The Guard (12 page)

I understand what he's getting at.

I ask, “You think so?”

He nods. “I think so. Yes.”

I want to make him say it. He brought it up himself. I want us both to hear it from his mouth. I say, “We
are
talking about the same thing, aren't we?”

“The guard,” Harry says.

“The guard.”

“We have to take it into account, Michel. The plan for a third guard might have been dropped a while ago . . . The organization is an efficient company, they'd never station a superfluous guard somewhere, even if they've announced it. And they don't make those kind of announcements without a reason, I can assure you of that. But that reason can grow less compelling. That's possible . . . They have to constantly assess things and weigh them up. Just like the best guards do too.”

He takes off his cap and holds it two-handed in front of his stomach as if it's a book. He gazes into the cap for a while, staring at the dark-blue satin.

“Of course it doesn't mean there's no danger at all.”

Harry stands up, pulls his cap down over the top of his head, picks up his empty tin and holds out a hand for mine. “That's why,” he says, “the organization decided not to inform us about the cancelation. Subconsciously that could give an illusion of the danger having passed. Which isn't the case.”

I watch as Harry marches off to the crusher and disappears around the corner of Garage 34, accompanying him in my thoughts. Along with the new evaluation of our situation, which feels like a change in itself, there's something soothing about the simple fact that his moving has ended our hours of keeping vigil at the entrance. The shrill bang of the tins flashes in two sensitive teeth on my lower right, but the sound I always associate with starving to death is less frightening this time. I hope that Harry will soon whistle, rub his stomach and tell me that no one can take that away from us now.

“Don't forget, Michel,” he starts in the distance, “that canceling the guard does not reflect on our qualities at all. It doesn't change our record of service either, so it can't affect our prospects of making the elite.”

He's right. We haven't discredited ourselves in any way.

“What we need,” Harry says, after rejoining me at the gate, standing there with one hand on the back of the chair and the other on his hip. “What we need . . .”

“Is an opportunity,” I say, continuing for him, “to distinguish ourselves from our fellow guards.”

“No, Michel. Yes, of course, but the point is,” Harry says, abruptly shifting his attention to the emergency lighting on the ceiling, “we can no longer wait for that opportunity to present itself.” He moves directly under a light and looks up. “It's up to us to think of a way to prove ourselves and draw attention to ourselves. We have to speed up our promotion ourselves.”

He fetches the chair and puts it under the light fitting. He asks me for the stool and positions it on the seat of the chair. Carefully he ascends the unstable construction.

Using both hands, he investigates the cover over the emergency light. Going by the movement of his right wrist, he seems to be using his thumbnail, which is definitely long enough, to unscrew a screw. Three screws later he passes the lukewarm cover down to me. The smell wafting up out of it is old and stale, the flies have dried to dust. He removes his jacket and takes the precaution of using the sleeve to grip the tube. He is patient. He turns, pushes and levers. Until finally the light goes off.

83

We work toward our room, extinguishing fourteen of the sixteen lights. Harry suggests leaving the covers on the floor; we never walk through the middle of the basement anyway. We arrange the covers perpendicular to the route from the entrance to the elevators, spreading them out at the same time to increase the chance of an intruder kicking one.

Seen from the bunkroom door, the light from the remaining two tubes falls to the floor like a curtain, making everything behind it invisible so that we, on the chair and the stool, feel like we are on display in a shop window. In theory and with a lot of luck, an intruder could approach unnoticed to within twenty meters.

After a few minutes, Harry says we have to do this properly. We either do it properly or not at all. No half measures. We both know the floor plan by heart. He says that in time, when we're used to it, we will be able to see more in complete darkness than now, and definitely much more than someone coming into the basement from the light outside. They'd be as blind as a bat. He swears in surprise, too excited
to stay sitting. “That's it,” he says. “That's it, Michel. We'll show the organization that we don't need any night goggles, not you and me, we can keep guard in complete darkness without them.” He starts laughing. He can't believe it. Why didn't we think of this ages ago? He laughs so hard he bares his yellowed teeth, then thumps me on the shoulder and wishes me a Happy New Year a second time.

