Anna Kavan - The Parson

When she came down to earth again, she glanced out rather disdainfully at Oswald, still brushing and beating his clothes, in a stubborn, unsuccessful attempt to remove the traces of seaweed and water. Why did he fuss over such trifles? She called to him to make haste.

The afternoon had gone bleak and horrible under the protracted threat of the storm. When they finally drove off, it seemed to her that all the viciousness of the coming winter pursued them, pouring out of the ruin behind, as if Bannenberg were its stronghold, the wind blowing great guns. She wanted only to forget the horrible place and didn’t even glance back, luxuriating in the warmth of the car, after all she’d been through in there, curling up in her comer with catlike content.

Gradually, however, Oswald’s silence became impossible to ignore, obtruding itself upon her self-satisfaction. Persistently striking a discordant note, it forced her, eventually, to look at his face, which seemed to have taken on a greyish tinge under the tan. His fine blue eyes stared out with brilliant fixity, always averted from her; and never a word did he utter — she might not have been there at all.

She was accustomed to very different treatment from her various lovers, and began to feel irritated. His silence got on her nerves. She resented it much more than his sadism just now, which she’d already almost forgotten, remembering only enough of his recent behaviour to realize that it contrasted strangely with his former adoring reverence. Her annoyance increased now; she didn’t want his unselfish devotion; but he had no right to take it away from her — she felt she’d been deprived of something that was really her property and gave him an indignant glance.

How dare he inflict his sulks and silence upon her — so childish and stupid? He had no business to be sitting there — he ought to have vanished. If she’d really possessed magic powers, her venomous glance would have disintegrated the handsome young man on the spot. At such close quarters she found his nearness oppressive, he seemed to occupy too much room. Though she didn’t know it, his physical presence threatened the derealizing process on which she depended for her peace of mind. He seemed overpowering physically, rather as if some great snow animal had climbed into the car and were sitting beside her, taking up far too much space. But, though over-assertive, his presence was also lifeless, in its sullen, stupid silence, as though some great stuffed animal sat in the driver’s seat.

She glanced at him again, in amusement this time, her good humour quickly restored. Of course he was lifeless. He had to be, since he wasn’t real but a character she had dreamed up, no more important to her than the memory of the pony, Coffee.

Nestling into the comforting warmth and softness of her fur coat, closing her eyes, she settled down to wait for the drive to end, oblivious of Oswald and of her surroundings. She had no further use for the north, its spell had broken, for good and all this time. She simply waited to be somewhere else.

She took no notice of the storm when it broke at last, just as they turned inland, the booming clouds releasing torrents of pale snow or sleet, in which were entangled odd electrical flickerings, which might have been lightning, or the aurora borealis, or Jove’s thunderbolts — she didn’t care which they were, she was indifferent, and scarcely looked.

*

It wouldn’t have interested her to know how persistently the man beside her was being tormented all the time by all sorts of painful emotions, of which she was the centre. His mental state was still far from normal, although to a point he had regained control. The satisfaction of his desire had brought him no peace, his senses were in a ferment, his thoughts churning distractedly in his head.

Of his behaviour at Bannenberg he refused to think. The memory of what he’d done there was insupportable and had left an aftermath of disgust and shame he tried to transfer to Rejane, blaming her for all he had suffered and was suffering now. The whole time he had loved her it had been torture, and now that his love had turned to hate, the torture was ten times worse. That she should be unapproachable, like a princess, he’d been able to bear as long as she represented his dream and been glorified by its nameless brightness, because, paradoxically, it identified her with him.

Now all this was changed: her perfection had gone, and so had his worship. He still hadn’t got over the shock of seeing the undisguised witch-look on her face, showing him that he’d been deluding himself, and that she cared nothing for him, had nothing to do with his dream. Now he saw her without that mysterious brightness, and he couldn’t bear what he saw; though, really, when he thought he was seeing her objectively, it was through the dark veil of all his other suppressed grievances. He had thrown himself upon her with such brutal violence because he’d felt wronged in the regiment, because his comrades had turned the cold shoulder upon him, because he’d been persecuted by their wives.

When the storm broke and the road veered away from the dangerous cliffs, he knew, by the pang of disappointment that went through him, that he must really have been hoping for a catastrophe, and that the car would become their coffin. He now really wanted to cut himself altogether from the unjust world and the love by which he had been betrayed. His silence — which had lasted so long that it seemed impossible to break — was a manifestation of this death-wish, which, however, he did not recognize for what it was.

In connection with himself, the whole concept of death seemed unreal; in his healthy extrovert existence, always fully occupied, he’d never thought about it. Even his father’s death long ago had made no impression on him. His temperament, background and education prevented him from viewing his own death as an aim he might achieve by his own action. Hence his disappointment because the sea and the storm failed to achieve it for him.

All the same, without knowing what he was doing, he continued to proceed towards his objective by devious methods, indirectly, by concentrating on all that was most painful to him and made his life seem not worth while.

He kept telling himself that, to Rejane, he could have been only a casual pick-up, a convenience, of whom she had made use because nobody else happened to be on hand. Their relationship could have meant no more to her than any trivial holiday episode. But what an atrocious thing it was to play on a man’s deepest feelings as she had! First she’d made him ashamed of his restraint; then of his brutal outburst of passion; and finally she’d deprived him of his revenge by throwing herself into his arms — what depravity, to give the situation that fiendish twist! And he, instead of retaliating in the only possible way, by rejecting her utterly, had weakly submitted, allowed her to make use of him to gratify her lust. Gould anything be more contemptible than the part he had played?

As wave after wave of humiliation swept over him, he tried to distract himself from his own shame by the violence of his raging against her. What a devil of a woman she was, turning him into something he never had been, a sadistic rav-isher, just in order to give herself a perverted thrill! How she must have been laughing at him all the time, pretending she was a sweet young girl, when really she was this… corrupt horror… this abomination…

Here his normal sense of fairness rebelled, reminding him that he himself was not blameless by any means. At once, as the memory began to force itself on him, his whole being recoiled in horror from what he had done. The memory of that sadistic act, totally opposed to all his deepest beliefs, was unendurable, simply — he slammed the doors of his mind, he couldn’t bear to think of it or to know about it.