I Am Lazarus (Peter Owen Modern Classic)

by Kavan, Anna

  But it was you yourself who told me to go ashore at once, she said slowly, after a pause.

  The official turned his head and gave her a sharp look. For a second she thought he was going to deny ever having been on the ship, and the treacherous doubt plagued her again: What if I was mistaken? But the other, instead of settling the question once and for all, left her as much in the dark as ever by saying, Didn't the captain tell you to stop on board?

  A admitted that this was true. She was about to continue that she had obeyed what she naturally took for the higher authority, when the official looked at his watch again and got up, remarking in an indifferent voice, Haven't you ever been told that a captain is always master aboard his ship?

  For heaven's sake don't send me away already, A implored him. You must give me some help. Or if you wont help me yourself at least tell me who I'm to go to.

  In her desperation she began following the official about the room while he, hardly seeming to have heard her, was putting some papers into a brief-case and getting his hat and overcoat out of a cupboard. What am I to say to the home authorities? A asked despairingly.

  That's up to you, the official said, struggling into his coat which seemed to be rather tight in the sleeves. He spoke in a casual, abstracted way as if he had lost interest in the whole affair and was already thinking about something else. We have no contact here with any other authorities, he added in the same bored tone. His attitude towards A had changed altogether and was now merely impersonal and offhand as though he were seeing her for the first time. Of course, you could try the other departments, he went on, rapidly slipping one button after another into the buttonholes down the front of his overcoat: But, frankly, I don't think it would be much good. In any case, there's nothing more I can do. But you're quite free to take whatever steps you like on your own account.

  A says that if she had fully realized what lay behind those words she would have thrown up the sponge there and then. Yes, she once told me mournfully, I would have done better to have thrown myself into the sea then. And when I think what people in her position have to go through I'm almost inclined to agree with her. What sort of a life is it when all one's time is spent in running from one department to another, forced to entrust one's fate to callous, featherbrained underlings who know perfectly well that they are dealing with an under-privileged person and probably never even trouble to put one's carefully prepared statements before their superiors? What sort of a life is it to live month after month in a hired room, with one's luggage packed, in case one should be summoned away at a moment's notice? What sort of a life is it to be alternately buoyed up or cast down by contradictory rumours, all equally unreliable and ephemeral, or by an imaginary glance of encouragement or disapproval from some passing official? What sort of a life is it to ponder for hours over the construction of a single sentence in still another appeal, which, if wrongly worded, might prejudice the whole case against one? What sort of a life is it when one is continually impelled to write letter after letter, doomed either to remain unanswered, or to elicit a new bunch of complicated forms or an incomprehensible official rigmarole which one studies feverishly and vainly in search of enlightenment?

  Just imagine what it's like to be always risking humiliation by trying to ingratiate oneself with this or that petty clerk or hanger on who might let fall a crumb of information. Just imagine the loneliness (for of course it's impossible to make friends in these circumstances even if there were opportunities of doing so); the monotony (for one can't concentrate either on work or amusement); the strain (for one never dares to relax for a minute for fear of missing some vital pointer).

  Yes, it's a hard and mysterious system under which we live, and we can't hope to understand it. Whether or not there really exist laws governing official procedure is immaterial since it is impossible to investigate these secret matters. Perhaps the most incomprehensible thing of all is that a well-meaning person like A is as liable to heavy penalties as the worst criminal. Although we don't know what originally brought A under official notice I can say from my own knowledge of her that it couldn't have been anything you or I would consider a serious offence. And her second offence, if that lay in leaving the ship, was surely not much more than an error committed with the best intentions. I'm not defending the fact that she joined in the drinking party; obviously, to keep a clear head should have been the first care of a person in her predicament: and most likely all her subsequent misfortunes stemmed from that lack of restraint. Yet even here one sees extenuating circumstances. To begin with, she was already excited and over-tired when she arrived on the boat: and she was in a totally strange environment besides, in circumstances that were very difficult and disturbing. It would not have been easy for her to avoid taking part in the captain's celebrations or to have refused the drinks that were offered to her without seeming unsociable or straitlaced. Yet for these actions she is condemned to do penance for many years; perhaps even for the whole of the rest of her life. For who knows whether, although she achieved her return long ago, the authorities, will ever see fit to terminate her protracted sentence?

  A CERTAIN EXPERIENCE

  ONCE, a very long time ago, an extraordinary thing happened to me. A very long time ago, I've written: but mere words can't describe the enormous stretches of time which have intervened between that incident and the present day. When I look back on it it's like contemplating something in a former existence of which one has miraculously retained memory. If I were a believer in the transmigration of souls, I should really be inclined to think that it did take place in an earlier incarnation. It has that remote quality; and at the same time it continues to exercise an obscure and profound influence over me, even now.

