Ice

NINE

I asked to be taken to the warden. He had lately moved his headquarters to a different town. An armoured car drove me there; two soldiers with submachine guns came too, ‘for my protection’. It was still raining. We crashed through the downpour under heavy black clouds which shut out the last of the day. Darkness was falling as we entered the town. The headlights showed the familiar scene of havoc, rubble, ruins, blank spaces, all glistening in rain. The streets were full of troops. The least damaged buildings were used as barracks.

I was taken into a heavily-guarded place and left in a small room where two men were waiting. The three of us were alone: they stared at me, but said nothing. We waited in silence. There was only the sound of the rain beating down outside. They sat together on one bench; I, wrapped in my coat, on another. That was all the furniture in the room, which had not been cleaned. Thick dust lay over everything.

After a while they began to converse in whispers. I gathered that they had come about some post that was vacant. I stood up, started pacing backwards and forwards. I was restless, but knew I should have to wait. I was not listening to what the others were saying, but one raised his voice so that I had to hear. He was certain that he would get the job. He boasted: ‘I’ve been trained to kill with my hands. I can kill the strongest man with three fingers. I’ve learnt the points in the body where you can kill easily. I can break a block of wood with the side of my hand.’ His words depressed me. This was the kind of man who was wanted now. The two were presently called to an interview and I was left waiting alone. I was prepared to have to wait a long time.

It was not so long before a guard came to conduct me to the officers’ mess. The warden was sitting at the head of the high table. Other long tables were more crowded. I was to sit at his table, but not near him, at the far end. We should be too far apart to talk comfortably. Before taking my seat, I went up to salute him. He looked surprised and did not return my greeting. I noticed all the men sitting round immediately leaned together and began speaking in undertones, glancing furtively at me. I seemed to have made an unfavourable impression. I had assumed he would remember me, but he appeared not to know who I was. To remind him of our former connexion might make things worse, so I sat down in my distant place.

I could hear him talking amiably to the officers near him. Their conversation was of arrests and escapes. I was not interested until he told the story of his own flight, involving; big car, a snowstorm, crashing frontier gates, bullets, a girl. He never once looked in my direction or took any notice of me.

From time to time troops could be heard marching past outside. Suddenly there was an explosion. Part of the ceiling collapsed and the lights went out. Hurricane lamps were brought and put on the table. They showed fragments of plaster lying among the dishes. The food was ruined, uneatable, covered in dust and debris. It was taken away. A long and tedious wait followed; then finally bowls of hard boiled eggs were put down in front of us. Intermittent explosions continued to shake the building, a haze of whitish dust hung in the air, everything was gritty to touch.

The warden was playing a game of surprising me. He beckoned at the end of the meal. ‘I enjoyed your broadcasts. You have a gift for that sort of thing.’ I was astonished that he knew of the work I had been doing. His voice was friendly, he spoke to me as an equal, and just for a moment, I felt identified with him in an obscure sort of intimacy. He went on to say I had timed my arrival well. ‘Our transmitter will soon be in operation, and yours will be put out of action.’ I had always told the authorities we needed a more powerful installation; that it was only a question of time before the existing apparatus was jammed by a stronger one. He assumed that I had heard this was about to happen, and had defected accordingly. He wanted me to broadcast propaganda for him, which I agreed to do, if he would do something for me. ‘Still the same thing?’ ‘Yes.’ He looked at me in amusement, but suspicion flashed in his eyes. Nevertheless he remarked casually, ‘Her room’s on the floor above; we may as well pay her a visit,’ and led the way out. But when I said, ‘I have to deliver a personal message; could I see her alone?’ he did not reply.

We went down one passage, up some stairs and along another. The beam of his powerful torch played on floors littered with rubbish. Footprints showed in the dust; I looked among them for her smaller prints. He opened a door into a dimly lit room. She jumped up. Her white startled face; big eyes staring at me under glittering hair. ‘You again!’ She stood rigid, held the chair in front of her as for protection, hands clenched on the back, knuckles standing out white. ‘What do you want?’ ‘Only to talk to you.’ Looking from one of us to the other, she accused: ‘You’re in league together.’ I denied it: though in a strange way there seemed to be some truth in the charge…. ‘Of course you are. He wouldn’t bring you here otherwise.’

