EDITORIAL

I recently reviewed "Crisis and Criticism" by Alick West (Lawrence and Wishart £4) for the "Labour Monthly". The Introduction, by Elizabeth West, quotes him as rejecting the slogan "Culture is a weapon in the fight for socialism", and quotes from his autobiography as follows:"I said that culture, as Caudwell had written of poetry in "Illusion and Reality" heightens our consciousness of the world we want to win and our energy to win it. In this sense it was true that culture is a weapon in the fight for socialism. But the truth depended on recognition of the greater truth that socialism is a weapon in the fight for culture. For our final aim was not the establishment of a political and economic structure, but the heightening of human life. Without this recognition, the slogan became a perversion of the truth, since it degraded culture into a means to a political end." "Voices takes this stand. Of course, culture is a weapon in the fight for socialism: but of course Socialism takes its justification from the necessity of creating the social conditions in which men can live free from want, free to live life more fully.

From this issue "Voices" will be quarterly, and its format will be stabilised in the shape and size of Voices 6 and 7. When we prepared the issue of Voices 7 we had material sufficient to have produced three or four such issues. We can never have too many contributors. The more people who write for us, the wider our range, the greater our appeal. We try to deal sympathetically with all contributors, but haven't the resources to do so as fully as circumstances demand. One 'thing we want to arrange as a regular feature, the meeting of writers and readers of "Voices" where writers will read their material and dialogue about it can follow.

With this issue we will be continuing our approach to Trade Unions and Labour Party Organizations, to student bodies and English staffs at Training Colleges. For the first time, we are beginning an experimental approach to a limited number of Left bookshops.

Finally the flow of generous donations continues, and we have every confidence that a growing number of friends will fight to keep "Voices" singing, arguing, shouting, whispering, in various ways adding their sounds to the fight for a better world.

Ben Ainley

THE BEARER OF CHAIRS

(translated by C. Cobham)

You may believe me or not believe me, but forgive me if I say that what you think about it is of no interest to me at all. It is enough for me that I have seen him and talked to him, standing face to face with him, and that I have seen the chair, and thought that I was witnessing a miracle. But what was more miraculous, and so awful, was that neither the man nor the chair nor the story made anyone stop, not one of the people passing in Opera Square at the time, nor anyone in the crowds going to and fro in Republic Street or anywhere in Cairo, perhaps not even one person in the whole world.

It was an extraordinary chair which looked as if it had descended from another world or been built for a festival, so huge that it was like a whole establishment in itself. Its broad seat, softly furnished with leopard skin and silk cushions, would have evoked in you, had you seen it, an overwhelming desire to sit down on it, even if only for a moment. It was a moving chair, which went forward slowly at the pace of a religious procession and seemed to move of its own volition: it would have aroused fear and wonder in you, and you might have prostrated yourself before it, and offered sacrifices to it, as if it had been an idol. But at the last minute I noticed, between the four massive legs with feet shaped like gold hooves, a fifth leg. This leg was small and thin, a strange sight in the midst of that monstrous luxury, and then I saw that it was no leg, but a slightly-built man upon whose body the sweat had formed ditches and canals and made the hair grow. into woods and forests. You must believe me for I swear by all that's holy that I'm not lying, not exaggerating, but just telling you what I saw, because I can't help it. I wondered how such a thin, fragile creature could carry a chair that weighed at least a ton and probably much more. It seemed like a conjuring trick, but prolonged scrutiny at close quarters revealed that no trickery was involved, and that the man was really carrying the chair, and moving along with it.

The thing that I found so amazing and so strange, and that really frightened me, was that not one of the passers-by in Opera Square or in Republic Street, or possibly anywhere in Cairo, showed the least surprise, or treated it as if it were anything out an ordinary event that they had ceased to question, as if the chair were as light and mobile as a butterfly carried by a young boy, who passed by them and was gone. I watched the people and the chair and the man, expecting to catch sight of a raised eyebrow or lips drawn in in wonder, or to hear someone uttering a cry of astonishment, but there was absolutely nothing.

Just when I had begun to feel that the whole situation was too incredible and complicated to think about any longer, the man with his burden came within a few inches of me, and for the first time I could see that he had a good face in spite of its many wrinkles, although it was impossible to tell his age. I noticed a much more striking fact about him: he was naked except for a girdle tied firmly round his waist, from which hung a piece of canvas covering him in front and behind. It was enough to make you pause and realise, as your mind gave back echoes like an empty room, that in these clothes the man was alien not only to Cairo but to the whole age, and that you had seen drawings of men like him in History books or among archaeological remains. So I was surprised when he gave a submissive smile, like the smiles beggars give, and then spoke:

"God have mercy on your father, my son. Have you seen the good Batah Ra?

