The Wine-Dark Sea

by Robert Aickman

  Henry’s attitude, and the possibility of consequent dissension between them, was the main reason, as far as Margaret was concerned, for their going on Sunday for a drive through the mountains by car, instead of for a trek on foot, which the Swedes had suggested in the first place. She could hardly, she felt, go mountaineering in a two-piece from Kendall, Milnes and frail, almost cocktail-time shoes; especially when so many continentals tended to adopt near-battledress for even an afternoon walk. The Swedes would laugh at her, and, however she dealt with the situation, Henry would sulk. It was remarkable how deeply men seemed to feel such things when their attitude to the whole question of clothes was almost always so entirely negative.

  Therefore they went, six of them, by car, higher and higher, along roads very unlike the ones which Henry was building to a scale that was not human. The conifers that cover so much of Sweden, the pools, quagmires, and small lakes that occupy so much of the land area, were sad, and, at the same time, slightly mysterious and equivocal, but Margaret became aware of a spell in the very monotony, even though she was seated in the back of the big Volvo with a married couple eager that she miss absolutely nothing. The spell lay perhaps in the monotony and the boundlessness combined: already she had seen much landscape like this on the way up from Stockholm, she knew that it extended all the way northwards to the commencement of the tundra, and she had become aware how different are Swedish distances from their aspect in the ordinary school atlas. There were no footpaths through the trees, such as still survive through most woodlands in England; no tracks; no apparent access to the woods at all except by struggle. It was not so much that these millions of conifers would be likely to conceal a huge, lost city or a race of pygmies, but rather that they might of themselves generate and diffuse forces quite outside their arboricultural aspects, forces which one might have to tramp far and long to sense, because it might take much time and distance to disengage oneself sufficiently from machines like Henry’s, from life like that in the Cheshire subtopia.

  They reached a high place. The car stopped and they got out. ‘Don’t leave the road,’ said the Swedes. ‘You’ll sink above your ankles.’ Margaret thought it was an exaggeration, but it was still odd that women were required to array themselves primarily as erotic objects, even on the most unsuitable occasions, even when they had passed forty, even when the last thing that men like Henry seemed to think of was eroticism, anyway where his wife was concerned. Moreover, there was a wind blowing with a filter of ice behind it, to which Margaret was unaccustomed in England.

  Still she gazed around, conscious of the spell. From this height, there were dark-green trees to the edges of the earth. Directly below, like a big, irregular rent in the greenery, spread the Orm, all of it visible at once; the square miles of black pool beside which stood the puny town; the winding, octopus arms stretching towards her. Sovastad looked like a cluster of limpets on the hard rock; or like the first town that men had built. The line of the new road made another tear in the woodlands, but outside Sovastad there was hardly a building to be seen in the entire panorama.

  When, however, in a few steps they reached the top of the ridge, with a similar vast expanse of green to the west, Margaret saw that on this side a single structure rose fairly near at hand from the trees on the westward side of the mountains. It was a sizeable, wooden edifice, painted white, and with a slate roof.

  ‘Who lives there?’ asked Margaret, making conversation.

  ‘It is the Kurhus. A sanatorium,’ said one of the Swedish wives.

  ‘It is not only for the sick,’ explained the other Swedish wife.

  ‘It is a place where people stay, but where there is treatment too, if you want it.’

  ‘What you call a rest cure,’ added one of the Swedish husbands.

  From what Margaret had seen of Swedish life, she was not surprised.

  ‘It has fallen out of fashion,’ observed the second Swedish husband. ‘People have no time for rest cures today.’

  ‘Your country has the reputation of having more welfare than anywhere else,’ Margaret could not help observing.

  ‘Welfare is not rest,’ replied the Swede; speaking quite severely.

  ‘The Kurhus would do better to move with the times and become a motel,’ said the other Swede. ‘Business men today often prefer to sleep outside the city, provided there is a good road.’

  ‘It must have a wonderful view, and the afternoon sun and the sunset too,’ remarked Margaret. In Sovastad, there were no sunsets.

