But a new day dawned, and when everybody had woken up and gone for their usual walk round the white rock and come back again, he could feel the instinct to obey taking possession of him once again, and it was terrible. Although nobody said a word to him, although nobody shouted at him, they only needed to gesture towards him and he found himself helplessly subordinate to these people; jump like a fish, wriggle like a snake — no, nothing was any good. It was his fire burning on the beach; the others might well lie watching its cool blue flames or throw a twig on when the mood took them, but he was the one who had to keep it going, he was the one who had to break off spiky branches from the bushes although he disliked doing it because they seemed to conceal so much that was unknown, he was the one who had to keep a constant check on the height of the smoke column over the beach and the intensity of the flames, and he was the one everybody would set upon if the fire should go out, complaining, accusing, passing judgement, sentencing and banishing.
Oh, what was it that held him captive? Was there some special quality present in the others which made them so superior to him? He observed them all in turn, weighed their every word, analysed their every movement, scrutinized their every action, and eventually concluded that even the softest of them, the gentlest, the most sensitive of them treated him with a kind of self-evident brutality nobody but he seemed to notice, precisely because it was primarily directed at him. The English girl would wade out into the water, in exactly the same way day after day; her brown calves were attractively taut, just for one rare moment the cloth she had wrapped round her would glide down from her right shoulder, which glowed a dark white colour, stimulating but chastely repulsing his gaze; the beautifully tense curve of her neck would resist all efforts to bend it down, and no, there was no trace of subservience, everything seemed to belong to her with a kind of mystical naturalness, although she herself didn’t raise a finger to acquire it. The women he’d known before he was sentenced to death here on the island were different, and didn’t even dare to own what they’d acquired. Everything had to be asked about over and over again: are we allowed to sit here on the grass, just think if somebody comes, are we allowed on this road, isn’t it private, am I allowed to like you, don’t you belong to somebody else? He’d never owned himself either, and he was just like the women he’d had. Always being aware; nothing is mine, least of all my body; all those movements I make under the tap when I get home from the smithy, they’re just on loan; all those thoughts buzzing around in my head are just tourists stopping there for the night, homeless pairs who have rented somewhere where they can make love; the noise from the dredger’s crane will always be heard, the moments of sweet unrest in my heart are stolen from the shipping company that employs me.
What cure is there, what should a desperate man do when he becomes aware of his own impotence? One day he’s a little drunk and merry and has a bit more money than usual, takes his old lady to a little pub away from their usual blue-grey haunts, an upper-class pub. Let’s have a bit of fun shall we, and let the dredger go to hell, and that stink of sewers and rotten fish we have to put up with every day, poisoning the atmosphere in our gloomy flat. Now they can forget all that, the wine is sparkling just like it does in the adverts, laughter is bubbling away, everything round about them will smell nice for once, of wine and flowers, clean glasses, big soft carpets and the musicians all dressed in white — but why does everybody stare at them when they come in, it cuts him to the bone, pierces right through the effects of the drink he’s already had, and his wife Sally by his side, why is she whispering: oh, it’s so posh, do we dare go in? But why does everybody stare at you when you’re carving the joint so that you get all nervous and your knife slips, why does everybody hold their breath and listen in such a provocative way when you laugh, why does Sally go on all evening about the price of the food, the quality of the tablecloth, the age of the musicians, instead of turning her back on all that, like some people can? No, they all stare at you all the time: do you still smell of sewers even though you have clean clothes on and have had several baths during the course of the afternoon? Yes, that’s it exactly, you always smell of sewers, there’s an invisible cloud around you giving off a smell which always prevents you from assuming the handsome mien of supremacy which certain other people can, you can never move about in complete freedom, you always have to ask yourself: am I allowed to do this, who’s in charge of this, how much does all this cost, will it break if I touch it? How do you think anyone can escape from it all? You are sitting there as securely as anybody can, but secure in your own filth, secure in your own poverty, secure in your own impotence.
If anybody comes along and says it will all get better, or some of it at least, if you don’t believe him, send the idiot packing. Should you make a scene? What should you make a scene about — about those people who stare at you when you enter forbidden territory wanting a good time? Oh, yes. But what is it you’re risking, and that little hideaway you’ve got on the dredger, well, if they find that — what have you gained? No, you’re on your own, people are on their own, just get used to that and show your teeth if anybody approaches. Good God, you carry your slave nature around with you wherever you go, drag him round all the parks and gardens where the police are on patroclass="underline" that’s Tim Solider, the taller they are the further they fall.
Why not run away then? Yes, you could go out in a boat even though you’ve never done it before, and sail away from it all, Brisbane and Mogadishu, Muscat, Trincomali, Petsamo and Jacksonville, yes, you could sail round and round the map for ever and ever and still not get away from what you want to get away from, still be identified as a servant even so, someone anybody can make use of whenever they like. And then one day you come to an unknown country, a little country, well, to be really accurate, an island, where they have no laws, no currency restrictions, no armed police, none of the things you’ve always complained about — and even so, you kow-tow with the same unwilling willingness, let yourself be subjugated, feel this fatal sensation of impotent inferiority which you first came across that time in the restaurant and then keep coming across wherever you go, whatever you do, wherever you try to escape.