The Adventures of God in His Search for the Black Girl Read online

The slums became teeming. Strephon declared war in order to wipe out the over-population problem. When the war was finished he declared that the birth-rate must be increased in order to replace the dead soldiers. Women, he said, must not waste time on any activity except breeding. So he made it illegal for a woman to be an artist or an intellectual.

  Hidden in her garret, Corinna went on designing buildings illegally. But the war had so impoverished her neighbours in the slum that they no longer had scraps to give her. In the delirium that came of an empty belly, she conceived the most extravagant of her designs, a huge golden pleasure-dome decorated with inverted blue pineapples. ‘If only I could build it,’ she said aloud (not as a result of her delirium but because, living alone, she had long before formed the habit of addressing herself aloud), ‘I think it might last for ever. Strange,’ she added, catching herself up: ‘I never used to bother about that.’

  She reckoned that it could not be long before society saw through Strephon’s sophistries, in which case the people would depose him. It seemed to her that if she could only hold out and, despite hunger, finish her design, someone would be taken with its fantasy and handsomeness; she would receive a commission, would eat again and would build the pleasure-dome. However, she was delirious and she miscalculated. She fell dead of starvation across her drawing-board, on which the design was still uncompleted, and Strephon, the only one of the group to be truly immortal, is in power to this day.

  Trade Follows the Flag

  ‘I’m afraid we shall have to make a small charge,’ said the cavalry commander.

  Democracy

  Once upon a time, a state achieved perfect democracy.

  In the idiom of this state, linguists noticed, the word ‘reasonable’ quickly became detached from the verb ‘to reason’. ‘Reasonable’ was used simply as an adjective of praise. It was applied chiefly to prices but it occasionally occurred in political discussion, where it was applied to compromises.

  One day a public opinion poll disclosed that 33⅓% of the population believed that 2 + 2 = 5. Some people argued that this demonstrated a need to reform the education system. However, a further opinion poll discovered that there were only a few people who argued to that effect, so they were generally recognised as unreasonable eccentrics. Parliament took the reasonable course. It decreed that from thenceforth every computer, ready reckoner and text book should work on the principle that 2 + 2 = 4⅓.

  Variations on Themes of Elgar and Brahms

  intoned the solo ’cello in the first movement of Elgar’s Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra (opus 85).

  ‘An excellent composer,’ said Brahms (on Mount Parnassus), ‘even though he has the mentality of the housekeeper or domestic bursar at a minor public school.’

  ‘How can you say such things!’ Polyhymnia protested.

  ‘I suppose that as Muse of Sacred Song you’re bound to muddle enjoyment, which art gives people, with reverence, which people are said to owe royalty or God. It’s attitudes like yours that put people off art.’

  ‘You’re not always as beastly as this,’ Polyhymnia said. ‘You yourself have written some very edifying Sacred Songs. Your Four Serious Songs—’

  ‘Clara Schumann was dying when I composed them, and I wasn’t too well myself. I grant that my Four Serious Songs are beautiful, but they are no more beautiful than my profane music.’

  ‘It’s horrible how you set yourself up, and at the expense of a composer like Sir Edward Elgar.’

  ‘I said Elgar is an excellent—’

  ‘But you also said—’

  ‘I suppose it’s because you’re not an artist yourself that you assume that everything amusing must be abusive, and everything analytical must be destructive. If you’d ever created one, you’d realise that works of art are less brittle than you think.’

  ‘You’re not going to pretend it’s analytical criticism to say Elgar has the mentality of a—’

  ‘A domestic bursar, I was going to particularise,’ Brahms said, ‘cycling in from his minor public school to the nearby village and repeating to himself, as he pedals, in case he should forget, what it is he has to order from the grocer’s.’

  ‘Sheer vulgar and pointless abuse.’

  ‘On the contrary. Listen to his ’cello concerto again, and this time more carefully.’

  The ’cello began to intone again, and this time its notes seemed to enunciate words.

