Peter Terrin - The Guard

His stubble is extremely unusual, in my eyes at least, a white man’s eyes. The hairs are stuck together in little knobs that look stiff and hard. On his cheeks they’re spread out with lots of space between them, lonely, as if they don’t actually belong there. On his chin they’re closer together, but not close enough to cover the skin.

90

Harry stays aloof. For the first few hours he’s too unsteady from the blow to pay much attention to the guard. He answers my suggestion of temporarily turning three of the lights back on with silent assent. After all, the guard needs an opportunity to familiarize himself with the peculiarities of the location as quickly as possible.

While the guard and I set to work with the chair, the stool and the light covers — with Harry in position near the entrance gate — I think about the specific smell I noticed after eating the tinned fruit, when the tension had become a little more bearable. We’re reconnecting the lights along the longitudinal axis of the basement, which we have divided neatly into equal segments. That is still very far from lighting all of the corners. We give the guard a floor plan too and let him keep his flashlight, which is now swinging from a loop that is attached to the waistband of his pants, but missing from ours. I decide that the smell of his body tends toward the odor of scorched horse’s hooves, albeit strongly diluted.

91

Harry grits his teeth and looks down at the toes of his shoes, his clenched jaw muscles distorting his face. The guard takes a discreet step backward. He’ll have to lie down somewhere, but there are only two beds, even if both of them are free when the guard is allowed to sleep his hours, because from now on a minimum of two guards will patrol together at all times.

I’ve come up with a rotation system for the chair and the stool. Every two hours we move over so that someone else has to either sit on the ground or stay standing. This only applies in the daytime, during the hours we’re all awake, and doesn’t include the time we spend on patrol.

We were going to apply a similar system to the flannels and towels, which I wash weekly, but in the end Harry couldn’t reconcile himself to the prospect. A few minutes later he made a gruff offer to donate his pillowcase, from which we could tear a washcloth and a cloth for the guard to dry himself.

The guard said that was a fine suggestion and thanked Harry for his generosity. It didn’t sound like an ambiguous remark to me, but I might have been mistaken. The guard always speaks in the same deep tone, at the same tempo. It’s difficult to tell how he really means things. His face stays the same. It’s coarsely modeled, like the rest of his body: in combination with the uniform, it evokes memories of old footage of military dictators in sweltering African countries.

92

“Has Harry told you something about the building?”

“No,” the guard says. “Harry hasn’t done that. He hasn’t spoken to me about anything.”

We’ve only just started the inspection round and I feel obliged to talk. We are alone in each other’s company for the first time. I find it hard to believe that Harry didn’t speak a word to the guard in the five hours I was asleep. Maybe it’s a matter of persevering. Maybe not talking starts to feel natural after fifteen minutes of silence, making continuing in the same vein simpler for both parties and a more pleasant alternative.

I guide the guard while walking next to him, my purposeful footsteps making it clear that we don’t neglect a single corner of the basement. It’s like a dance he hasn’t yet mastered, partly because his paces are longer than mine, less maneuverable. As far as the inspection round is concerned, I’m a better instructor than Harry. Now and then, in the darkest sections, the guard clicks on his flashlight because he’s lost track of me.

On the way back to the elevators, I say, “It’s better not to talk in the vicinity of the entrance gate.”

“Yes, I understand that.”

“It’s a forty-story building.”

“Forty,” he says. “Forty stories.”

It sounds like he’s questioning the figure. Has someone told him different? Or had he expected more than forty?

“There’s a lobby on the ground floor, but that’s just for show. There’s no entrance there. This is the entrance.”

We stop in front of the three elevators: something from the distant past, a strange historical phenomenon we’ve come to briefly view.

“Residents, staff, visitors.”

He’s not particularly impressed and doesn’t ask me to elaborate. He seems to me like a man who is seldom impressed or upset. He lives inside his body, his fortress. Wherever that body might be, whatever the company or situation, it’s irrelevant. He is always safe at home.

Although, in essence, his arrival is bad news for us, there is also a good side. We are now in greater numbers to resist hostilities. More than anything, I feel a degree of excitement. Whatever else, the organization hasn’t forgotten us. The guard is living proof that they have been appreciating us in silence the whole time.

We continue our patrol: past the bunkroom door, which is open so that the sleeping guard will be woken by the first hint of an engagement. Inside the light is turned off. A few meters farther along I lay my hand flat against the toilet door without pushing it open. “There is something I have to tell you,” I tell the guard. “Something about the toilet. More specifically, something about flushing the toilet. It’s important that you listen carefully.”

93

The guard has withdrawn to the bunkroom for his night’s sleep when Harry gives me an angry little poke near Garage 12. “Couldn’t you have objected?”

“Objected?”

“Yes, objected. You just stood there like a sheep. You could have rejected the suggestion out of hand. Didn’t it even occur to you to object?”

Apparently Harry’s grievances are not insurmountable because he keeps walking.

“And why were you so keen to start ripping it? It looked like you were enjoying it. What were you thinking? I’ll lend the poor twerp a helping hand?”

“Harry, it was your own suggestion.”

“We have more right to a pillowcase than somebody who’s just strolled in here. Am I wrong? How long have we been here now? Hey, Michel? You and me, how long? Tell me. If you ask me, long enough to have a right to a pillowcase. My own pillowcase. That’s what I think about it.”

“The linen isn’t ours,” I offer later. “It’s property of the organization, we can’t lay any claim to it.”

“Then you should have objected to the destruction of organization kit. We’ve committed an offense. Fourth degree.”

“If you like, you can use mine.”

“Of course not. Keep your pillowcase.”

The realization that the guard is now sleeping in my bed, between my sheets, with his head on my pillow must have finally got through to Harry. Things could be worse, much worse.

“Why didn’t you tell him anything about the building?”

“Did he say that?”

“I asked him. I asked if you’d already told him something about the building. He said no.”

“Did he ask you anything?”

“No.”

“Me neither. Not a thing. Nada. Did you tell him anything?”

“A few things. General stuff. Why didn’t you?”

“He kept his mouth shut. He didn’t give a peep so I thought, then I’ll keep my mouth shut too. I don’t want him thinking I’m going to bend over backward and get all chatty just ’cause he’s come to reinforce us.”

“He’s new.”

“Doesn’t matter. Or maybe it does. You started talking first, remember? When you came.”

The memory brings a smile to his face.