The Unmapped Country

by Ann Quin

  ‘Wondered if you’d care to read this and let me know what you think about it?’ He handed her a wad of paper covered in his spider writing.

  ‘Is this God’s Joke?’ She asked, looking at the pages, moving her hand quickly away from his that still held on to the paper.

  ‘Yes—just rough though—notes really.’

  ‘But I can’t read it—your writing is absolutely illegible Thomas.’

  ‘What if I read some of it to you?’

  ‘If you like.’

  He pulled up a chair, cleared his throat, cleared it in such a way she half expected to see a frog jump out, or some of the grey inner substance.

  ‘In the beginning when all was space, space not as we know it, but an infinite space, with nothing, no light, no darkness, God had a dream. The dream was a desert with horizon, and then He woke up, and felt very lonely, very bored and…’

  ‘What a load of old bullshit.’ Someone passing by, shouted. Thomas paused, bit his lip, frowned.

  ‘Where was I—oh yes—bored and He thought if He could dream such dreams why couldn’t He create the dream into reality. So He… are you listening?’

  ‘Yes, yes go on very interesting.’

  ‘He created the desert and the sky, and again he felt lonely, and very bored, so he went to sleep again, and had another dream… oh damn it’s supper time—I’ll read some more after OK?’

  Sandra nodded, and followed him to the dining hall, where she joined the queue and awaited her turn. She ate quickly, amidst the usual babble, scraping of plates, coughing and spluttering.

  ‘I’ll see you back in my ward Thomas OK?’

  She went outside, and stood on the entrance steps. In the distance a dog howled. The snow made points of whiteness in the dark, and the stars reflected their points, but no longer did they charge her pulse; the transmission had been cut off. There was no moon. She no longer moved with the weather, no longer a creature of the night. The wind changed its direction of its own accord. The dog’s howl entered her. Whining, she ran into the grounds, across frozen lumps of earth towards the North Star that hung suspended beyond the gates.

  The gates were shut. She moved along by the railings, in deep snow, shivering, and looked at the row of identical houses the other side. She stood for some time looking in at a window where the curtains had not been drawn. A woman watched television. A man on a bed, read a newspaper. A naked light bulb burned between them. The woman turned round, got up, and drew the curtains. Sandra moved back slowly to the entrance steps, and sat down on the top step, breathing over her hands. No signs. No messages. Where had they gone? Supposing if they—the doctors—everyone were right, it had all been in her head?

  She peered through her fingers at the white and black landscape, and watched the snow fall. Already her tracks had been covered, but those made by cars on the winding road remained, thin rust-coloured patterns. She rose and went inside, up to the ward, or rather into a parrot house.

  Those who were not chattering, stalked the room, or fluttered on chairs, made stabbing movements with knitting needles, reams of coloured wool spilled on to the floor, dribbled yellow and red between flapping arms. Someone croaked, another barked. A mouth opened, closed, opened again, no sound came. But eventually a howl did emerge. Doors opened, and in rushed the keepers. The howl continued. People turned their heads, froze in contorted positions, as the keepers bent over a young girl struggling on the floor; her head curiously twisted; the white of her eyes showed through dark feathers, damp with sweat. The howl changed into a gurgle, the gurgle to gasps, as the body writhed in the net of arms. And like a huge octopus the group moved slowly out of the room. The girl’s shoe remained, on its side. Someone kicked it across the floor. The knitting needles pierced the air, click click click, and bodies took up their preceding positions, and went through the motions of survival of the fittest.

  Sandra went into a lavatory and sat down. She watched her legs shake, her hands came up as if warding off blows. She heard someone come in, being sick, coughing followed, then muttering.

  ‘Damn them—fuck ’em bastards—more earwigs, not just one—nurse—nurse come here and see thousands of ’em, it must have been that shepherd’s pie—they must have come from that—nurse come and see.’

  Sandra looked at her knees, as if they belonged to someone else, they nudged, knocked against each other, in some strange communication of their own.

  ‘Come along dear—it’s all right—there now feel better?’ A nurse said.

  ‘Look at ‘em wriggling away down there—that’s evidence for you.’

