Island of Wings

by Karin Altenberg

The man gave a sharp cry and his body convulsed.

  ‘He is suffering!’

  ‘Yes, but it is the only way. Now, make sure you soak it properly.’

  At least this time the liquid pain made the patient pass out.

  ‘Now, you must try to hold him down, like this.’ MacKenzie showed his wife how to push down on the patient’s upper arms with all her weight, and she did as she was told.

  MacKenzie took hold of the leg on either side of the wound and, after a moment of concentrated hesitation, he pulled sharply. There was a long scream and Lizzie struggled to hold on to her weakened patient.

  ‘By God! I made a botch of it!’ MacKenzie threw his hands in the air.

  ‘You must try again!’ Lizzie was blubbering now.

  ‘No, no, I can’t! It is too ghastly!’ Lizzie could see that her husband’s eyes were wild and frantic now and felt a new wave of desperation rise inside her.

  ‘Oh, but, Neil, you must, or he will most certainly die!’ She could hear the children crying in the other room and Anna’s panicked voice trying to soothe them.

  Fresh blood, mixed with thick yellow-green pus, was seeping from the distressed wound and dripping on to the floor. The stranger was breathing erratically and with obvious difficulty. For a moment man and wife stood watching in horror as life threatened to drain away. Then MacKenzie banged his fists on the mantelpiece before turning back to the patient.

  ‘Arghhh!’ This time the scream came from MacKenzie rather than from his patient as the bone was finally pulled back into position.

  Fuelled by adrenalin and unable to think straight, MacKenzie smashed a chair against the floor several times until he had a couple of sturdy wooden splints. Lizzie looked on in shock at first, then she too sprang into action and tore strips from the damp sheet that had fallen to the floor.

  Once the fracture was bound up and the patient had grown silent again the MacKenzies sat down, spent and exhausted, at the table. Lizzie spoke first, with new-found affection and admiration. ‘That was extraordinary, what you did, I’m so proud of . . .’ He held up his hand and interrupted her with a cold stare. The charge of a moment ago had subsided into anger and his head was throbbing. ‘From now on he is your responsibility, do you hear me? Yours!’

  ‘But, Neil, please! Steady yourself!’ she began to protest.

  ‘If he dies now it is not my fault – I did not kill him!’ His eyes were livid.

  ‘Shh, no one is suggesting it would be your fault,’ she pleaded, dread rising in her throat.

  ‘Don’t use that tone at me – you were the one who got hysterical.’ His face was red with frustration and indignity. Lizzie looked at him in incomprehension.

  ‘I . . .’ Her voice faltered as she did not know how to defend herself.

  ‘You are always walking around with that self-pitying look, feeling lonely. But what about me – have you ever given me a thought?’ He sobbed and was at once ashamed of this display of self-pity. His head was hurting with frustration and he shut his eyes. He did not know what he was saying; suddenly he did not understand the words – there was no clarity. Oh why was there no clarity – was he losing his mind? What evil had this man brought on to the island? He felt trapped and frightened, and now there was a bad sound in his ears. He held his fists against his head and wanted her to hold him. More than anything he wanted to lean against her and let her comfort him. He loved her – why could he never bring himself to tell her? He depended on her but he felt powerless around her – as if the love itself was taking away his strength. He wanted her to be happy, but sometimes he suspected that there was something dark at the core of him that prevented him from doing the right things and from feeling the right feelings. Over the years, as a vague sense of guilt had grown stronger he had started to shy away from emotional responsibility. It was not his fault – somebody else would have to take on some of the burden. Why must he always shoulder the blame?

  He could feel her resentment filling the room, but there was something else too, some of that old insecurity. He would strike before receiving the blow. Did she not tempt him, sapping his power so that he could not get close enough to God? This was a new thought – why had he not realised it before? It was all terribly clear to him now. He opened his eyes again. She looked frightened and he smiled. ‘It’s all your fault.’

  ‘Neil, you are rambling, I don’t know what you are talking about. Let’s not argue!’ She tried to grab hold of him but he shrugged her off.

