Titus Awakes

7

Living Refound

AS THE SUN entered the lives of his unknown benefactors, and of himself, Titus longed to renew the grasp, so long subdued, that he held on life.

He no longer felt it necessary to assert ‘I am me – I am Titus’.

The old woman, who was a part of his life now, nodded her head with pleasure at every new gesture he made, as he found his way from his bed to the door unaided, as he sang, as he twirled her gently and slowly in his arms, round and round the stone floor in a dance that brought back to her, inevitably, echoes of a long-distant youth.

The silent woman, with her huge eyes, sat still as an Eastern goddess on a bench by the open door, and when his newfound vigour expended itself her hand moved imperceptibly to take his, as he seated himself beside her.

‘Is it love?’ he wondered. But the need to make recompense was uppermost now; in a practical way to repay the care given to him so generously by people to whom poverty was as much a part of living as being born and dying. The two pallet beds had been the only resting place for the tired limbs of the old woman, and the shepherds and huntsmen whose voices he had heard. The generosity of the poor knew no bounds. And now, at last, Titus knew to whom he was beholden – the faceless and the generous ones who had given, with no expectancy of return.

He forced himself outside for the first morning. The lit world nearly annihilated him, but he slid down the grass slopes longing to give of all that was within him; to thank in a physical way.

He ploughed into life, as though it was water, diving and coming up again into the air, breathing life, new and rare. He sought sounds. He traced them down a small path, hedge-lined, where small birds nested, until he came to an open space where he saw men with two-handed saws, working through, rhythmically, huge boles of trees. They were surrounded by the neat, stacked results, like intricate piles of matches, but these would not fall at a touch.

Titus joined the men. They clapped as they saw him, and he indicated by a gesture, so learned was he in mime, that he also wished to take one of the saws.

An elderly man, stained by the elements and wrinkled, stood aside, and also by a gesture indicated to Titus that he could take his place.

Everything that is mastered appears to the spectator to be easy in execution and Titus, with the ebullience of an amateur, took hold of the saw that had been given up to him. At a word, quite incomprehensible to Titus, from the man at the other end of the saw, he started to move his arms. He had seen the rhythm and the ease, and he thought that he, too, would slip into the same movements, but he was clumsy to the point of self-embarrassment, and the saw wriggled like a worm under his inexpert guidance. He felt an arm take hold of him, rather as a mother might guide her child in the use of a pencil, and with immense patience his arm was gently moved, backwards and forwards, in duet with the man at the other end, who urged Titus on.

Very gradually the rhythm came to him, but at the same time the physical exertion overwhelmed him. As he sank to the carpet of mossy grass in exhaustion he felt the strong arm that had held his behind the saw slowly change to a soft loving arm. He turned to see the two black pools enveloping him and a dew of pride overflowing down the pale cheeks.

He was ashamed of his weakness and almost roughly edged his hand away as he strove to rise again from beside the girl. His arms ached with the new-forced exertion. His body was weak and his brain angry with frustration.

He knew that he had exerted himself as much as his tired body was capable of, and he crept back to his bed, humbled, and lay with his arms over his face to shut out what he thought of as his defeat.