1
I have been installed in one of the rooms on the top floor here in the hotel. Everything went according to plan, just as it had been run through for us beforehand, on the lines explained in the brochures we received with our enrolment forms.
None of us had expected that it would happen so painlessly. I mean that both literally and metaphorically. We had unconsciously thought in terms of something more drastic, a radical transformation, with every single object showing traces of what had occurred, the furniture and the walls changing character and the view outside our window revealing a totally different world.
Nevertheless we feel the changes somewhere in ourselves. The state of panic and anticipation is over and has been replaced by complete deafness, not just of the ears but of the whole body, a sense of exhaustion or deep-seated dizziness. We cannot get up from a chair to go to the door without being aware of this, yet no one among us can control it. Everything has changed, yet we search for one single detail which has in fact been altered. It is like a wavering convalescence between sickness and death.
The management has impressed on us that we ought not to feel secure. Even though we have stayed a sufficient length of time in the shelters under the hotel, even though all the offices, passages, bedrooms and reception rooms have been washed down and checked by the security men, including the hotel’s immediate surroundings, all the guests have been issued with a dosemeter and are obliged to enter up the amount of radiation they have received each day. Radiation meters have been put up all over the hotel, on the sunshine roof and on every floor. They are read at regular intervals.
There is of course no danger of the guests feeling secure. When the management uses this expression, it is not because they are incapable of putting themselves in the guests’ position, but because they choose simple, straightforward language, partly to reassure themselves and partly to remind us of the impersonal tone of the brochure. When all is said and done, management and guests are faced with precisely the same situation.
The furniture in my room was stored for safety in the cellar, even the mirror, the bookshelves and the prints on the wall. Everything was brought up and the room was arranged before I moved in.
A bed, a table, two chairs, a lamp, a wardrobe. A garden by Monet with poppies, redder than red, and a brilliant but soft light, an attempt to catch the light of a childhood memory. A head by Klee, blank as a mask, but cunning, gleaming like a huge melon, at once friendly and frightening. The management has said that people can have their pictures changed if they find them unsuitable, or trade them with their neighbours if they just want a temporary rearrangement. Between the two pictures hangs the mirror, where you can check your own face, without, however, having the opportunity of getting that changed.
I have been thinking over one of the points mentioned in the brochure: “A physical aspect of radioactive destruction is the transformation of elements. For instance, take radioactive phosphorus, P-32. This isotope is converted by the transmission of a Beta particle into stable sulphur. It is not difficult to imagine the confusion that will arise…”
Was it this warning that convinced us that the things most familiar to us would, after the disaster, be the most alien? That phosphorus would tumble down the table of elements and turn into sulphur, that something with the appearance of a recognized metal would prove to be something quite different with altogether different properties, that stone would no longer be stone and air no longer air, so that to find a person turned into a pillar of salt would be no longer a myth but a reality.
Did we believe that we would find a wooden table transformed into spongy pulp, the surface of a mirror into impalpable phosphorescent light? Did we imagine that the door-handle would crumble beneath our touch, or the glass window-panes collapse into a heap of burning silica, that cloth would become as rigid as steel plates and a bunch of fruit would splinter in our hands like china? Did we expect that the molecules of the air would be as sharp as crystals and that our own skin would turn into something dark and glazed, nothing to do with ourselves at all?
We did not envisage quite such a ruthless change in our environment. But one of the reasons for our feelings of weakness may be that things have retained their outward appearance, now that the disaster has happened. Without knowing it, we put our faith in the disaster; we thought that our panic would be justified if we had to use symbols as violent as those our imagination needed earlier.
But we came back from our stay in the shelters to find a world changed less than a summer thunderstorm would have changed it. And now when we have a profound need for imagination and insight, none of us seems to have the power to satisfy it.
Within twenty-four hours of our return to the hotel everyone has been busy—or has made himself busy—with the arrangement of the furniture, comparing pictures and the position of the various rooms.
Outside the sun has been shining through a thin layer of cloud, but there has been no sign of rain, which, according to the radiation experts, ought to reassure us.
2
We were called down to the lounge early in the morning. The message came over the hotel’s loudspeaker system, which evidently works so that it can broadcast this type of command even when the individual loudspeakers are switched off. When I use the word “command” I am not trying to suggest any feeling of opposition on my part, but I do find that this arrangement discriminates against the individual guest. And yet I have my doubts about this; the system may be essential for us all, it is merely the use of it in this instance that I object to.
The management informed us that in a few days they would be sending out a group of reconnaissance men, who would investigate the possibilities of making contact with other groups in those districts neither totally destroyed nor still danger areas because of the risk of radiation.
The reconnaissance men would take with them long-range microphone equipment and every morning the management would inform us what calculations and observations they had made the previous day.
