I hammered on the door, feeling the rain run down my sleeves, bruising my knuckles against the ancient wood. At last, oh, at last the door opened. I felt warmth flow out over me, tasted that hot, dry taste, like burning dust that cakes the shelves in an old library.

​

“Oh God, thank you, thank you,” I gasped, “there’s been an accident. The car…it crashed…I …I can’t see.” I took a deep breath. “They were taking me to the hospital, you see, to …my eyes…I had a…problem…a year ago…a fire. It blinded me. I’m better, you understand, almost better. We crashed…I – I think they’re dead… I can’t see…”

 

The sound I remember from childhood: fingers-on-lips, a gentle sigh, and a calm, masculine voice. “Calm yourself. Come inside.” The voice was soft, but accentuated by the heavy, precise tone of Eastern Europe. There was a smile in his tone. Ironic. It made me think, that voice, think of a tall, melancholy man, in his mid thirties. A man who had travelled, who had seen things. He led me inside, my feet testing each

step.

 

“Let me shut the door,” he said.  I heard the door creak shut, felt the chill wind cease. “My name is Conrad. You are…?”

 

I told him that my name was Clara, not daring to utter my full name. I heard him repeat it a few times, but his voice faded, and was left to the wind. My hands groped for contact. I called to him, reminded him that I could not see.

 

“I’m here,” he whispered, and he took my hands in his. I felt his fingers play across my palms and I shivered. “Clara, there is blood on your hands.”

 

“Blood?” I lifted my hands level with my eyes, a futile effort. “Oh. I wanted to see if the driver was still alive. I checked his pulse. That was it.” I smiled.

 

“Come with me.” Forward; my hands in his. Stairs. It’s hard to go up and down stairs when you can’t look at your feet. Try it. He took me through a doorway, a spare bedroom I suppose it must have been, showed me to a bathroom, gave me a towel and some fresh clothes. I waited until he had gone, hearing the door click shut and no longer hearing his breath. I felt my way into the bathroom. The clothes were a man’s clothes: a cotton shirt, pressed trousers, a woollen jumper, and a pair of slippers which smelled old, but I was warm and dry. I felt safe.

 

When I was done, he led me back downstairs. Our journey ended in a warm room. I could hear the welcoming roar of a fire, taste the dry heat in the air. There were gas-lamps in the room, I could smell them and hear their subtle flickering. I sat and wondered if there was any way I could carry on to town, but no, Conrad had no car. Could I call a taxi, then? No, there was no telephone. Or could I just listen to the radio for a while? It’s very dull when you can’t see. It’s only when you can’t that you realise how much of your life you spend staring. We’re all voyeurs.

 

“There is no electricity in the house,” he explained. “There is no generator. I am sorry…” he paused, then added shyly, “I could read to you if you wish?”

 

I smiled in the general direction of his voice. “Thank you, I’d like that,” I told him. And so he read. I have no idea what it was he was reading, but his soft lilting voice carried me. I had no need to know. After a while, I don’t know how long, he stopped, his words trailing off into the endless dark.

 

“I am sorry my English…it is not good.”

 

“It’s very good,” I said. Then I asked, “What’s the time?”

 

“Five o’clock. Just past.”

 

“Morning?” I asked. “It’s Friday today, right? Oh at last.” I reached for the bandages over my eyes and slowly began peeling away the coarse fabric.

 

“What…are you doing?” he asked slowly.

 

I told him that this was the reason I was going to the hospital, as my fingers wound slowly around my head. It was time for me to see again. After six months in never-ending, consuming darkness, I was at last permitted to see. My time in the dark was finished. Light reached my aching sockets, and the brightness was as blinding as the night. I heard the creak of springs as Conrad stood up, and I heard his quiet protests, telling me not to look, please God, don’t look. But it was done.

 

I could make out his dark shape against the brightness of the flames: a thin dark figure. And, as the image sharpened, a pale face, with shining, sad black eyes, a widow’s veil melted into pools of night. Then I saw the mouth.

 

The sight stopped my heart.

 

Have you ever seen the smile stretched across the lips of the dead? Risus sardonicus. That’s what it’s called. The muscles in the face contort the mouth into a death’s head leer. I saw that smile then. Conrad wore the smile of the dead. His lips betrayed him.

I screamed, and he flung himself into a corner, shaking. I caught his arm and spoke to him quietly, uneasily. His answers were garbled, strange. He spoke of severed nerves. The nerves in his face wouldn’t work, so his muscles stayed taut. That was what he said, but his words meant little to me. I suppose it must have been some accident, in birth or in later life. I couldn’t…I can’t understand. To me he was dead before his time: alive whilst Death laughed through him. And over and over again he was whispering, why did I have to look at him?

Poor Conrad, hiding away from the world in this ghastly, lonely place. His choice prison wreathed in forest. I felt so guilty, what could I do? So I told him. Told him who I was. How I’d caused the crash. How I was trying to get away from the asylum. I told him how I’d caused the fire that blinded me, too, how you all called me a pyromaniac. Called me mad.

 

“I know,” he said. But how could he know? He knew because he had been told, he explained to me. He told me everything. Everything. About the phone-call he had received. Yes, he did have a phone, he had lied to me. A phone-call from the asylum, warning him about the van which would pass through, the van with me in it. They didn’t trust me, thought I would attempt my escape. His house was the only one for miles around. I was bound to search for shelter. I found it. Conrad’s duty was to keep me in the house until he could call another van to pick me up.

 

I was so angry. And when I’m angry I set fire to things, you know that. I didn’t mean to hurt him. He lied to me. I’m sorry that he ended up in hospital. Were his burns bad, doctor? I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to. I rather liked him, you see. I know he’s not a bad person. But you have to understand, doctor, I had no choice. Is he okay? Is Conrad okay?