Anna Kavan: Asylum Piece

Suddenly she is pulled up short. A wire fence, twelve feet high and strong enough to imprison a herd of wild beasts, marks the boundary of the estate. Zèlie is running so blindly that she does not see the wire and crashes against it. Her hands beat on the fine mesh, her awkward body staggers and falls to the ground. She lies collapsed on the pine needles under the indifferent trees. The small harmony of the wood, which her clumsy irruption has broken, slowly renews itself. A wood pigeon starts to coo over her head. That gentle summer sound, which when she was a child always made her think of her mother’s sewing machine, is more than Zèlie can bear. Her heart breaks, she clutches handfuls of the sharp pine needles which pierce her flesh, while from between her thick lips, smeared with saliva and rouge, issues a desolate keening that soon leads her pursuers in the right direction.

It is quite early, just after seven o’clock, on a beautiful summer morning. The sky is pale blue, cloudless, serene and mild, like an immense arch, not awe-inspiring, but full of benevolence and protectiveness. The untroubled lake is opalescent, half solid looking as if one could walk across it. The mountains withdraw their stern faces behind gauzy mist veils. On the first slope of the hillside above the lake the main building of the clinic stands washed in the clear new sunshine, a fine mansion with flowers edging the balconies and a pillared terrace in front. Everything is peaceful, orderly and reassuring. In a steep hayfield above the road some labourers are already at work with their scythes, moving rhythmically, their brown, nude torsos gleaming like statuary. A car comes along the highroad from the town and smoothly loops its way up the private road to the clinic. It stops in front of the main entrance which is in shadow, on the side of the building that faces away from the lake. Here the aspect of the new day is slightly less comfortable, owing perhaps to the dark, wide shade from the house and the huge black trees that point severely away from the world.

A man and a young woman emerge from the car. They have been travelling all night. The man is about forty, rather well-looking in the heavy Roman emperor style, young for his age, in spite of the fact that his face is unshaven and wears a harassed expression. He has the indescribably, almost imperceptibly, false look of a person who is outwardly friendly and kind but inwardly barren and self-absorbed. He is large, and altogether somewhat dishevelled after the journey. The woman, who is several years younger than he, is almost in a state of collapse and has to be helped up the steps into the clinic. Nevertheless, she has managed to achieve a fairly normal appearance. Her green dress is in order, her fair hair is smoothly combed, there is powder on her face and lipstick on her mouth: probably her last living impulse would be to attend to these things. She does not speak or look about her, but passively allows herself to be led into a room facing the lake where there is sunshine and a large vase of antirrhinums on a round table. Here she subsides on to a sofa. The pupils of her eyes are dilated, she sees only a blur of afflicting brightness, she is really hardly conscious of what is going on. The man sits in a chair near her, drumming nervously on the table with his thick fingers. Neither of the two utters a word.

A girl in a white overall brings in a tray of coffee. She is attractively fresh looking and glances with curiosity at the travel-worn strangers, particularly at the woman who now seems to be on the verge of losing consciousness altogether and falling off the sofa on to the floor. The attendant speaks to her, pours out a cup of coffee and puts a cushion under her head. With colossal effort the other pulls herself back to life sufficiently to murmur some half audible comment, shading her eyes with her hand. The nurse goes to the window and quietly closes the shutters: then she goes out of the door with a last backward glance. Now there is only a green, subaqueous dimness left in the room, striated with bands of brightness. The man, in unbroken silence, and, as it were, gloomily, apprehensively, absent-mindedly, swallows the hot coffee, directing from time to time upon his companion a look of automatic anxiety which really conceals a sort of resentment. The other cup of coffee, untasted, slowly steams on the table.

After a few minutes the chief doctor comes into the room. Although it is so early in the morning, he is immaculately turned out and has an air of brisk and vital efficiency about his handsome person. He shakes hands with the visitor who rises to greet him, immediately sinking back heavily into his chair. Then the doctor goes to the fair-haired woman and takes her limp hand. There is an exchange of preliminary talk between the two men. The stranger briefly outlines certain medical details with which the physician has already been made familiar by letter. The large man speaks in the halting manner of someone who forces himself to discuss a matter subconsciously repugnant to him. He often fails to finish a sentence, one gets the impression that his real attention is wandering, that he longs to dissociate himself from the whole situation. The doctor, although he listens with polite attention, realizes that the other, unable or unwilling to acknowledge responsibility, will say nothing of any value, and his dark eyes continually turn to the silent woman across the room. Finally he addresses her:

‘So you think you would like to come to my clinic, madame?’

She, who has appeared oblivious of the talk, reacts unexpectedly to the direct question. Her eyes open wide, a kind of contortion appears on her face as though she might weep or even strike a blow if she had the strength. She pulls herself up on the sofa, clenches her hands, and her voice too is unexpectedly strong as she answers:

‘No, I never wanted to come. I was forced — brought here against my will.’

She cannot help the intense hostility in her tone, which is the result of hysteria, of complete emotional exhaustion, perhaps of despair: it is aimed at her own neurosis and at a whole chain of events which have gone before — not at the man who now speaks to her with a smile. But he, because they are foreigners and strangers to one another, and because they belong besides to ethnological groups fundamentally unsympathetic, he is a little stung, a little displeased. However, he continues to smile as he says with unchanging smoothness:

‘Perhaps you will rest here for a few minutes. There are one or two things I must discuss with monsieur.’

Left alone, the young woman lapses into a state of complete quiescence, her fair hair spread on the brown cushion. She does not move, she hardly appears to breathe; only at long intervals a deep, broken sigh comes from her painted lips, her grey, distracted, unfocused eyes open wide and gaze at the pleasant room like the eyes of a lost person, a person who has lost his memory, or has been incomprehensibly taken prisoner in a strange land.

The two men are absent rather a long time, at least half an hour, but she does not notice. It would be all the same to her if they stayed away the whole morning: drugs and exhaustion have destroyed her appreciation of time. She is not alseep, but neither is she truly awake. Vague fantasies, most of them unpleasant, occupy her submerged brain.

Presently the big man returns with a nurse. The doctor sends a message that he has been called away but will visit his new patient later in the morning. Supported by the two others, the young woman slowly traverses a wide corridor. Now there are signs of life in the building. A few patients, accompanied by an attendant, are returning from the gymnasium. Some of them look curiously at the blonde victim, soon to be their companion, who does not return their gaze: most likely she does not see them. The man with her is clearly uneasy, frowning and biting his nails, and seeking security in talk with the tranquil, matter-of-fact nurse in her white overall.