Ice (9 page)

The man's ungentle hands gripped her. 'Put on your outdoor things quickly. We're leaving at once.' His voice was low and peremptory. 'Leaving?' She stared, saw him as a blacker shadow against the black, her cold lips murmuring: 'Why?' 'Don't talk. Do as I tell you.' Obediently she stood up, the draught from the door made her shiver. 'How am I supposed to find anything in the dark? Can't we have a light?' 'No. Somebody might see.' He flashed a torch briefly, saw her pick up a comb and start pulling it through her hair, snatched it away from her. 'Leave that! Get your coat on—hurry!' The irritable impatience radiating from him made her movements slower, more awkward. Feeling about the dark room, she found her coat but could not find the way into it; she held it the wrong way round. He seized it angrily, turned it, forced her arms through the sleeves. 'And now come on! Don't make a sound. Nobody must know we've gone.' 'Where are we going? Why do we have to go at this time of night?' She expected no answer, doubted whether she heard correctly when he muttered, 'It's the one chance,' adding something about the approaching ice. He grasped her arm then, pulled her across the landing and on to the stairs. The beam of the torch, intermittently stabbing pitch blackness, showed his looming repressive shadow, which she followed as if sleepwalking through all the ramifications of the huge building, out into the icy snowfilled night.

Although snow was falling heavily, there was none on the black car; it had just been cleared away: yet no one had passed them, nobody was in sight. She shivered as she got in, sat in silence while he quickly inspected the chains. Yellow oblongs stained the pure white in front of the windows. In the air, the snow was transformed into showering gold as it passed the lights. A confused noise from the dining hall, voices, clattering plates, drowned the noise of the car starting up, and impelled her to ask: 'What about all those people who are expecting you? Aren't you going to see them?'

Already in a state of irritable nervous tension, he was exasperated by the question, lifted one hand from the wheel in a threatening gesture. 'I told you not to talk!' His voice was frightening, his eyes flashed in the dark interior of the car. She moved fast to avoid the blow, but could not get out of reach, crouched down, shielding herself with her raised arm, made no sound when the glancing blow struck her shoulder and crushed her against the door; afterwards huddled there in silence, shrinking away from his silent rage.

Snow-muffled silence outside; silence filling the car. He drove without lights, his eyes like cats' eyes, able to see through the snowy darkness. A ghost-car, invisible, silent, fled from the ruined town. The ancient snow-covered fortifications fell back and vanished in snow, the broken wall vanished behind. In front loomed the black living wall of the forest, ghostly whiteness fuming along its crest like spray blown back from the crest of a breaking wave. She waited for the black mass to come crashing down on them, but there was no crash, only the silence of snow and forest outside, and in the car, his silence, her apprehension. He never spoke, never looked at her, handled the powerful car recklessly on the rough frozen track, hurling it at speed over all obstacles, as if by the force of his will. The violent lurching of the car threw her about; she was not heavy enough to keep in her seat. Thrown against him, forced to touch his coat, she winced away as though the material burned. He seemed unaware. She felt forgotten, forsaken.

It was incomprehensible to her, this extraordinary flight that went on and on. The forest went on for ever. The silence went on and on. The snow stopped, but the cold went on and even increased, as if some icy exudation from the black trees congealed beneath them. Hour after hour passed before a little reluctant daylight filtered down through the roof of branches, revealing nothing but gloomy masses of firs, dead and living trees tangled together, a dead bird often caught in the branches, as if the tree had caught it deliberately. She shuddered, identifying herself, as a victim, with the dead bird. It was she who had been snared by nets of black branches. Armies of trees surrounded her on all sides, marching to infinity in all directions. Snow flew past the window again, waving white flags. She was the one who long ago had surrendered. She understood nothing of what was happening. The car leapt in the air, she was flung painfully on to her bruised shoulder, tried ineffectually to shield it with the other hand.