  ‘Ha! When did you ever care for me? But now you have something to care about – you make sure your freak survives!’ He stood up, and, pulling on his coat, broke out of the door and stumbled off, away from his wife and into the bleak day.

  That February the sky was stretched so thinly over the island that it seemed ready to burst, and the evenings were murky and sad. The minister, however, had recovered from his bout of headaches and was busy working with the natives on the new enclosures. Anna, whose spirit was of the island, grew increasingly restless inside and would often dress the children in their woollens and bring them down to the beach, where the native children were looking for flotsam and jetsam or competing to spot the returning birds. Once they found a wooden box with lettering in a foreign language. Mr MacKenzie examined it closely and said it was most likely from the cargo of an Iberian privateer. Anna thought of the Iberian coast, where there would be lemons and apes and ladies in colourful dresses. Later, she found a piece of green glass in the shallows and fished it out of the icy water with numb fingers. Still wet from the sea, the glass looked to Anna like a gem that had fallen out of a foreign jewel, perhaps a ring or a tiara. She realised that she must hide it in her secret cache in the manse wall – the village boys must not see it or they would laugh at her vanity. She closed the glass in her hand and started running towards the manse. Almost at once she felt a jab as she had pressed the shard too tightly in her fist. She let out a short cry of pain and let the glass fall to the ground. Her palm was already coloured by the blood seeping quickly out of a large gash in her skin, which was dry and tight from the cold. She cupped her hand and tried to hide the blood as she ran on, sobbing and red with shame for the futility of her dream.

  For long stretches of time Lizzie would be alone in the manse with the stranger. His bed had been moved into one of the chambers so the children would not have to come near him. Sometimes Lizzie would also venture outside to get some fresh air and stare at the melancholy sky. But she would never stray far from the manse, and she often would run back to her patient, suddenly fearful that something might have happened to him. He was still very sick, weakened by the fever that would not leave him alone, unable to keep any solids, but, miraculously, the leg seemed to be healing and the fluids which stained the bandages were becoming clear and less malodorous.

  Fuel was scarce on the island at this time of the year, but Lizzie insisted on keeping the fire going in the grate to banish the insistent damp from the manse. She made soup from anything she found that was nutritious enough, and she would feed it to the stranger three times a day. He could not sit up, but she would hold his head in the crook of her arm and spoon-feed him with great patience; but in spite of this some of the soup would still trickle down his chin and on to his shirt.

  Lizzie was less fearful of his body now that she had got to know it as well as her own, but this familiarity did not lessen its mystery – nor its beauty. Over the last few days he had occasionally opened his eyes and once, as she bent over him to wipe some sweat from his forehead with her hand, he had looked up at her with a sudden clarity, and although the eyes that met hers were the colour of peat she knew that they were not from this part of the world. She looked back into his eyes hoping to find a way out.

  In his sleep he would sometimes murmur and stammer in a language she did not understand, but when he was awake he would not speak a word. His silences were like wet sand: c
old and compact. In contrast, she could not stop talking to him, the kind of standard nonsense a nurse would offer a patient. Occasionally, in the afternoon, when dusk approached and shapes grew tender, she would call him by the name she had given him. Hesitantly trying it out and hearing it said out loud again. ‘Nathaniel,’ she would say, and stroke his hair.

  As he grew stronger he would sometimes sit up and look at her through the open door to the kitchen. She could feel his gaze sweeping over her as she went about her business, and it would sometimes make her shiver. Once or twice as she turned to catch his eye she was shocked to see something rough and hardened in his smile, and a hunger in his eyes.

  As March brought the first hopes of spring his face would often turn to the light. Once, on a bright morning as she entered the room after a brisk walk along the cliffs, her eyes brimming with the aquamarine of the sea and her face radiant with reclaimed youth, he looked up and froze at the sight of her. Lizzie, too, stopped in her tracks, and the sun that followed her through the open door seemed to stand still. She smiled at his eyes, which were suddenly soft and hopeless and, at once, and for the very first time, it dawned on her that this brutish man had finally found beauty in her. As he held her gaze she felt it reaching straight inside her and touching a moist softness in her very heart.

