Machines in the Head

by Anna Kavan

  The lion-dog runs forward with all his racial gallantry and élan into that ugly street smelling of asphalt, sourness and spite. It comes to this, then, as I see it. One must try to live up to the dog’s standard. That’s what one must aim at.

  III

  How blue the sky is this morning, as if summer had kindly approved the date set for putting the clocks on another hour. It’s only the fourth of April, and now we’ve already got double summertime. Today might easily have been foggy like it was most of last week; it might have been pouring with rain or blowing a gale; there might even have been a snowstorm. But, thank goodness, the weather is perfect. There isn’t so much to be thankful for these days; the people walking uphill to the candle-spired church must often be hard put to it to find suitable subjects for thanksgiving in their prayers. Today, though, everybody can thank God for the fine weather. And people with gardens, how happy they must be: they’ve got an extra cause to give thanks with the daffodils springing bright everywhere and the blossom coming out on the fruit trees just as prettily as it does in countries which are at peace. Overnight, as it seems, the chestnut buds have burst into harmless miniature flares, beautifully green. All the trees which have been dull and dormant so long are now suddenly lit up by these miraculous green fires, gentle beacons of hope, quietly and graciously burning. Oh, how blue the sky is. The barrage balloons look foolish and rather gay, like flocks of silver-paper kites riding high up there in the blue.

  In the garden of the small house below the church an old cherry tree is just on the point of blooming. Thousands of tiny white buds, still close and firm, tremble all over the branches among golden-green leaves the size of a mouse’s ear. On some of the upper boughs, more exposed to the sun, the blossom is out already, and here the open petals cluster so thickly that it looks as if snow showers had caught and lingered among the young leaves. A few early bees have found out the cherry tree and are working busily over the white flowers.

  The foreign girl who lives in the little house leans out of the window. She’s quite close to the cherry blossom, she could almost touch the starry sprays if she leaned out a little further. A brightness comes on her face, reflected perhaps from the bloom. Or perhaps the humming bees and the twittering of the birds remind her of home. Perhaps she suddenly remembers hearing those cheerful sounds under a stronger sun.

  The girl is in no hurry to leave the window. For quite a long time she leans out with her arms on the sill, and the wind lightly stirs the fair hair beside her face which in spite of its bright look somehow gives an impression of sadness. From where she stands she can see over the garden wall into the street of grey quiet houses leading uphill to the church. It is the hour of the morning when in ordinary times the church bells would be ringing. There are no bells now, and the few people on their way to the service walk slowly, separated from one another, in dark clothes that look too heavy for the spring day. At the open door of the house opposite a woman and a little boy are watching the people disappear one by one into the church. When the last one is out of sight the mother puts her hand on the child’s head, turns him gently back into the house with her and closes the door behind them without a sound.

  The street is quite empty now under the blue sky across which a cloud in the shape of a swan is airily floating.

  In a moment a girl comes around the corner, walking fast. She is dark eyed, very slender, and well dressed; her high heels tap merrily as she hurries along. She sees her friend at the window, waves to her and calls out a greeting. The foreign girl runs down to meet her, and soon they are sitting on the grass where a sprinkle of white petals has yet to fall. How happy they seem together under the cherry tree, talking and smiling often; the dark eyes gleam in the sun, the grey eyes reflect the tender blue of the sky. The dark girl gives news of her husband, a soldier fighting far off in the desert, from whom she has just had a letter. While she speaks of him her face is lively and beautiful. The foreigner leans forward with eagerness, rejoicing in her friend’s pleasure.

  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 although 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 that 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 around 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 bu
bble 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 through out 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. Oh 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 mockery 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.

  Today 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 today 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 around 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 fou
nd, 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, although 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.