What, I wondered, was the administration’s role in any of this?
I couldn’t say.
I observed my ersatz relation, looking for any sign that he was more, or less, than he seemed. But he seemed neither more nor less, only himself. I began to record his movements in a notebook to see if any pattern developed. No pattern developed.
Where would it all lead? I wondered, as I followed my slow round from bench to bench. Was this the administration’s way of punishing me for some failure in re my task as an observer? Would I, too, eventually shoot myself in the belly with a low-caliber handgun? What did the administration hope to gain by torturing me, if in fact they were behind whatever there was to be behind?
The days that followed were nervous ones, involving a slow acceleration of doubt and fear. I made the circuit of the park benches faster and faster. I stopped sleeping. I was increasingly less myself. My ersatz relation regarded me with concern. Or perhaps suspicion. Or perhaps his regard was tainted by some third factor.
This lasted until the day when, on my rounds through the park, I sat next to a man wearing a narrow tie and a pinstriped suit. He was eating a sandwich wrapped in brown paper. When he was done, he licked his fingers. He crumpled the paper up and placed it on the bench between us.
As soon as he was gone, I picked up the paper and opened it. The mayonnaise, I saw, had leaked out to form a wavery line, hooked at the bottom like a shepherd’s crook. I turned the paper in my hands and saw the mark for what it was: a message: a question mark.
I stayed for a long time regarding the paper, the message written on it. I smoothed it flat on the bench, folded it, and secured it in my pocket. Instead of continuing my round by drifting to the next bench, I cut across the park and walked several blocks to the designated street corner. There I found an older make of car, nondescript save for the heavily tinted glass of its windows, a familiar set of digits on its license plate. A torn piece of paper fluttered between windshield wiper and windshield. I tried the door. It was unlocked. I opened it and stepped inside:
The car smelled of new leather, beneath which a stale, musty smell was only partly buried. A man wearing a tan raincoat and faun driving gloves, fedora tugged down low to shade his eyes, was sitting at the wheel, staring out the front windshield. He pressed a button and the door locks snapped down. He pressed another button and the engine started. Only then did he turn to look at me. He was, I saw, missing an eye.
“Well?” he asked.
“Well, what?” I asked.
He nodded slightly. Turning away, he began to drive.
We drove for some hours. I slept briefly, flickering in and out of consciousness. The man beside me drove with great precision, slipping smoothly through the busy traffic. We pushed out of the city and onto the open road, and then in and out of another city, and then through a third.
At last we arrived at a city I recognized. We drove to the center of town, stopping before a dilapidated theater. He pressed a button. The door locks snapped open.
An elderly but not unattractive woman was in the box office. I attempted to buy a ticket, but, pushing my money back at me, she waved me in.
I waited for my eyes to adjust to the stuttering light. I could make out four other heads. I sat beside one and waited. When nothing happened, I stood and moved to sit beside another, who immediately moved. The third, however, turned slightly toward me, and I recognized on him the face of my second supervisor. He smiled slightly, just enough to show the brief and unexpected glint of a gold tooth.
I was given a photograph and an address. I was to find the individual in question and pursue him. I was to report on his movements, on his meetings with his associates, on anything I found unusual. I was to keep a record of everything.
A question was mounting in my throat. I tried to swallow it down.
Did I understand? my supervisor asked.
Yes, I understood.
Did I have any questions?
Only one: Where was I to find my supervisor when I needed him?
He seemed to stiffen in the dark.
“You didn’t understand,” he said. He was silent for a moment and then stood and left the theater.
I went to the address I had been given, only to discover it to be that of the house I had already observed. The picture too was the same picture I had previously been given. I tried to convince myself I was grateful for a second chance.
I climbed up into the fork of a tree and settled in to wait.
I watched people come and go from the house, comparing each new face to the face captured in the photograph. None of the people corresponded to the face in the photograph. When I saw the park employee, I moved higher into the tree and remained hidden until he had passed.
Near evening, I climbed down long enough to buy a bag of bread and several liters of water, then climbed back into the tree immediately after.
For the next six days I remained in the tree, observing.
The man in the photograph did not appear.
Doubts began to assail me. Perhaps this is a bad likeness, etc.
On the seventh day, I approached the house and kicked in the door. In the living room was a baby in a playpen who seemed not at all displeased to see me. The young woman in the kitchen, however, I was forced to strike once, very hard, to stop her from screaming. No one else was in the house, nor was there any sign that anyone else was living there. On the way out, I straightened the woman’s body on the kitchen floor, checking to make sure that she was still breathing. I considered taking the jovial baby with me but could see no way of justifying this to the administration.
Inside the movie theater, I solicited man after man until I found my supervisor. I filed my report, having mentioned the actions of the baby in a favorable light and the nonpresence of the subject in an unfavorable light. After I finished, my supervisor asked me to clarify a few small matters. Then he informed me I was to continue my observation.
I told him there was no point in continuing the observation. The subject in question was not to be found at the address in question.
Without acknowledging my words, he repeated that I was to continue my observation.
At this juncture, I resigned.
It proved not to be easy to resign from the administration. I was told to return to the theater the next day, where I found, in my administrator’s seat, a pile of forms. These I took with me to my tree in the park. I cautiously sorted through them, discarding those that seemed irrelevant to my case. The rest I filled out and left the following day on the same seat.
From that moment on, I considered my connection to the administration severed. I found myself alone and adrift. I wandered from park to park, avoiding human contact except for moments when, crouched on my knees, hands miming prayer, I sat on the sidewalk with my hat in front of me, begging whatever meager coins I could. As I begged, I wondered what would happen next. Would I return to my city of origin and again see my family, assuming I could discover them again after so long? Would I return to my ersatz relation and piece together a substitute, ersatz life? Or would I simply continue forward, writing in notebooks not for the administration’s pleasure but for my own?