The warden approached her, smiling. I had never seen him look so benevolent. ‘Come now, that’s not a very kind way to greet an old friend. Can’t we all have a friendly talk? You’ve never told me how you first got to know each other.’ It was clear that he had no intention of leaving us alone. I gazed at her silently, could not talk to her in front of him. His personality was too dominant, his influence too strong. In his presence she was frightened, antagonistic. Barriers were created. I was distracted myself. No wonder he smiled. I might as well not have found her. A distant explosion shook the walls; she watched the white dust float down from the ceiling. For the sake of saying something, I asked if the bombing disturbed her. Her face blank, her bright hair shimmering, she silently moved her head in a way that meant anything, nothing.

The warden said: ‘I’ve tried to persuade her to go to a safer place, but she refuses to leave.’ He smiled complacently, showing me his power over her. I found it hard to accept. I looked round the room: the chair, a small mirror, a bed, paperbacks on the table, dust everywhere, fallen plaster thick on the floor. Her grey loden coat hung from a hook. I saw no other personal belongings except a comb and a square of chocolate in torn silver paper. I turned away from the man and addressed her directly, trying to speak as if he was not there. ‘You don’t seem very comfortable here. Why not go to a hotel, somewhere further away from the fighting?’ She did not answer, shrugged her shoulders slightly. A silence followed.

Troops marched past under the window. He went across, opened the shutters a crack and looked down. I muttered hurriedly, ‘I only want to help you,’ moved my hand towards hers, which was snatched back. ‘I don’t trust you. I don’t believe a word you say.’ Her eyes were wide and defiant. I knew I would never succeed in making contact with her while he was in the room. Nothing was to be gained by staying longer. I left.

Outside the door, I heard his laugh, his step on the floorboards, his voice: ‘What have you got against that one?’ Then her voice, changed, blurred with tears, high-pitched, hysterical. ‘He’s a liar. I know he’s working with you. You’re both the same, selfish, treacherous, cruel. I wish I’d never met either of you, I hate you both! One day I’ll go … you won’t see me again … ever!’ I walked on down the passage, stumbling over the rubble, kicking it aside. I had not thought of providing myself with a torch.

For the next few days I considered taking her away from him to a neutral country. Theoretically it was quite possible. Occasional ships still called at the local port. It was a matter of speed, secrecy and exact timing. Success depended on getting to sea before we were followed. I began making cautious inquiries. The answers could be bought. The difficulty was that no one could be trusted. The person I was paying for information might sell my questions to somebody in the warden’s pay. This made the whole thing highly dangerous. I was nervous; I could not afford to take such risks; nevertheless, the risk had to be run.

Voices whispered secrets: names, addresses, destinations, departures. ‘Go to … ask for … hold yourself in instant readiness … documents … proof … ample funds… I needed to speak to her before taking my plans a stage further. I went to her room, heard a shot, paid no attention; shooting was going on in the streets all the time. The man emerged, shut the door behind him. I said I wanted to see her. ‘You can’t.’ He turned the key, dropped it into his pocket, threw a pistol down on the table. ‘She’s dead.’ A knife went through me. All other deaths in the world were outside; this one was in my body, like a bayonet, like my own. ‘Who killed her?’ Only I could do that. When he said, ‘I did,’ my hand moved, touched the gun, the barrel was hot. I could have seized it and shot him. It would have been easy. He made no move to prevent me, stood motionless, gazing at me. I looked back at him, at his face with its arrogant bone structure; our eyes met.

In an indescribable way our looks tangled together. I seemed to be looking at my own reflexion. Suddenly I was entangled in utmost confusion, not sure which of us was which. We were like halves of one being, joined in some mysterious symbiosis. I fought to retain my identity, but all my efforts failed to keep us apart. I continually found I was not myself, but him. At one moment I actually seemed to be wearing his clothes. I fled from the room in utter confusion: afterwards did not know what had happened, or if anything had.

