by Kavan, Anna
Nothing could keep me away from the Housing Bureau these days. Though Carla and I had originally decided always to keep the weekends free for one another, I’d lately taken to visiting the place on Saturdays and Sundays as well as during the week, drawn there by this inexplicable attraction that had nothing to do with my longing to find a home. When Christmas approached, I was actually depressed by the prospect of the Bureau being closed for several days, a circumstance my normal self would have welcomed.
I wasn’t much looking forward to Christmas in any case, as Carla’s mother insisted on keeping her at home to help with the extra work entailed by the festivities. I’d agreed to share their dinner on Christmas Day, in spite of having received – how I hardly know – an impression somewhat less than friendly from my prospective mother-in-law on the few occasions we’d met. When the time arrived, on top of everything else, I had a bad cold, caught, I suppose, in the course of my uncomfortable travels. I didn’t feel like going anywhere or doing anything and willingly promised Carla to spend Christmas Eve indoors.
However, during the afternoon I became restless, wandering from one room to the other and wondering whether, in view of the days which were to elapse before the Bureau reopened, I might not be missing a chance by not going there now. In the end, I seized my coat and hurried down the stairs. I must have meant to go all along.
Outside it was freezing hard, the streets were bleak and deserted, in contrast to the lighted trees standing gaily in many windows. I could see rooms decorated with evergreens and family parties assembled, as though everyone were at home, and told myself that for once the Bureau would be empty.
Instead, I saw, as soon as I entered, that it was exceptionally crowded. The flaring lights and the heat generated by so many tightly packed bodies made me feel dazed at first. I couldn’t see Ginger’s desk and started pushing my way through the people, who seemed to obstruct me deliberately, pressing so closely about me that I was very soon brought to a standstill. A heavy hand fell on my arm, and I realized that I’d been stopped by one of the attendants, who usually did nothing more active than stand about reading the newspapers, except when required to act as stretcher-bearers. Ordering the man to release me, I asked indignantly since when it had been part of his duty to keep applicants away from the officials. He seemed a bully of the worst type, for he only gripped me tighter and said roughly, ‘I saw what you were up to, shoving people about and creating a disturbance; and so did all these …’ jerking his head to indicate the circle of people, whose faces, corpse-like under the lights, ringed us around.
Now I noticed with surprise how they, usually so indifferent to what went on, were staring at us with evident interest. Many of them, eager to curry favour, nodded or made sounds of assent. I was disgusted by their readiness to bear false witness against me and to agree with any preposterous statement. It made me furious, too, to feel the attendant’s dirty fingers nipping my arm all the time; but I knew I was unequal to a tussle with him and instead directed my indignation again the bystanders.
‘Why do you take sides with this fellow?’ I asked angrily. ‘Don’t you see you’re only making things worse for yourselves? He’s supposed to be a public servant. You, the people who pay his wages, do you pay to be bullied? It would be better if you got together and lodged a complaint against him.’ No one answered me. Nobody said a word. The circle of white faces, distorted by black shadows, had the look of identical white paper masks, ghoulish, grotesque and unreal. In a final attempt to rouse them to some response, I went on, ‘Look at the way this place is run – it’s a perfect scandal.The high authorities show not the slightest consideration for the people they’re supposed to be helping. But if everyone complained, something would have to be done in the way of improvement.’
There was dead silence when I finished speaking. The usual drone of voices at the various desks had ceased. To my amazement, I saw that I really did seem to have disrupted the normal routine. People had everywhere broken their ranks and were craning towards me, leaning on one another’s shoulders to see me better; livid, shadow-slashed faces, all with the weird family likeness the lighting gave, were everywhere staring at me. But now that I’d gained this universal attention, my indignation deserted me. My head felt hot and heavy; the mass of identical, undifferentiated faces bewildered me. Suddenly it struck me that my own face must look just the same as theirs, and for some reason this was both depressing and profoundly distasteful to me. I let my head droop as if to conceal my resemblance to all these people. I had the feeling I was letting them down. But all I could do was wait passively for the attendant to release me, which he showed no sign of doing, glancing about all the time as if expecting the arrival of a superior who would give him his orders. Such a person, in fact, was now approaching. A head could be seen, shining fierily under the lights above the disguising eye-shade which hid the face I knew must be Ginger’s, even when he came close enough to whisper to the man holding me, who at last, with extreme promptness, let me go.
I was struck by the way the onlookers, losing all interest in me, turned back, like so many clockwork figures, to their respective queues as throughout the room the usual sluggish procedure went on again, as if it had never been, could never be, interrupted. For a moment this distracted me. By the time I’d realized I should have been thanking Ginger for his intervention, he was already hurrying back to his desk. I had to follow him through the crowd, pursuing him with my thanks under difficulties, unable to tell whether or not he was listening to what I said. Since he ignored me, I took my place at the end of the queue in front of his desk, automatically rubbing my arm, still sore from the attendant’s grasp.
When I arrived before him, I was astonished by the hostility with which I was greeted. ‘There’s never anything for you at weekends. Why can’t you keep away instead of coming here making trouble?’
