But if I am one of the residents watching from behind a lace curtain, I realize that the problems did not begin with the children from the orphanage, nor do they end with them. The very presence of the newcomers living right there on the street is already scandalous to me. It’s hard to remain calm as one watches them settle on their suitcases, each of them arranging a small area of the square with their own belongings. One is snoring as he sits and dozes; another has taken off his shoe and sock and is examining his blisters. The body stinks — this truth too must finally be uttered. Its dirty nature cannot be kept under control with continuous hygienic procedures involving hot water, soap, brushes large and small, handkerchiefs, nail files, jars of vaseline, and bottles of scent. All of this takes up a great deal of space. There is a need for closets, shelves, and cabinets. Thus the body, deprived not only of a roof over its head but also of everything else, cannot expect sympathy, but on the contrary it must become an offense against decorum, the disgrace of the neat and respectable community of residents. Then what on earth are they to say when, casually multiplied by the hundreds, the body swells into a crowd. If, then, I am any one of the residents, I feel sorry only for the concierge who is tugging the policeman’s sleeve to complain about the disorder.
The clerks from the government offices maintained that since it was not possible to get rid of the refugees at once, temporary solutions needed to be found. For example, the construction of latrines. The concierges ought to help out in this endeavor, since they too would make use of them. The concierges preferred to lend their spades to the provisional authorities, who could have the refugees do the digging themselves. The only problem was that no one could agree on where the pit should be dug. The one place that everyone thought of was the flower bed in the middle of the square, which may already have been doomed to destruction; it had probably been trampled long ago, plowed up by heels and flattened under suitcases. But the commander merely waved his hand dismissively. In his view there was no point in wasting resources. Instead of turning the flower bed into a latrine, it would be better to spare it and plant new flowers once the situation was normalized. The refugees are forbidden from entering the courtyards, and there is no point in revoking this order without good reason. A state of affairs as perturbing as the present one is by its nature transitory, and so as the commander sees it, things will soon resolve themselves even without a latrine. The policeman, buttonholed by proponents of both solutions, has no intention of taking sides. He listens indifferently to the concierges’ complaints and the residents’ advice, merely nodding his head at the order guard’s loss of face.
The commander still has no idea that his men are being laughed at behind their backs. He does not spare himself; he and his guards do what they can to improve the situation. Searching constantly for a good way out, he thought for some time about the entrance to the storm drain, as a literal exit. This new idea brought hope that it would be possible to lead the crowd out of the square, and perhaps even to send them off for good into the unknown, so that someone else, somewhere else, would have to deal with the whole problem. The commander sent two people to lift the iron grille and take a look inside. This they did without delay. But, as they ran up to report, under the grille no drain was to be seen. There was only packed sand, in which the trademark of the ironworks was imprinted like a seal.
During this time someone well hidden from view had the leader of the guard in the sights of a revolver. It was the bigger of the two boys who had been sitting together like the best of friends on the roof of the government offices, concealed among the chimneys. He followed the commander right and left with the barrel, from time to time removing his glasses, which kept misting over. At these moments he had to do something with the revolver. Thrusting it into the waistband of his pants, a rather uncomfortable operation, he took out his handkerchief and wiped the spectacles. His pal plucked at his shoulder, asking for the gun, and though he was smaller he evidently expected to be given it in the end. In the meantime, the streetcar had pulled up at the stop and had unexpectedly shielded the order guard and its commander. The barrel of the gun, trembling slightly in the older boy’s hand, moved away from the streetcar at random, up to the level of the second floor, and all at once in the sights there was the silhouette of a woman standing in the window of an apartment at number seven — a mother of children and wife of the notary. The instant her profile appeared, her son hurriedly handed over the gun, as if it were burning him. Was he afraid that the finger could pull the trigger of its own accord, before the head forbade it? In the hands of the younger boy, the news seller from number eight, the barrel luckily swung away from the window and selected a new target, for the boy’s thoughts too were drifting towards different regions. The mongrel, principal cause of the wrongs he had suffered, had appeared in the sights. His finger on the trigger, he followed the dog’s every move, biting his lip harder and harder, till finally he lowered the gun and cursed, his voice breaking, because for some reason he was unable to shoot.
If events take a different turn, towards more merciful solutions than could have been expected, it is only because the rules, like everything else in the vicinity, are not functioning properly. But even if they sometimes go wrong, they still remain permanently inscribed in the background, like the lines simulating perspective on the plywood boards: an immovable and always current system of reference. The censored fragments sawed out of the boards will change nothing here either — even if the lines are removed, they continue to be imagined. As for the gun, it could only belong to the notary. It was the son, impatiently awaited by his mother, who had taken it from their home. Some time ago he had managed to sneak in the back door while his father was gone and had removed the revolver from the latter’s desk drawer. As he tiptoed down the long hallway to the kitchen door, shoes in hand, he could not help noticing that the always open door to the maid’s room was now closed. For a moment he even stood outside it and listened intently, a look of astonishment on his round, boyish face. In the end he peeked through the keyhole. He could see a student cap tossed carelessly on a stool. Then he was able to go unhurriedly into the kitchen, where lunch was going cold in the pots, waiting in vain for its time to come. He took a couple of chicken legs, wrapping them in the personals page of the newspaper.
Where the revolver in the drawer came from will never be established. It could have lain there dormant for years. When a warm human body comes close, a single moment suffices to wake it up. The gun’s very shape is, for the hand, a meaningful sign. But meaningful in a special way that seems on the surface to be removed from reality, foreign to the innocent language of everyday things, for example, bread knives and soupspoons. Yet one touch is enough for all the fingers to know instantly where they belong and what this is about. The middle and ring fingers close around the grip; the index finger quickly finds the trigger. It’s entirely possible that the revolver, by its nature a symbolic object, becomes literal only when it is brought to life by the sufferings of a secondary character, by his fevered and angry thoughts. Those thoughts too are looking for release, since no grievances or reparations have been provided for here, and no one knows what to do with such an excess of ill feeling. All one can do is drown in it.