On another occasion he met me at the door of the room, said at once: ‘You’re too late. The bird’s flown.’ He was grinning, his face wore an expression of naked malice. ‘She’s gone. Run away. Disappeared.’ My fists clenched. ‘You sent her away so that I shouldn’t see her. You’ve deliberately kept us apart.’ I started towards him in fury. Then again our looks tangled, confusion came back; a wider confusion, not of identity only, but also of time and place. Gold blue eyes flashing, the blue flash of a ring, curved cold strangler’s fingers. He had fought bears and strangled them with his hands. Physically I was no match. … As I left, I heard his voice jeering: ‘That’s more sensible.’

I went into an empty room. I needed time in which to collect myself. I was disturbed, I longed for the girl, could not bear to have lost her. I thought of the journey I had been planning with her beside me, which would now never take place. My face was wet as with rain, drops ran down into my mouth, tasted salt. I covered my eyes with my handkerchief, brought myself under control by a violent effort.

I should have to start searching for her all over again. The repetition was like a curse. I thought of placid blue seas, tranquil islands, far away from war. I thought of the Indris, those happy creatures, symbols of life in peace, on a higher plane. I could clear out, go to them. No, that was impossible. I was tied to her. I thought of the ice moving across the world, casting its shadow of creeping death. Ice cliffs boomed in my dreams, indescribable explosions thundered and boomed, icebergs crashed, hurled huge boulders into the sky like rockets. Dazzling ice stars bombarded the world with rays, which splintered and penetrated the earth, filling earth’s core with their deadly coldness, reinforcing the cold of the advancing ice. And always, on the surface, the indestructible ice-mass was moving forward, implacably destroying all life. I felt a fearful sense of pressure and urgency, there was no time to lose, I was wasting time; it was a race between me and the ice. Her albino hair illuminated my dreams, shining brighter than moonlight. I saw the dead moon dance over the icebergs, as it would at the end of our world, while she watched from the tent of her glittering hair.

I dreamed of her whether I was asleep or awake. I heard her cry: ‘One day I’ll go … you won’t see me again….’ She had gone from me already. She had escaped. She hurried along a street in an unknown town. She looked different, less anxious, more confident. She knew exactly where she was going, she did not hesitate once. In a huge official building she made straight for a room so crowded she could hardly open the door. Only her extreme slimness enabled her to slip between the many tall silent figures, unnaturally silent, fantastically tall, whose faces were all averted from her. Her anxiety started to come back when she saw them towering over her, surrounding her like dark trees. She felt small and lost among them, quickly became afraid. Her confidence had vanished; it had never been real. Now she only wanted to escape from that place: her eyes darted from side to side, saw no door, no way out. She was trapped. The faceless black tree- forms pressed closer, extended arm-branches, imprisoning her. She looked down, but was still imprisoned. Filled trouser-legs, solid treetrunks, stood all around. The floor had become dark earth, full of roots and boles. Quickly looking up at the window, she saw only white weaving meshes of snow, shutting out the world. The known world excluded, reality blotted out, she was alone with threatening nightmare shapes of trees or phantoms, tall as firs growing in snow.

Global conditions were worsening. There was no sign of destruction coming to a halt, and its inexorable progress induced general demoralization. It was more impossible than ever to find out what was really happening, impossible to know what to believe. No reliable source of information existed. Very little news of any description came from abroad; none whatsoever from once-prominent states which had simply dropped out of existence. More than any other single factor, it was the implacable spread of these unnerving areas of total silence that undermined public morale.

In certain countries civil unrest had resulted in the army taking command. A world-wide swing towards militarism had taken place during recent months, with deplorable and brutalizing effects. Frequent clashes occurred between civilians and the armed forces. The killing of police and soldiers, with retributory executions, had become commonplace.

As was to be expected, in the absence of any genuine news, fantastic rumours kept circulating. Monstrous epidemics, appalling famines, were said to have broken out in remote districts, fearsome deviations to have occurred from the genetic norm. Stocks of thermo-nuclear weapons, previously supposed to have been destroyed, were periodically reported to be in the possession of this or that power. Persistent rumours concerned the existence of a self-detonating cobalt bomb, timed, at a pre-set, unknown moment, to destroy all life, while leaving inanimate objects intact. Spying and counter-spying went on everywhere. There were growing acute shortages in all countries, food riots followed as a matter of course. The lawless element in the population was much in evidence, decent people were terrorized. The death penalty imposed for looting had little or no effect as a deterrent.

