Aminadab 0803213131 (28 page)

"Close the door)" he said) realizing he could not penetrate the shadows. "That's enough for today." The girl closed the door) and Thomas stopped paying attention to her. He thought about what she had said) but he could not overcome his fa tigue. So he stood up to leave) putting off until later the conclusion that he would have to draw from this conversation. He stood motionless for a moment; the room seemed to him surprisingly low and cramped; thus it seemed to him) now that he was standing) that he was contemplating it from high above) and that his head had gone up through the ceiling) and he could no longer tell what was happening down at his feet. When he tried to look up) his eyes grew dim) and he fell ponderously to the floor. After this fall) Thomas sank into a long period of illness) and he could no longer remember anything that happened. Only during the course of his convalescence did he look around at the room that enclosed him and at the bed where he lay. The room was large and bright; several paintings hung on the walls) and on the table there was a carafe next to a glass half filled with water. Thomas sat up and drank the fresh water with pleasure; his lips still burned; his eyes were aching. He had certainly been very ill. Nevertheless) he left the room) and surprised by the calm and silence that reigned in this· part of the house) he hesitated to go any farther. Across from his room he saw a half-opened door; someone must have been in the room) for he heard footsteps now and then. He crossed the wide hallway and went in) but when he saw a woman half hidden behind an armchair) he hastily excused himself. Yet he remained standing in the doorway. The room seemed immense. It was divided into three sections) separated from one another by two sets of steps that ran the width of the room; at the far end) there was a narrow bed) hidden by a curtain) whose miserable ap pearance clashed with the rest of the furnishings. After observing these details) Thomas thought that he had lingered too long to go away with out saying a few polite words) and he asked if there were not a domestic somewhere nearby whom he might call on) since) having recently been ill) it was still difficult to do without the service. The young woman turned slowly) and her gaze) sad and lovely) fell on the half-opened door. Would she answer him? While he listened intently with a slight apprehension) not knowing whether after the silence of a long illness he could bear the sound of another voice) the young woman) as if she had guessed what fear was troubling him) turned away) walked a short distance in the other direc1 55

tion, and sat down on a stool next to the first steps. At first, Thomas did not know how to interpret such an attitude. Finally, he took a few steps himself and saw that the room was even more vast than he had thought. The ceiling was very high; it was supported by columns built into recesses in the wall, and it rose in the form of a vault that soon vanished into the heights. After looking upward, he had difficulty, when he lowered his eyes, estimating the limits of the large room; he was as though lost in an infinite space; he looked around in vain for the objects that had served as points of reference for him. To escape from this impression of emptiness, he sat down on a beautiful chair covered with velvet, and he felt how much his ill ness had deprived him of his strength; he was exhausted, and this rest, far from relieving his fatigue, weighed down his limbs and made them ache. After a few moments, he fell into a brief sleep that only intensified his feel ing of confusion, for he dreamed of the vast room he had entered, in which he wandered alone, threatened at every moment with being driven away. When he woke, he felt stronger, and he walked out. He was glad at first to be back in his room. Its atmosphere was mild and pleasant. But when he called out in a loud voice, he went back to the doorway to see what kind of person would be sent to him. The hallway, though high and wide, was dark; it was lit only by a few rays oflight coming through large sliding panels on each side. He waited for a long time, lean ing his back against the wall, his head bent forward, as if he had fallen asleep while on guard duty. Then the door across the way opened, and the young woman said, without leaving her room: "Why don't you answer? I called to you several times." Were these words really meant for Thomas? They sounded like words addressed to a servant, and their tone was harsh and contemptuous. He did not move; avoiding her question, he said: "I myself am waiting for a domestic." The young woman paid no attention to this remark and turned back into her room without dosing the door. Thomas, for his part, went back to his room. But hardly was he on the threshold, when he noticed that it was far from being as comfortable as it had appeared to him during the long hours of his fever. There was no chair, the table was ridiculously small, and the too spacious bed was covered in black-and-white sheets that forced one's eyes away. It was a sick person's room. He therefore gave up trying to find any rest there, and, greatly worried, he went to see his neighbor. She

