But I was still able to tell time, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to appear at my neighbor’s door at exactly seven o’clock.
You’re punctual. That’s a good sign, he said, and grinned. He was wearing the dark red shirt. Soon the color of the wool shirt assumed a certain autonomy and began to float back and forth in my field of vision. I could see nothing else but this color, and suddenly it occurred to me why it looked so familiar. It was the color of the book Simon had brought me, the color of the novel.
The neighbor offered me a cup of tea. His voice now was soft and indistinct. The threatening tone in which he’d spoken a few hours before was gone. Since I didn’t know what to say, I asked him what profession he was in. He blinked. This time he wasn’t wearing his sunglasses. His eyes had no shape, they consisted of a continual opening and closing.
He replied that he was currently unemployed. The business he’d founded together with his girlfriend had gone bankrupt, though he now had a plan that might well be successful. He’d had his telephone cut off so his girlfriend couldn’t call him any more, for there was nothing he found more unbearable than her voice. After he had thoroughly and maliciously described his girlfriend, he suddenly asked if I meditated often. Caught off guard, I replied:
Yes, no, I mean, if I say yes it already means no.
I never spoke the word “meditation” aloud, since meditation described, comprehended and presented as such wasn’t meditation at all. I meditated only in an overcrowded subway, or in a department store in front of a display table heaped with sale items. I meditated standing up and with open eyes. I meditated often. The idea of achieving a state of calm or even discovering one’s true nature through meditation was utterly foreign to me. Rather, I would lapse into meditation when I was fascinated by large crowds of people or mountains of industrial products. They fascinated me because when I looked at them I felt certain I could just as easily do without them.
I told the neighbor everything I could think of on the subject of meditation. He put on his sunglasses and listened. I didn’t have the impression he understood what I was saying. He didn’t ask any questions, either. Perhaps my words lacked all importance to him. After a while he asked whether I talked in my sleep.
How should I know? In any case, I’ve never been woken up by my own voice, only by that of another woman.
Ask Simon whether you’ve talked in your sleep. Don’t forget to ask him soon, because he can’t stay with you much longer. Perhaps it’s already too late. He may already have left. The neighbor’s fingers were bony and conspicuously long. I noticed this when — after finishing his tea — he placed his hands on the table.
How did you know he’s been staying with me and that his name is Simon? I asked, trying not to move any part of my body.
The clock showed exactly ten o’clock. Cautiously I asked the neighbor what his name was, for he didn’t have a name plate on his door. It had only just occurred to me that I didn’t know his name. He said, grinning, that his name was Z.
That can’t be your name. You can’t expect me to believe your name is an abbreviation of zero just because it’s zero minutes after ten.
Then I have a different name, he said, sounding exhausted, but didn’t say what it was.
The next morning Z was still there. His face was now completely different. The shape of his eyes was distinct, and he didn’t blink as often. The flesh of his stomach had grown overnight. I realized I was afraid of him. When I asked him whether he would prefer to drink coffee or tea, he replied:
I never drink tea.
But I clearly remembered him drinking tea once because he had put salt in his tea by mistake. I just couldn’t make up my mind when this had occurred.
•
I went into the kitchen to make coffee. I tried to avoid putting an unpleasant suspicion into words. But I couldn’t get past the ridiculous question of whether this was the same man I had visited the day before. Hadn’t we both been in his apartment yesterday? Why had we woken up in mine? Where was Simon? Perhaps it wasn’t important whether he was the same man as the one from yesterday or not. In any case, I hardly knew him. I knew only that he was my neighbor and that he wanted me to call him Z. No one can really have the name Z, but anyone can ask people to call him anything. So the name Z was not a way to recognize him.
But where was Simon? And where was his book? It no longer lay on my table. The water was boiling in the kettle I’d purchased at a department store. A thermos bottle, two pots and three soup ladles lying near the kettle presented themselves to me. I tried to put these objects together in my head to paint the picture of a kitchen that held a comfortable place for me. But it didn’t work. Individual objects kept hovering out of context before my eyes. What was the point of this kettle, these bowls and these forks? What was that round metal shape, this wooden rectangle? Why had I assembled them in this room? I sat down on the kitchen chair where Simon had often sat. For the first time I noticed the flower-patterned wall, an unpleasant sight. How long had I had this wallpaper? Why had I never tried to take it down? To my surprise, the kettle had the same pattern as the wallpaper. I drew the conclusion that both were manufactured by the same company. If I had seen the kettle at the flea market beside a fountain pen, I might have seen a different relationship between the objects. A kettle and a fountain pen each have an entrance through which something can go in and — unlike the human ear — an exit through which it can come out again. There was still an early-morning light outside. In the glow of the kitchen lamp, white coffee cups gleamed dimly. I remembered that in the novel a scene like this one had been described to express a certain emotion on the part of a character. I hated that part of the text. Fortunately, I could no longer remember the emotion that was being described.
Both the voice of the novel and the book were gone. They had both lost all importance for my life, but all the same I had the unfamiliar feeling that I could no longer feel at ease without them.
At breakfast, Z said to me that he wanted to go on observing Martina. I was surprised he knew her. He also knew I was using her typewriter.
She doesn’t interest me, I said.
That doesn’t make her uninteresting, he replied calmly.
What’s so special about her?
My voice was loud. He grinned out of one side of his mouth.
Nothing at all. She has a problem that probably affects millions of women. We have to take an interest in such problems if we wish to be successful.
9
At three in the afternoon, Z left my apartment. I stood empty-handed at the window and realized my hands needed something to hold on to. For example, the keys of the typewriter, a book or the hands of another person. Since the day Simon first came to visit me, I hadn’t written a single word, not even a letter. I wanted to write again, but didn’t know what. My fingers kept searching for the keys.
I went to Martina’s apartment to ask whether she could lend me her typewriter for a little while.
She opened the door red-eyed and told me that a bus driver had shouted at her the day before. Until then she’d been doing quite well. She’d been walking around with her Walkman as usual and when she got on the bus she noticed that the bus driver was opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish, turning redder and redder. Surprised, she took off her headphones. As soon as she did so, a sharp voice pierced her ears.