Ice

by Anna Kavan

  “Did you expect me to put out the red carpet for you?” The feeble flippant retort sounded offensive. I was becoming angry, knew I would not be able to control myself much longer. When, still keeping up the farce, she inquired in the same artificial tone what I had been doing, I answered coldly: “I’ve been with someone you know,” giving her a long, hard, meaning look at the same time. She understood at once, dropped her affectations and showed signs of anxiety. “When I first saw you . . . I thought you . . . he . . . I was afraid he’d arrived here.” “He will be here at any moment. I came to tell you that. To warn you, in case you have other plans, that he means to get you back—” She interrupted, “No, no—never!” shaking her head so vigorously that the hair flew out with a sheen like spray. I said: “Then you must leave immediately. Before he comes.”

  “Leave here?” It was cruel. She looked round in dismay at the home she had made. The sea shells comforted, the little room was so reassuring, so safe, the one place on earth she could call her own. “But why? He’ll never find me . . .” Her wistful, pleading voice did not touch me; mine remained adamant, cold. “Why not? I found you.” “Yes, but you knew . . .” She looked at me with suspicion, I was not to be trusted. “You didn’t tell him, did you?” “Of course not. I want you to come with me.”

  All of a sudden her confidence was restored, she reverted to her former disparaging attitude, gave me a derisive glance. “With you? Oh, no! Surely we haven’t got to go through all that again!” Attempting sarcasm, she rolled her big eyes, turned them up to the ceiling. It was a deliberate insult. I was outraged. Her slighting tone belittled my desperate efforts to reach her, ridiculed everything I had endured. In a furious rage suddenly, I took hold of her roughly, gave her a violent shake. “Stop it, will you! I can’t stand any more! Stop being so damned insulting! I’ve just been through hell for your sake, traveled hundreds of miles under ghastly conditions, run fantastic risks, almost got myself killed. And not the slightest sign of appreciation from you . . . not one word of thanks at the end of it . . . you don’t even treat me with ordinary common politeness . . . I only get a cheap sneer . . . Charming gratitude! Charming way to behave!” She was gazing at me speechlessly, her eyes all black pupil. My rage did not become any less. “Even now you haven’t got the decency to apologize!”

  Still infuriated, I went on abusing her, called her insufferable, impertinent, insolent, vulgar. “In future you might at least be civil enough to thank people who do things for you, instead of displaying your stupid conceited rudeness by laughing at them!” She seemed stricken, dumb; stood before me in silence, with hanging head, all trace of assurance gone. In the last few moments she had become a withdrawn, frightened, unhappy child, damaged by adult deviations.

  A pulse at the base of her neck caught my eye, beating rapidly like something under the skin trying to escape. I had noticed it on other occasions when she was frightened. It had its usual effect on me now. I said loudly: “What a fool I’ve been to worry about you. I suppose you moved in with your boyfriend as soon as I left.” She looked up at me quickly, apprehensively, stammered: “What do you mean?” “Oh, don’t pretend you don’t understand—it’s too sickening!” My voice sounded aggressive, got louder and louder. “I mean the owner of this house, of course. The fellow you’re living with. The one you were waiting for on the verandah when I arrived.” I could hear myself shouting. The noise terrified her. She had begun to tremble, her mouth was shaking. “I was not waiting for him—” She saw what I was doing, broke off. “Don’t lock the door . . .” I had locked it already. Everything had turned to iron, to ice, to hard, cold, burning impatience. I grasped her shoulders, pulled her toward me. She resisted, cried, “Keep away from me!” kicked, struggled, her hand shot out, dislodging a bowl of delicate wing-shaped shells, which smashed on the floor: our feet ground them to rainbow powder. I forced her down, crushed her under the bloodstained tunic, the sharp buckle of the uniform belt caught her arm. Blood beading the soft white flesh . . . the iron taste of blood in my mouth . . .

