The Black Halo

by Iain Crichton Smith

  He felt so sorry for himself that he began to cry a little and he couldn’t stop. Water drooled from his eyes, and he wiped it away with his dirty handkerchief. There didn’t seem to be so many people in the maze now. It was a stony wilderness. If there was one he could recognise as successful he would follow him like a dog. He would have no arrogance now. His brow puckered. There was someone he remembered as existing outside the maze, someone important, someone gracious, elegant, a magnet which he had somehow lost. She was . . . but he couldn’t remember who she was. And in any case had she been outside the maze? Had she not always been inside it, perhaps as lost as he was himself?

  Slowly and stubbornly he plodded on, no longer imagining that he would leave the maze, walking for the sake of walking. The twilight was now falling, and the café was shut. He could hear no sounds around him, no infestation of the maze, and yet strangely enough he sensed that there were beings there. If he could no longer escape from the maze then he might at least reach the centre and see what was there. Perhaps some compensating emblem, some sign, some pointer to the enigma. Perhaps even the designer of the maze sitting there in a stony chair. He set his teeth, he must not give in. He must not allow the thought to control him that he had no power over the maze, that in fact the power was all the other way. That would be the worst of all, not only for him but for everybody else.

  And then quite ironically, as if the seeing of it depended on his thought, there was the centre, barer than he had expected, no emblem, no sign, no designer.

  All that was there was a space, and a clock and a flag. The clock pointed to eleven. The sun was setting, red and near in the sky. It was a big ball that he might even clutch. The twilight was deepening. For a moment there, it was as if in the centre of the maze he had seen a tomb, but that couldn’t be true. That must have come from his brooding on the cemetery. On the other hand it might be a cradle. And yet it wasn’t that either. There was nothing there at all, nothing but the space on which the paths converged.

  He looked at the space for a long time, as if willing something to fill it. And then very slowly from the three other paths he saw three men coming. They seemed superficially to be different, but he knew that they were all the same. That is to say, there hovered about the faces of each of them a common idea, a common resemblance, though one was dressed in a grey suit, one in a gown, and one in jacket and flannels. They all stood there quite passively and waited for him to join them. They were all old. One of them to his astonishment held a child by the hand. He stood there with them. Slowly the sun disappeared over the horizon and darkness fell and he felt the pressure of the maze relaxing, as if in a dream of happiness he understood that the roads were infinite, always fresh, always new, and that the ones who stood beside him were deeper than friends, they were bone of his bone, they were flesh of his disappearing flesh.

  Uncollected Stories

  On the Island

  He’s on the island. Jim Merrick, whom I hated, hate. I saw his head like a cannon ball emerging now and again from the froth of the waves, as he struggled towards the shore, after the ship had been smashed on the rocks. I saw no other. Even now he must be on some other part of the island: tomorrow I shall explore it when the night has passed and there is clear daylight.

  Yes, I have seen his footprints in the sand. This morning I swam out to the wreck of the ship which is being tilted and smashed steadily against the rocks: luckily for me that I am a powerful swimmer. I carried a knife between my teeth in case I met him scavenging among the broken wood.

  I scrambled over the ship, my heart beating and managed to get a hammer and nails as well as some biscuits and salted meat. I don’t know how he missed the hammer for he was there before me, since I found scrawled on a miraculously whole mirror the words, ‘I shall kill you Cruso.’ He had spelt my name wrong for he is practically illiterate. Jim Merrick, whom I hated because he made my life a misery. Uneducated animal – like Jim Merrick whose life is in his head. I swam out through a mass of bodies rising and falling in the water: a bitter harvest.

  He must be building his hut somewhere on the island as well, for there must have been more than one hammer: he wouldn’t have gone back without one. It seems a large island with green hills and valleys and, I think, plenty of water. Perhaps it is because of the largeness of the island that I haven’t as yet seen him after two days. Luckily I slept in the trees the last nights or he might have found me and killed me. All this day I shall spend working on my hut and he will, I suppose, be doing the same.

  I hope he hadn’t got a musket for if he has he is bound to kill me. I must make sure That I don’t leave any traces when I climb the tree. I haven’t seen any wild animals: he is probably the wildest animal on the island.

  This morning I found written in the sand the words: ‘It won’t be long now.’ His writing is clumsy and unformed even in sand.

  I wish I had a razor so that I could shave. I have managed to kill a goat: he’s probably done the same, since his instinct for blood is greater than mine. I saw some wild pig as well and coloured birds in the trees. The sky has been clear and blue and there has been no rain. I am chary of the herbs for they might be poisonous.

  The problem is, how can I feel secure in my hut when I have built it, especially at night. It looks as if I shall have to go after him in order to gain peace; one of us may have to die. I hope it will be him, naturally, I read my Bible a lot.

  I have seen him. Exploring the island, I saw him building a hut behind a clump of trees (perhaps he is frightened of me too, though I never thought of that before). He was naked to the waist, very brown, and he looked like a wild animal with his club head and his long quivering snout. I stood behind him for a long time though I didn’t throw my knife which I could very well have done. But something, I don’t know what it was, prevented me from doing so.

