Moving Parts (5 page)

The narrator reaches for the bunch of keys now lying on the
round side table. One of them will unlock a narrow door in the corner of the room that might have led to a bathroom, but in fact opens onto a dingy landing. Here, sure enough, the faded image of a gentleman appears on a further door, behind which one can be certain of a cracked urinal, white tiles and age-old cobwebs hanging from the ceiling; and opposite the door with the sign, a wire grille conceals the shaft of a freight elevator. Let us leave unspoken the inevitable question of whether the narrator avails himself of the urinal. A thick layer of dust covers all the surfaces; numerous tracks of the narrator's shoes indicate that he has stood on the landing before, and has even paced back and forth across it. The elevator arrives squeaking and juddering and slowly comes to a halt with a deafening clatter. It's enough to open the metal door with its cracked glass pane and take a step forward, and one is standing in the rickety cage. In the dim light of a dirty electric bulb a button can be chosen from which the number of the floor has worn right off. Now the elevator begins to descend, and along with it the sentence in which it appeared, and the next, and the one after that. If this handful of sentences were tied together with a decent length of rope, suspended from a pulley and lowered many floors down, from the narrator's point of view the result would be the same. In the end he leaves the cage of the freight elevator, slamming the metal door behind him. He knows what to do in the darkness that surrounds him. Flicking on his cigarette lighter, he finds the light switch – and everything immediately resumes
its place in the cold, quivering glow of neon lighting: forking passageways, their walls, ceilings, and floors. The walls are plastered in a slapdash manner, the ceilings low, the floors hidden beneath a dense coating of dust, which here and there has turned into mud. In places there are even puddles; drops of rust-colored water hang over them from the joints between pipes: When one drop falls, another instantly takes its place. The narrator looks unsurely down the different passageways, though in fact he has nothing to think about: Both floor and course are imposed upon him. Naturally, various routes are possible, given the innumerable combinations of floors and directions, which cause the heads of clueless narrators to spin. Those who are more worldly-wise realize that of all possible paths there is always only one that is accessible; the others are closed, and the bunch of keys rattling in one's pocket most certainly does not include any that would open their locks. So nothing remains but to walk down the passageway before the automatic light switch turns off. At the end of the passageway the narrator will pass a pile of red fire extinguishers, no doubt past their expiration date, and with a long key he'll open a room filled with old copies of the Financial Times piled high against sloping walls – this must be an attic. He won't tarry there a moment longer than is needed to open a trapdoor in the floor. He climbs down a decrepit ladder and stumbles over a rubber ball lying in his way. The ball rolls down the stairs to the first floor, out onto the terrace and into the garden, with high, light
bounces. From the top of the staircase it will be visible through a window, a patch of color against the grass. Through the window the narrator will see the central point of his story and its entire gold, green, and blue luster, focused in one happy place – a brightness that did not suffice for the less privileged days of the year, for the passageways moldering in shadow and confined between bars, for cramped recesses where colors darken with the same everyday grayness. The garden, then, in the middle of a warm summer. A green lawn and a sunny terrace beneath a blue sky. The air has been growing hotter since morning; in it the yellow blooms in the flower beds seem to glow with their own light till nightfall, when it grows completely dark, though only while the summer heat wave continues. Then their time comes to an end. This is the only flaw in the dazzling scenery. F-meier appears as its owner. His wedding ring still gleams on his finger. He leans against a garden chair, in a light-colored linen jacket that he can wear to work during the few short weeks of summer. He is smiling, but already looking at his watch; he's just about to drive off in the car standing in the driveway. Mozhet or Mozhe, in a striped sailor T-shirt, is taking more coffee. He has no office he must go to; the morning belongs to him, today and every day, and this gives him an unimaginable advantage over F-meier. So he exercises his privileges while he still can. On one of the evenings mentioned in his contract it may suddenly transpire that he paid for them dearly. The time, clearly, is too early for a visit; Mozhet's clothes
are rather homely. It's easy to figure out that he has been staying in the guest room upstairs. Nothing can be heard, yet certain words are said. They accompany the look that the woman exchanges with F-meier over the table. Her hair is dyed red; the highlights catch the sun. Smiling, she exchanges the same look with Mozhet; more words are uttered. Never mind the words – it's obvious that nothing here depends on them. F-meier takes a packet of cigarettes from the table and looks around for his lighter, which the woman – his wife – finds under a newspaper. She throws it to him, and he catches it deftly in midair, puts it in his pocket and gives a bow of acknowledgment with which his slightly ironic necktie is in perfect harmony.

