The Red Door (49 page)

A phantom bell rang in his brain, coldly he went forward punch-drunk into the arena. Towards him came the panther with green eyes. On the balcony the beaming emperor turned his thumbs down fatly
with sadistic deliberation. Something hit him on the nose. He was terrified. He would have run away but they had closed in on him, he felt their hound breaths: they were baying: there was blood on
his glove. He looked up: the green eyes were boring in on him, animal eyes: they shone like stones. The nails on the hands were dirty: the flesh was raw.

A green figure was beating up a child on a London street. It was foggy. The boots came down heavily. He winced at the silver deliberate studs. Had he screamed? He slipped on the wet grass. The
gloves had little hairs on them. They were soaked in the puddle.

He heard voices: ‘Come on, Fairy, you’re doing fine. Hit him.’ He hadn’t hit him: not once had he hit him. He didn’t even want to hit him lest he provoke a
stranger, more menacing, figure to shamble outward in front of the green cave. He wanted only to survive his punishment. He felt himself dancing like a puppet. The Section hadn’t spoken once.
He just kept unslinging his stony punches at him. He didn’t dare to look at the eyes but he knew that the Section hated him. He felt this not by the way he hit him but by the service of some
obscure sense, some old retainer of knowledge beyond that of the intellect.

‘Come on, Fairy.’ His gloves and body made beautiful ineffectual rings, away from oftener than towards. Let me not be hit: let me snuggle into my book, let me withdraw.

He hadn’t really been punched much except for the one accurate hit on the nose. There was too much disorderly shoving and pushing for that. He heard one voice saying disgustedly:
‘It’s a slaughter. It should be stopped.’ And heard another voice saying: ‘The Fairy will get him yet. You wait.’ Nevertheless he knew that he wouldn’t win. He
felt a hard fist hit him in the stomach and he lay down.

‘Is he all right?’

‘Of course he’s all right. Aren’t you, Fairy?’

‘Really and truly hopeless.’

‘Is he crying? O Lord.’

‘No, he’s not.’

‘All right, pick him up then.’

And they had lifted him up, cold cold hands. Someone had said: ‘Are you all right?’: he had said yes and the moor emptied.

He waited perhaps for the Section to come back and shake hands with him (wasn’t that always done?) but everyone had gone: he hadn’t fought well enough for even that. As he waited
phantom hands came to lead the blind punch-drunk loser home: he would never fight again: he was finished: he should never have fought. His friends had pleaded with him not to fight; but he could
not let them down. How could he? They had bet on him thousands and thousands of dollars. The ring was empty: the seats ascended rawly from the centre. The emperor stood up: he was great and
glowing, magnanimous, a ruby glittered on his white toga. He was in tears. The Christians would be pardoned, he said, looking down at the prostrate but courageous gladiator. His immaculate gloved
hands rested lightly in front of him. The lights darkened and the Christian in his cave in his blue tunic wriggled inwards towards his content.

Lieutenant Colin Macleod looked up at the pure blue sky where there was a plane cruising overhead. He waved to the helmeted pilot. Here behind the lines the sound of the
gunfire was faint and one could begin to use one’s ears again, after the tremendous barrages which had seemed to destroy hearing itself. Idly he registered that the plane was a Vickers Gun
Bus and he could see quite clearly the red, white and blue markings. The smoke rising in the far distance seemed to belong to another war. He had noticed often before how unreal a battle might
become, how a man would suddenly spin round, throwing up his arms as if acting a part in a play: as in the early days when they had driven almost domestically to the front in buses, the men
singing, so that he looked out the window to see if there were any shops at the side of the road. Released for a short while from the war he wandered into a wood whose trees looked like columns in
a church.

He was thinking of the last bombardment by the Germans which had thrown up so much dust that the British gunners couldn’t see what they were firing at and the Germans were on top of them
before they knew what was happening. The only warning had been the mine explosion to their left. They had fought among trenches full of dead bodies, and grey Germans had poured out of the dust
clouds, seeming larger than life, as if they had been resurrected out of the dry autumnal earth. It was after the plugging of the line with fresh troops that he and his company had been pulled out
after what seemed like years in the trenches digging, putting up wire, in the eternal hammering of the German big guns, the artillery battles which were so much worse than local fights, for the
death which came from the distant giants was anonymous and negligent as if gods were carelessly punching them out of existence.

