Author: Aidan Chambers
Category: Young Adult
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You can rejoice in being what you are. But you can suffer for it too. So what you are can be an affliction. An affliction is not something you bring upon yourself. It’s something visited upon you over which you have no control. As being black can be an affliction in a country of white, prejudiced people. And being a woman can be an affliction in a society ruled by men.
That’s why Christ can be for everyone, because she came to earth as a man and was herself afflicted by the men who ruled at that time. So she is an ally of all the afflicted, who are the touchstone of human frailty. Not because of themselves, but because of what they reveal about everyone else. As a black person walking into a room full of whites very quickly reveals the real attitudes of the majority.
My suffering here is an affliction. I know now it’s the first real affliction that’s come upon me in my life. And like all the afflicted, I’m a victim of the actions of others. Actions of which I was innocent. I mean, I lacked knowledge of them, and was given no choice about them. Being afflicted is therefore like being a slave. You have no choice about what happens to you.
When affliction comes upon you, it always brings with it two consequences. The first is physical pain. The second is an uprooting change in your life.
Physical pain can often be lessened or even ended by someone taking action—yourself perhaps or a doctor, for example. Just as Simmo gave me drugs this morning to dull the pain of my unveiling, or the pain of hunger can be ended by eating a meal. Then happiness returns. The pain is forgotten. So physical pain is not the same thing as affliction. I used to think toothache was an affliction. But now I know it isn’t. It’s simply a pain. I can do something about it.
[Pause.]
The real pain of affliction isn’t physical. It’s the pain of knowing you can’t escape the disaster that’s befallen you. This pain isn’t physical, and it isn’t emotional, though both can be part of it. No. It’s a spiritual pain. It’s like sorrow, which is the pain of separation. The affliction separates you from the life around you—the life you would prefer. It separates you from other people. But worst of all it separates you from the fulfilment of your self. Of your being.
I’d prefer to be walking, seeing, doing things with my hands. This affliction that’s come upon me has changed my life. Stretched out on this bed, shut up in this room where others are not allowed unless they’re tending me, I’m separated from people. From everyday, ordinary life. Often, I feel I’m not even a member of the human race any more. And it prevents me from fulfilling myself in the work I chose.
So my body, my mind, my life with others are all nailed to a cross of affliction that removes me from my true self.
No wonder Christ, nailed to her cross, cried out against God. Now I know what ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ really means. For I have heard myself cry out those same words in the most painful time of my affliction when there seemed to be no one out there. Not even God. But only an absence. A hell made of nothing. A place alone, for myself alone.
Then I felt accursed. Marked for ever as a reject. Abandoned. Prevented by the evil of my affliction from helping myself.
And no one else can help. Not even the afflicted can help each other. Their afflictions prevent it. Christ, nailed to her cross, couldn’t climb down and help those hanging on either side of her. And I can’t get up and go next door when I hear my neighbour’s alarm call sounding in the night.
And people who are not afflicted can’t help—can’t remove the affliction—because they don’t, they can’t, know what it is like. For affliction can’t be described. Other people might be able to relieve the physical pain but they can’t remove the deep soul-strangling knowledge of separation that an affliction gives you.
[Pause.]
Affliction makes you into a thing. An object. Something like a machine that needs attention now and then to keep it going, and makes noises, and sometimes causes trouble. An object that can be kept ticking over if it’s given the right fuel and maintenance. And that can be switched off and even dumped if you get fed up with it.
Affliction makes you anonymous. It takes away your personality. Just as happens when one person thinks of another as only an object for sex, or as a slave. Or as a racist will say of those he dislikes, ‘They all look the same to me’. Or as a pagan will say, ‘The trouble with Christians is . . .’, as if all Christians were one kind, one thing that lacks any individuality.
[Pause.]
Looking on the bright side, not all afflictions are for ever, thank goodness. Christ came down from the cross. But the wounds were still there, of the nails and the spear, and the crown of thorns. Even in her glorified body, when she wasn’t flesh and blood any more. So, though affliction may not be for ever, it leaves its mark on you for ever. Its name is engraved on your soul if not on your body.
I don’t know yet if my affliction will pass. I don’t know what scars it will leave on my soul. I don’t even know yet what good I can make of this evil.
[Pause.]
That’s the hardest part. Something I can’t think out yet. How to turn such crushing evil into something good.
[Pause.]
Except . . .
[Pause.]
I don’t know . . .
Even while I’m saying these thoughts to you, Nik, something keeps coming back into my mind. Your hand. Remember? That awful time when they were sure I would die and they brought you here because I was calling your name?
Your hand was like a thought . . .
Like a message.
[Pause.]
Didn’t I tell you the touch of your hand made it possible for me to believe I could live again? I can’t remember exactly because I was still in a bad way and heavily drugged when I recorded the first tape.
Whatever I said, what I meant, I know now, was . . . What? . . . Well, here I am trapped in this bed like a creature in a zoo, having to live quite unnaturally, not at all the way I used to or want to, living a kind of horror, struggling against it, and I keep remembering the touch of your hand . . . And what it did . . . what it does . . . is make me want to love.