  She lay silent, unmoving, avoiding me by turning her face to the wall. Perhaps because I could not see her face, she seemed like someone I did not know. I felt nothing whatever about her, all feeling had left me. I had said I could not stand any more, and that was the truth. I could not go on; it was all too humiliating, too painful. I had wanted to finish with her in the past, but had been unable to do so. Now the moment had come. It was time to get up and go, to end the whole wretched business. I had let it go on far too long, it had always been painful and unrewarding. She did not move when I stood up. Neither of us said a word. We were like two strangers accidentally in the same room. I was not thinking. All I wanted was to get into the car and drive and drive, until I was somewhere far away where I could forget all this. I left the room without looking at her or speaking, and went out into the arctic cold.

  Outside it had got quite dark. I paused on the verandah for my eyes to get used to the blackness. By degrees the snow became visible as it fell, a sort of faint shimmer like phosphorescence. The hollow roar of the wind came in irregular bursts, the snowflakes whirled madly in all directions, filled the night with their spectral chaos. I seemed to feel the same feverish disorder in myself, in all my pointless rushing from place to place. The crazily dancing snowflakes represented the whole of life. Her image flew past, the silver hair streaming, and was instantly swept away in the wild confusion. In the delirium of the dance, it was impossible to distinguish between the violent and the victims. Anyway, distinctions no longer mattered in a dance of death, where all the dancers spun on the edge of nothing.

  I had grown used to the feeling that I was going toward execution. It was something in the distance, an idea with which I had become familiar. Now it suddenly sprang at me, stood close at my elbow, no longer an idea, but a reality, just about to happen. It gave me a shock, a physical sensation in the pit of the stomach. The past had vanished and become nothing; the future was the inconceivable nothingness of annihilation. All that was left was the ceaselessly shrinking fragment of time called “now.”

  I remembered the dark-blue sky of noon and midnight which I had seen above, while below a wall of rainbow ice moved over the ocean, round the globe. Pale cliffs looming, radiating dead cold, ghostly avengers coming to end mankind. I knew the ice was closing in round us, my own eyes had seen the ominous moving wall. I knew it was coming closer each moment, and would go on advancing until all life was extinct.

  I thought of the girl I had left in the room behind me, a child, immature, a glass girl. She had not seen, did not understand. She knew she was doomed, but not the nature of her fate, or how to face it. No one had ever taught her to stand alone. The hotel proprietor’s son had not impressed me as particularly reliable or protective, but rather a weak unsatisfactory type, and disabled as well. I did not trust him to look after her when the crisis came. I saw her, defenseless and terrified, amidst the collapsing mountains of ice; above the crashes and thunder, heard her feeble pathetic cries. Knowing what I knew, I could not leave her alone and helpless. She would suffer too much.

  I went back indoors. She did not seem to have moved, and although she looked round when I came into the room, at once twisted away again. She was crying and did not want me to see her face. I went close to the bed, stood there without touching her. She looked pathetic, cold, shivering, her skin had the same faint mauve tinge as some of the shells. It was too easy to hurt her. I said quietly: “I must ask you something. I don’t care how many different men you’ve slept with—it’s not about that. But I must know why you were so insulting to me just now. Why have you been trying to humiliate me ever since I arrived?” She would not look round, I thought she was not going to answer; but then, with long gaps between the words, she brought out: “I wanted . . . to get . . . my . . . own . . . back . . .” I protested: “But what for? I’d only just got here. I hadn’t done anything to you.”

  “I knew . . .” I had
to bend over her to catch the accusing voice, speaking through tears. “Whenever I see you, I always know you’ll torment me . . . kick me around . . . treat me like some sort of slave . . . if not at once, in an hour or two, or next day . . . you’re sure to . . . you always do . . .” I was startled, almost shocked. The words presented a view of myself I much preferred not to see. I hurriedly asked her another question. “Who were you waiting for on the verandah, if it wasn’t the hotel fellow?” Once more a totally unexpected answer disconcerted me. “For you . . . I heard the car . . . I thought . . . I wondered . . .” This time I was astounded, incredulous. “But that can’t possibly be true—not after what you’ve just said. Besides, you didn’t know I was coming. I don’t believe it.”