He was grateful now for the silence and for the wood which had a certain semblance of order after the scarred ground worked over and over, continuously revised by shells, so that it looked like
carbon paper scribbed over endlessly by a typewriter that never stopped.

He looked up again and as he did so he saw two birds attacking another one. They seemed to synchronise their movements and they were low enough for him to see their beaks quite clearly. The
third tried to fly above them but they attacked, probing upwards from below. He could no longer see the plane, just the birds. The third bird was weakening. He couldn’t make out whether it
was a buzzard or a crow. The other two birds were zeroing in at it all the time, pecking and jabbing, going for the head.

He couldn’t stand watching the fight any more and turned away into the wood, and it was then that he saw it – the church. It was completely intact though quite small and with
gravestones beside it. It was strange to see it, like a mirage surrounded by trees whose brown leaves stirred faintly in the slight breeze. From the sky above, the birds had departed: perhaps the
two had killed the third one or perhaps it had escaped. It reminded him of a dogfight he had seen between a German triplane and a British Sopwith Camel. After a long duel, the German triplane had
destoyed the British plane but was in turn shot down by another British fighter. The triplane made a perfect landing. The British troops rushed up to find the pilot seated at the controls, upright,
disciplined, aristocratic, eyes staring straight ahead, and perfectly dead. Later they found the bullet which had penetrated his back and come out at the chest.

He pushed open the door of the church and stood staring around him. He had never been in a church like this before with the large effigy of the Virgin Mary all in gold looking down at him, hands
crossed. The stained glass windows had pictures of Christ in green carrying a staff and driving rather shapeless yellow sheep in front of him. In one of the panes there was another picture of him
holding out his hands in either a helpless or a welcoming gesture. There were no Bibles or hymn books on the seats as if no one had been there for some time. At the side there was a curtained
alcove which he thought might be a confessional. He pulled the curtains aside but there was no one there.

He sat down and gazed for a long time at the huge golden cross which dominated the front of the church. The silence was oppressive. It was not at all like the churches at home. There was more
ornament, it was less bare, more decorated. The churches at home had little colour and less atmosphere than this. He could feel in his bones the presence of past generations of worshippers, and
then he heard the footsteps.

He turned round to see a man in a black gown walking towards him. There was a belt of rope round his gown and his hands could not be seen as they seemed to be folded inside his gown. The face
was pale and ill looking.

‘What do you want, my son?’ said the voice in English.

He was so astonished that he could think of nothing to say. To find a priest speaking English here seemed suddenly nightmarish. For some reason the thought came into his mind of the most macabre
sight he had seen in the war, a horse wearing a gas mask. ‘Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came . . . ’

‘You are admiring the church?’ said the minister or priest or whatever he was.

‘It is very beautiful,’ said Colin, and it seemed to him that his voice was echoing through the church.

‘It is very old,’ said the priest. ‘How did you find it?’

‘I was walking through the wood and I happened to . . . ’

‘Alone? I see,’ said the priest. ‘Would you like to see the rest of it? There is more of it, you know.’

Colin looked round him uncomprehendingly.

‘Oh, it’s down below. There’s a stair that leads downwards. I keep some wine down there, you understand. If you would care for a glass?’

‘Well, I . . . ’

‘It will only take a minute. I would be glad of the company.’

‘If it’s all . . . ’

‘Certainly. Please follow me.’

Colin followed him down some stone steps to what appeared to be a crypt which was lit by candles. The priest walked with his hands folded in front of him as all priests seemed to walk, slow and
dignified.

They arrived at a small room. ‘Here is my bed, you see,’ said the priest. ‘And here . . . ’

All over the floor, bones were scattered, and there seemed to be an assortment of bloody animal traps.

