The Black Envelope

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COMRADE OREST,

Masterkey gave me the details about the hospitalization of Chatterbox. Nothing very much can be understood. Not even the doctor has been able to have a talk with him yet. For the time being they’re shoving a handful of tablets down his throat every four hours. No improvement is likely in the near future, according to Masterkey. He hasn’t been violent, nor has he uttered a word so far. Deaf-and-dumb. I know he won’t have any memory of his offbeat investigations, or the Tranzit work team. The kid’s unhinged, says Saint Veturia. One night ten days or so ago, when she was going to the bathroom, she saw a light on and heard the professor’s voice. He was speaking to someone. She thought it odd. The tenant never had visitors, nor was there anywhere to receive any. His room was too small, I know. Especially at that time of night. Madam Pickle couldn’t stop herself: she looked through the keyhole. In fact, she’d been looking all the time — not just that evening, I know. And it seems the receptionist was standing naked in front of the mirror. He was talking with someone called Tudor. Actually with his snipped little prick, which he couldn’t take his eyes off. Can you imagine? Tudor! Tudor! Would you believe it! Madam Mushroom was right to be scared. They’ve stifled us, Tudor— that’s what he was saying. They’ve squeezed us dry: we no longer get any pleasure from anything. We just feel sick at our own thoughts and body and soul, which are as full of holes as a Swiss cheese. We keep ourselves hidden, that’s all we’ve learned to do. We shrink so much we can’t even find ourselves. That’s what Chatterbox was saying. He wasn’t joking: he was serious, as if in tears. We don’t have any bolt holes: all the orifices are traps, all of them, Tudor, he was saying. We’ll die together, Tudor, because we are one and we are dead already.

There are no longer any fire hydrants, only sewage and death hydrants — that’s what he said, according to Mrs. Veturia’s agitated report, as if she’d learned it all by heart. It seems the creep was standing naked in front of the mirror and talking to his little Tudor. The old woman sneaked back into the marriage bed to wake up her old guide. Little old Marcel calmed her down: It’s nothing, not important. That’s what the professor’s like, rather artistic. But the next morning the receptionist didn’t go to work and the light remained on in his single room. The Gafton lovebirds talked it over in great secrecy and eventually rang One-Eye, the loonies’ doctor. He came straightaway in an ambulance, I know that. The patient was naked on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling. Deaf-and-dumb. He didn’t seem to recognize anyone. He didn’t resist the ambulance men. But when they lifted him onto the stretcher, his little Tudor was awake. Madam Gafton put her hand to her mouth and seemed on the point of crossing herself, as if in the presence of the Unclean One, as if she both did and didn’t feel like laughing. It seems that as they were moving the professor, little Tudor suddenly stood up for the salute. And that’s how the villain betrayed himself: he could no longer hide his sinful origins. That’s what I’d have liked to say to Potato-Head Veturia, but I let her and her old Master alone.

That’s about it for the moment. I know Masterkey will keep us informed of any change.