  ‘That is true,’ said one of the Swedish women seriously. ‘The Kurhus sees the sinking sun. It is appropriate.’

  No more was said on the subject, but, after they had gone for a little walk along the ride (Margaret would gladly have continued much further), they drove a short distance along the western flank of the mountain before returning to Sovastad, and actually passed the Kurhus portal. Flowers hung from baskets and a number of people were sitting about at tables on a terrace. To Margaret, it did not look in the least out of fashion or unsuccessful. Indeed, she liked the look of it very much: especially the contrast between the small but elegant sophistications of decor and the immense wild prospect extending north, south, and west under the warm sun. The new road had not yet reached this side of the mountains, and Margaret had no idea whether it ever would. Since they had come to Sweden, Henry seemed to experience such difficulty in holding on to the the various rights and duties of his position that he had never found breathing-space to go into such geographical particulars with her.

  Two days later, in fact, things rose to a crisis. In the middle of the morning, Henry routed Margaret out of a konditori, where she was consuming successive cups of excellent but expensive coffee, and told her that he would have to go back for the next two nights to Stockholm, and that their departure for England would have to be postponed until at least two days after that. ‘I shall be obliged to come back here again, dammit,’ said Henry. ‘I must make sure that they really understand what Stockholm has decided.’

  ‘What a pest for you!’ said Margaret.

  ‘Will you come to Stockholm with me, or would you prefer to stay here till I come back? I’m sure the Larssons and the Falkenbergs will give you a good time.’

  ‘I don’t want much more good time just for the present. May I go and stay at the Kurhus?’

  Henry looked doubtful. ‘They said it wasn’t up to much.’

  ‘That might mean it’s quiet. Of course, I mustn’t keep the room in the hotel here at the same time, but I’m sure you can arrange something.’

  ‘Never mind about that,’ said Henry generously. ‘If you want a change, of course you must have it.’

  ‘If you’re not going to be here,’ said Margaret, ‘I want some more of the sun. If you’ll tell me when you’ll be back, I’ll be here again waiting for you.’

  ‘A completely new girl,’ said Henry, and kissed her.

  *

  At the Kurhus next midday, Margaret was given the most beautiful room: large, with a view from the windows extending for miles, charmingly furnished, and with no fewer than three long rows of assorted books in at least four languages. Margaret, who read books, looked at this small library with considerable curiosity. As far as she could tell, the volumes seemed even to have been chosen with care, and to be by no means mere left-behinds or the bedtime reading one might expect – if one could in an hotel expect anything of that kind at all. But immediately it had occurred to Margaret that these were not books of the sort that most people would read to induce slumber, she observed that the next work on the shelf was a substantial tome named Die Schlaflosigkeit, which she suspected might mean ‘Insomnia’. She put it back in a hurry. Margaret made a point of sleeping like a top and believed that insomnia was largely a matter of suggestion. She wanted to know nothing about it. The next book was Daudet’s Sappho. If she had been there to improve her French instead of to have a rest, that might have been well worth struggling with.

  After she had said good
bye to Henry, and before leaving Sovastad, Margaret had braved the language barrier in order to buy herself a pair of sober green trousers, dark as the conifers; a coffee-coloured shirt, a lighter green anorak, and a pair of tough shoes. Into this costume she now changed. Probably she was too old for it, at least by British standards; but she intended her standard, for these two days, to be that of the woods and rocks and mountains, rather than that of the neighbours at home. Feeling almost a girl again, she fell on the huge double bed and, splaying out her legs, wrote a joyful postcard to each of her three children at their respective boarding schools. Then, to her intense surprise, she found that in the full flood of the mountain sun she was falling uncontrollably asleep.

  When she woke up, she had, to say the least of it, missed luncheon. It was really rather queer. She had slept the night before, as long and as well as she always did, even though in the next bed Henry had probably tossed and turned as usual. She could not remember when last she had fallen asleep in the middle of the day: hardly, she thought, since she had been made to have a daily rest as a child. As far as she could recall, she had not dreamed. It was simply as if two hours or more of her proper life had been stolen from her, arbitrarily cancelled. ‘It’s the relaxation,’ she thought; not quite daring to think, ‘It’s the relief’ … ‘It’s the beautiful big bed.’ (Henry always insisted on single beds, because he slept so badly; and it was a long time since she had slept in – or even on – anything else.) ‘It’s my new clothes’ … ‘It’s the sun, the mountain air.’

