“I’m sure of it.”
“Don’t you find that a little strange? He doesn’t even ask what’s going on. We’re totally used to it, but it must be very weird for him, not seeing any residents, not a single car in the car park. Think about it, Michel. Wouldn’t you find it strange? I know I would.”
Deep in thought we pace the invisible line of our inspection route. At the bunkroom door we hear light snoring. His sleep, too, seems untroubled.
94
In the daytime there are moments I forget him for minutes at a time. Generally when it’s his turn to stand: Harry on the chair and me on the stool. He never sits on the ground, none of us do. I forget him. Then I see him again as if in a vision. He’s as large as life but not really here; I’m imagining him. Harry and I are on guard duty in the basement alone. Soon we’ll hear the service elevator. It’s Claudia. She’s bringing us a plate covered with an upturned soup bowl. Lamb stew. A black giant. With kidneys, eyes and a backbone. It’s too drastic to accept as reality. And yet he’s standing here, leaning against the wall with a loaded Flock 28 on his hip. Breathing the same air as us.
When Harry and I talk to each other it’s like we’re putting on a play. Our words fall into their fixed patterns, the sentences are old friends, but the dialogue sounds stilted and rehearsed. The presence of an observer in the darkness behind the footlights changes us into a couple of hams. The guard himself doesn’t say much and hardly a word in Harry’s presence. He does display an occasional tendency to briefly repeat statements or phrases, including some that are totally trivial, for no apparent reason. Is he taking mental notes that inadvertently leak out of his mouth? Do they combine to form a report he leafs through once more just before falling asleep?
95
After a single five-hour night the linen is saturated with his body odor, which mine is powerless to resist. It is not as pungent as Harry’s, not as sharp, but strong all the same. According to Harry there can be no doubt about it: the last resident is in acute danger. That’s why they’ve sent the guard after all. The danger is evidently so acute that the organization didn’t have time to arrange things properly and is counting on us being able to share the linen peacefully in the meantime. He doesn’t exclude the possibility of a logistic follow-up. Maybe within a couple of days. A week at most.
I hear their footsteps build up and then fade back into silence and each time I hope it’s the last time I’ve heard it, that I’m about to fall asleep. I’ve got three hours left, I have to relax. The pistol is lying on my stomach with the barrel pointing at the door. I practice what I hope will be a controlled reflex.
After yet another pass, I slip out of bed. Barefoot, I look out through the opening into the basement proper, lit by three fading fluorescent tubes. Harry and the guard don’t deviate from the set trajectory. I can hardly make them out. I don’t think they’re talking. Sometimes I see the movement of feet and legs, but rarely higher than the knees. They seem to be avoiding the light, circumnavigating it as if strolling on the banks of a deep pond. Still black water that makes you gasp for breath. If you go under, you’ll never resurface.
96
The guard says he spoke to him twice. I jump and realize I was almost nodding off; I only got an hour’s broken sleep. I can’t remember asking any questions. Not Harry — his previous colleague, the one in the next box. He went to see him twice, even though it wasn’t allowed. Speaking to colleagues was forbidden. He has no idea why, but it wasn’t his favorite rule and in the end he broke it twice. He wants to know if that bothers me. I shrug. He asks me to be honest. I tell him it’s nothing to do with me and water under the bridge anyway. It’s in the past, he doesn’t have to worry about it anymore. He shakes his head disparagingly, straightens his shoulders and takes a deep breath: he shouldn’t have done it. It’s something he will never be able to undo. Rules are rules and a guard has to respect them. He understands my disapproval and also my reluctance to express it bluntly. He says he’s deeply sorry about it. It was stronger than he was. One day he saw his colleague waving. The gesture was unmistakable. It was a greeting, directed at him. He waved back; as far as he knew greetings were not forbidden. It started very innocently, with a full sixty meters separating them. While the guard blathers on, I wonder what’s got into him: he’s talking as if we’ve already spent two days walking around chatting together. I don’t think I’ve asked him anything. He says that they were best friends long before they exchanged a word with each other. He can’t explain it, but it was something he just knew, he knew it for a fact. He had a sleeping schedule, presumably adjusted for a skeleton security staff, and he followed it precisely. After waking up he always prepared himself quickly and went to stand in front of his box with his heart in his throat. Almost always, his friend waved to him right away, asking with a thumbs-up sign if everything was okay. After his friend had gone to bed himself a little later, the guard kept his eye on his watch and made sure to look in the direction of that box about five hours later when it was time for him to reappear. It was like that every day. They were best friends, anyone could see that.
97
Harry grabs my sleeve. With gentle pressure, he pulls me into the narrow gap between Garages 34 and 35. It’s pitch black, but Harry doesn’t slow down. At the first crusher I feel his hands grasping my shoulders as he pushes me up against the iron wall. His face is close, his breath as warm as blood.
“Back to the start,” he says.
“How do you mean?”
“Where he asks you what you think about it.”
“He was talking about rules, the regulations, and him breaching them. He was very sorry about it.”
“And he wanted you to be honest? About what you thought of his offense?”
“Yes, he honestly wanted my opinion.”
“Did you give it to him?”
“Not really. I just said it was water under the bridge. Then he said he understood it, my disapproval. He understood my not wanting to express it in so many words.”
“What was your answer to that?”
“Nothing. He was in the wrong of course.”
“I know that. But you didn’t add anything else?”
“No.”
“Was that the first time he’s made a confession or admitted something?”
“It was a complete surprise, Harry. He just launched into the story. I was dumbstruck.”
I hear him scratching his throat, his fingernails rasping through the curling hairs. “So they give each other the thumbs-up now and then and wave hello…”
“He said they were best friends. He just knew it.”
“Best friends?”
“Yes, he was convinced of it. He thought so, anyway.”
“He was wrong?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what to make of his story. One day he sees the guard make a gesture he doesn’t understand. Not giving him the thumbs-up or waving, but something less obvious, surreptitious, from the hip. After fretting for a couple of hours, he decides that something might be going on; it must have been some kind of signal. He said that a friend in need is a friend indeed. He asked me if he was right. If a friend in need was a friend indeed.”
“He asked you that?”
“Yes. He made a point of it. I said I hoped so.”
“And what did he say to that?”
“He nodded. He hoped so too. And what happens? That friend of his is rather upset by his visit. He tells the guard to piss off. He knows it’s against the rules, doesn’t he? But we’re friends, says the guard. He says that a friend in need is a friend indeed. His colleague puts a finger to his lips and keeps his mouth shut. Meanwhile the guard has cast a glance into the sentry box: it’s identical to his. Different colors, that’s all. He sees a simple figurine on a shelf, a porcelain cat. There are others too, five or six, but not on the shelf. Back in his box he can’t get that figurine out of his head. When he sees his own bare shelf, he thinks of that white pussycat. It has a blissful smile on its face and its long-lashed eyes are closed, and it’s made so you can put it against the wall or next to some object and it will look like it’s rubbing up against it.”