Who Are You? by Anna Kavan Page A

re-living that first afternoon, having the same identical conversation ad infinitum. Though she won't admit it, at the back of her mind is a constant dread of some fatal nightmare moment when everything will have to stop. But this fear is too formless and too obscure to put into words, so she never mentions it to him.
    'We'll have to go very soon, if we're ever going,' he now remarks, with fresh urgency. 'It's impossible to go anywhere once the rains break.'
    With passing surprise, she perceives that even the frightful heat has become unimportant to her lately. But now that she thinks of the weather she feels the added oppressiveness in the air and a new undercurrent of tension, like electricity — almost like something about to explode. She's still searching for a reply that won't displease him when, to her relief, a brain-fever bird in the tamarinds calls out so loudly that she can't be expected to say anything till it stops.
    Who-are-you? Who-are-you ? Who-are-you ? echoes another bird, in flight seemingly, the question getting louder and louder as it approaches; it flaps and flutters among the green clusters of the banana trees just outside, shouts, Who-are-you ? right into the room, then flies off again, still calling out at the top of its voice the question nobody ever answers, which is repeated by all the other brain-fever birds for miles around.
    Who-are-you ? Who-are-you ? Who-are-you ? The mounting volume of noise comes from both sides of the house, from the back, from the front, from the compound, the road, the swamp, the trees, from everywhere at once. Hundreds, thousands of birds are all shouting their heads off the girl's never heard them make such a racket. The frantic cries sound to her not only demented but threatening, so that she feels uneasy. Some of them seem to sound distinctly ominous. Yet she must imagine this, for, in reality, all the cries are exactly alike. All have the same infuriating, monotonous, unstoppable persistence; all sound equally mechanical, motiveless, not expressing anger, or fear, or love, or any - sort of avian feeling - their sole function seems to be
to drive people mad.
    No human voice can compete with the din. The two under the fan have to sit helplessly, waiting for the row to subside. Suede Boots smiles, and she, disguising the uneasiness she can't get rid of, smiles back. Her hands have instinctively covered her ears, but she lowers them with the intention of asking if all the birds have gone suddenly crazy. At the same moment, however, she notices that he is no longer smiling.
    He has already heard the new sound she is only just catching, which is also mechanical and monotonous and has the same inexorable persistence common to all machine-made noise, that goes on and on, indifferent to everything. It's not easy to follow the low hum, or rumble, through the delirious pandemonium of the birds' repetitive questions. Hardly has she recognized it as the sound of an approaching car than it stops
    Everything stops with it. Or so it seems. The birds' (Ties, at any rate, are abruptly cut off, and it's impossible to tell whether they've been interrupted by the car, or whether their explosive outburst has come to its natural conclusion. In the sudden silence, the footsteps which can be heard steadily coming nearer sound unnaturally loud. Beating on the stone floor with the terrifying, inflexible regularity of a machine nobody can stop, they progress towards the door, the flaps of which fly apart to admit Mr Dog Head.
    He stands a few paces away, staring at the pair. His cold, very bright blue eyes have a glint that seems not quite normal. His hat has left a red ring round his forehead; it might be the diadem of a prince to judge by his haughty, domineering expression. No one speaks or moves. All three of them seem held in suspense, as if mesmerized. Only the fan continues its lackadaisical circling, the high squeak it emits with each revolution now piercingly loud.
    This of course is