The Black Envelope

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MORNING, AFTERNOON, SHUT UP indoors. An ever so long, ever so wide, never-ending Sunday. Timeless time, outside time.

A deaf-mute Sunday: he did not answer the telephone, nor did he hear when his neighbor, Gafton, knocked timidly on the door, once and then once more. Tolea lay in bed, thinking. He was furious. He kept remembering the Saturday trap. The portfolio with the Cua photographs had not offered the long-awaited key. It infuriated him, the portfolio infuriated him, although he did not quite know why. Had he really discovered nothing? Had he discovered too much, without discovering anything?

History, indeed. The succession of several decades. Streets, images, buildings followed you for a long time. The Red Army entering Bucharest in 1944. Decoration of the King with the Soviet Union’s great Victory decoration. The King’s forced abdication. Uniforms, officialdom, the atmosphere of the times. Eyes of a child huddled on a park bench, in summertime. The military parade. Scene from one trial or another and from such and such a funeral. The first collective farm, pictures of the peasants, pictures of the Party activists, pictures of the militiamen. The famous writer being received into the academy, the new academician’s sumptuous villa, the academician speaking at the Party Congress. The factory yard. The apartment of the landowner, a well-known collector of paintings, just after his arrest.

The story of some families. The child pianist, the stern father beside the obese mother wearing spectacles. The little girl and boy at school, the boat trip, the girl’s funeral, the festival concert. .

“Five thousand photos, Mr. Vancea! A real epic!” Venera had announced triumphantly.

The tailor and his family, the two officer brothers. The ballerina with mother and cats. The Party meeting of deaf-mutes, the wedding of deaf-mutes, the volleyball match of deaf-mutes. Pictures, hands, clothes, anger, laughter, tears of the deaf-mutes. Groups marching past, knitting groups, weight-lifting groups, the revelry and drunkenness and prayers of the deaf-mutes.

Yes, the power of the images really did linger. The professor looked, spellbound, without daring to open it, at the thick, narrow notebook that he had removed from the first portfolio, the one marked beginning. Electrified, he had bent over that green file with youthful photographs: Tavi as schoolboy, Tavi as clerk, Marga, Gafton, Sonia, Claudiu. Officers, barracks, racist posters. Gendarmes squeezing deportees into cattle trucks on a rainy autumn morning. Again Matus, Claudiu, and Tolea. Yes, Tolea on that damned bicycle, Dida and Marcu Vancea at the trial, the Vancea home on a Saturday evening, at the dinner table. The photographs confused him so much that he nearly fainted. Possessed with the energy of a kleptomaniac, he had snatched up the notebook lying hidden among the images of the past. He had slipped it into his case, in a trance. He had had time to leaf hurriedly through it, in trepidation, and had seen that it referred to a quite different period, but it no longer mattered. He still wanted to have it. Back home, he threw it on the table and did not glance at it again. Even now it was in the same place. It bothered him, but he was not at all curious to look at those hasty notations, coded and illegible, from which not much sense could be made. Enigmas. Should he spend his time solving enigmas?

The professor was irritated; he could not shake off the traces of that bizarre Saturday adventure. Venera’s trap: what a fool she made of me, the bitch, treating me like a brat! So that I should discover nothing? But what if I’ve already found out more than I should, about myself, about them? Enigmas, do you hear? Mere nonsense. Nothing interests her except the master’s great secret, his incomparable work, the revenge it helped to give posterity. Documents, archives, a copyist’s revenge, that’s all; memory exercises, dear lady, that’s all. The nun-mathematician, the spook’s Frenchified housekeeper, the well-wishing psychiatrist! And the stepfriend Tori-Taube. The perfect alibi as friend, as friend’s wife. Substitutes, masks, disguises, underground gallery, illnesses and diseased souls, encoding of yesterday’s tale that is going to become tomorrow’s.

It infuriated him, in fact. Listen, Theresienstadt, do you hear!

