Anna Kavan - Asylum Piece

I followed him, full of indignation and eager to reclaim my property. In the street, pedestrians came between us and I was unable to catch up with him until he had turned the corner into a narrow alley full of parked cars. It occurred to me that the man was out of his mind: I couldn’t believe he intended to steal the suitcase; he looked far too respectable for that.

‘What’s the meaning of all this? Where are you taking my bag?’ I said, catching hold of his sleeve. We were just beside a large black limousine which stood in the rank of waiting cars. My companion rested the bag on the running board.

‘I see that you haven’t understood me,’ he said: and now for the first time he spoke clearly so that I could really hear what he was saying. ‘Here is my authorization. It was merely out of consideration for you that I refrained from producing it inside where everyone would have seen it.’ He took a pale blue form out of his pocket and held it towards me. But in the uncertain cross light from the street lamps and the cars I only had time to make out some unintelligible legal phrases, and my own name embellished with elaborate scrolls and flourishes in the old-fashioned style, before he hastily put the stiff paper away again.

I was opening my mouth to ask him to let me look at it properly, when the chauffeur of the black car suddenly climbed out of the driving seat and picked up my case with the clear intention of putting it inside the vehicle.

‘That belongs to me — kindly leave it alone!’ I commanded, at the same time wondering what I should do if the man refused to obey my order. But, as if the whole matter were of perfect indifference to him, he at once let go the handle and returned to his seat where he immediately appeared to become absorbed in an evening newspaper.

Now for the first time I observed the official coat-of-arms emblazoned on the glossy black door panel of the car, and I saw too that the windows were made of frosted glass. And for the first time I was aware of a faint anxiety; not because I thought for an instant that the situation was serious, but because I had always heard what a tedious, interminable business it was to extricate oneself from official red-tape once one had become even remotely involved with it.

Feeling that there was not a moment to be lost, that I must make my explanations and escape before I became any further entangled in this ridiculous mesh of misunderstanding, I began to talk to the elderly man who was standing patiently beside me. I spoke quietly and in a reasonable tone, telling him that I was not blaming him in the least, but that a mistake had certainly been made; I was not the person mentioned on the document he had shown me which probably referred to somebody of the same name. After all, my name was not an uncommon one; I could think of at least two people off-hand — a film actress and a writer of short stories — who were called by it. When I had finished speaking I looked at him anxiously to see how he had taken my arguments. He appeared to be impressed, nodded his head once or twice in a reflective way, but made no reply. Encouraged by his attitude, I decided on a bold move, picked up my suitcase and walked rapidly back to the restaurant. He did not attempt to stop me, nor, as far as I could see, was he following me, and I congratulated myself on having escaped so easily. It seemed as if boldness were what was most needed in dealing with officialdom.

R was still sitting at the table where I had left him. My spirits had now risen high, I felt cheerful, lively and full of confidence as I sat down — bringing my bag with me this time — and related the peculiar incidents that had just taken place. I told the story quite well, smiling at the absurdity of it; I really think I made it sound very amusing. But when, at the end, I looked for R’s smile of appreciation, I was astonished to see that he remained grave. He did not look at me, but sat with downcast eyes, drawing an invisible pattern on the cloth with his coffee spoon.

‘Well — don’t you think it was funny that they should make such a mistake?’ I asked, trying to force his amusement.

Now indeed he looked up at me, but with such a serious face and with eyes so troubled, that all my assurance and good spirits suddenly evaporated into thin air. Just at that moment I noticed the ugly waiter hovering near, almost as if he were trying to overhear our conversation, and now a feeling of dread slowly distilled itself in my veins.

‘Why don’t you say something?’ I burst out in agitation as R still remained silent. ‘Surely it’s not possible that you think — that there was no mistake…? That I am the person they really wanted?’

My friend put down the spoon and laid his hand on my arm. The affectionate touch, so full of sympathy and compassion, demoralized me even more than his words.

‘I think, if I were you,’ he said slowly and as if with difficulty, ‘I think I would go and find out just what the charge is against you. After all, you will easily be able to prove your identity if there has really been a mistake. It will only create a bad impression if you refuse to go.’

Now that I have so much time on my hands in which to think over past events, I sometimes wonder whether R was right: whether I would not have done better to keep my freedom as long as possible and even at the risk of prejudicing the final outcome of the affair. But at the time I allowed him to persuade me. I have always had a high opinion of his judgment, and I accepted it then. I felt, too, that I should forfeit his respect if I evaded the issue. But when we went out into the hall and I saw the neat, inconspicuous man still impassively, impersonally waiting, I began to wonder, as I have wondered ever since, whether the good opinion of anybody in the whole world is worth all that I have had to suffer and must still go on suffering — for how long; oh, for how long?

How slowly the minutes pass in the winter night: and yet the hours themselves do not seem so long. Already the church clock is calling the hour again in its dull country voice that sounds half stupefied with the cold. I lie in bed, and like a well-drilled prisoner, an old-timer, I resign myself to the familiar pattern of sleeplessness. It is a routine I know only too well.

My jailer is in the room with me, but he cannot accuse me of being rebellious or troublesome. I lie as still as if the bed were my coffin, not wishing to attract his attention. Perhaps if I don’t move for a whole hour he will let me sleep.

Naturally, I cannot put on the light. The room is as dark as a box lined with black velvet that someone has dropped into a frozen well. Everything is quiet except when the house-bones creak in the frost or a lump of snow slides from the roof with a sound like a stealthy sigh. I open my eyes in the darkness. The eyelids feel stiff as if tears had congealed upon them in rime. If only I could see my jailer it would not be so bad. It would be a relief to know just where he is keeping watch. At first I fancy that he is standing like a dark curtain beside the door. The ceiling is lifted off the room as if it were the lid of a box and he is towering up, taller than an elm tree, up towards the icy mountains of the moon. But then it seems to me that I have made a mistake and that he is crouching on the floor quite close to me.

An iron band has been clamped round my head, and just at this moment the jailer strikes the cold metal a ringing blow which sends needles of pain into my eye sockets. He is showing his disapproval of my inquiring thoughts; or perhaps he merely wishes to assert his authority over me. At any rate, I hastily shut my eyes again, and lie motionless, hardly daring to breathe, under the bed clothes.

To occupy my mind I begin to run through the formulae which the foreign doctor taught me when I first came under suspicion. I repeat to myself that there is no such person as a victim of sleeplessness, that I stay awake simply because I prefer to continue my thoughts. I try to imagine myself in the skin of a newborn infant, without future or past. If the jailer looks into my mind now, I think, he cannot raise any objection to what is going on there. The face of the Dutch doctor, thin and sharp and hard like the face of a sea captain, passes before me. Suddenly a cock crows near by with a sound fantastic, unearthly, in this world still locked in darkness and frost. The cock’s crow flowers sharply in three flaming points, a fiery fleur-de-lis blossoming momentaneously in the black field of night.