  She twisted round wildly, sat up, flung back the mass of pale hair, showed her desolate victim’s face, features dissolved in tears, eyes black as if set in bruises. “It is true, I tell you, whether you believe it or not! I don’t know why . . . you’re always so horrible to me . . . I only know I’ve always waited . . . wondered if you’d come back. You never sent any message . . . but I always waited for you . . . stayed here when the others left so that you’d be able to find me . . .” She looked a desperate child, sobbing out the truth. But what she said was so incredible that I said again: “It’s not possible—it can’t be true.” Face convulsed, she gasped in a voice choked by tears: “Haven’t you had enough yet? Can’t you ever stop bullying me?”

  Suddenly I felt ashamed, muttered: “I’m sorry . . .” I wished I could somehow obliterate past words and actions. She had thrown herself down again, flat on her face. I stood looking at her, not knowing what to say. The situation seemed to have gone beyond words. In the end I could think of nothing better than: “I didn’t come back only to ask those questions, you know.” There was no response at all. I was not even sure she had heard me. I stood waiting, while the sobs slowly died away. In the silence, I watched the pulse in her neck, still beating fast, presently put out my hand, gently touched the spot with the tip of one finger, then let the hand fall. A skin like white satin, hair the color of moonlight . . .

  Slowly she turned her head toward me without a word; her mouth appeared out of the shining hair, then her wet brilliant eyes, glittering between long lashes. Now she had stopped crying; but at intervals a shudder, a soundless gasp, interrupted her breathing, like an interior sob. She did not say anything. I waited. The seconds passed. When I could not wait any longer, I asked softly: “Are you coming with me? I promise I won’t bully you any more.” She did not answer, so after a moment I was obliged to add: “Or do you want me to go?” Abruptly she sat up straight, made a distraught movement, but still did not speak. I waited again: tentatively held out my hands; lived through another long silence, interminable suspense. At last she gave me her hands. I kissed them, kissed her hair, lifted her off the bed.

  While she was getting ready I stood at the window, staring out at the snow. I was wondering whether I ought to tell her that I had seen the sinister ice-wall approaching across the sea, and that in the end it was bound to destroy us and everything else. But my thoughts were muddled and inconclusive and I reached no decision.

  She said she was ready, and went to the door; stopped there, looking back at the room. I saw her psychologically bruised face, her extreme vulnerability, her unspoken fears. This little room the one friendly familiar place. Everything outside terrifyingly strange. The huge alien night, the snow, the destroying cold, the menacing unknown future. Her eyes turned to me, searched my face: a heavy, doubting, reproachful look, accusing and questioning at the same time. I was another very disturbing factor; she had absolutely no reason to trust me. I smiled at her, touched her hand. Her lips moved slightly in what, in different circumstances, might have become a smile.

  We went out together into the onslaught of snow, fled through the swirling white like escaping ghosts. With no light but the snow’s faint phosphorescent gleam, it was hard to keep to the path. Even with the wind behind us, walking was hard labor. The distance to the car seemed much greater than I had thought. I held her arm to guide her and help her along. When she stumbled I put my arm round her, steadied her, held her up. Under the thick loden coat she was cold as ice, her hands felt frozen through my heavy gloves. I tried to rub some warmth into them, for a moment she leaned on me, her face a moonstone, luminous in the dark, her lashes tipped white with snow. She was tired, I sensed the effort she made to start walking again. I encouraged her, praised her, kept my arm round her waist, picked her up and carried her the last part of the way.