He sounded so irritable that I hastily answered him, ‘I didn’t mean to make trouble for you. I only said people ought to complain to the higher authorities, and you told me yourself –’
‘We’re the ones who’ll have to suffer for it,’ he interrupted tartly, at the same time beginning to collect various objects from his desk and standing up, preparatory to departure.
‘Please don’t go yet!’ I exclaimed quickly, making a futile attempt to intercept him. ‘You surely can’t believe I’d be so ungrateful –’ But he was determined not to give me a hearing and walked off without even saying goodbye.
There was nothing left for me to do but go back to my flat, which I did, very much perplexed by the sudden change in someone who, up to now, had always been affable and obliging. His bad temper struck me as unreasonable. And it was certainly most unfortunate in view of the time that would have to elapse before I saw him again, as he was bound to retain an unfavourable impression of me till after the holiday, when it might be too late to eradicate it. There were other aspects of the incident that I found incomprehensible and disturbing. If he’d really believed I was inciting people against him, why had he come to my rescue? And what could he possibly have said to the attendant to make him drop my arm like a hot potato?
It was partly to rid my mind of these unanswerable questions, which continued to worry me the next day, that I set off for Carla’s home in the early afternoon, arriving at the bus terminus before the short winter daylight had come to an end. All my previous visits had been in the evening; I’d got only a vague impression of large houses standing in their own gardens. Now I was delighted by the openness of the scene, to which many tall trees gave an almost rural look. I felt as if I’d arrived in the country, and my pleasure made me realize how much I’d missed the wide landscape, the hills and valleys and woods which had always been my background before I came to the city, and how unsuccessful I’d been in making myself feel at home here.
Stimulated by the frosty, clear air and the glow of the setting sun upon snow-covered lawns and lanes, I decided to explore a little before going indoors, as Carla wouldn’t be expectin
g me yet. I forgot all about my cold as I hurried up a steep hill, hoping to reach a point where the houses gave way to open country before darkness fell. In this I was disappointed: I only managed to lose myself and hadn’t the faintest idea where I was when twilight deepened into dark. This was really awkward, as there wasn’t a soul about of whom I could inquire. I thought of asking at one of the houses, but they all stood far back from the road, the street lamps were few and far between, I could scarcely see the black roofs looming against the sky; and, far too tired to walk up one of the long drives, I kept on blindly, in a kind of blank stupor of weariness, arriving finally at Carla’s house completely worn out and in anything but the mood for a party.
She opened the door herself and must have noticed how exhausted I was, for she asked whether I’d like to rest in the library for a bit before meeting her mother and the official who was also to be their guest – the only one of the tenants to stay over the holiday. This I was very glad to do, grateful for the chance to recover in private, and, as soon as I was alone, stretched out on a sofa. But I could only relax for a few minutes, after which my usual anxiety again claimed me. The sofa was hard and the room too cold for comfort. Unable to hear a sound from the rest of the house, I soon started feeling aggrieved and neglected and wondering why I was left alone there so long. At the end of an interminable half-hour I got up and began to prowl around the room, keenly aware of Carla’s heartlessness in abandoning me, with my bad cold, in this freezing room. All of a sudden it became impossible to stay there any longer. I went out into the passage, somehow found my way through the strange house without encountering anyone, and arrived finally in the entrance hall where, ages ago as it seemed, I had hung my coat.
I don’t know what childish impulse made me hide behind it now when I caught sight of her through the open door of the dining-room, looking lovelier than I’d ever seen her in a dress of some silvery stuff, from which her bare arms and shoulders rose like a naiad’s from some moon-bright cascade. As if mesmerized by her cool beauty, I stood staring while she put the finishing touches to the table, where tall candelabra shed their calm light on a profusion of fruit and flowers, sparkling glass and silver and gem-like ornaments. This dazzling display of luxury contrasted most strangely with the cold desolate room I’d just left, renewing my sense of grievance. I was wondering how on earth she and her mother could afford such lavishness, when, as if in answer to my unspoken question, a third person appeared, crossed the hall without turning towards me and entered the dining-room with the confident step of a man on his own home ground.
I knew this must be the official I’d never met, a total stranger to me, of whose face I hadn’t caught a glimpse, whose name even was unknown to me. All I could see of him was his back, as he stood beside Carla; yet there seemed something familiar about that massive outline – so much so that I felt I’d have recognized him if he’d turned around. Occupied with this odd impression, I missed what he said and saw only Carla’s responsive glance of intimacy; the brilliant breathtaking loveliness of her face caused me a sharp pang as she lifted it to him, for I’d believed that uncovered beauty and intimate smile belonged to me alone. It was almost as cold in the hall as it had been in the library, yet I felt a curious hot shock of anger, as if I’d been robbed by this stranger, whose dark silhouette produced the effect of being slightly larger than life, as he now leaned towards her with a solicitude that confounded me still further by suggesting a deeper familiarity, as of figures not quite remembered but seen in the same pose long ago.
The mists of childhood beginning to thicken around me, I reluctantly groped my way back among ghosts and half memories. To the sharp pain and angry shock, the man had added something heavily ominous that belonged to the past; he himself seemed the core of some old dream that was almost nightmare – from which, I suddenly realized, it was necessary for me to escape immediately at all costs. Without a word, without another glance in the direction of the dining-room, I took my coat and fled.
