Suddenly a gust of wind dispersed the suffocating atmosphere, the spider glided over him, lacerating Jimmie’s left cheek with a hastily lowered claw on its way past, and landed on the left-hand edge of the hollow with a soundless thump, throbbing against the silence. Then the spider lay there, crouched diagonally above him, motionless as it lay in wait for some motionless victim, its colour shifting with awe-inspiring speed from grape-green to deep blue and back again; shadows dancing in the grass seemed to gasp in horror when they settled here, and a butterfly which had gone astray and wandered into the darkness was pulled down irresistibly as if it had wings of iron.
Suddenly, the spider darted out from the edge and swung quickly past him, a thread trembled just above his mouth and then, before he knew what was happening, the red web was secured above his face, and the spider lay there, fat and self-assured; it swung lightly to and fro so that the whole web dipped down towards him, as if its mere existence were not torture enough. Oh, if only it would break and embrace him stickily, he would prefer slow suffocation despite everything. But the spider kept on swinging tantalizingly back and forth, as if trying to imprint its image upon its prey; he had been blind thus far, it seemed, but now he was overwhelmed by certainty; the red peril invaded his eyes and in the midst of his agony he cried out for help, pinioned by his fear. His words stretched the mesh in desperation, but eventually they fell back into his mouth, as cold and flaccid as coins. He could no longer count on the feelings of fellowship he had so laboriously dismantled, but would have to remain in the web for ever, always alone.
Then he felt as if the bottom of the hollow were giving way, he was sinking slowly, the spider shrunk into a tiny grape as the web suddenly came loose and drifted slowly down towards him. Deeper, deeper, he cried out in desperation and fell faster and faster; the ferocious outline of the web imprinted itself as a shadow against the icy grey mouth of his grave, and with a final, pitiful gesture of self-defence, after years of agony, he reached its blind bottom.
Once more he was on his knees outside the stone base of the barracks, in one of those years when all was indescribable confusion. Hulks of merchant vessels floated in the harbour where they lived, pillaged and plundered by the locals; no coachman dared direct his horses into the harbour district any more, horses had been slaughtered in broad daylight by the starving masses, grass had already overrun the harbour railway lines, the harbour rats were thin and easily provoked, the cannonades from the sea grew more intense by the day, and on certain mornings he could never forget, the local children followed their mothers with empty baskets to the barracks at the top of the hill. They lay alongside the long, cold, perimeter wall, shivering vacantly, without a word, without a smile, without a glance at their neighbour, and they had long since given up trying to interpret the wild laughter and terrified shrieks which engulfed the barracks. ‘Did they hit you, Mum?’ he yelled the first time she came out on to the steps, holding on to the wall so as not to fall, and he snatched eagerly at the basket full of whatever the soldiers did not want.
‘They didn’t hit, just fondled.’
His childhood was full of dreary games. Deadly serious, they would smash the windows in the cockpit of the crane with pebbles from the forgotten store, and for hours on end would crouch — crouching was their constant characteristic — on the girders of the crane and pretend they were being besieged by rats; one morning, next to the first of the cranes where his father moored the boat he used for smuggling, they found a tall, oblong bundle tied firmly to a pole. They crowded round the canvas parcel like a flock of jackdaws, clambered up the pole, fiddled with the red string, danced around it like Red Indians. The July heat pressed down heavily on all their heads, and next day they were met by an unknown smell lurking around the bundle; strangely subdued, they sat down on the quay frowning like old men until the harbour patrol arrived in their armoured car, cut the red string, slit open the white sack and flung the naked corpse on to the wharf. Then they all ran off home, shouting, taking pieces of string with them as souvenirs.
There was a distinct atmosphere of angst in Jimmie’s kitchen; his father was lying on the floor pretending to be asleep although he was only drunk, his naked chest was covered in scratches, a newly washed shirt was hanging by a piece of string over the stove. A newly washed shirt was hanging by a piece of string over the stove — Jimmie didn’t need to look more closely at the string over the stove and compare it with the piece he had in his pocket; as he ran up the steep hill towards the barracks, everything was excruciatingly clear, everything was finished and hopeless, his never-ending flight had begun. Huddled under the years of his childhood, he allowed everything to flow over him: the brutality of the barracks, the brutal hatred of the starving masses when the streets had to be cleared, the contempt of those who had eaten to satiety, oh yes, he knew all about running away from humiliation. The red string always wrapped itself round his legs at critical moments, new ways of running away had always to be found, panic softened his back and hollowed out his will; success, a career established in doubtful circumstances were the new ways of running away he hit upon, but over and over again he was cast back into the mire of memory. Why was everything so cruel, oh, that he would never understand! How could he understand that when he was always running away?
But now the bottom on which he lay was rising like the floor of a lift, the red spider was already embracing its prey as it swayed in the shadows under the grass. All was lost, all had gone to waste, all the years ignoring what was right propelled him ruthlessly towards the web. And then those cruel claws, the hairy body engulfing him like a wave, and everything dissolving into a blood-red haze. Then just sinking, sinking, and oblivion.
The Hunger of Day
How did day come to the island? Ah, there is plenty to say about that. First of all a bow looked as if it were rising from the eastern horizon, horseshoe-like, coated with silver on its outer edge; it pressed up gently against the sun, framing it for a moment like a bucolic triumphal arch, then shot off at reckless speed in well-practised loops across the sky, over everyone’s head, as far as the opposite horizon, and then seemed to give way to some unknown pressure and fall towards the sea. Eddies appeared here and there in the morning-blue water, and before it was hit by the broken bow, you could sense a degree of understandable nervousness clinging to the surface which until recently had been so hysterically tense; suddenly the nerves of the sea were exposed so nakedly that an enormous outbreak of despair seemed about to occur at any moment; the gigantic fish whose spears used to pierce the bare flesh of the blue expanse nevertheless seemed blissfully unaware of their role as executioners. Then the crash came; still pliant despite its broken back, the bow sank down into the sea, its long, supple lines outlined for one brief moment on the surface itself before being pulled rapidly down by an invisible hand, and all at once a remarkable colour change took place: the bright silvery gleam disappeared without warning, leaving only a stinging blueness which spread rapidly under the surface of the sea from the pitiful remains of the bow, only to be hauled up into the day like nets being winched into a boat. The blue of day made its entrance and the white morning horses of the clouds galloped wearily towards the horizon, in rolled the round sheep, grazing lazily in the very hot sun which was now a lonely ball of fire swelling slowly from its own heat.
A remarkable period of great, confused optimism now followed on the island. Once again, they all realized with a shudder that they were still alive; the chill of death which had clung to them throughout the night was thawed yet again as the heat caressed their limbs, gently, gently. If anyone thought he suddenly heard birdsong, they would all stand up apprehensively without a word and stare at each other in bewilderment; it was like diving into unknown waters — but nothing happened as yet. They were just sucked down into the greenery, but nothing happened yet, only those floating corals that were always pushed aside by their foreheads. The fire was burning on the beach, the wet branches they broke off and threw down from the cliff top gave off unwavering, tearful smoke which always rose vertically and produced little heat; and now there was nothing to roast or boil over it. It just went on burning, like a hope rising to the heavens, unstoppable.