  She was not exactly hungry, but felt that if she didn’t eat something at this accustomed hour, she would regret it. Also she had to buy some stamps. She drew up the zip of her anorak, arranged her shirt collar outside it, put on some lipstick, and descended, feeling strange in every way, but not unpleasantly so. Architecturally, the hotel really was rather fine in its period manner: a wide staircase, with brass wood-nymphs holding up the baluster, wood-nymphs that were half trees; a square hall with tall, thin, Gothic windows, and more wood-nymphs in the stained glass.

  From experience of other continental hotels, Margaret had rather expected that someone would enquire solicitously, or pester (according as one saw it), about her lunch – for which she (or Henry) would be, in any case, paying, in accordance with Henry’s usual rule. But no one did. In fact, there was no one about at all; not even behind the hotel desk. Nor was there a sound; not even of birds without. The big front door stood wide open and the hall was like a temple into which sunlight streamed through every aperture, strewing the stained-glass nymphs across the white-tiled floor. Margaret reflected that even if she had been set on lunch, she would hardly have got it. At the thought, she felt quite empty.

  She imagined that people would be sitting about on the terrace, as she had seen them when she had driven past; but there proved to be no one. She stood by the balustrade, enthralled, though a little oppressed also, by the immensity of sunlit green. The sun was almost directly overhead and really hot. Margaret took off her anorak, and sat down on one of the brightly coloured terrace chairs, uncertain what to do next. She noticed that almost every window in the hotel seemed to be wide open; possibly a consequence of the hotel’s sanatorium function. She noticed also that below the terrace on this side, the opposite side from the road (itself a minor one), ran a path. It emerged from the woodland on her right and entered the woodland on her left.

  For some reason, it made her think of the track along which the figures pass when a mediaeval cathedral clock strikes the hour. She expected to see a red-eyed dragon emerge from one of the green tunnels, with a jewelled St. George in pursuit; and disappear into the other tunnel, eternally unconquered, though hourly beset. Or perhaps it might be a procession of twelve wise virgins; or of six pilgrims and six temptations. She herself sat at a higher level, observant of all, like the Madonna. It was along tracks such as the one below that all creation ran from darkness to darkness, everything from the stars to the rabbits in the corner of an altarpiece; until Copernicus, and Kepler and Brahe, and Galileo began upsetting things. One of the hospitable Swedes had shown her a big illustrated book about Brahe, translating all the captions into better English than the English speak. The Swedish family had not appeared to doubt that Brahe and his kind were advantageous.

  Out of the forest, as Margaret sat in the hot sun, came not St. George, but a bustling grey-haired woman in a red dress and carrying illustrated papers. Obviously a hotel resident, she ascended the steps to the terrace.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ she said to Margaret, staring at her clothes. ‘You are a newcomer.’ The woman could not have been anything but a lady from England. ‘It is unfortunate that I cannot in all honesty wish you a happy stay.’ Margaret supposed that she was a trifle eccentric, as the English abroad are so often said to be.

  ‘I’m only here for two nights,’ she said smiling.

  ‘Really!’ exclaimed the English lady, apparently much surprised. ‘A casual. We get very few casuals nowadays. So much the worse, perhaps. But it’s connected with changing tastes. There’s nothing to do here, you know. Absolutely nothing. What made you come here?’

  ‘I drove past with some Swedish friends and liked the look of it.’

  ‘A pity your Swedish friends didn’t tell you that this is not an ordinary hotel. Some of them must have known perfectly well. Most people in Sweden know, and a good many elsewhere too.’ She was standing with her hand on the back of the chair on the other side of the table from the chair on which Margaret was seated.

