Stig Dagerman - Island of the Doomed

If anybody comes along and says it will all get better, or some of it at least, if you don’t believe him, send the idiot packing. Should you make a scene? What should you make a scene about — about those people who stare at you when you enter forbidden territory wanting a good time? Oh, yes. But what is it you’re risking, and that little hideaway you’ve got on the dredger, well, if they find that — what have you gained? No, you’re on your own, people are on their own, just get used to that and show your teeth if anybody approaches. Good God, you carry your slave nature around with you wherever you go, drag him round all the parks and gardens where the police are on patrol: that’s Tim Solider, the taller they are the further they fall.

Why not run away then? Yes, you could go out in a boat even though you’ve never done it before, and sail away from it all, Brisbane and Mogadishu, Muscat, Trincomali, Petsamo and Jacksonville, yes, you could sail round and round the map for ever and ever and still not get away from what you want to get away from, still be identified as a servant even so, someone anybody can make use of whenever they like. And then one day you come to an unknown country, a little country, well, to be really accurate, an island, where they have no laws, no currency restrictions, no armed police, none of the things you’ve always complained about — and even so, you kow-tow with the same unwilling willingness, let yourself be subjugated, feel this fatal sensation of impotent inferiority which you first came across that time in the restaurant and then keep coming across wherever you go, whatever you do, wherever you try to escape.

The night of the thirteenth of May was probably the worst. Everybody seemed to go to bed early, though it is not clear if they were already so exhausted or whether it was illusory; in any case, the captain snored in self-satisfaction, and in the weak glow from the fire you could see his hands creeping back and forth over the canvas, like a wolf stalking some prey. The airman’s delicate little head seemed to tremble when touched by the shadows, and his breathing was almost inaudible. The fire crackled discreetly, the occasional iguana still awake rattled away up in the cliffs, and the two women lay closely intertwined, even in their sleep continuing to radiate the usual touch-me-not contempt should anyone look at them uninvited. The light from the fire glowed on red-headed Madame’s forehead, and at frequent intervals, convulsed by some limitless agony, she would repeat a few half-choked words sounding like: glisso-loo-emm-glisso-loo-emm.

The cold descended, the sea seemed to be turned to stone, even the soughing sounded frozen and was left hanging from the stiff waves; but Tim Solider didn’t feel cold, he felt no cold because his hunger was a fire burning right through him; his hunger was an awl sticking into him wherever it could cause pain; his hunger was a bird roasting over the fire, being turned round and round on a little stick; his hunger was a woman whispering out of the darkness: of course you can eat, but kiss me first; his hunger was a memory from the kitchen back at home where the frying pan was always on the gas stove; his hunger was another memory, enclosed by a sea-grey membrane, enthusiastically and yet coolly rising and falling like the indicator on an unsteady thermometer inside him, the memory of a path along the beach, up the cliffs, through the jungle and back down along a vertical crevice with few holds for his hands and feet.

That’s where he was heading for now, unsteadily and frequently stumbling, and already the hot day had arrived. The first mild warmth had pushed its little joke as far as it could, and now the real heat zoomed in like a rocket and exploded in the sea, where the breakers seemed to be writhing in agony, and in one’s own body and in everything round about. The iguanas slid off their rocks, fell four or five feet, landed on their backs and lay there motionless, their yellow bellies arched towards the sun. Tim Solider suddenly fell flat on his face as if hit in the neck by a rabbit punch, cut his arm on a sharp grass stalk and lay there panting in the grass, sucking voraciously at his wound. Sweat poured off him, only his mouth was dry as a desert; he made a heroic effort and rose to his knees, groped for support, then fell down again. Then he crawled slowly through the grass, feeling as if he were being grilled over embers; it grew hotter and hotter as time went by. His sweat dried up, the whole of his body was now painfully dry, all his fluids seemed to have been sucked away and every time he crawled over some unevenness in the ground, he was convinced he would be reduced to crumbs. Now and then giant lizards rattled past in front of him, horrifyingly slowly, and from some angles looked like snakes; something with a cold, rasping belly crawled agonizingly slowly over both his legs, but he didn’t have the strength, nor the courage, to turn round and see what it was.

Hours passed by, and still he was crawling along with exasperated energy; thousands of shooting pains plagued his body, his nerves were exposed to every agony homing in on him, smoke was rising from the ground, acrid and bitter, until in the end he could hardly breathe. This plain was endless; even when he raised his head as far as he could manage, he could see no end to it, only this tall, scorched grass with panicles swinging to and fro like hanged corpses high above his head. In an infinite vision of terror, he experienced eternity, all time ceased to exist, space ceased to exist, he was no longer a human being, he had no human qualities left, what did action mean? Colours faded away, sound was muted, thoughts were no longer thought, words lost their meaning, surfaces lost their edges, everything ossified, leaving only himself an anonymous being, crawling like a snake indefatigably over this horrific expanse without moving forwards or backwards, since all directions and all points of the compass were no more. Immersed in a hazy dream, he remembered his happy childhood when there was a five-minute run through what was now eternity.

He lay there for quite a long time with his face pressed hard into the ground, his hands outstretched, palms upwards as if he were expecting it to rain, senseless, apparently lifeless; but all the time something inside him was working intensively towards a particular goal, indeed, he was there already even though he couldn’t move because of the intense heat and his own exhaustion. Gradually, however, the heat of the sun eased somewhat, he slowly recovered consciousness, and after many pitiful attempts to get to his feet, he eventually managed it.

Still dizzy and weak after his loss of consciousness, he staggered through the grass once again, not really in a position to see anything at all, but nevertheless aiming stubbornly in a particular direction. The ground was no longer smoking now, a very large iguana at least a couple of feet long lay asleep in the grass: he stumbled over it and whipped round, ready to defend himself if it should attack. But the iguana had not moved, and somewhat surprised, he bent down over it and poked it cautiously with his foot; but still it didn’t stir. Then he turned it over quickly, so that it was lying on its back: it was dead, of course, its belly split open by a stone; somebody had crushed the iguana with a stone, and turned it upright before running away. Tim lifted the heavy corpse and hurled it into the undergrowth.

Perplexed, he looked back in the direction he’d come from, and saw the white column of smoke rising above the trees, vertical, like a rope hanging down from the sky. The sky was unbearably blue and empty, and out of the void, as if emerging from a magician’s hat, a flock of birds appeared, then descended upon him in deathly silence, dragging their wings over the grass, apparently without seeing him even though the nearest one swooped past only a hand’s breath above his head; he had ducked involuntarily, and only now did he realize how unusually large the birds were.