Peter Terrin - The Guard

105

It’s not the first time. I have to realize that. Maybe it’s the kind of thing I would never have expected from the guard, Harry says with a touch of triumph in his voice. Him trying to stir things up like this. And isn’t it peculiar, to say the least, that the guard doesn’t ever speak to Harry? He wants me to explain that to him. When he’s the one who donated his pillowcase to him. What, do I think, is the significance of that? For his part, Harry wouldn’t be surprised if the guard, with this kind of baiting on the one hand and blatantly sucking up to me on the other, wasn’t trying to drive a wedge between us. It’s probably to his advantage. Yes, it may sound strange to me. The question is, can we exclude it? Can we safely exclude it? No, says Harry, absolutely not. He might be a special agent, but maybe he has his own agenda too. Who’s to say? Harry says we have to keep our eyes peeled. We have to evaluate the situation daily or, better still, hourly! It’s of the utmost importance. Wouldn’t it be terrible after all this time in the basement to let ourselves be outsmarted? By a newcomer? Harry and me? Us?

106

The guard might not be withholding information simply because it’s to his own advantage. Who’s to say he’s not doing it to see how well we hold up under pressure? Because, Harry whispers in the darkness near the crushers, let’s not beat about the bush, whether he’s a special agent or not, the organization must have briefed him, no two ways about it. And not just regarding the situation outside. That’s why he doesn’t ask about the last resident or the residents who have disappeared and it’s why he doesn’t bat an eyelid about not seeing a single motor vehicle in a basement car park. Harry repeats that, in the same situation, he would find that last bit very weird and I would too, of course, for Christ’s sake. But not the guard. He’s not bothered because he knows a lot more about what’s going on here than we do. I can take that as read, Harry says. And his sucking up to me might not be blatant, no, maybe it’s not blatant, it’s more cunning than that. I should just think about those porcelain figurines of his if I don’t believe him. What a trick! It’s clear that the guard is trying to win my confidence. And according to Harry that’s not just to set us against each other. At the same time the guard wants to wheedle as much out of us as he can, anything that might be useful, anything that increases his head start. Because that’s how I should see it. That’s how Harry sees it. With the hair of his mustache brushing the top of my ear, he asks if I’m aware of just how scarce positions in the elite are? We mustn’t lose sight of that. Do I hear him?

107

It all comes down to one thing, Harry says: us not knowing who this bloke really is. We haven’t got a clue. And the guard might have convinced me that he’s the second-to-last in a family of seven boys and that his father worked in the mines for forty years, but so what? What’s that tell us about him? That he’s learned to take a back seat? To be obedient? A hard worker? Is that what we’re supposed to deduce from his words? No fucking idea. We don’t even know if he’s speaking the truth. We don’t know him. We only know one thing: he’s not stupid. He’s not stupid and he’s a competitor. Let’s not forget that, for crying out loud. He’s a guard, he’ll back us up if necessary. Harry doesn’t doubt that, he credits him with that much of a sense of honor. But he’s also a competitor trying to coax as much out of us as he can, anything that can improve his already advantageous position and bring him closer to his goal. He’ll shrink at nothing. And I might be cautious, of course I’m cautious, that goes without saying, but no matter how cautious I am, it’s difficult to prevent him from picking up little titbits of information the moment I relax. The guard doesn’t try it on with Harry. And with good fucking reason. He knows he won’t get anywhere. Harry’s not giving anything away, do I understand that? And do I also understand that the guard wouldn’t mind a position in the elite either? He might be a special agent, who’s to say, but he still has to feed his face out of the same tins as Harry and me. And like the two of us, Harry says, he’s still locked up the whole God-awful day in this godforsaken hole. Don’t I think that, just like us, the guard wants something else? Fresh air? Some greenery? Do I think he’d turn his nose up at a chance to guard Mr. Van der Burg-Zethoven’s white villa? Do I think he’d look the other way if Mr. Van der Burg-Zethoven’s fiancée was stretched out on a white sofa in front of the window stroking her hairless pussy? Harry’s just giving an example. And can we blame the guard? He’d be an idiot if it was any other way. No, we understand completely. But not at our expense. Not Harry’s and mine. No way. The guard will have to get up earlier in the morning if he thinks he can steal all the credit by playing us off one against each other while he acts the innocent. The credit we, Harry and I and no one else, have earned twice over, more. Because that’s what it comes down to. That’s what we have to keep in the forefront of our mind every second of every day, says Harry. The positions are limited, don’t forget. The competition is murderous.

108

Do I know what suddenly occurred to him today? Do I know what’s been on his mind all afternoon? The resident. The man on 29, the last resident. It’s like this. We, Harry and me, don’t need the guard’s help: for us that’s as clear as crystal and maybe the organization will see it that way soon too. We function just fine shut off from the world and whether they’re big or little, fat or thin, we don’t need any blacks down here helping us. But there’s also a flipside to this miserable affair. A side that far surpasses the guard’s underhand interests…

I hear Harry pacing to and fro in the pitch darkness, a meter or two in front of my feet, short lengths; the grit under his shoes crunches as he turns. I wonder how he manages to keep his orientation, if he’ll soon bump into the crusher or, worse, my forehead or knees.

It is unacceptable, Harry says, that the client’s interests should suffer in any way at all because of the secret ambitions of a clown like the guard. That is fundamentally wrong; it goes against everything the organization stands for. The whole point of all this is the client’s security, which is under serious and acute threat. That’s why the organization’s sent the guard. And what is a guard’s number one priority? For all guards, wherever they’re stationed, irrespective of any ambitions they might harbor? Harry is going to tell me: the client. It’s the client who digs deep into his pocket for our special services, the client who is our priority, the client and no one else. We, as guards, as individuals, do not actually exist. We live for the client. Anyway, says Harry, how long have we been locked up in this basement now? How long without faltering even once? Harry and me, us? I know it better than he does, says Harry, no, he doesn’t have to tell me. If we, with our service record, can’t lay claim to a pillowcase or a flannel of our own, to give an example, then we at least have the right to information that is crucial to the protection of our client? Surely?

109

What do I think about it? Surely I must agree with him that the situation is absurd. We’re stuck here like sitting ducks. And by “we” Harry doesn’t just mean him and me but, more than anyone else, the last resident too. At the mercy of the pettiness and disgusting lack of professionalism of a fellow guard, who is also putting his own safety at risk in the process. Like some kind of suicide bomber who’ll stop at nothing to reach his goal. An insult to our profession and a personal humiliation for both of us because isn’t it so that, by consistently withholding information, the guard is constantly laughing in our faces? I should just stop and consider it from a fresh perspective. After a while things get muddled of course. After a while the guard starts thinking he’s got a clear playing field, that there’s nothing stopping him. If I look at the situation from a fresh perspective, I’ll come to the same conclusion. I can take that from Harry. There’s just no other option. We have to intervene. We can’t let this state of affairs carry on any longer. What would the organization require us to do? Just keep plodding along? Do I know what it is? We misjudged things. We wanted to prove our independence by not asking the guard any questions and carrying on with our work as if he’s not even here. It hasn’t helped. Harry doesn’t exclude the possibility that the guard, if he really is an agent with honorable intentions, is waiting for the exact opposite: initiative. Engagement. If he’s a good agent, he’ll understand our intervention perfectly and value it. He won’t report it as a sign of weakness or stress. He’ll speak of dedication, praising us for our bold action, while fully understanding our initial reticence. That’s how Harry sees it. And if the guard isn’t honorable, we’ll have to come up with something to make him better his ways. We no longer have any choice.