Oh, how did he get over it? It took months of harrowing attempts to forget before he regained control, before the machinery was working perfectly once more. And now the same thing was happening all over again — what can you do with a machine that has sprouted eyes and is filled with distrust as it watches itself functioning? He was ground down by misgivings, he could see the idiotic pointlessness of all his finely formed joints, his big muscles, all the bones in his body, his movements — and he stepped to one side with his doubts and his fears and watched himself surreptitiously, and look: his body was no longer alive, it only moved with difficulty. He was so scared when he thought of the day when everything would come to a standstill, when everything would become entangled in one monumental fit of cramp. As always, he relied on his strength, protected himself with his speed, thought that the key was to wake up, feel his muscles longing to be tensed, feel normal, healthy hunger, healthy because he knew it would soon be satisfied; he could already see himself stretched out at the water’s edge, loosely stretched like a broken cable, whimpering faintly from the effects of this fire whose greedy tongue was poking into all the channels of his body. In his delirium he would get it into his head that the sun was a ripe apple, just one thrust of his body, a lunge with his teeth, and there it was in his mouth, crunching as he bit into it, the juice trickling down his chin like blood, the soft flesh being forced violently down his throat, the more vehemently the better. Or fish would start creeping up the beach, their red eyes blinking, wriggling towards him on their bellies; he only had to open wide and they would creep into his mouth, then just bite, and bite again.
Right from the start, of course, his position was so exposed, so hopelessly confused; unfortunate, but it couldn’t be helped. As he was the only member of the crew to survive, he was their leader, with responsibility for his passengers even after the catastrophe, and hence to some extent he ought to impose his will on them; he was also a subordinate, their servant, someone they could still shout at in frustration: carry that box over here, give me your canvas sheet, I want to rest, we’re hungry, bring in the food.
Why should I be the one to survive, he often moaned to himself during those long nights of hunger when his kitchen at home in Dunbari embraced him with its green walls (oh, the eternal frying pan, always the frying pan on the gas stove complete with lid, white steam spurting out of the cracks, and the smell of that steam, the smell of all the butchers’ shops, all the bars, pubs, grocery stores, restaurants and galleys he had ever been in throughout his life; and his wife, his blonde wife with the bun in her hair secured by a rubber band: she had the same smell in her hair, the same smell in her hair as she stood with arms painfully outstretched in front of the stove, her pure white arms, stopping him from eating, always stopping him from eating, shouting, My child, my child!). Why was I the one who survived, he thought, why not the captain, for instance?
But the truth was, the captain had been drunk when the catastrophe happened. He often used to sense omens three days in advance, and asked to be locked in his cabin with the whole supply of whisky; the first mate had kept him company that last day, and Tim was the one who swung the wheel round after the fatal change of course; just when everything happened, Tim saw him hurled to the deck by a huge wave and then, painfully and almost disgustingly slowly, float a little way aft before changing direction and being washed just as slowly out through the smashed rail, disappearing for ever without the slightest sign of resistance nor even a word of farewell. Not a sound came from the crew in the engine room, not the slightest whisper; they’d just stayed put, anonymous as always; and then there were some people the lifeboat had fallen on to, it seemed that somebody heavy had suddenly hung on to its side, and it overturned in a flash and sank beneath the waves with awesome speed. All those who had sought refuge in it were lost without trace.
But Tim Solider had escaped, more or less miraculously. He’d been flung overboard like the mate, but they weren’t all that far from land in fact; he felt full of water and seemed to be sinking, getting as heavy as lead with the whole of the ocean pressing down on his chest like a stone cross. But to his amazement, his back had suddenly scraped against sharp rocks, he lay there, still, apathetic, limp, and a grey-green membrane of boundless majesty spread itself over his whole world; as if trapped in a soap bubble, he could see the blurred outline of the ship on the other side of the membrane, the shriek staggered through to him and the membrane vibrated slightly, then it exploded in a puff of foam and he found himself kneeling in the path of the sea as it raced towards him like an express train. Oh, how he struggled that morning to remain alive, he was possessed by a raging fury and nothing, be it the slippery stones under everyone’s feet, this cyclone determined to suck everyone into the air only to fling them down again on their backs, or these frenzied people wrestling with him in desperation on the reef, for fear of not being rescued or fear of being rescued — nothing could stop him. Together with some of the few sensible survivors — the airman, the otherwise unpleasant artillery captain — he carried ashore first the women, green and shaking and moaning away doggedly as if they were in labour. Then, some days after everyone had come to their senses without yet realizing their plight, they established their heroes.
‘Don’t mention it,’ said the captain modestly to the English girl, although he was the one who started it off, with his I know about organization, I’m a soldier you see. These catastrophes will happen, you know, and so I naturally take over, organize things, get a grip on things, if you like. It’s just our duty, you see, duty, my dear lady; my young friend the airman and I know best when it comes to that sort of thing — isn’t that right? Take my boot, will you, and buff it up as well as you can, it’s the twelfth of May today, if I’m not mistaken. No, don’t mention it, my young friend and I are no heroes, it’s just that we’ve learnt how to organize things.
What about Tim, then? Oh no, nobody said a word about him. He would have liked to shout out in disgust: organization! Come off it, panic more like! But something held him back. Every time one of the survivors turned to him, he felt as if a stream of cold air was flowing towards him; it only happened when there was something that needed doing, something dirty, something that had broken, something that hurt, something involving a risk. You’re so big and strong, etc., you’ve been coping so well, you’re in better shape than any of us, and so on, but their voices were hard and superficial. It was all orders, no requests, no warmth, they just wanted him to do as he was told. Even so, at first he was proud of the way they appealed to his body; he didn’t see through their brutal cunning until his hunger became so strong he realized it would never be satisfied. His body refused to obey him, it became extremely difficult to move a single limb because, all the time, he could see the dead bones moving underneath his skin, his cranium was gruesomely bare under skin and sinews, his heart compressed and opened with a rhythm that was worryingly unsteady.
Now nothing was quite so easy any more, he built up his mental barricades in the hope that he might one day be able to fight on them; he lay there at night, calm on the surface but all the time hunted down ruthlessly by his ego, along the beach, up the cliffs, through the jungle, and down again along a vertical crevice with few holds for his hands and feet.
Who am I, he would think, who am I? Why should I? Why should I sacrifice myself for all these people, when none of them is prepared to sacrifice himself for me? Aren’t we all castaways? I was a crewman on the boat, that’s true, but does it matter any more what any of us was? Haven’t we changed our lives fundamentally, hasn’t some of what we were been destroyed? Aren’t we all equally naked, aren’t all our fingers equally greedy when the food is shared out, aren’t all our fingernails equally sharp when we gather round the water tank? Is there anything here apart from skeletons, our skin and our guts to indicate that anybody should have power over anybody else? It may well have been the case on board the boat that somebody could shout to somebody else: listen here, slave, I’m hungry; but surely that right, if indeed it was a right, must have lapsed now that we’re all living in the same conditions, where money, social position and background have been stripped away from us all? Haven’t we been resurrected from the cruel sea, or are the memories of how things used to be going to dictate the way we treat each other for ever? Shouldn’t whoever is strongest, who does most to ensure we can live a bit longer, be the one in authority, the one who gets most credit, the one who earns everybody’s respect, the one who glows in the warmth others bestow upon him? And if not? Well, if that isn’t the case, why not stop delivering the goods, why not just lie down on the sands and listen to the cradle-song of the sea, get up when you feel hungry and go hunting on your own account, for it isn’t necessary, nor even possible, to take responsibility for people who have nothing but contempt for your services and yourself.