Norman Manea - The Lair

Questions, answers. The semester had started Wednesday, February 1. The first class, Monday afternoon, from 3:30 to 5:30. P.O. Box 1079 was full. He closed it; he wasn’t in the mood for mail. Advertisements and information and letters asking for money didn’t interest him. When he was younger, yes, he was always waiting for the miracle, the magic message. Here, the mail is a garbage can. He’d hired a student to sort it.

“The name?”

“Of the student? Yes, of course.”

The policeman notes the information, makes a sign to Ms. Tang to note it as well. So then, he saw the mail only after a week? No, two weeks had gone by. The student had been busy; she’d brought the first batch only about the middle of the month. Then came another pile, and then another, and, then, the card appeared.

“Is it stamped, postmarked? Is there a date?”

No, you couldn’t see the postmark. Just the stamp and the address. The address of the recipient was clear. Might the sender have ties to the college? The college’s phone and address book wasn’t accessible except to professors and administrators.

The police officer looks at the criminal exhibit.

“It could be a foreigner. You don’t say ‘next time I kill you,’ but ’the next time.’ The next time I will kill you.”

“That’s important!” the invigorated J.T. intervenes. The professor’s compatriots had been outraged by an article he wrote. Might the author of the letter be a compatriot?

The professor doesn’t answer. Compatriot? Didn’t Ms. Tang also become his compatriot?

“Do you have anything to add?”

“Two days ago, in the snow on the patio … there were footprints. Boots.” Maybe some workman who’d come to check the plumbing or read a meter or something? Yesterday, there was sun, and the snow melted. The tracks weren’t really visible any longer. Still, something. The steps go in a single direction. As if someone had just crossed the patio, inspected the cottage and didn’t return to the patio. Someone inspected the area; that was sure. Now you could no longer see the tracks.

All three of them go out on the patio. Nothing special, says J. S. Trooper’s look. He puts the evidence in a plastic bag, the bag in a leather folder. The object will remain with the police and the professor will get a copy. J.T. will send the claimant a front and back copy on Monday.

“Ah, yes. One other thing,” the professor retorts. “I don’t know, in fact, if. . maybe this is stupid stupid, but…”

“Tell us everything,” Mrs. Tang insists, under the bored gaze of the state trooper.

“Yes, let’s hear it,” adds J. S. Trooper.

Ga par pulls out a crumpled paper from his pocket and hands it to the policeman.

“I found it taped to my door. Maybe it’s a stupid thing, I don’t know. I can’t tell anymore.”

“Lost cat needs help,” reads the Vietnamese over the shoulder of the policeman, who raises his eyebrows, taken aback.

A photograph, on a black background, of a striped cat. The cat sits, as if posing for the photographer, well behaved, has one blue eye and one white, blind eye. Gattino is a 6-month-old, slender gray male tabby with distinctive spots and stripes … Gattino is a 6-month-old tomcat, skinny, ashy gray, with spots and stripes. He is blind in his left eye. If you find him, please call 658.2704. He might seem confused because he is feeble. He has one sick eye and chronic respiratory problems. But he has a home and we’re beside ourselves that he’s lost.

Mrs. Tang and the police officer seem disoriented. The professor, however, provides some further information.

“There are also some lines written by hand. Under the typed lines, there are three handwritten lines.”

They’d seen them, of course, but they didn’t care. But now they had to care, there was no choice. He’s very short-haired & vulnerable. Please, please … if you see him call him by name, clearly and sweetly. If you have him in your home, please call us and we’ll come get him immediately.

“Yes, yes,” mutters the trooper and puts the paper in his pocket.

In the afternoon, Dean P.C. requests that the FBI be informed. They look for Officer Pereira, with whom Ga par had been in contact immediately after the appearance of his article on Dima, a year before, after the assassination of Professor Portland. The publication of the review coincided with the assassination, wasn’t that right? They’re waiting for a sign from Officer Pereira.

Saturday evening, Tara doesn’t show. Instead, she calls to excuse herself; she’s had an exhausting day; she has a migraine; even her workout has exhausted her. The professor retells the trials of the preceding days; the conversation lengthens. The subject animates her, she no longer seems tired.

Ga par goes to sleep late. Strong knocking on the door. Sleepily he weaves in between the bed and the nightstand. “Security,” announces the voice of the woods.

On the front step, with a flashlight in the eyes of the suspect, the young police officer Garcia. It’s a dream, that’s it; Ga par is smiling, not daring to wake up.

“The rounds, you know. We were told that you’ve been having some problems. We’re patrolling the grounds. We’ll check in every three hours after midnight.”

Every three hours? Could they check the grounds without knocking on the door? Ga par says he’ll leave the light on. The police officer agrees.

Night, forest, gusts. Wind and cold. Barbed wire, patrols, dogs, phantoms in rags, gathered one in the other. Eva Kirschner. Peter is balled up above the child that he was once, above the body riddled with wounds. Frozen rags, skin and bones, the child of different time. The patrolling guards, security lights, livid bodies.

He awakes with the pillow rumpled and wet in his arms. He hears, somewhere, the grinding motor of a car; he doesn’t want to go back to sleep, but he crashes into his pillow. Woods. Captives. Old, famished faces. Detainees. The frightened mob. The roll call. Patrol guards with dogs scrutinize the skeletons. The little boy easily became air, nothing to hold in your arms. The whimpering subsided, as well as the screaming of the sentinels. Heavy, leaden snow, not a single movement. A thick stillness; you can’t breathe.

The nightmare doesn’t belong to me, has nothing to do with me, it’s my parents’, Ga par decides in the morning.

Sunday he doesn’t come out of his den. He tries to remember the text on the card. A word, a comma. He’s not sure that he still has the phrase. He can’t remember the newspaper article on the other side either.

A good sign, he’ll sleep unhampered tonight.

Monday. The Security Office. J.T. sits in front of the computer, salutes with a nod, without shifting her gaze from the blue screen, extends her right arm toward a drawer, Ga par can see the large, thick, silver ring on the thin finger, she pulls out two sheets of paper, stapled to one another. The copy of the postcard, front and back.

“Don’t let anyone see these.”

Her gaze fixed on the screen. The small fingers caress the keys, and madam J.T. nods, bye-bye, see you soon.