotten it was Hasan, but that fact was at the back of my mind. I wouldn't be surprised if I wasn't capable of forgetting it altogether.

It is extremely fu

What happened was this.

It was just after sunset. The moon was coming up. There were hardly any stars yet. It was lovely. It is wonderful after the hot day is over. The dust is so strong and sweet, because the water has been sprinkled on it. And the cries and the talk from the town around us are mysterious. And the Call to Prayer, too, I love it. I shall hate leaving here. I hope we won't have to, not for a long time. But I suppose it won't last. And the smells of the spices in the cooking. I get quite drunk on it all every evening at sunset time.

George had gone up on the roof by himself. I couldn't help myself, I went up there too. He smiled when I got up on the roof, but then went on sitting as if I weren't there at all. I was miserable because he didn't take any notice of me. Shortly after that Hasan came up. George didn't seem surprised to see him. Hasan sat in another angle of the roof. He did not say anything for a time. The heat was coming out of the mud of the roof into my back and into my feet. I can't remember how the conversation started. Now that I am looking back, and linking this with other times I was with George and Hasan I realise that I often did not take any notice of the begi

I was so miserable and frustrated that I was nearly crying.

Hasan noticed, and kept an eye on me, and went on talking to George for a while. Then he turned straight to me, so that he faced me, and he began talking to me, not in the same way, but simpler. He asked me if I kept a diary or anything like that. I said that I had a little diary, and I wrote in it things like, Had an Arabic lesson or guitar lesson or went to college. He said he would like me to write an account of my childhood.

Now I must confess something. The truth. When he said that, quite casually, I felt a terrific surge of resentment. He wasn't my tutor or anything! Why did he say, as if he had every right to it, that he wanted me to do this or that But even while I was being resentful I was thinking that if he had asked me if I wanted to spend every afternoon with him, while he talked to me, and George wasn't there, I wouldn't have felt angry or resentful at all. On the contrary!

I knew that he understood exactly what I was feeling.

Then he gave me a little nod, as if to say, It will wait, don't worry.

Then he went on talking to George, in that way which was above my head.

I wanted him to talk to me again, ask me questions. I was longing for him to say again that he wanted me to write something for him. I had all sorts of ideas in my head. I would write him essays about when I went with Olga to the virus epidemic and I helped nurse there for a whole month. I wanted him to see me as someone sensible and responsible. Olga said to me that I had been invaluable in the epidemic and she could rely on me to do exactly as I said I would. I was proud enough to die when she said that, but I wanted Hasan to see me like that. And then when they took no notice of me I started thinking rude and silly things like, Oh, if you think I'm just a young miss, all insipid and ordinary, well then, I shall be. And I was sitting there, all derisive inside (just like Benjamin) thinking I would write an essay like the silly ones I have had to do in some schools, What I Did in the Holidays.

While I was thinking this, I wasn't listening at all to George and Hasan, and yet now I would give anything to have that chance again - just to sit there, trying to hear. I had not been offered such a chance before. Not being with George and Hasan for a couple of hours, quite alone, while they talked. And why should I be offered it again? I spoiled that one when it was given to me. I see now that this happened on purpose. I had been wanting and agitating all the time to be with George and Hasan, doing all the exciting things that I imagined they did - I don't know what! But it turns out that all that happens is that Hasan talks m that very ordinary but special sort of way, and George takes it in. He is riveted by it. He is so absorbed that you could throw water over and I believe he wouldn't notice it.

But when I was offered the same, then I did not know how to listen, my emotions got in the way, I was sitting there all raging and wanting them to look at me, talk to me, like a little child.

I see now that this was made to happen so that I could see - I was being made to see - what stood between me and being able to learn from Hasan.

Anyway, since I am telling the truth, here goes. I rushed down off the roof, and got an essay I had written for English Comprehension. I was proud of this essay. I got good marks. But now I wonder. I shall put in the essay here. It wasn't long. This was because I was trying to give the impression in the essay that my noble emotions silenced me, or something of the kind.

THE OLD MAN AND THE DYING COW

On the television last night I saw something that affected me and changed me forever.

The television set was in the public square and a lot of people saw it. They were all poor people, who never have had enough to eat.

It was a programme about the famine in the Sahel. Several famines in fact, because they had taken shots from different programmes to make a general report.

One of the shots stays in my mind.

An old man is sitting by a cow.

The old man is extremely thin. His ribs are showing. His collarbone and his upper arms are like a skeleton.

But he has a patient wise air, and his eyes are thoughtful. And very dignified.

The cow is so thin, she is just skin stretched tight over her ribs, and the pelvis bones are sticking right out. You can already see how she will be when she dies in a few days.