Europe After the Rain

by Alan Burns

  She had been years in the grave. I remembered her long curls, but now they were faded. She could not live again. But she found friends. Two middle-aged ladies began to take an interest in her. They took her out for walks with them. It became an unnatural thing. She fell in love with them. Then she sent them flowers, and they were returned burnt, and, with them, her note torn in pieces. With her memories of the dead she caused bitter suffering; she had no friends; in the night she cried terribly. She offended many people. She told them too plainly what she saw.

  Only her father continued to welcome her. He gave her a job to do. Her duty was to read him the papers. She concentrated on the press reports of crime and scandal – these were the matters, rather than the famine which had set in, which interested him. He demanded her constant presence throughout the day, and refused to allow her time to prepare my meals. She grew tired of the work, and became devoted to little dogs and to plants. She brought home an object found in the street – a puppy sewn up in the skin of an animal. When he met her carrying two plants she had bought in the town, her father startled her by calling out: “Two lovers in her arms!” Their arguments grew, and they turned to me for an opinion, which I declined to give.

  I climbed the hill towards the bridge, aware of the threats which shadowed my life. She refused to join me. I ate solitary, extravagantly, pouring on my plate the remains of her food – three large spoonsful. I stopped at two o’clock, torn between knowledge. My work to do. Her desire to sleep. I left the decision to her. “Do as you please. If you go out, do not come back a minute later than half-past two.” “I shan’t go far. I’ll take a walk to the bridge.”

  The bridge had a hut by the entrance. The wooden-sided structure was divided into three – one part waited with benches, the other shivered and muttered – the other was interesting, with coloured bottles. I took the key from a hook near the door. One corner of the hut fulfilled many purposes. Its outer part, where the wall projected, served as a store for board and pegs. Coal was stored there. Beneath the windows, a carpenter’s bench. I touched the teeth of the saw, the cutting edge of a chisel. Her father had spent hundreds of hours working in wood and the lighter forms of iron. I pressed my face against the chisel. She looked away. “Enjoying yourself?” The voice came from her lean face. “Haven’t you had enough?” I ignored this attempt at humour. Her trembling increased. Her face shook. She said she had been on her way to see me, but had decided to keep away. “You said you wouldn’t mind.” “I never said that.” “What have you been doing?” I asked her, for something to say. “Nothing much.” With her head level with the second window, frightened of losing her balance, she started to look over her shoulder. She tried to stop in the right position, began to walk towards the mechanism; she tried to run but was unable to. “Funny way of running.” “I suppose it is.” “Are you coming?” I knew the signs. “Will you come for an hour?” “Longer than that.”

  I went down the hill, unsmiling. I could see the bridge; I gazed down at the sides of the deep water; I had seen the road beyond – the new road did not go forwards. Higher on this side of the bridge, level with the tank from which water was piped to the town, the road approached from the far side; the wide road, its animal feet moving, pulling, it died away in the reeds along the banks.

  I waited for her. She appeared from the bridge. We went through the old pantomime – I behaving as though my purpose was to caress, her insistence that more was needed – until despite denials and protests, she found the hidden gifts. We decided to return. She accepted the invitation, said that the evenings were usually empty, and that evening she had wanted me to come. We agreed on a meeting place: at the foot of the slope as we came off the bridge. “Will we need to repair the house?” “See for yourself when you get into the place,” she said serenely. I knew that, to begin with, new timber was needed. As the subject was of interest, before continuing to speak to her about it, I demanded an account of where she had been and whom she had seen. I could hear my voice thundering. My attitude terrified her. “I have been preparing for that question from the first. You know the story, the pattern, my family.” She began to turn the handle of the mechanism. She went back towards the bridge, pulling me with her, climbing the hill until we were high above and then down till we were exactly level with the door of her house. The road ended; we had gone through a narrow tunnel, and so into the yard. We walked up a path, and here was a waterway – the river grew wider. Reaching ground level after slithering down a grassy slope, she turned back to look at the chimney on the roof of her house. Guided by an unknown law, she defined her need and the way of satisfying it. In a recess about a yard deep, on the left side, up three stone steps, was the doorway to her house. Opposite was another door. Inside, a flight of wooden steps led down to the stone floor – a small compartment shuttered on two sides, one shutter facing the bank, another being used for ashes. “You’re lucky,” I said. “Our levels are now equal,” she began. Her speech became less precise every minute she remained inside the house. It was hot. “I cannot stay long. I have jobs to do. I wanted to go across the road for a chat. She was wiping her hands on her dress. “I’ve finished.” She went; I was by myself. I wondered whether or not I should have spoken in confidence. I didn’t know. Indecisive, I stared up at the lines which crossed to connect the two buildings. The cellar had been long unused. It was not likely that she would come back.

