One who married an exile went to live with her husband in a
country close
to
that from which he had been expelled. Because
he was a spokesman for his fellow exiles, those who occupy his
own country sent commandos to blow him up in his car and
shoot bullets into the mouth of another spokesman. Now she
has become the most telling spokesman for the exiles although
she was born abroad.
There is one who is very talented indeed. His father died and his
mother has begun to demand much of him. For ten years he was
living abroad, sharing his bed with this man and sharing the bed
of that man. And he has learnt a way of smiling at his thoughts.
His mother has rapidly become frail. So that she may be looked
after he has come most of the way home and settled near enough
to
visit. He still shares his bed with men. Never does he share it
with a woman.
There is a man married to one whom he admires and who
admires him. He has allowed his admiration for her to arrest his
own progress, while she has a sense that the wrong he has been
doing himself is bound up with his admiration; so that when
another questions her discoveries she can never decide what to
defend and for what to apologise, and has been turning the
progress of her talent into an excuse for anger.
There is one who became frightened when his wife became
pregnant. One of his grandfathers had died just as the
grandmother was bearing children. And before his own birth his
own father had died. Both deaths had occurred abroad, but that
year his talent seemed extraordinary so he stayed abroad up to
one month before the baby was born. He became all the more
frightened. After the birth his wife resented him for having
avoided her during her pregnancy, and he resented her for
insisting that the wellbeing of their baby was as much his
concern as the nurturing of his talent. He tried to walk out and
the baby died.
