I Am Lazarus (Peter Owen Modern Classic)

by Anna Kavan

  I see that I have written in the past tense as if these rooms I'm describing no longer existed: and yet here I am, in that same blue and white kitchen where I was so happily preparing our meal that evening only the other day, when he said to me casually: ‘Some time you will write about this because all that is beautiful must triumph for all.’

  And I answered (I remember that I was taking an earthenware dish out of the oven at the moment and thinking more about that than about what I was saying), I answered: ‘Yes, when it is all over between us, then I suppose I shall write down what I remember because nothing else of you will be left to me.’

  The outward aspect of the house is still precisely the same as it was when those words were spoken. The paint is still fresh on the walls, the yellow shutters still present a frivolous brightness to the passers-by. It is only the character of the place which in this short time has become altogether different. Its personality has changed. It is not gay any longer. Oh, no, certainly gaiety has no connection whatever with these coloured walls which surround me with their implacable reminder of lost joy. Outer appearances remain unaltered, but the spirit which inspired every form with meaning has vanished, leaving only a shell behind.

  When I look round at my few possessions, each one of which carries inextricably in its essence some amusing or tender association, I feel as though I were confronting a dear relative, perhaps a brother, whose brain a sudden tragedy had unhinged. Everything is the same; the features, the figure, the hair: only the one vital element is missing without which the human being has no significance, no entity, no individual soul.

  I have never heard of anybody who loved a mad person. I should think it would be impossible to do so. Pity or aversion one would feel, but not love. And the feelings I have for this house are a blend of aversion and pity, exactly as they would be for someone very close to me whose personality had deteriorated until there finally remained no more possibility whatever of contact between us.

  Sometimes it is almost horror that comes over me at the sight of these rooms, these objects, for which the whole raison d’être, as it were, has been taken away. Why do these walls still stand? When every day and night, all over the city, buildings are being struck down, why does this house remain intact? How can it so obstinately fail to disintegrate, seeing that it no longer has any chance of fulfilling the purpose for which I first decided to occupy it?

  Yes, it's just as if one were forced to live with someone out of his mind, or, worse still, with the actual physical corpse of a loved person which a diabolical chemistry had rendered immune from the process of dissolution.

  The words with which I began writing, the words, ‘Why did he leave me?’ keep recurring to me although I try to drive them away. What's the use of tormenting myself with speculations about this man, dressed always in blue, whose arrival I did not witness and who departed in silence and unobserved? It is only necessary for me to know that he has gone, that he is far away, and that he will not return. Suddenly he left me, without warning or explanation, without saying good-bye. If I had known his intention that evening, could I have said or done anything to influence his decision? That is a question I often vainly consider, alone in these rooms which now have no meaning for me.

  And why indeed should one expect to find a meaning in walls, in windows, or in a book that is not to be found on the shelf? In a city where everything is chaotic and inexplicable and where one is constantly beset by all kinds of death, annihilation, destruction and grief it is something, at all events, to be able to say: ‘On that evening’, or ‘On such and such a day, I was happy’.

  I've tried hard to solve the bitter riddle which brought me across the world to this place of misfortune when all I wished was freedom to live in peace, in sunshine, in a country where birds had not learnt to fly in terror from the sound of a falling bomb. Lately I've been thinking that possibly all these happenings are bound up together. That perhaps the man in the blue suit with whom I was happy, the man who left me so abruptly and, as it superficially appears, so unkindly, perhaps he was, in some obscure way, connected with my sentence; or even came with the express purpose of putting into my hands a clue which, if properly followed, would finally lead to the truth and make clear the justice of all these catastrophes which have fallen upon me.

  How otherwise than as an unfulfilled obligation, and therefore as an indictment, can I translate that phrase of his, which at the time passed almost unnoticed, but which now seems to me to be the crux of the whole matter: ‘All that is beautiful must triumph for all’?

  THE BROTHER

  Now that those days are as dead as the grave and I have so much time on my hands I feel a great and persistent need to record something of the relationship between myself and my brother. And the fact that I'm allowed to do so (indeed, I'm even encouraged to write by the provision of pencils and, in spite of the paper shortage, of plenty of cheap foolscap paper) makes me believe that perhaps those better able to judge than I have discerned in the long, submerged struggle between the two of us an example which may prove valuable to other people in the same sort of unfortunate circumstances.

  There's plenty of time now to think back. Plenty of time to remember, to contemplate, to reflect on the disconnected, small, distant pictures which go to compose the whole gloomy canvas.

  Sitting here in this lonely little room, without friends, without a future, without even a dream; sitting here hour after hour, listening to the sea's curious muffled bass which incorporates at irregular intervals a voice-like contralto pleading, I've arrived at certain decisions. I've decided to make a kind of precis, not a detailed analysis because that's beyond my powers, but a brief sketch of the pattern which my brother and I traced out in our mutual reactions. I'm not doing this in the hope of any amelioration of my own position (that I fully realize is out of the question and I don't even desire it); nor because I am inspired by an altruistic wish for others to profit by my misfortune; but simply because I want to get things clear in my own mind, and the best way to get things clear is to get them all written down.

