Lizard and Maisie’s Lost Future

The Narrow Road to the Deep North

This flow follows Lizard Brancussi’s reliance on a drawn image of Maisie and the devastation of learning that his imagined reunion cannot happen.

increasing

Bearing strength in each event

decreasing

A Face in Pencil A Face in Pencil from "The Narrow Road to the Deep North". A Substitute Portrait A Photograph Fades The photograph of Maisie Brancussi cracks and loses its image.

A Face in Pencil from "The Narrow Road to the Deep North". A Substitute Portrait A Photograph Fades The photograph of Maisie Brancussi cracks and loses its image.

A Substitute Portrait A Photograph Fades The photograph of Maisie Brancussi cracks and loses its image. Rabbit Hendricks sketches a replacement from memory and observation. Love in an Image Lizard accepts the drawing as a better likeness, even though its changes trouble him. The picture becomes a portable assurance that his wife remains present.

The Sketch Travels The Sketch Travels from "The Narrow Road to the Deep North". A Picture Carried Forward Protection in Memory Lizard Brancussi carries the sketch through surrender and forced labour.

The Sketch Travels from "The Narrow Road to the Deep North". A Picture Carried Forward Protection in Memory Lizard Brancussi carries the sketch through surrender and forced labour.

A Picture Carried Forward Protection in Memory Lizard Brancussi carries the sketch through surrender and forced labour. It lets him imagine Maisie while the world around him strips away familiar life. A Fragile Connection The portrait is not the person herself, but it helps preserve a reason to endure. Its importance grows as other forms of home disappear.

The Bomb at Nagasaki The Bomb at Nagasaki from "The Narrow Road to the Deep North". A City Destroyed Survival in the Hills Lizard Brancussi survives the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and walks through a landscape of fire, injury, and bodies.

The Bomb at Nagasaki from "The Narrow Road to the Deep North". A City Destroyed Survival in the Hills Lizard Brancussi survives the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and walks through a landscape of fire, injury, and bodies.

A City Destroyed Survival in the Hills Lizard Brancussi survives the atomic bombing of Nagasaki and walks through a landscape of fire, injury, and bodies. He keeps trying to see Maisie’s drawn face as an alternative to the destruction. A Last Anchor The sketch helps him endure the immediate aftermath. His hope is now concentrated in the possibility of calling home.

A Voice Answers A Voice Answers from "The Narrow Road to the Deep North". The Call Home A Name in the Receiver Lizard Brancussi phones home and hears a man identify himself as Dave.

A Voice Answers from "The Narrow Road to the Deep North". The Call Home A Name in the Receiver Lizard Brancussi phones home and hears a man identify himself as Dave.

The Call Home A Name in the Receiver Lizard Brancussi phones home and hears a man identify himself as Dave. He realizes that Maisie’s life has continued without him and that he has no place in it. Departure from the World He hangs up and later disappears over the side of a ship. The reunion he carried in his mind proves impossible to reach.

The Unfinished Farewell The Unfinished Farewell from "The Narrow Road to the Deep North". An Absence Made Permanent No Return Lizard Brancussi is never found after leaving the ship.

The Unfinished Farewell from "The Narrow Road to the Deep North". An Absence Made Permanent No Return Lizard Brancussi is never found after leaving the ship.

An Absence Made Permanent No Return Lizard Brancussi is never found after leaving the ship. The sketch has sustained his hope, but it cannot reconcile him to the life he encounters. A Story Held by Others The former prisoners later remember his disappearance as a grief too painful to repeat. His fate shows how survival can end not with homecoming but with an inability to begin again.

During the Syrian campaign, as Rabbit draws the soldiers

From the Syrian campaign through the railway camps

In August 1945, during forced labour in Nagasaki

After the war, when Lizard reaches Fremantle

After the ship leaves Fremantle, during Lizard’s final disappearance