This time, so far the narrator has managed to limit things to three characters. The acrobat's partner is absent, though she knows this scene in the sunny garden; she's seen it many times in the movies, the same one or something similar. She knows how it could have come about and what is still to happen in the best or the worst case. Let's say that right now she is sitting in the dentist's chair, her mouth wide open, her jaw numb and beads of sweat on her forehead. The whirr of the drill leaves no doubt: If anesthetic has not been administered, it's going to hurt. It's even possible to imagine tears running down her cheeks; the reason seems understandable and the dentist would have to know a little more to guess that the problem lies rather with the patient's heart. And yet there is nothing to cry about; those three people, too, are only dreaming of the summer's day.
They're dreaming that they are sitting in the garden; they're dreaming of a romance. How can they possibly have a romance when they haven't even been given a real life? It could be said that they do not have the garden either, the green, nor the blue, nor the gold luster. And even if it were all actually taking place – what on earth could the acrobat do in such a garden for the whole morning? Perhaps he could carry the rubber ball around on his head, or walk about on his hands, whistling; or in case of necessity, he could even swallow burning matches and breathe fire like a dragon. That cannot have been what he came for. But the boy would have been enthralled. Probably. Had the car not come to an abrupt stop, with a squeal of brakes, before reaching the main road. Turning around, it races back at breakneck speed, as if F-meier, who is behind the wheel, had suddenly gone mad. Almost smashing into the gatepost, he leaves the key in the ignition and the driver's door open. As he walks, with an impatient gesture he takes off his glasses, which may have misted over. He's already back on the terrace; he puts the glasses on the edge of the table and says something to Mozhet, but what? The latter slowly raises his startled eyes at him and stands hesitantly from his chair; he seems a little taller than the other man. F-meier's tie is awry; its jokey pattern no longer matches the scene. He punches the other man in the face. Now the woman turns and casts a quick glance at the window of the room where the boy is in bed. The previous evening, for a long time he was unable to get to sleep; he cried and moaned. It's
certain that several stitches will be needed over the eyebrow, though the tightrope walker seems not to realize it. Blood streams over his eye and cheek. It's already stained his striped T-shirt; he's smeared it across the back of his hand and has even managed to dirty the tablecloth as he reached for a packet of disposable tissues. He opens the packet clumsily and tries to wipe the blood from his face, as if unaware that the situation is serious and requires surgical intervention. Wads of bloodied tissue multiply. Mozhet doesn't know what to do with them; they fall at his feet one by one. He has not looked back at Fmeier once. He gazes only at her, through one eye, because he can no longer see through the other. Half a look must now suffice for a farewell. He takes a step back, and his chair overturns behind him. He wants nothing, not even his leather traveling bag, it seems, which is standing on the floor in the guest room somewhere upstairs. From the first phone booth he finds, he'll call a cab; evidently he has his wallet with him. He's on his way to the gate when the woman pushes F-meier away from her, simply tears herself free; perhaps there is a shout, but it cannot be heard. She gets into the car abandoned on the driveway and burning with a metallic glare in the blinding sunlight; she picks up the man in the striped T-shirt and takes him to the hospital, and that's all. Meanwhile the tightrope walker's blood soils the light-colored leather upholstery of the car. And yet it is F-meier, her husband, who has gone mad and needs help. He sits motionless on the terrace, his forehead resting heavily on the edge of
the table, not knowing how he will live through the next quarter of an hour. It would be better if the boy were not to wake up now. A soft breeze begins to rustle the newspapers scattered about the table. They include, let's say, the German edition of the Financial Times and an illustrated weekly with a well-known title, also German. Or perhaps Austrian? The narrator does not know; he doesn't read the German-language press, and in fact does not know German at all. Then what was the language of the spoken parts, which in any case could not be heard?