  To begin at the very beginning: I am the elder brother by two years. My birthday is in the spring, under the sign of Mars, and on that day, while I was at home, I was always accustomed to see my mother fill the vases with tulips like stiff fairy lights.

  My brother was born in the dead of winter. I remember my mother telling us about the exceptional severity of that winter and how the fountain in the square opposite our home spouted glittering sprays of ice instead of water, and the sparrows were found in dozens frozen to death. I remember particularly how she told us that somebody (I think it was one of the doctors at the hospital where she was confined), suddenly opening a door into the street, felt something crunch under his boot and discovered a little pile of dead birds which must have fluttered into the doorway for shelter before they became numbed.

  The thought of those small, crushed, rigid bodies, which I picture as finches, is associated with early memories of my brother.

  My brother. Ah, now I really grasp the difficulty of what I have undertaken. When it comes to the point of describing him my thoughts falter and turn aside. It's not that I don't remember him clearly, so much too clearly. But the act of concentration is like something unlawful. It's as if I were profanely trying to exhume his actual buried corpse. It's as if my brain cells themselves rejected a forbidden task. I begin to hesitate; I find myself listening attentively to the sea as if those never quite audible voices out there might be about to give me a message. But however closely I pay attention to the sea noise I can't distinguish anything definite: only the subdued, interminable clamour which now sounds to me like a high wind in the trees near the house where we used to live.

  My brother. Slowly, slowly, his likeness comes in front of my eyes. Yet it isn't a distinct image of him even now. It isn't one picture so much as a series of pictures, taken at different ages and in different places, dissolving into one another and correspondingly vague. A white skin, red chee
ks, chestnut hair. His skin was so white that you might have thought it a gift from the ice flowers on the window that witnessed his birth. People used to tease him by saying that such a beautiful white skin was wasted on a boy and should have belonged to a girl. He was big and strong though, not in the least girlish, and that was the reason, I suppose, that he didn't mind the teasing; that, and the gay, good-natured way that he had. It's his hair that I can remember most clearly; a wonderful head of rich red-brown curls with a lovely golden sheen, as glossy and fine as silk. If I'd been a girl I think I would have loved to run my fingers through his hair and unwind the curls which would, I'm sure, have briskly sprung back as soon as I let them go. I never did touch my brother's hair: and somehow this seems a sad thing to me. I think I could bear remembrance more easily if, even if only once, I had put my hand on his head.

  My mother sometimes used to caress him in this way; but not frequently: not, at any rate, when I was present. Sometimes when we were all together in the evening I would notice her eyes turning fondly to his head bowed over a book. And I had the impression that she would have reached out to stroke his hair which shone so handsomely under the lamp if she had not been afraid of making me jealous or of hurting my feelings.

  Poor mother. How she must have regretted the difference between her two sons. Even in the circumstances of our births we were totally different, and all her suffering and anxiety were on my account.

  My brother came into the world easily in the glow of a frosty sunrise. From babyhood he was healthy and lovable and never caused a moment's alarm. Whereas I, dragged bloodily through a long and difficult birth, for years swung between life and death, the victim of an endless sequence of illnesses and accidents. All through my unlucky childhood my hold on life was precarious, and it was not until I was fully grown that my body appeared to reconcile itself more or less to the earth.

  I have read the psychologists’ theory that children bom in springtime are liable to a lack of robustness because of the tension accumulating in the natural world during their term of embryonic development. But at the time when I was growing up children bom in spring and summer were generally supposed to possess the pleasant characteristics of those seasons. Friends used to express surprise that I, with my auspicious birthday, was continually ailing, while my brother, who should have been handicapped by his freezing introduction to life, was a perfect model of mental and physical health.

  Naturally, I could not fail to be aware of the comparisons which were made between the two of us, of course always in my disfavour. My brother was tail, well-developed and fine to look at with his vivid colouring; kind, friendly, intelligent. I was puny, weak, incapable of tying my own shoelace without gasping for breath, my complexion was sallow, my hair stringy and dull, my manner lifeless or boorish and petulant.

  When my brother brought friends to the house I would hide unsociably in my room. Or, worse, I would sit among them like a malicious goblin, damping their high spirits with my sneers and silences and bitter remarks.

  In this way, as time went on, a gradual alienation took place for which I was entirely to blame. Up to the very end my brother was always considerate, gentle, eager to make friends with me. My heart sinks with shame and remorse now when I remember how often when he came back from his work in the business part of the town he would sit at home, trying to coax me into a good mood with his amusing talk, instead of spending the evening with his companions. How patient he was, and how little response he got from me. As likely as not I would try to pick a quarrel with him for his pains. But he would never be goaded into hostility, and if he saw that I was determined to stick to my bad temper, he would simply sigh and go out of the room; not reproachfully, but with such a sad, disappointed look that my heart almost breaks when I recall it.

