G. by John Berger Read Free Book Online

he examines his body part by part to discover the source of the mystery which inflames him. (Her presence, as now when she is standing behind him and he still has his head against her dress, makes his heart beat faster and his limbs feel weak, as after a bath that is too hot.) He examines his nose, his ears, his armpits, his nipples, his navel, his anus, his toes. Finally he arrives at his erect penis, which, he already knows, will afford him a half-answer. He caresses it to bring on the waves of familiar sweet pleasure. The frequency of the waves increases until suddenly they turn to pain. He categorizes the pleasure as a good pain because the only other sensations he knows which approach the intensity of this one are indeed pains.
    Can we do some singing, he asks.
    Unlike his previous governess, Miss Helen, who is unusually lazy, appears to have no strict programme for the lessons she gives to the boy. They do whatever suggests itself. Instead of having three distinct and formal lessons, they pass the morning together. For the boy this establishes a kind of equality between them. It allows her to moon.
    She goes to the piano and sits down on the round stool that can twirl round like a roundabout.
    Let me turn you, he says, let me turn you.
    From behind her he puts a hand on either hip and pushes. She lifts her feet off the ground so that her shoes disappear beneath her skirts. Slowly she revolves.
    He has a face like a monkey, darling, but with deep dark eyes. He’s a funny little fellow, he really is. He keeps on looking at you and in the end you have to turn away. I’ve no idea what goes on in his head. In two days’ time she is going to London for a week.
    He has noticed (and considers it unique to her) that her clothes always feel warm.
    She puts her feet down.
    What would your uncle say if he could see us now?
    He never comes to this end of the house. And if he did, he would come on his horse and look through the window.
    Involuntarily she glances towards the window.
    Let me turn you again.
    No.
    The no is almost petulant.
    Then sing your song, he says, the one I always like.
    Which one do you mean?
    The one about Helen, your song.
    She laughs and touches the side of his head.
    Anybody might think that was the only one I could sing.
    Her voice is thin, not dissimilar from a child’s. When she is singing, it seems to him that they are the same size and a well-matched couple. He no longer listens to the words of the song (‘I would I were where Helen lies …’) partly because he knows them too well and partly because he does not believe in them. The words thus discounted, he hears her singing her song, in the same sense as a bird sings its song. Whilst she sings, he might be asking her: Helen, will you marry me? And whilst she sings, she might be answering: Yes. But he would not believe it, because he is fully aware that in consideration of everything in the world, except themselves, it is impossible.
    Her eyes are slightly lowered, as though she were reading music instead of playing by heart. Her rather heavy eyelids, half covering her eyes, are smooth, rounded and without a fold. Once he came upon her asleep in the hammock at the top of the lawn, and there was a fly on her face.
    She imagines herself singing lightly and sweetly ‘her’ song to the boy she has been employed to look after, being overseen by Mr John Lennox, prospective Liberal candidate for Ross-on-Wye, andthen his coming up to her and saying: I had not dreamt that amongst all your other gifts and accomplishments you had such a sweet voice.
    The mystery which inflames him and at night in bed stiffens his penis leads the boy to ask a number of questions. But the questions are asked in a mixed language of half-words, images, movements of the hands and gestural diagrams which he makes with his own body.
    Thus, the following are the crudest translations.
    Why do I stop at my skin?
    How do I get nearer to the pleasure I am feeling?
    What is in me that