was standing in the entrance to the room, her arms calmly at her sides. She was quite young, but her youth did not make their relations any easier; as near as she was, she remained distant. "There you are at last," she said to Thomas. "Your service leaves much to be desired." Surprising words. After giving him a little time to acknowledge and to understand her rep rimand, she added: "What you can do now is make me forget your lapse. Get to work and don't waste any time." With an authoritarian gesture, but without any real severity, she dis missed him. Then she withdrew into a corner of the room, slightly behind the little stool where she had sat down at the end of their first meeting. Thomas hurried from the room and went down the hall to find the equipment he needed. He had to walk quite a distance. As he had imag ined, this corridor was monumental. Almost completely covered in dark ness, he noticed as he went that it did not in any way resemble an ordinary hallway; rather it had the appearance of a huge underground tunnel whose ceiling was invisible and which numerous recesses, enormous pipes, and deep holes carved out of the floor - revealing wooden pillars and iron beams - transformed into a silent catacomb. In a small side room Thomas found a broom, a bucket, and a dust cloth, and he set to work. The floor was paved with stones, but it was covered with a thick crust of dirt that could only be removed by scraping it with a shovel or a pickaxe; since Thomas had no such tools, he settled for sweeping it with heavy strokes, casting to either side the largest and most visible detritus. He raised a lot of dust; a sort of red mold with an acrid smell permeated the atmosphere and slowly drifted back down, sticking to everything. Although he put great care and attention into his work, he soon came to the end of it, reaching the spot where wooden planks replaced the paving stones and the dirt. A little farther along was the room. He could therefore consider his task complete. Nevertheless, not wanting it to be known officially that he was finished, he continued to sweep in front of the doors of the two rooms, without paying attention to the red streaks he was leaving on the wooden floor. What he feared, though it was the direct result of his efforts, soon occurred. The young woman, drawn by the noise - Thomas was violently knocking his broom against the wall - came out and shot a look of silent disapproval at him. He must have presented a sorry sight: the dust he had 157

raised had stuck to his clothes and probably covered his face and hair as well; the bucket lay overturned on the floor- fortunately it was empty and the rag, made of two pieces ripped from a morning coat, was lying soaked in slimy mud. Thomas therefore expected a harsh reprimand. But the young woman did not deign to pass judgment on a piece of work that spoke so clearly for itself, and after going back to the room, she said to him through the door, as if he were no longer worthy of being addressed face to face: "During your absence you were the subject of a communication concerning the affair in which you are a witness. It has been made known to you, then, that for the time being you will have to fulfill the functions of the two employees." What an unpleasant tone of voice! While listening to this voice, he sensed in its words an inexorable meaning that was perhaps not contained in the words themselves; but at the same time, he was glad that the judgment had been pronounced by her, in all its truth and all its force, such that once it had been expressed, it seemed there was no longer anything to fear from it. Thomas reflected for a long time on these words. Then, taking up his work again, he tried to clean up the mess he had made. Seeing that his efforts had little result -the moldy dust had become encrusted in the slats of the floor, and the more he scrubbed, the more they turned black - he went to put the broom and the bucket away and returned to his room to shake off the dust that covered his clothes. Coming back out into the corridor, he noticed that the door opposite was closed. That was something new. The door was hermetically sealed. He pressed his ear against it without hear ing the slightest noise. He bent down to the floor to look for a ray of light, but a large rolled up cloth blocked every crack. As with many doors in the house, there was neither a latch nor a lock, and it could only be opened from the inside. He stood with his forehead pressed against the doorframe. Hours passed, but he could not resign himself to knocking; nothing drew him into the room; nothing drew him outside it; he had a feeling of empti ness and distress that came over him more painfully than any illness and that made him wish he could bury his sorrow and forget his very name. How forbidding everything was here! What strange colors things had, how heavy was the silence! He would have liked to push it away and at the same time to find nothing other than himself. After a long while his knees gave way, and he fell to the floor. He could no doubt be heard from inside, for the young woman - it

