I Am Lazarus (Peter Owen Modern Classic)

by Kavan, Anna

  ‘Yes,’ Thomas Bow said. ‘I made another before but it was too narrow. This is a much better one.’

  He looked satisfied, sure of being on safe ground. The superintendent patted his shoulder, a few more remarks were exchanged, and the doctors went out again.

  ‘I should never have believed it possible,’ the Englishman said with emphasis and repressed indignation. ‘Never.’

  He felt disapproving and indignant and uncomfortable without quite knowing why. Of course, the boy looks normal enough, he said to himself. He seems quiet and self-controlled. But theFe must be a catch in it somewhere. You can't go against nature like that. It just isn't possible. He thought uneasily of the young inexpressive face and the curious flat look of the eyes.

  In the workroom the unsustained talk started again like the twitter of nervous birds in an aviary. Mr. Bow took no notice. He spoke to no one and nobody spoke to him. He methodically went on sewing the pigskin belt with steady, regular movements of his soft hands. It was satisfactory. What had he to do with talking? All around the table were different coloured shapes whose mouths opened and closed and emitted sounds that meant nothing to him. He did not mind either the shapes or the sounds. They were part of the familiar atmosphere of the workroom where he felt comfortable and at ease.

  A buzzer set in the wall made a noise like an angry wasp. The patients rose from the table and went away, some singly, some in small groups. Now it was quiet in the workroom. The man in the overall started tidying up. He moved round the table arranging things neatly and putting other things away on the shelves.

  Mr. Bow sat on in his place sewing the pigskin belt. He did not want to go out of the workroom where he felt confident and secure. Outside things were different.

  The freckled man left him in peace until the whole room was tidy. Then he came up and touched his arm. ‘Time to go to dejeuner, Monsieur Bow.’ He put out his strong brown hand for the belt and the white hands of Mr. Bow reluctantly yielded it up.

  ‘See, I take great care of it for-you,’ the man said kindly. He rolled the belt and wrapped it in a clean cloth and put it away in a special place at the back of one of the shelves.

  Thomas Bow watched carefully. When he was sure that the belt was finally and safely disposed of he went out of the workroom. The other man followed him out and shut the door and locked it and dropped the key into his pocket and walked quickly away to his lunch.

  Mr. Bow sauntered slowly in a different direction, towards the main building. Once or twice he glanced back at the workroom. Each time he saw the door still blankly closed against him and he sighed. He walked rather stiffly on a path that crossed a park-like expanse of ground. The grass here had not been cut but grew up tall between clumps of fine trees. Moon daisies grew in the grass. They had yellow eyes that squinted craftily through the grass.

  The grass grew up tall and feathery. The grasses whispered together and turned their heads in the breeze. Mr. Bow touched the heads of the grasses with his soft fingers. The grasses responded felinely; like thin sensitive cats they arched themselves to receive the caress of his finger-tips. The young man stood still and picked one of the grasses and brushed it against his cheek. It touched his skin lightly, prickingly, like the electrified fur of a cat in a thunderstorm. He picked several more grasses.

  Suddenly he was aware of a presence. The gym mistress cycling along the path had approached noiselessly. She skipped neatly off her bicycle. Like everyone else employed in the clinic she was big and healthy and strong. The sun-bleached hairs on her muscular brown arms glittered like gold. At the gymnastic class she often spoke sharply to Mr. Bow because he was clumsy and slow. Now, however, she spoke in a friendly way.

  ‘Why, Mr. Bow, what are you doing with those?’

  The young man laboriously assembled words in his head. He wished to explain that the grasses turned into soft-furred cats and arched their backs under his hand.

  The gym mistress did not listen to what he was trying to say. It was not the fashion at the clinic to listen to what patients said. There was not enough time. Instead, she put out her hand. Steadying the bicycle with her left hand, she stretched out her right and took the grasses away from Thomas Bow and threw them down on the path. A few seeds had stuck to his jacket and she brushed them off briskly.