I got news of the girl indirectly. She was alive, in a certain town, in another country. I was almost sure the place was in the area of immediate danger, though there was no means of checking the point, since all reference to the advancing ice was forbidden. By intense persistence and extensive bribery, I managed to board a ship travelling in that direction. The captain wanted to make money fast, and for a large sum agreed to put in at the port I named.

We arrived. It was early morning, unbelievably cold, dark when it should have been light. No sky, no clouds, they were hidden by falling snow. It was not a morning like other mornings, but what it was: an unnatural freezing of day into darkness, spring into arctic winter. I went to say goodbye to the captain, who asked if I had changed my mind about going ashore. I said I had not. ‘Then for God’s sake get going. Don’t keep us hanging about.’ He was angry, antagonistic. We parted without more words.

I went on deck with the first officer. The air stung like acid. It was the breath of ice, of the polar regions, almost unbreathable. It scarified the skin, seared the lungs; but the body quickly adjusted itself to this stringency. The density of the snow created a curious foglike gloom in the upper air. Every thing was obscured by the small flakes falling ceaselessly out of the shrouded sky. The cold scalded my hands when I collided with iced-up parts of the ship’s superstructure, which only became visible when it was too late to avoid them. In the silence I noticed a rhythmic vibration below, and spoke to my escort: ‘The engines; they haven’t stopped.’ For some reason it seemed surprising. ‘You bet they haven’t. The skipper can’t wait to turn the ship round. He’s been cursing you for days for making us put in here.’ The man showed the same antagonism as the captain, plus a disagreeable curiosity which came out now. ‘Why the devil have you come, anyhow? ‘That’s my business.’ In unfriendly silence we reached the rail. It was cased in thick ice, a rope ladder dangling from it towards the sound of a motor running below. Before I had time to look down, he swung his leg over. ‘Harbour’s frozen. We’ve got to put you ashore by launch.’ While he quickly descended with practised ease, I followed more awkwardly, clinging on with both hands, blinded by the snow. I did not see who pulled me into the rocking launch, or who pushed me towards a seat as it immediately shot forward. Travelling at full speed, it plunged and reared continually like a bucking horse, sheet of spray flew over the roof of the little cabin. There was too much noise for voices to be audible; but I could feel the almost murderous hostility of those on board, all hating me for keeping them here in danger when they might have been on the way to safety. To them my behaviour must have seemed perverse and utterly senseless. I began to wonder myself whether it made any sense, sitting huddled up in my coat, in the brutal paralyzing cold.

A sudden long-drawn-out yell startled me; it was really more of a howl. The officer jumped up, shouted back through a megaphone, then resumed his seat with the words: ‘One way traffic.’ Seeing that I did not understand, he added, ‘Plenty going the other way,’ and pointed ahead.

A confused indistinct commotion revealed itself as a ship, motionless in the midst of the feverish activity of small boats seething round it. In frantic competition, they fought to get near enough for their occupants to climb aboard. There was not room for all. Spectators crowded the rails of the ship as if at a race course, watching the collisions and capsizings below. Those in the boats had probably lived easily and been unaccustomed to danger, for they battled clumsily for their lives, with a sort of headlong terror, wasting their strength in useless jostling and surging. One boat floated upside down, surrounded by frenzied hands and arms struggling out of the water. The people in the next boat swarmed over it, hit out, kicked, stamped on the clinging hands, beat off the drowning. Even the most powerful swimmer could not survive long in that freezing sea. Several of the overcrowded unskillfully handled boats turned over and sank. Some broke up after colliding. In those that remained afloat, the passengers crushed and trampled each other in senseless panic, drove off clutching swimmers with oars. People already dying were battered and beaten. The muffled uproar of screams, thuds, splashes, continued long after the scene was hidden behind the snow. I recalled polite voices announcing over the air that people were desperate, fighting to get away from the threatened countries to safer regions.

The frozen harbour was a grey-white expanse, dotted with black abandoned hulks, embedded immovably in the ice. Banks of solid ice edged the narrow channel of blackish water, fringed with grinning icicle-teeth. I jumped ashore, snow blew out in great fans, the launch disappeared from sight. There were no goodbyes.