  There was nothing strange about her caring for her patient. Had not her own husband told her to devote herself to the sickbed? And so there came a time when the nurse did not want her patient to get any better. He was fit enough to sit up on his own now, but his legs were still too weak to carry him. Every now and again Lizzie would urge the stranger to lean his elbows on her shoulders and stand up next to the bed. The physical effort would make him sweat as they swayed together in concentration. Locked in this strange dance, Lizzie would forget about her predicament, about the fact that this man was in the intimacy of her family home, and as she listened for the possibility of music to guide her feet, her body seemed to belong to somebody else.

  One morning, gently perfect up until that moment, Mr MacKenzie happened to enter the manse while Lizzie and the stranger were doing this exercise. She did not notice her husband at first, as her eyes were closed, but she felt the stranger tighten his grip on her shoulders and she looked up to find her husband staring at her with an expression that conveyed both anger and repulsion. Lizzie dropped the man back on to the bed. As she stood to face her husband she felt her neck flush in shame. She waited for him to say something while a dry fear stalled in her chest. He was quiet for a moment longer and then he cleared his throat. ‘I see that your savage is doing much better,’ he said.

  She hesitated. ‘Yes, I’m trying to get him to stand up.’

  ‘Good, good. Although your efforts may be in vain – brutes like him are doomed to crawl in the dust.’

  She could hear that he was furious, but could not stop herself. ‘Don’t speak of him like that. He is a human being just like you and me, and his circumstances are no fault of his own!’

  ‘Well, if he is such a gentleman, why don’t we let Anna look after him from now on?’

  ‘But . . .’ Humiliation made her weak.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He has got used to me. I am the one who should be nursing him.’ She realised her mistake but it was too late.

  ‘Have you no shame? Letting another man touch you in my own home! I will have no more of it!’

  ‘But, Neil . . . he was only leaning on me for . . . for support.’ She stammered for the injustice of it.

  ‘Get out of this room immediately!’

  She turned to the man in the bed and saw that he was looking at her. There were specks of green in his brown eyes and something else which she dared to interpret as compassion. Softly, almost invisibly, he inclined his head to her and held her gaze. She looked into his eyes to find some strength.

  ‘Mrs MacKenzie, remember your place!’ Her husband grabbed her wrist and pulled her out of the room, slamming the door shut behind them.

  Mr MacKenzie remained true to his word and did not let her near the stranger again. Two women from the village would come in to feed him and change his dressings. Lizzie would see them walk in and out of the room with fresh linens, chamber pots and ban­dages. Secretly she thought she could interpret signs in the discarded bowls of half-eaten stew or damp rags – surely he preferred her ministrations to theirs?

  Gradually, while she had been nursing the man, Lizzie had come to hear about the remains of the shipwreck that had washed up around the island. A couple of bodies had been found in Gleann Bay. They must have been in the water for some weeks, but the natives who found them could still make out that they were not wearing uniform, nor did they have the appearance of fishermen, and one of them still had a pistol strapped to his belt.

  At night Lizzie would lie in bed and listen to the noises of the house. Knowing that the stranger was in the room right next to her was almost unbearable. She pressed her ear and then her face against the cold wall where patches of damp darkened the wallpaper. Once she was brave enough to get up when her husband was asleep and listen at the door of the chamber. She could not hear anything, and she was too frightened to open the door.

  Instead, she dreamed of him. She closed her eyes and they walked together through a forest where the foliage sieved the warming rays of the sun; brambles caught her skirts, and the scents of rich earth and crushed leaves rose from the ground. They sat down amongst violets, and the ever-inquisitive sun sought them through the canopy of trees. Once or twice, when she thought she had lost him, she stopped and turned around and he was just behind her, just there, and the peat in his eyes came alive as the fresh bark of a beech or the moss on a stone in a brook.

  Another time they walked through golden cornfields, vast as the sea and punctuated by islands of cheerful daisies and delicate poppies with petals ready to fall. And at such fragility and threat, unable to hold on, she would fall, fall, fall . . . fall to where she was once again alone.