  ‘You don't want those,’ she said. ‘Nobody picks grass. We could pick some flowers though, if you like.’ She reached down for a handful of moon daisies and offered them to him. ‘There, aren't they pretty?’ She was very good-natured about it.

  Mr. Bow unwillingly accepted the flowers.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘You'll be late for lunch if you don't hurry.’

  She walked strongly beside him wheeling the bicycle. Some part of the mechanism accompanied them with a soft whirring noise.

  The young man glanced with dislike at the daisies he carried. Their yellow eyes had a base and knowing expression. When the gym mistress was not looking he dropped them and trod on them with his brown shoe.

  Inside the clinic he went into the washroom. Several coats hung on the wall. Thomas Bow avoided the wash-basins nearest the coats. The hanging shapes filled him with deep suspicion. He watched them out of the ends of his eyes to make sure they did not get up to anything while he was washing his hands. Just as he was ready to go someone else came into the cloakroom, an Italian two or three years younger than he. He frowned and hurried towards the door. He did not like Sanguinelli who had eyes like black minnows that darted about in his face. Sanguinelli's face was never at rest; the muscles jumped and twitched like mice caught in traps under the skin.

  ‘Goo-ood morn-eeng,’ he said. He grinned. He only knew a few English words.

  The other man did not answer-but hastily opened the door. The Italian arrested him with a shrill whistle and pointed mockingly towards the Englishman's lower middle. Mr. Bow looked down guiltily. Sometimes he forgot to do up his fly buttons and when this happened one of the doctors would reprimand him. The buttons were fastened now. Sanguinelli let out a hoot of derision.

  In the passage a nurse was going towards the door that led to the staff-rooms. The door-female situation was one with which Thomas Bow was quite familiar. The doctors had impressed upon him what he must do whenever it presented itself. He stepped forward politely and opened the door. He smiled. It pleased him that he knew so well what to do. The nurse smiled back. She thanked him and said how well he was looking. Then she went through the door and shut it behind her.

  ‘Flirting with Mr. Bow?’ said her friend who was passing by.

  ‘I'm sorry for him,’ said the nurse. ‘He does try so hard to do what he's told. He's a nice-looking boy, too. It's a shame.’

  ‘He gives me the creeps,’ said the other girl. ‘Like an automaton walking about. Like a robot. When you think what he was like when he first came it's uncanny. And he always looks so worried.

  I believe he'd have been happier left as he was. What d'you suppose goes on inside his head?’

  ‘Heaven knows,’ said her friend.

  Mr. Bow was sorry that there were no more doors which he could open for ladies to pass through. He went into the hall where most of the patients were already assembled. He sat down on a hard chair in the background. He was relieved because nobody spoke to him. There was the same sort of noise here as there had been in the workroom, the sort of sporadic twittering that might come from a collection of timid cage-birds. The young man looked round cautiously. The pretty dresses of the women gave him pleasure but he was not at ease. At any moment something might pounce on him, something for which he did not have the formula. He waited tensely, on enemy ground.

  The gong sounded, the doctor on duty appeared, and the patients flocked after him into the dining-hall. The table places were altered at every meal and each patient's place was marked with a card on which was written his name. The waiters, like well-trained sheepdogs, skilfully manoeuvred the patients towards their chairs. Mr. Bow was glad to find that he was not to sit beside one
of the so called hostesses who were spaced round the big table to watch what went on. The patients stood at their places, waiting for the doctor to sit down. The doctor glanced round to make sure that everybody had found the right seat. Then he sat down. It was the signal. The room was full of loud scrapings as the patients pulled back their chairs.

  Mr. Bow prepared to sit down with the rest but there was an obstruction; something impeded him. Sanguinelli had slipped quick as an eel between him and his chair. The Italian's eyes, full of malice, writhed like insane tadpoles from side to side.

  ‘Excuse – my place.’ He pointed towards the name card with a thin yellow finger.

  ‘No,’ said Thomas Bow, frowning. He was angry. He was tormerited and persecuted and he would not endure it. He snatched at the back of the chair but Sanguinelli was seated in it already. Everyone was sitting down now except the waiters and Mr. Bow.’