84

When I'm relaxing on the stool, the darkness is a casing that fits me perfectly, my personal cocoon. When I'm doing a round, the darkness is almost tangible, an object with a beginning and an end, something you can bump into. The first days are awkward, but we get through them thanks to the habits we have maintained for such a long time. My having counted my footsteps on patrol is especially convenient. All day long Harry and I direct short sentences at each other. The way of answering, the sound and volume allow us to precisely determine the other's location and state of mind. Two submarines in the depths of the ocean, using sonar to gauge the other's presence.

They are exciting days. Time passes more slowly, but the days are fuller and seem more purposeful. We experience more in the dark. Liberated from the dominance of sight, the other senses achieve their full potential. We can't escape them, they demand our attention and bring out sides of the basement we have scarcely noticed before. By disappearing, the basement has become more emphatically present.

We no longer click on the lights in the bunkroom, toilet and storeroom either. They blind us. The time it takes to readjust to the darkness in the rest of the basement could one day prove fatal. The light in our lives is limited to the lights in our watches; that's enough to keep the calendar up to date. We're careful with them
and never look straight at the lit dial. In case of danger, we have agreed to flash three times.

The bright rod of daylight protruding at an angle through the crack next to the entrance gate remains hidden behind Garage 1. Although it doesn't disturb our darkness, I tear a strip off my sheet and twist the material to make a plug for the opening.

85

Winged horses, white, a whole flock of them, a white cloud, landing one after the other, falling out of the sky like clumsy starlings and stumbling over their forelegs. Their long heads whip down on their long necks and dash against the ground. I feel my face twist. A short circuit in their brains, a genetic imperfection; horses should stay on the ground. I blink once, ten times, it makes no difference. I remain concentrated. I am awake and on guard duty. I am inside the body that squats, sits, stands or walks; what difference does it make in the dark? Eighteen times seven. A hundred and forty minus fourteen. One hundred and twenty-six. I am picking pears. My hand appears and grabs. I feel the snap as the tree releases the stem. We are under strict supervision. I push my long nails through the rough peel and into the flesh. Voluptuously, I suck my fingers. One image supplants the other. I can't stop them. They slip by or change abruptly. My leg. I pull my leg up, suction, the rubber boot is stuck in the mud. The bandage on my foot is brown, the bleeding staunched, but the pain . . . In the shade of a tree I am wearing a bowler hat, an insignificant little man asks where my boot has got to. I point at the magnolia, alone in the grassy field. The velvet buds have already burst open. Coconuts, the roar of the surf and a child, a girl, hardly four, struggling through the sand. She pushes her tummy out in front of her, and looks up with one glaring blue eye, poking me
in the thigh with a finger. She says something, but it's lost. I drop to my knees, she hugs me as if it's a farewell, a reunion, sorrow or joy; it doesn't matter. Her voice tickles in my ear. “Is it already morning?” Her question cleaves a hairy coconut, the white, the juice, as fresh as pure love. I want to preserve her in formaldehyde, I'll keep her in a jar, arranging her pink virgin lips in a smile. I fill in a label and stick it on near the bottom. Coming ready or not.

