Night Work (25 page)

Jonas got home before dusk. He locked the door and checked all the windows. The clock on the bedroom wall
was ticking steadily. A mellow sound.

He went into the kitchen. Once the coffee machine had stopped hissing, he poured himself a cup.

He had got all he needed from a stationer’s. He cut the sheet of thin card into equal rectangles, and wrote on them in thick ballpoint. As before, he tried to think of nothing, to make his mind a blank and write by instinct. He succeeded so well, that when he surfaced from the timeless void he momentarily wondered where he was and what he was doing there. When he awoke from his trance he had the feeling that something was wrong. After a few moments’ thought, he realised what it was. He had run out of blank cards.

Although his cheek was throbbing dully, he couldn’t resist the temptation to put a box of chocolates on the empty side of the bed. He set up the camera and put in last night’s tape, then sat down cross-legged on the mattress with his back against the wall. Defiantly, he opened the box of chocolates.

He was about to start the tape when it occurred to him that he might get chocolate on his shirt, and besides, he would be more comfortable in pyjamas. So he got undressed, trying to ignore the worsening ache in his upper jaw.

Jonas saw himself walk past the camera and get into bed. He tossed and turned for a minute or two. Then the movements beneath the bedclothes diminished and became more infrequent. After a while, faint snores could be heard.

Jonas removed the screw top of a liqueur bottle, a miniature, and drank a toast to the screen.

The Sleeper was asleep.

Jonas put a chocolate in his mouth. Moments later he
bit so hard on the nut inside it he felt as if a knife had been driven through his skull. Trembling, he clenched his fists and waited for the pain to subside. When he could open his eyes again he threw the box of chocolates into the bin. He wiped away his tears with the ball of his thumb and took a painkiller.

The Sleeper got up. As he passed the camera he waved. ‘It’s me, not the Sleeper,’ he said with a smile.

‘What
is
this?’ Jonas exclaimed.

He searched his jacket pockets for the first tape he’d recorded at Kanzelstein. Meanwhile, he saw himself give the camera another wave and get back into bed.

‘Damn it!’

If he’d got the tapes mixed up, where had the other one – the one he’d recorded last night – got to? He’d felt sure he would find it in his jacket.

He looked in his holdall. The tape was right at the bottom. He read the inscription.
Kanzelstein 1
.

He stopped the tape in the camera and took it out.

Kanzelstein 2
.

He rewound it.

He saw himself get out of bed. As he passed the camera he waved. ‘It’s me, not the Sleeper,’ he said with a smile.

Those eyes.

He rewound the tape.

He saw himself get out of bed, go over to the camera and wave, smiling. ‘It’s me, not the Sleeper.’

That smile.

That look.

He rewound the tape again and pressed freeze-frame.

He gazed into the Sleeper’s unblinking eyes.

It was midday by the wall clock. Jonas swung both feet out of bed at the same time. His neck was stiff, his right leg ached. The throbbing in his cheek, on the other hand, was a familiar sensation. He wondered whether to take another painkiller.

Why had he slept so long? What had happened during the night to knock him out for twelve whole hours and leave him feeling not refreshed, but as exhausted as if he’d just done a hard day’s work?

He looked for the camera.

It wasn’t there.

‘Easy!’ He raised his hands defensively. ‘Just a minute … ’

He stared at the floor, tugging at a strand of hair and trying to think. His mind was a total blank. He looked up.

The camera had disappeared.

He checked the front door. Locked from the inside. He examined the windows. Nothing. He shone his torch under the bed, opened cupboards and drawers. He even inspected the bedroom ceiling, the bin, the cistern in the toilet.

Over breakfast he tried to remember what he’d done before going to bed. He’d put in a new tape and programmed the camera to start recording at 3 a.m. Then he’d cleaned his teeth. In despair, for want of any better idea, he’d
wrapped his face in a tea towel against the toothache. He had got into bed at midnight or thereabouts.

The tea towel! That had disappeared too.

He put the coffee cup down and looked at his hands. They were his hands. This was him.

‘It’s you,’ he said.

