Night Work

9

He awoke with a twitchy hand. His thumb was itching. He thumped the pillow, scratched the place with his forefinger. The itch wouldn’t go away.

He turned over on his side. Lying on the pillow beside him was one of Marie’s T-shirts. She hadn’t worn it, not even for one night. He’d changed the duvet covers after waving her taxi goodbye, but the smell of her lingered faintly.

He looked at her bathrobe hanging on a hook on the wall. At her chest of drawers, from which a pair of panties was peeping. At the stack of books on her bedside table.

*

On his way to the 5th District he ate an apple. He wasn’t particularly fond of apples, or of any kind of fruit with pips or stones. His mother had forced them on him. Jonas had argued with her until her death about what was and wasn’t healthy, what should and shouldn’t be eaten. He took the view that what was good for one person needn’t necessarily be good for another. She disputed this. In her world, everything had its allotted place. She used to ruin his summer holidays at Kanzelstein by roaming the garden with him daily and making him sample things: apples, pears, berries — even plants like sorrel. His father would shake his head at this but confined himself to sitting in his deckchair and reading a newspaper.

Just as Jonas turned into the Wienzeile he remembered that he hadn’t got hold of any cardboard packing boxes, nor did he know of any nearby shop that stocked them. He thumped the steering wheel with his fist and did a U-turn. For the second time that morning he drove past the church whose poster assured him he was loved by Jesus. He sounded his horn.

The automatic doors of the DIY store on the Lerchenfelder Gürtel hummed open with a jerk. Without so much as grazing anything, he drove the Spider along the aisles. The packing boxes were right at the back of the store. He couldn’t judge how many he needed, so he took a whole carload.

Before going into the flat he went for a walk down Rüdigergasse. He rang various doorbells but didn’t wait for an answer. He shot out some window panes in Schönbrunner Strasse.

There were statues everywhere. Statues and statuettes, human figures, decorative gargoyles.

It had never struck him before. Almost every building was adorned with stone carvings. None of them was looking at him, but all had faces. Jutting from the oriel moulding on one house was a winged dog, on another a fat boy silently playing the flute. One wall displayed a grimacing face, another a little, bearded old man preaching to an invisible congregation. He’d never noticed any of these things before.

He took aim at the old preacher, but his arm shook. With a threatening gesture, he lowered the gun.

Just as he turned into Wehrgasse he caught sight of a post office sign. It occurred to him that he’d never searched a post office. Although he’d posted some cards that had never landed in his letterbox, he’d never thought to take a closer look at a post office.

The automatic door didn’t open when he stepped in front of the sensor. He blasted it open. He gained access to the area behind the counter by doing the same to another door beyond it.

There wasn’t much money in the drawers, 10,000 euros at most. The bulk of the cash was probably in a strongroom at the rear, but money wasn’t his concern.

He sat down beside one of the big trolleys full of unsorted post. Picking up an envelope at random, he tore it open. A business letter demanding settlement of an unpaid bill for a consignment of materials.

The next letter was private. The shaky handwriting was that of an old woman writing to a girl named Hertha, who lived in Vienna. Hertha was urged to study hard, but not so hard that she let life pass her by. Love, Granny.

He examined the envelope. It was postmarked Hohenems.

He toured the premises. There was no indication that the staff had left in a hurry.

He felt in the pockets of a blue overall hanging on a hook in the back room. They contained some small change, matches, cigarettes, a packet of tissues, a ballpoint pen and a lottery ticket, filled in but not yet stamped.

In a woman’s jacket hanging alongside there was a packet of condoms.

In a briefcase he found nothing but an unappetising sausage sandwich.

Before leaving he took his marker pen and wrote his mobile number on the window of every counter position. He trod on an alarm button. Nothing happened.

*

He packed one box after another, but it was a longer job than he’d expected. Many of the objects that passed through his hands were fraught with associations. In some cases he could only vaguely recall the circumstances surrounding a particular book or shirt. He would stand there, stroking his chin and staring into space. It usually helped to sniff the object, because its smell was more evocative than its appearance.

Moreover, sorting and packing weren’t his forte. He chafed at having to wrap each china cup in newspaper, if only because he’d always disliked touching newsprint. The sound of sheets of paper rubbing together gave him goose-bumps, just as Marie had been allergic to the squeak of chalk on a blackboard or the clatter of cutlery. He could read a newspaper, but any other kind of rustling sound was anathema to him.

Late that afternoon he broke into a local pub. He found something to eat in the deep-freeze and drew himself a beer. It tasted stale. He left as soon as he’d finished eating. The return trip seemed longer. His legs felt heavy.

Seeing the boxes stacked in every room, he had no inclination to go back to work that day. Half the cupboards and shelves had been emptied, after all, and there was no rush.

He lay down on the bed surrounded by rolls of sticky tape, newspapers, scissors. Unused boxes, not yet unfolded, were leaning against the wall.

He shut his eyes.

The clock was ticking on the wall. His father’s smell still lingered in the air, but he no longer had the pleasurable sensation of being immersed in a vanished world. The rooms were filled with the atmosphere that precedes departure.

If he wanted to call anything in the world his own, he would have to re-create the past. Although everything in Vienna, every car, every vase, every glass was his for the taking, nothing remained that belonged to him.

*

He stood at the window, watching the sun sink below the skyline. It had reached its maximum height on 21 June and gone down behind a thick clump of trees on the Exelberg. Since then its setting point had been almost imperceptibly moving leftwards.