86

I am calmer than ever. I didn't jump when I heard the colossal mechanism start up. Nobody appears in the nighttime light streaming in through the half-open entrance gate. It is not nighttime light, it is more a shadow, free of artificial lighting or moonlight, a slightly different version of darkness over there, past Garage 1, on the far side of the basement; I can point it out. The gate can't be any higher than a meter above ground level. I am sitting motionless outside the bunkroom door. Yes, I am almost sure of that. I'm calm. It's a nightmare threatening to take shape before my eyes, but I've always been prepared for the worst. I know what's coming and what I have to do. I am a guard. I won't need to think. My self-assurance surprises me and I wonder how long it will last. I have to keep thinking, especially when I feel it's no longer necessary. A scream germinates in the back of my mind. This is no optical and aural illusion because the gate starts up again: the shadow disappears, the shock of the heavy gate on the concrete. I feel it all the way over here—in my feet, up through the legs of the stool and in my bottom—I'm as sensitive as an insect's antennae. Then a flash, a pinprick deep in my brain. I grab the Flock, smothering the scream and blinking away tears. I hear cautious footsteps, still a hundred meters away, coming closer. Where else could they go? In the blinking, an explosion of
spots and patches on the inside of my eyelids; in the basement, a flashlight being waved around, unable to reveal me at this distance, even if it's pointed in my direction. Which it hardly ever is: it shines on the garages and their numbers, always indicated by large digits on the left, and on the emergency lighting covers, seals spread out over a dark beach. Walnut. Unmistakable. Harry is awake and has crept out of the bunkroom, taking up position on the chair without the slightest sound. The smell is strong; he's in his vest. I don't dare to turn my head out of fear the movement will betray us. I stay in my cocoon. For now, I hold the hand with the Flock low. We have to wait. Will Harry give me a sign? Our nerves will be put to the test. The closer we allow the intruder to approach, the greater our chance of eliminating him with a single shot each. But the chance of one of us being hit increases as well. It's clear that he is in unknown territory; he hasn't grasped the layout of the basement yet. Or is he looking for a particular garage in which something of great value is stored? In that case we can simply enclose him and shoot him dead. The flashlight is now sweeping the floor, moving back and forth in wider and wider arcs as if he's sowing light. I can't make out even a glimpse of the intruder himself. He has reached the middle of the basement. I judge it the moment to aim my Flock, gradually, with the intruder still at a distance, adjusting my position. Right away my extended arms begin to tremble under their own weight, but not from fatigue: I will be able to maintain this pose for a long time, as long as it takes. Betting on him being right-handed, I aim to the right of the light and a little higher, at the breast. He is walking straight into our trap, we don't have to do a thing. Then he stops and shines the flashlight down in front of his feet, holding it still. The arc of light extends to within a couple of meters of the toes of our shoes. He has obviously noticed something. My index finger has almost squeezed the trigger. “Hello? Are you there?” A deep bass, suggesting a big man. Harry remains silent and so do I. One more step toward us and he's dead. But the man stays where he is. “Are you there?” Above the light I've seen a flash of white: teeth. I aim the Flock a fraction higher. “It's me,” he says. “The guard.”

Two

87

“Who sent you?”

The guard keeps the flashlight aimed at his feet, presumably overwhelmed by Harry's bellow, which echoes off the walls, harassing him from all sides.

“Who's your employer?”

“The organization,” we hear, deep and calm.

“We've got our guns on you. Put the flashlight on the floor, light down. Then take three steps back.”

I see the beam of light contract and concentrate as a blinding disk, which is swallowed by the concrete.

“Where are your colleagues?”

“My colleagues?”

“The other two guards. Your comrades.”

“I don't know. I'm alone.”

“You're alone?”

“Yes.”

“Without any colleagues?”

After a moment's consideration, “You're my colleagues.”

Harry falls silent. He doesn't stand up. I hear a deep dragging sound as he sucks breath into his lungs. The disillusionment has hit him hard. I decide to take the lead, ordering the guard farther back. I count his steps. At five I tell him to stop. As I walk toward the flashlight, Harry moves off to one side to cover me and make sure he doesn't shoot me in the back by accident.

Shining the light on the guard, I immediately see the familiar uniform, the crease in the pants, the emblem: he's one of us. Remarkably, the uniform seems to be standing up by itself,
enclosing a figure that's gigantic but absent. Then I see the whites of eyes under his cap, flicking on and off like two small beacons. I have to use my imagination in combination with the matte gleam of his pitch-black skin to make out his head against the darkness of the basement.

Under his arm he is holding a large cardboard box, whose bottom is bulging from the weight of its contents. He's carrying it effortlessly, casually, as if it's a beach ball that would blow away if he let go of it.

88

The flashlight is standing the other way around on the ground and casting a glow on the ceiling, so that it feels like we're sheltering from the darkness under a tarpaulin of light. I don't know what I'm eating. I recognize the taste: it's fruit, in syrup, I must have eaten it before. I can't put a name to it and at the moment I couldn't care less. My left hand squeezes the enormous tin, at least five times the size of a corned beef tin and all mine. I concentrate on eating, greedily gulping down pieces of soft slippery fruit, chewing just long enough to avoid choking. Peach. I'm dizzy with excitement and haste. Harry's eating frankfurters, stuffing them into his cheeks and washing them down with the liquid they came in. We're eating as if the cardboard box isn't filled to the top with tins. Extraordinary colors and shapes we haven't seen for years, but they leave the guard cold. He doesn't say a word, watching us indifferently. He's sitting on his backside on the ground on the other side of the box and the flashlight. Kneeling and full of mistrust, we keep our eyes on him as if he could take the food away from us again at any moment.