  He was hammering nails in wood and whistling to himself, and his face, like mine, was unshaven. Why, I thought to myself, he looks even like me. We are both turning brown in this perpetual sun. I nearly went and spoke to him, my bitterest enemy, for I felt so lonely: I wished to hear the speech of men, for even he is a man. He looked so innocent and harmless, working at his hut, as if he were an animal building its lair.

  No ship will come for a long time if ever. I know that. Already our own ship has sunk in the waves and the decks on which we once walked are covered with brine: the mirrors lie among the fishes. I don’t know whether he managed to get hold of one but I couldn’t find any except ones which were too big to be lifted. How shall I ever know that I exist? However, I shall know he exists. I fixed a wooden bolt on the door of my hut. But this morning when I woke up and went outside, I found carved on the wood the words, ‘You can’t hide from me Cruso.’ He persisted in misspelling my name: I don’t know why that should bother me but it does. I wonder why he didn’t wait for me till I came out, and then attack me. But no, I saw no sight and heard no sound of him. His treatment of the cabin boys was scandalously cruel: that was why I had quarrelled with him for I can’t stand injustice.

  Also he is a brute. He eats like a brute, slurping his food, and he talks like a brute and he walks like a brute. He has the physique of a brute and I am ashamed to belong to the same race as he does. It is amazing to me that he can write at all.

  Now that I know where he is I crawled towards his hut but he wasn’t there. I left a stone with a note tied round it: he can’t expect to have it all his own way. I didn’t wait to see him read it. When I got back to my own hut he had removed the bolt from the door and he had urinated against the walls.

  I have a vision of Jim Merrick in a large cage and I am feeding him till a ship comes. I see him pecking at his food with his large beak and I watch myself dressing him in coloured clothes. I am teaching him how to spell my name correctly: when he succeeds in doing so, I give him some more seed. What an extraordinary vision: I must be going out of my mind.

  I caught a fish today. At night I left my hut and watched him under the large
yellow moon but he did not appear.

  He is sitting outside his hut on a large boulder carving some wooden object. I think it is a model of a ship that he is making, a ship with wooden sails. Perhaps in his dim way he liked that ship, perhaps he misses his authority over the crew. His head is bent over his model and he is muttering to himself: I have a feeling that he knows I am near. Suddenly he turns round and looks directly at the place where I am standing hidden by the foliage. And then he laughs, a dry delighted laugh.

  Last night I slept in the trees again in case he came to the hut. He did come to the hut though I didn’t see him and carved on the door, ‘Not now. Sumtime.’ I know what is happening: he too in his dim way has worked it out. He’s playing a cat-and-mouse game in order to pass the time: at least it gives us something to do for if we didn’t have that we wouldn’t have anything. But he had deteriorated. I think. His face is hairy, he walks in a stooping manner like an ape, or like a scholar. Ha, ha. He always, like me, carries a knife.

  On board the ship he always sang for he was happy to be a master of a kind: here he never sings, and neither do I. My lips are becoming stiff, and my mouth is closing like the grave.

  Yesterday we pursued the same animal. We tugged at the flesh, one from each side, each with his knife. But we did not attack each other: we agreed wordlessly to divide the flesh in two parts. His face has become like that of a beast: I wonder if mine is the same. We dragged the half-carcases back to our huts. I think he sometimes sleeps in a tree too lest he should be caught off guard.

  I have worked out that it is Christmas Day but it is not cold and snowy and icy as it used to be in that home that I once knew. Perhaps we should have a truce for we are both growing tired. But I’m sure he doesn’t know that it is Christmas, so there would be no point.

  He is building a boat. If he succeeds in that he will kill me. Last night I went and smashed it. I don’t know what he will feel like when he sees the results of my handiwork. Maybe he will try to build one somewhere else, hidden among the foliage. But I must say that I haven’t felt such joy for a long time as I did when I smashed that boat: my hammer flew about the wood with joy and exhilaration.

  I started to build a boat myself but the same thing happened to mine: he smashed it.

  So we are back to where we were before. The weather holds well, unchanging, blue. There have been no storms. I am sustained by the Bible which I think is on my side.

  I have begun to talk to myself. Once I heard myself addressing myself as Merrick. That’s very odd and I can’t understand it. I wonder if he is doing the same, that is addressing himself as Robinson Crusoe.

  Perhaps Merrick doesn’t exist. Perhaps he was never on the island at all and I scrawled these messages myself, though they appear to be from him. But surely that’s not possible. Would I misspell my own name? Could Jim Merrick write at all? But he must have been able to, otherwise how could he have scrawled on the ship’s mirror?

  His name was certainly Merrick. I must write it on the flyleaf of the Bible so that I will remember it. Jim Merrick. It sounds right enough, it sounds as if he existed. I am frightened. I have thought, what would happen if I went blind on a desert island. I have succeeded in making a bow and arrow, but so has he: I heard an arrow whistling past me today while I was gutting fish. But he must have intended to miss me. Tonight I shall fire one through his window, not to kill, as a warning merely.

