Shikasta

I said to her, Olga, do you mean, it doesn't matter now because we three are grown up? Olga said, Something like that. I said, But I don't think I am grown up. She was affectionate, and said, Well, hard lines! And so we laughed. This is how things are with us at the moment.

This evening George and Benjamin were in the living room and about ten people who had come to see George. One of them was from India, and she talked about a girl called Sharma, and from Benjamin's reaction I realised she was a girl George was interested in. There was a packet of letters from the girl to George. When the visitors left, and George went off with Kassim and Leila somewhere, Benjamin was with me. I said, Who is the girl?

I could see that if f wasn't careful we would slip back into the awful quarrelling way we used to be in.

She seems to have taken George's fancy, said Benjamin. It was he who was keeping us nice and sensible and not quarrelling and I was grateful.

I said, Is it serious?

I thought you were going to say, What about Suza

I was in fact thinking about Suza

At this point I saw that I would start shouting at Benjamin, if I didn't leave the room, and that would have been unfair, because he hadn't done anything. So I got up and left.

I slept hardly at all thinking of this girl and George. I dreamed. It was awful, everything taken away from me. I know I am not being strong. This afternoon George came into my room when I was teaching the children Portuguese and I knew it was because he knew I wanted to talk about this girl. He nodded and the children went out. Then he sat in a chair opposite to me, and leaned forward and looked straight at me.

He said, Rachel, what is it you want me to say?

I want you to say I love this girl, she is the most marvellous girl in the world, she is beautiful and sensitive and intelligent and remarkable.

All right, he said, I've said it. And now, Rachel?

It goes without saying that as usual I felt lacking, and sat there with all my emotions rioting around, of no use to anyone.

I couldn't speak, and then he said, It is not difficult to feel love for someone, in the sense that something is called out of you by possibilities. Potentialities.

Her qualities are not the ones you need? I asked. It sounded feebly sarcastic, but I hadn't meant this at all. So he didn't take it like that.

You surely must see, Rachel, that none of us is going to have the things we want.

I know that.

Very well, then.

You haven't mentioned Suza

I didn't think it was Suza

I didn't say anything.

Then he said, Rachel, I want you to listen very carefully.

But I do, always.

Good. Listen now. When I and Benjamin leave, I want you to stay here, in this flat, and look after Kassim and Leila. I don't want you to leave here. I want you to remember that I said this.

When I heard what he said, I was engulfed in a sickness. A blackness. It was horrible. I knew that what was happening was terrible. I wanted to grasp what was happening. I felt that I should be absorbing something and I wasn't.

I was faint and not seeing well, but I heard him say Rachel, please remember, please.

When I had stopped being faint, he had gone out. He sent the children back in and I went on teaching them.

I have been waiting for George to talk some more with me alone, but while I often sit with him and his visitors, he doesn't talk with me alone.

We heard today that Simon died in the Sudan. Of one of the new viruses. George telephoned from the college on a special permission but Simon was already buried. George and Benjamin and I sat in the living room together, by ourselves. No visitors. It is very hot tonight. We were waiting for Olga, and she came in late, but she had been told already. Then the four of us sat. Olga is so worn out, I don't think she felt anything at all. I could see from her face that it was not that she couldn't take it in but that she had a long time ago. The four of us went on sitting there, quietly, until Olga said, It is going to be morning soon. She has gone to bed. George and Benjamin are still sitting in the living room.

George and Benjamin left today for Europe. With a contingent of twenty-four, all delegates from different parts of Africa. Olga and I are here, and the two children. Olga is almost invisible, she floats around. She does go to the hospital, but she comes in early at night and lies down. She has some life in her in the mornings, and she sits in the kitchen with Kassim and Leila and tells them stories about George as a child, and then as he grew up. When she forgets something she looks at me, and I fill in. I see she wants to be sure they know about George. I sit and listen to her, and what she says is quite different from what I remember. I mean, because she is so tired and gone, the things she says are halting and flavourless. I sometimes can't believe this is George she is talking about. Then I have to wonder if the things I wrote down about George are lifeless in the same way. Sometimes what she says sounds as if it comes out of a very old dusty book. She repeats anecdotes. She tells them things about George that she knew, and I didn't. She talks and talks and talks about George.

Leila and Kassim sit watching her. They are very attractive children. They are thin, from too little food, wiry, with alive brown faces, straight black hair, soft dark eyes. I contrast them with the children in the Camps and I feel they are precious. Of course that isn't fair to the children in the Camps. Every one of them needs someone to love them. Each one of them.

Suza

Olga woke me in the night and said I had to take her to hospital. I rang Suza