  ‘Now don’t be silly dear come watch television we like watching tele don’t we now—come along.’

  ‘That thing is plugged in you know and watches me they think I don’t know about the earwigs they are planting.’

  ‘Yes yes come along now there’s a good girl.’ The good girl shuffled out.

  Sandra stood on the lavatory seat and opened the tiny window, where she looked out on a narrow space of darkness. The window sill had a hard crust of snow impregnated with pigeon tracks, a part ruffled in the middle, where the bird’s feathers must have brushed against the snow. She looked up and saw the edge of the moon, like a broken off finger nail. A train rattled by and left an echo between the buildings. Someone next door breathed heavily, loud farts filled the air. Sandra closed the window and jumped down. She went out and washed her hands. A woman was sticking false eye-lashes on, swearing under her breath.

  ‘Don’t know why I bother she never looks at me now.’ The woman said, twisting her mouth, smiling at herself.

  ‘You don’t have to bother do you dear you’re still young you don’t have to bother with makeup—lovely hair you have is that its real colour?’ The woman looked at Sandra in the mirror, moved over to her, and still looking in the mirror, she stroked Sandra’s hair.

  ‘Lovely and soft—you’re lovely and soft—what’s the matter—oh well be like that.’

  Sandra moved away, followed by the woman shouting, swearing. Through the swing door, in a backward glance, Sandra saw a crumpled face, an eyelash quivered on a rouged cheek.

  Music greeted her in the ward. A party jerked people into action, or non-action. A table laden with jellies, small grey sandwiches and jugs of orange juice. Women danced with women, the men smoked and watched, or slyly went off to their secret horde of hard liquor. Thomas came up, bowed and asked if she cared to dance. She shrank away.

  ‘I couldn’t find you after supper—wanted to read you the rest—ahh I…’

  ‘Perhaps tomorrow Thomas?’

  The girl who had earlier thrown a fit was brought in, stiff, glaze-eyed, she sat down and contemplated her finger nails. People moved away from the girl. They knew who to avoid, not to avoid, so that little groups formed round the room, watched over by a few charge nurses on the fringe. Two or three men swayed in, burping, spluttering with laughter.

  ‘Enjoying ourselves are we then—that’s right?’ Before Sandra could answer the nurse moved along, nodding, smiling at everyone.

  In the alcove Sandra noticed the boy, who had given her the chocolates, he stared at the television, which was not turned on. She walked into the dormitory, and sat on her bed, eyes closed. Laughter and music from the ward entered, drifted away, entered again. Two women came in, whispering. Sandra pretended to be asleep, and watched them through half closed eyes. They gently embraced at first, but soon they clawed each other, like animals in a fight. Sandra shut her eyes tightly, but she heard the two women panting, swearing, and soon the bed creaked. She felt the sweat run between her breasts. She opened her eyes, shut them; did not want to look, but looked. She held her breath, as the women’s breathing came heavy and fast. Arms and legs flew everywhere, or mingled. One of the women crouched in a praying position between huge thighs, mottled skin marked with bruises and thick purple veins.

  Sandra got up and moved quietly down between the beds. One of the women shrieked with laughter.

  ‘Get
ting bored darling—come and join us?’

  Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw a puffy red face, a pink and yellow tongue curled about itself, protruding.

  Back in the ward someone offered her a piece of jelly. She refused, and sat down. The atmosphere was hot and smoky. A group in the middle attempted Knees Up Mother Brown. Another group sang old songs. Annie Carr sat on the floor, between her spread legs a long orange strip of wool dangled; she was conducting with the knitting needles, and singing a hymn in a strange cracked voice ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. Sandra turned towards the girl and asked her name, there was no response, apart from a slight twitching of the girl’s hands. Thomas came over, and sighing, sat down next to Sandra.

  ‘How can you say Annie Carr is God, Thomas—I mean look at her now—just look at her?’

  ‘We all have our disguises.’ He replied, taking his spectacles off, and wiping them with a grubby handkerchief. The needle in the record stuck in a groove and the words ‘All I need is love’ blared out over and over again. Someone stopped it, people hardly seemed to notice, but went on kicking into the air, swaying, bumping against each other.

