Norman Manea - The Lair

“On the first page Doctor Marcel Yarmolinski is mentioned. A delegate to the International Talmudic Congress, from Podolsk. Podolsk is a place in Eastern Europe. The Talmud is… I think you probably know what it is.”

Police officer Patrick Murphy is silent. His black gaze is increasingly blacker. Larry Eight knows, doesn’t know, hard to guess.

“Yarmolinski endured three years of war in the Carpathian mountains. The mountains in my country, Old Man Dima’s country and Palade-Portland’s country. The story says that the third crime takes place in February, the month of the Argentine carnival. The letter arrived at the college in February. A month has gone by, maybe more. And now the Judaic Carnival is approaching.”

“The Judaic Carnival?”

“Yes. It is, in a way, a Jewish story. The three victims are Jewish. The author was obsessed with the old Judaic texts and the Kabbalah. And with …”

Ga par searches through his left pocket, then the right, out of which he finally pulls a crumpled page from a notebook. He un-crumples it.

“Sefer Yetzirah, the Book of Creation, written in Syria or Palestine in the sixth century and. . and the Tetrarch of Galilee. . who never even existed.”

Patrick scratches his head, Peter returns to the dialogue.

“Purim is a festive celebration, with masks. For children. In Borges’ story, the carnival forecasts the crime.”

The stupor proves beneficial, the policeman is struck by an idea.

“This writer, what’s his name …”

“Borges. Jorge Luis Borges.”

“Is he in the curriculum?”

“No. Maybe in the graduate studies, at a big university. But some students here would have heard of him, I’m sure.”

“Have you ever mentioned his name in your class?”

“No, never. I don’t think so. I’d have had no reason to.”

Patrick picks up the phone.

“Tang? Find out if anyone’s taught a course about the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges in the last three years.”

This time he pronounced the guilty party’s name perfectly.

“Yes, the name of the professor who taught the course and the list of students who took it.”

Patrick puts down the receiver, standing up now. He doesn’t extend his hand, just merely announces, gruffly, “I’ll call you. I will call. If something comes up, tell Jennifer.”

The grenade in the body. The hidden tumor, the knot of toxins. Death in a can, ready to explode. Postponement, postponement, hummed the obese body. The caricature in the mirror in front of the bed asks for compassion: belly swollen with rot, the shaved marble of his head, his thick, livid lips, his gelatinous eyelids.

“The effort isn’t worth it, dear Almighty One,” the condemned whispers. “It would be a ridiculous victory, Dulcissima, postpone the execution.”

After half an hour, fat Peter Ga par stops asking for postponement and tries asking for refuge. The wind swells under the stiff branches of the trees, the darkness advances fluidly around him and in the surrounding wood. This is the nocturnal tribunal from which he asks allowances. He hears the purling, the furtive whimpering of the night. He wanders around the shack, he’s in no mood to reenter the cage. He’s enraged less by the threat itself, and more by the people behind it. He doesn’t like martyrs, or heroes, and he detests the role of victim. He prefers a banal death, without drama. Illness, suicide. The appearance of normality or of an accident. He carries his flesh with difficulty. His body has dilated in exile. Perplexity and insomnia and ravenous eating.

The night will bring the acoustics of the hunt again. Skeletal shadows covering their ears to drown out the sound of the dogs, covering their eyes to block out the blaze of the sentinels. Shivering from cold and fear, Eva Kirschner is there, head shorn, in a striped uniform that hangs loosely on her skeletal body.

The message of the blind man from Buenos Aires had incited the pack of neuroses.

Peter ambles in a circle around the cabin. He ignores the forest and the cabin, both bewildered with anticipation. He tries to regulate his breathing. He breathes in deeply, holds the air in, one, two, five, more, exhales slowly, very slowly, a small, even dose of air, just like his inhalation. One, four, slowly, as slowly as possible.

In front of the door, Death. A smiling woman with whitened blond hair and the large teeth of a wild beast. A black dress that reaches to the ground. In her hand, a piece of paper. The death sentence. The Decree.

“Do you … live here?”

Peter looks at her, dazed, slow to answer. No, the assassin has no weapon, just the Decree.

“Please excuse me. . I’m sorry, this is the notice, the witch stammers. Excuse me … I came by before. But you weren’t home.”

Peter gazes at her mutely, happy that he hadn’t been home.

“I came by, but you weren’t here, I left a note. Gattino. It’s about Gattino. He’s blind, poor guy.”

Yes, the condemned had received the message, a month before. The Argentinian Blind Man, the morbid note.

“He’s only six months old. He’s gray, and blind in one eye. With a respiratory infection. Have you seen him? Have you seen him around by any chance? He has short fur. He’s shy, very shy. He needs to be called by name, quietly, sweetly. Gatti-Gatti-Gattino, pss, pss, Gat-ti.”

She extends a photo of the cat with the white, dead eye. The Old Woman smiles sweetly, with the large teeth of a wild beast.

“Yes, ma’am, I found your sign posted to my door. I haven’t seen the orphan. I mean, the wanderer. I promise, of course, yes, I know the number. Both numbers. Yours, Helene, and your brother’s, Steve. Yes, yes, I have them. I will call, I will call you immediately.”

The sky is darkening. Muted decor. The disoriented wanderer is also muted, and alive. He forgets about suicide and melancholy. Troubled by the fate of Gattino. Italian name, from Buenos Aires.

He gazes up to the illegible sky, then to the ground in front of the steps, a carpet of leaves and insects. He inhales deeply and exhales slowly, in small doses.

The headlights catch him in between two bands of light, the car stops in front of the shack. Jennifer! The elegant head of security, in an Armani trench coat and a Dior scarf, the color of the wind. She gets out of the car, alert and smiling.

“Taking a walk? It’s good for the sleep, it’s good. May I come in?”

The elegant Vietnamese woman ignores the disarray inside.

“I brought a list of the students. There was, in fact, a course on Borges! Two years ago. A professor from Spain. I brought the list of her students. We’re going to compare the handwriting of each of them with the cursive on the postcard. The question is whether any of these was also your student at some point.”

The professor looks down the list.

“No, I don’t think so. None of these names look familiar. I will check. Tomorrow, at the registrar’s office.”

J.T. leaves the list on the table. Tara is not on the list. He doesn’t remember any of the names in front of him. Did Palade’s assassins infiltrate the killer among his students? There would have been no need, the killer could easily enter the campus, find the hermit’s cabin, watch for his return, appear smiling out of the bushes and calmly unload four bullets, four for the four crimes outlined by the compass of Buenos Aires. Or the killer could repeat the Palade scene: after two hours of class, Professor Ga parhurries stiffly to the bathroom, his bladder demanding its rights. The stranger enters the next cabin. For some years now, the professor has risked soiling his trousers in the bathroom. Standing in front of the toilet, he moans quietly from the sting.