He was hanging on to the tassels of his bedspread as if to stop himself from falling into the pit.
CHAPTER 5
MARK WENT UP TO THE WINDOW to see what was going on outside. It was a most curious spectacle. The city was under water. Muddy brown water, the sort you see when there’s been flooding. Even from the balcony you could hear the lapping of the waves. Mark leaned over, dipped his fingers in it, and was surprised to find that it was not at all cold. He was alarmed to see how rapidly the flood had risen to the level of his second-floor apartment, and for a short while he stared at the buildings on the other side of the street and at the tops of the lampposts, which rose above the waterline. Then without a second thought he stripped off his shirt, and, as he was already in his underpants, put his leg over the balustrade. He dipped a toe into the water, and then let the rest of him slip in.
For a short moment he wondered if he was dreaming; the quietness all around would otherwise have been inexplicable. But he soon realized that he was not in a dream. Everyone else seemed to be still asleep, unaware of what had happened during the night. In any case, it was very pleasant to swim about at second-floor level. Distances seemed somehow altered, crossroads seemed closer to each other, and Mark imagined he would get to his girlfriend’s window very easily indeed. How surprised she would be to see him swim up to her bay window! He would hang on to the railing for a few seconds to get his breath back, and then haul himself up over it.
In the distance a siren — from a police car or some other emergency vehicle — could be heard blaring faintly. You’re taking your time! Mark thought.
He swam toward the main crossroads at the center of town; with a bit more effort he could get to the town hall plaza and, farther on, to the Arts Center. On both sides of the street all sorts of things were stacked on people’s balconies: sofas, bicycle wheels, and multicolored beach balls, which brought back to mind the summer holidays.
He suddenly thought of his studio, and shuddered with fear. What a muddlehead you are! he scolded himself. That’s what you should have worried about first! He made a sharp about-turn, in order to swim back toward the studio. Some alleys were completely submerged, so he was able to take short cuts straight over the roofs of low shacks that he could barely see through the murky water.
His limbs, which up to then had moved with ease, now began to feel heavy. A panic came upon him. You must be crazy! he told himself a second time, as he craned his neck left and right to see if he really was the only swimmer in town. If there had been anyone else, he would have asked him to go to the studio in his stead, to make sure the paintings had not been swept away by the flood, since he was now feeling quite incapable of swimming so far. But to his renewed amazement he had no more company than Adam. So much so that he could have said, in retrospect, Darkness was on the face of the deep, and the spirit of Mark moved upon the face of the waters…. He made a last effort with all his muscles to push against the weight of the water, and at that very moment, he woke up.
What a dream! he thought, though he was greatly relieved all the same to be back in the real world. He went up to the window and drew back the curtain. It was still dark outside. The siren of the police car or the ambulance, which had apparently pierced his dream, could still be heard in the far distance.
When he went out, Mark was still burdened by the distress that his dream had left him with. At the door of the Town Café, where he made his regular call, a knot of men were talking about the sirens that he had just been hearing. “No, no,” one of them was saying, “it cant be another holdup. In any case, there can’t be much left to steal at that sorry branch! Ndrek must be right — they’re testing the sirens on the cars that the Council of Europe sent us.”
The barman, who seemed to assume that Mark was expecting his opinion, gave a twisted, smile and said, “We’d like to be part of Europe, but up to now all we’ve got from Europe are those damned sirens! Aren’t we lucky!”
Mark could feel someone come in the door behind him, breathing hard.
“Okay lads, you heard the news? Marian Shkreli…”
The man was panting for breath and could hardly speak.
“Well, what’s happened to him, then?”
“He was shot as he came out of his front door…. That’s what’s happened to him!”
“Not possible!”
Mark was struck dumb for a moment. “Marian Shkreli has been shot….” The sentence sounded blind and foreign, and he could not get it into his head. He wanted to yell, “But that’s my boss!” as if this fact contradicted the news that had just been given out. For years, in fact, though he had no idea why, everyone had called him “boss” and had avoided using his surname. And now, on this fatal day, the boss’s actual name had suddenly reemerged from oblivion to take its rightful place. Hardened and darkened by the blood that had been spilled, the name reattached itself to the body as it grew cold.
In no time at all the café filled with noise and bustle. Everyone was talking at the same time, without really bothering whether anyone else was listening.
“So that’s what the wailing siren was about. I thought it might have been the fire engine….”
Mark lit a cigarette and left without greeting anyone. He walked at a sharp pace and then broke into a run.
A small crowd had gathered in front of the block where the victim lived. The police car was parked at the curbside. The local magistrate and his team were also on-site, already busy taking photographs. Mark just stood there like the other onlookers, not daring to ask for details. He knew he would find it all out soon enough without having to ask. He would just have to keep his ear open to gossip.
Indeed, he caught up with the whole story very quickly. The director had been seriously wounded, and had been taken to the hospital. There was not much hope of saving him. A young man had fired a revolver at Marian as he came out of his front door. One single shot, to the forehead.
A single shot, Mark said over and again to himself, like a man in a daze.
Other people could now be seen converging on the spot from all directions. Asking the same questions, getting the same answers.
“The boss has been killed.”
“You dont say! Who did it, and for what reason?”
“No idea. Maybe it was a crime of jealousy.”
“But apparently it was more complicated than that, if you believe what people say.”
“Oh, I see what you mean! A political murder! That’s the fashion these days — people assume that some political score’s being settled whenever someone has a stroke or gets buried in an avalanche.”
“I don’t think people will say that in this case. As far as I know, he wasn’t involved in politics.”
“By the way, which party did he support?”
“I have no idea. All I know is that the left thought he was right-wing, and the right thought he was left-wing.”
“Poor man!”
Mark kept looking for the head of the music section in the ever-growing crowd. He didn’t know what best to do — to follow his boss to the hospital or stay at the scene of the crime with the others. Then something made him shiver from head to toe. In the stream of ordinary conversations overheard, he thought he could make out a another language, a language of frozen expressions drifting like ice floes on the swell of the sea of chatter. Those old, cold ways of saying, quite distinct from the warm words of living speech, could now be heard ever more insistently. The victim’s name — now preceded by the culprit’s name — froze the blood in Mark’s veins: Angelin of the Ukaj hath slain Marian of the Shkreli.