  There are times when I hardly remember the occurrence at all. For quite long periods the memory seems to withdraw itself, to go into retreat, as it were. When this happens I become restless, and the great bird which always hovers above me swoops lower and fills my head with the stridence of his black wing-beats. At first, because the memory has really gone a little away, the cause of my uneasiness is not clear; I'll put it down to the oppressive weather, or perhaps to something I've eaten. But sooner or later a glimpse comes to me, as if, in the secret room where it had hidden itself, the memory lifted a corner of the curtain and peeped out of the window. Then at once I hurry off in pursuit. From that instant of realization my whole life becomes oriented towards the one objective of recapture. I feel like the owner of some beloved and valuable animal that has been stolen; or the parent of a kidnapped child. I can't rest until the precious memory is safely housed again in my consciousness.

  What was this wonderful event? someone may ask sceptically. It certainly must have been something unique that happened all that time ago and is still so important that you can't bear to forget about it. Anybody can say that they've had a mystical experience without fear of contradiction because there's no way of proving the matter. But surely this is something more definite. Describe it to us. Tell us about it.

  Well, the experience did have its objective aspect which can be described in quite simple language that anyone can understand. For instance, it can be stated plainly that I was condemned, that I was imprisoned, that I had given up hope, and that I was then delivered and set free without stipulations. I can describe the courtyard with its high spiked walls, where shuffling, indistinguishable gangs swept the leaves which the guards always re-scattered to be swept again. I can describe the peep-hole in the hookless door, the hard, unsleeping eye-bulb in its cage. I can describe the smells in corridors, the sounds ambiguously interpreted, the sights from which eyes were averted hastily. I can describe the hands under which I suffered; I can describe the visitor with the rolled umbrella who announced my release.

  But all these descriptions, no matter how detailed, give only the bare shell of the experience, the true significance of which beats within them like a heart that can never die. The objective side of the matter does in fact die; or at least it can be
said to grow old and desiccated and frail as a beetle's discarded carapace. But the mysterious and private heart never ceases to beat. Indestructible and immortal, the heart beats on, independent, and beating for me alone. It's the personal nature of the experience which is incommunicable and which gives it its supreme value. What does it matter if the outward manifestation withers and shrivels and ultimately even crumbles to dust as long as the priceless heart still survives? Perhaps I was mistaken in the gentleman who spoke with such smooth reassurance. Perhaps I was taken in by the umbrella encased slim as a wand in its black silk tube. To judge from what happened afterwards it seems likely that I was too trusting on that far-distant occasion. Nevertheless, painful and ruinous appearances cannot kill the heart of the experience which continually beats for me; no less strongly in the shadow of threatening wings.

  BENJO

  IT'S true that I've never talked much about the things that happened to me in the other country. When my friend used to ask me questions about my life over there I found it hard, impossible almost, to answer: and now I find it equally hard to explain why this was so. It wasn't, as he assumed, simply that I'd forgotten about it. I don't deny that my memory is bad. My recollection of that far-off time as a whole is incomplete and blurred, there are a great many gaps and inconsistencies in it, and the chronology is inexplicably confused. On the other hand, I can remember a number of disconnected episodes quite clearly; I could certainly have related them to him if I hadn't felt so reluctant to break the shell of privacy in which they were encased. For a long time it was as if a sort of tabu were laid on the whole subject of my experiences abroad. It was the greatest effort to me to focus my attention on that period at all because, as soon as I started to concentrate, I used to be overcome by something I can only describe as a mental blackout. And this wasn't because the memory was unpleasant to dwell upon. Quite the reverse, the impression that always remained with me of those days was of a wonderfully tranquil and happy time. No, I can't really account at all for the inhibition that persistently kept me silent so long, nor for its gradual weakening. Now that no one questions me any more about these affairs I am able to contemplate them without interference. The curious thing is that now that no question induced blackout obscures them, the memories themselves seem to be evaporating. The curtain which used to cover the picture has been removed; but now the colours of the paints are starting to fade. Every day the canvas becomes more indistinct, a ghostly landscape, with a few figures, such as Benjo's, appearing here and there, still touched with the bizarre gleam of their original brightness.

  I hadn't been long in the country when I first made Benjo's acquaintance. By the way, I never discovered whether Benjo was his surname, or an abbreviation, or just a nickname: he was always referred to simply as Benjo. It was early in the morning when I first saw him. I know I hadn't been long in the old house I had bought, because the men who had been at work on the renovations had left only a few days before. The place was intended for a farmstead, but for some reason the land had been sold off separately while the building remained empty for several years. You couldn't have called it a good buy from the practical standpoint: the house was dilapidated and old-fashioned and inconvenient, and very isolated and inaccessible too; but the price was low and I wasn't deterred by the drawbacks, numerous as they were. The thing that really appealed to me about the property was its situation high up on a lonely hillside with a wonderful sweeping vista of chestnut forest and a distant view of the sea. There was a rough little hamlet of grey, primitive cottages about half a mile away, but it was hidden by a fold of the hills. All you could see from my windows was the wild garden where anemones and red tulips grew in between the stones, and then the great cascading fall of woods to the sea.

