by Anna Kavan
But her opposition appeared only to make him more determined, to judge by the way he put his hand on her arm, forcing her to stop and, leaning slightly towards her, continued to speak in a low but vehement tone, bringing all his powers of dominance and persuasion to bear upon her. They were standing just below me; I could actually feel the intensity of his will fixed upon her. But instead of reassuring me it had the reverse effect. All at once I became uneasy and my excitement faltered.
Why should he be so eager for me to go to school? What did it matter to him? She murmured some further objection I didn’t catch, which he at once overruled, keeping her all the time under his fixed and compulsive gaze. Such intensity seemed somehow excessive and disturbing, altogether too much to be displayed over my humble affairs. My uneasiness was now reinforced by a sense of mystification and doubt; something seemed to be going on under the surface of things which I didn’t understand but which concerned me closely nevertheless.
They were already starting to walk away again, and I saw that she was about to give in, as I’d known she would do in the end. But now I suddenly found I’d changed sides. No longer under the man’s spell, I felt uncertain and troubled. The thought that he wants to get rid of me, get me out of the way, flashed through my mind like lightning on a dark night, illuminating everything for a second, and then was gone.
Though I was too immature to grasp the idea, it had shaken my trust in him. I suddenly wanted to warn my mother, to let her know I was with her and against him. Was it some premonition of future events that made me want to run after her, seize her hand and hold her back from where she was going? Though I could have no adult understanding of her predicament, I must have felt an instinctive sympathy, for I remember thinking how frail and helpless she looked, how easily crushed, beside this large ruthless man, whom I saw as one with his great powerful car. What chance had she against him? Listening to the meaningless rise and fall of their receding voices, I tried vainly to think of some way of helping her. Poor star-crossed creature, lonely and discontented, she was denied even my childish support in the unequal contest between her defencelessness and the power of his worldly experience.
The sound of their voices ceased; they’d passed out of my field of vision. I waited a little, wondering if they would come back to this part of the garden, then, as I neither saw nor heard any more of them, realized they must have gone indoors.
Immediate restlessness overcame my disquiet. I could remain no longer in that restricted space. Cramped and chilled, I scrambled down to the ground, looking back once at the tree deliberately, with the thought that I’d probably made use of it as a hiding place for the last time. A new life, full of thrilling adventures and possibilities, lay before me. At last I was about to break out of the narrow compartment of childhood that had confined me so long. As if to leave it all behind me forthwith, I started walking away from the yew at a brisk pace, not noticing where I was going, absorbed in enthralling fantasies of the future.
My elation, however, quickly subsided, undermined by obscure forebodings. I couldn’t help being aware of an inner discomfort growing stronger and more assertive at every step, till it occurred to me that I was really walking through the frozen fields to correct my untruthfulness on at least this one point. My conscience reminding me how I’d deceived Mr Spector, I at once turned back, deeply ashamed. How was I to face him? Should I pretend to know nothing about the conversation? But I knew I couldn’t do that. My guilt would betray me; he’d certainly see through the pretence, if he didn’t already know I’d been in the tree. The only thing was to be perfectly honest with him, but I had grave doubts of my ability to carry through this bold decision. I seemed to be more afraid of him than I’d realized.
The sun had gone down some minutes earlier, and the short winter day was ending when I arrived back at the cottage, where the big black car stood, monumental in the fading light. My childish imagination pictured some huge primeval beast crouching there, immobile but strangely watchful, a curious air of baleful alertness in the armoured snout and huge lamp-eyes swivelled slightly towards me. For a moment I wanted to turn and run, and though I continued to advance it was more and more reluctantly, keeping my eyes on the ground to avoid seeing the monster I identified with the man I’d deceived.
When next I looked up, darkness seemed appreciably nearer and so, of course, did the car. I had got quite close to it when, to my horror, the indistinct shape of the owner himself loomed up before me. Again seized by an impulse of flight, involuntarily, I turned away, then, disgusted by my cowardice, forced myself to confront him.
