Anna Kavan: Asylum Piece

Perhaps I do not catch a single glimpse of the ancient for days at a time. Only the tame grey animal confronts me, and seems as if it has rolled itself into a ball and is about to purr like a cat. Everything appears simple and above-board; but I am not taken in so easily. I watch, I am on the alert, I turn round suddenly to catch what is behind me. And sooner or later, sure enough, there, beyond the new innocuousness, is the old head rearing up like a hoary serpent, charged with antique, sly, unmentionable malevolence; waiting its time.

If some fortune teller had predicted all the reverses I was to suffer this winter I should have laughed outright at such an exaggerated catalogue of evil. And yet, in point of fact, it would be almost impossible to exaggerate the number of misfortunes which have overtaken me during the last few months. And all due to the subterranean activities of a secret enemy whose very name is unknown to me! Could anything be more heart-breaking — more cruelly unfair? I am ready to burst into tears at the mere thought of such senseless injustice. But, of course, it’s no good lamenting or making complaints or protestations to which nobody pays any attention and which may even, for all I know, be used against one in the ultimate issue.

It’s this obscurantist atmosphere that is one of the worst aspects of the whole business. If only one knew of what and by whom one were accused, when, where, and by what laws one were to be judged, it would be possible to prepare one’s defence systematically and to set about things in a sensible fashion. But as it is one hears nothing but conflicting rumours, everything is hidden and uncertain, liable to change at a moment’s notice or without any notice at all.

How is it possible not to lose hope in these circumstances? As the days drag on without bringing forth anything more definite than a number of contradictory whispers or perhaps some equivocal and incomprehensible official communication of which one can’t make head or tail, it’s extremely difficult not to despair. One is forced into a position of inactivity, of passive waiting, of nerve-racking suspense, with absolutely no relief except an occasional visit to one’s official advisor — an interview which is just as likely to plunge one into utter dejection as to buoy one up with fugitive hopes.

And through all this one is expected to carry on one’s personal existence as usual; to work and to perform social and family duties as if the background of one’s life were still perfectly normal: that is what is hardest of all to bear. Naturally one gets nervy and irritable and absent-minded; one’s friends gradually start to avoid one; one’s work suffers, and then one’s health begins to break down. One loses sleep, it becomes harder amd harder to take any interest in conversation, books, music, plays, eating and drinking, love-making, even in one’s personal appearance. Ultimately one becomes completely cut off from reality, alone in a world in which there is nothing to do but wait, day after day, for some fate at which one can only guess but which, in any case, can scarcely be less tolerable than the preceding uncertainty.

That is the state of unreality in which I have been living now for some time. Perhaps it is not really so very long; perhaps not more than a month or so; one loses the sense of time as well as everything else in this wretched condition. It seems ages since I have been able to concentrate on my work: and yet I am obliged to put in the same number of hours each day at my desk.

What do I do with myself during these interminable hours which once used to pass so swiftly? My workroom overlooks a garden, a small green space containing three trees; a walnut, a cherry, and a third rather spindly tree, a variety of prunus, I fancy, of which I do not know the correct name though someone once told me that it was a Siberian plum. When life turns against one, one tends to seek a sort of timid solace in simple things, and I am not ashamed to admit that my principal occupation recently and almost my only pleasure has been connected with the birds which during the winter frequent this small enclosed piece of ground. I have taken lately to throwing out an occasional handful of grain on to the grass as well as scraps of bread and other food left over from the meals for which I no longer have any appetite. The weather all through January has been exceedingly cold — I can’t help feeling that there is some connection between this bitter cold and my own sufferings — there has been snow on the ground practically continuously; a thing which I never remember seeing in previous winters. On account of these severe weather conditions an unusual number of small birds has congregated in the garden — great tits, blue tits, cole tits, marsh tits, long-tailed tits, greenfinches and chaffinches, as well, of course, as robins, starlings, blackbirds, thrushes and innumerable sparrows.

A human being can only endure depression up to a certain point; when this point of saturation is reached it becomes necessary for him to discover some element of pleasure, no matter how humble or on how low a level, in his environment if he is to go on living at all. In my case these insignificant birds with their subdued colourings have provided just sufficient distraction to keep me from total despair. Each day I find myself spending longer and longer at the window watching their flights, their quarrels, their mouse-quick flutterings, their miniature feuds and alliances. Curiously enough, it is only when I am standing in front of the window that I feel any sense of security. While I am watching the birds I believe that I am comparatively immune from the assaults of life. The very indifference to humanity of these wild creatures affords me a certain safeguard. Where all else is dangerous, hostile and liable to inflict pain, they alone can do me no injury because, probably, they are not even aware of my existence. The birds are at once my refuge and my relaxation.

A few days ago I was standing as usual in front of the window with my hands on the broad sill. It was the middle of the morning and I ought to have been at work, but a particularly hopeless mood of dejection had overtaken me and I had abandoned even the pretence of concentration. Perhaps you will wonder why I don’t remember which day of the week it was: I can only answer that all days are so alike to me now that I really can’t tell one from another. I remember that it was rather foggy, that the branches of the trees were motionless except when they were transiently stirred by the light weight of a bird, and that the half-frozen snow which had been lying about for so long, though not actually dirty, had acquired a sort of unsparkling deadness, very wearisome to the eye.

The woman who looks after me entered the room with some trivial message or question to which I replied without looking round. She is a good soul who has served me well for a number of years, but during the last few weeks a morbid sensitiveness has made it increasingly difficult for me to look her in the face. Does she know or does she not know the doom which is hanging over me? Sometimes I think that she knows nothing; yet, surely, unobservant as she is, she must notice a change in me. And sometimes it seems to me that she goes out of her way to provide little titbits for my meals, that she prepares my food with special care as if trying to tempt me to eat, and I fancy that I catch on her elderly face an expression that might almost be one of pity.

On this occasion of which I am writing I avoided her eye and continued to stare into the garden, feeling too miserable even to maintain before her a semblance of industry. And suddenly, my aimless gaze, shifting about the muffled, uncoloured scene, was caught sharply and held amazed, incredulous, charmed, by an appearance so brilliant, so unexpected, that it was as if two tiny meteors of living flame had suddenly plunged through the dull atmosphere. It is impossible for me to describe adequately the vividness of those two small birds as they alighted among the sparse twigs of the prunus in the sad, misty half-light of the winter day. Not only their gay feathers, but their movements, their airy wing-sweeps, light as the pirouettes of extremely delicate dancers, gave an impression of unearthly buoyancy, of joyous animation that seemed to belong to visitants from a blither world.