Free Small Circle of Beings by Damon Galgut Page A

become angry at this stubbornness, but I hold my tongue. There is a great deal more I could say to David, there are many matters on which I could take him up. But I know, even as I question
him, that I’m being unfair. It’s not his fault that any of this has happened.
    David, it would seem, is responding to the treatment.
    During one of the many sessions I have with Professor Terry at this time, he tells me that there has been significant progress in his recovery. For reasons even the professor can’t
explain, the extent of the disease has lessened. I understand little of what the professor has to say. All his talk of cell counts is meaningless to me. But there are other signs, small indications
of healing that I perceive.
    They have removed, for one, the drip from David’s arm. The hole in his throat has closed enough for him to eat solid food. And he is allowed to leave the bed. I must teach him to use his
feet. An infant once more, he staggers and reels on thin white legs. I hold his arm. But it’s not long before he can balance without the support of the wall. We walk each day, up and down the
passage. As he grows stronger, we go farther afield. I take him downstairs. We stroll in the garden, a bizarre unsuited pair, leaning on each other as people do in age.
    Professor Terry is pleased, but he senses my relief and feels obliged to give warning. ‘I don’t want you to expect anything,’ he says.
    ‘No.’
    ‘I shall keep you informed.’
    We are civil with each other. I know he detects in me the resentment I have for him and his colleagues who have, with their needles, torn open our lives.
    That next weekend I again make the long trip home. Stephen has indeed removed from the house all that be -longed to him. I find myself walking through the rooms, my mother at my side, looking
over the furniture, the ornaments, the pictures, checking that nothing I own is missing. It is a strange feeling to be conscious of possessions in this way. As we go, my mother keeps an inventory
of her own.
    ‘The small white table,’ she says. ‘The vase on top … The picture of the man . . . The dresser . . . it was terrible,’ she says, dropping her voice. ‘They
came, they looked around, they took what they wanted. If it hadn’t been for me, they would’ve taken everything.’
    ‘Thank you,’ I say.
    ‘It’s all right, my darling. Sammy helped too. He helped me to stop them.’
    I worry for her now, this crazy old woman, but it would seem that Stephen continues to do his duty by her: the kitchen is stocked up. There are dirty plates in the sink. Salome and Moses still
come in daily: I have explained to them the new state of things. But still I’m troubled by the thought of the house and its lands under the rule of madness. I explain carefully to the
servants that they are not to take orders from her, that they are to see to the smooth running of affairs. ‘Soon,’ I tell them, ‘I will be back.’ They stare at me as I
speak, watching from beneath their noncommittal eyelids. They do not trade in expression, these two; silent and grim, they go about their business and observe. I wonder if they have seen what I can
only imagine: Gloria MacIvor being helped from the car by Stephen, being shown about these now bare rooms over which I once held sway.
    As the evening comes on, and the time for my departure with it, I light a fire in the grate and sit with my mother on the floor. The flames colour our faces. This is perhaps the closest and the
quietest we have been, she and I, since I was young. Perhaps there have been evenings I can’t remember when we sat this way, mother and daughter, while the darkness gathered outside.
    ‘Mother,’ I say. ‘Are you happy? In your head, are you happy?’
    This is something I truly want to know. In the convoluted speculations that are her version of the world, she may find a kind of peace denied to me. But she doesn’t understand: she nods to
herself and laughs.
    I