Atdtda31: May no longer ask, 890-891

[Paul Nightingale]

Confirmation that Reef has not been dreaming: "They accompanied the Irish
Anarchist ..." etc. The narrative returns to Cyprian and Yashmeen, but the
action has moved on, and Yashmeen's "premonition" echoes that of Wolfe Tone
("Something truly terrible ...") above the section break. It is interesting
that references to revolutionary struggle are set against the ever-evolving
relationship between Yashmeen, Cyprian and Reef: crudely put, public history
and the private sphere of personal relations.

In 60.16 Wolfe Tone speaks of "Governments ... mak[ing] life more unliveable
..." etc; here, Cyprian has "an apprehension that something was coming to an
end". The future that Wolfe Tone invokes is unimaginable and therefore
unwriteable; just as unwriteable (here, "unknowable" or "unaccountable") is
whatever has happened to Cyprian. Again, Reef (he "[doesn't] argue") goes
along with Wolfe Tone's rejection of him; at the start of 60.17, the
narrative, on Cyprian's behalf, ponders "why one might choose not to embrace
..." etc, highlighting the question of agency. 

Absent, one imagines gambling, Reef returns at the top of 891 and ignores
Cyprian and Yashmeen: "Once he would have taken their tableau as an
invitation ..." etc. So they have all moved on, ie from the final moments of
60.11 on 882-883: and further down the page on 891 Yashmeen's pregnancy is
announced with a reference to that earlier scene. Thus far her relationship
with Reef/Cyprian has played outside history; each feels the pull of
whatever they have left behind; yet the section/chapter will end with her
adopting an overview "at an altitude that made the Eurasian continent a map
of itself".

Back to the exchange between Yashmeen and Cyprian in Reef's absence (bottom
of 890-top of 891), and the possibility that Yashmeen's "premonition" refers
to the child with three parents as revealed on 891. It seems that Yashmeen
"may no longer ask" Cyprian to demonstrate his commitment to her (890), the
question is no longer possible, even if the words might be spoken (and the
words 'may' and 'might' are not interchangeable, of course). This in turn
means that any response from Cyprian is also impossible. And then: "...
obliging him to look into her face till she slapped his own away" (top of
891) recalls Cyprian's first visit to Yashmeen's room, where a similar
"tableau" ends when he breaks eye-contact "as if before a danger he could
not bear to see" (875). That scene concludes on 876 with "one of those
silences" and an observation that "although they were the same people ... at
the same time they were two entirely different people". Earlier still,
recalling his "disorientation at seeing Yashmeen again" (869), Cyprian
"[feels] the sadness peculiar to the contemplation of recent times
unrecapturable" (870).

Which brings us to the one moment in this entire chapter when Yashmeen is
featured alone, unaccompanied by Reef or Cyprian, the paragraph beginning:
"One day at Biarritz ..." etc (891). Here, Yashmeen, "drifting in the
streets", might interrupt the men as they dance; instead she recalls the
past "when they were two entirely different people". She considers "making
herself known" as on 881 when she interrupts their "dalliance"; but decides
that her knowledge of this moment should be kept from them, preferring to
indulge herself in (wistful?) recollection of Noellyn and Cambridge.