The patrol would of course be equipped with the necessary protective clothing, but the attempt to make it motorized had been abandoned. According to the last radio reports we received in the shelters the entire highway network has been destroyed. There was talk of using small scooters, but these are really better suited to shorter distances and the problem of fuel would be difficult to solve.
The group turns out to consist of a radiation expert, a doctor and a few volunteers, who, so far as I know, offered their services while we were still underground in the shelters. Quite naturally younger men have been preferred for this assignment.
Since what the group will find in the way of undamaged foodstuffs cannot be predicted, they are taking tinned goods with them, but because of the weight they cannot be given drink to last for more than a few days. The management and the scouts themselves pin their faith to the underground fresh-water supplies marked on the map. In my view there is good reason to believe that these water installations have been destroyed—or if they are intact, they will already have been used. The map showing the underground water storage facilities was sent out officially several years ago.
It seemed to me on the whole that the group of scouts was rather optimistic in its judgement. Of course the individual members have been specially selected and the nature of their assignment may give a boost to their ability, or perhaps their discretion, but on the other hand, they represent nobody but themselves, and if they were to do something foolish the effect on the hotel’s guests and management would be incalculable. According to the full plan, as presented in the brochure, it was intended to send out an individual group of reconnaissance men only if all forms of public communication had failed. But I thought it was best not to express my private doubts at the first meeting.
One of the guests suggested that the reconnaissance men’s reports should be transmitted direct via the hotel’s loudspeaker system, and even though the suggestion was meant seriously, it aroused considerable merriment and shaking of heads. Of course the idea was in itself melodramatic, but it is important that guests should suggest alternatives that can be discussed.
The hotel doctor told us that he wanted samples of urine from each of us several times a week in order to compare the results with the recordings on the dosemeter. One of the women suddenly collapsed across the table in front of her in a fit of hysteria. She stared at the doctor when he wanted to help her and continued to shake her head while she repeated that there was nothing wrong with her urine, that she would not allow her urine to be examined and that there had been nothing in the brochure about this type of examination.
She was quietly taken away and the doctor gave her a sedative injection. I sought her out later on, when I discovered that she lived in the room opposite mine. She lay there half asleep and wanted to hold my hand in her two hands, which were moist and warm, but her thoughts were tranquillized and she no longer saw anything nerve-shattering in the doctor’s announcement; she had apparently almost forgotten what had happened in the lounge.
The woman’s reaction is understandable. What is less understandable is the way the rest of us keep such an inflexibly stiff upper lip without relaxing in argument or giving way to laughter and irritation. Her outburst seems to me more natural than our self-control. It means that neither her imagination nor her sensibility is gagged and bound, as ours are.
And I should like to question further whether we ourselves are in a fit condition to examine all the pros and cons about sending out the reconnaissance men or to make decisions about our future existence? Whether we are not in danger of atrophy, because we are inhibited from reacting outside the lines of the brochure? Whether we shall be able to master our own personalities, if we have suppressed those impulses that make us imaginative and active, irritable and insecure, but better able, when necessary, to make value judgements?
I include myself in these observations, because I go about preoccupied with the coppery-green colour of the carpet, which annoys me, and the noise from the room next door which impinges on me against my will. The armchair is the only item of furniture in the room which gives me satisfaction. Even the mirror has a frame which makes it clash with the rest of the furnishings.
All these details obsess me to a degree that makes me surprised and uneasy. My only consolation is that everything is still so new that what happened can neither be comprehended by reason nor has it yet been able to penetrate the subconscious.
3
For the first time today we were able to go outside the hotel. When we came back from the shelters I met some of the security men, who, equipped with Geiger counters, gas-masks and coarse, shiny protective clothing have been allowed into the grounds and the area around the buildings which has been sluiced down.
The flagstones leading down to the grounds and out to sea have all been turned over, the great cactus plants washed and the soil between them dug up, the flowers have been cut down and ploughed into their own flower-beds, the bushes hosed with water and turned upside down on to the lawns, every single blade of grass has been turned inside out like the fingers of a glove, if the security men’s descriptions are to be believed.
Therefore the landscape is brown, the soil is breaking up everywhere, but the great plate-like cactus leaves gleam green, and the foliage of the bushes shines as if it were artificial. The furrowed cliffs that tower above the land down by the sea have been scrubbed clean of vegetation and spattered with earth and water.
A short distance away from the hotel’s private grounds the landscape appears to be quite unspoiled. The colours alternate between green and grey, but the security men have taken readings there and they maintain that to stay there would be like living in an atmosphere of sulphuric acid. It is only because there is a lull in the wind and no danger of dust from the surrounding country blowing in over the hotel that it is possible for us to be taken outside even now.
