The ride down was even more unpleasant. What alarmed Jonas more than being shut in was the thought that the brakes might fail and the lift plunge seventy metres. Once at the bottom he hurried to get out.
While descending the steps to the catacombs he tried to recall what he’d learnt about them during his school-days or on previous visits. It wasn’t much. There were two parts, he remembered. The older catacombs dated from the fourteenth century, the newer from the eighteenth. The older part, which contained the Cardinal’s Crypt, lay beneath the cathedral, the newer extended a little way beyond its walls. After serving as Vienna’s municipal cemetery during the Middle Ages, the catacombs had been abandoned for lack of space.
‘Hello?’
He came to a small chamber containing pews and brightly lit by lamps in every corner. A trail of candle-wax droplets led across the floor. He followed it.
He had to turn on the light in every chamber. If he failed to find the switch at once, he coughed and laughed. As soon as the ceiling light came on, he ventured further. Occasionally he paused. Nothing to be heard but his own rapid breathing.
He entered a narrow passage lined with clay vessels. The temperature here was noticeably lower than in the other chambers. Jonas couldn’t explain this phenomenon. The chambers weren’t separated from each other by doors, just stone sills.
He took three steps back into the chamber he’d just come from. Warmer.
Three steps forward. Colder. Far colder.
Something told him to turn back.
A faint glow was coming from a side chamber at the end of the passage. Jonas felt sure he hadn’t turned the light on. He wondered exactly where he was. Probably near the high altar. Still beneath the cathedral, anyway.
‘Hello!’
He remembered how it had been in the forest. How quickly he’d lost his bearings. This was no forest, true, but he didn’t feel like fumbling his way around the catacombs of St Stephen’s Cathedral. He knew his way back from here. If he went any further, that could change fast.
The light in the side chamber seemed to flicker.
‘Come over!’
‘Over,’ called the echo, and died abruptly.
He took a card from his trouser pocket.
Sleep, it read.
He laughed derisively. Taking the whole bunch of cards from his pocket, he shuffled them thoroughly and withdrew another.
Sleep, it read.
I don’t believe it, he thought.
He shuffled the cards again. Just as he was about to pick one, the truth hit him like a slap in the face. The third card he withdrew read Sleep. So did the fourth. And the fifth, sixth and seventh.
Sleep.
All thirty cards read Sleep.
He dropped them on the floor. Blindly, he dashed back through the musty subterranean chambers, up the steps to the exit, and out into the cathedral square. He felt in his pocket for the ignition key but failed to find it immediately. At last he got the engine started. The car gave a jerk as he drove off.
*
Jonas took the external lift to the top floor of Steffl’s department store in Kärntnerstrasse. He wasn’t so scared this one would crash, perhaps because it was a glass-encased, panoramic lift. Although aware of how high above the ground he was, he could see what was happening. That made the ride more acceptable.
He mixed himself a cocktail behind the counter of the Sky Bar. Should he put some music on? He removed a CD from its sleeve but replaced it in case it upset his equilibrium.
He sat down on the terrace. From there he had a thoroughly familiar view of the city centre. In front of him loomed St Stephen’s, bronze roofs gleaming in the light of the setting sun.
He had often been to this bar with Marie. The sight of its stylish clientele made her dream of a time when she herself would be rich and leisured, and she enthused about the white wines served there. Jonas had no time for Vienna’s smart young things, nor could he share her enthusiasm for wine, which he didn’t drink. But it had filled him with quiet self-assurance to sit here with her early in the afternoon, when the place was sparsely filled and she was off on a trip the next day. To sit quietly on the wooden deck, listening to the muted sounds of the city and gazing at the ancient cathedral. To reach across the table and stroke each other’s arm in silence from time to time. Those had been moments of great intimacy.
Jonas took a sip of his cocktail. He’d made it far too strong. He tasted again, grimaced and went to get a bottle of mineral water.
As he gazed across at the cathedral’s bell tower, he experienced a sudden hankering to be a child again. To be plied with jam sandwiches and fruit juice. To play in the street and come home dirty and be scolded for tearing his trousers. To be plonked in a bath and put to bed by his parents. To be careless and carefree. To have no responsibility for himself or anyone else. Above all, though, he wanted a jam sandwich.
He stared at the blackened walls of the cathedral. Over there, down below ground near the altar, was something extraordinary, he felt sure. It might not be dangerous. But it was something he didn’t understand.
And now his cards were down there. Many with the inscription face upwards, others not. Sleep, they said in his handwriting. Almost his handwriting. If he never went down there again they would continue to lie there until they crumbled away to dust. No one would ever read them, but there they would lie, enjoining sleep. Stone walls. A musty odour. And, when the last light had gone out, total darkness.
*
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.