Flaw (16 page)

He had to inform his wife as soon as possible, so he waited for a single moment of quiet and calm – but in vain. In his apartment the storm raged unabated. His wife had quarreled with the maid about the chicken, the last wing from which had been given to the little girl when she woke from her long afternoon nap. A chicken had two lower quarters and two upper quarters. What had happened, then, to the carefully divided whole, of which three fourths were missing? As she conducted her investigation, the notary's wife was already partly aware of the scandalous truth. It had already come to her attention that the concierge had seen the policeman – who would have thought it, looking at that pudgy, lumbering maid – slipping out of the house down the service stairs, his uniform unfastened, a portion of chicken in his hand. It was not that three quarters of a chicken had gone missing, though that in itself was an absolutely unacceptable loss. The point, briefly put, concerned much more significant moral damage, things that one could not close one's eyes to, that were an offense to decency. The lady of the house had suffered terribly; her confidence had been abused
and her home brought into disrepute. She did not have to tolerate vice under her roof a moment longer. She cared nothing for any other consideration; her conscience was clear.

But before the maid was given her notice, the son returned unexpectedly, frozen to the marrow, his nose and ears almost dropping off with cold, and with cracked glasses. When he appeared in the doorway the domestic argument, which had been going on since morning, dissolved temporarily in tears of relief. The lady and the maid spontaneously fell into one another's arms. Without wasting a moment, they lit the stove, heated the broth, and mixed up some egg yolks and sugar. The little girl came running in and clambered onto her brother's lap to warm his nose and ears with her sticky little hands. The notary, making a display of sternness, demanded the return of the revolver, which, however, proved impossible – the gun had remained on the roof, in the hands of the unpredictable news-boy from number eight, a notorious hooligan. All that could be done was to reassure the general that the chamber contained only a single bullet, as the notary knew best of all: he was keeping that bullet for himself, just in case he finally grew sick of life. One bullet was not a lot, but it was also far too much, since any person could be hit by it. For this reason the entire staff attempted to stop the general from acting; action seemed to all of them to be just as dangerous as inaction. In principle the loaded revolver ought sooner or later to be fired, though they were counting on the imperfect nature of the rules and the fact
that from time to time they failed to operate. Maybe this rule too would not work – and even if it did, let it at least affect someone else. No one wished to part with life, including the notary, who had played the biggest role in bringing about the present situation and in fact was responsible for it. Each person had his own disagreeable notion of what might happen next. And because of all this no one knew what to do. To put an end to the disorder, a punitive expedition needed to be sent onto the roof. But the policeman had his own ideas; no longer young and carrying something of a belly, he preferred to announce over the megaphone that the newsboy's misbehavior would be for-given and his morning fine annulled if he agreed to come down from the roof. Why would he not listen, having just a moment ago been betrayed by his friend? So long as he too had someone to betray, all was not lost.

And when the business was brought to a successful conclusion – when the tearful washerwoman took her recalcitrant son off to the basement of number eight, and the general got his hands on the revolver – at that moment the conspiracy of local and outside boys was finally broken up. What belonged here was once again separated from what had arrived from else-where, and this was the first step in coming to grips with the disorder. For all concerned it would have been safer if the gun had been returned to the drawer from which it was taken. But such a solution, incompatible with the general's will, was no longer possible. As for other matters, in the opinion of the guardsmen
they were looking better and better. The children from the orphanage had nothing left to wait for, crouching half frozen on the roof of the government offices. They began waving a less than clean white handkerchief as a sign they had had enough. Held at gunpoint by the general just in case, they came off the roof one by one down the fire escape stairs into a circle of guards. Then, hands raised and eyes on the ground, in a huddled group they waited under escort in the middle of the square to see what would be decided in their case. Observed from a distance against the background of the grammar school coats – for example, from a window overlooking the street – even the tallest ones didn't seem so very big. Evidently not much was needed to put them in their place. The moment they began to get really cold they started to cower and sniff. If I am standing in the window, I believe that snuffling suits the orphans and matches their black armbands much better than running wild. The peaceful residents of the apartment buildings have a right to expect gazes fixed on the tips of shoes; they are entitled to count on quiet and humble behavior that does not clash insolently with the meaning of tight-fitting, frequently patched, threadbare little jackets. But in the question of the orphans, what on earth could be decided? They were taken to the shelter beneath the cinema, and that was all. There they could at last warm up, but on the other hand the crush was oppressive as they stood squashed between the overcoats of grown-ups. They could barely be heard as they whimpered about the lack of air.

