Flaw (7 page)

How agonizing it is to know about it all – about the illicit flow of goods, the mocking laughter in the back rooms – yet never to possess irrefutable proof. Helpless suspicions drift over the deserted marshaling yards like trembling balloons filled with hot air. In the meantime, deceitfulness oozes from every calculation, invoice, and specification list, and also from the bills that arrive in advance for urgent repairs not yet even commenced and paid for at twice the normal rate, for express service. There was no way to economize on repairs to the backdrops, since the
plywood boards bearing the necessary painted images had been knocked down and smashed – they looked as if they had been through an earthquake. Indolent apprentices in overalls, suffering from the hiccups and convinced that nothing in this world was of any significance, were already at the warehouses pulling out other backdrops, whatever came to hand first. They were in a hurry and were not picking and choosing, since they had been instructed to act as quickly as possible to cover up the holes gaping on every side. It is the backdrops that determine the look of the world; they give it a trustworthy face and bolster faith in its substantiality, in the belief that everything the eye sees actually exists. There will be no other perspective than the one drawn on plywood boards at a deceptive angle, depicting the continuation of the street from the point where the wall and the pavement come to an end. Closing the space, the boards open it up at the same time, offering an illusory distance that seems to stretch into the unseen suburbs.

On the other side of the boards are all the hidden lighting installations and heating and cooling ducts; work is in full swing around the red-brick workshops, forklifts crisscrossing the whole time, though never cutting across the field of vision painted on the backdrops in the appropriate colors, with a predominance of yellow ochre imitating the hue of plasterwork. Thus, the workshops themselves are not seen either, nor the workmen in overalls, nor the huge gantry cranes, even though these are in constant use. Standing on the square as the first
character at hand and gazing down the street, one is unable to imagine the real topography of the terrain. Besides, such surplus knowledge would be of no use to the characters. It's better to live tranquilly, though in the dark, and have no notion of what one is participating in. And if the order of things has already been disturbed, ignorance absolves one of inquiring into the reason, of wondering what led to the collapse. Whose calculations lay behind it, and which layers of sand were disturbed. Why those and not others. Here and there cracks had appeared; foundations had begun to settle dangerously, and a number of walls had collapsed on the spot. To avoid an unexpected and tragic end in one of the stories resembling this one, some hurried evacuations had to be arranged.

The apprentices fashion poles into a new construction to prop up the backdrop. They work quickly but unwillingly. After the last nail is knocked in, they move away at last to light up a longed-for cigarette. As chance would have it, the painted back-drops they took from the warehouses had been used once before in a story about the difficulties of life under an oppressive regimen, and bore evident signs of censorship. To be precise, they were missing sizable fragments of pavement and wall, which had been removed along with the matching parts of the plywood base. It was not hard to guess why they had been cut out: to get rid of certain unsettling details that would have stirred recollections and emotions. It may have been, for example, that in this place there were bullet holes in a row, along with
disturbing red smears. Repugnant circumstances, the memory of which some character harnessed to his own paltry drama of power had at one time attempted to erase, were written permanently into the background in this indirect way, through the removal of the traces they had left behind. Who reached for a saw to carry out such an order, when, and what did they get for it? Hardly anything, that much is certain. It was probably done by inexperienced apprentices, because only they – without the knowledge of the masters, and perhaps deceived by the trappings of majesty – could have violated the principle of paying no attention to the desires of the characters, and the practice of avoiding all contact with them. The largest holes were patched with pieces of thick cardboard, without even taking the trouble to color them ochre to conceal the repair. No eye will linger over them anyway. The gaze will rather be drawn towards the gaudy pennants jutting from the rows of windows painted on the plywood. This distant view was not without influence on the course of events; it reminded the concierges that in their apartment buildings too there were flags in the same national colors, stowed away in dusty closets and dark storage spaces beneath some flight of stairs or another, waiting for their time, which, so it seemed, had now come. Before long they flowered on the façades of the buildings round the square, restoring the equilibrium of bright accents between foreground and background. A wind blew up, opening the flags and setting them aflutter. This was the most emphatic sign that something had
changed. The flags multiplied in windows; there were more and more of them by the minute. No one had known previously just how many had been lying about in various corners, but nor was anyone surprised. For of all the things one can think of, flags are the easiest to sew; no kind of faith or hope is required for the job.

And what about that other square, in a different story, of necessity vacated and closed down? And the suddenly interrupted threads of stories entwining it? And the inhabitants, removed from their own homes by a peremptory decree? Up till now they had lived where they belonged, uninitiated into the mysteries of the freight railroad, uninformed about the layers of sand shifting beneath the foundations of their houses or the economies made in the construction of the walls, far away from the notary and his safe. They did not know the overalled masters and they did not know whose account they were paying for; otherwise they never would have resigned themselves to the wrong they had suffered. Misfortune is easiest to accept when it is beyond comprehension. And now, unlike the notary, these people no longer had anything to worry about. The worst had already happened. In the place where they had lived till now, the ground had been pulled from under their feet.

So it should come as no surprise if they now begin to emerge from the streetcar at the stop in front of the local government offices. First just a handful of them – let's say one family, like a sign that is a prelude to the arrival of crowds. Someone has to
take the first step, and this first step is from a later perspective nothing more than the presage of an already familiar continuation. Thus, the streetcar comes to a halt and the first refugees appear on the square: a small group of dark figures of different ages, in thick winter overcoats, caps with earflaps, head scarves, mufflers, and thick gloves. They tread unsurely, disoriented by the sudden downturn in their fortunes. The question of whether they may have come at the wrong time is the last thing they would wish to ask themselves. They too were not asked whether an explosion would be convenient for them. They hand down suitcases and bundles and arrange them on the sidewalk as if they believed – without so much as a hint of gratitude – that it had now been given over into their possession in return for the home they had lost. The streetcar cannot move on till they have finished unloading their belongings – till with the help of their children they have dragged out all the cardboard boxes tied with string, the sled, the teddy bear, the gramophone with its huge trumpet, and the canary in a cage. While they're maneuvering all these objects, they have something to do, and while there is something to do, there is also hope. Afterwards things will only get worse.