  The early mornings there were often specially beautiful, and this particular morning I'm thinking of was one of the best. It was very still – the wind didn't usually rise till about ten o'clock – and the islands seemed to be floating light as cloud-castles just above the horizon. After all the dreadful anxiety I'd been through I felt that I could never absorb enough of the peace, the beauty, the solitude; and so I wasn't altogether pleased to see someone coming along the track that led to the garden gate. At first I thought it might be one of the workmen who had mislaid something, a screwdriver perhaps, or a scarf, and was coming back to see if he'd left it lying about anywhere. However, I soon saw that it wasn't a workman who was strolling towards me, but somebody I'd never set eyes on, a surprising figure in that out-of-the-way place, a big, tall, heavy man, smartly and rather eccentrically dressed in light trousers and a canary coloured pullover and a white linen cap like a yachting cap with a long peak. I stood at the window wondering who could be visiting me at this early hour. It was really rather annoying; I hadn't even had breakfast yet and the kettle was just on the boil.

  I had a vague idea that if the stranger saw no one about he might go away, and instead of showing myself I just stood where I was, watching him. His behaviour was as eccentric as his appearance, for instead of coming up to knock at the door as anyone else would have done, he began wandering about the garden with his hands in his pockets, looking at the house and surveying it from all sides with his head tilted and his eyes screwed up like an artist criticizing a sketch. After several minutes of this, having thoroughly scrutinized the house from every angle, he approached the door with the same rambling, indolent gait. By this time my curiosity was aroused and I at once let him in. He greeted me by name (but without introducing himself), took off his cap, dropped it on to a chair, shook my hand, and began to congratulate me warmly on the improvements I had made to the property. All this seemed very odd. I was certain I'd never met the man before and yet he spoke as if we were old friends. In my bewilderment I stared hard at him, trying to place his full, florid face which had a curious softness and shapelessness about it like a baby's face, or like an unfinished model in plasticine.

  Benjo. How can I give the clearest picture of him? I think the word which best describes his whole personality is one which I've used already about his fashion of walking, the word ‘indolent’. Yes, everything about him seemed heavy and lazy, like a great, sleepy, good-natured tame bear. Just like a bear, too, in spite of his friendliness, there was something a little bit sly and suspicious about him, although you couldn't say what it was. His face was so soft and plump, like a happy baby's; and yet the little eyes, the pink, incomplete-looking mouth, were not quite reliable. These impressions I received at the start although they didn't become crystallized until later on. At that first meeting I was impressed most by his friendly attitude which was really very engaging. And when the kettle boiled over in the kitchen and he urged me not to delay my breakfast, I invited him to share it with me.

  While I was making the tea and putting the breakfast things on a tray my visitor remained in the living-room. Through the open door I could see him lounging about the room and looking at everything with his screwed-up eyes just as he had done outside the house. It rather irritated me to see him do this; but then, as soon as I came in with the tray, he began complimenting me on my good taste, admiring my books and the arrangement of the furniture, in such a simple, jolly way that I was placated at once.

  The idea occurred to me while we were eating that he might have lived in the house himself at one time, or had some connection with the previous owners which would account for his interest, and I asked him if this were the case. Oh no, he replied, I've thought about living here often enough, but I didn't want to take on the job of doing up the place.

  I wondered just what he meant by this. He didn't look as if he were short of money. His clothes, though far too ostentatious for my taste, were well made and of fine quality, the brilliant pullover was of softest wool embroidered on the pocket with an unknown coat-of-arms. No, I decided, it probably wasn't lack of funds but sheer slackness that made him fight shy of embarking on renovations.

  The mysterious embroidery ornamenting his pocket stimulated my curiosity about him
. Several times I was on the point of asking his name, but I was restrained by shyness and by my ignorance of the country's social conventions. In view of the friendly way he was treating me I felt it would appear a discourtesy on my part to inquire who he was. We sat there over our teacups for quite a while. My companion had a lazily humorous way of talking about local matters that was entertaining if not without a streak of malice. He seemed to have an intimate knowledge of everything that went on, and I asked him if he had lived in the district a long time. I come and go, you know, was his drawling answer to this: come and go. And then he ponderously heaved himself up from his chair and prepared to depart. Come and see me whenever you feel inclined, he said as he was leaving. Just ask for Benjo – anyone will show you the way. As he went off smiling to himself I realized that I still hadn't any idea why he had visited me: unless perhaps he had just looked in to inspect the place and see what I had done to it.

  Outside the gate he passed the old woman who came from the village each day to clean up for me, and paused to say something to her which brought a wry grin to her rather sour old face. So Benjo has been to see you already, she remarked as she came in and began taking off the big black straw hat, shaped like a basket, that she wore tied under her chin with two shabby ribbons. At the time I thought she was referring to the early hour, but afterwards I wondered whether another significance lay at the back of her words. I would have liked to question her about the remarkable Benjo who was evidently well known to her (how could such a conspicuous figure fail to be well known in an isolated village?), but I don't approve of gossiping with servants and she herself had nothing more to say although several times during the morning I caught her glancing at me with rather a queer expression. I always found the inhabitants of that remote district very insular and reserved; a fact which emphasized by contrast Benjo's geniality.