If I am one of the residents watching from behind a lace curtain, the thought of the refugees locked up in the shelter does not worry me. Rather, I view everything as ending at its heavy door. The space that can be imagined on the other side doesn't even belong to this story. All I know is that the problem has ceased to exist, and the foreign body has been removed. The original state of affairs, which had lasted happily before the refugees arrived, has been restored. Having burst so obtrusively into the very middle of a familiar space that was neither large enough nor sufficiently well supplied for everyone, they had nevertheless finally been excluded from it, once and for all removed from the field of vision. What a relief it was for the residents. In this manner, before their very eyes, the story was heading towards an auspicious conclusion. Not a hair on anyone's head had been harmed and no one had suffered any wrong, aside from a few bruises and a certain amount of spilled blood.

In the meantime the row at the notary's house, which had died down for a moment, flared up again. Along with the return of the boy there had once more arisen the issue of the chicken quarters that before had not added up, and though the equation was finally balanced, the solution of the mystery led to further suspicions and further revelations. There was no end to the shouting. An answer was mercilessly demanded as to how the boy could have passed down the kitchen hallway unnoticed and then come back the same way carrying the pieces of chicken, the revolver under his jacket. Where was the maid at
that time? Why was the door of her room closed? Faced with such insistence from the lady of the house, the son eventually revealed what he had seen through the keyhole as he had been creeping into the kitchen: a student cap casually thrown onto a stool. And since the matter had come up, he tried to say what he had heard as he paused outside the locked door, but he was interrupted. It was already too much. Enough to give the maid her marching orders just like that, without discussion. Things had to end with a dismissal. Because if it was no longer a matter of circumstantial evidence but of a certainty, and if it wasn't just the policeman but also the student, there was no knowing who else there had been. The maid would not say who else for anything. If that came out too – she had lost hope of being able to conceal anything at all – she would swear she had only been sewing buttons onto uniforms. The lady of the house was at a loss for words. Words were superfluous; all that was needed was to tip the contents of the maid's trunk onto the kitchen table under the lamp to make sure nothing would be stolen – and such a possibility had to be taken into consideration since she had not shown a shred of decency. But no object from the household was found in the maid's things – not even a certain silver spoon that had gone missing from its set a couple of days before. It was in vain that the lady of the house ordered the girl to turn out her pockets; there was nothing there either. After that she no longer knew where else to look. The matter of the spoon was of no consequence to the notary; because of
the coup he had lost a great deal more, but since morning he had had time to come to terms with his losses, and by evening he was merely calculating what he still had. And his desires, like those mortally exhausted soldiers left in a hopeless position, were ready to surrender. When all of the maid's assets and liabilities had been scrupulously reckoned up, at the end the value of the silver spoon was subtracted. And what turned out was what was supposed to turn out – that she was not owed anything whatsoever.

Besides, the maid had no use for money – she would probably only have misused it if she'd been given it. She had been trying to save for her wedding, but who would marry her now that she had trampled her honor in the mud? If after all this she found employment anywhere at all without letters of reference, which the notary's wife was regrettably unable to provide, she would have board and lodging as part of her position. But without a job she was once again an outsider here. The day when the streetcar had brought her and her trunk so that, with advertisement in hand, she could apply for the post with the notary's family – that day continued to exist only in her imagination, like a calendar page lost among kitchen recipes, false by the very nature of things. The maid had no idea where she would go now. So she sat in the empty streetcar, with the same trunk as before on her lap, as if she still trusted that the streetcar would eventually move off and take her back where she had come from. But there was no return. Tears streamed
down her face and froze on her cheeks. She sat there, expecting goodness knows what, till she grew cold. Then she asked the sentries of the order guard to let her into the shelter under the cinema. The sentries, with mock respect, opened the creaking door, from which there came a gust of stuffy air, then slammed it behind her again.

