by Anna Kavan
The climate, and the loneliness were beginning to tell on her; she looked tired; she was thinner and paler.
‘You don’t feel ill, do you?’ Matthew asked.
She could see his blue eyes examining her closely, eagerly, with a curious suggestive speculation, slightly indecent. She knew he was wondering whether she had conceived. He was very anxious that she should bear his child. He wanted to set the final seal of his possession upon her. A child would surely subject her to him, would make her ultimately his.
But Anna, when she thought of it, felt her heart sicken with horror. She did not want a child either with her body or with her mind. It was not her role. It seemed unnatural, almost shocking to think of such a thing. The thought disgusted her. Yet there were times in the midst of her loneliness, in the midst of the dreadful blankness which her life had become, when a different mood came upon her. At such time she began to tell herself that she should bear a child and be as other women, content to abandon her own life to live again in the child. She almost persuaded herself that she would be happy doing this. That this was her true womanly destiny.
But then, when she thought of Matthew’s child, she shuddered in every nerve. If she could conceive a child of herself and bear it of herself alone, well and good. But Matthew’s child! She shivered at the thought. No, it was not to be thought of, never, never. How could she bear it? How could she bear the thought of producing a curious neat, half-unreal, ball-headed child, a little surprise packet of her own? How could she! Disgust flamed to horror in her heart, she felt revolted. The very idea wrenched her with actual nausea.
So that it distracted her to know that the thought was always in Matthew’s mind. And also in the minds of the other women. There was a rich stir of fecundity abroad among the white women of Naunggyi, a warm, moist surge of philoprogenitiveness. Anna saw it all as so revolting, a sort of human stud-farm.
Mrs. Barry came and leaned against Anna’s new cushions and smiled at Anna suggestively. She was a faded and rather sugary-looking young woman, inclined to prettiness.
‘It must be dull for you here alone,’ she said. ‘Perhaps later on –’ And her pretty, light, slightly blood-shot eyes would gaze eagerly round the room in quest of some telltale oddment of sewing or suchlike.
Anna found it disgusting. It was really repulsive to her, this semi-lewd interest in her reproductive possibilities. She felt herself go hard and cold, very tensely rigid, and sharp, sword-like, in the midst of all this warm, yielding luxuriance of femininity. She seemed to close up more than ever in herself.
None the less, the general atmosphere of breeding and maternity had its effect upon her. She did actually think, occasionally, that she would like a child – provided it was not Matthew’s. More as an occupation than anything else. It would be an interest.
But in her more lucid moments, when the nightmare of the place had retreated a little, she was astonished at her own imaginings. Except that they were not her own. It was not Anna-Marie who indulged in these incongruous flights of fancy. She was not herself. The mere incongruity of associating her real self with procreation made her tremble.
The cool months passed away, with their limpid mornings and floods of bright, pure sunshine. March was already tropical, a steadily increasing onslaught of torridness. The punkah was creaking from morning till night, stirring up the sluggish, lukewarm air. And the shutters were always closed. The sun had become an enemy. So that the rooms were always dim, depressing, yellowish. A queer yellowish light came oozing in, like marsh-water, through the wooden slats of the shutters. By the middle of April it was almost too hot to live. The scourge of heat had fallen like a visitation. Everyone complained in a half-hearted, hopeless way. There was nothing to be done, of course. Except grin and bear it. But it was deathly, dreadful; an abominable infliction. Like one of the mediæval plagues.
Anna could hardly drag herself out of doors. Even the early mornings were burning hot. And the heat seemed to lie upon her like a great, intolerable, irritating mass, crushing out her life. She felt half ill all the time. She had no spirit or energy. She was crushed.