  ‘I have this buzzing in my head—strange it doesn’t seem to go—had it for days now.’ Thomas said, shaking his head from side to side. ‘As if a fly has got in or something.’

  The strains of a last waltz came over, and everyone drifted apart, and looked at the remains of food, crumbs on the table, the floor. A few couples moved slowly round, with eyes closed, trying to kiss, avoiding kisses. One old man collapsed, smiling happily. Another man helped him up, holding a whisky bottle to his mouth. The old man gurgled, then sucked on the bottle. Sandra edged her way into the dormitory. The women were no longer there. She undressed and got into bed. The others came in, giggling.

  Soon there was just the sound of the clock, and breathing, wheezing, dream murmurs and bodies turning over.

  The long night stretched out. Wind rattled the windows, and snow mixed with hail pounded like small fists against glass. In the middle of the dormitory, a nurse read or slept under a lamp. Sandra stared at this light until it spun from its orbit and approached. Right at the very beginning—but there was no beginning. Vague notes for the basis of a shape. The first section interrupted by the last. No continuous movement. A starting point somewhere. Chord superimposed on chords. The pendulum swung back.

  ‌

  I am a bird hovering, searching for human shape, from the vapours of air, space, I settle into the waters of the womb and dream ancestral dreams. I am the Lady of the Lake, my hand rises out of a circle of light. Merlin’s spectre emerges from a crack in the wall. I climb up enamel cliffs and step into the shape of a woman I no longer know, or is it I know her only too well? And having been outside her I see this woman go through the motions of preparing herself for her lover. For it will soon be time for his arrival; appropriate music is being sent over the radio. Soon the familiar turn of the key, followed by his voice. She is startled by the sound of her own voice, words that have wavelengths stretching beyond the walls, reaching out to the dead. They are there listening. A few are jealous. Others protective. Their faces line the ceiling; cling to trees; file slowly by in white ships. In the gardens there are messages in the placing of twigs and leaves. A blackbird gives a note of warning. I am prepared for the ’phone, for this woman’s mother.

  ‘Hallo darling how are you?’

  ‘Hallo hallo hallo how are you how are you hallo darling hallo darling.’

  ‘Hallo hallo are you there—darling what’s the matter?’

  ‘What’s the matter what’s the matter what’s the matter?’

  Silence, followed by heavy breathing. Then click, and just the hum, the breathing of those listening in. Let her think I’m mad, let them all think that, so readily they will claim their superiority over fear.

  Three lights from the houses opposite. The danger is over. Clive stands in the doorway, smiling, questioning. What did she do with herself all day, was she better? Three years she had lived with this man and loved him. For millions of years she had loved him, when they first crawled out of primeval mud together. Yet he still behaved like a guest, claiming no rights, not even to his own existence in this life span. A red light comes on opposite. A warning that he is tired, hungry, a little depressed. He slumps down on the settee, yawns, giving in to his spectre of the moment. I bend over him and attempt to draw out the Knight, with the help of the North Star. But the spectre of his Grandfather refuses the warmth. He is grumpy, petulant, suspicious. The red light still glows from the third window in the top storey across the road. A man sits, bent over, I can see his back, he is taking deep breaths, trying to gain energy for transmitting strength from the stars.

  How can I tell Clive my fugitive visions? That I’ve given my job up, yes I can tell him that, and expect the reaction of: how on earth can we manage? That I’ve given up smoking, given up eating meat, that I want a child… ah finally it has come to that. But I remain silent and prepare the dinner.

  ‘What’s this then?’ he laughs, pecks at the vegetables, prodding the carrots, turning them over.

  ‘You’re not going in for all that cranky vegetarian stuff are you Sandra?’ His grandfather prongs a turnip. Other spectres come and go, fleetingly in a frown, a curl of the lip; an agitated movement of legs, sprawled out after dinner satisfaction.

  ‘Well I don’t mind vegetables really—supposed to be good for one.’ But listen to what he is really saying, gestures belie what is being said; hand clutches throat. The faces round the walls are in conspiracy.