During this time other subordinates of the general were seeking in vain to establish who owned all the sacks of quick-lime, sand, and plaster that were stacked in piles in the auditorium of the cinema. Who had transported them there and who had unloaded them? Who had bought the cinema with a view to converting it into a quality fashion store with ready-made apparel? This was not known even to the general, though at one time he had been familiar with all the rumors circulating round the tables in the café. At this moment he was unable to resist an expressive gesture at the mention of the elegant store – a fluid motion of both hands evoking the suggestive idea of the female form, for he had already heard somewhere that the place was supposed to sell underwear. Women's underwear, that is. The general raised his thick eyebrows knowingly and gave a wink with the eye that was not swollen. That told his listeners everything they needed to know: corsets fastened with hooks and eyes, suspender belts, close-fitting winter woolens, cabaret slips in black and claret, brassieres with bows, and so on. When thinking of the aforementioned items of attire, guffawing was thoroughly appropriate.

But the general too was mistaken. Just as there had never been any cinema here, neither could there ever be such a store. The past into which the cinema had disappeared, and the future from which the store was supposed to emerge, can exist here only as crazy imaginings. The pages of the calendar, both those already torn off and those that remained, in their entirety possess less solid reality than exists on the painted plywood boards with their ostensible perspective. Since the owner of the sacks of quicklime was not found, the general, acting under conditions of emergency, requisitioned these unclaimed items so the order guard could make use of them. Once the initial decision had been made – to confine the refugees in the shelter – he did not hesitate to take the next step, which followed logically from the first. Doubts, fears, hesitations, cowardly attempts to involve others in troubling matters that a person ought to solve alone, like a man – such things were incompatible with the gleaming braid on the general's coat. To gain the respect of the public there was no need whatsoever to inform them of every step; quite the opposite, one should assume as much responsibility as possible, then lapse into firm and scornful silence. Once the worst has been overcome, a flash of braid is enough to allay various belated misgivings on the part of more delicate consciences. That was why the collar of the general's greatcoat was embroidered with gold thread. The young clerks from the local government offices, dazzled like everyone else, realized in the face of this brightness that their opinions were no longer
needed. From that moment on they kept their mouths shut. They merely stood at attention, heels together, permanently ready to obey.

If I am the general, I have little to say to them. What's to be said here, when the situation is clear: there is a shortage of space. Why prolong the unnecessary suffering of stomachs laying claim to their dubious rights, the superfluous effort of lungs using air that was not theirs to breathe, or the futile beating of hearts filled with pointless resentment. Why consent to an existence that serves no worthwhile purpose but merely pays homage to the chaos of the transformation of material, the perpetual circulation of hope and despair, and in no respect, either figurative or literal, fulfills the requirements of orderliness. The general was calmly smoking a cigar he had found in the pocket of the greatcoat. Nothing had yet begun; for the moment the guards were only starting to bring buckets and spades borrowed from the concierges of the apartment buildings. The absolutely new idea for restoring order was a simple one. It required no preparations except the sealing up of a few ventilation shafts. Would the subsequent use of quicklime not be entirely advisable? The blotches of swirling fabric in every possible shade of dark blue and black would be swallowed up by a dirty white, which itself would then melt into darkness. Here and there a glint from house keys that had fallen from someone's pocket, or a vial of heart medication no longer needed. Blue and black are helpless when confronted with the grayness of the quicklime
in which they are to dissolve. Between the sticky, caustic layers, bodies are forced to renounce utterly the space of their life. In that place it becomes evident that life is a joke and death has no meaning, rendered buoyant as it is by large numbers. Numbers make no impression on the general, because he knows his duty. A sense of responsibility necessitates extreme measures. The refugees are a separate matter. They will die and will forget everything. Their sufferings will vanish with them. No acrimony will poison the future. As they depart they will take with them their unconsidered opinions about what happened to them; they will be ill disposed towards those who remain behind, and filled with painful disillusion. They will take with them their resentment at not being able to demand compensation for their losses, forgetting that those losses were no one's fault. Without them the world will be better: cleaned of an accumulation of wrongs and reckonings, of distressing events and outdated cares, for a short moment it may even be capable of sympathy, close to a short-lived perfection, as if brand-new.