I didn’t dare ask him anything else. Fear of the past had chilled me to the bone. We went for a walk along the banks of the Onyar. Maties Boca smoked, was preoccupied with himself, absent, and lethargic. He didn’t seem to want to talk. It was a mild, rather damp autumn evening. I looked at the sky, to pass the time: the usual stars, the same blank, overwhelming, inhuman world. It all inclined you to shut your eyes and be carried away by the morbid pleasures of a memory that was inevitably set to fade. Awareness of the pettiness of humankind induced melancholy voluptuousness: a mixture of dread and tenderness. We carried on walking for perhaps another quarter of an hour.
“Isn’t about time to make our way to bed?” asked the baritone, throwing his cigar at the pebbles in the river.
“Very well, if you like.”
We turned round and headed back towards the city.
“Tomorrow is another day!” said Sr Boca as he bid me farewell and held out his hand.
“That’s very likely, of course.”
“Good night.”
“Adéu-siau.”
We went off in opposite directions. Before I turned the corner, I looked back. Sr Boca had also looked back. We surveyed each other from a distance, for one lingering moment. We were at once friends and strangers in the night. In the end, I shrugged my shoulders and continued on my way.
Roby or Deflation
Frau Berends silently opened the door and tiptoed in. It was nearly pitch black in my bedroom. I was lying on the bed at the back smoking. I expect I’d been awake for a while, but I was afloat on a cloud of languid unknowing. Frau Berends stood by my night table, put down my newspapers and letters, and turned to leave.
“Eleven o’clock, Frau Berends …?” I asked in a sheepish, squeaky voice.
Frau Berends replied, groping for the handle to close the door, not looking round, her head sunk between her shoulders, in a pitiful rather than resigned tone:“Eleven o’clock …? Two o’clock! It’s getting dark again …”
She left holding her head between her hands.
I opened my letters. One was from my brother. It said: “Last week I sent two telegrams to your new address. They were accurately written, but both were returned with the comment: not known! They were about the favor Sr N. asked of you, that you promised to honor and never will. If you weren’t so careless and lackadaisical, I’d feel really sorry for you. Where the hell are you? Who is this Marta Berends? Are you really in Berlin? Are you sure? You’ll never change, there’s no curing you: you’re a loose cannon. Your selfishness creates infinite problems for you and makes your life a real mess. You think you’re doing whatever you feel like and the smallest incident sends you off course …”
My first inclination was mentally to agree with my brother. That gave me the pleasure of feeling I’d done my duty. That pleasure would have restored me to my languid cloud, had I not decided to reread the letter. The lost telegrams stirred me. It was indeed odd and disturbing.
Are you an unknown in this household? I wondered, as I laced up my shoes.
I thought about it for a time. It was strange. However, there could be no mistake. I was the only visible subtenant. The other living creatures were Frau Berends, a boy, Roby, a cat, and a kitten. The house contained objects from the intermediate realm — a gramophone, a stove and an alarm clock. Apart from that, there was nothing else with any life.
I worried as I dressed. While I knotted my tie I decided it was true enough, I’d lived in that house for a couple of weeks and still didn’t really know where I was. I’d yet to examine my bedroom properly. At the same time, I didn’t know where the house began or ended. The neighborhood seemed vague and remote, doubly so when I gave it a moment’s thought. Once again I agreed with my brother and now I too felt sorry for myself.
Frau Berends’ alarm clock chimed three. I switched on the light. It was raining outside and the sky was very low. Apart from the distant patter of rain, I could hear nothing. I was definitely in Berlin, but I could hear no city sounds. I listened to the rain and stopped musing for a moment. Then I realized that my things were scattered around the room just where I’d dropped them when I arrived. My suitcase, with my clothes still a jumble inside, was open on the table in the center. My toiletries were lined up by the mirror over the basin. I’d been putting the daily papers on a chair, and the pile had grown. At first glance I thought the things I’d hung up the day before were still in the wardrobe. Then I realized my bowler hat was missing. I searched my bedroom in vain. I went out into the passage hoping the playful kitten had taken it to its somersaulting Paradise. No sign of my hat.
I thought I heard footsteps behind the kitchen door so I knocked. Frau Berends came out. She closed the door behind her. The passage was murky. I could only see Frau Berends’ imposing hulk and a pale pink hydrangea spot of color on one corner of her face.
“Frau Berends, where is my bowler hat?”
A long pause followed. My words echoed horribly down the passage. Frau Berends remained disconcertingly still. Finally she waved her hand as if to chase a fly away, snorted, and declared sarcastically: “Your bowler hat? Is that why you summoned me? What a liberty! Perhaps …”
As she opened the door I saw her in the light from the kitchen for a second: a wrinkle under her nose, nodding as if she really pitied me.
I went downstairs, with alarming thoughts buzzing round my head. I was worried: Where are you? I asked myself on a landing, feeling slightly afraid yet thinking how stupid and grotesque that was. The wooden staircase was very narrow and a dusty bulb flickered in my eye. Everything looked down-at-heel and dirty, and a cold draught blew up the stairs. The threadbare carpet was spattered in soft black mud. I struck a match to light a cigarette. With my first puff I heard a child crying nearby that I thought was behind me. My heart leapt and I turned quickly round. I dropped the match. The crying had stopped, as if they’d just drowned it.
I rushed down the rest of the stairs. I know this is absurd but I have to confess that when I walked out into the street, my head felt on fire, my mouth was parched, and my cheeks red hot. The stupidest presentiment at twilight can transform the most harmless, ordinary reality into something arcane, unbearable, and chaotic. I thought how everything seemed possible except for a telegram sent three thousand kilometers away going astray. How difficult it was to keep rational! The sound of certain words, for example, can interpose a misty film between our eyes and reality. The words ‘not known’ have such a mysterious resonance! When we are influenced by one of these mirages we think the reality of fantasy has a deeper, more logical and sensible meaning than the mechanical, ordinary day-to-day. The reality of fantasy is more vivid and exciting because it belittles an individual and makes him see the world through more pessimistic eyes.
It was raining and windy. The streetlamps were lit but glowed dimly. The street was almost empty. The wind whined through skeletal trees. I took the first turning. A tiny man with crooked legs was walking ahead of me. He was striding along and the unpleasant scrape of his hobnailed shoes gave me goose bumps. He wore a bowler hat pulled over his forehead, smoked a pipe, and carried a yolk-yellow suitcase. I tried to overtake him, and when I drew level, his innocent blue eyes stared at me, as he continued humming a popular tune. The street was long, straight, and terribly drab, dotted with patches of window light. The houses were all the same: reinforced concrete, mostly not pebble-dashed, a small, leaden-colored strip of garden, and a front fence — cardboard constructions. The silence of the graveyard hung over the street.