He kept an eye open for the camera on the way to the chemist’s. It wouldn’t have surprised him to find it on the roof of a car or in the middle of an intersection, possibly surrounded by bunches of flowers. But he didn’t see it anywhere.

He took two Parkemeds and pocketed the rest of the box. They’d always been effective against toothache in the past. He couldn’t understand why they hadn’t worked last night.

His jaw was throbbing badly. If he applied pressure to the relevant spot, even gently, the pain shot through his neck.

He felt tempted to look in a mirror and see if his face was swollen. But it was out of the question. He felt both cheeks at the same time. He couldn’t make up his mind. Possibly, yes. Yes, maybe.

When the pain had eased he set off on foot for the city centre. On the Salztorbrücke he leant against the parapet. The wind blew specks of dust into his eyes. He looked down at the canal, blinking. The water seemed cleaner than before.

Leaning against the balustrade with arms outspread, he surveyed the waterfront promenade, which was strewn with empty cigarette packets, trampled beer cans, plastic
cartons and scraps of paper. He used to stroll here in summer with Marie, eating ice cream. Sometimes they would decide to have dinner at the Greek restaurant beside the canal. Dusk brought out the mosquitoes. They never bit Jonas. But no matter how many incense candles Marie burnt or how much insect repellent she used, she would wake up the next morning covered in dozens of red bumps.

He swung round.

No one was there.

The Danube Canal gurgled softly past below him.

He walked on. His toothache was returning. He felt his cheek. It was definitely swollen now.

In the kitchen of a restaurant on the Franz-Josef-Kai he discovered a number of deep-frozen meals and heated one up in a frying pan. Although he ate cautiously, he caught his bad tooth on the fork. Transfixed with pain, he didn’t let out a yell until several seconds later, when the searing, throbbing pain was already subsiding.

Parked in Marc-Aurel-Strasse was a Mercedes with a black box behind the windscreen. Sat Nav. The key was in the ignition. Jonas started the engine and turned on the system.

‘Hello,’ droned a robotic female voice.

After irresolutely scrolling through the user menu, Jonas selected Mariahilfer Strasse and keyed in the number of the shopping centre.

‘Turn left in fifty metres,’ said the computerised voice. At the same time, the screen displayed a 50 and an arrow pointing left.

Jonas turned left at the next intersection. The voice broke in once more and the display indicated that he should take another left turn after seventy-five metres. He obeyed. Five minutes later he was outside the shopping centre.

He got some swimming goggles from the sports shop
and the other things he needed from the stationer’s. On the bonnet of the Mercedes he cut out two cardboard blinkers for the goggles. Before sticking them on he painted the plastic eyepieces black, all but a narrow slit.

He checked the visibility. It ought to be sufficient to avoid collisions. Next, he put the goggles on. He selected a street at random from the Sat Nav’s list and keyed in a number without looking.

‘The specified address does not exist.’

Jonas removed the goggles. He had selected 948 Zieglergasse. Where house numbers were concerned, it was evidently advisable to key in no more than two digits.

He put the goggles on and tried again, entering just one digit for the house number.

‘Turn left in 150 metres,’ said the computer.

Jonas soon lost his bearings. He had left the ring road behind, but he wasn’t sure where he had turned off. He concentrated on not grazing the kerb and stopped worrying about what street he was in.

Hovering several hundred kilometres above him at that moment, a satellite was sending radio messages to the gadget in front of his nose. Although he knew better, Jonas visualised it as a sphere bristling with aerials on every side. But whatever form the satellite took, he could be certain that it was high overhead in an orbit around the earth, and that no one could see it. It was up there all on its own, transmitting information.

Jonas pictured the sphere hurtling through space. He pictured its surroundings. How the blue planet was revolving beneath it. The way it favoured the earth with a glance. All this quite on its own, unseen by human eyes. But that it was happening was beyond a doubt. The proof was in the robotic voice that instructed him to take the next street on the right and informed him that his destination was the third building on the left.

His toothache was becoming more and more painful. He didn’t feel like making any more reconnaissance trips. He squeezed a Parkemed out of its blister pack. It stuck in his throat. He stopped at a kiosk and took a can of fizzy lemonade. Washed the tablet down.

