The Guard (11 page)

78

Harry swears that it was Mr. Colet and wants that to be the last word on the subject; he quickens his pace, taking a slight lead. I leave it for now.

The discussion makes me think back on Mrs. Rosenthal's son. Until recently I remembered the Jewish youth as a devout figure with an affable smile for all who crossed his path, regardless of creed, status or position. An odd creature, true, an adolescent with the air of an old man, something I put down to exceptional intelligence. But the way Harry described him was just as accurate. He could also have been a pernicious brat who got his kicks by grinning in people's faces to wind them up, especially those who served him and were, therefore, in a sense powerless.

It's happened several times in the past few days. Mr. Schiffer's personal assistant for instance. I don't believe he suffered from a skin condition. I think he was an alcoholic and that Mr. Schiffer turned a blind eye as long as he didn't shame their confidence or let it compromise his work. He was after all, I assume, an extremely correct, civilized and capable man. But his face was red from the booze.

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.

“Can you remember your last shot, Michel? Do you remember when and where you last felt the recoil of your Flock in your wrist?”

I think of the bad guys in the training yard. Funny characters, short and stocky, some of them wearing large flat caps. The mothers with babies in their arms. I hear the quick, high song of the springs pulling on the iron weights, the dry hinges, the clang.

“Wasn't that bliss?” Harry pulls his pistol out of its holster and turns it around dreamily in his hands, looking at it from all sides. “Isn't it a magnificent thing? Look at it.” He lays the grip on the palm of his hand then wraps his fingers around it and extends his arm.

For a few seconds the Flock doesn't move.

You could hear a pin drop.

“My last shot of significance,” Harry whispers, “was a steel bolt between the eyes of a stupid cow. ‘Bang!'” His arm swings up. He looks at me with a melancholy sneer. “Hardly a challenge . . . Shooting a fly out of the air would be a harder task. A test of our ability, you could say. With a bit of luck anyone could hit a stray dog or a bird. But a fly? Wouldn't it be fantastic practice? We slide my cap over to a section with better light. Then we kneel down with our pistols at the ready, lift the cap slowly and wait until the fly has calmed down and takes off again to hover in the air. One shot each. You first.”

What happens to a fly that gets struck by a bullet in midair? A bullet that, in terms of size, is more or less of the same order of magnitude as the fly? The impact of a direct hit must be similar to that of a fly crashing into a wall with the speed of a bullet.

Since being detached here, we haven't fired a single shot. Harry's always been proud of that; it's proof of our value as the ultimate deterrent, our cold-bloodedness. The organization will be sure to appreciate a remarkable achievement like that and it could very well be the deciding factor that leads to us being promoted.

Unauthorized use of ammunition is an offense of the first degree.

I rub my hands up and down over my face, tracing circles in my forehead with my fingertips. Then I tell him we can't do it. I tell him we can't shoot at the fly.

“Of course not,” Harry says, smiling. “You crazy? We're not going to waste bullets on a fly.”

He struggles up onto his feet, his night has been long and intense. He collects the case with the brass rods and cleaning cloths.

What would have happened if I'd agreed?

Who would have heard anything?

We have 2,250 cartridges in stock, plus two times fifteen. Winchester, 9mm Luger (Parabellum). The cardboard of the boxes has grown velvety and slack from constant handling and opening. Soon the bottoms will tear off or give way, leaving the cartridges standing on the shelf in protest at their lack of employment, while I hold a tattered scrap of paper in my hand.

“But wouldn't it be fantastic,” Harry says. “To take aim, pull the trigger and hit a fly?”

“Yes,” I say. “That would be a real experience.”

“Imagine the bang. In here!”

“We'd be deaf for a while . . .”

“Cover me.”

Harry opens the case and clicks in the safety catch of his Flock 28. I keep my arms stretched out in the direction of the entrance gate, finger on the trigger. In a flash the fifteen cartridges are in the pocket of Harry's jacket and the stripped pistol is spread out on a cloth on his lap. Slide, barrel with chamber, recoil spring guide. The magazine tube, the feeder.

“What do we do with the fly?”

“Kill it,” says Harry.

82

Harry and I shake hands, exchange cursory New Year's greetings and fall silent again.

We're sitting at the entrance gate with a tin of corned beef each. We've saved up the last three days' meat ration. It's a moment we've keenly anticipated.

I stand up and listen at the crack. I listen for a minute, two. After about five minutes, my left leg starts to quiver. Just like last year, I can't hear any fireworks going off, neither close by nor in the distance. I don't hear any singing or cheering. I don't hear any guns being fired in celebration. I don't hear anything.

A quarter of an hour later I sit down on the stool. We stay silent, listening attentively to the world beyond the basement. Harry scoops up the meat with the teaspoon. I've cut mine into cubes.

At one o'clock, I stand up again. You never know.

At ten past one, Harry asks if I'm absolutely certain.

I don't answer. I can't be any clearer than that. He always ignores my date-keeping. Except for New Year's Eve, or rather, New Year's Day, a good hour after midnight.

Harry can go to sleep now but stays sitting.

He says we mustn't fixate on the fireworks, they're meaningless. It's quite possible that the city is still partly populated. Fireworks have been banned for ages and they're very hard to come by . . .

I lean my head back on the entrance gate.

The New Year starts with its slowest minutes.

Shortly after two Harry says that the front, if ever there was such a thing, must be quite far from the city by now. Anyone who stayed and survived would be in hiding.

After another ten minutes of despondent silence, Harry says that we can assume that the situation outside has changed. That the situation must have stabilized. That the unrest, the menace, may have passed . . . I feel his gaze on my face. Do I understand what he's getting at?