Ice - Anna Kavan [63]
A gull flew close and cried; I had reached the sea. I sniffed the salt smell, looked over the dark waves to the horizon, saw no wall of ice. But the air was full of the deadly coldness of ice, it could not be far away. I raced across fifty miles of bare land to the town. Above it, the clouds hung lower, blacker, more ominous, waiting for me to arrive. The cold made me shiver perhaps he had already been there. When I slowed down and entered the streets where people had danced all night, I could hardly believe this was the same gay place. The streets were all deserted and silent; no pedestrians, no traffic, no flowers, no music, no lights. I saw sunken ships in the harbour; demolished buildings, closed shops and hotels; a cold grey light that belonged to another climate, a different part of the world; everywhere the imminent threat of a new ice age.
I saw what was in front of my eyes, and at the same time I saw the girl. Her picture was always with me, in my wallet and in my head. Now her image appeared in the open wherever I looked. Her white lost face was everywhere with its too-large eyes, her albino paleness flared like a torch beneath the malignant clouds, drew my eyes like a magnet. She was a shimmer among the ruins, her hair a glittering in the dark day. Her wide eyes of a wronged and terrified child accused me from the black holes of smashed windows. Like a perverted child she ran past, soliciting me with big eyes, tempting me with the pleasure of watching her pain, elaborating the worst imaginings of my desire. The ghostly gleam of her face lured me into the shadows, her hair was a cloud of light; but as I came near her she turned and fled, the silver shifting suddenly on her shoulders, a waterfall glinting in moonlight.
The remains of a roadblock obstructed the entrance to the hotel at which we had stayed. I had to leave the car and walk up the drive. A strong wind, cruelly cold, blew straight off the ice, tore my breath away. I kept glancing at the anthracite-coloured sea to make sure the ice itself was not already in sight. At ground level the exterior of the hotel was unchanged, but higher up the walls were full of great gaping holes, the roof sagged. I went inside. It was cold and dark, no heating, no light, dilapidated chairs and tables arranged as in a café. In spite of fragments of gilt decoration surviving amidst the destruction, I did not recognize the wrecked room.
I heard uneven steps, the tap of a stick, was approached by someone who knew my name. The young man's appearance was vaguely familiar, but at first I could not place him in the dim light. Suddenly it came back to me while we were shaking hands. 'Of course, you're the proprietor's son.' The lameness was new and had put me off. He nodded. 'My parents are dead. Killed in the bombing. Officially I'm dead too.' I asked what had happened. He grimaced, touched his leg. 'It was in the retreat. All the wounded were left behind. When I heard I'd been reported killed I didn't bother to contradict. . . .' He broke off, gave me a nervous glance. 'But what on earth brings you back? You can't stay here, you know. We're in the area of immediate danger. Everyone's been told to get out. There are only a few of us old inhabitants left.'
I looked at him; did not understand why he was uneasy with me. He told me the crowds of people I had seen here had left long ago. 'They almost all got away before war broke out.' I said I had come in the hope of finding the girl. 'But I ought to have realized that she would have gone.'