The clock at Schaffhausen station showed eleven thirty-seven and Korin stood beneath the clock, the platform quite deserted now, just a single railway man carrying a timetable, his job being to signal the train’s arrival and departure, glimpsed for a second then gone so that by the time Korin had decided to address him he had disappeared together with his timetable behind the door of a room reserved for staff, and everything was silent but for the clock ticking above his head and a sudden gust of wind that swept down the platform, so Korin walked out but found no one there either and made his way down toward the town until he spotted a taxi in front of a hotel, the driver sleeping, slumped over the steering wheel, and tapped on the windshield to wake him, which he did eventually and opened the door so that Korin could give him the piece of paper with the museum’s name written on it, the driver nodding morosely, telling him to get in, it was all right, he’d take him, and so it was that barely ten minutes after his arrival Korin was standing in front of a large, dark, silent building, looking for the entrance, checking that the name on the board tallied with the one on his sheet, turning first left and returning to the entrance, then right, down to the corner where the taxi had dropped him, returning again, finally circumambulating the entire building as if sizing it up, rubbing his neck the whole time and never taking his eyes off the windows, gazing and gazing at them, seeking some light, some shadow, some subtle change, some flickering, anything that might indicate a living presence, returning to the entrance, giving the door a good shake, beating and beating at it without result, and the security guard in his hut swore this all had happened precisely at midnight, his pocket radio having just bleeped twelve on the table, which seemed to be the cue for the rattling to start, not that he would claim to have known what to do right away, the noise startled him a little because no one had ever rattled the door like that at midnight or after that, not as long as he had been working nights here, so what was this about, he wondered, somebody at the door at this hour, what can it mean, and all this ran through his mind before he went to the door, opened it a crack, and what happened next, he explained the next morning on his way home from the hearing, so surprised him he really didn’t know what to do, because the easiest way, he explained, would have been, as he knew full well, to chase the man off, send him on his way, just like that, but the few words he understood of what he was saying, something about sculpture and Hungarian and Mister Director and New York confused him, because it suddenly struck him what this might be about, that they might have forgotten to say something to him, that maybe he was to expect this person at such a time, and what would happen, he asked himself, slurping his milky coffee, if he chased him away, treated him like some tramp and then in the morning it turned out that he’d done something wrong, because for all he knew the man might have been a famous artist, someone they had been waiting for, who had arrived late, and suddenly there he was, without accommodation, without even a telephone number to ring, because, he might have lost it, just as he might have lost his luggage on the flight, the flight that was late, the luggage containing all his possessions, because it wouldn’t have been the first time this had happened with these artists, the security guard waved at his mother in worldly wisdom, so he closed the door, he said, and thought for a moment, deciding the best thing was neither to send him away nor let him into the museum, but he couldn’t ring up the director now, after midnight, so what could he do, what should he do, he pondered, and had just returned to his post, when he remembered one of the attendants, Mr. Kalotaszegi, who could possibly be called, midnight or no midnight, and he would certainly call him, he decided, and was already looking up his number in the employment book, because, in the first place, Mr. Kalotaszegi was of Hungarian extraction and would therefore understand what this person was babbling about, so if he was called out he could talk to the man and they could decide together what to do with him, and he was extremely sorry, he said on the phone, extremely sorry to disturb Mr. Kalotaszegi, but this man had turned up, probably a Hungarian artist, he said, but no one had told him anything about it, and until someone talked to him he wouldn’t know what to do because he couldn’t understand a word he said, only that he might be some kind of sculptor, that he might have arrived from New York and that he was probably Hungarian, and he was constantly repeating Mister Director, Mister Director, so he couldn’t handle this alone, though he’d happily have sent him to hell, the attendant told the director the next morning, because he needed pills to sleep, it was the only way he could sleep, and once he does fall asleep and then someone wakes him he can’t sleep a wink the rest of the night, but there’s this security man ringing him at midnight, asking him to come over to the museum, and what the hell is this, was his first thought, he certainly wasn’t going anywhere, because it really is scandalous that he, an acute insomniac, should be rung up after midnight, but then the security guard mentions the director’s name and tells him that this weirdo keeps asking for the director, so he thought best not take a chance in case some ballyhoo ensues on account of him not helping, so he thought a bit and forgot his anger though he had every right to be angry it being past midnight, got dressed and went over to the museum, and it was good, very good indeed, in fact he didn’t know how to tell the director how good it was, all that happened, because as the director knows he is not a man of many words, but what followed was one of the most extraordinary nights of his life and the events he happened to witness between half past twelve and the present time had such an effect on him that he still couldn’t think of them calmly and reasonably, and because he was still recovering from the effects of these experiences, these great, quite mysterious experiences, it was perfectly possible that he might not find the right words at once, for which he asked to be excused in advance, but he really was shaken, very shaken, not quite himself, the only excuse for his condition being that he hadn’t had any time, not a second, to try to get events into some kind of perspective, in fact, to be honest, even as they were sitting down here in the director’s office he felt as though whatever happened wasn’t entirely over and that it could start all over again from the point of his arrival a little after half past twelve when he knocked at the door and the security man came out and explained it all again to him, while the person in question, the person, as the security guard referred to him, was waiting at a point some fifteen meters from the entrance watching the upstairs windows, so he went over, introduced himself and the person was so delighted to be addressed in Hungarian that, without saying a word, he embraced him, which of course greatly surprised him, for having lived for decades in Schaffhausen, he had quite forgotten these characteristically passionate, over-excited displays of emotion, and pushed the person away, telling him his name and office, and that he’d like to help if he could, in answer to which the person introduced himself as Dr. György Korin then explained that he had arrived at the last stop in an inordinately long journey, and that he could hardly contain himself in his happiness that he could share the problems of this, for him, fateful night with a fellow Hungarian, in Hungarian, and confided to him that he was an archivist in a small Hungarian town, and that his mission, which far outweighed his position in life, had taken him to New York from where he had but recently arrived following a terrifying pursuit, because his destination was Schaffhausen, the
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