It was on an evening like this, sixteen or seventeen years ago, that Jonas had got ready for his first solo vacation. He had packed his rucksack, taken his new two-man tent from the cupboard, borrowed a crash helmet from a neighbour. The alarm clock went off at 4 a. m., but he’d been awake for a long time before that.

He’d got horribly cold during that eight-hour trip to the Mondsee in Upper Austria, having underestimated the night-time chill and dressed too lightly. But the adventure was worth it. Riding through villages in the dark. Passing houses in which people were just getting up, showering, shaving, brewing coffee or still asleep while he himself was on the road. The unfamiliar smells. Dawn in a place he’d never seen before. The solitude. The sense of romantic daring.

He lowered the blinds.

He paused outside the bedroom door. He withdrew his hand, which was already on the handle. Bending down, he peered through the keyhole.

On the opposite wall he saw the embroidery Marie’s mother had given them, and beneath it the chest of drawers. On the right he glimpsed the foot of the bed.

The embroidery showed a woman standing beside a well with a shirt in her hands. A traditional farmhouse could be seen in the background. The door was done in bright red, whereas the other colours were muted. Above it was the inscription K+M+B, although Jonas couldn’t read this through the keyhole.

On the chest of drawers was a ceramic fruit bowl. Beside it, leaning against a pile of books, a pair of imitation duelling pistols, a gift from his father.

He felt a slight draught on his eyeball.

He was separated from the picture of the washerwoman by a door. He was outside, yet he could see what was happening inside the deserted room. Strictly speaking, no one could look at that chest of drawers. From the room’s point of view, there was no one there. It was like seeing the contents of an unopened book.

Or was he wrong? By looking through the keyhole, wasn’t he crossing a line? Becoming a part of the room once more?

*

He started the tape. The whole of the bed was in shot. As he had the last time, he saw himself walk past the camera and fall into bed. Minutes later his gentle snoring issued from the loudspeakers.

While watching the Sleeper, he debated whether he ought to view the other tape in parallel. The one that showed his face in close-up. For that, of course, he would need another TV and video recorder. These could be obtained from the neighbouring flats. Now that he was comfortably stretched out on the sofa, however, he realised how weary he was after his exertions. He dropped the idea. It probably wouldn’t make any difference.

The Sleeper must have been equally tired last night. He lay quite still. It was more than thirty minutes before he turned over for the first time. From one point of view, that was a good thing. His almost total inertia meant that the second camera had also kept him in shot, so he would later be able to study his changes of expression. On the other hand, this uneventfulness wasn’t exactly a spur to his investigations.

His throat felt sore. No, it couldn’t be. He normally caught one cold a year at most. Surely he couldn’t have caught another so soon. Better safe than sorry.

He prepared a hot toddy, scarcely taking his eyes off the screen, and made a mental note to get hold of some vitamin tablets.

The Sleeper rolled over again. He seemed to be hot, because he kicked his hairy white legs free of the bedclothes. A sigh was heard. A minute later he turned over so far that he escaped the second camera’s field of view. The upper part of his body was now lying on the other side of the bed, beside the T-shirt Marie hadn’t worn.

Jonas pulled a face. He’d overdone the sugar. There was a little whisky left in the saucepan. He poured it into his cup and added some more lemon juice.

After an hour and a half the Sleeper pressed Marie’s pillow to his face.

That was last night, Jonas thought, and tonight will be the same. I shall lie there and sleep, and there won’t be any difference.

This time he’d overdone the whisky. He laid the cup aside. The toddy had gone cold in any case.

Jonas rubbed his eyes. He sluiced his face and neck with cold water. He found an aspirin in the bathroom cabinet. It was soluble, but he let it dissolve on his tongue. It prickled.

Back in the living room he turned on all the lights. The dull glow from the TV screen was making him sleepy. He brewed himself some strong coffee.

The Sleeper slept on.

That should be me, Jonas thought. That should be me.

*

Two hours and fifty-eight minutes after the beginning of the tape, the Sleeper’s eyes half opened. He rolled around. Stood up. Strode towards the wall with a purposeful air. Bumped into it.

Still with his eyes half open, he explored the wall with his hands as if wanting to get into it. He concentrated on a particular spot, neither reaching up nor bending down, applying pressure with his palms as if trying to squeeze into the masonry. He even braced his shoulder against it.

There the tape ended.

*

Never before had Jonas darted so quickly from one room to another. He examined the bedroom wall in vain. No sign of an opening, no secret door. Just an ordinary wall.

His fatigue had vanished. He quickly resumed his place in front of the screen and rewound the tape.

The Sleeper opened his eyes like someone roused by a noise or by lying in an uncomfortable position. He squirmed around. Threw off the bedclothes and stood up. He seemed impervious to reality. Like a man in a dream, he groped his way over to the wall and began his exertions. He made no sound, nor did he ever look at the camera.

Jonas looked at his hands. His fingernails were chalky.

He went into the next room again. Lay down on the bed and looked at the wall. Taking the same route as the Sleeper, he tottered over to the spot with his arms extended and pushed. Braced his shoulder against the wall.

He looked round. Nothing had changed. It was his bedroom.

He watched the second tape in fast-forward. There was nothing of interest on it, as he’d expected. After an hour the Sleeper rolled out of shot. None of the mysterious happenings at the end had been recorded.

With great reluctance, he set up a camera for the night. He didn’t bother with the close-up camera. He drank the rest of his cold toddy.