The Black Halo (73 page)

Now he began to walk more quickly as if feeling that he didn’t have much time left. In fact he had an appointment with Diana at three o’clock and he mustn’t break it. It would
be ridiculous if he arrived late and said, ‘I couldn’t come because I was powerless to do so. I was a prisoner.’ She was sure to think such an explanation odd, not to say
astonishing. And in any case if he arrived late she wouldn’t be there. Not that deep down he was all that worried, except that his nonappearance would be bad manners. If he was going to give
her a pretext for leaving him, then it must be a more considered pretext than that.

He noticed now that his legs were becoming tired and heavy.

He supposed that this was quite logical, as the stone would be absorbing some of the energy that he was losing. But what bothered him more than anything was the feeling that it would be a long
time before he would get out of the maze, that he was going round in circles. Indeed he recognised some of the empty cigarette packets that he was passing. They were mostly Players and he was sure
that he had seen them before. In fact he bent down and marked some of them with a pen to make sure of later identification. This was the sort of thing that he had read of in books, people going
round and round deserts in circles. And yet he thought that he was taking a different path each time. He wiped his face again and felt that he was losing control of himself. He must be if he was
going round and round in helpless circles all the time. Maybe if he had a thread or something like that he would be able to strike out on fresh paths. But he didn’t have a thread and some
remnant of pride determined that he would not use it, rather like his resolve not to use a dictionary except as a last resort when he was doing a crossword puzzle. He must keep calm. After all, the
café and the cemetery were quite visible. It wasn’t as if he was in a prison and couldn’t shout for help if the worst came to the worst. It wasn’t as if he was stranded on
a desert island. And yet he knew that he wouldn’t shout for help: he would rather die.

He didn’t see the father and son again but he saw other people. Once he passed a big heavy man with large black-rimmed spectacles who had a briefcase in his hand, which he thought rather
odd. The man, who seemed to be in a hurry, seemed to know exactly where he was going. When they passed each other the man didn’t even glance at him, and didn’t smile. Perhaps he looked
contemptible to him. It was exactly as if the man was going to his office and the path of the maze was an ordinary high road.

Then again he saw a tall ghostly-looking man passing, and he turned and stared after him. The man was quite tall, not at all squat like the previous one. He looked scholarly, abstracted and
grave. He seemed to drift along, inside an atmosphere of his own, and he himself knew as if by instinct that the first man would have no difficulty in solving the riddle of the maze but that the
second would. He didn’t know how he knew this, but he was convinced just the same. The maze he now realised was infested with people, men, women and children, young people, old people,
middle-aged people. Confident people and ghostly people. It was like a warren and he felt his bones shiver as the thought came to him. How easy it had been to think at the beginning that there was
only himself: and now there were so many other people. People who looked straight ahead of them and others who looked down at the ground.

One in particular, with the same brisk air as the black-spectacled man, he had an irresistible desire to follow. The man was grey-haired and soldierly. He, like the first one, didn’t look
at him or even nod to him as he passed, and he knew that this was another one who would succeed and that he should follow him. But at the same time it came to him that this would be a failure of
pride in himself, that he didn’t want to be like a dog following its master as if he were on a string. The analogy disgusted him. He must not lose control of his will, he must not surrender
it to someone else. That would be nauseating and revolting.

He noticed that he was no longer sweating and this bothered him too. He should be sweating, he should be more frightened. Then to his amazement he saw that the sun had sunk quite far in the
direction of the west. He came to a dead halt almost in shock. Why was time passing so rapidly? It must be four o’clock at least and when he glanced at his watch he saw that it was actually
half past four. And therefore he had missed Diana. What a ludicrous thing. This maze, inert and yet malevolent, was preventing him from doing what he ought to have done and forcing him to do other
things instead. Probably he would never see Diana again. And then the thought came to him, threatening in its bareness, what if he had chosen to walk into this maze in order to avoid her? No, that
was idiotic. Such an idea had never come into his head. Not for one moment.