89

Harry grabs the flashlight and shines it in the guard's face from close by. The whites of his eyes are yellowish, but not unhealthy. The irises are so dark they're absent. The pupils, provocatively large as a result, seem to go against the laws of nature by dilating in the bright light.

In answer to Harry's question as to what's going on outside, the guard shrugs. He claims to have spent an hour or two sitting in the back of a vehicle before they dropped him off. He couldn't see anything and he didn't hear anything either. He asks sheepishly if we can tell him what our location is. No, he doesn't know, he was picked up without any explanation and brought here. At his previous post he was prohibited from communicating with his colleague, who manned the next box a little farther down the road. He doesn't know why: he was used to it, he was taught not to ask questions. It was a remote storage depot. He's not able, or allowed, to tell us anymore. No, he has no idea, but whatever it was, the capacity must have been enormous. Besides his colleague, the guard never saw anyone in the complex. There could have been fifty guards stationed there, it might have been just the two of them. He speaks calmly, his words babble along; that's just the way things go.

His stubble is extremely unusual, in my eyes at least, a white man's eyes. The hairs are stuck together in little knobs that look stiff and hard. On his cheeks they're spread out with lots of space between them, lonely, as if they don't actually belong there. On his chin they're closer together, but not close enough to cover the skin.

90

Harry stays aloof. For the first few hours he's too unsteady from the blow to pay much attention to the guard. He answers my
suggestion of temporarily turning three of the lights back on with silent assent. After all, the guard needs an opportunity to familiarize himself with the peculiarities of the location as quickly as possible.

While the guard and I set to work with the chair, the stool and the light covers—with Harry in position near the entrance gate—I think about the specific smell I noticed after eating the tinned fruit, when the tension had become a little more bearable. We're reconnecting the lights along the longitudinal axis of the basement, which we have divided neatly into equal segments. That is still very far from lighting all of the corners. We give the guard a floor plan too and let him keep his flashlight, which is now swinging from a loop that is attached to the waistband of his pants, but missing from ours. I decide that the smell of his body tends toward the odor of scorched horse's hooves, albeit strongly diluted.

91

Harry grits his teeth and looks down at the toes of his shoes, his clenched jaw muscles distorting his face. The guard takes a discreet step backward. He'll have to lie down somewhere, but there are only two beds, even if both of them are free when the guard is allowed to sleep his hours, because from now on a minimum of two guards will patrol together at all times.

I've come up with a rotation system for the chair and the stool. Every two hours we move over so that someone else has to either sit on the ground or stay standing. This only applies in the daytime, during the hours we're all awake, and doesn't include the time we spend on patrol.

We were going to apply a similar system to the flannels and towels, which I wash weekly, but in the end Harry couldn't reconcile himself to the prospect. A few minutes later he made a gruff offer
to donate his pillowcase, from which we could tear a washcloth and a cloth for the guard to dry himself.

The guard said that was a fine suggestion and thanked Harry for his generosity. It didn't sound like an ambiguous remark to me, but I might have been mistaken. The guard always speaks in the same deep tone, at the same tempo. It's difficult to tell how he really means things. His face stays the same. It's coarsely modeled, like the rest of his body: in combination with the uniform, it evokes memories of old footage of military dictators in sweltering African countries.

92

“Has Harry told you something about the building?”

“No,” the guard says. “Harry hasn't done that. He hasn't spoken to me about anything.”

We've only just started the inspection round and I feel obliged to talk. We are alone in each other's company for the first time. I find it hard to believe that Harry didn't speak a word to the guard in the five hours I was asleep. Maybe it's a matter of persevering. Maybe not talking starts to feel natural after fifteen minutes of silence, making continuing in the same vein simpler for both parties and a more pleasant alternative.

I guide the guard while walking next to him, my purposeful footsteps making it clear that we don't neglect a single corner of the basement. It's like a dance he hasn't yet mastered, partly because his paces are longer than mine, less maneuverable. As far as the inspection round is concerned, I'm a better instructor than Harry. Now and then, in the darkest sections, the guard clicks on his flashlight because he's lost track of me.