  When we were in the car, I switched on the heater before doing anything else. The interior was warm in less than a minute, but she did not relax, sat beside me silent and tense. Catching a sidelong suspicious glance, I felt myself justly accused. After the way I had treated her, suspicion was all I deserved. She could not know that I had just discovered a new pleasure in tenderness. I asked if she was hungry; she shook her head. I produced some chocolate from the food parcel, offered it to her. No chocolate had been available for civilians for a very long time. I remembered she used to like this particular brand. She looked at it doubtfully, seemed about to refuse, then relaxed suddenly, took it, thanked me with a timid and touching smile. I wondered why I had waited so long to be kind to her, until it was almost too late. I said nothing about our ultimate fate, or about the ice-wall coming nearer and nearer. Instead, I told her the ice would stop moving before it reached the equator; that we would find a place there where we would be safe. I did not think this was remotely possible, did not know whether she believed it. However the end came, we should be together; I could at least make it quick and easy for her.

  Driving the big car through the glacial night I was almost happy. I did not regret that other world I had longed for and lost. My world was now ending in snow and ice, there was nothing else left. Human life was over, the astronauts underground, buried by tons of ice, the scientists wiped out by their own disaster. I felt exhilarated because we two were alive, racing through the blizzard together.

  It was getting more and more difficult to see out. As fast as the frost-flowers were cleared from the windscreen they reformed in more opaque patterns, until I could see nothing through them but falling snow; an infinity of snowflakes like ghostly birds, incessantly swooping past from nowhere to nowhere.

  The world seemed to have come to an end already. It did not matter. The car had become our world; a small, bright, heated room; our home in the vast, indifferent, freezing universe. To preserve the warmth generated by our bodies we kept close to each other. She no longer seemed tense or suspicious, leaning against my shoulder.

  A terrible cold world of ice and death had replaced the living world we had always known. Outside there was only the deadly cold, the frozen vacuum of an ice age, life reduced to mineral crystals; but here, in our lighted room, we were safe and warm. I looked into her face, it was smiling, untroubled; I could see no fear, no sadness there now. She smiled and pressed close, content with me in our home.

  I drove at great speed, as if escaping, pretending we could escape. Although I knew there was no escape from the ice, from the ever-diminishing remnant of time that encapsuled us. I made the most of the minutes. The miles and the minutes flew past. The weight of the gun in my pocket was reassuring.

  Afterword

  One of the worst things about hell is that nobody is ever allowed to sleep there, although it’s always night, or at the earliest, about six o’clock in the evening. There are beds, of course, but they’re used for other purposes.

  —My Soul in China

  It has been said that Anna Kavan wrote in a mirror. The body of work left by the now obscure British modernist represented a constant inquiry into her own identity, and the invention of a personal mythology—or demonology, as it would become later in her career. The experience of reading Kavan’s works one after another, in chronological order, is like hearing the same story repeated again a
nd again, recasting familiar situations and characters in tones that grow more nightmarish as the years pass. Her writing can be seen as an attempt to put into language a lifetime of rejection and alienation. The characters in Anna Kavan’s world are travelers of never-ending journeys, by train and by ship; they stop in small, indiscriminate towns where rows of faceless houses are as closed off as their inhabitants, finding strange faces and obstacles everywhere, the landscape one of silent hostility. Her alter egos veer into melancholy and disillusionment and even derangement. They are abandoned orphans seemingly too sensitive for reality.

  “So many dreams are crowding upon me now that I can scarcely tell true from false: dreams like light imprisoned in bright mineral caves; hot, heavy dreams; ice-age dreams; dreams like machines in the head.” Born Helen Woods in 1901, in Cannes, Kavan was active as a writer from the 1930s through her death in 1968; she wrote about these dreams in some seventeen novels and collections, two published posthumously, which move from first-person essayistic fragments to surrealist experiments, from Freudian fairy tales to metaphysical postapocalyptic fiction. The scope of her writing is breathtaking, although the quality of the output is irregular. Once heralded as the heiress apparent to female experimental writers like Virginia Woolf and Djuna Barnes, and called “Kafka’s sister” (and the K in her choice of pseudonym, “Kavan,” has been read for Kafka, her neighbor alphabetically on the bookshop shelf), she is now only remembered—if at all—for Asylum Piece, her exploration of madness, or Ice, her sci-fi crossover success.