  Fif-teen pounds of cas-ter su-gar, fif-teen pounds of

  cas-ter su-gar, fif-teen pounds of cas-ter su-gar

  ‘Now you’ve spoilt it for me for ever!’ Polyhymnia complained.

  ‘If it’s so easily spoilt, you didn’t truly appreciate it in the first place.’

  ‘Anyway, it’s merest accident. Anyone’s melodies might happen to fit vulgar words. I daresay yours aren’t immune.’

  ‘I never claimed they were. My utmost claim would be that some of mine suggest institutions of higher education.’

  ‘I suppose you’re referring to your Academic Festival Overture (opus 80), where you used the tunes of a lot of rowdy student songs, presumably because you couldn’t invent tunes of your own.’

  ‘If the tunes had been my own, there would have been no Academic Festival point. Another of your troubles is lack of humour.’

  ‘I suppose you’re going to maintain that because you used tunes which already possess words your overture is immune to the sort of treatment you gave poor Elgar’s concerto.’

  ‘On the contrary. Believing as I do that all the arts are essentially one and indivisible, I composed my overture as a tribute to literature. You remember the student song I introduce on the bassoons?’

  ‘Yes. Quite a rousing tune – no thanks to you, of course.’

  ‘Quite so. Well, listen to it again.’

  This time the notes formed words.

  Oh, Lo-gan Pear-sall Smith, Oh Lo-gan Pear-sall

  Smith, Oh Lo-gan Pear-sall Smith, hul-lo

  ‘So he’s your idea of literature,’ Polyhymnia said.

  ‘Snootily though it’s expressed, I admit there’s something in your objection. That’s why, further on in the work, I bring the tune back and belt it out on the horns (not to mention the oboes, clarinets and, indeed, trombones), this time in tribute to a much finer writer.’

  Oh M-rs Aph-ra Behn, Oh M-rs Aph-ra

  Behn, Yes M-rs Aph-ra Behn, O-lé!

  ‘Now you’ve ruined that for me, too,’ Polyhymnia said with disgust. ‘I hate women writers.’

  ‘You would. However, if you don’t like that version, try this one.’

  Jo-han-nes Brahms ist gut, Ja, Jo-han-nes Brahms

  ist gut, Jo-han-nes Brahms ist gut, Ja

  ‘Forever boasting and setting yourself up and denigrating other composers.’

  ‘Nonsense. Listen to the Elgar tune again. This time I’ll pay him a tribute – in terms you’ll appreciate.’

  Ed-ward El-gar, Bar-on-et; O. M., Sir Ed-ward

  El-gar, Bar-on-et, O. M., Sir Ed-ward El-gar

  ‘I said you aren’t always horrid,’ Polyhymnia cried. ‘Now you’ve made it really nice. Indeed, you’ve made it a Sacred Song.’

  The Sage on the Commonest Crime

  ‘What, should you suppose,’ one of the disciples idly enquired, ‘is the commonest crime?’

  ‘Theft,’ a fellow-disciple answered with certainty. ‘Unless you count traffic offences as crimes? Those apart, by far the largest category of convictions is for larceny.’

  ‘How do you know?’ the sage asked.

  ‘From a table of statistics.’

  ‘A table’, said the sage, ‘that seems to have left out the commonest crime of all.’

  ‘Which is?’ the disciples demanded.

  ‘Poverty,’ said the sage.

  ‘Now really. Even you, my dear sage, with your passion for paradox, can’t maintain that poverty is a crime in itself. I grant it may drive people to crime.’

  ‘Though many of the poor’, another disciple p
ut in, ‘don’t let themselves be driven. To classify all the poor as criminals is to insult those who resist temptation.’

  ‘One would think, sage, you’d never heard the ballad “She was poor, but she was honest”.’

  ‘Tell me’, the sage said when the protests slackened, ‘what a crime is, and why you’re so sure poverty isn’t one.’

  ‘By all means,’ said the most talkative disciple. ‘A crime is an act against the law. But no law forbids people to be poor.’