  A hostess two places away took charge of the situation. Her hair went in hard, regular waves.

  ‘This is your seat here, Mr. Bow,’ she said amicably. There was a chair empty beside her.

  ‘No,’ said the Englishman slowly. ‘No,’ He frowned deeply. ‘My card is here.’

  The Italian burst out laughing. He triumphantly displayed the card in front of him on which was written the name Sanguinelli. The hostess looked down and saw that the card next to her was indeed the name card of Thomas Bow.

  ‘Come along, Mr. Bow. You've made a mistake,’ she said in a firmer tone.

  The young man recognized the firmness that was in her voice. He moved obediently and sat down in the empty chair and spread his table napkin widely over his knees as he had been shown how to do. He ate what was put before him, looking carefully at his neighbours to make sure that he used the same knives and forks as they did. All the time he was eating he felt angry and sad and confused. Something had happened which he did not understand. The card with his name had been there, he had seen it distinctly, but when he looked at it again Sanguinelli's name had appeared. Sanguinelli had triumphed over him in front of the whole room and it was unfair. He had heard the laughter go round the table. His heart was full of sorrow and shame. From time to time the Italian boy leaned forward and grinned at him from the stolen place, triumphant because no one had seen him exchange the cards.

  After lunch the patients went out into the grounds. Games were organized. Mr. Bow was directed to take part in the simplest game which consisted in throwing large wooden balls at a smaller ball some distance off. Mr. Bow did not understand the game. He did not understand why some of the balls were brown and some black or why one player threw before another. He stood with the large shiny ball in his hand, waiting till he should be told to throw. He was not thinking about the game. He was thinking about the pigskin belt he was making. It seemed to him that the belt was his friend. Only the feel of the cool leather could assuage the hurt and the anger inside his heart.

  The time came for him to make his throw. He held the ball cupped in his hand as he saw the other players do. He aimed conscientiously at the little ball lying out on the grass but his ball disobeyed him and flew far beyond. There was laughter. ‘Champion! Champion!’jeered the Italian voice.

  Thomas Bow wandered away from the game. No one noticed him going. He wandered towards the workroom. He held out his hands to the grasses, but now they did not caress his skin like soft fur but pricked sharp as needles. As he walked he hoped very much that the workroom door would be open. It was shut, and blinds were drawn over the windows.

  The young man sat down on the step in front of the workroom door. He looked bewildered and worried and very sad. He did not know what to do. It troubled him that the belt was locked away in there. He felt the belt lonely for him as he was for it. He glanced up. A cloud had passed over the sun. He would have liked to share his worry with the cloud but the cloud would not stay. He sat disconsolate on the step staring flatly ahead.

  Presently he heard voices and two men came round the corner of the building. One of them was a man who visited the clinic periodically to do X-ray work. The other was a doctor with black hair and a bluish chin. Mr. Bow was afraid of the doctor who for many months had put him into a hideous sleep with his poisoned needle.

  ‘Hullo, what are you doing here?’ the radiologist asked.

  ‘I came for my belt,’ he answered. He stood up.

  He was afraid of the doctor and wanted to get away in case he should be trapped and put back again into the nightmare sleep.

  ‘Your belt?’ The other man did not understand.

  ‘He's doing leather work at occupational therapy. I suppose he's making a belt,’ the doctor explained. He came up to the patient. ‘Don't you know that the workroom's closed in the afternoon?’ he said to him. ‘It's recreation time now. Get off and join the others,’ He gave him a friendly push. Mr. Bow started back in alarm.

  ‘I only wanted my belt,’ he said, starling to move away.

  The other two watched him go.

  ‘He doesn't know how lucky he is,’ said the dark doctor. ‘We've pulled him back literally from a living death. That's the sort of thing that encourages one in this work.’

  Mr. Bow walked carefully in the sunshine. He did not know how lucky he was and perhaps that was rather lucky as well.