The moment the streetcar pulls away, they'll begin to look around helplessly, not knowing what to do with their luggage or themselves. They'll check whether they have brought the tureen with the gold band, a memento of the large service of best porcelain that they could not fit in their cases. They'll have
a slight quarrel, allowing their raised voices to drift all the way up to the windows of the apartments. Then they'll press their ears to the trunks to check which one contains the ticking dining room clock. But ticking is nowhere to be heard, so they have to open the trunks and make sure that the clock is safely where they packed it, wrapped in a blanket. If it hadn't been for the haste imposed by unexpected events, they could have taken whole sets of tumblers and wine glasses, and they would have had time to wrap each individual one in tissue and pack it in sawdust. Yet if it hadn't been for those events beyond their control, why would they have left home in the first place? The youngest little girl is hugging a small pillow. It is her entire luggage. She stumbles as she carries her unwieldy burden, but she won't hear any word of encouragement, because the grownups have forgotten about the job they gave her. She's despondent and wants to return home. She was always the apple of their eye; so why is it that right now they don't hear her moaning and whimpering? She might be forgiven for thinking they have wads of invisible cotton wool stuck in their ears. When she stamps her little foot on the sidewalk, their gaze passes over her oblivious, wrapped in a mist of more important affairs. The pillow could just as well be lying on the curb, and that's where it falls. The little girl grabs at sleeves and coattails, to no avail. Since her desperation remains without a response, she begins to understand that there is no return to what was before, and that all her privileges are gone. She sits down on her pillow, her
eyes wide open in astonishment. The tears that proved useless dry on her cheeks.

But the two older children still suspect nothing. While the policeman checks their parents' papers, they will feed the canary with a crust of bread stuck between the bars of the cage, abandoning their luggage unconcernedly on the sidewalk. The canary, tired from the journey, ruffles its feathers and turns its back on them. The only thing left is for them to run around in circles. And so they run till they're fit to drop, laughing wildly. Gleefully disobedient, for their own amusement they start running away from their mother and making faces from a distance at their father, who is walking round the square and, straining to be as polite as possible, which is understandable in his situation, is asking about a place to rent. The mother, in the meantime, is worn out. She sits on the suitcases, though she would rather have simply lain down on them. She is in an advanced state of pregnancy; her overcoat will not fasten across her belly, and she looks as if she could give birth at any moment. The children will keep hiding round the corner and coming back, hot and perspiring, until at the final moment, exhausted by their own giddiness, they burst into bitter tears. And it's plain to see that their laughter meant nothing, and that only their crying truly counts.

There is nothing to rent, nor could there be; each concierge sends the father on to the next building without so much as batting an eyelid. If only because of the cap with the earflaps
and the thick winter coat, which smells of mothballs, drawing attention to itself and arousing mistrust. Otherness is always conspicuous from a distance, though it's hard to say how one recognizes it, if not from certain elusive attributes of cut and fabric. And what on earth kind of cut is that, what on earth sort of cloth is it, how can anyone wear something like that? – such questions automatically present themselves to the concierges, and especially to their wives. As for the upper windows overlooking the street, not many details can be seen from up there, but even so the first thing that will be noticed by the concerned occupants will be the foreignness of the handful of overcoats, incongruous as dark inkblots against the clean sidewalk, with its pattern of paving stones like squared office paper. Concerning the matter of foreignness, then, the locals need only a single glance, accustomed as they are to recognizing it in all its shades. There is no need for the mind to exert itself, and it's hard to be mistaken. The newcomers' attire does not blend subtly into the background; on the contrary, it is strikingly dark, and stands out in sharp contours displeasing to the eye. It can immediately be seen that they do not belong to this story. Foreignness, isolated within itself, is incapable of explaining itself, despite having introduced into the landscape a stain so disturbing it borders on deliberate provocation. Foreignness is foreign, and that is what constitutes its essence.

In the meantime, behind the lace curtains indignation is growing. If I am one of the respectable housewives following
the doings of the newcomers from their windows, in my opinion the children ought to realize that they are not at home here. Because whether they feel at home determines what they are allowed to get away with. And if they do not understand this, the fault most certainly lies with their parents. The latter, however, are quite clearly occupied only with themselves and with what has happened to them somewhere else, and is of no concern to anyone here. Do people here not already have their own local worries? We have no need of new complications. And after all, it's quite possible that the newcomers, wrapped in their overcoats, scarves, and caps with earflaps, will bring with them a harsh climate foreign to this place: snowstorms or bitter frosts. One can only hope that if the threads of stories they have brought with them are immediately cut short, the newcomers will sit for a while on their suitcases and then, having nothing to latch on to, will disappear along with their luggage. They'll simply vanish into thin air, ending this unexpected breakdown of order, and the prior state of affairs will be happily restored. It's obvious, then, that they should not be given even the most cramped quarters to rent. Besides, for a paltry few pennies that may decrease in value anyway by tomorrow, no one will want to run the risk of problems such as icy drafts whistling through their apartment, especially since their entire supply of coal from the cellar would go up in smoke in the course of a few days. Why would they allow such a thing to happen when it's more than likely that the bad luck which has already driven these
warmly dressed figures from their homes will continue to hold them in its grip?