The man drove the car brutally throughout the short day. It seemed to her that she had never known anything but this terrifying drive in the feeble half-light; the silence, the cold, the snow, the arrogant figure beside her. His cold statue's eyes were the eyes of a Mercury, ice-eyes, mesmeric and menacing. She wished for hatred. It would have been easier. The trees receded a little, a little more sky appeared, bringing the last gleams of the fading light. Suddenly, she was astonished to see two log huts, a gate between, blocking the road. Unless the gate was opened they could not pass. She watched it racing towards them, reinforced with barbed wire and metal. The car burst through with a tremendous shattering smash, a great rending and tearing, a frantic metallic screeching. Broken glass showered her, she ducked instinctively as a long, sharp, pointed sliver sliced the air just over her head, and the car rocked sickeningly on two wheels before turning over. At the last moment then, by some miracle of skill, or strength, or sheer will power, the driver brought it back on to its axis again, and drove on as if nothing had happened.

Shouts exploded behind them. A few shots popped ineffectively and fell short. She glanced back and saw uniforms running; then the small commotion was over, cut off by black trees. The road improved on this side of the frontier, the car travelled faster, more smoothly. She shifted her position, leaning away from the stream of ice-vapour entering through the smashed window, shook bits of broken glass off her lap. There was blood on her wrists, both hands were cut and bleeding; she looked at them in remote surprise.

I raced down stairs and passages. In sight of the main door I hid in the shadows, watched the men guarding it. Sounds of the party, now growing more animated, came from the dining hall, where drinking was evidently in full swing. Someone shouted to the guards out in the cold corridor. The men I was watching put their heads together, then left their post, passed close to me as they went to join the rest. Unnoticed by anyone, I slipped out through the door they were supposed to be guarding.

It was snowing hard. I could barely distinguish the nearest ruins, white stationary shadows beyond the moving fabric of falling white. Snowflakes turned yellow like swarms of bees round the lighted windows. A wide expanse of snow lay in front of me, a hollow marking the place where the warden's black car had stood. I realized that various white mounds must be other cars, belonging, presumably, to his household, and waded towards them through the deep snow. I tried the door of the first one, found it unlocked. The whole vehicle was buried in snow, which had drifted deep against wheels and windscreen. Snow fell all over me when I opened the door, filled my sleeve as I tried to clean the glass. I thought the starter would never work, but at last the car began to move slowly forward. I revved the engine just enough to keep the tyres gripping, and followed the warden's hardly visible tracks, which were rapidly being obliterated by fresh snow. Outside the encircling wall they practically vanished. I lost them altogether at the edge of the forest, blindly drove into a tree, scraping off the bark. The car stopped and refused to move. The wheels just spun round, uselessly churning the snow. As I got out, a mass of snow fell on me from the branches above. In two seconds my clothes were caked solid with driving snow. I tore down fir branches, threw them under the wheels, got back into the car and re-started. It was no good; the tyres would not grip, still went on spinning and hissing. I was sliding sideways, I pulled on the brake, jumped straight into a snowdrift, sank up to my armpits. The snow kept collapsing on me as I moved, slipped inside my collar, my shirt, I felt snow in my navel; to struggle out was an exhausting business. After breaking off more branches and piling them under the car without the least effect, I knew I was beaten and would have to give up. Weather conditions were quite impossible. Somehow or other I got the car going, and crawled back to the town. It was the only thing to do in the circumstances.

I started skidding again just as I reached the wall, lost control this time. Suddenly I saw the front wheels crumbling the edge of a deep bomb-crater; one more second, and I would be over; the drop was of many feet. I stood on the foot brake, the car spun right round, executed a complete circle before I jumped out and it nose dived, vanishing under the snow.

I was freezing, very tired, shivering so much I could hardly walk. Luckily my lodging was not far off. I slithered and staggered back there, crouched over the stove just as I was, plastered in frozen snow, my teeth chattering. The shivering was so violent I could not unfasten my coat, only succeeded in dragging it off by slow stages. In the same laborious fashion, by prolonged painful effort, I finally got rid of the rest of my freezing clothes, struggled into a dressing gown. It was then that I saw the cable and ripped open the envelope.