The Saturday gone by, scattered to the winds, infuriated him. The Saturday to which he could no longer return, the irreversible time, with the venereal phantom and all. But he will pick it all up again, yes he will. He will recapture that day. He will remember, reinvent, revive. He will take possession of the lost Saturday.

A misty, gentle morning. An infantilized city pampering itself, taking its time. Yes, he recalled the memorable Saturday. He had scarcely been able to make his way through buses and trams with the huge bunch of red flowers in one hand and his bag on the other shoulder.

With both hands full, he had only just been able to press the bell for apartment 8. The door had opened at once. It was an unexpected day, Saturday, and an unexpected hour for visits to the Cua apartment: nine o’clock in the morning. But the door opened at once, as if behind it the occupant had been lying in wait for him.

In the door was a completely new person. Aunt Venera the same and different. Incredible! A middle-aged woman, elegant and — why not? — somehow made to look younger by a new face. A fight to claim it was going on between a weird concentration and a festive, strident look. Her shiny bun of black hair contrasting with the ultra-white face, the lipstick-red mouth, the sunken eyes, the painted lashes, what else. . A fine sandy dress held in a dark-green belt, the color of her eyes.

The detective had been rooted to the spot. The woman smiled and with a delicate movement took the garland from his plebeian arms. “A mad, tender day, dear lady,” the clumsy man managed to blurt out. “Lurching here and there till you’re dizzy — enough to drive you mad. This lawless spring will send us off our heads. Have you noticed the power it has to set us captives free? We’ll go crazy, I tell you, Mrs. Venera. Yesterday evening I was walking in the park, and suddenly, a splendid young man, a magnificent flame. Amantissime, frater, I was preparing to swear at him.”

The woman made a gesture of vexation — a gesture of disgust, which she repeated without giving him time to be surprised.

“You should know that my name is not Venera, as you keep saying. It is Tereza. I told you that the moment you appeared here in the door with that wretched bag of blue headless chickens, which you claimed were oranges. I told you my name and repeated it, but you didn’t pay attention, although you seem attentive to everything. You aren’t, in fact. You never could be; you’re not indifferent enough. If you’re not indifferent, you can’t be attentive. Your people are considered very clever, Mr. Vancea. Maybe that also accounts for the frustrations, the hatred. But you lack the indifference of mind. It’s not a sign of great intelligence, believe me. It’s no big deal to keep running around with your tongue hanging out for love. After all that’s happened to you, to still have your tongue hanging out, for love. It’s not a sign of being clever.”

He did not manage to be surprised, to answer, to make this and that gesture, to put out his tongue, to prove his indifference to her. The woman, it seemed, had some urgent things to communicate and could not waste any more time.

“No. I don’t want you to misunderstand me. There are plenty around who could love you people. Dida Voinov, a pure Russian, went in for a pretty fortunate misalliance, let’s admit it. Even your friends, I accept, are choice people. No, I don’t dispute their choice qualities.” The painted lips made up a smile, oh, yes. “Even my friend Tori — I can’t deny her qualities. Nor her defects, the poor thing, of course not her defects. But we should be clear about the mistreatment of the old woman and the cats. The wrecked apartment, police apathy, the fire — you know what they’ve written in the papers. A pyre, no less, a pogrom. That old woman wasn’t all that old, as you can see. I live on the outskirts, on the other side of Bucharest. On the edge of Dudeti, where the synagogue poor once used to live. There’s no trace left of the old picturesque parts, I can assure you. The old wanderers have vanished into thin air. Nowadays the area is made up of identical blocs and identical residents. I’ve landed there without wanting to, you understand. First they nationalized my villa and allowed me to stay on in just one room; the rest they offered to model parvenus of the model society. But in the end they pulled down the villa itself. They want identical blocks everywhere, model stables for the model herd. They rehoused me in Dudeti. And there — I can’t help it — I began to attract attention, without wanting to. They felt I was different. They took me for a foreigner, they considered me a foreigner. It isn’t what you are that matters but how you’re seen. They shouted Theresienstadt after me, I was told. That’s what they shouted: Theresienstadt!” Mr. Vancea looked straight in the woman’s eyes, and she looked straight in the detective’s eyes.

