Stig Dagerman - Island of the Doomed

He continued wandering through the grass, guided by his memory, and emerged on to a stony plateau, with black, volcanic rocks splashed with bird droppings. Cliffs rose steeply on either side of the plateau, naked and scarred, but at one point the cliff was pierced, and a v-shaped crack big enough to take a human body presented a hazardous route down to the beach. He paused and listened to the sea crashing on to the rocks down below: it sounded like a percussionist’s first tentative beats on his drum. His heart started pounding as he strode towards the crevice, excited without knowing why; or rather: without wanting to know why.

Then he paused again, gripped by a strong feeling of being watched by someone he couldn’t see as yet. The penny dropped immediately, and he stepped back in irritation. It was the birds that were observing him as they sat clamped to the cliff, apparently guarding the way down to the beach, motionless and silent, without so much as a twitching of their wings; he could see now that they weren’t in fact as big as he’d thought when they swooped down a short while ago. They were dangerous because of their numbers rather than their size, and their beaks were as sharp as talons; he couldn’t make out their eyes, which seemed to be directed at him and yet failed to follow him when he backed off; they were grey as well, as if covered by a film. Without a sound, he broke off a blade of grass and moved stealthily towards the crevice, letting the grass blade swing to and fro all the way along the row of birds: but their eyes just kept on staring vacantly in the same direction.

No doubt about it: the birds were blind, and that was why they brushed along the grass before landing. Dumb and blind, they led their lives on this island, and one could well ask why. Were they waiting for something? Were they intending to take advantage of a certain shipwreck? Was their sole purpose to wait for these seven people condemned to die? Tim dropped his blade of grass, then stood motionless to see if they’d noticed anything yet, but everything was as before. Then he tentatively took hold of a rocky pinnacle, crouched down and crawled along through the crevice, emerging unharmed on the other side. Stunned by the vastness of the panorama, he almost fell but flung himself backwards against the cliff and hung on as the vista impressed itself upon him. The sea was in a state of perpetual motion, surging in over the horizon; the tension between sea and sky was almost unbearable, everything was clear and large, no dirty smoke rose from ships to smudge the brilliant colours, not a sliver of land was to be seen, the sun was already starting its descent and the heat was growing less intense; a few red stars rose slowly up from the depths, everything was so classically beautiful, and yet so completely indifferent. All the time his gaze was drawn irresistibly towards the island, towards the thin strip of beach, covered in sand and stones at this point. For the second time in his life on the island, he saw the green box lying down below like a little die wedged between two large stones, dangerously tempting, aiming an invisible beam of heat straight up at the cliff. Hot and eager, he decided on the spot to begin the risky descent. He forgot the birds and all the rest of it, his hunger clamped him firmly to the cliff face, his hunger selected the best footholds and the best projections for his hands. But when he was about halfway down and still had not got round to thinking about being afraid, a little stone right next to the one supporting his right foot suddenly came loose and tumbled down the cliff in a series of sharp thuds. His foot began to twitch in ridiculous fashion, and he had to take a firm grip on himself and calm down again; then he heard a fluttering sound above his head, and when he bent his head back to see what was happening, he saw one of the birds on its way down towards him, hopping from ledge to ledge, its eyes staring indifferently out into space; but its feet were as sensitive as a blind man’s fingers and unerring in their choice of secure grips.

At first, he didn’t realize what might happen, but when he eventually caught on, he forced himself back, trembling, against the cliff face, rubbed his body against it as if that would help him to achieve a firmer hold. It only needed the bird to touch one of his hands, brush against his shoulder, bump into his foot — and he would hurtle down to his death, would die with the green box only a couple of miserable yards away from him, would die just when salvation was so desperately near. But the bird came closer and closer, worst of all was the assured way in which it was progressing, oh, if only it had screeched, had flapped its wings madly, tried to peck him with its beak; but no: only this silence waiting to be shattered by violent action, whose terrible nature he couldn’t yet conceive.

Then it made one final lunge towards him, down towards his right hand, and in desperation he let go, groping in thin air, rasping his nails against the cliff, and for one agonizing second he could feel himself slipping, the whole cliff seemed to collapse and spin round with him, blood seeped out from under his shredded fingernails, then everything calmed down again gradually and he regained his grip with his right hand, hugging the cliff as tightly as he could.

The bird was now still again just a couple of feet above his head, waiting motionlessly, ruthlessly calm and staring vacantly at the horizon; its red-tipped beak was pointing downwards all the time as if it could see, as if it took pleasure in observing his fear. Was the bird already suspicious, did it know he was there, was he merely being given the moment of grace by his executioner? Oh, he didn’t dare breathe although his chest was fit to burst from the terrible pressure; he slowly let go again with his right hand, stood up on his toes, grasped a spike of rock with his left hand so tightly that he was in pain, and stretched his right hand out towards the bird, fingers outstretched; he grabbed it by the neck, and then like lightning, with a jerk more violent than he thought himself capable of, he hurled its heavy body into space. He could hear the swishing noise as it fell, and heard it flop into the water. Sweat was pouring off him, he was shaking in every sinew and he suddenly forgot where he was, was about to take a step backwards, and had already raised one foot in the air before he came back to his senses. With eyes closed, he clambered slowly down the cliff face like a big, grey caterpillar, and it was only when he reached the safety of the last few feet and he saw the green box lying between the stones like a green die that he once again became aware of his hunger.

As frenzied as a hound following a scent, he let go much too soon and crashed down on to the sands, the sea filled his ears with a deafening roar and its spray splattered all over the sand and the pebbles, a rainbow quivered back and forth before his startled eyes and the smooth, empty, half-buried iguana skins glistened in the wavy sands. His body came alive again, it was like waking up from a dream of a dream, he was no longer watching himself, his movements were no longer skeleton-like; even his hunger was transformed into delicious pain, but it didn’t hurt, merely warmed him. Oh, how he wanted to wallow in his salvation, enjoy it, taste it, lick it with his voluptuous tongue.

Agonizingly slowly, he crawled over the sand to the box; with eyes closed, he extracted every ounce of pleasure from the rare perfumes flowing into him, opened his mouth and tasted pineapples melting on his tongue, bread from Myra and Lendarsis, long white loaves with green seeds and an aroma of cherry blossom, the smell of winter apples stored in the attic in old houses in the country, the spiced scent of meat and sawdust that filled the quayside warehouses also emanated from the box, this box was indeed infinite in what it had to offer, bottomless, it had everything: the fresh bread his brother the baker sometimes used to bake on winter mornings and sent home with little Christine, the smells from the frying pan at home and the big bag of sweets his mother always kept in a cupboard as a bribe to make him tell lies when his father used to ask if anything had been happening at home that week when he was working nights. In the end he embraced the box as if it had been a woman, pressed his ear against it and heard all the dishes in the world boiling, frying, bubbling away on the stove, being poured out, being carved up, sliced, ground, clinking of knives and forks, quick gulps and little belches, chairs being pushed back from the table and the muffled sizzling of soups in soup kitchens, the turgid slurping of greasy soups, a magnificent rumble as gigantic cauldrons were emptied, then nothing but the roar of the ocean cascading over him with its vast choir of voices, and then those voices, one of which, rancorous and obstinate, took possession of him, accused him with acid urgency, forcing him on the defensive.