Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

James K. Baxter Complete Prose Volume 2

In my View [3]

In my View [3]

I was talking recently to my Yugoslav Catholic friend Jack. Actually his name is Ivan; but in this country he goes under the name of Jack because he wants very much to be regarded as a Kiwi. ‘It’s very strange,’ he said to me. ‘I can’t understand it.’

‘What can’t you understand?’

‘This country. This damned country. Or perhaps it’s just myself. I came here looking for peace. And I found peace. I came here looking for a good steady job. And I’ve found that too. I came here to get away from political trouble. And there’s none of that here. But sometimes I feel I’m choking to death. I feel I’d rather be in jail in Yugoslavia than free in New Zealand.’

‘Doesn’t your marriage help?’

‘Norma’s a good girl. But there’s something missing there too. We don’t page 643 seem to be able to talk to one another. When I talk about the Revolution she gets angry. Even going to church is different. It’s almost as if you people had a different God. I work hard; and I get better money than I ever got at home. But there’s still something wrong. I feel I’m being brainwashed. I feel I’m getting old before my time. Working, eating, sleeping; working, eating, sleeping – the wheel goes round and round, and there’s no end to it.’

‘If you got up on the slopes of Mount Egmont,’ I said, ‘you may see a rather peculiar thing. You may see a brown sticklike caterpillar embedded in a clump of moss. And when you pick it up, you’ll find it’s not a caterpillar; it’s actually a fungus. Once it was a caterpillar. But the spores of the fungus settled in its guts. And slowly it got sick and died and turned from an animal into a vegetable. Perhaps the caterpillar didn’t mind. Perhaps it had a sense of relief in knowing it was ceasing to be a member of the animal kingdom. At any rate, it looks quite handsome, with its brown polished skin and its guts full of hard fibre and a little shoot sticking out of the top of its head.’

‘That makes sense to me,’ said Jack.

‘It might be happening to you, Jack.’

‘Don’t call me Jack. Call me Ivan.’

‘Kiwis are inclined to turn into vegetable caterpillars,’ I said. ‘They don’t know it’s happening to them; or perhaps they know, and don’t care much. First they become respectable. They stop getting drunk or fighting or chasing women; and of course this seems quite right to them. It even could be right, if they found something better to do. But they don’t. The second stage is when they find something to fill the gap. It could be money. It could be a stable order in the home. It could be sitting on all the committees they can find. It could be just sitting down and groaning. Whatever it is, it’s the beginning of the fungus; because they’re looking for security. The name of the fungus is security. The caterpillar has to welcome the fungus for the fungus to take root. The caterpillar who’s becoming a vegetable hates anyone or anything that tries to pluck the fungus out; because it hurts like hell to have it plucked out, and because the fungus is something solid.’

‘You could be right.’

‘The vegetable caterpillar doesn’t just think life is difficult. He has come to the conclusion that life is impossible. The only salvation he can imagine is through death. He talks on the TV about money or farming or politics, as if he actually understood life. But actually he regards life as an incomprehensible rigmarole. It’s very hard not to become a vegetable caterpillar in this country; especially if you’re living with somebody who secretly wishes to be one. If you try to pluck the fungus out of yourself, or her, it’s quite probable that your wife (or it could be the other way round, a wife to a husband), it’s quite probable they’ll think you’re trying to harm them, that you’ve ceased to love them. War, jail, poverty, death itself – if you’re alive till you die, any of these things are better than being a vegetable caterpillar, Ivan.’

page 644

‘I’m glad to hear you say Ivan. I’m not going to be Jack any longer. Ivan I am, and Ivan I will die. When I was fighting in the Revolution . . .’.

1968 (542)