“Yes, yes, I understand,” the youngster tried to stutter.

“So, that pogrom is a mix-up, Professor. But I’m not complaining. On the contrary, I’m proud, you know.”

“Yes, yes, I understand,” the indifferent who was not indifferent enough had tried to stammer out.

“Proud and happy. In the end the barbarians haven’t been able to make us all the same, as they wanted. They haven’t managed to sweep away the differences, as they promised. You understand, I think. I assume you understand. I don’t complain about what’s happened. What’s happened proves something important and durable. They haven’t been able to make us all the same! No, Professor, really they haven’t. The proof was brutal and unfortunate, I grant you that. But it was still proof, you have to admit.”

Mrs. Venera had been reborn, he had to admit. Her eyes were youthful again, like her movements and her appearance. A true rebirth, no less. The poor woman had been on the brink of an attack, but she had recovered immediately, the dear thing: the performance had not finished, Holy Saturday was not over yet.

“What I’m saying is that you understand. You’ve been making all kinds of allusions. Your trial, your removal from teaching, the distrust, the marginalization. Frame-up or not, a mix-up as in my case or not at all a mix-up. Well, it’s not what interests me. The main thing is that they didn’t want you to be what you are, or to discover what you are, or to understand what you are. Or to assert what you are, not to mention that — Their humanism! Leveling. That’s all it is. Demagogy and equality. Some more equal than others, as we know. Well, no, we are different, my sweet, and that’s how we’ll remain. But the crazy guys mistook me for an alien. For an alien! Those heated, nervy types wanted to burn me as a foreigner. Do you understand, my sweet?”

She pursed her lips in a kiss as she said the word “sweet,” and her eyes were big and on fire, triumphant, ready for who knows what fresh and incontrovertible proofs. The detective cowered over the chair, over the bag he was holding in his arms.

“You see what I mean, Mr. Vancea, frail Tavi, sick, cunning, devious Tavi.”

The dog Tavi was motionless, sunk in a patrician slumber, but the new Venera Tereza did not become calmer, not at all. A new offensive seemed quite imminent. Her voice weakened, however, and became a sighing whisper.

“Since my apartment was wrecked, since that horror, that pogrom, I’ve been staying here more, with Tavi.”

Tavi did not start, although his mistress held out her hand to stroke him. A pointless gesture, as Tavi was sleeping right over by the window, but Tereza had probably wanted to get her breath back.

“There will be a need for heroes, you said. Substitute heroes, you said. One day, when the lid is taken off the cauldron in which we have all been boiling, the stench will be unbearable. Worms and pus and mold will break in from all sides. Everyone will hide from himself and from others. New masks, new substitutes, new heroes. Only we won’t be the heroes. Not us poor wretches, or our wretched neighbors. New heroes will be invented. Mr. Cua, let us say! A perfect substitute, believe me. The photographer of our rusty, leaky, stinking cauldron, but also of the ghosts you keep chasing after, my sweet. Let’s not forget it; let’s not forget this halo. Forgive me, you’re an adolescent in crisis, intelligent and sensitive; I don’t wish to upset you. Come and let me show you his work. So you can see what the duffer has been hatching up. My batty turtledove, my vile cur, my deserter. Come, let me show you the epic. Homer, as you’ll see, Homer.”

The extraordinary heat of her voice simply muddled your brains. The detective had advanced cautiously through the vestibule to the end. Tereza had opened the door on the right.

“This is Tavi’s study.”

Shelves up to the ceiling filled with thick files in every color.

“Come in, come in, Mr. Vancea. While away a few hours with the prints of this substitute. The werewolf! You will see truth’s memory and surprises. The very depths, that’s what you’ll see. Homer without words. Come in: it’s worth it, believe me.”