Yet the outside world was wonderful. There was a changing, eerie beauty about the landscape. From day to day it altered, assuming gradually a strange coppery, metallic brilliance, almost orange-coloured, like a Martian landscape. There was something unbelievable about it, really other-worldly. You could imagine yourself on some other planet. And the people, the natives of this other world, changed too, were changing from day to day. As the days went by, a sort of excitement seemed to be working up in them. They went about more. There were always groups of brightly dressed figures going along the roads, bullock-carts bumping along in a Christmas-tree jingle of tassels and little bells, and the sharp, nerve-racking whine of the heavily loaded carts. And suddenly, in the still, burning air, wild music breaking out: the squeal of a pipe, and strange falsetto voices singing, chanting in vibrant cadence, with sudden startling flourishes and bursts of music. And gongs clanging. The strange, deep, powerful, disturbing sound of the gongs, like the yelling, ringing throats of demons. Strangely exciting, it was, to sense the excitement rising in the native world. The magic, the dangerous, sinister thrill of the old Eastern demonology which it brought up.
‘They always go on like that before the rains,’ said Matthew. ‘It will be the same until the rains break.’
And sure enough the excitement went on, day after day it accumulated, the crowds of brilliant figures straying about, like bright leaves speckling the dust-dry earth, the high, unnatural voices singing. Anna felt it more than she could bear, the heat and the suspense, waiting there for the rains to break, in the burning, unearthly solitude, cut off from the world. It seemed to be driving her mad.
There was now a distinct breach between Anna and the rest of the feminine population. Of course it had been hopeless from the start. Quite hopeless for her to expect to get on with them. But she had done her best. She had dined out with Matthew at each house in turn, and had dutifully returned the invitations. But the flatness, the hopeless dreariness of those dinner-parties – it was enough to make one weep. First the dinner itself: the inevitable luxury of tinned asparagus, the cook surpassing himself in some sort of sweet – usually a solid lump of ice with a candle burning inside, as under a transparent bushel – which the men would not condescend to touch, and Matthew being rather sprightly and coy with the ladies at his end of the table. Then the feminine group in the drawing-room, the general atmosphere of feminine confidences, the spate of trivialities, the endless waiting for the men to appear, Mrs. Grove staring out of her insolent wasted face, like a living skull-and-crossbones at the feast, and Anna herself falling gradually silent in an asphyxiation of discomfort and ennui.
She gave it up after a time, the effort to be pleasant and to join in the game. It was no good. She would never succeed – not if she tried for a hundred years. She would never go down with them. So she gave up the attempt.
It was strange to Anna to feel the profound, suspicious dislike which all these kind-hearted women seemed to have of her, just because she was a little different. Because she was not quite as they were, they were hostile, malevolent, affronted. She felt that they would like to do her an injury. She could feel the waves of envious dislike going out against her, because she was young and intelligent, and because the men thought her attractive, in her pleasant clothes.
Yes, the men were attracted towards her: no doubt of that. They talked to her at the club, and escorted her about, and watched her out of the corners of their eyes when they thought she wasn’t looking. Some of them even made tentative advances when Matthew was away. Nothing really definite or compromising. They were all very circumspect. But it was obvious that they wanted to flirt.
Anna would have nothing to do with them. She didn’t care for their conceited, underhand, cautious methods – so patronizing. She was sick to death of the lordly male. But the women were impossible. She couldn’t talk to them. Moreover, they were beg
inning to avoid her. She seemed doomed to complete isolation.
Except for young Whitaker. Whitaker was a young man working for the railway, a very junior official. He was only about twenty-five, and looked younger, but he was married to a florid, matronly sort of wife, and had already a pair of shrill-voiced children.
Anna was not very interested in him. He was an infantile creature with a round, cherubic face and a bewildered expression. The load of domesticity with which he had burdened himself seemed rather too heavy for him, too much of a good thing. Hence the bewilderment. His wife and his two babies seemed to fill him with wonder, as though he wondered how they came to be there. However, he bore up bravely under the burden of family life.
The shortest way to the railway offices lay past Matthew’s bungalow, and Whitaker passed every day, hurrying along, down a narrow goat-track at the edge of the marsh. Sometimes Anna saw him from the window, sometimes he caught a glimpse of her, and, when this happened, he made her a quick salute and hurried on faster than ever. He was rather shy; particularly of Anna, to whom a curious reputation was beginning to attach itself.
