Colin Wilson - Ritual in the Dark

I only came to tell you that the policeman seems pretty annoyed. Throwing bottles out of windows causes a lot of trouble…

Tell me, my young friend, do you believe in mortification of the flesh?

He felt suddenly violently angry, and would have enjoyed snatching up the gramophone and smashing it on the perspiring bald head. It was a feeling that he was somehow the victim of a drunk old man. He crossed the room to the door and tried it; it had been locked and the key removed.

The old man said thickly: Sit down and have a drink. What part of Germany do you come from?

Sorme turned round, and was suddenly shocked and repelled by the blotchy nakedness; a tainted spittle of disgust rose in his throat. The old man poured gin into the tumbler, and then inverted the glass over the neck of the bottle again. He shook the bottle so that the glass clinked, and smiled:

You can't get out that way.

He flung out his right arm, pointing; Sorme followed the direction of his finger to a wall cupboard. The door stood open.

Do you know what this is, my young friend, my little German friend?

No.

'Is a map, isn't it? A map. But do you know what it is?

There was a map pinned to the inside of the door; it seemed to be drawn in ink.

Of course you don' know. An' I'm hot goin' a tell you… It's my secret…

He crossed the room quickly and went out of the fire door again. The old man called: Hi, wait a minute! Sorme went down the fire escape and climbed back into his own room.

Well? the girl said.

It's no good; he's drunk. You'll have to tell the policeman it won't happen again. He's too drunk to listen.

She turned and left the room without speaking. He closed the window and knelt by the gas fire, warming his hands. From somewhere downstairs he could hear a deep male voice speaking. The gramophone above was playing again. He was puzzled by the violence of the killing instinct that the old man had aroused in him. Even now, it would have given him pleasure to stand in the doorway and empty a revolver into the repulsive nakedness. The strength of his own hatred surprised him.

His hands were grimy, from touching the rail of the fire escape. He washed them in the kitchen, gradually relaxing as he leaned over the sink, his hands in the warm water.

When he came down again the girl was waiting in his room. She stared back from the bookcase as he came in: Oh — I'm sorry. I hope you don't mind me coming in…

Not at all. What happened?

He says he will have to report it. That's all.

Will you have a glass of wine?

She looked as if about to refuse. He took the bottle out of the cupboard, saying: I'm having one.

Please. Just a little, then.

It was the bottle he had opened the day before and was still nearly full. He poured wine into a tumbler and handed it to her.

Sit down.

Thank you.

She sat in the armchair by the fire. She had a strong, pointed face, with high cheekbones. Her mouth was full, but strong, not sensual. If she had been slimmer she might have been almost beautiful. Her English was perfect.

What do you think we ought to do about him?

He said: I'm all for killing him. He disgusts me.

What did he say?

Nothing intelligible. He was pretty drunk. He was sitting on the floor in the nude.

Nude. You mean naked?

That's it.

He pulled a hard chair up opposite her and sat down.

I don't understand him. It is strange that he has not killed himself. He drinks all the time.

Who is he? Do you know?

He was an engineer. His wife died. I think he has money. Sometimes he talks in Hyde Park about religion.

What about religion?

I don't know. Some Russian sect who believe in dancing round a bonfire. And he talks a lot when he's drunk. About murder.

Murder?

Yes. He pretends he has a great secret… about — what do you call him — Jacques L'Eventreur?

Jacques… Jack the Disemboweller? Oh, you mean Jack the Ripper What does he say about him?

I don't know. He talks a lot when he is drunk.

Why does Mrs Miller tolerate him? Why doesn't she throw him out?

Why should she? She doesn't have to live in the same house with him. He pays three pounds a week for that room. No one else would pay so much.

He finished his wine, and poured some more. She had not touched hers yet. She said: He frightens me. Once he stole a pair of my shoes.. There was a ring at the front doorbell. She jumped up immediately:

I have to go. That is for me.

Did you get them back?

Oh, yes. I found them in his cupboard. Goodbye. Thank you for the wine.

Not at all. Come up some evening when you don't have to go out.

He sat, staring into the gas fire, then leaned over and picked up her untouched wine. It tasted warm. He said aloud: I must get a woman. I'm getting sex-starved. He thought of the women who stood outside the Camden tube, their eyes following the men who walked past; then realised immediately that he had no desire for a prostitute. It would have destroyed his appetite, like a meal in a Rowton House. He finished the wine, and sat down at the typewriter.

That night, the vastation happened again. He woke up feeling hot and slightly drunk. He was still fully clothed, lying on the bed. Opposite his eyes, the radio droned softly; he had fallen asleep listening to a late night chamber concert. The room was in darkness, except for the light from the wavelength panel, and the red glow of the neon lights from the cinema over the way. His mind formed the question as he stared across the room: What am I doing here? It seemed arbitrary; he might have been anywhere or anything. A sense of alien-ness oppressed him, and he tried to focus his attention on it to discover its precise nature. Immediately, an orgasm of fear twisted his heart, and drained the strength out of his will. It was an awareness that his own existence was not capable of detaching itself from existence to question it. Existence faced him like a blank wall.

There was an instinctive desire to penetrate the wall, to assert his reality beyond it, and a terror that came with the recognition that he was trapped in existence; that no detachment from it was possible. The terror was like losing an arm: too violent to hurt.

He came back to his own existence, lying on the bed, with a jerk of relief. He swung himself off the bed, and crossed the room to switch off the radio, thinking: Absurd or not, I choose to be here.

Back in bed again, he tried to recreate the fear, and the perception that caused it, and failed. It had drained him, like sexual fulfilment, and his mind formed words instead of sensations. The only thing he could recall was the sense of alien-ness, a feeling: I do not belong here. He wondered vaguely, losing the struggle to keep awake, whether the insight was not some kind of guardian, a benevolence whose aspect was nothingness.

He woke up again in the night, and felt curiously disgusted with his body, as if it were already dead flesh. Suddenly, he realised what it was that disgusted him; it was the idea of his own non-existence.

He woke up with an immediate sense that something was happening. He looked at his watch; it was half past ten. Someone was banging on the door of the old man's room.

The voice of the German girl called:

Open the door, please. Someone wants to speak to you.

The old man's voice shouted something. It sounded muffled. The knocking was repeated. The old man called again; this time his voice sounded clearer:

Who is it?

A male voice said: Police officers. Would you mind opening your door?

Sorme sat up in bed, thinking immediately of the bottle. There was a noise from overhead, a movement of bare feet on the floor. Then something heavy moved, an article of furniture. The male voice called again.