He had been alone with the treasure for several hours. At five the hostess brought him tea and a few slices of bread smeared with a suspicious-looking plum jam. The door had remained ajar. At some point he could hear a bizarre stammering. He pricked up his ears. The whispers started up again, hard to make out. A muffled sound like a spell.

He went out of the room, tiptoed through the vestibule, crouched forward. The door to the dining room was ajar: the words were being spoken again, and he gradually began to understand them.

“Free? Freer? Are we freer? Freer than we imagine? Freer than we think, you fool? Freer than we think. Answer, you cur, answer, my sweet.”

She spoke slowly, stopping after each word. A kind of splashing of the tongue could also be heard, a sipping or splashing. Tolea nervously moved forward another quarter of a step. A strip of mirror could now be seen through the crack in the door. Venera’s red lips pursed on the streak of a glass.

“Tell me: come on, you vile tyke. Does it seem so to us? Does it seem that they know everything? Yes, we’ve been trained to think they know everything. Trained not to move, because it’s impossible. Tell me, tell me, you know everything, my little Tavi-wavi.”

She took another sip: the glass disappeared. Now her plump hand was stroking his left cheek, up and down. Her head was bent low over the table, and the whispering became faster and more animated.

“Like hell you know, you brainless dolt! Like hell. You don’t know a thing. Neither you nor your wife. The immaculate one! The victim! Just an alibi. Tavi with his immaculate alibi. Little doggie Tavi, yes, yes. The future. My future dog-face. Little Tavi. Scared of present, past, and future. The monster. Trained. So we’re not able to because—”

Light as a feather, the detective slipped back to the room and shut the door behind him. At some point Tereza knocked timidly on the door. She was lively again, normal and alert. The bitch had well and truly come back to life. With each hour she seemed to become again what she had never been. Lips continually vibrating, eyes large and painted, rejuvenated.

“How about a snack? You must be starving,” and she smiled.

“No, absolutely not. But if you want to go home, we can leave anytime. I’ve finished, in fact.”

“Don’t worry. I can also sleep here. There’s no problem. I see these files interest you. You find them interesting.”

A protective, passive smile. She looked at her guest’s untouched sandwich and the cup of tea and went out.

It was late when Tolea came out of the room. He bowed to the hostess, without even looking at her, and suddenly found himself at the staircase. As he was about to put his foot on the first step, he heard that roaring, that hoarse, smothered bark. But no, he did not turn back. In three bounds he was in the street, quickening his pace and not looking back for a moment at the Saturday which had disappeared, with its dogs Tavi and Tereza. He started and tensed up. Then a jump, a leap, right into the belly of the idle, obese Sunday. To lie there wilted, without hearing the least little thing. To put himself at the mercy of absence. At some point perhaps a spark will flash from the torpor. A new idea, a fresh trick. No, it’s not the end, my dear lady! We won’t give in, Frau Theresienstadt! Not at all: it is only a passing defeat. We won’t allow ourselves to be replaced just like that. No, we’ll start the idyll again, dear lady. Very soon. Yesterday’s story will become tomorrow’s. Very soon.

Yes, the siege had to be resumed; he would find the strength. More ingenious, more persistent, more demented, he would find the strength. Dear, sweet little lady, look what happened to me yesterday on the train to Barcelona. A freezing cold night. Dirty, unheated train as in our country, a refrigerated wagon. I don’t know if you’ve ever been through such situations, when we become wild beasts capable of anything. Well, in that wretched train stinking of toilets, I was sitting hunched up like some animal when suddenly I saw approaching — guess who? Or a year ago in Marrakesh, at an extra deluxe hotel with extra costly comforts, the same lean foreigner leading a trained rat on a leash. A rat dressed by the most expensive London tailor, perfectly styled and trained, ready to attack. There, in that miraculous twilight— Or a week ago in Copenhagen, at the Hotel Copenhagen, in that enormous line. Huddled, weary, frightened people, as in our country, an enormous line for some wretched little sweets. I go up to a young woman, a student, who was at the end of the line; I ask her what it is about. And what do you think, she asks for proof of my identity. Proof of my identity! To unbutton my trousers, is that what the nasty piece of work wanted? For me to show her my identity? Imagine the outrage, madam, the sex offense. That’s the younger generation for you. To show her my — imagine, I was rooted to the spot. Like the war years, really! Like in Budapest — the Hungarian Fascist platoon, made up only of deaf-mutes, would stop men in the street and force them to drop their trousers and show whether or not their identity pointed toward the crematorium.