He looked down at his shoes and saw that they were white with dust. His trousers were stained. He felt smelly and dirty. And what was even more odd when he happened to see the backs of his hands
he noticed that the hair on them was grey. That surely couldn’t be. But it was true, the backs of his hands had grey hair on them. Again he stood stock-still trying to take account of what
had happened. But then he found that he couldn’t even stand still. It was as if the maze had accelerated. It was as if it could no longer permit him to think objectively and apart from
himself. Whenever a thought came into his head it was immediately followed by another thought which devoured it. He had the most extraordinary vision which hit him with stunning force. It was as if
the pathways in his brain duplicated the pathways of the maze. It was as if he was walking through his own brain. He couldn’t get out of the maze any more than he could get out of his own
head. He couldn’t quite focus on what he sensed, but he knew that what he sensed or thought was the truth. Even as he looked he could see young people outside the café. They seemed
amazingly young, much younger than he had expected. They were not the same ones as the early laughers, they were different altogether, they were young children. Even their clothes were different.
Some of them were sitting eating ice-cream at a table which stood outside the café and had an awning over it. He couldn’t remember that awning at all. Nor even the table. The fisherman
had disappeared from the stream. The cemetery seemed to have spawned more tombstones.

His mind felt slow and dull and he didn’t know where to go next. It came to him that he should sit down where he was and make no more effort. It was ludicrous that he should be so stupid
as not to get out of the maze which others had negotiated so easily. So he couldn’t be as intelligent as he thought he was. But it was surely the maze that was to blame, not himself. It quite
simply set unfair problems, and those who had solved them had done so by instinct like animals. He remembered someone who had been cool and young and audacious and who had had a white handkerchief
in his pocket like a flag. But the memory was vaguer than he had expected, and when he found the handkerchief it was only a small crumpled ball which was now in his trouser pocket. He turned and
looked at the flag which marked the centre of the maze. It seemed that he would never reach it.

He felt so sorry for himself that he began to cry a little and he couldn’t stop. Water drooled from his eyes, and he wiped it away with his dirty handkerchief. There didn’t seem to
be so many people in the maze now. It was a stony wilderness. If there was one he could recognise as successful he would follow him like a dog. He would have no arrogance now. His brow puckered.
There was someone he remembered as existing outside the maze, someone important, someone gracious, elegant, a magnet which he had somehow lost. She was . . . but he couldn’t remember who she
was. And in any case had she been outside the maze? Had she not always been inside it, perhaps as lost as he was himself?

Slowly and stubbornly he plodded on, no longer imagining that he would leave the maze, walking for the sake of walking. The twilight was now falling, and the café was shut. He could hear
no sounds around him, no infestation of the maze, and yet strangely enough he sensed that there were beings there. If he could no longer escape from the maze then he might at least reach the centre
and see what was there. Perhaps some compensating emblem, some sign, some pointer to the enigma. Perhaps even the designer of the maze sitting there in a stony chair. He set his teeth, he must not
give in. He must not allow the thought to control him that he had no power over the maze, that in fact the power was all the other way. That would be the worst of all, not only for him but for
everybody else.

And then quite ironically, as if the seeing of it depended on his thought, there was the centre, barer than he had expected, no emblem, no sign, no designer.

All that was there was a space, and a clock and a flag. The clock pointed to eleven. The sun was setting, red and near in the sky. It was a big ball that he might even clutch. The twilight was
deepening. For a moment there, it was as if in the centre of the maze he had seen a tomb, but that couldn’t be true. That must have come from his brooding on the cemetery. On the other hand
it might be a cradle. And yet it wasn’t that either. There was nothing there at all, nothing but the space on which the paths converged.

He looked at the space for a long time, as if willing something to fill it. And then very slowly from the three other paths he saw three men coming. They seemed superficially to be different,
but he knew that they were all the same. That is to say, there hovered about the faces of each of them a common idea, a common resemblance, though one was dressed in a grey suit, one in a gown, and
one in jacket and flannels. They all stood there quite passively and waited for him to join them. They were all old. One of them to his astonishment held a child by the hand. He stood there with
them. Slowly the sun disappeared over the horizon and darkness fell and he felt the pressure of the maze relaxing, as if in a dream of happiness he understood that the roads were infinite, always
fresh, always new, and that the ones who stood beside him were deeper than friends, they were bone of his bone, they were flesh of his disappearing flesh.