At first, stumbling away from the big house in the icy dark, my only thought was to remove myself as quickly as possible and as far from the place where imperfectly recognized ghosts had confused and tormented me. Then, recovering quickly once I was alone, I got my bearings from the lights of the bus terminal. Luckily a bus was on the point of leaving, and, sitting among the empty seats, being carried towards my flat, I felt my normal equilibrium return.
Why had I rushed away like that? What had happened? I asked myself, with an uneasy feeling that I’d acted foolishly. Nothing, apparently, had happened except in my head, where momentarily that larger-than-life form again loomed up, the personification of some inescapable threat at the heart of an old dream I couldn’t entirely forget but refused to remember, concentrating instead on the real incident.
My memory of recent events was quite clear, even though obscure dreamlike notions still haunted the back of my mind. Ignoring these, I saw how badly I had behaved, and the instant I got home telephoned to apologize, telling Carla my cold had suddenly got much worse, which seemed the only possible justification for my abrupt disappearance. Yet, even while I was speaking humbly to her, genuinely contrite, I was aware of a grievance, a vague suspicion; I couldn’t help feeling she’d treated me badly, though she’d always before been so considerate. Listening to her low musical voice, in which I could detect no personal warmth, I began to feel immensely removed from her; a million miles of darkness divided us.
But then I was suddenly projected into a quite different magic world, where depression, grievance and distrust couldn’t exist. I’d expected to be alone the next evening; now Carla proposed spending it with me, her mother having received a last-minute invitation, so that she herself would be free. This seemed to prove my importance to her, and immediately everything came all right again. Only in my jealous imagination had she smiled at a stranger with the intimacy she reserved for me. The prospect of her visit was like a wonderful surprise present; in the delight and excitement of its reception I expected perfection in every detail, my cold was to cure itself automatically during the night. I felt disappointed and cross when it seemed rather worse in the morning.
At any rate, I thought, there would be no temptation today to go out, since the Housing Bureau was closed. But as the afternoon dragged on, restless anxiety once more afflicted me. The sombre cloud-roof, which had all day covered the sky, towards three o’clock became in the west faintly burnished, soon afterwards extinguishing the last of the daylight. By four it was as dark as midnight.
Still three more hours had to pass before I could even begin to expect Carla. How would I ever get through three whole hours? My impatient longing for her was insistent, distracting; far worse than the dull pain behind my forehead. I was aware, too, of another unanalysed feeling, sinister and heavy and uncomprehended, fixed at the root of my anxiety, which I would not examine. I couldn’t stand it and, suddenly jumping up, went out of the flat and down the stairs; I simply had to go out – to do something.
The air out of doors, though bitingly cold, seemed somehow oppressive; some blocked electrical tension, struggling to find an outlet, exerted its pressure upon my nerves as I tramped along heavily under my aching head, not thinking of where I was going.
Seeing lighted trees in the windows and wreaths on the doors, family parties assembled in decorated rooms, I seemed to have gone back to Christmas Eve. Everything was repeating itself: the empty streets and these unreal celebrations behind the glass, which might have been taking place on another planet for all the contact I could ever conceivably have with them. It didn’t surprise me to find myself in front of the Housing Bureau. Where else could I have arrived?
But then I saw the place closed and dark, a metal grille barricading the entrance. Of course. The Christmas holiday; how could I have forgotten? I felt a passing uneasiness, troubled by my unnatural-minded vagueness. Deciding to put it down to my headache, I promptly forgot all about it, advancing, for no particular reason, towards the protective ba
rs and running my hands over the cold steel. If I hadn’t done this I would never have discovered the existence of an unobtrusive opening about the size and shape of a man; a wicket at which I gazed for a while in perplexity, wondering why it had been left open and whether I ought to shut it.
Having made up my dull mind it was no business of mine, I was about to start walking home when, in the street I’d thought absolutely deserted, a passer-by stopped to stare at me with a persistent disapproving inquisitiveness that could only mean that he regarded me as a suspicious character loitering there. My reactions were not normal just then. It didn’t occur to me that, had I drawn his attention to the open gate and told him what was in my mind, his suspicions would have been removed and he would most likely have proved quite friendly. Instead, for some reason, I felt obliged to remain silent and motionless as long as he was watching me. He walked on, constantly turning his head to look back at me as long as I was in sight, reluctant to leave me to my evil devices. And only when he at last disappeared did I feel free to go home. Then, turning in that direction, I saw a whole group of people coming towards me whom I’d been too preoccupied to notice before, presumably from some local gathering that had just broken up.
As I’ve said, I was not in a normal state and can only suppose some degree of fever accounted for my behaviour now. I had done nothing wrong. Nor had I anything to fear from these new arrivals, doubtless law-abiding citizens like myself, who so far hadn’t observed me. There was no real reason for the intense anxiety to avoid their curious eyes that made me slip through the aperture into the shadows beyond the grille and flatten my body against one of the massive entrance doors as they passed.