One day he killed a snake with his stick. There were a great many snakes hidden under the leaves and the rubbery, turgid stems of the marsh plants which remained green and lustrous in spite of the heat. Anna saw the incident and came out, out into the burning ferocity of the sunshine. She was fascinated by the sight of the dead snake, the weird, magnificent skin, dark purple and yellow blotched with brown, like some sinister crushed orchid lying on the burnt ground.
She talked to Whitaker. She suggested that he should walk through the compound in future, instead of along the marshy track on the other side of the fence. It was agreed. His chubby, khaki-clad figure now passed a little closer to the house. When he saw Anna he saluted her with the same slightly embarrassed politeness as before. That was all. Then suddenly one day, he came into the house on some pretext. Anna was astonished. What could have possessed him? Looking like an overgrown infant in his khaki shorts, he sat and made conversation in her gloomy, dim-lit drawing-room. She was amused by his plump, bare, sunburnt knees. She wanted to laugh at him. He was so absurd with his shyness and his awkwardness and his bewildered-cherub appearance. But she did not send him away.
He came fairly often after that. Anna couldn’t imagine why. But there seemed to be some attraction. He sat, rather gauche and infantile, and dropped cigarette ash on to her coloured rugs, and broke his long silences with laborious banalities. She laughed at him secretly and was rather bored, rather amused. But she did not rebuff him. To tell the truth, she was glad of even this shred of human companionship.
Matthew came back one afternoon earlier than usual. Anna was in the drawing-room with Whitaker. Tea-things were on the table. She heard Matthew come on to the verandah. The sound of his footsteps and of his cross, domineering voice speaking to the servants, filled her with apprehension. She was apprehensive without knowing why. She waited apprehensively. He came in.
‘Will you have some tea?’ she asked him.
He did not answer, but stared at Whitaker. The young fellow had risen in confusion. Embarrassment overtook him; he was stricken dumb with awkwardness, like a child. And Matthew stared him rudely, insultingly.
Anna talked at random. She was furious with Matthew, who stood with that neat, insolent face, staring at the young man. Presently Matthew sat down. His actions jarred on her, everything he did. How hateful was the way he stared, insultingly, so arrogant! She hated him. His behaviour disgusted her.
Matthew sat there, his face wooden and stupid, fixed in the persistent rudeness. He drank his tea, and stared over the top of the cup, rudely. His sun-helmet had left a red line across his forehead, there was a dampness of sweat round his nose and mouth. He would not speak to Whitaker, even when the young man addressed him directly. He simply sat there, ensconced in his ugly, stupid, malicious rudeness, and stared at him, to stare him out.
Anna felt sorry for Whitaker with his bewildered, embarrassed, innocent face, which had never lost its babyish roundness. He stammered and grew pink, then very white, and finally went away.
Matthew went on with his tea. Anna could not bring herself to speak to him. Her disgust was too deep. It was his stupid complacency that she could not bear, so ugly and insensitive. There was a long silence. Then she took up a book and began to read. This irritated him, and he looked at her with his foolish, blue, bright eyes, blank and meaningless as a pair of marbles in his face.
‘What was that young cub doing here?’ came his bullying voice.
She winced in disgust and did not answer.
‘Why were you having tea alone with him?’ came the voice again, in the same hectoring tone.
And still there was silence, except for the turning of a page.
He pushed back his chair with a loud noise, and stood up. He stood over her with clenched fists and the ugly glitter in his eyes, as of an irritable madness. She thought he would strike her. She did not waver. A sort of fiend of defiance came into her. She was purely opposed to him, utterly defiant. His standing over her, threatening her, the stupidity of him, the way his hands quivered, disgusted her beyond measure. She looked at him coldly, destructively, with disgust and loathing. And the frenzy rose in him, his eyes glittered blue and dangerous, he was murderous in his blank rage. And she despised him. He seemed a base, contemptible object, threatening her, bullying her. She only wanted to get away from him.
‘What is it to do with you?’ she said. ‘I shall have tea with whom I choose.’
The angry blood came up in him like a red sign. He seized her shoulders and thrust her back in the chair, as though he would force her through the back of the chair. His face was blank and blind.
