6
A soundless voice that I alone hear, stronger than my poor tortured body and my poor terrified brain. I talk to myself in order to grow accustomed to myself, in order not to be so afraid of my fear and in order to be sure I have not lost my mind. I am afraid of them, of myself, of Him who plays with us. I am surrounded by beings that seem to be the fruit of a diseased imagination. But why do they not disappear? Why can I hear them? Why am I unable to use my mind in order to understand how my mind works and whence comes this fear? It is as if I were inhabited by a stranger, who knows many things about me, and who shapes me as he wills. Why do you fight with me? I am beaten in advance; you, or Thou, will have the power. I am defeated in advance. What satisfaction can you gain if you show me that you are more powerful? I know it as well as you do! Yes, you have won.
When something bad happens, you always await the next blow. I huddle up inside myself and wait.
The three-pronged key swiftly did its duty and thus I entered. It was pitch black and I waited for my eyes to grow accustomed. Then, by groping around, I explored the place. There was a plank bed, like in a mountain cabin: a long platform on which, I think, ten people could have slept, squeezed together. I could have done with ten people. The room was cluttered with things, as in a store, and I kept bumping into them, without seeing them. In one corner I came across some empty buckets and even managed to knock them over. You’re not a chair; you’re not a table. But there was a small window with a broken pane. I placed the rolled-up blanket on the so-called bed and I would have lain down that very instant, had I not been so cold. My whole body ached, from my head to my wet feet. A hot bath, some hot soup, some mulled wine with cinnamon, or at least a cup of tea. I had eaten the bread during the first steps I took, all of it. The icon lamp had gone out. I had to light it; I had to kindle a flame in that icy room. Might the church be unlocked? There must be at least one candle burning there. I went back outside and dragged myself to the church door. It was locked. The windows were high up and there was no question of my reaching them. Shouldn’t the House of the Lord always be open, especially at night, and especially in winter? But no, it seems that we are not welcome all hours. When the Lord is not ready for guests, he knows how to stay aloof. Or maybe He too needs his hours of sleep. I went back, discouraged and more exhausted than ever. Yet again I had to wait for my eyes to grow accustomed to the pitch black. I was shut outside the world. I undid the string tying the blanket and out of it fell a little package, wrapped in paper. It was surely a gift from the woman, from Epiharia. I groped for a long time on the cold, dusty, filthy floor. The package must have been very small and light; it made not a sound when it fell. I found it only after I had scratched my hands on some jagged objects or splinters. I went to the threshold, where there was more light, and tore off the paper. Inside the paper she had wrapped a box of matches, with long, thick sticks, and a little crucifix. ‘God is awake,’ I said to myself. ‘God be with you!’ the woman had said. I would have to be careful not to waste the matches. I readied the icon lamp, closed the door, lest a gust of wind blow it out, rubbed my hands together for a long while, so that my fingers would not be numb, and then, groping like a blind man, took a matchstick, carefully scraping it over the knobbly sandpaper. The matchstick snapped. It was only after a number of attempts, with impatient hands, that I succeeded. A flame appeared and gently tilting the lamp I managed to light it, although I burned my fingers in the process. Yet I did not feel the burn; for there was a light, which soothed me. It was my lamp. I was able to see the objects around me: some paintbrushes, empty leather chests, which were old, their lining torn, stones of every size, ragged clothes, an empty, dirty bottle, a broom made of twigs, a hammer, nails, and things to which I could put no name. I used them nonetheless. I warmed my hands on the lamp, and then I gathered the stones to make a hearth, in which I placed the torn paper from the parcel — a piece of newspaper — and the lining torn from the suitcases. I spent a while snapping the twigs from the broom and made a fairly large heap. I did not waste any more of the matches, whose white phosphorus was now more precious than gold, but set fire to a paintbrush, which gave off a revolting, suffocating, unbearable reek of paint, but which burned well. I kindled quite a decent fire and the air lost a little of its chill, while the smoke poured out of the broken windowpane. I gathered all the rags off the floor and laid them on the plank bed, and then, in the overcoat Petre had given me and in the blanket Epiharia had given me, I lay down. I kept the icon lamp burning. Behind me, unintelligible, the longest day of my life faded away.
Yet I did not fall asleep straight away, despite my exhaustion; probably because I was thirsty. I could see fragments of the city, jumbled together. The road here had been a labyrinth. I knew roughly the direction to Strada Berzei (Stork Street), but it was as if I were no longer a native of Bucharest and the city was playing with me, tricking me at every turn. The horizons, the buildings were different. The few lights were street lamps, the distances were deceptive, and I had found no street signs. I regretted that I did not even know the churches, whose names I had not made an effort to remember, although the woman had told me them, and I saw only the roofs gleaming like nickel teeth. There were fewer and fewer people on the streets. I asked them the way, and some of them gave me directions, but after the first corner I lost my way. I was frightened by all kinds of unlit horse-drawn vehicles, from which came shouts and curses. After a time I had to admit to myself that I was completely lost. The darkness became thicker and thicker and it was getting colder and colder.
In the middle of the night I came across a man walking quickly down the street. I tried to catch up with him, and when I did, I tried to stop him, I touched him, but the man almost leapt out of his skin, looking behind him in terror. I picked his bowler hat up off the ground. It fit my head and was still warm from the head that had been wearing it. I put it on. I continued to walk at random and just as I thought I could not go farther from my goal and had abandoned my struggle with the labyrinth, a church loomed in front of me, with a band of saints painted under the roof. It was the Church known locally as “The Stork’s Nest”. Right next to it, the woman had told me, was the painters’ house, where I would find my own nest.
I was woken by the bells. I had dreamed of Bucharest, while in a different Bucharest. My colleagues from the editorial office had appeared, they were laughing, although I was uncertain as to whether it was laughter or weeping. And there was somebody — a woman, who had been looking for me, a woman with an absent and ineffably sad mien, but I didn’t know who it was. Just as I was shouting at the top of my voice: here I am, here I am, I heard the bells and I thought: ‘The bells mean death.’ With those words in my mind, I awoke. The bells I was hearing meant life. The fire had gone out. The passer’s-by hat was inside a bucket — the hat I had picked up off the ground after I frightened its wearer in the middle of the night. The room was in complete disarray. Through the broken windowpane I could see snowflakes. It had started snowing. It was my first snowfall in this world; a world that was either real or the figment of a ghost-haunted mind. I knew I had to start all over again. But I was quite simply incapable of getting up. I waited for a miracle to happen. No, I was not in a nest, not at all. Rather, I was shipwrecked, except that on my desert island it was winter and I had salvaged nothing from the disaster. Even my luggage had been sequestered by the Police.