I Am Lazarus (Peter Owen Modern Classic) by Anna Kavan Read Free Book Online Page A

When he thought of what might become of her if he were taken prisoner or killed it was more than he could bear and he almost wished she were safely out of it all. Yes, when she went down with ’flu or whatever it was during his last leave, he almost hoped she wouldn't get well, it broke his heart so to leave her like that. But these were some of the things which never could be explained and he only wished to be left alone and not be made to remember.
    But the questions had to go on.
    ‘What are the last things you remember doing before you left your aunt's house that final day?’ the doctor wanted to know.
    ‘I spent a goodish time straightening up and cleaning the place so as to leave everything shipshape,’ the boy said. ‘My auntie being an invalid more or less I wanted to leave things as easy for her as I could.’
    Out of the end of his left eye he could see the doctor's crossed knees and the feet in their mended shoes, and for an instant rebellion rose in him because this was a man no different from himself who by no divine right of class or wealth or any accepted magic sought to force memory on him. But there was something beyond that: beyond just the man who could be opposed with obstinacy there was the frightening thing which he had to fight in the dark, and he knew that he dared not remain silent because his silence might be to that thing's advantage, and he went on, speaking low and mumbling as if the words came out against their will.
    ‘We had tea about four. Then I went up and packed my kit. Then it was time to go for the train. I said good-bye and started for the station. King's Cross I had to go from.’
    There was a long pause, and at the end of it came the doctor's voice asking if that was the last thing he could remember, and the boy's voice telling him that it was, and then there was silence again.
    ‘That's queer,’ the boy said suddenly into this silence. And now his voice sounded changed, there was astonishment and dismay in it, and the doctor uncrossed his knees and looked at him more closely, asking him, ‘What's queer?’
    ‘I've just remembered something,’ the boy said. ‘That time I told you about when I left the house, it wasn't the last time, really.’ ‘Not the last time you were in the house?’
    ‘No. I've just remembered. It's just sort of come back to me somehow. When I'd gone part of the way to the station I found I'd left something important behind, my pay-book I think it was, and I had to sprint back to fetch it.’
    The doctor took a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and lighted one with his utility lighter which never worked the first time he thumbed it, and blew out a little smoke. He seemed in no hurry at all about asking the next question.
    ‘Can you remember how you were feeling when you went back?’
    ‘I suppose I felt a bit flustered like anyone would about leaving my pay-book,’ the boy said, defensive suddenly, and blindly suspicious of some unimagined trap.
    Looking into the tunnel he remembered fumbling under the mat for the key which was left there for the next-door woman who came in to give a hand. Was it as he came in or as he was going out again that he stood at the foot of the stairs where they crooked in the angle of a dog's hindleg out of the living-room? It was dusk, and he remembered the silence inside the house as though there were a dead person or somebody sleeping upstairs. Yes, she must have been asleep then, he thought: but whether he went up to her was not in the memory, but only the noise of his army boots clattering away on the paving-stones of the court, and as he came out into the high street a church bell was ringing.
    The doctor asked, ‘What happened afterwards?’
    ‘I can't remember anything more,’ the boy said.
    ‘Nothing whatever? Not even some isolated detail?’
    ‘Yes,’ he said, after a while. ‘I think I remember looking for the station entrance, and a big bridge with a train shunting on it up high.’
    He was