Fancy Shop Page 5

  ‘Broken plates,’ he stated, to the disappointment of all.

  The others rolled up. I came closer and I heard how the pile of duds were whispering:

  ‘I didn’t kill him, I didn’t …’

  On the way to the station I met the librarian:

  ‘Well, you look somewhat recovered and now you’re leaving.’

  ‘I’m sorry about the library,’ I said.

  There was nothing to be sorry about. The building had had to be demolished a long time ago. The books were to be transferred to some storage facility. Just enough not to get in the way.

  ‘Your angel seems to have found solace,’ he suddenly added.

  The vague sense of guilt, deepened by the imbecility of age, could cause a false memory of patricide.

  Something else was also possible:

  Someone who often went down in the basement for work might find things had changed. For example, he might start the repair on his own. First, he would take out the sunken plates; he would dig and clear out the hole.

  But what if he finds something that shouldn’t be there? What is to be done in that case? Let’s say, something sparkly that can be rolled out and an old-time melody begins when its lid opens. Whose is that object now? Who shall he give it to after so many years? Why not take the reward of fortuity? And the bones could be carried into the charnel-house of the monastery. They shouldn’t be easily noticed. Nevertheless, they would have been in their place.

  This story showed remoteness from reality.

  ‘It’s true,’ confessed the librarian. ‘My made-up stories have no resemblance to the truth.’

  I recalled all of this many years later, as I made my way to that same town. I alighted at the same station and I headed to the square. I heard my name. It was the priest:

  ‘You remembered us.’

  ‘The good memories remain.’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Sometimes they outlive the people.’

  Then, after a short silence, he added:

  ‘Do you remember that poor old man from the library? Yesterday I passed by his grave. A pure soul, but a confused one. It’s a good thing they tore down that building. He expected to see the remains of his father in the foundations. The facts freed him from his delusion. Being faced with the beyond, he realized he was not a murderer.’

  I don’t know why I asked: ‘What about the librarian?’

  ‘The librarian?’ He began to think. ‘The librarian went away. Such a strange person. A kid claimed that a day before leaving he met him on the street. He took an old gold watch out of his pocket, and when he opened its lid some old-time melody flew out of it.’

  THE INCONVENIENCE OF BEING ALIVE

  I was watching how he was coming down the street. He was walking slowly, with his head down. He passed by the ditch, jumped over the puddle and disappeared beneath the window. Then the creaking on the wooden stairs came closer and stopped by the door.

  ‘Don’t leave it unlocked, they’ll rob you!’ he said and shook his wet jacket.

  He had brought coffee. While I was grinding it, the room filled with its aroma, but the pleasant sensation didn’t lessen my attentiveness. For a lonely old woman like me, relaxation signifies the beginning of a migraine, a memory or a bad feeling.

  He left after an hour. Outside is still quiet, deserted. As if the autumn has got ahead of the calendar. Today is the fourteenth of September, and it’s been raining for a week.

  21 Sept. He has brought old photographs. I recognized myself and my sister amongst the kids dressed in white.

  ‘Mum, God forgive her, always mentioned you, Aunt.’

  She had told about the time I was chased by a crowd of worshippers. She had talked for hours about my silk gloves, about the diamond brooch, about the perfumes from Paris and Vienna.

  22 Sept. I am alone again. I was tidying the cabinet when all of sudden I felt ill. By the time I sat down, I had already begun to shiver from the cold. I have probably caught a cold, or it’s because of yesterday. I was passing by a yard with children playing. When they saw me, they stopped the ball and were quiet. Then there was a burst of laughter behind me. Am I that funny?

  23 Sept. He came an hour ago. He sat on the chair, looking through the window. His jaw had sunk and his eyes were bright in the sunlight. Suddenly his mouth rounded and he said:

  ‘It’s all over for me.’

  They were about to kick him out of his apartment because he couldn’t pay his rent, his wife was going to leave him, and his children hadn’t talked to him for weeks.