Ah, Madam Venerica won’t be able to take stories like that! And if she does, we’ll renew the assault. Oh dear, my respected lady, my beloved oracle, look what happened to me on Wednesday in the Place de la Concorde, just as I was returning from the demonstration of comrade veterans. Yes, I was still under the impression of our Great Jabberer and his never-ending speech. All of a sudden, what do you think, I hear from every megaphone the announcement: To all those with the mark in the corner of their eyebrow. Then the correction: To people from the special intelligence and monitoring services. So the poor things won’t be allowed to wink anymore! What injustice, what violation, what terror! As you so rightly said, we must be what we are. . Different, you said, yes, yes. A real scandal! Well, my precious lady friend, you won’t believe it, but I suddenly thought of Tavi, the dog, his colleagues from the Association. Are they without the privilege of this caste sign, without the wrinkle by the eyebrow? That’s what I want to ask. Is the burden not perhaps even crueler? The seriousness, I mean, the deaf-mute discipline. Our byzantine tricks, our happy leper hospital are more human, no? Victim? What victim? Arson attacks against the apartment where you shelter dissident dogs and cats? How could they think you were a foreigner? A chosen foreigner from the chosen people? What victim, my little puppet, what victim, what crematoria? What attack, old woman? Mere entertainment, that’s all. Murderous boredom, just boredom. What’s there to be done, meine Liebe. Boredom, that’s what it is. Nothing else, believe me. Just yesterday I was talking to the Japanese ambassador about indifference. We were next to each other at the roulette table in Monte Carlo when I repeated to him—

Eh, Madonna Venerica will give way, she won’t stand up to the avalanche. She’ll want to escape, to hear no more; she’ll give way and throw it all out. She’ll quit the silence and the learned dissertations and the collection of photographs. She’ll put her finger on the wound — Madam Tereza, at last! She’ll betray, yes, yes, she won’t be able to control her fury at the werewolf who ran off with his chosen cripple, in the legend, in the fairy tale. She’ll reveal all the stratagems, every last one. Anatol Dominic Vancea Voinov struggled hard enough not to rush off on Sunday to the house of the Tavi phantom, or to telephone all day on Monday. But on Tuesday he again set out on the magnetic route. Mr. Dominic is standing in his black work clothes at the Rond tram stop, supporting himself on his black umbrella. Tram 23 arrives: he gets on, finds a seat, and sits down. He sees no one: the car is empty, no one sees anyone. Everyone stewing in his own juice, fuddled, sleepy, enervated by boredom. No one could say, dear lady, that they saw the character. All the same, someone has to make the effort to rise from the dead, to have a good time, to liven the film up! So I got on the stinking ship at Rond. Crowded as always: no room inside. And well, in front of me is — a real gentleman. The elongated figure of a South American. Tavi all over. I gripped the rail by the steps and caught sight of him from time to time, in fragments, through the bags and arms and heads of the other passengers. Then I get off and catch the bus. I wait nicely and — can you believe it? — get on the near-empty bus and am about to sit down — imagine, there were free seats — I punch my ticket and am about to sit down, no one sees anyone, and well, in front of me is the purebred canine profile. Maybe he was waiting for the bus, too, at the Izvor stop and I didn’t notice him. What do you think he was doing, this distinguished exemplar of my past and yours? The same as in the tram, believe it or not. The other passengers didn’t notice. They are tired, worn out with boredom, fear, and the daily ruses of survival. If they can find somewhere to sit, they no longer care about anything — deaf blind mute, let the deluge come. A place to sit down, that’s the trophy they covet, believe me. So we were passing the abattoir, with that cloud of stinking air, and everyone was pulling their collar tight, not that they could have cared less about the dogs and cats and other dissidents dying at that very moment in the crematoria. They buried their head in a handkerchief, coughed, and sneezed, but they couldn’t have cared less. So then, that remarkable gentleman, with his perfectly upright posture, his fine elongated features, fanatical eyes not far apart, a nose spread out as on a duck. What do you think that luxury model was doing? Well, he was picking his nose! Can you imagine? He had been doing the same in the tram, caught up in the delicate operation. It’s not clear whether he got off with me or carried on farther. I didn’t have the strength to turn around and find him once more behind me. A sleek, glossy, thoroughbred greyhound, calmly picking his nose, but watching me. I stopped close to the Scampolo store, the one that’s always shut for stock-taking, you must know it. I looked in the window and—

