“Why didn’t you run away? She could have helped you get out of here, and you would have been free by now.” He reached up to touch my cheek before continuing. “But you did nothing. You stayed here. Why?”
He continued pressing me for a reason, though he knew that I was incapable of providing one. So what was he really seeking? I stood frozen to the spot.
“She’s a new student at the beginner level,” he said, the stream of questions finally coming to an end. “She hasn’t much technique yet, and I don’t even have her typing complete sentences. She just taps out single words, and even then she makes mistakes. But she came to me out of the blue today and asked about the top of the tower. She said that when she was a child she used to be friendly with the old man who tended the clock and she wanted to climb up here again, for old time’s sake, as she put it. I told her I had no objections. That the old man was no longer there and that the room was used for storage, but she was more than welcome to go up and see.”
Why didn’t you stop her? What would you have done if she’d found me?
I stared at him.
“You see, I was absolutely sure. I knew that you were no longer capable of going back out into the world. It would make no difference if someone came knocking at your door. You’ve already been absorbed into this room.”
The word “absorbed” hung for a long while in the air between us. Then I took the clothes from him and changed into them. The fact that these garments were simpler than the others made changing simple, too. I had only to bend over slightly and the material coiled around me as if of its own volition.
“Did she call out from the other side of the door?” he asked. I shook my head. “That’s too bad. I would have liked to have you hear her voice. It’s quite charming. Not beautiful in any classical sense. More unusual and impressive. Like nothing I’ve ever heard—deep resonance in the nasal cavity combined with moisture from the tongue and a wavering tremolo on the lips—sweet enough to melt the eardrums.”
He turned to look at the mountain of typewriters. The lamp that hung from the ceiling was set swaying by a gust of air from the gap around the clock.
“Her progress with her typing lessons is only average. Perhaps not even that. She hunches her back, and she’s constantly mixing up letters. Her fingers are short and stubby, like a child’s, and she hasn’t learned to change the ink ribbon yet. But the instant she opens her mouth, everything around her seems to glow, as if lit from within. As if her voice were some wonderful living thing.”
When he had finished with this speech, he picked me up and carried me to the bed.
What do you plan to do with her? And why are you telling me all this?
I tried to struggle out of his embrace, but the strange clothing made it impossible. He pinned both my ankles with one hand and held me down.
“She needs a great deal more practice with her typing. She needs to develop speed and accuracy. So I can capture her voice. Until it’s completely absorbed and the keys no longer move.”
After that, his visits became much less frequent, and I spent long periods of time alone. The gifts of strange clothing ceased, and the food he prepared was inadequate. Once a day, or even less often, he would leave a plate of cold boiled vegetables and a slice of bread just inside the door and go away again. Without so much as a glance in my direction, without opening the door any more than was necessary to slip in the dish, he left behind no more than the clatter of porcelain.
My eyes and ears became weaker and weaker. My body, cut away from my soul, lay prone on the floor in the shadows of the clock room. When he had cared for me, my body had retained a plump freshness, a certain grace, but now it was just a lump of clay. Were those really my hands? My feet? My breasts? Even I wasn’t certain. If he wouldn’t touch them, they would never come back to life.
He is the only one who comes to see me, here in this room that has absorbed me. But what would I do if he turned his back on me? I trembled just to think about it.
One night I filled the sink with water to soak my legs—in order to be sure they still existed. The water was pure and clear, and it looked extremely cold. I slowly slipped my feet into it, toes first.
But I felt nothing. Just a slight cramping somewhere in my calves. My legs seemed to be floating in air, and I was no longer able to recall how it had felt when they had been real.
Still seated on the edge of the sink, I looked out the little bathroom window. There was a full moon, but its pale glow was of little use to my weak eyes. The city looked like a vast meadow of blurred lights stretching out to the horizon. I tried soaking my hands and face and chest in the water, but the result was the same. My very existence was quickly being sucked away to some remote and inaccessible place.
How long has it been now since he’s visited me? And how long since I’ve eaten anything except the stale bread and jam he brought days ago? It’s too hard now anyway for someone as weak as I am. But my weakness is not because he doesn’t feed me; it’s because I’m being absorbed deeper and deeper into the room. I give up on the bread—which has begun to mold in any case—and merely lick the jam on the spoon from time to time.
I lie in bed and listen, waiting to hear his footsteps climbing the stairs. The slightest creak gives me a start.
He’s coming!
But I’m always disappointed. Deceived by the moaning of the wind or mice scuttling across the floor.
Why doesn’t he come to see me? Why doesn’t he realize that my voice, my body, my sensations, my emotions—everything exists only for him.
Is he giving that other girl a typing lesson at this very moment? He might be touching her fingers, patiently, gently in order to speed the process of capturing her voice.
I close my eyes, realizing that the end is coming soon. Just as I did when I lost my voice, I pray it will come without pain or sadness. But I suppose there’s no need to worry. It must feel much like a typewriter key falling back into place after rising for a moment to strike the page.
I hear the sound of footsteps. He’s coming. And behind him, someone else, someone wearing high heels. The two sets of footsteps overlap with each other, blend together as they approach the door. She must be carrying a typewriter. One with keys that no longer move.
I am absorbed silently into the room, leaving no trace. Perhaps I’ll find my voice again, lost so long ago. The footsteps stop. He turns the key.
The final moment has arrived.
Chapter 28
I put down my pencil and rested my head on the desk, utterly exhausted. In addition to the difficulties I’d had finding the words and putting them together, I had struggled to write them down with so few parts of my body remaining to me.
The characters were awkward, written with my left hand, the lines growing weak and shaky and in places vanishing altogether, as though the words themselves were weeping. I gathered up the sheets of paper and fastened them with a clip. I had no real confidence that this was the story R wanted, but at least I had reached the end of the chain of words. I had completed the one thing I would be able to leave to him.
Though it was not so long ago that novels had disappeared, I had taken an extraordinarily circuitous route to bring the story to this point. Everyone on the island had a vague premonition about what awaited them at the end, but no one said a word about it. They were not afraid, and they made no attempt to escape their fate. They understood the nature of the disappearances, and they knew the best way to deal with them.