  ‘This is your house, isn’t it?’

  I was silent because I didn’t understand the question.

  I was the one who could save him. He would be grateful until the grave. For a lonesome person, it was better to stay in a rest home. There was food there, medical support. And I would be amongst other people.

  It seems I’ve lost the habit of understanding people. Time passed until I got what was said, while my nephew became increasingly pale and serious.

  ‘What you’re saying is impossible.’

  He got up and silently went out. If he had stayed, he would have understood that nothing is reliant on me, because the house was never mine. The doctor didn’t want to leave his home unoccupied in times like these, and he had no faith in strangers. He offered to let me to move in, but when he comes back from travelling abroad I will be on the street.

  Poor boy! I can only imagine what sort of cul-de-sac he was in to suggest the solution of residential care. He is probably still wandering the streets, afraid to go home. It’s hard to live with the sense of guilt. Children are harsh judges.

  27 Sept. What a beautiful day! The sun’s rays travelled through my skin into my blood, to my joints stiffened with rheumatism. In the street, faraway sounds faded into the distance. I was sitting by the window under a shroud of golden, gluey dust …

  28 Sept. There were sounds. I began to listen to them. A quiet, gentle voice. I got out of bed. I could see nothing. I reached the staircase. I was going down, after the voice. I couldn’t hear my steps …

  I woke up late. A scratching noise was coming from the adjacent garage.

  29 Sept. All of a sudden the door opened:

  ‘You have left it unlocked again!’

  Everything was decided. He would be staying in the apartment. He couldn’t forgive himself for his idiotic behaviour. He just went nuts. He was speaking quietly. Seen in profile, he looked like someone else. There was nothing to forgive him for. Nothing important had happened, and he’s like a son to me.

  And still the feeling of guilt wasn’t in a hurry to leave him. He was too attentive. He was interested in my health, in what I was doing during the day, if I had any other acquaintances. He was listening, full of compassion. He had understood what it was to be alone in that awful situation. If his presence wasn’t bothering me, he could come around more often. He left reluctantly. At the doorway, he pulled up the zipper of his jacket and disappeared into the dark.

  It’s getting colder.

  30 Sept. The child was standing by the fence. She was either lost or waiting for somebody. When I approached her, she raised her head. Her palms were sunk into the folds of her dress. She was looking at me calmly, with indifference. Then she left. Stopped at the end of the street. Did she look back?

  1 Oct. He mentioned that the newspapers are full of descriptions of attacks on lonely elderly people. The criminals keep getting bolder and bolder. I should be more careful, and above all not leave the door unlocked. I remembered how last week, during the night, I was awoken by banging on the door. I opened the window. There was no one downstairs. The next night, the same thing happened to the neighbours. The incident made an impression on him. We should have informed the police.

  2 Oct. I was looking inside the albums for hours, then in the boxes of letters, and finally ins
ide the books on the shelf. I didn’t find that photograph. I remember clearly the clock on the square that had stopped, the streets leading to the pier, the trees descending to the shore, the boat stuck in the mud bank. I remember the voice, the fingers that had turned yellow from tobacco smoke, but I’ve forgotten his face. We probably left without taking the photographs. In one of the boxes I found a yellow cloth. I opened it and I recognized my favourite beach hat. I felt the smell of seaweed.

  4 Oct. I’ve been alone for two hours, and I keep shaking with fear. Will my worst presentiments come true?

  I felt that for some time he had had his eye on the bronze statuette on top of the bookshelf. Gradually this reflex was deepening. Today he went to the cabinet, stretched out his hand, and after a short hesitation he took the metal casting. He was holding it in a strange way, as if there were a hammer in his hand. He looked up in pain. His face was wet with sweat. He looked like a man who remembers something that immediately goes out of his head. Then, reluctantly, he left the statuette in its previous place.