In the dusk, he looked to me larger and heavier, somehow menacing, indefinably changed, the same and yet not the same. I suppose my long acquaintance with the idea of magic gave me the notion that he must be two people at once, passing from one personality to the other as I moved between my two worlds. The idea itself alarmed me less than the obscure perception of characteristics not exactly benevolent in the second strange self, by which it seemed I might have been used for unimaginable ends. Yet my feeling for the man as a whole was unaffected or, if anything, heightened by the new factor of his dual being, which established, I felt, a more personal private bond between us. My greatest wish was to receive his forgiveness, and I immediately told him exactly what had occurred. I needn’t have worried about not being brave enough to confess, for confession seemed my one hope. I completed the agitated account for my own sake, convinced now that I’d been right in suspecting he’d known about my deceit all along. I told him everything and became silent; there was no more I could do. I had thrown myself on his mercy and must await the verdict. If only he would forgive me and take me back into favour again! If he were to remain alienated from me I felt I couldn’t bear it, as if our relationship meant more to me than anything in the world.
It can only have been for a very few seconds that he gazed at me after I’d finished speaking. But an eternity of silent twilight seemed to elapse, while I felt his unseen eyes delving into me with their strange penetrating intensity, exploring depths of the very existence of which in my childish being I wasn’t aware, as though he were investigating me, not only as the child I was now but as the potential being liable to appear at subsequent stages of my development. But, when he finally spoke, he said only, ‘I’m glad you told me; otherwise …’ leaving the phrase incomplete, with a slightly menacing sound. Long afterwards, it struck me that the situation could have been one of his mysterious tests, and I wondered, if so, whether I’d failed completely or, to a limited extent, redeemed myself by confessing, as I was inclined to hope might have been the case.
He moved his hand then, I remember, and a small light came on in the car among the dials and switches, casting a weird upward glow on his face, which, against the dusk, appeared larger than life, indestructible-looking and not quite human; a graven-image effect, lasting only an instant, before some slight change of attitude restored the Mr Spector I’d always known.
The formidable stranger had vanished without a trace, and, at the sight of my genial friend, unable to contain myself, I sprang towards him and grasped his hand, so overjoyed to feel his goodwill that I kept babbling promises, explanations, apologies, hardly knowing what I was saying, only delighted because I wasn’t rebuffed. My overwhelming gratitude for forgiveness would, with the slightest encouragement, have led me into some fantastic extravagance – I’d have gone down on my knees before him or burst into tears kissing his hand – but, since I saw that any such demonstration would be unwelcome, these confused protestations were my only emotional outlet.
Though my thoughts were in a whirl, I knew I was speaking the absolute truth when I said that, whatever might happen in future, even if he were to change entirely one day, I would always, under all circumstances, remain loyal to him. What I envisaged by such a drastic change I don’t know. But the fact was, I could do nothing else, for I felt bound to him by some tie stronger than love or blood. Suddenly I’d become conscious of his dual power over me
and a little afraid of it, not altogether certain of its benevolence. But, though an element of fear and suspicion might henceforth be present in my feelings for him, it only seemed to increase my admiration, loyalty and attachment. At the same time, I recognized these feelings as being of a different quality from my former unthinking childish affection and trust, to which I knew I could never return.
Though my actual thoughts were much less lucid and precise, I was even then conscious of some new awareness, marking the end of my childish relationship to him. It didn’t matter that everything was confused in my head, for I knew he would sort it all out for me. Now I had no secrets from him, and never could have, having submitted to a form of enslavement. It was an oddly relaxed and comfortable feeling, as though I’d opened myself like an untidy drawer and could sit back peacefully while he arranged the contents.