[Pause.]
The words fail. I’m tiring I expect. No wonder!
But that’s the nearest I can get just now to what I mean. Your hand . . . you . . . made me want to love. And there is nothing my affliction can do to stop that. It can’t kill that part of me. The part that can love.
[Pause.]
Which means something very very important. I think. Or is it just sentimental rubbish? You’ll tell me. But I can’t say any more now. I’ve worn my thoughts out. The tape must be nearly full anyway. So I’ll rest and think about what it means later and tell you about it another time.
†
Tom waited till Sharkey was well clear before leaving the car park. While he waited he considered the sun’s heliographed message. Why should that bright flash of reflected light have so caught his mind as well as his eye?
He studied the houses across the valley, searching for the one with the swinging window. It wasn’t easy for him to find at that distance because now they were all bathed in sunlight, anonymous boxes with few distinguishing marks. But then he saw it, an upstairs window swinging on its hinges like a lazy weather vane. And as he watched, a woman appeared and pulled it closed. As the window turned, it flashed another brief message from the sun.
At once Tom realized what it was telling him. Standish, the insurance agent, had said that his attention had been attracted by the early morning sun flashing on the boy’s face. But does the sun flash on faces? It hadn’t flashed on the face of the woman at the window. Light only flashes from hard shiny surfaces. Like glass.
He needed to make a phone call.
The nearest box was outside the railway station. He couldn’t prevent himself sprinting across the car park into the back of the station, had to restrain himself from getting to the front by crossing the line instead of using the pedestrian bridge, and felt the omens were good when he found the phone box empty
and in working order.
Stay cool, he told himself while he dialled. Don’t let on.
The secretary connected him to Standish as soon as he said who he was.
‘Just another question, if you don’t mind, sir. I wonder, can you remember, was the boy wearing glasses?’
‘Spectacles, you mean?’
‘Yes, sir. Specs.’
‘Wait a minute . . . Goodness!. . . Yes, I think he was. Fancy not remembering a thing like that.’
‘No matter, sir. But you’re sure?’
‘Positive, now you mention it. How do you know? Found him, have you?’
‘Not yet. Just an idea, that’s all. We’ll let you know when there’s any news, sir.’
Tom’s next call was to the duty sergeant.
‘Sherlock Holmes is it?’
‘Maigret, sarge, no less.’
‘Margaret who? Is there something you haven’t told me, laddie?’
‘Very witty, sarge. Listen, would you have a squint at the scene-of-crime report for the crucifiction and see if a pair of specs is listed.’
‘Wait.’
Tom heard pages being riffled. Then silence except for the sarge’s habitual clicking of his tongue in a tuneless tattoo.
‘No, lad, no specs.’
‘Sure, sarge?’
‘Looked through twice.’
‘Damn.’
‘Onto something, are we?’
‘No. A dead end.’
‘Pity. But never mind, Margaret old girl. Even real detectives have their off days.’
‘Sarge, you’re always so supportive. Like an old truss.’
‘You mind your manners, boy, or you’ll be back in the blue and on the plod double quick instead of poncing about on the loose.’
‘How could you, sarge! That’s professionally insulting as well as sexist!’
He put down the phone before there was time for reply.
†
LETTERS:
Dear Nik: Thursday is my birthday. I’m taking the day off so that I can go to Norwich, as a treat, and visit the place where someone used to live who I admire. A kind of pilgrimage. Her name was Dame Julian. She had visions on the day of my birthday, 8th May, but a few years before I was born. In 1373 to be exact. Afterwards she wrote a book about them. She called it Revelations of Divine Love. You should read it. Good for your research. Might get a surprise as well. She called Christ Mother Jesus. ‘Jesus Christ, who sets good against evil, is our real Mother,’ is what she actually wrote. Here’s some more:
I came to know there are three ways of looking at God’s motherhood. The first is that our human nature is made. The second is that God took our nature, which is the beginning of the grace of motherhood. The third is the work of motherhood which God spreads out over everyone—the length and breadth and height of it is without end. And all this is one Love . . . In essence, motherhood means kindness, wisdom, knowledge, goodness, love . . . By the skill and wisdom of Jesus Christ we are sustained, restored, and saved with regard to our sensual nature, for he is our Mother, Brother, and Saviour.
Interesting? Interested? There’s lots more.
I thought I’d drive over after work on Wednesday evening, slum it overnight somewhere nearby, leaving all Thursday for sight-seeing. Drive back Thursday evening. Late back but worth it. For me anyway. How about you? Would you like to come? Would they let you off school? Be good for your education.
Let me know. Julie
Dear Julie: I can resist everything except temptation. Sure I’d like to come.
But I thought I’d better check up about Thursday before saying yes. Especially as I’ll be mucking about with dames who have visions. Dead and alive. Dangerous stuff that.