  When I was left alone, I touched the statuette and I felt the warmth of his palm. Back in the day, it was kept on my father’s writing desk. The sheets stuck beneath it used to clap like wings with every opening of the door. A stylized human figure with an unclear gender. Now the elliptical eyes were looking out from behind the patina. Maybe, with it …

  6 Oct. Every day I see myself in the mirror. And then again tomorrow? I’m trying not to look further ahead, but I often turn back. It’s good that the amalgam has become darker. I’m being entangled by the web of its cracks, the outlines keep blurring, and I can imagine that thing there is not my face. Where is my face?

  7 Oct. Today, when he was sifting through his memories, he casually asked whether he is my only relative. He wanted to know what I would do if I had money. Would I try to pay the debts of my conscience?

  ‘You are probably thinking of leaving your home to some charitable foundation,’ he said with a smile which wasn’t making things any brighter.

  Why did he want to kill me? He would probably have to leave the apartment, and his only hope was to inherit this home. Then it will be enough for him to toss in the fact that I have no property … and for me to sink in doubt. To stay alone with my remorse, to tremble with the fear at the thought of the only man who still comes here? If I don’t want to go insane, I should forget these fabrications.

  The one who was reading lifted his head from the page and added:

  ‘She was murdered with that statuette. A blow to the neck and a fake burglary.’

  ‘How did you find the diary?’ asked the bald guy opposite.

  ‘It found me on its own. She rented a box in a post office for a monthly fee. After the rental period expired, according to the regulations the officer had to offer it to someone else. There was an envelope inside: Murder! Tell the police!

  ‘How did she guess the day of the crime?’

  ‘She didn’t. She simply added words every day and placed the envelope back in the box.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He kept denying it at first, but when he read what was written inside, he couldn’t hold out any longer.’

  ‘And yet,’ the bald guy was stubborn, ‘I don’t understand why she would hide the truth about the ownership of the house if she was suspicious of his intentions. The logic of the diary is not convincing.’

  ‘There is one last sheet that had most probably been written in the very beginning. It was stapled to the rest every time she added more words. Here it is, read it!

  Dear Mr Investigator,

  You, the one who will investigate my murder,

  I rely on your integrity and your decisiveness to carry it all out, right to the end.

  Please, after you uncover all the circumstances around my death, send your conclusion (and the court’s decision, if necessary) to the insurance company stated below, and ensure the coverage of the obligations in the enclosed insurance contract.

  Don’t let them make you doubt yourself with statements that I had known in advance, or even that I had cooperated to allow the event here mentioned to occur. Everything written from me is the fruit of fears that I don’t actually believe, and which I hope would never come true. If it does happen, however, the insurance has to be paid to the one stated in the contract. She’s my daughter. She doesn’t know me. Try, if possible, to keep from her everything related to me.

  Yours sincerely: …………..’

  The bald one stayed for a long time in the pose of a statue. Then he asked:

  ‘Why did she have to accuse him? If she had taken out the usual form of life insurance, the details of death are meaningless.’

  ‘That’s the thing, they aren’t. The agreed sum exceeds the regular sum for such insurance many times.’

  ‘So, either the guys from the agency have gone mad, or …’

  ‘… they have guessed that the probability of paying out the insurance is next to nothing.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the condition is: “The negotiated sum should be paid only in the case of a premeditated murder.”’

  ‘Do you believe that …’ began the bald one, but he didn’t finish his question, because the gaze of the other had already strayed through the window to the outside to where the lazy November day was waking up.

  THE PROPHET

  Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death;

  Psalm 13:3

  Beyond the dream, their steps were coming. Getting closer… The vision stayed behind and afar. Something from before.

  ‘He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.’2

  A pain awakened him. Someone was shaking him. Moisture trickled down his forehead. It reached his lips. Blood. Piercing noise. Echoing corridors. A roar down the staircases. Growing shadows. They creep up the walls and fall into darkness.

