Anna Kavan - I Am Lazarus

Something catches her attention so that she turns her head. Look, a butterfly, she calls out. The first butterfly of the year. The first one I've seen since I left my home.

And then, as she watches the wavering flight of the pretty red brown butterfly, the animation dies out of her face, her eyes lose their blueness and slowly darken with tears. The other girl, too, becomes grave, the words she is saying falter, dead before they are spoken, the fragile happiness which these two had nourished between them vanishes like the butterfly whose uncertain, frail wings seem to be at the mercy of the first breath of wind.

It is not only the exile whose cheeks have become wet: and though they are both conscious of this they say nothing about it, they don't speak of anything sad, but quickly start talking about some clouds which are coming up shaped, not like swans, but like small shying horses. Soon both the girls are smiling often again. Probably it's only an illusion that their voices no longer sound quite so gay. Out-of-doors, in the lovely spring weather, how could anyone help feeling gay? So beautifully blue the sky is; the cherry blossom so white.

IV

The clock by my bed has a dial that shines in the dark. It is a small white clock with a shutter which slides over its face when it starts out on a journey. This clock has accompanied me on many tremendous journeys. It has been stowed carefully away and muffled against damage in the gales of northern oceans; the spray of tropical seas has tarnished its metal parts; from beside many beds it has patiently watched with me the solemn march of the constellations of two hemispheres.

Now it stands with the same patience at this improbable city bedside. It ticks in the same unflurried, impersonal fashion. Its tick does not sound either friendly or unfriendly: it has a sound which suggests impartiality. It is an impartial, scientific observer, this clock, quietly recording into eternity all that passes in front of its face. In spite of our long association, the clock and I are not on intimate terms; my feeling for the clock is one of respect more than cordiality.

Just now the hands of the clock stand at half-past two. They gleam greenishly in the dark. I've been asleep for an hour. A minute or so ticks away. Then there is noise. The sirens wail up and down my room with howling violence. It always happens like that, it's always the same, it's not the sirens that wake me: I always wake up a minute or two before the alert actually sounds. The siren noise comes to an end: other noises begin. Mobile guns grind elephantinely over me. A plane buzzes round my head. Outside the black windows the searchlights climb questing. I can feel the broad beams sawing and the narrow beams scissoring through my nerves. Then suddenly from far away over the city, dull, muffled, heavy noise. Pandemonium is starting up; is coming nearer and nearer, implacably; is here, ultimately, on top of me. The darkness explodes into thunderous tumult. Through it all I catch the slither of some small object falling inside my room. I put out my hand to the switch, and, incredible as it seems, the light goes on just as usual. In the calm yellow light I see that it is, of course, the picture on the chest-of-drawers that has slipped on the polished wood and fallen down on its face. It always happens like that, every time it's the same, the vibration always makes the picture fall down. The noise batters the night with unappeasable fury. The whole night outside is rent and rocking in all directions. I cover my ears in a vain attempt to shut out some of the din; in particular, there's one excruciating sound which resembles, magnified to the nth degree, the screech of tearing canvas that I desperately try to exclude.

The noise makes me feel inexpressibly lonely. I am quite alone in the little house, alone with the clock whose tick I can no longer distinguish. I have the impression that I'm the only living soul in the midst of this fiendish hullaballoo. Can there really be other human beings out there in the city? Impossible to imagine that people are connected in any way with the racket that's going on. It's an absolutely inhuman excess of noise, the rage of the city itself. Our city itself is ravening at the night.

Like a lighted bubble my room floats irresponsibly in the shattering noise. The curtains flutter a little, but the pale blue carpet doesn't turn a hair. It's a fact, the pale blue carpet actually still covers the floor from wall to wall. The din seems incessant, but there must be infinitesimal pauses, for at some moment I am aware of the clock ticking attentively. I hear the bottles on the dressing-table snigger against one another. Ages go past like this.

At last things grow quieter: the noise is diminishing, retreating, petering out. Planes snarl frantically overhead, then zoom off, away from the city. Someone walks quickly along the street outside with heavy steps: a warden, perhaps. So there are people alive, moving about in the city. The clock goes on ticking, a diligent and indefatigable recorder. Presently the all-clear sounds, interminably, like a boy seeing how long he can hold, his breath. At last even that noise stops; and there is immeasurable relief. Very carefully, being as quiet as possible, I switch out the light.

The noise is over. But now something begins to happen that is in its way as sensational, as appalling. Through the darkness of the blacked-out windows I am aware of an indescribable movement throughout the city, a soundless spinning of motion in the streets and among the ruins, an unseen upward surge of building: the silence industriously, insecurely, building itself up. The silence gathers itself together in the parks and the squares and the gaps and the empty houses. Like a spider's web rapidly woven, the frail edifice mounts up quickly towards the moon. Soon the precarious work is finished, the whole city is roofed, covered in with silence, as if lying under a black cloche. The tension is frightful. With compressed lips and foreheads lined with anxiety every citizen crouches uneasily, peering up at the transparent black bell of silence hanging over our city. Is it going to break?

V

What a heartbreaking contrariness there is in this world. It seems as if things were deliberately, cunningly, planned to cause one the maximum amount of chagrin. Take this little house where I live now, for instance. What could be more inappropriate to a person in my predicament than these two pleasant rooms, one of which is actually carpeted in pale velvety blue? There's something shocking and painful in the mere thought of associating myself in my present unhappy state with anything so frivolous as a blue carpet. And yet there have been periods of my life when a place like this would have suited me perfectly. Then, of course, I was unable to find anything of the sort, and was forced to exist in some gloomy setting as out of keeping with my circumstances at the time as this cottage is with my present position.

I sometimes wonder what induces the authorities to allow me to stay here, in comfort, with pictures, with lamps. Probably it won't be permitted, much longer. There have been indications lately that a change is contemplated. Who knows from what stony barrack, what freezing cell, I may before long find myself looking back on all this with nostalgic regret? Quite likely it's with that very object that I'm left here at present — just so that the change, when it comes, shall be all the more intolerable. O yes, they're ingenious enough for anything, those into whose hands we are committed.

Certainly it was a subtle finesse to decree that the first bitter months of my sentence should be served in an environment which continually seems to be making a mock of my sufferings with its incongruous gaiety. Often there are days now when I feel absolutely desperate, when the weight of my burden seems far too heavy to bear. And on these days the place takes a callous delight in flaunting itself, as if determined to draw my attention to the fact that not I but some happy, privileged being, perhaps a charming young actress with many lovers, really ought to be living here. The very pictures on the walls, portraying as they do light-hearted columbines and nymphs in amorous poses, smile down on me with cynical mockery.