  ‘I’m worried about you Sandra you have hardly eaten anything, and you say you don’t sleep very much lately—what is the matter—shouldn’t you see the doctor?’ His voice from a great distance. An electric charge vibrates through my left side.

  ‘I’m really living for the first time.’ I hear my voice, but the words cannot describe what I feel, what I see, what I hear.

  ‘I honestly don’t know love but I think you’re not very well—why don’t you go and see the doctor tomorrow?’ Someone taps on the wall next door; a red light comes on opposite, goes off. The faces watch, listen to a man and woman who act out their parts for each other. I am sliding down bannisters of ivory to a sound I have known from the beginning of time. The woman the man knows tells him she wants a child, that she no longer is taking the pill. The man is astonished, terrified of some future unseen usurper, and makes excuses: the lack of money, the responsibility, temperament, the time is not right, perhaps later when…

  Later in bed the man turns away and goes to sleep on the edge of the bed. Hour after hour slide by as I sleep with my eyes open; a lioness guarding her mate, child, prince, king. The spectres come and go, leaping in the darkness, lifting the man’s sleeping form into themselves, and stalking the universe until the first faint light brings them tumbling back to snatch the last vestiges of some dream.

  The light will gradually build up a ladder of fire against the wall behind the bed. Clive lies in the shadow. The city is still divided outside. The west holds the night, blurred on the horizon. The east shows arrows of light that bring the birds out of their territories.

  I walk in the gardens, and know it must have been like this in the beginning. The trees are old, and groan under their own weight and the weight of those who have embedded themselves in the bark. I lean against an oak and feel the grains of wood give strength to my bones. The pulse in my wrist twitches in time with the vibration of the stars. Stars that are gradually disappearing. Looking up at the bedroom window I see the blinds lift with the morning breeze. I have left them all to struggle with Clive, enter his dreams; but soon they will leave, when the sun reaches a certain point, and the ladder against the wall leans into the shadow. Then it will be time for me to return.

  Meanwhile I have to go back into the past of this existence; the interpretation lies before me here and now. A rag doll lies on its side. The garden seats have been arranged in a circle. The swing is waitin
g. I fly through light, space, time. High and higher, beyond the point I desired when a child. A desire and other desires I only now recognise. I descend and enter a garden that seems to be lit from underneath, as if by thousands of glow worms burning in the undergrowth. I move through leaves, fallen branches, as if I am on stilts. My shadow lengthens.

  Back in the flat I bend over Clive, he wrestles with his departing dream figures, struggles with the approaching day, smiles, and then remembers. He searches for a cigarette, lights one up, and watches the smoke coil into the particles of dust that form a column in beams of light. Suspicion and accusation disturb the blueness of his eyes; eyes that narrow when looking at the woman who has decided. Words pile up but they are words never uttered. For the woman seems to be in another world, sitting at the end of the bed, staring out of the window. But suddenly he exclaims ‘Don’t think I don’t know—I mean why you want a child now you have reached the age where you think it is about time that soon it will be too late and just because you…’ But she turned swiftly upon him and kissed his eyes. He groaned, twisted his head away.

  ‘What are we going to do Sandra?’

  He gets dressed, shaves, and leaves, wrestling with the question mark that threatens to destroy a habit; to be a lover was one thing, but a father was something else entirely, and soon the question would turn itself into well we’ll see.

  I lie on the bed, in the warmth that remains of Clive’s body, I can feel a small damp patch under my legs.

  Staring at the white wall I see a face appear. White against white. Soon valleys, mountains, forests, rivers, lakes and many oceans appear in the face, in the white hair and long beard. The eyes contain day and night, and in their depths stellar spaces. Each strand of hair is luminous. I know it is God’s face. This is the absolute. I am held suspended in a happiness I have never known, nor will ever know again. The face dissolves, and others spring up, those I have appeared with in the past. But this is the last cycle. How ancient I am, all these millions of years travelled through, every spirit of insect, animal and human I have known. Still the journey is not over, and there are those who are determined the destroy me. I have much to learn, and re-learn. The conditioning process of this life now must be discarded. I have been chosen, but cannot choose.