  Who was she? She had been deprived of passion for so long, during which time she had let practical matters rule. But now, when she was allowed to dream of the silent man who spoke to her so clearly, she knew she had forgotten how to love. If she opened her eyes the adventure would be gone and she would be back in the manse, facing the wall and its peeling paper, with damp smoke in her throat.

  During the day she would turn to her children for comfort. As the sun fell through the window, competing for their love, she would hold them too hard while she read to them from the book with coloured drawings. For a moment she would forget to read as she bent her head to fill her nostrils with the scent of their hair – the salty blue and green smells of the island intermingled with the pure, slightly moist smell of the child. ‘Go on, mother, read more, please,’ they cried while they struggled against her hot embrace.

  Anna noticed her mistress’s mood but did not understand. She found it strange and embarrassing. It would be many years yet until she herself would grow into a young woman, years till she understood the pain and anguish her mistress had suffered in those few weeks: how that heart had woken again to romance and adventure and had been finally crushed.

  This was the period of the spring storms, and one night, at the end of March, a south-easterly gale forced a Prussian ship on to the rocks of Boreray. Amazingly, the crew saved themselves on to the island and could be rescued by the St Kildans the following morning when the storm had died down. Their ship, however, was dashed to splinters. During the commotion caused by the rescue operation Lizzie saw her chance, at last, to return to her foreign sailor.

  Making sure no one was in the house, she walked up to the closed door of the sickroom. For a minute she stood there, trying to control her breathing. There was still a wind around the eaves, and she could hear yesterday’s sea through the walls of the manse, as if the waves were secretly conspiring. Then she opened the door and, closing it
gently behind her, stepped into the room, which was surprisingly light and still. The man was lying on his side with his face to the window. He was asleep, but he looked better than before. She watched him quietly from the other end of the room. His dark hair had grown a bit, and was curling on the pillow. The shadows under his eyes and around the jaw were nearly gone and he looked much younger. She felt her heart tighten at such tender beauty. Under the blankets he seemed to be wearing a loose linen shirt. She frowned as she thought of the two village women dressing him in this way. Quietly, so as not to waken him, she moved over the floor and sat down at the bedside. Her skirts settled awkwardly around the low stool and, for an instant, the rustle of the dove-grey muslin filled the room. His left hand was resting on the rough covers, and softly she lifted it with her own to find his pulse. She was surprised at how warm the hand was and, as she followed the pulse through his wrist, she let her fingers slide into his palm and immediately felt his fingers link through hers. His hand was alive and his grip welded them together. Lizzie closed her eyes but did not withdraw her hand. Suddenly he was sitting up next to her and his right hand was tracing her face. Still she did not pull away. They were alone in the forest as she had dreamed. She felt his hot breath in her ear and her own pulse quickened. Now his hands were a feathered touch on her body. She recognised the quickening of his breath as he pulled at her bodice. She could feel his body through his linen nightgown and knew that the heat that radiated from him was another kind of fever. She pressed her mouth against his and heard him moan as he pressed her closer to his chest. He said her name, which was the first word she had ever heard him say except for in his dreams, and she wanted more than anything else to be loved by this man, this stranger she had brought back to life. His hands were grappling with her dress again, but it would not give and suddenly it ripped near the shoulder as he pressed his hand in to cup her breast. Now Lizzie was beyond herself. ‘Oh no, no, no . . .’ she heard herself moan, but she kissed him again. She was split in two and would never again be one. He grabbed her hand and guided it down between his legs. ‘No! I can’t! I have a husband!’ she cried, and pulled away from him. She was sobbing now and stared at him in agony as he took hold of himself while looking into her eyes. She could not tear her eyes away and stood there by his bedside as his body convulsed and he let out a great sigh and fell back on the pillows. Lizzie was crying hard now, but she could not leave. When she dared look at him again she saw that he was smiling at her – a kind, gentle smile. ‘Shh,’ he whispered, and just then she heard voices from the rocks outside. ‘They are back. O God, I have to leave.’ He smiled at her again and nodded. She hurried to the door while clawing at her torn dress, but then she heard his voice behind her. ‘What?’ she asked. ‘Solano,’ he said softly, and then again, ‘Solano, not Nathaniel.’