The Cleft by Doris Lessing Read Free Book Online Page B

time he frowns belligerently, not at his sister, but probably at some imaginary male antagonist.
    The little girl, seeing all these achievements, none of which are possible to her, frowns, looks down at her centre and says, ‘But I am nicer than you.’
    The boy, frowning at her cleft, which no one could say is threatening or even assertive, now adds to his repertoire of cocky tricks with some others, rolling his balls about in their sac.
    â€˜I like me much better than I like you,’ says the little girl, but she approaches her brother and says, ‘Let me feel.’
    He shuts his eyes, holds his breath, endures her pulling and rolling, and says, ‘Now, let me feel you.’
    At which he inexpertly probes the crevices and announces, ‘Your pee-thing is not as nice as my pee-thing.’
    â€˜My pee-thing is better than your pee-thing,’ she insists.
    There are two slave girls in the room, their nurses. They have been watching this play (foreplay) with knowing worldly smiles, which relate to one’s husband and the other’s lover.
    At the little boy’s thrusting and showing off, they exchange what-do-you-expect-from-a-male smiles, and both show signs of wanting to shield the girl, who after all has a hymen to protect.
    One says, ‘Your mother’ll be cross if she sees you,’ making a ritual close to the play.
    They do not immediately separate but the boygives a little tug at the girl’s hair and then kisses her shyly on the cheek. She, for her part, gives him a hug. The slave girls put on appropriate smiles, oh-what-dear-little-things.
    This particular little play is for now, the girl about five, the boy a little younger. The children wouldn’t want to repeat it, let’s say, next year.
    She will be into maternal and nurturing games, he already a legionnaire – a soldier.

You may be thinking that I write of these scenes with too much assurance? But I feel more certainly about them than about many I have attempted to describe. And now I must explain why by way of what may seem a diversion, even an irrelevance.
    I married young a girl approved by my parents, and we had two children – boys. I was ambitious, planning to become a senator, worked hard, cultivated the suitable connections, and had very little time for my wife and less for my boys. She was an admirable mother; they had for me a distant regard. I did everything I could for them in the way of easing their way into the army, where they did well. But both were killed fighting against the German tribes. When they were dead I regretted how little I had known these young men whom everyone commended. I think it is not uncommon for a man in his second marriage to regret what he had omitted in his first. I thought a good deal about my twosons when this could do no good to them at all. My first wife died. I lived alone for years. I became ill and took a long time to recover. Friends came to see me, and I was recommended to marry again. I thought of my first wife and knew that we could have loved each other, if I had had the time for it.
    When I was convalescing, a girl from a junior branch of the family, Julia, arrived to look after me. I knew what was happening: the mother had of course hoped that her well-off relative would ‘do something’ for her, her children. But there were so many of them. I had observed that if a man takes an interest in one member of a too abundant family, it will not be long before he is taking on the whole tribe. Julia was pleasant, pretty, attentive, and did not talk about her needy sisters and brothers. I enjoyed her, her genuine simplicity, the fresh observations of a clever little provincial girl, who watched everything that went on, so as to model herself on the ways of the elite. I am sure I can truthfully say she liked me, though I was always aware – and made myself remain wary – that an old man should not expect too much of a very attractive woman a