Norman Manea - The Lair

Mihnea had brought me there, curious to watch my reaction to the heated discussions. I was silent and attentive among the participants; I didn’t comment and I didn’t inform anyone, not even Mihnea, before taking leave of that feverish company. Bookish discussions with long lines of dialogue, like essays read out loud. I was intrigued by those people, their way of speaking as if they were writing, instead of the other way around, which is a much more common occurrence. In the end, their tirades bored me, though I never forgot them. They were excessive and bizarre, not just for the promiscuous intellectual that I was then; but I never again frequented troublesome attics.

Neither Mihnea Palade, nor Augustin Gora, nor Lu, suspected that they would meet me again, sometime. As for Peter Ga par, he wasn’t there. At that time he was still a teenager in the province.

None of us suspected, then, that we’d see each other again in exile, across decades and meridians.

The old trees, the uncertain sky of spring: Dr. Koch is there. The narrow waiting room, the diplomas arranged on the office walls, the doctor among them. In the park, a trio of black puppeteers juggling the strings of the marionettes in the bombardment of music. The doctor among them. The playground, the swimming pool. Alleys to the left and right. Passersby of all ages and races. Dr. Koch cloned in dozens of hurried impersonators.

The kaleidoscope of the citadel and little Dr. Koch in the center.

The vise was squeezing his forehead and temples. Two expired sedatives from the old Gomorrah and a fresh, perfect aspirin from fresh, perfect Babylon. Night after night, gathered into one night.

Peter Ga par, thrown on the banks of a new morning. In the mirror. The little gnome Koch repeated the sentence, “Have you looked in the mirror? An elephant! An elephant. The scale doesn’t lie. An elephant.”

Soon the elephant finds himself on a bench, in the nearby park. He leaves the park; he looks at his watch. His gaze floats up, to the sky. The present, the motto of his new life: the present. That’s all. The unknown extends a small, white hand.

“A TV commercial. It pays well. The chess player concentrating on the match will slowly extend a hand toward the glass of Coke.”

The corner of Broadway and 63rd Street. One step to the left, then another. Taxi! The yellow cab brakes at the curb’s edge.

Above the steering wheel, the photo and the name of the driver. Russian accent. The hoarse voice of a smoker. A wide, gentle face, small eyes, large teeth, a brow furrowed with wrinkles. Lyova drives calmly, slowly. In front of the train station, he gently stops the motor and, simultaneously, the meter.

“Eight dollars.”

The passenger stammers, doesn’t stammer.

“Two dollars! That’s all I have, two dollars. My credit card is in my wallet, which I forgot at the library. In the cafeteria of the library. Or, maybe, at Dr. Koch’s office. Forgive me. I have a new MetroCard, worth twenty dollars. I will give you that. I bought it today.”

“Get out of here with your MetroCard! Get out, get out!” yells Lyova, swearing in Russian, or in Ukrainian.

The madman doesn’t move.

“Give me your address.”

“What address?”

“Your address. Your phone number. Your bank account.”

“You want my email, too? You can’t do anything without an email address these days.”

“Anything, just so I can find you and send you the money. The debt I owe you.”

Lyova looks the crazy man in the eyes, like those ophthalmologists who examine the retinas of paralytics. He pulls out the pad of receipts from the right of the steering wheel, tears a sheet and extends it to the passenger.

“Okay. I hope you won’t be back.”

“No danger of that.”

The crowd. The hubbub, the haze. After a while, after looking at the departure schedule, the traveler discovers platform number 9.

The present, that’s all there is. The city on the Moon. It’s not so bad, it could be worse, thinks the passenger. The Russian, that is the Ukrainian, that is the Soviet, was a decent man. A decent day, that’s the conclusion, Doctor.

The river travels gently along the left side of the train. You never wade twice in the same primordial water, which never ages, and which is never the same. A fluid horizon, a fluid, therapeutic sleep.

The conductor taps him gingerly on the shoulder. The sleeper quickly grabs his bag and his coat.

And now he’s off the train, addled, in the station, gazing at the wide and gentle river in front of him. The platform is deserted, mountains in the distance, the river a step away.

A cold, clear afternoon. The beginning of the world. The end of the world. In between them, a short armistice. The chronometer swallows the seconds of the calendar.

The day hasn’t surrendered to the black waters, it isn’t nighttime yet. Depleted, Peter moves from the old couch to the old armchair. He gets up, staggering on his long, old legs. One small step and a big step and another small one. To the vault of the bed.

Midnight. The rustling of the woods. Nocturnal waters surrounding the cabin. Murmurs, babblings. The numbed body, the mind besmirched. The body is our house, according to little Avicenna.

The day hadn’t started in front of Barnes & Noble, where the TV producer Mr. Curtis had appeared, nor in the office of Dr. Koch, but in the cabin in the woods, in the all-forgiving vault of the bed.

You wake up a mole, a mollusk, a roach. Like yesterday morning, like the day before that. In no rush to free yourself of the night’s tombstone.

You remember the chest pains of the previous night. The vise squeezes your forehead and the temples. Death? It isn’t eternal peace, but a stubbornly recurring nightmare.

It was late, he could no longer call the doctor. The doctors are bored; to prove to them that it’s a matter of life and death, you have to transmit a final whimper and die on the spot, and that’s it. He swallowed two expired sedatives from the old Gomorrah and a fresh, perfect aspirin from the fresh, perfect Babylon, where he found himself now. You have to learn to get used to yourself, you vagrant. Night after night collected into a single night. Neglect, the dilation of membranes and a shapeless shell. Anxiety, numbness, sudden awakenings.

No, he hadn’t died. Evidently, he was alive, thrown on the banks of the new morning by the alarm of the phone. He twists his pachyderm body from one side to the other, the bed whines; he rises, finally. In front of the mirror: an elephant! Not a mole or roach, but an elephant, unprepared for the day’s little tumbling routines.

He lowers himself onto his heavy legs and sighs. A buffoon, in front of the mirror. The phone. The phone is ringing. The voice of little Dora, the delicate Spanish woman with the thick voice.

“The doctor arrived ten minutes ago. He received your message and is waiting for you. Dr. Koch is waiting for you. Today, at one.”

“May I speak with Lu?”

Dora loses her patience, flustered.

“No, Lu isn’t here. And I’m in a hurry, my sister is here to see me. Okay, we’re waiting for you. One o’clock, today, Friday.”

Soft legs, belly hanging, puffed like a sack.

He shouldn’t have called Koch! He’s in no mood for admonishments.

“You’re in the strangers’ country, where no one is a stranger. Unhappiness isn’t the domicile of the chosen people, you should know! If you don’t believe me, return to rotten Denmark like Hamlet and your obituary will be written in your native language!”