And he at once indicated his knowledge of the obscure processes going on in me by saying almost wistfully, ‘Don’t be in too great a hurry to grow up, Marko’, using the diminutive of my name for the first and only time – strange that it should have sounded touching from him yet, when my mother used it, it only annoyed me. Recalling at this distance of time the regret in his voice, I sometimes wonder if one might presume to suspect that, for all his power, wealth and importance, he lacked something that could be found in the simplicity of a child’s affection, but such speculations are unprofitable and lead nowhere. He said no more to me then but encircled me with his hard strong arm, and intimately entwined thus we went indoors together.
The rest of the evening, as I recollect it, was devoted to hurried arrangements, for it was decided that he should stay the night and drive me to school the next day, stopping at a largish town we passed through to buy me the necessary outfit.
Notwithstanding all the excitement, as soon as I was in bed I fell sound asleep. Yet, at some time in the night, I seemed to become aware of the familiar room, not quite dark, as if light from the passage were coming in through the open door, and of my mother standing beside me, a shadowy form, as I’d seen her on so many nights. I seem to think that, neither quite awake nor quite asleep, I reached up automatically as I used to do long ago and that she laid her head beside mine and whispered loving words, asking me to forgive her for not being a good mother and hoping I would be very happy at school. All the cold melted out of me in the warmth of her arms, and I felt we were just as close to each other as we’d ever been and that tomorrow everything would be different. It had all been a misunderstanding, a mistake.
But tomorrow was the day when I was going away, and, in the bright daylight, the night’s shadowy happenings became so remote and vague that I couldn’t be sure I hadn’t dreamed them.
Looking back from the car, I suddenly seemed to see the cottage as it would be after we’d gone, and the thought of my mother left alone there made me feel guilty and sad. I remembered that my father had told me to take care of her, and my heart sank because I was abandoning her instead. There she stood at the door, waving, and already she was no larger than the painted lady who came out of the carved Swiss chalet when the summer weather was set fair. Next moment, both she and the cottage were out of sight. As the car rushed on, carrying me further and further away, I knew with curious certainty that I’d looked at her for the last time with the eyes of a child, that it was my childhood I was leaving behind me and that I’d never see anything in quite that same way again.
These thoughts are hard to describe. Not exactly melancholy, they produced rather a sense of pressure and transience. Once more I was going out into the world unsupported to fend for myself, as when I went for my holiday in the summer. But now, though there was some relationship still between us, I was no longer the child that had played with the orphans on the seashore. And, by the time I next saw my home, the relationship would have terminated completely; I should have changed into someone else, and the world would have changed, too, seen through those other eyes.
At intervals all through my life this sense of being in transit has overtaken me at odd times, though never more strongly than on this occasion when I was first conscious of it. Looking back dubiously at the child I had been and was leaving without having really known it or understood it, I wondered whether I’d always have to move on before getting to know myself properly.
It wasn’t the time to discuss these things with my companion; there were too many distractions, and I gave myself up to them – as I’ve often regretted since – postponing serious talk to another occasion that never came. When we reached the town Mr Spector proceeded to provide me with a complete new wardrobe, more clothes than I’d ever owned before, and all of such superlative quality that I began to worry about the expense and lodged a timid objection. However, he only laughed and spoke of the importance of first impressions, going on to add various accessories not strictly essential and finally insisting on buying me new luggage to contain them all. Once I gave up trying to stop him and wondering how he would ever be paid back, I was very proud of my new elegant possessions. The thought of them gave me much-needed moral support when we arrived at our destination.
The grandeur of the school’s medieval buildings intimidated me, and I was completely overawed by my first glimpse of the famous topiary chess-garden, of which I’d already heard. As the car slowed down, the grotesquely clipped fantastic tree shapes seemed to close in behind it, cutting off the familiar world, imprisoning us in their midst. We stopped, and the dark heads bowed in mockery, the branches groaned, and I felt tentacles of antique malice already reaching towards me.
