Stig Dagerman - Island of the Doomed

Yes, everyone seemed to be dreaming, hoping for a happy end, or just out of despair: there are so many reasons for dreaming. - One of them was not dreaming, though; he’d disappeared an hour earlier. He was still roaming through the jungle, indeed, as it was not until these last six months of his life that he’d ever seen so many trees, such high grass, such marvellous plants, everything was jungle; every step he took, he bent cautiously to avoid being hit in the forehead by the pinacles of the grass; he was no doubt a little afraid as well. Sometimes he stepped into little holes concealed by moss and spiders’ webs, and then he would shake so much with fear that he even had to laugh himself. If only his mates from the dredger could see him now, the giant, the Giant, the Giant Tim Solider.

Now he was scared by every unknown noise that pierced the air, his legs were so tired they might give way any moment, him, the man who’d never been scared of anything. Well, once something awful had happened, a preliminary to what was happening to him now, imprinted on his very being by the claws of the ravens. The dredger had run aground in the fog, they suddenly found themselves stuck in the sand, five hundred yards south of the stone quay of Nosara. It was quiet and still and damp and the fog surrounded them like four walls, seagulls rose and fell all around them, and the tug was half a cable’s length ahead, its engines thudding softly. He was alone, and could hear clattering and shouting from the boat, and then all of a sudden something remarkable happened and what happened was so terrible that he had to rub his eyes to see if he was dreaming — but it was true even so. Wide open mouthed, he watched his own eyes come floating towards him through the fog, inflated like little balloons but his even so, the enlargement was incredible and horrific: he could see all the terrible details of those drumskin-tight globes; the red lines over the whites looked like whiplash wounds, and what a pitiful little membrane it was holding back his pupils and their green globes from falling out and dropping down into the sea! Then the eyes were hoisted up by a sudden gust of wind and extinguished by the fog, boats immediately started bellowing, near and far, but even so he’d never been as isolated as he was on that occasion.

I’m blind, he thought, I’ve gone blind, for now it had dawned on him how ghastly his eyes were, it no longer seemed possible for him to see. He could never shake off the memory of that stretched membrane, and the enormous red edges. You can’t possibly see with eyes like that, he thought, groping for the rail like a blind man. At that point the dredger must have refloated itself and gradually started moving again; as the cables tightened the water started singing, but the fog only got thicker, and the hull of a white passenger ship loomed up in ghostly slow motion to starboard, only to sink back again like a mirage as a seagull’s cry tore open a chalk-white rip in the veil. Otherwise there was nothing to suggest he wasn’t blind: once you’ve seen your eyes you don’t dare to see. You close your eyes in panic, terrified they’ll cease to work just as suddenly as a clock stops; you can see nothing but your own inadequate eyes.

Oh, how did he get over it? It took months of harrowing attempts to forget before he regained control, before the machinery was working perfectly once more. And now the same thing was happening all over again — what can you do with a machine that has sprouted eyes and is filled with distrust as it watches itself functioning? He was ground down by misgivings, he could see the idiotic pointlessness of all his finely formed joints, his big muscles, all the bones in his body, his movements — and he stepped to one side with his doubts and his fears and watched himself surreptitiously, and look: his body was no longer alive, it only moved with difficulty. He was so scared when he thought of the day when everything would come to a standstill, when everything would become entangled in one monumental fit of cramp. As always, he relied on his strength, protected himself with his speed, thought that the key was to wake up, feel his muscles longing to be tensed, feel normal, healthy hunger, healthy because he knew it would soon be satisfied; he could already see himself stretched out at the water’s edge, loosely stretched like a broken cable, whimpering faintly from the effects of this fire whose greedy tongue was poking into all the channels of his body. In his delirium he would get it into his head that the sun was a ripe apple, just one thrust of his body, a lunge with his teeth, and there it was in his mouth, crunching as he bit into it, the juice trickling down his chin like blood, the soft flesh being forced violently down his throat, the more vehemently the better. Or fish would start creeping up the beach, their red eyes blinking, wriggling towards him on their bellies; he only had to open wide and they would creep into his mouth, then just bite, and bite again.

Right from the start, of course, his position was so exposed, so hopelessly confused; unfortunate, but it couldn’t be helped. As he was the only member of the crew to survive, he was their leader, with responsibility for his passengers even after the catastrophe, and hence to some extent he ought to impose his will on them; he was also a subordinate, their servant, someone they could still shout at in frustration: carry that box over here, give me your canvas sheet, I want to rest, we’re hungry, bring in the food.

Why should I be the one to survive, he often moaned to himself during those long nights of hunger when his kitchen at home in Dunbari embraced him with its green walls (oh, the eternal frying pan, always the frying pan on the gas stove complete with lid, white steam spurting out of the cracks, and the smell of that steam, the smell of all the butchers’ shops, all the bars, pubs, grocery stores, restaurants and galleys he had ever been in throughout his life; and his wife, his blonde wife with the bun in her hair secured by a rubber band: she had the same smell in her hair, the same smell in her hair as she stood with arms painfully outstretched in front of the stove, her pure white arms, stopping him from eating, always stopping him from eating, shouting, My child, my child!). Why was I the one who survived, he thought, why not the captain, for instance?

But the truth was, the captain had been drunk when the catastrophe happened. He often used to sense omens three days in advance, and asked to be locked in his cabin with the whole supply of whisky; the first mate had kept him company that last day, and Tim was the one who swung the wheel round after the fatal change of course; just when everything happened, Tim saw him hurled to the deck by a huge wave and then, painfully and almost disgustingly slowly, float a little way aft before changing direction and being washed just as slowly out through the smashed rail, disappearing for ever without the slightest sign of resistance nor even a word of farewell. Not a sound came from the crew in the engine room, not the slightest whisper; they’d just stayed put, anonymous as always; and then there were some people the lifeboat had fallen on to, it seemed that somebody heavy had suddenly hung on to its side, and it overturned in a flash and sank beneath the waves with awesome speed. All those who had sought refuge in it were lost without trace.

But Tim Solider had escaped, more or less miraculously. He’d been flung overboard like the mate, but they weren’t all that far from land in fact; he felt full of water and seemed to be sinking, getting as heavy as lead with the whole of the ocean pressing down on his chest like a stone cross. But to his amazement, his back had suddenly scraped against sharp rocks, he lay there, still, apathetic, limp, and a grey-green membrane of boundless majesty spread itself over his whole world; as if trapped in a soap bubble, he could see the blurred outline of the ship on the other side of the membrane, the shriek staggered through to him and the membrane vibrated slightly, then it exploded in a puff of foam and he found himself kneeling in the path of the sea as it raced towards him like an express train. Oh, how he struggled that morning to remain alive, he was possessed by a raging fury and nothing, be it the slippery stones under everyone’s feet, this cyclone determined to suck everyone into the air only to fling them down again on their backs, or these frenzied people wrestling with him in desperation on the reef, for fear of not being rescued or fear of being rescued — nothing could stop him. Together with some of the few sensible survivors — the airman, the otherwise unpleasant artillery captain — he carried ashore first the women, green and shaking and moaning away doggedly as if they were in labour. Then, some days after everyone had come to their senses without yet realizing their plight, they established their heroes.