So I’ve been doing some runic arithmetic. The results:
This old dame had her ‘visions’ (really?) on the eighth day of the fifth month of the year one thousand three hundred and seventy-three. That is:
8 5 1373
Reduced to their fundamental number (because I know you like getting down to fundamentals) this becomes:
8 + 5 + 1 + 3 + 7 + 3 = 27 = 9
Let’s do the same with your birth date, which, if you are nineteen this year, must be:
8 5 1967 = 36 = 9
Each of you reduce to nine!
The figure nine is a cardinal number composed of the prime number three, three times repeated:
3+3+3 = 9
I don’t need tell you that three is a mystical number, and so is nine. According to your lot, God is 3-in-1. In your birthday and the date of the old girl’s visions the three-in-one is three times repeated, making the religious magic even stronger because that makes nine.
Now take your age and reduce it to a single number as before:
19 = 10 = 1
Similarly, your birthday this year:
8 5 1986 = 37 = 10 = 1
Also, find the difference between the year of the old dame’s ‘visions’ and your birthday year:
1986 – 1373 = 613 = 10 = 1
Three ones! And:
1+1+1 =3
How about the difference between the old dame’s vision year and your birth year?
1967-1373 = 594 = 18 = 9
Glory! Now we have three nines. 999. The emergency number.
And the three-in-one thrice repeated and thrice repeated. Strong magic this!
Let’s get a grand total. Add up all the reduced figures and reduce them to one final all-inclusive Big Deal number.
Old dame’s ‘vision’ year: 9
Your birth year: 9
Diff bn old dame’s vision yr & yr b. yr: 9
Yr age: 1
Yr birthday this yr: 1
Diff bn OD’s vision yr & yr birthday this yr: 1
TOTAL: 30
REDUCTION (3 + 0): 3
BINGO!!! The mystic trinity: three-in-one!
Your God is in all the figures. How can I not go with you? Something stupendous is bound to happen.
But what about the day?
This year 8th May is a Thursday.
What do we know about Thursday?
1) Thursday’s child has far to go.
This sounds okay. You plan a journey that day. (Well, you start on Wednesday, but after six, because you have to work till about then, don’t you? And in ye olden tymes, the day always began the evening before, right?)
2) Thursday is the fifth day of the week, as defined in Collins English Dictionary.
What happened on the fifth day? Quote:
And God said, ‘Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the firmament of the heavens.’ So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swam, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And God said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.’ And there was evening and morning, a fifth day.
[First Book of Moses, commonly called Genesis,
Chap. 1, vv. 20–3, Revised Standard Version.]
So on Thursday life got started. A bit of the old how’s your father sounds all right to me. Can’t miss out on that.
Trouble is, there’s all that stuff about how Thursday got its name. You know: Thor’s Day. Quote (Collins E.D. again):
Thor: Norse myth: the God of thunder, depicted as wielding a hammer, emblematic of the thunder bolt.
Wowee: Thunderbolt Day. Could be exciting.
Further: Funk and Wagnall (don’t you just love the name?) tell much more about old Thor in their Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology and Myth, which your ‘umble researcher naturally consulted:
Such as Thor being one of the greatest of the Gods; God of yeomen and peasants and opposed to Odin, God of the nobility. Which makes him a hammer of the people and an okay guy as far as I’m concerned.
Added to which, he was large, strong and capable of epic rages so bad even his own mother, bless her,
couldn’t stand them, so she gave him away to foster parents, motivated of course by that caring, supportive concern for their offspring’s welfare we all expect from doting, selfless progenitors.
He was such a Jack-the-Lad among ye gods that, Fun-Wag report, In many localities no work was done on this day. Great. I’ll tell them at school that I’ve joined the Thorians and can’t come Thursday because it’s our day off. Thursday’s Thor’s day, folks. Lay-about day. Bring your own hammers and rages and lay about all you want. Epic eppies are all the rage. Rage, rage against the dying of the light, etc.
STOCKSHOT: There is only one definition of God: the freedom that allows other freedoms to exist.
More about Thursday, because there’s more to Thursday than Thor, would you believe:
Apart from saying it is the fifth day of creation, your lot add:
a)Maundy Thursday: Christ washed the feet of his disciples the day before he died, right? The day before he died is supposed to be Thursday. So Thursday is the day your lot remember this.
I got all confused by the ‘maundy’ bit. So 1 looked it up. Derivation: 13th century Old French: mande, meaning ‘commandment’, which you’ll know but I didn’t came from JC’s words: Mandatum novem do vobis: i.e., ‘A new commandment I give unto you’. The new one being, I guess, that they must love one another. (You see, I really was paying attention during RE, after all.)
b) Thursday is also supposed to be the day JC ascended into heaven. My grandad says they used to have Ascension Day off when he was a kid. They all did something together, as a school, like a seaside outing to Weston or a walk from Berkeley Castle to Quedgeley, all along the Severn, with picnics on the way and a bonfire and bangers and a singsong at the end, then buses home dead tired and filthy but happy. He says they were the nicest days he can remember, and they sound pretty good to me too. We don’t do things like that now because Ascension Day isn’t a holiday any more. Nobody thinks of celebrating somebody rising up into the sky by having a jolly jaunt. Not even astronauts any more.