He parked the Mercedes outside Steffl’s department store. While riding up in the panoramic lift he waved in all directions, the back of his hand facing out. He made himself some camomile tea and sat down at the same table as the day before. His glass of mineral water was standing there untouched. In front of him loomed the spire of St Stephen’s. The sky was blue and cloudless.

The pain eased after a while. Although his cheek continued to throb, he was so glad to be pain-free he started rocking to and fro on his chair, skimming one beer mat after another over the railings, watching them sail into the depths.

Of all the tapes he had watched in recent weeks, last night’s was probably the most mysterious. It was almost identical to the one he’d recorded three days earlier. Two tapes existed, so his suspicion that he might have pressed the play button instead of the record button was unfounded. Besides, there were three minor differences: first, the Sleeper’s gaze; secondly, the wink; and, thirdly, the voice. The Sleeper’s gaze was more piercing than Jonas had ever seen it, either in the mirror or in videos and photographs. He also remembered, quite distinctly, that he hadn’t winked at the camera the first night.

What had the Sleeper meant by that? Was it just a joke? Some kind of mockery?

He felt himself losing consciousness, lapsing swiftly into sleep. Absurd, colourful images took shape in his
mind’s eye. They made no sense, yet he grasped that they followed some clear-cut pattern.

He came to with a start and peered in all directions, then jumped to his feet and made a tentative search of the whole establishment. There was no one there. No one to be seen, at least. But he couldn’t shake off the feeling that someone had been there. That was a familiar sensation, though. Imagination, nothing more.

He returned to the terrace. The sun had disappeared from view. He couldn’t see it any more, only its rays gleaming on the roofs below.

Whether anyone apart from himself still existed, in South America or Poland, Greenland or the Antarctic, was a question of the same order as the one that used to be asked about the existence of extraterrestrials in the old days.

Jonas had never been seriously interested in theories about the existence of intelligent life far from the earth. The facts were fascinating enough. When a robot landed on Mars, he, Jonas, seated at his computers in the office and at home, had contributed to NASA’s servers crashing. Eager to see the first pictures taken of the red planet, he had clicked on the browser’s ‘Go’ button every few seconds. What he eventually got to see was not particularly spectacular. He even thought that Mars resembled Croatia. But it fascinated him beyond measure that those pictures existed, that a man-made device should be taking them on such a distant heavenly body.

He pictured the probe in flight. Pictured it speeding silently through space. Unloading the capsule containing the robot. Pictured the capsule entering the atmosphere and drifting down on parachutes. Pictured it landing.

No one had seen the robot land, no one. Yet the landing had taken place. Millions of kilometres beyond the range of any human eye, a robot was trundling across an expanse of red sand.

Jonas had imagined being there and watching the robot’s arrival. He had imagined being the robot himself, remote from all that was known to humankind through its own observation. He had imagined how distant the earth now seemed, together with everyone he knew. With all that was familiar to him. Yet he was alive, capable of living unobserved by anyone.

Then, returning to earth, he had thought of the robot. How was it feeling, all by itself on Mars? Was it wondering what was happening back home? Was it experiencing something like loneliness? Rejoining the robot in his imagination, Jonas had surveyed its surroundings. A red, stony desert. No footprints in the sand.

The robot was still there now, at this very moment. Even as Jonas replaced his empty glass on the bar, a robot was slumbering on Mars.

Back at the flat he took another painkiller. Three Parkemeds were the maximum daily dose, but he wouldn’t worry about that if it came to it.

He was feeling shattered. He did some knee-bends and dunked his head in cold water, wondering if he ought to lie down. The missing video camera crossed his mind. He had a feeling he would see it again. If so, he would probably be in for an unpleasant surprise.

He lay down on the bed, lay there doing nothing, trying to ignore every sound. The next time he checked the time it was half past nine. The street was in darkness.

He forced himself to eat something for fear the painkiller wouldn’t work. Then he took another. Although his tooth wasn’t hurting at the moment, he was anxious to keep the pain at bay for as long as possible. His cheek was throbbing.

He felt his forehead. He probably had a temperature, but he didn’t feel like getting the thermometer and finding out for sure. He fetched himself a beer from the fridge. What would he do if it didn’t stop?