Saving Agnes by Rachel Cusk

Author:Rachel Cusk
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Picador
Published: 2015-01-16T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

‘TRY four,’ said Nina, popping open a can of beer.

A small volcano of foam erupted through the aperture and she swiftly applied her mouth to it to catch the spillage. It was Sunday, and they were gathered indifferently together in the sitting-room like the wreckage of a rough weekend.

Merlin groaned and picked up the remote control, which he aimed at the television set. A picture of a large monkey nonchalantly scratching itself appeared on the screen.

‘Wildlife,’ he said. ‘We were watching this before, Nina. You told me to turn over, remember?’

‘Oh, yeah. How about three?’

‘Game show. Large spinning wheel, ugly spectacle of human greed and suffering.’

‘Two?’

‘Documentary on rise of capitalist economies. Same thing.’

‘One. Put it in one, Merlin. We have no choice.’

‘Walls have fallen over such things.’ They had spent most of the afternoon watching the liberation of Eastern Europe on television. Merlin flicked the remote control again. ‘Look, one’s a Western. Everyone happy with this? Agnes?’

‘Fine,’ said Agnes. She had been strangely disturbed by the scenes on the streets of Berlin and Budapest. Through the jiggling of a hand-held camera, they had witnessed the rough, unscripted love of humanity for itself; a far cry from the world of svelte, film-star embraces and edited dialogue in which she lost herself nightly. She had felt almost embarrassed by the reality of it.

‘I love these movies,’ said Nina contentedly. ‘The women always look so amazing. Orange hair and beauty spots. Really fake.’

‘They look like inflatable dolls,’ Merlin agreed. ‘Maybe we’ll start getting Easterns now. Frontier dramas with consumer durables.’

‘They’re propaganda films really, aren’t they?’ said Nina, still watching the screen. ‘Like those ones they made about British factories during the war.’

‘No, those were morale boosters. Westerns are just fiction, really. No one believes it was like that any more.’

‘Well, that’s what I said!’ replied Nina petulantly. ‘Propaganda. It’s just outlived its significance, that’s all. The only difference between these and the war films is that we still believe we run the world.’

‘I don’t think you can compare them like that.’ Merlin put his hands behind his head and looked at Nina expectantly.

‘Why not?’

‘Well, for a start it sounds like a conspiracy theory, which suggests a lack of moral vision.’

‘Oh, really?’ said Nina sarcastically. ‘So, when we butcher and proselytise it’s enlightenment, right? But when anyone else does it, it’s persecution. That sounds like a moral hallucination to me.’

‘We needed to win the war,’ Merlin replied calmly. ‘And I would go so far as to say it was one of those rare historical situations when there was a clear case of right and wrong. And we were right.’

‘Oh, come on!’ said Nina. ‘Do you really believe we charged in there for charity?’

‘Charity?’ exclaimed Merlin. ‘That’s an outrageous thing to say! Tell that to six million Jews.’

‘We didn’t care about them, did we? They were politically secondary! We were more worried about munitions factories than camps.’

Agnes stood up, white-faced.

‘Can’t we just enjoy the film?’ she said. Her voice warbled nervously. ‘I mean, can’t

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