Staring at these grotesque evergreens, wide-eyed with wonder, I hardly noticed Mr Spector speaking to the porter, whose reply evidently failed to satisfy him, for now he suddenly strode towards the dim monastic-looking cloisters and intercepted one of the gowned figures passing to and fro there. He was only a junior master, I discovered later, but he looked very grand to me in his lined and hooded gown. I wasn’t at all surprised at his indignation on being peremptorily requested to take us to the principal. What did surprise me, so that I forgot all about the malignant chessmen, was the way his whole manner changed, becoming almost obsequious, at the sight of Mr Spector’s card. But I had no time to think or to sort out my impressions as we followed on his heels to the door of the Head’s study, where a request to be allowed to prepare his chief was swept aside, as the man himself was, so that all three of us burst into the room together.
Though I didn’t then fully appreciate the enormity of our conduct in thus invading this holy of holies, uninvited and even unannounced, I couldn’t fail to see how angry the Headmaster was when he rose and, with an outraged expression, drew himself up to his full height, an imposing and menacing figure. But, to my astonishment, he, too, succumbed to the card’s effect, just as his subordinate had done, surrendering unconditionally and even speaking a few stilted words of formal politeness – which, however, didn’t spare him the indignity of hearing his own assistant dismissed by Mr Spector, who took his submission for granted.
‘This is the boy I told you about,’ he said, when the man had hurriedly left the room. ‘I want your assurance that his father is not mentioned, either to him or in his presence – it’s the wish of his mother, who is rather oversensitive on the subject. Is that understood?’ I listened amazed to this haughty voice of command, which must surely be the voice of that second, more formidable self, and scarcely noticed the affirmative answer; it seemed to me there could be no other. Yet it was the familiar friendly voice that now addressed me. ‘Let me know at once if you have any sort of trouble – but I don’t think you will.’ A peculiar smile accompanied the last words, which seemed intended less for me than for the other man, to whom the speaker continued – quite incomprehensibly, as far as I was concerned – ‘No censorship, mind. I’ll be getting a full report myself, so any attempt at deception would be a mistake, wouldn’t it?’
I was completely puzzled by this strange behaviour and the alternation of tones. Why was he treating the Headmast
er so harshly? Even now, when the man had given in to him altogether, and his own manner appeared more genial, the geniality clearly covered a threat. But the moment I’d been privately dreading for some time had arrived, and, with unmistakable kindness, he said, ‘I must be off. Write and tell me how you get on. And, remember, the beginnings of things are always apt to be difficult.’ He spoke the last words in Latin, knowing I was familiar with the adage. Then, giving me an encouraging smile, hurried to the door, waving away the offer of an escort. ‘No, I’ll find my own way out.’ The door closed behind him, and I was left to begin my new life alone.
The room suddenly seemed darker and gloomier, its narrow windows designed for the exclusion of enemies rather than the admission of light and air. An oppressive atmosphere reasserted itself, emanating, perhaps, from the shelves of huge, heavy books lining the walls. I was aware of these things, even while my mind framed consciously for the first time the question I’ve been asking myself intermittently ever since, ‘Who is Mr Spector?’ What sort of man could behave in such a high-handed manner and disperse the repressive power of centuries-old tradition, as he’d just done, letting a draught of cold air blow through these grim stagnant rooms, airless for so many years?
But I couldn’t consider the question now, while the Headmaster was regarding me with a disfavour I quite understood, since I’d been the indirect cause of his humiliation. Looking at him as straightforwardly as possible, I could discern no pity in that hard, cold face; the face, as I was to learn, of a man who as an enemy was absolutely implacable. At this moment, I only saw that he’d been mortified and that someone must suffer for it and that I seemed the likeliest victim. I felt very small and helpless and lonely just then, cut off from all that was known to me, shut into a strange hostile world. The dark dismal room was as forbidding as if it belonged to a fortress – a prison. I had a momentary nostalgic vision of Mr Spector, driving away in his big car, leaving me further behind with every milestone.