could only be her, though he did not recognize her voice - asked who was there. How could he answer her? "Open the door," he said, without going any further. Before he had time to get up, the door was open. "You again," said the young woman in her disdainful voice, and she looked at him very attentively, as if to convince herself that he had not changed. Thomas thought that, yet again, he was not showing himself to his best advantage; he was partly lying on the floor -the door had made him lose his balance when it opened - and he had fallen so clumsily that he was un able to raise his head to look at the person in front of him. He struggled, and in his disarray he asked for help, forgetting whom he was addressing. The young woman held out her hand to him, and he managed to rise to his knees. "Could I stay here a few moments?" he asked her boldly. "Your service is limited to the vestibule," she answered evasively. "Per haps later you will also have to take care of the rooms." Thomas made a motion to straighten up, but he was so bruised from his fall that he still needed help, and once he was standing, he had to lean against the door for support. So he remained there, uncertain and mis erable, without leaving the room, and his hesitations only succeeded in making the woman more impatient. After backing away a few steps, she approached again and asked if there was anything in particular that he had to tell her. "No," he answered. "In that case," she said, "I must ask you to return to your service." Thomas did not raise his eyes; he only noticed that the floor was marked with the dirty stains he had left from falling and climbing to his knees. "I have," he said, "a little more work to do here. These spots outside need to be cleaned away. I will return momentarily." He went to get his cleaning equipment and began to scrub the floor with the rag. But the marks would not come off. Attributing the ineffec tiveness of his efforts to a lack of energy, he took off his long work coat and threw himself into his task. The floor began to shine; the spots were still visible, but they seemed more like points of gleaming brightness than unpleasant remnants. Encouraged by these results, he went on to scrub the entire room, to which he tried to give the same shining appearance. 1 59

It was quite a piece of work! The room only appeared to be well kept. If one looked closely at the furniture, it was clear that it could benefit from being scrubbed and polished. So he continued his efforts, first by taking on a writing desk. It was only a lounge piece, made of a fragile wood that had been finely engraved, and it was impossible to reach the dust that had settled into the small grooves. He had to pull from the broom a thin stalk that he used to scrape out the lines sculpted into the wood; but the work was even more delicate than he thought: as he cleared out the thin grooves, he would find still others that were even finer, which he had at first overlooked, and when his eye could no longer distinguish anything, the needle-shaped stalk in its turn found invisible etchings that it slowly brought to light. This little piece of wood soon became unusable. Since he did not want to lose his place to go get another one from the broom, he asked his neighbor to please lend him a needle. The young woman, who seemed to be right next to him - probably bent over the desk to survey the progress of his work - placed in his hand a tiny point that was so small he could hardly take hold of it; its shiny reflection was the only thing to keep him from losing sight of it altogether. With this new tool, he con tinued to cut out the lines on the table; their elaborate interlacing seemed to become more and more dense; he strayed farther and farther from his point of departure, and the circles he traced were like the many paths of a labyrinth with no way out. At times he thought he had made a mistake and would have to start everything over, then the point that looked like the sparkle of a diamond led him into another path whose curling movements passed around the obstacles, leaving a bright mark that shone like a bea con. It was impossible for him to gauge the time required for the work. At times he thought he had spent hours and days cutting out a single groove; at other times it seemed to him that he was only in the very first stages, and he still had all the courage that comes at the beginning of a task. Thus he had no idea how long he had been working when the young woman made a remark. Was it a compliment, a reprimand? Absorbed as he was, he could not say. Suddenly, he realized what she had said: "The work is done." Well, then, he was finished; there was some satisfaction in that after all. He moved back a little, and the entire design that he had traced ac cording to the model appeared to him in a soft, sweet light; each line had received from the diamond point a few particles of light that made them sparkle. This drawing did not, strictly speaking, make much sense; it was 160