  ‘But my friends did tell me,’ said Margaret patiently. ‘They warned me it was partly a sanatorium. As a matter of fact, they more or less advised me against coming here. I just didn’t think their reasons were very good. As far as I was concerned anyway. I wanted the sun and I wanted not to have to wear my best clothes all the time. That was all. I wanted a rest. For two days, you know.’

  ‘I see,’ said the English lady.

  ‘But won’t you sit down?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said the English lady. ‘I had better introduce myself. I am Sandy Slater. At least that is what I have always been called. No one has ever called me Alexandra. Mrs. Slater, by the way; though my marriage was little more than a formality. I was born a Brock-Vere.’

  ‘I am Margaret Sawyer. I have usually been called Molly, but I like it less than I did. Mrs., too. My husband is concerned with building the new road.’

  ‘I understand that the new road will make little difference to the Jamblichus Kurhus. The authorities have taken care to keep us at a distance.’

  ‘Is that a good thing? I imagine that the owners mightn’t think so. One of my Swedish friends actually said that the Kurhus ought to go in more for attracting motorists.’

  ‘He must have been a very ignorant man,’ said Mrs. Slater firmly. ‘I notice that many of the Swedes are nowadays. If you will forgive my saying so about a friend of yours.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said Margaret. ‘They’re friends of my husband’s really. Or not even that. More business acquaintances. Not that they haven’t been very kind to us. They’ve been quite fantastic. Though that reminds me,’ she continued. ‘For some reason I fell asleep almost immediately I arrived here, which is something I never normally do, and in consequence I missed lunch, though it seems a silly thing to say. I’m beginning to feel rather hungry. Is it possible to attract some service?’

  ‘Not until four o’clock,’ said Mrs. Slater.

  ‘But it’s not yet three!’ exclaimed Margaret. ‘This is as bad as England. I shall be paying for lunch too, or at least my husband will. He will book everything, though I should often prefer to be less tied down.’

  ‘Clearly,’ said Mrs. Slater in a calm voice, ‘you have no idea what this place is. Why do you suppose it is called the Jamblichus Kurhus?’

  ‘I didn’t know it was until you just mentioned it. It doesn’t seem to be put up anywhere. I suppose he was some nineteenth-century German doctor who invented a patent treatment? So man
y of them seem to have done it.’

  ‘Jamblichus was the one among the seven sleepers who after they had slept for two centuries, went down into the town in order to buy food, tendered the obsolete coins, and found himself arrested. Don’t you remember your Gibbon?’ enquired Mrs. Slater, even more unexpectedly.

  ‘You mean the Decline and Fall? I’m afraid I’ve never had time for it. I have three children to look after, you know.’

  Mrs. Slater gazed at her. ‘It’s different here,’ she said weightily. ‘But I knew about Jamblichus before I came here. He’s the only one of the seven sleepers whom most people can name. Anyway, places like this used often to be called Jamblichus Groves; even by the unsophisticated. This, my dear Mrs. Sawyer (how odd that our husbands’ names should be so alike), is an establishment for insomniacs. One can hardly call it an hotel, because hotels are primarily places to sleep in. Still less can one call it a cure, because there is no cure.’

  ‘I noticed a book in my room –’ began Margaret, then reflected. ‘How terrible! Do you mean that you suffer from it?’

  ‘Not as badly as some – including some who are here. I usually get a few hours in the course of a week. Some of the people here haven’t slept for years.’

  ‘But that’s impossible!’ cried Margaret. She recollected herself. ‘But you mean that they haven’t slept regularly for years?’

  ‘I mean that for years they have not slept at all. Not at all. Never.’ Mrs. Slater seemed still to be speaking quite calmly.

  ‘But surely,’ enquired Margaret timidly, ‘surely you can’t live without any sleep?’

  ‘You can,’ replied Mrs. Slater. ‘In a way. You can live here.’

  ‘What is there special about here, and why do people who have difficulty in sleeping have to live with other people who have difficulty in sleeping? I know very little about it, I’m afraid, because I seem always to have slept rather well, but I should have thought that living all together would be the very worst thing for them.’