I Am Lazarus (Peter Owen Modern Classic) (19 page)

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.

The fact that the windows look out upon trees and gardens is part of the cruel design. For in this way I am sometimes tricked into forgetting the city; I fall into the trap of believing that I am free, that there is open country outside and not streets and ruins. And then comes the terrible moment when it occurs to me that the city is still there; and I pace from corner to corner, of course finding nothing, but still blindly searching for something that might not reject me, in the dreadful destitution of the condemned. How everything in the rooms jeers at me then. The walls shake with laughter. The painted houris sneer, curling their rosy lips at the idea that I should still be looking for mercy after all my misdeeds. Not even the sparrows that I've just fed with crumbs from the window restrain their ridicule, but fly away tittering. And the carpet, the blue carpet: the pale blue carpet finds it necessary to spread out its softness under my feet in sheerest derision.

VI

It's queer that I can't get out of the way of walking about. Here in the city, where few people except eccentrics ever walk unless forced to do so, I still don't seem to be able to break this countrified habit. A part of the distance between the cottage in which I sleep and the place where I work is occupied by an area without houses, a stretch of heath or rough parkland, where children play and dogs run about sniffing the grass. Every afternoon, for some time now, I've walked across this stretch of land which is partly wooded and partly covered with thickets of gorse and bramble. There's a pleasant path here that runs through the trees. At a particular turn of the path a silver birch bends over it, as if shaking out a threadbare green curtain.

To-day it was cooler and darker than usual under the trees. I stopped in an open clearing and looked up at the sky. The segment that lay behind me, towards the west, was full of a limpid light; the part ahead darkened softly with blowing clouds. Chromium against gunmetal, the barrage balloons on which the light fell embossed themselves on the tarnished shield of the sky. And above them, much higher up, so high as to seem no larger than a migration of birds, a huge formation of bombers was steadily travelling towards its distant night-time objective. Sometimes blurred, sometimes flashing with brightness, the machines in outlandish beauty pursued their lonely and awful course, filling the whole atmosphere with a muted thunder.

Why was it so dark and chilly down in the wood? I thought at first that I must be later than usual. And then it suddenly dawned on me that this hour which up to now had been afternoon had to-day slipped over the boundary into evening, and that the brown, scorched look of the trees came, not from drought, but from approaching winter. In the thinning foliage, here and there certain yellow leaves trembled and said ‘Death’ with a frightened voice.

A nondescript, paunchy man sauntered through the wood, whistling to a black dog. Then two very ordinary middle-aged people came round the curve under the silver birch. The man wore
an officer's uniform, but was not at all martial looking: he held his cap under the arm farther from his companion, and from the hand at the end of this arm there dangled a string bag containing packages and a bottle of milk. His hair was grey and quite thin; his tunic did not fit very well and he seemed to sag a little at the knees as he walked. The woman with him looked like a housekeeper in a shapeless fawn coat and a serviceable brown hat that had never been gay. Quite suddenly and spontaneously these two people turned to one another and linked hands and walked on swinging their joined hands lightly and proudly between them, like young lovers. They could not repress the timid joy in their faces, and smiled at everything that they passed, at me, at the dog, at the trees. I began to make an effort to master myself as soon as I saw them, otherwise I must have burst into tears or thrown myself on the ground or started tearing my clothes with abandoned fingers. When one sees people like this so happy it is hard indeed to endure one's sentence. Why, even a paunchy, nondescript man has his black dog which accompanies him unquestioningly in faithful devotion wherever he chooses to go.

VII

Our city is full of the troops of a foreign army. When I first arrived here from the other side of the world I couldn't tell whether these soldiers were friends or invaders, and even now I'm equally at a loss.

Wherever money is being spent these men in their costly and elegant uniforms are to be found, in theatres, bars, restaurants, stores, buying the best of everything, and conducting themselves in a lavish way far beyond the resources of the citizens who are pushed quite into the background. Very often it's impossible to get what one wants – whether it's a meal or a drink or a seat at an entertainment or some article in a shop – because these people have bought up everything. And as for taxis and cars – well, the drivers seem to have placed their vehicles exclusively at the disposal of the foreign soldiers and their bottomless purses.