  I have a parrot in a cage. I speak to it and it answers. I say, ‘Kill Merrick, kill Merrick,’ and it imitates me in a rasping almost incomprehensible voice.

  Yesterday when I came back to the hut the parrot had been killed. I know that he won’t kill me. It isn’t time yet. The parrot had been strangled and all the colour had drained out of the body. I wasn’t at all angry, and that frightened me.

  I waited till he had left his hut, and then I got hold of the carving of the ship with its wooden sails and masts and I threw it into the sea. I watched it float away so bravely, so almost freely. I also smashed a mirror I found in his hut: perhaps he is superstitious and my action will shake him. I wish his face had been inside it.

  Yesterday we sat fishing about three hundred yards from each other. We did not speak. Murder on a desert island, that would be odd, I wonder if he would bury me, I wouldn’t bury him. The thing is that he would be on his own if he killed me, and I would be on my own if I killed him. That is why we are playing with each other: but which is the cat and which is the mouse? I like nothing better now than banging the heads of fish against stones when I catch them, and yet I didn’t used to be a cruel man. Am I turning into a Merrick?

  He is a beast. He ought to be killed. He is an unjust brute and I am the Hand of God. I have seen his death written in letters of flame.

  A Voice is telling me that I must kill him, he is polluting the earth. This place would be pure and innocent without him. I shall fly over him on wings of flame, on coloured wings. I cannot be harmed but he is the devil. He looks like the devil shambling along with his head bent, reading the ground, the signs of the day. Without him I would be able to sleep, the sky would be bluer, the day more secure. And yet . . .

  Hear ye, hear ye. The prophet goes out armed. He speaks to the people, he brings the word of God. The unclean and the sinful and the brutish must be killed and sacrificed. The wrath of God shall be upon them. The heathen must be extirpated from the earth.

  He is growing old. I can see that now and my triumph is complete. His hair is growing grey. He stoops as he walks along, like a philosopher, an ape, and a philosopher. It is an effort for him to work. He can no longer run after the animals, he moves at a stately almost rotund pace, like a large grey egg. I move slowly after him, and sometimes he moves slowly after me.

  He is an old man. Who would have believed that Merrick would have become so old, who once shouted from the deck at the seamen in the rigging? He no longer attempts to build a boat, he has surrendered to reality and the place where he is will be his final place. Sometimes he sits on a rock staring into space. We stare at each other, we are old men, but it will be worse for him, for he has no inner life, he is simply a sick animal. His shadow follows me, his lips move soundlessly for he has nothing to say. Soon we shall die for no ship will ever come.

  All day yesterday we sat and stared at each other, our knives in our hands. I think I fell asleep. I know he did. His beard reaches to his feet and so does mine. We are drawing closer to death. Who will die first and who will bury whom?

  Night is falling. It must be thirty years now since we landed on this island resentful and burning with hate, but at least we were young. Now we are shadows of the evening. Soon we shan’t be able to catch anything, not animals, not fish. Soon we shall just sit and die.

  Today I found him unconscious by the water. He had been trying to drag a plank ashore and it floated in the salty brine in front of him, dancing. I looked down at him. There was no ship on the horizon. I could have killed him then. He was meat, just grizzly meat, tough and wrinkled, uneatable. His closed eyes and his pale flashes of flesh among the stubble and old rags made him look defenceless.

  After a while he opened his eyes and looked up. I helped him to his feet and threw both knives into the sea where they sparkled briefly in the rays of the sun. We turned away from the water, crooked bent old men together. There was no help for it. We started to hack aimlessly and weakly at the wood to make a boat. We shall cook the food in turns.

  The Button

  One day the old man and the old woman stopped talking to each other. They sat for a lot of the time in the same room but they didn’t speak. She would make the breakfast and the dinner and the tea and lay them at regular times on the table and they would both sit and eat but they remained silent. Neither would pass anything to the other, but each would stretch across to get the salt or the pepper or whatever was required. At night they would go to bed and turn their backs on each other and go to sleep.

  And yet in their early days they had been lovers. They had married youn
g and gone through life together as other couples had done. They had a house of their own and in those days they would discuss what furniture they should buy for it. They would go out and visit and talk to other people. They had a garden where flowers grew every summer and withered every autumn. They were the same age, grew up together and no one was surprised when they married, as they seemed destined for each other. They had children and he worked at his work and came home every night. They sometimes joked and sometimes quarrelled and sometimes they took life very seriously.

  Then one day in their old age ceased to speak to each other. It was as if they had no longer anything to say to each other, as if they had run out of thoughts, and so their minds became secretive and inward. They each had dreams of what they might have done differently but they concealed these dreams from each other. He would sometimes read the newspaper and she would sew and they wouldn’t speak. And in a strange way they felt comfortable with each other, their silence was not bristling and hostile, it was a silence of emptiness. It was as if they were waiting for the grave into which they would be lowered. Nothing particular had happened to cause this, they hadn’t had a major quarrel. They were like clocks which had run down.