‘Rabbit bones,’ said the priest smiling. ‘Bones of hares. It is not very . . . ’

‘You mean you . . . ’

‘This is how I live,’ said the priest. ‘I have no bread to offer you, I’m afraid. If you would please sit down?’

‘I think I had better . . . ’

‘I said please sit down. I shall tell you about myself. I have lived now for a year by myself. Alone. What do you think of that?’ The priest smiled showing blackened teeth.
‘You see, I couldn’t stand it any more.’

‘Stand what?’

‘The war, of course. I was in the trenches you see. And I couldn’t stand it. I wasn’t intended to be a soldier. I was studying for the ministry and they took me out here. I
couldn’t stand the people one got in the trenches. I couldn’t stand the dirt and I couldn’t stand all that dying. What do I live on? I eat rabbits, anything I can find. One
morning, you see, I ran away. I didn’t know where I was going. But I knew that I couldn’t stay there any longer. And I found this place. Perhaps God directed me. Who knows? I was
frightened that someone would find me. But no one did. I used to hide in the crypt here. But today I felt very alone so I thought I would talk to you. Do you know what it is to be alone? Sometimes
I wish to go back but it is impossible now. To hear the sound of one human voice again! One human voice. I needn’t have revealed I was here. If you had been German I wouldn’t have come
out. I don’t speak German, you see, not at all. I’m not good at languages, though I did once study Hebrew. Now, shall we go up again?’

‘If you wish.’

‘I wish to preach. I have never preached. That is something I must do. Shall we go up? If you would go first? I was going to offer you something to eat but I think I should preach first.
If you would please sit in the front row. You haven’t brought anyone else with you, have you?’

Colin preceded him, knowing that he was in the presence of a madman. He sat down in the front seat and prepared to listen. He felt as if he were in a dream but then he had felt like that for a
long time since he had taken the train south to join up in the first place.

The minister went up into the pulpit with great gravity and began to speak:

‘I shall not pray because that would mean closing my eyes. God will understand. After all, while I was closing my eyes you might run away. I shall talk about war.

‘Dearly beloved,’ he began, his voice growing more resonant, not to say rotund, as he continued:

‘May we consider who we are? What we are? When I was young I read books as so many of the young do about the legends of Greece and Rome. I believed in the gods. I believed that we are
godlike. My favourite god was Mercury because of his great speed and power. Later my favourite hero was Hector because he was so vulnerable.

‘I grew up innocent and hopeful. One night when I was sixteen years old I went to a prayer meeting. A visiting preacher spoke of Christ’s sufferings and his mercy so vehemently, with
such transparent passion, that I was transported into that world and I suffered the thorn and the vinegar in the land of Galilee. I thought that I should lay my life at the feet of a merciful
God.

‘At the age of eighteen I was forced into the army to fight for what they call one’s country. I did not know what this was since my gaze was always directed inward and not outward. I
was put among men whom I despised and feared – they fornicated and drank and spat and lived filthily. Yet they were my comrades in arms.

‘I was being shot at by strangers. I was up to my knees in green slime. I was harassed by rats. I entered trenches to find the dead buried in the walls. Once, however, on a clear starry
night at Christmas time we had a truce. This lasted into the following day. We – Germans and English – showed each other our photographs, though I had none. We, that is, the others,
played football. And at the end of it a German officer came up to us and said: “You had better get back to your dugouts: we are starting a barrage at 1300 hours.” He consulted his watch
and we went back to our trenches after we had shaken hands with each other.

‘One day I could bear no more of the killing and I ran away. And I came here, Lord. And now I should like to say something to you, Lord. I was never foolish enough to think that I
understood your ways. Nevertheless I thought you were on the side of the good and the innocent. Now I no longer believe so. You may strike me dead with your lightning – I invite you to do so
– but I think that will not happen. All these years, Lord, you have cheated me. You in your immense absence.’ He paused a moment as if savouring the phrase. ‘Your immense absence.
As for me, I have been silent for a year without love, without hope. I have lived like an animal, I who was willing to give my all to you. Lord, do you know what it is to be alone? For in order to
live we need language and human beings.