It was as if I had insulted Harry personally.
Which made me doubt myself for a moment.
79
We’re sitting on either side of the bunkroom door, silent. Suddenly I no longer have any idea what time it is or which part of the day we’re up to. It has struck me out of the blue. I must have been deep in thought. I wrack my brains, but can’t recall what I was thinking about so deeply, even though it was just a second ago. I try to reconstruct the hours, starting from the inspection rounds; their interchangeability doesn’t help. I can’t find anything concrete. Nothing that unmistakably locates me in the present, in this present. Then I think, disbelievingly and with mild self-contempt, of my watch. How could I have spent so long, second after second, not thinking of the watch that will give the correct time as long as my heart keeps beating?
Now that the solution is at hand, I postpone it a little. For the pleasure of it. As if I’m on an excursion in countryside that’s full of surprises. I’ll turn back soon. There’s plenty of time.
I become aware of the absence of my body. How long have I been sitting in this position? I don’t feel anything anymore, my body has gone completely numb. As a consequence, I have the idea that I can no longer move. Afraid of failing, I don’t dare to simply try. My eyes roll easily in all directions and my eyelids blink like before; the rest seems anesthetized or paralyzed. I concentrate on my feet, sending my thoughts down to them, scouts in search of a sign of life. I send them to my left foot first, forcing them to my little toe. I work systematically, from bottom to top. Arriving at my backside I encounter cold emptiness, as if I’m sitting on concrete instead of a wooden stool. In my lower back, which is leaning against the wall and bearing the weight of my relaxed upper body, I even discover pain, concealed in habituation.
I stay sitting in the same position, surrendering to a state of contemplation or detachment. In the corner of my eye I see Harry sitting motionless on the chair. I want to maintain this condition as long as possible, this complete quietude. But I know that eventually a word will be said, a superfluous word, that will make me jump out of my skin. It’s inevitable. In one intense spasm all of my muscles will be called to order.
Is Harry thinking about his prediction? A good five weeks have passed since he claimed that we would be relieved within a week. Is he still thinking of the residents? They have almost disappeared from our conversations. Frequent use has robbed their names of their power. They have degenerated into abstractions, sequences of letters.
The smells faded away long ago.
During one of my night rounds I stepped into Garage 22. With the little light available, I searched for signs of the Bentley, tire marks. After a few minutes I was able to make out two dark patches deep in the garage, where the front wheels would be. I imagined Mrs. Privalova’s awkward assistant, nervously turning the steering wheel. I heard the shrill shriek of hard rubber. Two shadows on a slightly lighter background. The residents really existed.
80
“It’s Friday.”
Harry doesn’t turn around.
I’m standing at the door with sleep in my eyes. I button my collar and pull up my tie. It’s Friday, I repeat to myself. For some reason, I have to smile. It’s Friday. I feel my smile growing wider, my mouth opens. Friday! There is something irresistibly funny about the word. My lips are tight over my gums. I am only just able to control myself. I mustn’t think about it. I think of Monday, but that doesn’t really help, the distraction is too blatant. I think Monday and hear Friday. I know it’s insane to laugh about the name of a day. I try to reduce the pressure in my head by coughing and clearing my throat, by concentrating on my cap, which I arrange at the correct angle. I realize that I have always announced the right day, for so long now, whereas Harry couldn’t give a rat’s ass what day it is. I could have announced Thursday again today, or Tuesday, he probably wouldn’t have noticed. Never having played it on him doesn’t make the joke any less funny. I feel my stomach muscles, tense from restrained laughter. It’s as if I’ve been greeting him for weeks now with the announcement that it’s Friday and he still hasn’t cottoned on. I mustn’t laugh out loud, I’d never be able to explain it, he wouldn’t believe me. He’ll think I’m laughing at him behind his back, because I feel that if I lose it now, I’ll crack up completely. As an explanation, Friday will not suffice.
I concentrate on the crown of his head: a flaky, off-white, coin-sized bald spot. His crown is not funny. It’s over. I have everything under control again. It’s over, I tell myself. Friday. It was funny, terribly funny, but now it’s already a lot less funny. Soon it will be over completely.
81
I sit down and ask casually how the night went. At the same time I see that his cap is missing; his relaxed, empty hands are lying on his lap. Where is his cap? Above his beard his cheeks are glowing. He’s sweating slightly, his forehead is gleaming, he’s staring straight ahead. He seems calm, but it’s like he’s still recovering from some exertion.
He says, “I caught a fly.”
“A fly? You caught a fly?” I hear my words, loud and clear. “That’s impossible. You can’t have.”
Slowly he turns his head toward me.
“The fly must be long dead by now. It’s months since I saw it. It’s winter.”
Harry is dumbstruck.
“It must have laid eggs…”
“Eggs? What are you talking about?”
“It can’t be the same fly, can it? Did you see the fly? A couple of days after the strawberry jam? I saw a fly then. It was sitting there on the jam stain. Did you see that fly then?”
“No.”
“Or hear it? You could hear it really well too.”
“What difference does it make, Michel?”
“I’m just curious. It seems so unlikely.”
Harry and I gaze into space again. The emptiness is not as empty as I thought. Could the fly have survived on our measly breadcrumbs? How long does a fly live, an ordinary housefly? It must have lain low, saving energy. This basement has laws no one can escape.
“It wasn’t easy,” Harry says.
Maybe he coincidentally woke the fly up out of some kind of hibernation.
“I followed it all night, losing sight of it more than once, but I always found it again. Fortunately it was fairly slow. It wasn’t really flying, just hovering. But whenever I got close, it shot off with a series of sharp, angular movements and I completely lost track of it. Then suddenly it would be hanging there as cool as you please in front of my nose again. As if it was making fun of me.”
It’s the same fly or a fly from the same family. Didn’t the other eggs mature properly? Is it possible for a fly to have just one descendant?
“A fly,” he says, “can’t keep flying forever. Eventually it has to land somewhere. I was more patient than the fly. It was an excellent test of my perseverance. Concentrating the whole time and waiting. When it landed on the floor I stalked it. Millimeter by millimeter. So slowly that I might have been able to grab it between my thumb and index finger. I just put my cap down on top of it. I didn’t even drop it; I just laid it gently on the floor. It didn’t notice a thing.”
“Is it still alive?”
“It’s under my cap. Between Garages 38 and 39.”
Harry stretches his neck and gives the curly hairs a good scratch.