  ‘What’, the sage asked, ‘happens to a person who is suspected of having done one of these acts against the law?’

  ‘He’s brought to trial, of course.’

  ‘And if it’s proved at the trial that he did indeed do the act?’

  ‘If it’s a grave crime, he goes to prison. If less grave, he’s fined.’

  ‘Suppose he goes to prison. What happens to him?’

  ‘His freedom is restricted.’

  ‘What does that mean for him?’

  ‘He can’t do as he likes. He can’t go away to a different place.’

  ‘And suppose he’s fined. What happens to him?’

  ‘He has to pay the court some money, of course.’

  ‘What does that mean for him?’

  ‘Well, that he has less money left for himself.’

  ‘If I go to a slum and meet the poor,’ said the sage, ‘I meet people who have very little money for themselves and who therefore can’t do as they would like and can’t go away to a different and less uncomfortable place. That is exactly the description you gave me of proven criminals. How can you now deny that poverty is the commonest of crimes?’

  ‘Very clever,’ said the talkative disciple sulkily, ‘though your argument is in fact a fallacy by undistributed middle. But in any case you weren’t arguing seriously. You know perfectly well that poverty isn’t a crime. No one says a poor person has done wrong.’

  ‘So, not being accused, he isn’t put on trial?’

  ‘Exactly. You’re beginning to admit the difference.’

  ‘And, not being put on trial, he is never given the opportunity to be proven innocent and thus to avoid the lack of money and the restrictions on his freedom?’

  ‘That’s true, but I don’t like your way of putting it.’

  ‘How would you put it?’

  ‘I’d rather not, till I see where you’re leading me this time.’

  ‘But this time’, the sage protested, ‘you’re leading me. I set out only to secure your agreement that poverty is the commonest of crimes. You began to lead me to a further thought when you mentioned that some crimes are grave, some less so. What is an instance of a very grave crime?’

  ‘Murder,’ all the disciples said.

  ‘What happens to a murderer?’

  ‘He is put in prison, usually for ten years or more.’

  ‘A person born in a slum’, the sage said, ‘may live there for 90 years, without being put on trial and thus without the opportunity to avoid the restrictions on his freedom. Poverty must be not only the commonest but the gravest of crimes, since it may be nine times more grave than murder.’

  ‘Your clever performances grow tiresome,’ the chief disciple said. ‘Drop your trickery and admit that the poor have committed no act harmful to society.’

  ‘Then why does society subject them to as much restriction and discomfort as if they had?’

  ‘Tacitly’, the disciple said with triumph, ‘you’ve admitted that poverty isn’t a crime.’

  ‘Poverty is a crime,’ the sage said, ‘but it isn’t the poor who are guilty of it.’

  Documentary

  Do you ever take time out to reflect, before you fall asleep in the warmth and safety which we call ‘home’, that there are those for whom the coming of night spells not the end but the beginning of toil?

  Year in year out, storm or calm, at just about the time you are kissing your loved ones goodnight, the little fleet assembles and, leaving home and loved ones far behind, heads out into deep waters to face the perils of the unknown, often in conditions of indescribable hardship.

  Give a thought tonight to this seldom publicised but gallant little fleet as, with the simple courage and good cheer of those accustomed to face dangers without complaint and to toil unremittingly for small reward, it sets off to garner the rich harvest poured out by Nature’s bounty.

  A motley crew, they might seem to a stranger. And indeed they come in all shapes and sizes, from the majestic armoured might of the killer shark, always alert to swoop on the unwary bather or skin-diver who ventures into the waters the sharks patrol, to the brave little shoals of mackerel gaily jostling each other as they nibble the flesh of any seamen whom favourable weather has washed overboard.

  All food caught in this way is, of course, processed instantly, at point of catch. Each fish of the fleet is a fully-equipped factory in himself.

  Doubts have been expressed about whether we may not be over-exploiting Nature. With modern intensive methods, say some conservationists, our seas are being over-humaned and there is a danger that the supply of men will be exhausted.