  Chapter 15

  I passed over the plank spanning the brook – a tributary of the river – skirted the swampy ground, climbed down to avoid a gang of boys playing a dangerous game, a suicidal game. I climbed over a gate. Rows of gardens, rows of houses faced the lane. I knocked on the lowest door. Her father. Strong, bare arms. He was not pleased. He saw me. He looked at me and thought nothing.

  “Her things are stored in her room.” He sent me into her room. I found the things there. As I collected her clothes, he followed me about the room. He wandered into a long discourse which I had some difficulty in following. “You work – perhaps I too will work. I’m not unhappy. Soon we will all think of nothing; there will be a new world. She had a mother – she tried to talk. She said: don’t judge, don’t experience, don’t try to get away, only doctors know the causes of diseases. Now this girl, she’s a child, don’t deny it, like it. I don’t think there will be a war, but it may all end.” He looked suddenly old. “We did not know how to live. We fought – we had to fight; it was simple – that was all there was. That’s not true – appearances lie; it was for nothing – our revolution was one of the most insignificant; we used big words. My useful time was when I lived with my wife; we had a small flat, ordinary chairs, played hide-and-seek with work – there was dust over everything soon enough. Her eyes were always tired; she knew what she was. I heard it said – ‘your wife seems tired’ – and my reply, ‘not really’. Her womb twisted over, choked by work. She used to listen to the wireless. I was too busy; she was old and leading an empty life; she never had the windows open – she begged me not to open them. No basin, no proper clothes; she was lying on the bed covered by a coat. She was in pain, she needed medicine, she couldn’t eat. I was very, very tired. We could not afford a doctor. When the ulcers burst, I was bathing the baby. In those days I could do a lot; now I haven’t the patience – I am unable to move or think. We never went out. She had kidney trouble. Two children died. Three children – two died. And the girl, you know, has been operated on.” “I didn’t know.” “My wife would have looked after you. She had to do all the lifting – she had to shovel, carry coke; those were the hardest days. I blame myself. Because of my work, nights and days of fighting and planning, she had to lift things. She injured her spine – it gave her pains in her shoulders; she should have stayed in bed, but she would not do so. She felt acute pain, but her horror of hospitals was stronger than the pain. There was no remedy, only stupidity and ignorance. I am damp and old. There was no one to lead them – no one who would die. My son fought and was killed. I
saw him fall. All he could do was die. In those few hours, I hope he was suitably drugged – probably not. Now there is nothing. No one stays alive; he has died – his house is in ruins because of the chains on his legs. He was made to run over loose flints during great heat, allowed to fetch water but forbidden to drink it. He was isolated – the windows of his hut were nailed up and painted over. He was made to lie inside on his plank bed all day and all night, except for one hour when he was taken out for their pleasure. It was not possible for him to keep his own cup and plate. There were no bedclothes on his bed. There was no gas stove or oven, no meat safe. His room had bare boards, little warmth; the bed was badly broken, very damp and cold. The floor was earth; the plaster had fallen from the walls; vermin nested there. The opening to the air was on one side only – so narrow that ventilation was impossible. In front of the opening, sewage stood, and a pit over which the air that entered the room had to pass. The liquid which drained from the pit seeped through the earth and lay in pools by the walls of the room. The surface of the water was polluted, the ground saturated with the foul liquid which darkened the walls and ran beneath the floor, soaking the boards. There was no stove, no decent cupboards; a kettle with a broken spout; two bowls with holes stopped up with rags. The floor was bare stone. The mattress was broken. The room had no furniture besides the bed. The room was empty. No gas stove or oven. We had two lead spoons – fingers were used for eating; no basins – we could not drink tea. Inside the air was bad, and he became unconscious. He was strapped down to a block, his head muffled in blankets. He was given twenty-five lashes with a whip which had been left soaking in water for the purpose since the preceding day. They took it in turns to beat him. He was hung up on a post with his hands tied behind his back so that with his toes he could just touch the ground. He was sent to a dark cell and given fifty lashes; he was forced to run with his barrow full of stones. He was not allowed to move. He was told he could not be free for twenty years. You will never come out. Coloured stripes were sewn on his clothes for shame – red bands perpendicular on the back, yellow stripes with red circles, red bands crossed, red bands with yellow circles, red bands with blue circles, blue bands, perpendicular yellow stripes striped on his back. They got tired of tormenting him. He was made to work in a water-filled ditch – forced with blows beneath the surface. When he crawled out he was forced back – forced to crawl on his knees; made to stand while others ate; given twenty strokes of the lash – a tapering thong of cowhide. He was strapped to a trestle. He seized a hammer and tried to brain himself, but was stopped. He tried to hang himself, but they saw it and he was saved. He sharpened a piece of tin and opened the arteries in both arms. A load of stones was tipped over him.”