Near his journey’s end, Mr. Dominic did indeed stop in front of the Scampolo store.

A surprise: the shop was open. Near the door a stocky flushed saleswoman was ruling her domain, with a long cigarette in her mouth. Mr. Dominic stayed in front of the window for a long time, feverishly looking at his watch. No, it wasn’t too early. Mrs. Venera would doubtless already be waiting for him. He excitedly fondled the old volume of Voltaire — a first edition — in his bag. He had decided against the routine flowers, believing that the rare tome would have a greater effect. But he could not make up his mind to set off: he looked now at the dust-covered window, now at the young South American woman with eyes far apart, broad nose, and thick, painted lips who was nonchalantly puffing and blowing in the crematorium’s thick black smoke.

So, dear lady, I was looking in the window to see who was following me. I had stopped in front of the Scampolo store, the one always closed for stock-taking. I kept staring in the window, as in a mirror, to see if anyone following me would appear; we all have that survival reflex, as you know, and with good reason. Who knows, maybe the emotion of Saturday evening was still having its effect on me. I was already on the stairs when I heard the yelping. That hoarse, smoldering bark, full of smothered abuse. I was about to turn back— maybe you needed help — about to defend you. Although you manage quite admirably, as I’ve seen; you know the model inside out. Nor is it surprising, after all that time you’ve lived together — you must be, as our friend Voltaire used to say, and in fact I’ve brought you a volume by that monster of intelligence, but that’s not what I wanted to say. As I was coming up the stairs again to your apartment, I was wondering how to dispel your mistrust. No, there’s no point in your protesting: why should we hide behind polite phrases? I’m frank to the point of imprudence, as you’ve been able to observe. Only with people who really interest me. That’s how I decided to be with you, right from the first moment. It’s strange: my frankness didn’t unblock you. These days, in fact, frankness arouses people’s suspicion. The age of suspicion, as Madame Sarraute said. I think you know her: she’s an elderly and perfectly honorable woman from an old nomadic family. She knows what she’s talking about. But she had no way of foreseeing the dimensions. I mean, she didn’t know that for us the formula is reality, our daily bread. That’s what I wanted to say. I hope that in our case, too, it’s only a question of this general suspicion which has got into our blood, understandably enough. It’s part of our metabolism. Why hide it? In other words, I hope it’s not a question of me personally, of some misinformation about me. When all is said and done, you know enough about me and my family, the philanthropic Marga, Sonia, the inhibited utopian Gafton. I don’t think you could be swayed by malicious gossip or foul mouths into giving me any less than my due. Nor would you be influenced by cheap slander, I hope. I know what’s said about people like me. That new recruit knew what she was doing when she asked me to prove my identity, to unbutton my trousers. I know what the talk is about people like me. Instead of being in an asylum or prison, or in a crematorium, here they are working in a hotel, making contacts with foreigners. Still today, when it’s forbidden to speak to a foreigner in the street, even if he asks you the time of day! That means I’m not allowed to talk to myself. Just imagine! But with you — because I no longer have anyone at all. I’ve decided to speak to you about that disgusting trial which cleared me out of teaching.