It couldn't have been German, of course. It's easiest to imagine that all the dialogues are conducted in the language of the narrator, not that of the characters. This is a method familiar from the movies; it enables the audience to understand a plot taking place in exotic countries, whose very existence is not entirely beyond doubt. Like it or not, then, the characters speak a language with flexible word order, in which anything can be said at least ten different ways, with different nuances of meaning. A language that suffers from an insufficiency of past and future tenses and a lack of rigor in their sequencing, something that permits the verbs a considerable degree of license and can lead to unexpected turns of events. This tongue, living happily under the aegis of Latin letters modified in makeshift fashion, has occupied a blank space on the map and has marked it with geographical names that everyone has heard of. Yet the fact that they are widely known does not alter the conviction that in essence Germany borders with Russia and Russia with
Germany – and that on one side of the frontier there lies dirty snow, while on the other colorful butterflies flit about. That's right, on both sides Polish is spoken. There is no other possibility. And in the Balkans? Polish too. And in the ports of the Far East. And in the remotest corners of Africa. Only Polish. Everywhere.

This still isn't the end of this scene, which, as it happens, is of crucial importance, and which the narrator, finding no other way out, had to come upon one way or another. While he's about it, he would gladly read the previously ignored name-plate by the gate, but he's reluctant to cross the terrace while one of the characters remains at the table. It would be less awkward to find amid the floors and passages the right hallway leading to the empty house and the abandoned November garden. But why doesn't F-meier call a cab and go where he is urgently needed and seriously late? Why has he still not found a babysitter for the child? The phone rings. A mouthful of orange juice from the bottom of a glass gurgles in his dry throat. Fmeier is choking. The phone gives a second ring. It was her glass. Another mouthful, this time from Mozhet's glass – he, too, had left his juice unfinished. How can he now produce a voice from his throat? F-meier doesn't know, nor does the narrator. The third ring sounds sharp and insistent. The cordless phone is lost somewhere among the newspapers. F-meier finally answers; from the entire chaos of the moment the appropriate words suddenly leap out and arrange themselves in the appropriate order. Yes, he is aware of that. With his free hand
he rakes his yellowed smoker's fingers through his hair. No, later isn't possible either. He's sick. Yes.

While he continues to sit at the garden table, his eyelids lowered, calamity begins to unfold. The word ‘yes,' which ended the telephone conversation, can now take on various meanings, depending on the question that came from the other end of the line. These words could for example set in motion a huge mass of iron – a container ship due to be decommissioned that has just passed an inspection by a little-known company in one of the ports of the Far East. The matter might seem to be of marginal significance. The ship, sailing under a flag of convenience, had gone to sea with a cargo of crushed rock, according to plan but against the misgivings of its crew. The afternoon news services will bring word of a fire. At a certain moment, on every television screen the container ship will be seen in flames beneath a pall of black smoke, filmed from the air. The accident was supposedly caused by an electrical fault. The sailors – all Russian, aside from the captain – died of asphyxiation, and the shipping company was obliged to pay damages to the victims' families. Their reputation in jeopardy, the company did not even attempt to evade responsibility. It seemed that there was no way to avoid incurring losses. No one could have predicted that in F-meier's home the tension of dangerous emotions would grow, threatening destruction. Could husband and wife really have needed a spectacular accumulation of shocking events, some violent and furious disaster, to break free from the
impasse in which they had been stuck, perhaps for many years? She had simply thrown him his cigarette lighter, and he had used it without hesitation at the first opportunity. Both longed for the moment when their comfortably furnished life would finally fall apart with a crash, like a sinking container ship.