Stig Dagerman - Island of the Doomed

Now she was in Paul’s room again and it was an afternoon in autumn, leaves were lying on the window sill and the room was suffused with the acerbic smell of decay. She was walking to and fro between the bed and the window, and every time she turned, she stood still for an eternity in an attempt to entice him out of his destructive mood; she could feel he was watching her, but she was no longer singed by his looks, she had iguana-like armour plating which excluded fire and cold, nothing affected her and her armour was growing inwards.

‘How’s your iguana?’ he inquired at last, caressing his bayonet all the while, ‘I haven’t heard it crawling around for ages.’

She went over to the door, and when she opened it she could see the boy sitting on a stool by the big bookcase; he was seven, couldn’t read, was too old to start talking, too old to take pleasure in anything. He was taking books out one at a time and leafing through them as if to give his fingers something to do. He didn’t even pause to look at the pictures, simply dropped each book on the floor beside him when he grew tired of it, and when he’d gone through a whole row, he just slouched on the stool, his arms dangling, hopelessly weary, his back hunched, knees wide apart, his cold eyes staring through a filter of hopelessness.

‘The iguana’s doing fine,’ she said, closing the door. ‘If you give me some money, I’ll take him away for a holiday and then come back to you, without him, or not at all.’

And so they set off. Oh, how she suffered when everybody stared at them in railway carriages, dining rooms, ships’ lounges and customs posts. She could see them glancing quickly at the boy’s body before politely looking away and professing interest in something else; but their looks clung to the boy like burns, he was covered in malevolent eyes, which stuck to his face like postage stamps, and when she washed him every night it seemed to her the water was full of hostile eyes which stayed behind in the bowl like a disgusting scum.

Oh, how she hated him when they were travelling in the constant company of strangers. With the cruel aim of torturing both herself and him, she would take him firmly by the arm and point out demonstratively all the notable buildings they passed, strange animals in the zoos of several cities, which would fill any other child with terrified delight, or peculiar racial types scuttling about in some of the ports; but the boy’s cold stare never varied, nor did his gesture of hopeless disinterest with his right hand, and people who noticed her efforts were rewarded by her furtive laughter, and turned away with a smile.

But when she was alone with him, she noticed to her painful surprise that she loved him. When he fell asleep at night, she would spread the sheet over his face, fumble for his hand, caress it and kiss it; indeed, she frequently didn’t sleep at all, and in the devout confusion which often sets in after an all-night vigil, she got it into her head that a change, violent and comprehensive, must have taken place in the boy during the night: his old-mannish features had slipped away and been replaced by a new, child-like face still full of restlessness and expectations. Gently and with extreme care, she would uncover the boy’s head; but no miracle had taken place under the blankets. Then her frustration made her flushed and she would go out on deck, on to the platform, into the hotel corridor, or wherever, and try to cool down, try to wriggle away from the temptation which always tingled in her finger-ends on such occasions. Oh, how she longed for some preposterous occurrence, some fantastic experience which would engulf them like a heavy sea, some hideous animal which would appear and force that tightly closed mouth to open up, those frozen eyes to crumble around an ice-hole of honourable horror, that lifeless body to shake with pain and despair.

They’d travelled far into the Orient and her money was running out, but now there was nothing else that mattered except this search for the animal, the occurrence and the horror. And then came the storm as they were on their way from Ronton. All of them were thrown below decks, shuffled together like playing cards, and their qualities seemed to change places and wander about from one to another. With a mighty effort she tore herself away from the confusion of terrified passengers and staggered over the heaving floor to where the boy and the captain’s dog were lying at the bottom of the staircase. They were huddled up together, each of their backs pointing outwards like shields, and through the mist of her seasickness and the soft membrane of her fear she could see how the convulsions shuddering through both bodies were identical, as if they were coming from the same body.

Ah, she thought, now he’s shaking at last, and she felt new hope. With trembling hands, she turned him over on to his back in the hope of seeing his face distorted by human fear. Then she collapsed on to the floor in desperation and was forced over towards the bulkhead, unable to defend herself against everything bearing down upon her. Oh, his eyes were as cold as an iguana’s when they turned to look at her, what he was feeling was the fear of an animal. The iguana had sought out the dog, and the dog the iguana, the animal the animal.

When the ship ran aground, the bulkhead was split open and the saloon filled rapidly with water; half-drowned and almost blinded, they all waded towards the staircase. Someone was pushed by someone else and fell back into the water, gurgling and twisting as he sank, and the ship rolled slowly over under the water, in the direction of the hole. No one saw what had happened, they were too busy fighting for their own lives on the narrow staircase leading up on deck, lashing out with feet, elbows and knees. Her knuckles were sore where she’d punched the boy on the chin, and at this moment, standing there on the staircase, that was the only thing she could feel. When they emerged on deck, the storm swooped down on them, masts snapped off and bounced over the rail, the men working on the lifeboats were repeatedly bowled over by giant green waves surging over them aft, and suddenly the cage with the cook’s parrot was caught up and whirled around in circles on the foredeck before being washed cruelly overboard. The lifeboat dropped from the davits at breakneck speed and avoided being smashed against the starboard hull, but then rolled over and disappeared for no apparent reason. The cook’s white hat was whisked around in a series of endless circles on the deck without having the sense to sink, and the next she knew she was falling into this devil’s brew, grabbing at the cook’s hat, before everything disappeared as if she’d been given an anaesthetic.

The whole of her life had consisted of waking up after bad dreams, short periods of good health after long illnesses, brief moments of bitter clarity after endless anaesthetics. She hadn’t woken up yet, but something inside her was awake and preparing by means of far-reaching treachery for everything that was going to happen next. There was that high wall of unconsciousness stretching from the very floor up to the highest point of the ceiling, and you know everything is hopeless, that this wall is the most cruel of all walls as well as the most silent, the only wall in the world that can keep a secret — and yet you have that nagging, silent awareness of something happening on the other side, where there’s the sound of voices, as yet unknown but eventually identifiable, and other noises, and then that thudding, that loud thudding that so uncannily familiar knocking — oh, if only the wall would collapse.

She’s still not sure if she’s awake in fact. As slowly as a mountain tarn opening up to greet the morning, she gradually comes round, warmth presses up against her limbs, she fumbles for something to hide under but can’t find anything as yet and although she already knows the awful truth, she turns her aching head towards the cliffs and is even so paralysed by the sight; the whole of her cliff is covered in large, brown iguanas, motionless in the heat, but new ones are arriving all the time, their bodies smacking hard against the stones. She suddenly senses they are all staring at her, she can feel the whole cliff sliding towards her with its dreadful cargo, and once again she slips back in through the protective swing doors of her unconsciousness.