Stunned, the rat lies still for a second, then picks itself up and rushes away. The man watches, estimating the distance with narrowed eyes, before swinging the racquet down and hitting the beast fair and square, sending it flying in her direction. ‘Go on lob it back to me! You can’t miss such an easy one!’
Her fingers clench spasmodically on the handle of the racquet she’s holding, but instead of obeying she lets it fall on the floor with a clatter, and drops her face in her hands.
‘Oh, so you won’t play…’ His voice now has an ugly sound. But he’s more interested in the rat, skidding sideways across the boards as fast as its injured legs can move he brings the racquet swooping down on it very much faster.
Standing there triumphant, he pulls out his handkerchief and rubs the strings, while at the same time his foot heavily and repeatedly stamps on the thing on the floor, finally kicking it out of sight under the wardrobe. To horrify the girl even more he says spitefully, without looking round, Perhaps the rat king will come next,’ referring to a legendary monstrosity consisting of six or eight rats (a whole litter presumably), joined together by a single tail. There is no reply. He goes on cleaning his racquet. And when he presently turns his head she is no longer there.
6
Mr Dog Head, quite nude, is inspecting himself in the mirror in his room, but as it is only big enough to show him down to the waist he is dissatisfied and keeps turning and twisting in an attempt to see more. The tough male muscularity of his body is now very apparent. And it is quite true that most of it is covered by the close brown-red pelt, resembling the neat covering of his skull, and that this greatly increases his doglike aspect, which the local people must have divined by instinct, since he’s certainly never allowed them to see him naked.
This room is even barer than the one next to it. There is a single bare bulb dangling from the ceiling, the fan, the bed shrouded in dingy netting, a table beside it with a shelf underneath. On the top of the table is a whisky bottle, a siphon and a glass; on the shelf below lies the only book he ever reads, which can’t be seen very well because it is in the shadow cast by the tabletop black, it might be a bible, and is certainly a religious book of some kind with a gilt cross on the cover.
As he gazes at his reflection his big aristocratic nose seems to arch itself in arrogant complacency, as though he were lord of the earth. He does belong to a titled family, and if several people die first he will eventually become an earl. But this doesn’t seem to justify his assumption that he’s superior to everyone else alive and that everyone must give way to him.
Physically, he is quite impressive, in an overbearing fashion, flexing his powerful muscles that bulge and slide under the skin like bunches of snakes as he stretches his arms and bends several times to touch his toes. Even now, in the middle of the night, with the temperature at its lowest, this effort leaves his neck, arms and face thickly beaded with sweat; which, however, is quickly absorbed by the furry covering, quickly disappearing.
His big-nosed face glides over the mirror in profile as he stoops down, scrutinizing his legs, assuring himself that their muscular development is as satisfactory as that of his arms. He swings his weight from one foot to the other and pinches his calves, which are hard as iron. But, still not quite satisfied, he wants to see the whole of himself, and because he can’t is suddenly overcome by his usual grievance against the world, his haughty countenance taking on a petulant look it must often have worn when he was a spoilt little boy. Impulsively he slops whisky into the glass, not bothering to watch how much he pours out, and gulps it down without adding any water. As if the spirit took effect instantly, he at once goes into the deserted middle room, which is faintly lit by the light in the room he has just left.
Tough as he is, and stark naked, he feels uncomfortably hot and pauses by the window, scratching his sticky scrotum, wondering whether to make the effort of opening the screens. At the sound of a mosquito sailing past his ear he decides against this, clutching furiously at the insect; but when he opens his clenched fist nothing is there. His sense of grievance increased by the mosquito’s escape, he goes on and pushes through the panels into his wife’s room, which contains the only full-length mirror in the house.
There is total darkness and silence in here. Although this is only what he expects, he’s held up for a moment, stopping just inside the spring flaps of the door. His eyes quickly accommodate themselves to the blackness. He makes out the paler shadowy blur of the mosquito net over the bed, and, near it, something like a huge shining eye, which is the glint of the looking-glass on the wall. He calls the girl’s name, and, getting no answer, calls again, more loudly and aggressively, adding: ‘Come on — you can’t fool me! I know you’re only pretending to be asleep!’ Still there’s only silence, which seems more profound after his interruption.
He now feels both violent and slightly muzzy, which is the maximum effect alcohol has upon him. He is far from clear in his own mind whether it is his wife or the mirror he wants, and means to have, but, as both are in the same direction, he takes a step forward, at once colliding painfully with a chair. Bursting into floods of obscenity, he stands rubbing his shins. From the bed there is still no sound — there might be nobody in it.
This thought emerging from his muddled brain, he starts forward to investigate, having already forgotten the chair, into which he stumbles again.
‘You put that there on purpose to trip me up!’ he shouts accusingly and, as it happens, correctly. Then, gripping the chair in one hand, he swings it high in the air, and, without aiming precisely at anything, hurls it across the room. A tremendous crash follows, and then the prolonged tinkle of falling glass. The chair has crashed into the mirror and smashed it to smithereens, which sobers him up slightly. He feels a fugitive, remote guilt connected with the destruction of the glittering eye on the wall. Now that it’s gone, as no sign of life comes from the bed, there seems no reason to stay in the room any longer. He turns, feels his way out between the panels, crosses the central room, and retires into his own.
Except for an occasional deep barking boom, the frogs are now quiet outside. The night is more than half over, but it’s still as hot as a furnace, black and oppressive, as all the nights are. Its silence, which is no silence, but a pulsating of countless insects, is now and then disturbed by the cry of some unspecified animal, and punctuated more regularly by that batrachian booming.
Under the mosquito net the naked figure, with its fur-like covering, lies sprawled, flat on its back, legs splayed wide for coolness and the soles of the feet on view, black with dirt from the floor. Sleep has suddenly overtaken the man, whose head, just off the pillow, is tilted back, with the mouth half open. His hands lie loose and relaxed at his sides, having relinquished the objects they held when sleep, overwhelmed him. The glass has lodged in the grimy folds of the net, stained by the blood of endless intruders and now also by the dregs of whisky the glass contained. The book has fallen face down from his other hand, where he opened it at random and was overcome by sleep before he could read the words he wouldn’t have taken in anyhow. Cover upwards, the tarnished cross upside down, its thin pages are crumpled and folded in deep creases which will never come out.
The light, forgotten, burns on in the silent room, in the midst of the circling suicidal throng of creatures attracted to it.
7