‘Oh, no, you won’t!’ he shouted in his frenzy, right into her face. ‘I won’t have it. Not in my house. I forbid it!’
She looked straight at him, with the calm, contemptuous face and the indifferent eyes that cowed him, made him go limp and deflated. He released her and moved away. She saw his neat, stiff figure moving. He went outside. She sat on in the room alone.
She picked up the book, which had fallen face downwards on the floor. Her shoulders hurt where his hands had gripped them. She sat still and smoothed out the crumpled pages. She was not frightened of Matthew. But he repelled her. She was repelled by his hard, hairless body, and the head poking forward rather from the shoulders, in a sly, mean, stupid way. He was like a repulsive burden upon her. If only the time would come when she could shake him off.
Young Whitaker did not come to the house again. Matthew had said something to him; had probably been abusive. There had been some sort of a scene. Anna did not care to find out what had passed. There was a great disgust in her heart, a cold, imperturbable indifference in her manner. She continued negative and vague on the surface. She seemed to be waiting. In the fullness of time, the opposition that was within her would culminate in her escape. She walked sometimes on the road which led to the station. She had money of her own. Any day she could go to the station, and at the station she could take a train to Rangoon, and from Rangoon a boat would take her back to Europe. The way was open. But the time had not yet come.
The slow, hot days went by. Matthew was away a great deal of the time. In the club he was quarrelsome and touchy. His original slightly obsequious leaning towards friendliness had vanished. Both he and Anna were thoroughly unpopular in Naunggyi.
For days on end Anna did not speak to a soul except her servants. And it grew hotter and hotter. Every day a little hotter than the last, with the hot sun riding up, blinding bright, into the burning sky, and the cauldron-like earth simmering below. The rains were coming. There was a strange electric stirring and undulating in the fiery atmosphere. The distant hills stood out sharply, with the trees distinguishable, a tiny, greenish patterning, like shagreen, very clear and regular, on the far-off slopes. Sudden great gusts of wind would come wheeling hotly out of the blazing hush, pillars of grey dust would travel, gh
ost-like, in silent, stealthy haste across the plain. And clouds began to appear, piling up nightly in heavy portent, like some grandiose doom. In the morning they would all have melted into the vast, scorching, beating light. But evening saw them rolling up once more, a solid, dark pack above the horizon, inexorable and grim. They had to come.
To Anna, so much alone in the strange place, it seemed that immense omens lurked in the sultry air. She waited for the coming of the rains with superstitious anticipation, as if she expected a heavenly sign to be vouchsafed. When the rains came she would escape. She would get away from this place which was destroying her. Her longing for escape burned to a sort of fire within her. Every evening she watched the enormous clouds piling themselves against the sky, and waited for the first drop of rain to fall.
And then suddenly, it was the end of everything. She realized that she was with child. A great sickness of horror and despair went through her. She was incredulous. She had thought so often about the possibility of conception, of bearing a child, but always as a sort of sentimental abstraction, never really in connection with herself. And now the disaster had overtaken her. A certain sense of finality made her hopeless and despairing. This was the finish, the finish of everything. She would never escape now.
Matthew was away for a few days. Anna was dazed with shame and despair. She felt strangely degraded, as though some shameful mark had been set upon her, some sordid stain that could never be removed. She was madly ashamed. She could not endure her body. When she caught sight of her reflexion as she dressed, she shuddered and turned her eyes away as from something horrible and unclean. And again, at night, when she was having her bath, her nerves jerked with insane repulsion, she could not bear the sight of her body. Whenever she thought of the child forming within her, a sort of madness of repulsion flooded her mind and flesh, an intolerable sickness. She wanted to kill herself. This final blow, she felt, had really broken her. She felt as if everything, Matthew and the place and the coming child, were a nightmare, a nightmare against her. Something at the core of her remained cold, indifferent, changeless. But she was so overwrought with horror, that even the sight of her bare arms filled her with quivering disgust. She felt that her body was desecrated and soiled. It would never be clean again.
