Stig Dagerman - Island of the Doomed

He can hear the patter of her feet as she walks away, but it doesn’t sound like an animal any more, not now when she no longer needs to be afraid. But now something is happening to Lucas Egmont: so far everything that has happened since that incident with the water keg has been just as real or just as unreal as a dream; in your dreams, you can feel scared and sweat can be pouring off you, but in some vague way you feel that it’s all a charade, and because all the time, somewhere back there beyond all the smoke and cloud, you can just about make out the curtain that’ll fall when you simply can’t go on any longer, when you can’t become any more frightened than you already are without bursting, precisely because of all that, the fear of dreams and the guilty conscience of dreams are never definitive, there’s always a clear dividing line between death and the extremes of suffering — but in real life there’s a line beyond which balancing acts are no longer possible, a line beyond which you lose all vestiges of earthly peace, innocence and happiness, and that’s the line between dreams and extreme awareness: you’re living in the world of dreams, you’re breathing the air of dreams, but at the same time you’re cruelly aware that the dream’s over this time, and reality is more real than ever, and the terror of your dream has escaped from its dark cage and in the brightest of bright daylight it’s wrapping its snake-like body round your neck.

Suddenly, then, Lucas Egmont emerges from his long dream of thirst, and it’s in that dream everything has been happening: it’s in that dream he has returned to a skilfully disguised childhood, it’s in that dream the big fish with its long sword has momentarily pierced the surface of the bay and transformed the tiny lagoon into an ocean of terror, it’s in that dream Lucas Egmont has emptied the drinking water, their last hope, into the sand, and it’s in that dream he has watched nonchalantly as the five survivors possessed by the fear of death have hunted down the guilty man, nonchalant because it was all so unreal, because everything that happened was merely the only possible continuation of a bad dream — and hence his plunge into wakefulness is so horrific, he suddenly goes all stiff and can feel the sun, can feel the sun for the first time, cutting into his neck like a knife, and how the air is forcing its way into him and pummelling his lungs, and the stones are starting to get hot and burning his skin, and the acrid smell from the bleeding man on the cliff suddenly sets him panting in disgust — and then all the screams from all the terrified people on the island are vibrating in his ears, and the agonizing spotlights of reality are drenching his whole being with their steely beams.

But worse of all is the blood, the blood that has brought him to his senses, and suddenly Tim Solider’s hand is sticky and red and the lukewarm liquid is suddenly crawling beneath his own hesitant fingers like a toad — and he’s overcome by utter helplessness, swamped by an unstoppable surging sea of terror, and it takes possession of him and all the pointless things he has done on the island come charging towards him like bulls, and they gore him with their horns and trample him with their hooves and the ocean of terror hasn’t a single island of forgiveness. Sacrifice everything and die, it roars to all the miserable creatures wallowing in their own degradation and gradually realizing just how pitiful they are, sacrifice everything and die — and the pitiful wretch sacrifices everything and dies or survives according to his strength. Oh, you paradoxical hero! Oh, what wretched bravery!

Lucas Egmont must have been born lucky, because almost without trying he manages to stick his fingers into the mouth of the lower of the iguanas and then he prises its jaws open with a violent heave which almost severs his hand from his wrist, and just look: the iguana falls away, bleeding from its mouth, and thuds on to the rock and he sets upon it with all the strength his terror gives him and he whips it over on its back and kicks it in the belly till it slides away down the face of the cliff and crashes on to the rocks on the beach below. When he spins round, trembling all over from a mixture of effort and fear, to meet the new danger, Tim Solider is alone with his wounds, but a narrow reddish-black line wends its way over the rock and into a giant bush. A strangely bitter smell of decay is wafted by the breeze from the undergrowth, as if some dead body were lying in ambush there. A cold shudder runs down his spine.

They’re still on their own; the other four, the captain and Boy Larus, Madame and the English girl are all clambering slowly down to the beach where the fire is unwinding its never-ending string of smoke. Lucas Egmont tears strips off his shirt and presses some of them into the wounds. The cloth quickly turns dark red, and he lifts Tim Solider on to his shoulder and starts to carry him down the cliff face as a red wave of blood flows up into Tim’s face like a flame, and he starts whimpering like an animal as he crawls back into consciousness.

Then the English girl screams. She’s flung herself into the shallows near the dead boxer and is coating her hair with sand in a series of hysterical gestures.

‘Why did you have to kill him? You murdered him, that’s what you did! You just come here and I’ll. .’

But for the moment they all keep a respectful distance.

3

Eventually, they gather around her in a circle, or rather: a semi-circle. Tim Solider joins in as well; he’s groggy but he’s regained consciousness, the bleeding has stopped, he’s very weak but he walks stiffly, straight as a ramrod, a skeleton of terror holding him together. He’s afraid they’ll gang up on him again and if he falls asleep, use that as an excuse to kill him. That’s why he hardly dares look down at the sand: it seems to have eyes sucking him down towards them, his knees are buckling, a dull feeling of weariness is taking possession of him and anyone who likes could overpower him. Instead, he’s constantly looking round, scrutinizing them all one after the other just as a chess player scrutinizes his opponent’s pieces as he fights to keep them at bay. They keep their distance because they respect his wounds, because one ought to have more respect for a dying man than a living one; but Tim thinks it’s his fierce glare that’s holding them off, and the moment they overstep a certain mark, the moment they come one inch too close, his arms start twitching and his hands clench to form fists.

He’s still dazed following the attack and he thinks they hate him because they were all passengers and since he’s the only one of the crew to survive, he’s taken on the captain’s responsibility for the catastrophe. He’s not even sure any more which one of them flung him to the ground, his last recollections are completely overshadowed by the giant iguanas as they hurtle down upon him like thunderbolts and burrow down deep into his agony. Nor can he remember who rescued him. He thinks they all deserted him and he managed to drag himself down the cliff face all by himself only to collapse with exhaustion on the beach, and he’s just grateful they didn’t take advantage of the situation in order to get rid of him.

They approach the screaming girl cautiously from three directions: from up the beach and from out of the water on either side of her. It’s as if they’re carrying a bird-trapper’s net between them in order to capture her screams and they’re all taking the same short, stealthy steps, no matter whether they’re edging out into the water or tip-toeing over the sand. And all the time the screams are pouring out of her, without a pause, as if all her dams had suddenly burst and all her pent-up screams were cascading forth in one rush. Now and then a word tumbles out like a scrap of bark tossing about in the raging torrent, but before anyone can catch its meaning, it’s been dragged down by the eddies and disappeared. She’s lying on her stomach in the water and her head is smothered in wet sand and as they get nearer she starts crawling out of the water like an iguana, with her breast and stomach pressed hard against the sand. Her screams subside into a shrill whimpering and then she’s just sobbing loudly and steadily as she starts taking away the stones holding down the canvas sheet over the boxer’s dead body.