Anna Kavan - Who Are You?

As he hasn’t seen her for a few days he looks at her more attentively than usual, noticing that she’s become paler and thinner than she used to be; which she seems to have done on purpose to annoy him, so that he snaps: ‘What’s the matter with you? Aren’t you well?’ She can’t see his face clearly against the light, but doesn’t need to, being only too familiar with that particular overbearing tone — surely he isn’t going to start a quarrel already? She feels she can’t stand the effort of quarrelling in this appalling heat, and says quietly that the weather makes her head ache.

‘You strain your eyes reading too much,’ he retorts. Then: ‘Why the devil can’t you get used to the climate, like everyone else?’ Her failure to make this adjustment also seems an exasperating device for making him angry. But, though she doesn’t answer, he lets it go, preoccupied with a new idea, originating in her looking unwell, which slowly takes shape in his head.

The way he’s still staring reminds her that she hasn’t tidied her hair since the wind blew it about, and she smoothes it down with her hands, so that it catches his eye. He looks at the glossy, vigorous hair, in which all her vitality seems concentrated, and which is now so long that it rests on her shoulders, as she hasn’t had the energy lately even to have it cut. All at once, he finds that his hands are twitching involuntarily — he wants to stroke it, which he hasn’t done since the period of his infatuation. His gaze becoming proprietory, possessive, he takes a sudden step forward and puts his hand on her shoulder.

She is quite unprepared for this, thinking only about her hair. It makes her jump to feel the big, hard, heavy hand descend on her shoulder, like a policeman’s, and tighten its grip there.

‘Anything happened while I’ve been away?’ he asks now, in a changed, peculiar tone, ingratiating and artificial; he doesn’t really want to know, or expect an answer, and might equally well have made any other remark. The question is in the nature of a preliminary, part of a routine, which she recognizes with horror from the bedroom, as he pulls her against him.

She feels the insufferable heat generated between their two touching bodies spring up like a flame and, acting purely on impulse, not stopping to think, wrenches herself out of his grasp. Instantly a murderous flare appears in his blue eyes, his face goes rigid, his hands clench as if to drag out by the roots handfuls of the hair they were about to caress. But he says nothing, turning his back on her, and marches out of the room.

She doesn’t see him again until they meet at dinner, when he hardly speaks a word. To pay her out, as soon as the meal is over, he gets the racquets and starts the rat game. Though he can’t compel her to play with him, he forces her to stay in the room. But she shuts her eyes tight and won’t watch, so he’s frustrated again.

He feels like bashing her with the racquet, and is only restrained by the resolve that’s come to him suddenly to make her give him a son and heir; it’s the least she can do in return for the honour of being married to him. Besides, it will take her down a peg or two, and show her which of them is the boss.

Grinning to himself over these thoughts, he goes on bashing the rats with particular gusto.

Without warning one evening, while dinner is being served, the electric light starts to fade. It doesn’t go out altogether, but gives the impression of being about to do so at any moment, meanwhile maintaining a rapid, distracting, continuous flickering that has a distorting, hallucinatory effect, and makes everything seem unstable, unreal.

The girl asks what’s gone wrong, looking anxiously at her husband. Any mishap of this sort generally starts him swearing and shouting abuse at everyone within earshot. But to her surprise he remains calm and only says, ‘It’s always like this at the end of the hot weather,’ adding something about hydraulic pressure she doesn’t take in.

The queer quick fluctuations have already made her disagreeably conscious that her head is aching; also, they produce a disturbing, impossible effect, as if the day’s shimmering heat-haze had invaded the night-time room. Which is doubtless why she doesn’t notice when, after the butler has handed the main dish, the vegetables are offered, not by his proper assistant, but by the youth in the white turban.

Nor does the man at the head of the table appear to be aware of any irregularity in the service, as he helps himself generously. He keeps his eyes on his plate, eating with his usual appetite, preparing each mouthful in advance, putting it into his mouth and repeating the process before he’s finished masticating the last, displaying a somewhat doglike conscientiousness in scrupulously cleaning up every morsel. After he’s consumed a second helping with the same thoroughness, and while the butler’s occupied with the next course, the youth slips out to the back porch. Here Mohammed Dirwaza Khan is waiting for him and mutters a brief question, which he answers by a quick affirmative nod, returning immediately to the dining-room.

His bearded superior too leaves the porch at once, silent as a shadow, entering the central corridor which divides the house and into which the stairs and all the rooms lead. He passes the flickering light in the dining-room, where only his master’s legs are visible under the door flaps, and, without attracting attention or making a sound, mounts to the floor above. He does not hurry. If he is seen, he is merely on his way to prepare his master’s room for the night, as he always does at about this time.

Instead, however, he goes straight into the girl’s room, which he’s never supposed to enter. Considering this fact, he’s remarkably well acquainted with its contents and their exact position, for, without putting on the light, guided only by the feeble wavering gleam from below, he goes straight to the cupboard where she keeps her dresses, and a row of shoes on a shelf underneath.

He makes a sign of superstitious significance, to avert whatever evil would otherwise befall him in consequence of touching these forbidden objects, then squats down on his haunches and, with evident aversion, picks up one shoe gingerly, shakes it, and puts it back, picking up the next. In the near-darkness it’s hard to see what exactly his gnarled strong fingers are doing as they busy themselves with the shoes; but his activities are certainly not legitimate, though there is nothing furtive about his movements, and only their speed indicates a desire to finish the operation before dinner is over. Picking up each shoe in turn he eventually finds what he’s looking for, extracting from the toe of one a sheet of notepaper, folded very small, which has been handled so much that it’s practically falling to pieces. This is not the first time he’s had it in his possession; but he shows considerable interest in it now, taking it into the lighter centre room, where he stands at the top of the stairs, scrutinizing it closely, turning it this way and that, as if a new angle might make it disclose its secret. He surveys it for some time upside-down before slipping it into his pocket and silently entering his master’s room, just as the scraping of chairs below marks the end of the meal.

He stays here, letting down and arranging the mosquito net, and performing several other small duties, as he does every night, until Dog Head comes in calling for his racquet. This he solemnly gets out of a cupboard, dusting the strings and undoing the nuts of the old-fashioned press; while its owner, with his hand inside his shirt, stands waiting, scratching his hairy chest. Nothing is said. No looks are exchanged. It’s quite impossible to tell whether the master knows what his servant has just been doing. He shows no surprise when the letter is produced and handed to him, but this he would be unlikely to do before an inferior, in any case.