Shikasta

Writing that down has made me feel I have to know more about Simon and Olga. How is it they are like this? Why did they understand so easily? Or perhaps it wasn't easily. But they did understand. I don't know any other parents, of my friends, I mean, who would understand. Now I am looking back on our education, all of it, all the odd things, the tutors and the special courses and being with Olga and Simon in all kinds of peculiar and sometimes dangerous places, and how they have allowed George to be taught in that way, and I see how different they are. For one thing, and before anything else, they take so much trouble with us. Most parents aren't bothered.

I have just been to ask Father. He is working with his papers on the desk in the bedroom. I knocked and went in and he said, Wait a minute Rachel. He finished doing some calculations. Then he said, What is it?

I sat on the bed where I could see his face with the light on it. I felt quite fierce, but I didn't know what to ask.

He pushed his chair right round and faced me. Father is getting old now. His hair is grey and he is always too thin. He is very tired at the moment. I could see that he wished I had not come in just then. The light from the window was on his glasses and I wanted to see his eyes. As I thought that, he took off his glasses. I thought that this was just like him. I suddenly felt very affectionate and I blundered straight in. I said, I want to ask something difficult. Ask away, then. I want to know how it is that you and Mother are the sort of parents you are. Why?

He did not seem surprised. He saw at once. But he was thinking about what to say. He sat with his legs stretched out, almost to the bed where I was sitting. He swung his glasses back and forth. This always drives Mother wild. It is hard to get glasses at all, let alone repaired.

He said, Strange as it may seem - This is how he begins saying things he finds difficult. Humorous. Strange as it may seem, this thought is not a new one to either your mother or myself.

Strange as it may seem, I am not surprised to hear it. I suppose as usual you have been waiting for this moment of truth and you have your words ready.

Something like that, he said, swinging his glasses.

Mother will kill you if you break those glasses.

Sorry. And he put them down. Look, Rachel, I think you understand all this just as well as we do.

Oh no, I said to him, really furious. I thought he was going to slide out of it. I mean, I said to him, It is impossible. Listen! There you are, you and Mother and three children, Mum and Dad and three dear little kiddies, in New York, and you of course all set to do the very best for them. And then along comes a perfectly ordinary woman called Miriam Rabkin and buys ice cream for all the kiddies and says, Oh no, don't bother to send George to an ordinary school, just let him pick things up as he can, that is by far the best way, and meanwhile I'll just trot him off to the Museum of Modern Man. And you said, But of course, Mrs. Rabkin, what a good idea, we'll do just that.

Silence. There we sat. He was smiling and friendly. I was smiling and desperate. I am feeling quite desperate these days. That is the truth.

Something like that, he said.

Very well then. In Marrakesh George spent exactly half a term in Mahmoud Banaki's class. When he came out he was fully versed in the Histories of the Religions of the Middle East, back to Adam at least if not further. Right?

Right.

But who told you to send George to that class at that time?

Hasan.

You mean he breezed in one afternoon and said Mr. Sherban! Mrs. Sherban! I am Hasan and I am interested in George, a very promising lad you have got there, and I want you to see that etc. etc. And you said, But of course! And it was done.

He was being definitely on the defensive but patient.

You forget Rachel, that Hasan came along after quite a lot of people of that kind.

Saying of that kind, in that way meant I had to accept those words and all the thoughts I had had on that subject.

All right, I said.

He was sitting there, rocking about on the back legs of his chair, looking at me. And I was looking at him.

And then he said what I had all this time been waiting for him to say.

You must see, Rachel, that being George's parents meant we had to see things differently.

Yes.

We have been taught to see things differently. Do you see?

Yes.

At the begi

Yes.

But we went along with it. We did go along with it. And it worked.

Yes, I said.

Then he said, Rachel, you must run along, I've got to finish this, I have to, do you want any help with your homework? If so, I can after supper.

No, I said, I can manage.

I have seen something. During the term when George was doing the History of the Religions of the Middle East at the Madrasa, he also took classes from a Christian and from a Jew. In other words, while he was learning the curriculum, he was simultaneously learning the partisan points of view that wouldn't be in the curriculum. Not to mention God knows what from Hasan. That means he couldn't take exams, because what he had learned would never be contained in the exam questions. Though of course he could narrow everything down, after all Benjamin and I have to do that all the time. But that isn't the point. He is being educated for something different.

By whom?

What for?

Meanwhile he is a star figure in the local youth movements. And it makes me sick. Benjamin says George needs to show off. Well, that is of course what I ca

I have to put down what I feel about Suza

I asked Mother. (She is back from the epidemic. But she is leaving for the famine next week.) She said: George is seventeen and a half. She said that George was seventeen at least ten times in half an hour. That was about all she could say about it. Meanwhile I could see she was wishing I would stop yapping at her. Yap yap yap, like a little dog. I could see myself. I asked Father. He said, Suza

I said to George, Do you sleep with Suza

When he said that what I felt was that he had hit me. So I cried a lot. If George could sleep with Suza