  PALACE OF SLEEP

  THE wind was blowing like mad in the hospital garden. It seemed to know that it was near a mental hospital, and was showing off some crazy tricks of its own, pouncing first one way and then another, and then apparently in all directions at once. The mad wind sprang out with a bellow from behind a corner of the nurses’ quarters, immediately tearing round the back of the building to meet itself half-way along the front in a double blast that nearly snatched the cap from the head of a sister hurrying towards the entrance. With a clash and a clatter the door swung to admit her indignant figure huddled in its blue cloak. The wind came in too with a malicious gusto that died drearily in the recesses of the hall where the two doctors were talking.

  The physician in charge glanced round as if he resented the unceremonious way the wind burst into his hospital. He was a man of about sixty-five, with a red, cheerful face and white hair. Magnanimously passing over the wind's interruption, he went on with the story he was telling.

  ‘When I went in next morning she was trying to tear up the sheet. So I said to her in a quiet, friendly way, “Don't you think that's rather a silly thing to do?” And she answered me back as quick as lightning, “If I can't do silly things here, I'd like to know where I can do them”.’ The red face creased into a net of jovial lines, the broad shoulders shook with laughter. ‘Pretty smart, wasn't it?’

  The young doctor echoed the laugh politely. He was a visitor from the north who was being shown round the hospital. Himself a reticent man, he wished that the superintendent were a little less genial and expansive. So much good-humour aroused in him some disquietude, some slight distrust. He turned his lean, sensitive face, and his eyes rested reflectively on the other for a moment. What they saw was not altogether reassuring. There was something which they found faintly suspect about the appearance of the elderly man. His hair was too white, his face was too genial, his expression was too optimistic. He looked more like a country parson than a psychiatrist.

  The visitor looked at his watch and said tentatively, ‘I'm afraid I haven't much time left. I think you were going to show me the paying block – ?’

  ‘Yes, yes. The paying block. You must certainly see that before you go. We're very proud of our private wards.’

  The swing doors clashed behind the two men, who lowered their heads against the attack of the wind. The wind leaped madly upon them, with malice, with joy, as they walked on the covered way that crossed the impersonal garden. In the empty flower-beds the earth lay saturated and black, the wintry-looking, acid-green grass rippled under the wind, the bare trees lashed their branches complainingly.

  The two doctors walked briskly along side by side, the one tall, contemplative, reserved, ‘tu
rned in upon himself against the onslaught of wind, the other with white hair blowing about and a look of determined good-nature which seemed to set the seal of his approval upon the rough weather.

  The long brick building felt quiet as a vacuum after the windy tumult outside. The superintendent paused for a moment inside the door, smoothing his beautiful white hair with his fingers. He was slightly breathless.

  ‘Welcome to the palace of sleep,’ he said with his cheerful smile, speaking and smiling partly for the benefit of a young nurse who was passing by. ‘All the patients in this wing are having partial or prolonged narcosis,’ he went on in a more confidential tone as the girl disappeared through one of the many doors.

  The wide corridor was coldly and antiseptically white, with a row of doors on the left and windows on the opposite side. The windows were high and barred, and admitted a discouraging light that gleamed bluishly on the white distemper like a reflection of snow. Some grey rubber composition which deadened sound covered the floor. A hand-rail ran along the wall under the high windows.

  One of the doors further down the corridor opened, and a nurse emerged, supporting a woman in a red dressing-gown. The patient swayed and staggered in spite of the firm grip that guided her hand to the rail. Her head swung loosely from side to side, her wide-open eyes, at once distracted and dull like the eyes of a drunken person, stared out of her pale face, curiously puffy and smooth under dark hair projecting in harsh, disorderly elf-locks. Her feet, clumsy and uncontrolled in their woollen slippers, tripped over the hem of her long nightdress and threw her entire weight on the nurse's supporting arm.

  ‘Hold up, Topsy,’ the probationer said, in a tolerant, indifferent voice just perceptibly tinged with impatience, speaking as if to an awkward child. She hoisted her companion upright, and the pair continued their laborious progress towards the bathroom, the sick woman stumbling and reeling, and gazing desperately, blankly ahead, the nurse watchful, abstracted, and humming a dance tune under her breath.