Anna Kavan - Let Me Alone

Matthew came up and rattled the handle of the door. His blue eyes, with their untransparent glassiness, their non-luminousness, stared out resentfully at the closed door. A blind, angry spitefulness, rather stupid, came into them.

‘What is the matter with you?’ he asked.

‘Nothing. I’m going to have a bath,’ said Anna, from the other side of the door.

There was a pause, during which she continued to meet in the mirror the strange pair of goblin-eyes, steady with strange malice.

‘Don’t be long, then,’ he said at last, unseen by her. But his voice was complacent again, even indulgent. He was so sure of winning that he could afford to humour her.

She kept silence. His cocksureness made her furious. Staring into the mirror, she stood rigid and silent.

‘Don’t be too long,’ he repeated. And presently she heard his brisk footfalls — curiously heavy for a small-made man — retreating along the passage.

She smiled to herself, brightly malicious, in the narrow, old-fashioned bathroom. The clumsy metal taps reflected her face, which had taken on the queer goblin look. She undressed slowly, and had her bath, and prepared for the night, all with the bright, alien, vicious look on her face. And then, for a long time, she waited: quite motionless, with a very odd, sardonic expression. She wondered if Matthew would come back and speak to her again. But he did not. Evidently, in his cocksureness, he was content to wait, and humour her caprices.

Anna sat on the hard white chair, looked at the closed door, looked at her reflection in the glass, and smiled at it knowingly, with goblinish satisfaction. One would have said she was enjoying herself. Then she rose and opened the door quietly, looking down the passage; a short, dim, empty passage, with doors on either side, and Matthew waiting for her behind the door at the end. She shivered in repulsion, but still she went on smiling, as if enjoying it all. Then quietly she went out into the passage. She went into the bedroom and locked the door.

The other door, into the sitting-room, was still open. She could see two feet in their neat, squarish, patent-leather shoes planted on the floor beyond. The leather was starting to crack a little, in the creases. There was Matthew.

He had heard her movements, and looked up, smiling his anticipative satisfaction, rather ogreish in spite of his flat unreality. As though he licked his chops at her. The horrid part was that though he stared hungrily at Anna, he did not seem to see her at all, as an individual. She, personally, did not exist as far as he was concerned; he had reduced her to a sort of extension of himself. He missed her out completely. And now his blue eyes met hers with a gleam of complacent anticipation — self-congratulatory, it appeared — as if he prided himself on his rights over her. And he was going to exercise them, too. Oh yes, he meant to exact his husband’s pound of flesh. There was something a bit pasha-like in his attitude towards her. The age-old, man-to-woman tyrannous condescension. He began to approach her with his prancing gait. But she slammed the door in his face, shutting him out, and turned the key on him. Just as the door closed, she saw the death of his neat smile, and the ugly, spiteful look, mean and cunning and in some way almost imbecile, taking it’s place. She shuddered, and her heart beat quickly. But the goblin-brightness stayed on her face.

‘Let me in,’ said Matthew, trying the door.

‘No,’ said Anna.

‘Open the door,’ he said angrily. A nasty tone was coming into his voice.

She did not answer, but watched the door. He had got his shoulder against it and was pushing. She could hear the faint roar of his angry breath.

Suddenly he remembered the other door, and dashed round there. In a moment he was rattling the handle on that side.

Anna looked round with hard, bright, unnatural eyes. She did not seem to be herself at all, but some heartless creature, inflexible and malicious and rather diabolical. So cold; so sprightly. There was a devilish little cold sparkle on her face as she gathered up his belongings, darting about the room with rapid, flicking motions; collecting his things and bundling them out into the sitting-room; then turning the key again. Quick as thought, the room was clear of all trace of him.

‘Your things are outside the door,’ she called. ‘You must sleep in the little room.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ came his voice, somewhat dangerously. ‘You have no right to keep me out. Open the door at once.’

Anna detested him.

‘You must sleep in the other room,’ she said.

‘No! I’m not going to put up with such treatment. You shall let me in! Come now. Open the door. I love you far too much to be shut out on my wedding night. Let me in!’ His anger was really roused now. He was losing control. He began to shake the door again, more violently this time.

Anna was surprised. She had no idea that her surprise packet included this quota of bullying, unbalanced fury. She smiled to herself as she listened to his onslaughts on the door. She was excited. But certainly she was not nervous; or the least bit compassionate. The new goblin in her was contemptuously amused at this display of black rage. And she hated him. She was glad that she was able to insult his male conceit. She tilted her head, and stared mockingly at the shaking door.

‘Don’t try to make a fool of me,’ came his dangerous, muffled voice, through the wood. Such a hot, stupid, animal sound in the angry voice.

‘Go away,’ said she, continuing to stare derisively and brightly ahead.

‘Let me in!’ he shouted, beside himself with rage. ‘Open, I tell you!’

He lurched against the door, not knowing what he was doing, kicked it with his feet, battered it with his shoulder, swung back, and battered it, using his shoulder as though it had been a battering-ram against the panels. In a blind frenzy of anger he struggled with the door.

‘Let me in!’ he shouted again and again. ‘Let me in!’ He fought with the locked door.

Anna drew back instinctively before the violence of his attack, her eyes like vicious stones in her face. She was silent.

‘Open! open!’ he went on, loudly distracted, like a clumsy, stupid animal in his incontinent wrath. ‘I have my rights. I won’t be fooled like this!’

‘Go away,’ said Anna coldly. ‘People will be coming to see what is the matter if you make such a noise.’

This seemed to bring him to himself. Suddenly, abruptly, he abandoned his struggles and was still. He made no more noise. But he remained outside the door; he had no notion of going away.

There was a very long silence. Anna imagined him standing, narrow and stiff, outside the door, waiting: his rather long arms hanging limp, with the brown hands dangling — curiously simian in suggestion. She listened to his breathing, hoarse and smothered at first, but growing slowly quieter, more normal. She wondered about him; what was he thinking? Would he stand there all night?

‘Won’t you let me in?’ he asked at last, in a small, wistful voice, rather distressing. ‘Let me come in just for a moment — to say good night.’

‘No,’ she answered coldly. Her inflexibility never wavered.

He waited a minute or two longer. She heard him fumble once more — but half-heartedly this time — with the door-knob. Then he sighed heavily, rather ludicrously, and went away. Presently she heard him fumbling about in the sitting-room, picking up his pyjamas and slippers and dressing-gown which she had thrown on the floor. And shortly afterwards a door closed.

It was all over. Anna went and sat on the bed, cross-legged on the crimson eiderdown, her face tilted back, a queer flower at the end of her backward-curving neck. Her mind was a kind of blank, and half consciously she wondered why she had no more feeling. She was quite cold, cold as a stone, as though she would never feel anything any more. And yet, in a way, she was absolutely flabbergasted by the scene she had just been through. She had no idea that people behaved like that, so violent and uncontrolled. It staggered her, as an exhibition of sheer unrestraint. But she was not really affected. She felt herself aloof.