Uncollected Stories

He’s on the island. Jim Merrick, whom I hated, hate. I saw his head like a cannon ball emerging now and again from the froth of the waves, as he struggled towards the
shore, after the ship had been smashed on the rocks. I saw no other. Even now he must be on some other part of the island: tomorrow I shall explore it when the night has passed and there is clear
daylight.

Yes, I have seen his footprints in the sand. This morning I swam out to the wreck of the ship which is being tilted and smashed steadily against the rocks: luckily for me that I am a powerful
swimmer. I carried a knife between my teeth in case I met him scavenging among the broken wood.

I scrambled over the ship, my heart beating and managed to get a hammer and nails as well as some biscuits and salted meat. I don’t know how he missed the hammer for he
was there before me, since I found scrawled on a miraculously whole mirror the words, ‘I shall kill you Cruso.’ He had spelt my name wrong for he is practically illiterate. Jim Merrick,
whom I hated because he made my life a misery. Uneducated animal – like Jim Merrick whose life is in his head. I swam out through a mass of bodies rising and falling in the water: a bitter
harvest.

He must be building his hut somewhere on the island as well, for there must have been more than one hammer: he wouldn’t have gone back without one. It seems a large island with green hills
and valleys and, I think, plenty of water. Perhaps it is because of the largeness of the island that I haven’t as yet seen him after two days. Luckily I slept in the trees the last nights or
he might have found me and killed me. All this day I shall spend working on my hut and he will, I suppose, be doing the same.

I hope he hadn’t got a musket for if he has he is bound to kill me. I must make sure That I don’t leave any traces when I climb the tree. I haven’t seen any wild animals: he is
probably the wildest animal on the island.

This morning I found written in the sand the words: ‘It won’t be long now.’ His writing is clumsy and unformed even in sand.

I wish I had a razor so that I could shave. I have managed to kill a goat: he’s probably done the same, since his instinct for blood is greater than mine. I saw some wild pig as well and
coloured birds in the trees. The sky has been clear and blue and there has been no rain. I am chary of the herbs for they might be poisonous.

The problem is, how can I feel secure in my hut when I have built it, especially at night. It looks as if I shall have to go after him in order to gain peace; one of us may have to die. I hope
it will be him, naturally, I read my Bible a lot.

I have seen him. Exploring the island, I saw him building a hut behind a clump of trees (perhaps he is frightened of me too, though I never thought of that before). He was naked to the waist,
very brown, and he looked like a wild animal with his club head and his long quivering snout. I stood behind him for a long time though I didn’t throw my knife which I could very well have
done. But something, I don’t know what it was, prevented me from doing so.

He was hammering nails in wood and whistling to himself, and his face, like mine, was unshaven. Why, I thought to myself, he looks even like me. We are both turning brown in
this perpetual sun. I nearly went and spoke to him, my bitterest enemy, for I felt so lonely: I wished to hear the speech of men, for even he is a man. He looked so innocent and harmless, working
at his hut, as if he were an animal building its lair.

No ship will come for a long time if ever. I know that. Already our own ship has sunk in the waves and the decks on which we once walked are covered with brine: the mirrors lie among the fishes.
I don’t know whether he managed to get hold of one but I couldn’t find any except ones which were too big to be lifted. How shall I ever know that I exist? However, I shall know he
exists. I fixed a wooden bolt on the door of my hut. But this morning when I woke up and went outside, I found carved on the wood the words, ‘You can’t hide from me Cruso.’ He
persisted in misspelling my name: I don’t know why that should bother me but it does. I wonder why he didn’t wait for me till I came out, and then attack me. But no, I saw no sight and
heard no sound of him. His treatment of the cabin boys was scandalously cruel: that was why I had quarrelled with him for I can’t stand injustice.