Ben, in the World. Doris Lessing
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But the development money was not a great amount; Alex had had more last time he was here, working on the film or on the play. Teresa knew how much there was, and that it was going fast. And still there was no script, although Paulo and Alex worked on it every day.
There was a story, but not much of one. In a wild and beautiful part of Brazil, in foothills beneath great mountains, lived a tribe of people like Ben. They fed themselves from the forests on fruits and vegetables, hunted game with clubs and bows and arrows, and knew fire – in fact, in the course of the film they would see lightning strike a tree and make a fire.
The trouble was, apart from the discovery of fire there wasn’t much going on, once you had grasped the basics: caves, the hunt, mating, gathering plants. Ben listened to all this and knew it was wrong, but not how or why: they didn’t ask what he thought. Sometimes Alex and Paulo would lift their gaze from a worried inspection of their notes, scribbled over sheets of paper, their by now many drafts, outlines, developments, and, not knowing they were doing it, stare deeply at Ben, frowning, but not seeing him.
Well, how were they going to go on? Perhaps into this on the whole pleasant scene would come a tribe of more advanced people, and… what? The two races would mate and make a new one? The newcomers could kill out Ben’s people, and Ben with them, who would die a hero defending them? Perhaps better if Ben’s people killed all the newcomers, postponing an inevitable fate, for everywhere over this land were spreading the new people. No trouble about casting these. They would be the native Indians of the area. What area, though? A trip must be made, locations determined, and discussions begun with a sympathetic tribe who would be pleased to get some money: about that they need have no doubt at all.
The area they had decided on, Paulo advising, the hills of Matto Grosso, was meanwhile afflicted with bad weather, storms and flooding. The reconnaissance trip was postponed for a week, and during that time discussions went on about taking Ben to a certain town on a regular plane service, and then on from there, in a privately chartered little plane. Alex and Paulo took it for granted that they must have Ben. He heard the two men talking, in the next room, and the miserable anger that already had him in its grip deepened. Where were they going to take him? Yet again he was going to leave behind a familiar place, and get into a plane and then into another. New places, perhaps another language.
He asked Teresa when they were going to take him away and she said it would be soon. She was arguing with Alex that it would be cruel to take Ben. Couldn’t he see how unhappy Ben was?
One evening, when it was late and guests were thinking of leaving, they heard a regular thud, thud, thud from next door – from Ben’s room. They had not noticed he had quietly left the company, all talking about the hills and mountains of where the film-makers intended to be. Teresa quietly opened his door, and saw that he was squatting on the floor, his fists supporting him, and he was banging his head on the wall, thud, thud, thud. Teresa shut the door, came back and told what she had seen.
‘Kids do that,’ said Alex. ‘A neighbour’s kid did that. He banged his head against the wall, sometimes for hours. The doctor said it was OK, it wouldn’t hurt him.’
Teresa said, ‘He doesn’t want to go. He’s frightened.’
The company was silent, listening: thud, thud, thud.
‘It’ll scramble his brains,’ said someone.
‘No, no,’ said Alex, ‘leave him, it’s all right.’
The guests left. Alex and Teresa sat on, listening. It was disturbing. Teresa’s eyes were full of tears. Her heart hurt her, listening. On it went, the banging. She went back into Ben’s room. He was whimpering as he banged his head, a small child’s whimper, and Teresa put her arms around him, kneeling beside him, and said, ‘Ben, dear Ben, poor Ben, it’s all right, I’m here.’ He gave a big shout of pain and anger and turned to her, and she felt that hairy face on her bare upper chest, and knew that this was a child she was holding, or at least a child’s misery. ‘Ben, it’s all right. You don’t have to go anywhere. I promise you.’
She stayed there beside him, on the floor, holding him, while he whimpered himself into stillness. Alex, concerned for her, peered in, withdrew. Then Ben was quiet, and Teresa got him up and on to his bed. She came out to Alex and challenged him with defiant tear-filled eyes and said, ‘You can’t take him. I’ve promised him. You cannot do it.’
‘Well, I suppose we don’t really need him,’ said Alex.
But it was still raining in the hills where they were expected, and every evening the people sitting around the table eating, drinking, arguing, laughing, heard from next door, on the wall that separated this room from Ben’s, the thud thudding of his pain, his rage.
His anger was threatening to come roaring up out of him and into his fists; he wanted to hit and to bite and destroy – mostly Alex. Ben did not believe Teresa when she said Alex would leave him here: he was tricking Teresa, just as he had tricked him, Ben, to bring him here.
That thudding: it was awful, it spoke direct to the nerves of anyone listening, it was not possible to ignore it. They all tried to but their talk stopped, and became a listening. Alex would say, ‘Take no notice; he’s not harming himself.’ So the talk began again, rose in a crescendo, in opposition to the thudding, but all those faces showed apprehension, irritation, even fear, and soon they were silent again, their glasses resting in their hands, their food ignored on their plates. Bang, bang, bang, on the wall.
‘He must be hurting his brain,’ Paulo protested, but Alex said again, ‘No, kids do it, it means nothing.’
But the truth was, that nightly bang-banging was telling Alex that the vision that had been inhabiting his imagination in the hotel in Nice, was not enough to carry this film on through its many stages, the inevitable difficulties, crises, contingencies. And he still had to get together a script, or at least a detailed outline, which would extract more money, enough to actually make it.
Alex and Paulo decided to fly off, although the rain was still falling in the hills where everyone agreed they would find the landscapes they wanted. They were to leave on a Monday, and on Sunday, from midday onwards the convivial communal room was full of people. The film-makers would be gone at least a week. In this hospitable flat would remain Ben and Teresa, who would look after him.
Ben could hear the talk, talk, talking about the arrangements, and he was walking about the room as if in a cage. He came out of his room and stood looking at them all. They did not see him there. They were all a bit drunk, affectionate with each other, noisy. Teresa had her arm around Alex, and her black hair was falling on his neck. Ben went to the door and let himself out. It was late afternoon, the light slanting and radiant, but not as bad as the midday glare. He did not know what he meant to do. He walked down to where the sea showed as a blue dazzle. His eyes were hurting inside his dark glasses, but not too much. Then, in front of him, was the long white beach and on it so many people lying or playing. Jumping about among the waves were more. The girls were wearing so little he had to look to determine: yes, there was a patch of covering there in front, and those little scraps of stuff hid nipples. He was energized with anger, the need to hurt, to kill. He was walking along the top part of the beach, trying not to let the splinters of light get into his eyes, listening to the noise of waves, voices, laughter – that mass of people, so many people, who knew how to be together, all the same as each other even though they were of different colours, sizes, shapes – no one stared at them for their strangeness.
That beach, like the other beaches of Rio, was worked by gangs of thieves, mostly children or youths, and they had targeted Ben from when he came down out of the street to the sea’s edge. They have a trick that goes like this. A youth, or even a child, darts up to the victim and squirts on to his shoes blobs of grease, which perhaps he, or she, does not notice at first. Then suddenly there is a disgusting slug of pale fat on one shoe or both. Ben let out a shout of fury. The tricksters, for they work in teams, are running along parallel to the victim, are waiting for the moment he sees the grease and exactly then, one runs up and offers to wipe the shoe or shoes clean, stating his price. Ben had no money on him, and anyway he was crazy with rage. He took the grinning