  Science, however, has the answer. Human-farming, experts predict, is just round the corner. Humans will be specially bred for the purpose and, when they reach maturity, released on the sea in leaky boats at special release-points within easy hail of the manning fleet.

  Will this remove the element of risk and hazard from manning? ‘No,’ says this gnarled old man-eater. ‘Manning will always be a fine sport as well as a major industry. I reckon it will always be the utmost test of a fish to pit himself against the strength and cunning of a desperate human.’

  And so the gallant fleet heads for home, weary but replete. A few hours’ rest, then out again on the tireless business of reaping the human crop.

  In certain picturesque manning villages, in a colourful ceremony of immemorial age, the mannerfolk assemble in simple piety to give thanks to Cod, who filled the surface of the sea with humans, thereby providing his fish with tasty dinners.

  It is a simple service, with two readings from holy scripture, The Miraculous Draught of Humans and the Miracle of the Loaves and Men. Then, with simple dignity, the clergyfish blesses the manning fleet, and the fleet heads out to sea again.

  Our thoughts go with you, gallant manner-folk! Happy manning!

  The Honest Bluebeard

  [Homage to Bartok]

  ‘No, my dear Judith, you’re mistaken. There’s often a crying noise when the wind hits the castle keep.’

  ‘But Bluebeard, there is no wind today. The flag on top of the castle keep is lying limp.’

  ‘Perhaps the wind blows in gusts, my Judith.’

  ‘But Bluebeard, the crying is continuous. Besides: there is also a continuous moaning.’

  ‘That’s just the water in the mill-race, my Judith.’

  ‘Bluebeard darling, when you took me over the castle grounds, you yourself shewed me that the mill-stream has dried up. Besides: Bluebeard, dear—?’

  ‘My Judith?’

  ‘Why would you take me only over the castle grounds? Why not the castle itself?’

  ‘This is a big and boring old castle, Judith.’

  ‘Nothing that belongs to my Bluebeard could bore me.’

  ‘Judith, it would be better to—’

  ‘Bluebeard: have you had other wives? Before you married me?’

  ‘Judith, it’s unwise to—’

  ‘Bluebeard: are they still in the castle? Is it they who cry and moan? Are they locked in? Bluebeard, what did you do to them?’

  ‘Alas, Judith, my Judith! It’s not what I did to them. It’s what I failed to do. And they’re not locked in. I can’t persuade them to leave.’

  ‘Ah, my poor Bluebeard, let me console you. You’ll be safe with me. It will all be all right with your Judith. I love you.’

  ‘Yes, my Judith. That’s what I’m afraid of.’

  The Two Emperors

  The Emperor of the East met the Emperor
of the West at a large inflated plastic dolphin a quarter of a mile out to sea.

  The Emperor of the West had been taking private swimming lessons to make sure he could get there and back without exhaustion.

  That, however, was a minimal item in the preparations. Three years of subterfuge had been needed for each Emperor to escape the surveillance not so much of the other side’s as of his own secret service.

  It was during a conference that the rendezvous was finally fixed. One Emperor said something which caused all his military, economic and political advisers to go simultaneously flurrying through the files of papers in front of them. While they were seeking the precise text of the subclause he had queried, the Emperor stooped as though to scratch his ankle and managed to push a pencilled note down the side of the other Emperor’s shoe.

  The other Emperor communicated his acceptance of the appointment during the afternoon session. He politely extended his cigarette case to the first Emperor. It contained only one cigarette, along whose seam ‘Yes’ was faintly scribbled.

  In accordance with the security procedure common to both sides, the first Emperor, having read the message, burned it.

  On the day dedicated by the conference schedule to ‘informal leisure activities’, each Emperor contrived to send his bodyguard briefly off on a false trail. Then the Emperors swam, each from his own side of the bay, to the appointed dolphin.

  Having met, they were careful not to speak before the Emperor of the East, who had in youth been an agile swimmer, dived, rather puffily, beneath the dolphin and divested its underside of half a dozen limpet microphones.