  I walked back towards the house. I paused to lean over the wall where the camp had been. Building was in progress. I continued to the bridge, where, on turning, I saw her, far away, approaching. Fifty yards farther on, we met. “I saw your father this morning.” “I know. He told me you would go there. He’s hardly a father. A friend. But a friend for years.” Slow speaking, slow thinking. “I wish he could have more fresh air. He works long hours; he needs more air than his long days permit.” “He’s by himself at home, like you.” “The same. Yet he’s a man – a man whom a woman could desire for a husband.”

  We went home to the cutting of wood, the laying and lighting of the fire, smoke from the fire, amused manoeuvrings, her pulse beating in her neck, though she was conscious only that the hours were wasted.

  Note on the Text

  The text in the present volume is based on the first edition of Europe after the Rain, published by John Calder (Publishers) Ltd in 1965. The spelling and punctuation in the text have been anglicized, standardized, modernized and made consistent throughout.

  The unusual paragraphing in the text – speakers following one another in the same paragraph – has been replicated from the first edition in order to follow the author’s wishes as closely as possible, preserving the aleatoric device and his professed wish to “cock a snook at the body of traditional literature”.

  ALSO AVAILABLE by the same author

  DREAMERIKA!

  Dreamerika!, Alan Burns’s fourth novel, first published in 1972, provides a satirical look at the Kennedy political dynasty.

  Presented in a fragmented form that reflects society’s disintegration, Dreamerika! fuses fact and dream, resulting in a surreal biography, an alternate history which lays bare the corruption and excesses of capitalism just as the heady idealism of the 1960s has begun to fade.

  calder publications

  edgy titles from a legendary list

  Heliogabalus,

  or The Anarchist Crowned

  Antonin Artaud

  Babel

  Alan Burns

  Buster

  Alan Burns

  Celebrations

  Alan Burns

  Dreamerika!

  Alan Burns

  Europe after the Rain

  Alan Burns

  Changing Track

  Michel Butor

  Moderato Cantabile

  Marguerite Duras

  The Garden Square

  Marguerite Duras

  Selected Poems

  Paul Éluard

  The Blind Owl

  and Other Stories

  Sadeq Hedayat

  The Bérenger Plays

  Eugène Ionesco

  Six Plays

  Luigi Pirandello

  Eclipse:

  Concrete Poems

  Alan Riddell

  A Regicide

  Alain Robbe-Grillet

  In the Labyrinth

  Alain Robbe-Grillet

  Jealousy

  Alain Robbe-Grillet

  The Erasers

  Alain Robbe-Grillet

  The Voyeur

  Alain Robbe-Grillet

  Locus Solus

  Raymond Roussel

  Impressions of Africa

  Raymond Roussel

  Tropisms

  Nathalie Sarraute

  Politics and Literature

  Jean-Paul Sartre

  The Wall

  Jean-Paul Sartre

  The Flanders Road

  Claude Simon

  Cain’s Book

  Alexander Trocchi

  The Holy Man

  and Other Stories

  Alexander Trocchi

  Young Adam

  Alexander Trocchi

  Seven Dada Manifestos

  and Lampisteries

  Tristan Tzara