Anna Kavan - I Am Lazarus

At last my mother came into the room. I did not look at her. Always before when she had opened the door I had turned towards her with confident and eager expectation of comfort. But now I did not want to see her. I did not want to raise my eyes from the tablecloth. I felt myself starting again to tremble as I had done at my brother's deathbed: long, deep inward shudders ran over my secret nerves.

My mother said nothing. I was aware that she had come into the middle of the room and was standing beside the table. I had the idea that she was waiting for me to speak some particular word, but what it might be I could not imagine. Very slowly and with the greatest possible reluctance I lifted my eyes.

She was standing looking down at me, resting one hand on the table. It seemed to me that something about her was different: not the black dress, because for a long time now she had habitually worn black; nor her pallor, although I noticed that her face was unusually white. It was rather that something indefinable seemed to have been taken from her.

The silence between us became intolerable and I stammered something intended for consolation, saying that at least we still had each other.

Yes, you are all that is left now, she said in a low, grave tone, while her eyes appeared to be studying me with the same unnatural and dispassionate consideration that I had bestowed on the tablecloth.

And suddenly, as she stood there looking at me so quietly and steadfastly in the quiet room, at night, with the lamp burning, the terrible revelation sprang out like writing upon the wall, and I realized everything, my own blindness, the horror. It was not I but my brother whom my mother had loved all along. He was the treasure of which I had robbed her for all these years and of which I had now deprived her for ever.

As if she knew what was in my mind she remarked:

You were always stronger than he was, and now you have managed to get rid of him for good.

A blue thread from the tablecloth had caught on her sleeve, and as she was speaking she carefully picked it off and threw it away. I don't know why, but this little action of hers was more than I could endure, and I groaned and hid my face in my hands.

I suppose she must have gone out of the room then although I did not hear her go. But after a minute the most awful thing of all happened: I heard her voice crying from the staircase in that dreadful, inhuman tone of a person screaming out of a nightmare, O, what will become of us now?

Whatever happens to me, I shall never forget that terrible cry. No walls, however high and thick, can exclude it. Nothing that I could possibly be called upon to bear could drown that sound which is always in my ears now like an accompaniment to the waves breaking outside.

What will become of us now? For her you might say the question is finally answered. And yet, was the answer really contained in that narrow box that so soon after my brother's coffin took the same steep journey down the dark stairs of our home? When the barber comes round and sets up his glass I look at my reflection and wonder whether the whole drama is not still going on here, in this little room, inside these high walls. Perhaps there will never be an end to it at all. Or perhaps the end will only come when no mirror reflects me any more. Perhaps when I die, perhaps death alone will bring peace, the armistice and end to this sad internecine strife.

IT was springtime, a windy day. I had walked a long way on the cliffs by a path that I did not know. Gannets were diving like snow falling into the sea, pursuing a shoal of fish that kept parallel with the shore. I'm not certain now whether I walked so far in order to watch the gannets or to explore the coast, or simply because it was a bright afternoon.

After winding for a long time between low bushes and rocks, the path suddenly began to climb steeply over a headland. Seeing the difficult track ahead made me realize that I was tired, and that I had already come much further than I had intended. From the position of the sun I knew that it must be getting late. The sensible thing would have been to turn back then: especially as the gannets, which I had perhaps been following unconsciously, were vanishing round the rocky point shaped like the snout of a huge saurian. But instead of starting the long walk home I kept on, telling myself that I might as well see what lay beyond the head since I had come so far. It was quite a stiff climb, the path was slippery with pine needles and loose stones, and I was breathless by the time I got to the top. There was nothing about the view from the crest, either, to justify the effort of getting there. However far I looked I could see only a vista of the same yellowish rocky cliffs topped with pine trees and scrub which had been in front of my eyes the whole afternoon.

A few yards away, in a hollow of the downward slope, was a dilapidated wooden shack. At first I thought it must be some old boat-shed or deserted fisherman's hut. The half-ruined place, apparently only held together by roughly nailed boards and wire and patched with beaten-out tins, seemed much too ramshackle to be inhabited. But then I saw signs of occupancy: a heap of fresh potato peelings thrown outside the door, a few indescribably sordid rags hanging from the crazy posts of what had once been a fence.

I stood there in the wind for a minute, resting and getting my breath after the climb. And as I was wondering how any human being could be so unfortunate or so degraded as to live in such squalor, five or six children appeared and clustered together staring out to sea: they were, like the hovel, indescribably squalid, almost naked, hideous with neglect. They pointed towards the sea where the gannets on this side of the point were diving much closer in, with folded wings hurtling like bolts through the air, to strike the water one after the other in jets of spray. I could not hear much of what the children were saying, but it seemed from certain words and from their gestures that they expected the birds to come near. I waited to see what would happen. We all gazed at the gannets which were now no longer diving or searching the waves but planing portentously towards us with infrequent wing strokes. And sure enough I was presently half-deafened by a storm of harsh cries immediately overhead. Long black-tipped wings hid the sun, shadowing everything; only the cold round eyes and the fierce beaks glittered. And hardly had the flock sighted the children than they seemed to be menacing them, screaming headlong towards them in horrid haste. I shouted some sort of warning, urging the children to run into the house. They took no notice. I saw their looks full of excitement and anticipation, but without any amazement. They seemed to be taking part in a procedure well known to them. Already the gannets were swooping upon one of them, the smallest of the group, whom two of the others dragged along by her sticklike arms. And it was beyond all possibility of doubt that this miserable little creature was the victim among them, already dedicated to the birds. Not terror alone gave such a shocking blankness to her lifted face, darkened by two great holes, bloodied pits from which the eyes had already been torn. I shouted again and began running with an idea of beating the gannets off with my hands; but then I must have stumbled and fallen heavily. I must have been stunned by the fall on the jagged rock, for when I got up the cliff was silent and lonely, the wind had died down, and the sun was sinking behind sullen bars of cloud edged with fire.

How did all this atrocious cruelty ever get into the world, that's what I often wonder. No one created it, no one invoked it: and no saint, no genius, no dictator, no millionaire, no, not God's son himself, is able to drive it out.