(Batah Ra - an ancient Egyptian king, supposed to possess divine power.)

Was he speaking hieroglyphics in Arabic, or Arabic in hieroglyphics? Could the man be an ancient Egyptian? I turned upon him.

"Just a minute. You're not going to say that you' re an ancient Egyptian?"

"There's no such thing as ancient Egyptians and modern Egyptians. I'm just an Egyptian."

"And what's that chair?"

"It's my load. But why do you think I'm going around looking for Batah Ra? So that he can give me the order to put it down, as he gave me the order to carry it about. I'm exhausted."

"Would you say you've been carrying it for long?"

"For a long, long time. I don't know how long."

"For a year?"

"What do you mean a year, my son? Tell anyone who asks you, a year plus a few thousand."

"A few thousand what?"

"Years."

"Since the time of the pyramids, you mean?"

"Before, since the time of the Nile."

"What do you mean, the time of the Nile?"

"From the days when they didn't call it the Nile, and they moved the capital from the mountain to the river bank. The good Batah Ra came to me and said:

'Carrier, carry.' I carried. And since then I have gone all over the place looking for him, so that he could say to me, 'Put it down', but from that day to this I have never found him."

All power and indeed all inclination to 'feel astonishment had quite left me. If he had been able to carry a chair of such great size and weight all that time, he could go on carrying it for thousands of years, without provoking astonishment or opposition, but only a question:

"Suppose you can't find the good Batah Ra, will you go on carrying it?"

"What else can I do? I'm a carrier, and I've been entrusted with it. I had an order to carry it, so how can I put it down without another order?" Perhaps out of anger.

"Put it down. Aren't you fed up? Aren't you tired? Throw it down. Break it. Burn it. Chairs are made to carry people not people to carry chairs."

"I can't. I've got used to carrying it. I carry it to earn my living."

"So what? Instead of wearing yourself out and breaking your back, why don't you throw it down. You should have done it a long time ago."

"That's what you think, because you're on the outside. You're not a carrier and it doesn't matter to you. I'm a carrier and I've been put in charge of it, so it's my responsibility."

when, for God's sake?"

"Until the command comes from Batah Ra."

"He's as dead as a doornail."

"From his successor or his deputy, from his great grandchildren, from anyone with a sign from him"

"All right. I'm ordering you to put it down."

"Your order will be obeyed. I'm much obliged to you. But have you seen him?"

"I haven't."

"Then I beg your pardon."

But I cried out to stop him, for he had begun to move away. I had noticed something like an announcement or a message fastened to the front of the chair. To be precise, it was a piece of gazelle hide with ancient writing on it, that looked like the early script of the Holy Books. With some difficulty I read:

This is Batah Ra's order, Bearer of Chairs. An order given clearly at the same time as he ordered you to carry the chair, and sealed with his signature in his writing."

All this I said with great joy, excessive joy so that I felt almost strangled with emotion. Since I had set eyes on the chair and learned its story, I had felt as if I were carrying it, and had carried it down thousands of years, and as if it were I whose back was being broken, and now it was as if the delight which had seized me was for the release which had finally come.

With bowed head the man listened. Not a tremor passed through him. He just waited, still bowed, for me to finish, and as soon as I had done so he raised his head. I had been waiting for some demonstration of joy, even an explosion of delight, but none came.

"This order' s written above your head there and it must have been written ages ago."

"But I can't read."

"Haven't I just read it for you?"

"I'll only believe it if you give me a sign. Did you bring a sign?"

And when I didn't answer, he muttered angrily as he turned to go, "You've just been wasting my time. All that for nothing. And the day's short enough as it is."

I stood watching him. The chair had begun to go forward at its steady, dignified pace, as if it were moving by itself, and the man had become once more the thin fifth leg, strong enough to move it alone.

I stood watching him as he went away from me, panting and grunting, his sweat running freely. I stood bewildered, asking myself if I should follow him and kill him, to give vent to my frustration, if I should rush forward and push the chair off his shoulders forcing him to rest in spite of himself, or if I should content myself with feelings of annoyance and irritation towards him or calm down and merely bewail his condition?

Or perhaps, indeed, I should pour blame upon myself because I do not know the sign?

Usuf Idris

(Translated by Catherine Cobham from a collection of short stories by Usuf Idris called House of Flesh, published in Cairo in 1971. This story was first published individually in a Cairo magazine at the end of 1968).