Are they, in fact, allies or enemies? Often enough one hears bitter remarks which suggest the latter alternative. But if that were the case wouldn't the hostility of the citizens take some more dynamic form than mere acrimonious grumbling? And then, it must be admitted, the conduct of the strangers isn't what one traditionally expects of a conquering army. Beyond the fact of their ubiquitousness and the way in which they monopolize all amenities, they appear not to interfere with our city at all. They have not, for example, taken over control of any of the public services or made any attempt to alter the laws or impose their own restrictions.

Occasionally, though this doesn't often happen, one sees them going about with the local people, usually girls they've picked up somewhere, or perhaps a youngster impressed by their spending powers. Or one catches sight of a group of their high-ranking officers formally escorted by a party of our dignitaries through the doors of a solemn official building.

One's natural impulse, of course, is to question somebody and settle things once and for all. But a person in my situation can't be too careful; I have to think twice about whatever I do, even about such a simple thing as asking a question. The last thing I want is to draw attention to myself in any way. And then, with our complex system of regulations, continually changing from day to day, how is one to know what is permitted? If I were to make a mistake the result might be fatal for me. A single false step might easily end in disaster. Besides, even if I were so reckless as to stop a passer-by and make my inquiry, how can I be sure that he'd give me an answer? As likely as not he would merely look at me suspiciously and pass on, even if he did not actually lodge a complaint against me. For a passionate secretiveness characterizes the inhabitants of our city. It simply isn't worth while taking such a chance. I'd rather remain uncertain.

It's not as if the foreigners were constantly being brought to my notice, either: in the way I live now, I often pass two or three days without seeing a single one of them.

In the beginning it was quite different. Before I was directed
to the work which now occupies me, while I had time on my hands to wander about the city, I naturally gave a good deal of attention to the strange soldiers whom I saw everywhere lounging about, apparently as idle as I was myself. In those days I had some peculiar notions about them. Laughable as it may seem, I developed the idea that these men were in some way linked to me, that there was something in common between us, like a distant blood relationship. I, the city's outcast and prisoner, seemed to feel with these foreigners a connection, sympathetic perhaps, which did not exist where the citizens were concerned. Often, as I glanced at the strangers, their large, tanned, dispassionate, ruminative faces would touch some recollection in me; I would suddenly be reminded of the faces of friends in a far-distant country, the conviction would sweep over me that I was here confronting members of a race that had once been most dear to me, like brothers. And this emotion was so strong that it was all I could do to restrain myself from making an appeal of some kind to them, in my desolation.

I remember particularly one such occasion. I was waiting for a bus in one of the main streets when my eyes wandered idly towards a foreign captain sitting at a small table outside a restaurant. Immediately the sensation I have described came over me, but with such intense poignancy that it was as if I had suddenly caught sight of a beloved and well-known face among the indifferent crowd. Instinctively, hardly knowing what I was doing, I started moving towards this man, some incoherent phrase already forming itself in my head. Heaven knows what I might have said to him, what fantastic supplication for comfort, for aid, I might have poured out to him. But, precisely at that moment, as if at a given signal, he got up in a leisurely manner and strolled away. It seemed to me that only a few yards separated us: that I had only to take one or two steps in order to catch up with him. And, crazily, I did start forward, meaning to overtake him. Perhaps he had entered one of the neighbouring shops; perhaps he had started to cross the street and was hidden by passing cars: in any case, he had already vanished completely. The pavement, as usual, was crowded with the strange uniforms, so much smarter and better fitting than ours; and for the
next few moments I kept staring distractedly into one and then another of those unknown faces, some of which looked back at me I believe not unsympathetically. But not one of them was in the least like the face for which I was searching, and which I suppose I am never to see again.

Perhaps it was lucky for me that I was denied the opportunity of speaking; but how can I be sure, having no means of obtaining information about the soldiers? So I must go on in uncertainty, even though foreign eyes still sometimes seem to gaze at me in passing with a look of fraternal compassion and understanding, encouraging me to do the thing which I most fear doing.

VIII

Like a recurrent dream, the following scene repetitiously unfolds itself: I am sitting in a bureau, putting forward my case; it is the nme-hundred-and-ninety-ninth station of my tedious calvary. In front of me stands the usual large desk covered with papers and telephones; this one has on it, too, a small notice, neatly printed and framed like a calendar, saying, ‘If danger becomes imminent during an alert the bureau will be closed’. Behind the desk sits the usual bureaucrat; this time it's a big man with curly hair and a pin-stripe suit who confronts me discouragingly.