We moved round the grounds as if we wanted to test whether the paths would bear our weight, inspecting the cactus plants and the heaps of stones. No one ventured too far away from the rest of the group but followed the route as marked to the observation point looking down over the beach, and then back to the front steps of the hotel.
No one spoke much; everyone wore an overcoat and quite a few had handkerchiefs round their mouths, even though the security men had said that this was not necessary. A chill feeling of anxiety hung over us all, forcing us to keep together close behind the man who carried the radiation meter.
I followed with the woman I spoke of yesterday. She joined me, saying nothing but giving me a brief smile, and when we came near the observation point I offered her my arm. She seems to me to be still restless, not only because of what happened yesterday but because a slight anxiety and insecurity are fundamental to her nature. Thus she is able to face the world outside without the sleepwalker’s confidence that characterizes the rest of us, which, although it enables us to take action, at the same time prevents us from questioning our behaviour and its motives.
We did not exchange many words, but we were aware in the same moment of a shared emotion when the sea suddenly appeared, stretched out before us on our right. Not because the sea was changed, but perhaps because in that moment the change in ourselves stood clearly revealed. A limitless, cooled-down desert filled with colourless gleams of sun. Only close inland by the cliffs could you follow the movement of the water—as if the speed and formation of the waves had been slowed down because of the height of the observation point above the beach.
The sight of the Atlantic Ocean, which chilled me so profoundly, gave me my first realization of what had happened. Yet this had nothing to do with the disaster; on the contrary, this was the last place one would expect to find traces of it. The ploughed-up grounds, the washed-down cactus plants, the churned-up flower-beds, all these changes affected me less than the wholly inalterable sea.
On the way back we met the other party, also wearing long overcoats and looking pale and uneasy but less silent than we who had already seen the ocean.
4
The day we came up from the shelters four people were found dead on the steps of the hotel.
It was apparently not intended that the guests should be informed about this, but one of the security men let the cat out of the bag. He described how he was there when the corpses were taken away and buried. When the last one was lifted up the hair fell down on to the steps, almost like a complete wig. It was the body of a young woman; her face was swollen and her body was covered with small, pimpled sores. The three others were men; their bodies showed no injury, but one of them had small sores on his chest like those of the woman. They must have believed they could get help from the hotel and had lain down on the steps when no one answered their knocking. They undoubtedly came from the villages nearby, which lie about ten kilometres inland. They had all died of radiation sickness.
* * *
I am opposed to the management’s decision to suppress the news of the four dead bodies. By doing this the management has assumed the role of a superior authority to which it has no right. It is arguable that this time the encroachment is of no great significance, that the secrecy is unimportant and may even have been dictated by consideration, but I am against this line of reasoning.
If the hotel management see themselves as a protective shield between the guests and the outside world, whenever that world is revealed as menacing, they are acting in direct contradiction of their terms of reference. To be a guarantee of help in a situation which may well turn out to be total chaos, according to the unhelpful wording of the brochure, does not mean that to conceal the true facts becomes a duty.
I have discussed this with my neighbours and some of the other guests here in the hotel and they do not disagree with me, even if they feel that I attach too much importance to one small incident.
When I put my name down for the hotel a few years ago, as a guarantee of help, it was because of the hotel’s remote situation, its subterranean provision stores, its access to an uncontaminated water supply, its protective shelters and its assurances about security men and reconnaissance parties. I did not pay the initiation fee and the high monthly instalments in order to be placed in statu pupillari and be deprived of the chance of assessing the situation around me.
But perhaps a good many of the guests at Termush are relieved to be spared the harrowing details. Living at Termush does not prove that one is more interested in the world outside than people are in general. What was important when we first enrolled was access to protected accommodation, a hotel with trained staff, stores and a motor yacht lying ready to transport the guests away from this country, should it later become uninhabitable.
Everything was prepared. Even a Noah’s ark to take the chosen specimens of humanity to a life in another corner of the globe, complete with gardens and spring water, where one could breathe the air and touch the flowers and fruit without risking fatal injury.
For me registration was a practical step which I was able to take because of my private capital.
Two out of the three times that the Termush establishment sent out emergency calls, they managed to cancel them, because the immediate danger of war had blown over. But we have stayed here once before; we were driven here by bus and brought back a few days later, when the crisis was over. There are a good many more guests now, perhaps because this time the summons took effect on a Friday and staying here could be regarded as a pleasant weekend, if it turned out to be a false alarm. The weather was warm and the sun shone powerfully from a cloudless sky. But the very first evening we were called down to the shelters. There was no doubt about it. No one could be in doubt about the situation any longer.
Copyright © 1967 by the Estate of Sven Holm & Gyldendal, Copenhagen
Copyright © 1969 by Sylvia Clayton
Copyright © 2023 by Jeff VanderMeer