My informant reported the crisis due in the next few days. All air and sea services had ceased operating, but arrangements had been made to pick me up by helicopter in the morning. Still holding the flimsy paper, I crawled into bed, went on shivering under piles of blankets. The warden must have received the news earlier in the day. He had fled to save himself, abandoning his people to their fate. Of course such conduct was highly reprehensible, scandalous: but I did not condemn him. I did not think I would have acted differently in his place. Nothing he could have done would have saved the country. If he had revealed the critical situation a panic would have resulted, the roads would have been jammed, nobody would have escaped. In any case, judging by what I had just experienced, his chance of reaching the frontier was extremely slim.

SEVEN

The aircraft deposited me at a distant port just before the ship sailed. I was suffering from some kind of fever, shivering, aching, apathetic. I sat at the back of the car rushing me to the docks, did not even look out, went on board in a daze. The ship was already moving when I crossed the deck, meaning to go straight to my cabin. But now the scene caught my eye, and it gave me a shock; I stopped and stood staring. A sunlit harbour was sliding past me, a busy town; I saw wide streets, well-dressed people, modern buildings, cars, yachts on the blue water. No snow; no ruins; no armed guards. It was a miracle, a flashback to something dreamed. Then another shock, the sensation of a violent awakening, as it dawned on me that this was the reality, and those other things the dream. All of a sudden the life I had lately been living appeared unreal: it simply was not credible any longer. I felt a huge relief, it was like emerging into sunshine from a long cold black tunnel. I wanted to forget what had just been happening, to forget the girl and the senseless, frustrating pursuit I had been engaged in, and think only about the future.

Later, when the fever left me, my feelings remained unchanged. Thankful to have escaped from the past, I decided to go to the Indris; to make that tropical island my home, and the lemurs themselves my life work. I would devote the rest of my time to studying them, writing their history, recording their strange songs. No one else had done it, as far as I knew. It seemed a satisfactory project, a worthwhile aim.

From the shop on board I bought a big notebook and a stock of ball-point pens. I was ready to plan my work. But I could not concentrate. After all, I had not escaped the past. My thoughts kept wandering back to the girl; incredible that I should have wished to forget her. Such a forgetting would have been monstrous, impossible. She was like a part of me, I could not live without her. But now I wanted to go to the Indris, so there was a conflict. She prevented me, holding me back with thin arms.

I tried to stop thinking about her, to fix my mind on those innocent gentle creatures, their sweet, eerie singing. But she persistently distracted me with thoughts that were less than innocent. Her face haunted me: the sweep of her long lashes, her timid enchanting smile; and then a change of expression I could produce at will, a sudden shift, a bruised look, a quick change to terror, to tears. The strength of the temptation alarmed me. The black descending arm of the executioner; my hands seizing her wrists. ... I was afraid the dream might turn out to be real. . . . Something in her demanded victimization and terror, so she corrupted my dreams, led me into dark places I had no wish to explore. It was no longer clear to me which of us was the victim. Perhaps we were victims of one another.

I was desperately worried when I thought of the situation I had left behind. I walked round and round the decks, wondering what had happened, whether the warden had got away, whether she had been with him. No news was received on board ship. I could only wait, in great anxiety and impatience, to reach a port where I could go ashore and get some information. At last the day came. The steward had pressed my suit.

He brought it back with a buttonhole, a red carnation he had got hold of somehow. Its strong colour looked well against the light grey material.

Just as I was ready to leave my cabin, there was a peremptory bang on the door, and a plain-clothes policeman came in without waiting for me to answer. He did not take off his hat, but opened his jacket to show the official badge, the pistol in its armpit holster. I gave him my passport. He flipped over the pages contemptuously, looked me up and down in an insolent way, stared hard and with particular disapproval at the red carnation. Everything about my appearance obviously confirmed the low opinion he had already formed. I asked what he wanted with me, received no answer but an insulting silence: I would not ask again. He produced a pair of handcuffs, dangled them in front of me. I said nothing. When he tired of the jingling, he put them away, observing that, out of respect for my country, handcuffs would not be used. I was to be allowed to walk off the ship with him. But I had better not play any games.