  The light blinds him. He sees his feet dragging him along. It is daylight outside and a street that they continue walking on. The familiar breeze. Has he been here? Is that his path? Whose steps is he stepping on? Where do they lead him? Who is he?

  Is that me?

  They release my hands. They stay behind. Why? Probably, I should go before them.

  ‘How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!’3

  The streets lead to another street.

  ‘The elders have ceased from the gate, the young men from their musick.’4

  Somewhere up there is the square. Here they are. At first they merge into one, then I can distinguish their faces. I meet their eyes. I look behind. It’s late. Why are they here? We reach the scaffold. I continue alone. They look like a sea from above. They look up at me. What do they expect? The aggravation from my idleness grows. The discontent is rising. I don’t count on their mercy but on their contempt. I kneel and I bend my head. From the creaking below, I understand that the most impatient ones are already climbing. Sweat pours over me. What could stop them?

  But suddenly a roar overpowers their din. One voice above the thousands of voices:

  ‘Get back, you base scum! Your abomination has been revealed!’

  The voice comes out of me. I try to choke it, but it takes me over and lifts me up while fear and hypocrisy replace their malice. It becomes quiet.

  ‘You want to hear why you’re living in hell! You are hell! You have been given words so the wind wouldn’t toss you over the roads like thorns, but you killed their soul. You don’t seek the truth, and you made them into rotted flesh. You hide yourself behind them and you think that you are living, but real life remains far from you. Is such affluence good when your toys play with you? The One whose are the words decided: ‘Since you don’t understand why you live, there will be no death for you! Because death is a reward for the weary one, just like the sleep of the ploughman after a hard day. Your punishment is the
fate that you’ve chosen.

  ‘For in your mouth there is no truth, it will remain empty until the end of days. Like mice, you will hide in your holes from what is to come. There will be neither day nor night, only twilight. There will be no solace left. You will look at your children, numb with fear. And so, when you sink in misery, and terror and remorse come to you, no one will hear you, no friend, nor foe, but only screams chasing each other in the emptiness.’The voice leaves me, and when I breathe again, I understand that I am dumb. Those who brought me here, raised me up again.

  ‘We insulted the prophet and he cursed us,’ says one of them.

  They are dragging me down the same streets. I hang my head, powerless beneath the weight of the trust that I will be back there, where I come from, and I will sleep again. I will sleep for long, long time. Unwakeable.

  AN ENDLESS DAY

  Up there, over the remnants of clouds, a sky was probably hanging. It’s unnecessary to stare at it: it can come to you on its own. It’s as if you’ve been here for ages, part of the tranquillity of this beach. Of course, the sense of time disappears imperceptibly. You lie down for a while and forget who you are, why you are here, and there is no way to understand if you should wait for someone to wake you up sometime and send you off somewhere else. Probably, this is why he wasn’t thinking. Winds blow away his thoughts. Freed from their weight, he lies alone – completely forgotten, and therefore oblivious of every coherence with the other. He doesn’t remember anything, because forgetfulness saves him from the common relevance to that of which he is a part. Still, if he tries to go back, he could cling to his last memory. It seems logical, even like a rescue, as long as he decides that, to assess how. A small effort, a faint attempt to attach to something that remained from before, that isn’t pointless: a path to the thought that leads you out of here. It’s probably necessary to open his eyes to check if what he expected to see would still be there. But if he’s already into other attachments, how could he get out of there? The answer could pass through the eyelids, but if it wasn’t there – on the outside – what would bring back the ability for the next effort? Even the opposite is possible: the flood of light (if it’s bright there) to carry away the feeble attempt to unlock, to startle him, to divert his thoughts. Wouldn’t he become completely lost? So, for now, the opening of the eyes would be postponed. Isn’t it more natural to continue ordering what’s already in place? And yet, before he came here, he was elsewhere. Traces were left. If he retraces his steps, couldn’t he reach something that’s now slipping away?