On the way back to the elevators, I say, “It's better not to talk in the vicinity of the entrance gate.”

“Yes, I understand that.”

“It's a forty-story building.”

“Forty,” he says. “Forty stories.”

It sounds like he's questioning the figure. Has someone told him different? Or had he expected more than forty?

“There's a lobby on the ground floor, but that's just for show. There's no entrance there. This is the entrance.”

We stop in front of the three elevators: something from the distant past, a strange historical phenomenon we've come to briefly view.

“Residents, staff, visitors.”

He's not particularly impressed and doesn't ask me to elaborate. He seems to me like a man who is seldom impressed or upset. He lives inside his body, his fortress. Wherever that body might be, whatever the company or situation, it's irrelevant. He is always safe at home.

Although, in essence, his arrival is bad news for us, there is also a good side. We are now in greater numbers to resist hostilities. More than anything, I feel a degree of excitement. Whatever else, the organization hasn't forgotten us. The guard is living proof that they have been appreciating us in silence the whole time.

We continue our patrol: past the bunkroom door, which is open so that the sleeping guard will be woken by the first hint of an engagement. Inside the light is turned off. A few meters farther along I lay my hand flat against the toilet door without pushing it open. “There is something I have to tell you,” I tell the guard. “Something about the toilet. More specifically, something about flushing the toilet. It's important that you listen carefully.”

93

The guard has withdrawn to the bunkroom for his night's sleep when Harry gives me an angry little poke near Garage 12. “Couldn't you have objected?”

“Objected?”

“Yes, objected. You just stood there like a sheep. You could have rejected the suggestion out of hand. Didn't it even occur to you to object?”

Apparently Harry's grievances are not insurmountable because he keeps walking.

“And why were you so keen to start ripping it? It looked like you were enjoying it. What were you thinking? I'll lend the poor twerp a helping hand?”

“Harry, it was your own suggestion.”

“We have more right to a pillowcase than somebody who's just strolled in here. Am I wrong? How long have we been here now? Hey, Michel? You and me, how long? Tell me. If you ask me, long enough to have a right to a pillowcase. My own pillowcase. That's what I think about it.”

“The linen isn't ours,” I offer later. “It's property of the organization, we can't lay any claim to it.”

“Then you should have objected to the destruction of organization kit. We've committed an offense. Fourth degree.”

“If you like, you can use mine.”

“Of course not. Keep your pillowcase.”

The realization that the guard is now sleeping in my bed, between my sheets, with his head on my pillow must have finally got through to Harry. Things could be worse, much worse.

“Why didn't you tell him anything about the building?”

“Did he say that?”

“I asked him. I asked if you'd already told him something about the building. He said no.”

“Did he ask you anything?”

“No.”

“Me neither. Not a thing. Nada. Did you tell him anything?”

“A few things. General stuff. Why didn't you?”

“He kept his mouth shut. He didn't give a peep so I thought, then I'll keep my mouth shut too. I don't want him thinking I'm
going to bend over backward and get all chatty just 'cause he's come to reinforce us.”

“He's new.”

“Doesn't matter. Or maybe it does. You started talking first, remember? When you came.”

The memory brings a smile to his face.

“There was just the two of us. This is different.”

With revived interest, I pull the plug out of the crack to the side of the entrance gate. I peer first with my left eye, then with my right. The view hasn't changed. The bare tree against the night sky, which is clear. Yes, clear. Have I ever seen it like this, so very clear? There is no wind. I can't make out many stars, but the sky is still clear. I can tell from the tree and its branches, which are black with sharp edges and not hazy at all. No shadows cast by a full moon outside my field of vision. Is it because I haven't looked for so long? I stick my nose into the opening. Stone and iron, the familiar smell. With a touch of rot in the mix. Wet, dead leaves.

“There's no comparison,” I whisper. “When I arrived you were here alone and the residents were still living in the building. It's totally different for the guard.”

“Did he say anything about it?”

“About what?”

“The residents. Their not being here, with one exception.”

“No.”

“Did you say anything about it?”

“I don't think so.”

“You don't think so?”

“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.