  And my mother. I see that I have hardly written anything about her as yet, although she was so much the centre of both our lives. Our father died when I was only a few years old and I have no recollection of him at all. My first memories are all of my mother, bending over me, stroking me with cool hands, holding a cup to my lips, soothing me through the mazy fevers of interminable nights, taking me for precious outings during my rare spells of comparative health. She was gay and pretty in those early days, smiling often, and singing, and with a quaint humour distinctively hers. That is the way I like to remember her. As a girl she must have been charming, with my brother's bright hair and complexion. I used to hear people say when we were children how much he resembled her.

  It hurts me to think that it was the strain of looking after me which dimmed her brightness prematurely. Her devotion to me was extraordinary. At the time I took it for granted, never having known what it was to be left without her care for a single day. But now I realize that there was something fanatical, almost abnormal, in her determination to keep me alive and to shield me from every blow. There was even – how can I convey what I mean? – a touch of perversity in her protectiveness. I hardly know how to express it except by saying that her will for my welfare exceeded the natural bounds of maternal love and assumed a masochistic quality.

  For my sake, although she was still a young and attractive woman, she sacrificed all social amusements. Because I was an invalid and could seldom go out, and then only for short periods, we lived a life of almost complete seclusion. When my brother started to earn his living and to bring his friends to the house I noticed a brief revival of her vitality. She looked younger, and began to speak again in the old humorous way that she had abandoned. Even her hair seemed to become more alive although its colour had. faded.

  But the pleasure of seeing these young people she also renounced on the grounds that their presence disturbed me. It would be best, she decided, that my brother should not invite his friends to our home since I was always upset by them and thrown into a state of quarrelsome agitation by their talk.

  Not long after this the one-sided conflict between us intensified and it became apparent that I could not or would not agree with my brother even on the few occasions that we were together. A sort of frenzy of malice entered into me at this time. I was jealous of his looks, of his popularity, of the fact that he played his part in the world as an effective member of society while I was forced to drag out a wretched existence lying on sofas in darkened rooms. To my jealousy was added a devastating sense of inferiority. And these two emotions working together like deadly germs in the blood generated an uncontrollable aggression against my brother which broke out in constant violent and utterly unjustified accusations.

  He, acting no doubt on my mother's suggestion, spent less and less time with us. He still slept at home, but most of his days were passed elsewhere and often he did not come home until long after I had gone to bed.

  My mother did not speak of him or of his lengthened absences. I, encased in my own egotism, was happy in her even more undivided attention and pleased myself with the thought that her pleasure equalled mine.

  We now lived a life restricted to tiny domestic details. I rested on the sofa and read and on good days pottered about out of doors. My mother attended to the house and cooked the special foods which she never allowed anyone else to prepare for me. This time she seemed definitely and finally to have turned away from her youth. Her hair began to go grey. She became very silent; not melancholy, but certainly not gay; and though her manner towards me was quietly cheerful her smile seldom appeared. Sometimes I would catch her sitting listlessly like a quite old woman, and I would wonder at the change that had taken place in one who used to be lively and whimsical. I do not say that I was perturbed by the change. In a way it even caused me a feeling of complacency as though she had become more wholly mine by giving up everything else.

  All that concerned me was that we were alone and always together and that nothing interfered with the cloud of protection in which she enveloped me.

  Now comes the part that is hardest of all to set down. I feel my brain starting to spin, and I must hurry on before confusion engulfs me completely.


  It was bitterly cold weather and I was recovering from an attack of influenza. My brother had caught the infection from me, but mildly, and had been at home in bed for two or three days.

  On his first day downstairs the two of us were in the study where most of my existence was passed, I on my usual sofa, he in an armchair by the fire. It was a long while since we had been in the same room together for more than a few minutes at a time. As we rested there, both with our books, I was conscious of him glancing at me now and again as if there were something he wanted to say. Contrarily, I refused to take any notice for several minutes, but when I finally looked up I met his eyes gazing eagerly and wistfully into mine.

  As soon as he saw that I was looking at him he got up, put his book aside, and came over to me. Standing beside the sofa, looking down with that candid smile that was so hard to resist, he began to speak to me in a gentle, appealing voice, saying how sorry he was that we had drifted so far apart, begging my pardon if he had hurt me in some way, and asking if we could not make an effort to get on better together, if only for mother's sake.

  He spoke so earnestly and with such simple friendliness and good will that I felt a sudden softening towards him. O God, how much I really wanted to yield myself up to him then, to tear out my black heart and throw it down at his feet. I wanted to love him and to be loved in return. What would I not have given for the power to respond when his hand came down affectionately on my shoulder.

  But at that very moment an awful seizure gripped hold of me, my head felt as though it must burst open, and, as if to relieve the intolerable congestion of the brain, a tremendous paroxysm of coughing came on, shaking me so viciously that the walls of my chest seemed to be tom apart.

  My brother tried to support me in my convulsions. I can still see his face, a little pale after illness, abruptly turning whiter with shock and dismay. My mother came running with medicine in a glass, but I was too far gone to drink. Accustomed to these crises, she at once knew what to do. There was a certain ampoule that, when crushed, exhaled a vapour which gave me relief: but by an unusual oversight there were none of these in the house. At once she prepared to run to the druggist who lived not far away. I, however, as soon as I realized her intention, held her back, clutching her hand, and indicating as well as I could in the midst of my spasms that she was not to leave me.