Or about the therapist Marga, who wants to cure me, do you hear? Without knowing that I don’t suffer from any illness. Because little Dr. Goody-Goody doesn’t know me at all, he just wants to get me between the legs of melancholy Irina, that’s what he wants. No doubt he knows about some things. But you burn there as at the heart of a volcano: you can no longer get out; the lava pulls you deeper and deeper. Excuse my language, dear lady, I know what I’m saying. They all drag you down into the bottomless pit, and you like it and you can no longer escape, in saecula saeculorum you can’t escape. You know it, surely you know the fabulous grotto of Hymen-land, that magnificent abyss of reintegration.

I want to speak to you about that disgusting trial, from which Goody-Goody Marga saved me, I have to admit. I feel dutybound to tell you about that dirty frame-up. You are too precious for me: I cannot give up these hours of rare communication and communion. Everything you permitted me on Saturday seemed like a grand prologue, but it might also be a confused finale, a sudden stopping short. I couldn’t bear it to be an adio. I’ll tell you about the darkest region of love, for which we run around with our tongue out, as you so well put it, my dear little Venera of Theresienstadt.

You see, my dear friend, frankness arouses suspicion. But if you go where you have never had the courage to go, it’s impossible that you won’t break down the reticence. Where the vulnerability is absolute, the truth is simple and childlike and tender and unadorned.

I’m talking about a unique moment, a unique risk, after which we remain troubled and burdened, as I well know. I may throw the burden down the drain at some point, or I may feed it with the bafflement of a soul wounded forever, or I may use it sometime as an abject weapon, but there can no longer be suspicion, no, suspicion there can no longer be.

Truly free communication. Naïve, godly, without defenses, full and pure, my dear puppy. Only then do we become capable of understanding the souls of our friends, of our friends’ friends, however strange they may be. We will then be able to speak, for the first time frankly, about the absent ghost who has left his mark on us both. Those were the anxieties I had as I climbed the stairs, my dear friend, step by step toward this special place of refuge.

Mr. Dominic slowly counted the steps. He reached the second floor, the light switch. The filament flickered and immediately went out, but the bell was working. Mrs. Venera moved with difficulty this time, no doubt busy in the kitchen or reading a book or attending to the hygiene of watchdog Tavi. Teenager Dominic took the liberty of ringing again. Nothing stirred. As if Tavi had also gone deaf, perhaps, or they were sleeping like a log — maybe smitten with love for each other, the glorious silent-film couple Tavi and Tereza of Theresienstadt, fast asleep in their love’s impenetrable armor of Krupp steel, Sieg Heil. He rang again, then several times in quick succession. He went downstairs and waited a little in front of the block. Then up again to the bell. Nobody, not a sound.

In the dim light of the corridor he now distinguished a note stuck to the door. He felt for the matches in his pocket. Dominic did not smoke, but he always had a box of matches on him. What with the energy crisis, you can find yourself at any time in need of the ancestral fire. A small sheet of paper from a notebook was fastened to the apartment door with a pretty little red Chinese pin. He stood closer and bent forward to decipher the tiny writing: Away on holiday.

Such notices were common enough on the doors of shops, dispensaries, post offices, everywhere. Not open due to a meeting. Shut for stock-taking. Closed due to management illness. Stocktaking. Meeting. Away on holiday. But in this case the handwritten note caused alarm. Tiny, delicate, barely legible, like a line from a letter — a feminine letter, concise, coded. He read it once more, rang once more. He went down the stairs, back up, down again. He waited in front of the building, climbed the stairs again, lit some more matches, read and reread the note. So this was it. Silence, nothingness.

He stopped in front of the Scampolo store, intending to enter but then giving up the idea. He headed listlessly for the bus stop.