Peter Terrin - The Guard

Even Claudia, in the end, doesn’t step outside her familiar circle of equals. She blows us a kiss. She waves. She tells us we mustn’t misbehave, no matter what.

She looks back twice.

27

At the first bang we both drop to the floor, pitch-darkness is tossed over us like a blanket, like a net, and we’re caught, swearing, pointing our guns in all directions. At the second bang, which follows the first like an echo, the emergency lighting turns on. It’s only after a few minutes that the tubes light up more than their own covers and the basement starts to reappear as a collection of shadowy patches.

Harry checks the entrance while I walk to our room. The two screens of the video monitoring system are dead; the cameras are aimed at the sally port between the entrance gate and the street gate. On closer examination, the screens are receiving electricity but no signal. The light bulb in our room is still on too.

Harry comes back, not having noticed anything unusual. He says he can’t hear any voices or rumbling engines, nothing.

We spend the first few hours waiting anxiously, walking countless inspection rounds. It’s strange that the cameras are no longer emitting a signal, though perhaps they are and it’s just not reaching the screens. A short circuit somewhere that’s partially cut the electricity supply. We look for a simple explanation.

We adjust to the darkness, which gives us the impression that the emergency lighting is increasing in strength. We see everything as clearly as before. Nothing has changed. After a brief consultation, we decide that at night, as usual, we will each take five hours’ sleep in turn.

28

Two days later we watch with drawn pistols while the entrance gate opens. We understand why a day has been skipped when the young driver explains that the organization will no longer be providing hot dinners. He hardly looks at us, he’s in a hurry, there’s a dark sweat stain on the collar of his blue shirt as he informs us that from now on we will be receiving varied rations. He makes it sound like a simple policy decision, an extremely awkward one as far as he’s concerned, because now he’s got a lot more work to do on delivery days. He’s been in the basement every day for the last few months and shows no surprise at the emergency lighting. As if we have silently agreed that every one of us needs to adjust to the situation.

29

Harry rubs his stomach cheerfully. “They can’t take that away from us now, Michel.” Sighing, he sits down on the chair next to the door. Dinner’s over. Our intestines will digest the bread and the canned meat, absorbing the nutrients and concentrating the waste. The taste — that delighted our mouths so much that we swallowed too quickly — will fade away and be replaced by the taste of our own empty mouths. The taste of the instrument.

Ten minutes later we’re walking next to each other. We follow the perimeter of the basement, hardly cutting any corners, keeping our hands behind our backs. The jam stain in the middle of the concrete floor has turned from dark-red to a brownish color. After completing our inspection round several times in succession, it’s as if, instead of guarding the basement entrance, we are now guarding the stain, circling it like sheepdogs to keep it neatly in position. Just past Garage 22, the closest to the stain, I spot a lazy fly rising up from it. It’s the kind of fly that always seems to fly in squares. At least, it always does corners, never curves. It must have got in yesterday when the gate opened. I hope it doesn’t lay eggs, that the traces of sugar left in the stain don’t convince it to lay eggs. I feel an itch under my cap. Maybe it will come land on my face in the night to probe the corners of my mouth with its proboscis, hungry and angry because there’s nothing left in the stain. Maybe it will dare to venture between my slightly parted lips to eat from my teeth.

While striding along with Harry, it occurs to me that catching the fly now would be relatively simple. It doesn’t rise higher than fifty centimeters or deviate more than a meter from the spot. The fly too seems to be guarding the stain.

I don’t think Harry’s noticed it. It’s obvious that we can’t afford to get wound up about a fly; that would be ridiculous. But at night when I am the first to go to bed, the temptation to check the room carefully is irresistible. All things considered, it’s only a minor inconvenience.

I don’t find any flies. Harry, who is sitting outside the door close to the chink, will have to suffice as a deterrent. I clean my teeth with my index finger, after first dipping it in a glass of bottled water.

The calendar is hanging from a nail in the corner and forms a diptych with the mirror above the washbasin on the other wall. The front shows all twelve months in two columns of greatly reduced reproductions of the inside pages. The Tengmalm’s owl above October is a blur within a blur. Twelve endangered bird species, possibly already extinct. The cross I add before getting into bed is the second cross on this date. The double crosses stretch back four or five months. Harry started it, the day we got our first rations. A day to remember, he said.

30

Harry can’t sit still while talking about the guard. He jumps up and straightens his jacket and tie as he starts to pace, a few steps left, a few steps right.

“It can only mean one thing…” He stops and points at my chest. “How long ago did the organization announce the guard?”

We both know the answer to the day, but I’ve been to university, so I’m better at that kind of thing.

I’ve sat down on the chair and stretched my legs, extending my toes as far as I can. The pleasure that starts in my muscles buzzes through my body and dims at the top of my skull. It’s only after hesitating that I say, peering into space, “Six resupplies.”

“Six resupplies ago, Michel. Six.” Harry starts moving again. “Six resupplies: that’s a very long time. And no message to the contrary in the meantime. If you think it through, systematically, it can only mean one thing.”

I nod in agreement. When he delays the pronouncement of his conclusion, I say it for him, with appropriate pride. “It must mean,” I say, “that we’re doing an exceptional job.”

Now it’s Harry’s turn to nod, at length. “Everything’s going smoothly. No difficulties, no disturbing incidents. In all that time not a single intruder has dared to make an attempt! We haven’t relaxed our grip. We’ve kept our eyes on the entrance every second. We’ve always maintained control. Given the nature of this building, that is quite an achievement.” At those last words, Harry lowers his voice and turns abruptly toward the empty space in the middle of the basement, head hunched down between his shoulders, hand on holster. But I’ve been keeping a sharp eye on everything.

He is rarely guilty of such inattention. Talking with your back to the open area could be fatal. You can’t hear anything except your own voice and at the same time you’re blocking your partner’s view.

Harry recognizes the irony of the situation, slipping up while summarizing our record of service. His smile soon changes into a small but urgent warning to me. Did I see how fast it can happen?

“A formidable achievement,” he continues finally. “Because hidden away like this, we can’t possibly gauge the degree of danger. It has evidently become so large or unpredictable that the organization considers it necessary to station three guards here instead of two. Our continuing to take care of business is something they can’t fail to notice, Michel. As long as they keep the reinforcements in reserve, we should see that as a favorable sign. A very favorable sign. Recognition.”

31