Ivan Vladislavić: The Folly

Everything fell into place.

The secret nail, pulsing like a beacon, drew Malgas to a room under the stairs which had been set aside especially for him. It was musty and narrow, and the ceiling sloped awkwardly and made him stoop, but a bright rug and a swinging lantern made it cosy as a casket. There was a hammock, and an armchair with a soft cushion for the small of the back, a side-table with a reading-lamp, and a toolbox that doubled as a footstool.When Mr told Mrs about his room she sniffed and said, “I always knew you’d want to go off without me some day.”

Practice makes perfect, and Malgas was something of a perfectionist. He practised seeing the new house until it came out of his ears. He popped open its rooms as if they were Chinese lanterns and stretched out entire wings like concertinas. He telescoped columns and slotted them into moist sockets on balconies. He unrolled floors and stacked up stairs. He rollercoastered reams of tiles over the rafters.

Then, in the wink of an eye, he did all of these things again in reverse.

He also practised being in the new house. He practised strolling around in the rooms and leaning in the interleading doorways. He went into every room at least once, not excepting the tiniest antechamber or alcove. When he knew where everything was, he practised the everyday tasks that would transform the house, in time, into a home: ringing the bell, locking the security gate, listening to messages on the answering-machine, filling the kettle, turning on the telly, sitting on the couch, eating the TV dinner, answering the telephone, Hello? straightening the pictures, leafing through the magazines, sighing, putting out the cat, filling the hot-water bottle, switching on the bedside lamp, turning back the corner of the carpet, picking up the paper-knife. When he had finished practising for the day, he rested in his room under the stairs.

It was during one of these rest periods that Nieuwenhuizen reappeared on the scene.

“There you are,” he said from the doorway, into which he had slotted himself without making the slightest sound, “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

Malgas was astonished at the sight of him. His cheeks were like crumpled wrapping-paper. A child had coloured his features in with thick wax-crayons — purple for the lips, bottle-green for the nose, blood-red for the eyes. The hair on his head was scribbled Indian ink. Under lids like wads of damp blotting-paper his irises spluttered fitfully. Malgas was filled with pity and compassion for the owner of this vandalized face; but he knew that restraint was called for, so he kept his emotions in check, continued to dandle himself in his hammock, and said simply, “Here I am.”

“You’ve made yourself at home.”

“I’ve been seeing to things in your absence. Everything’s here, in perfect shape.”

“My faithful Malgas. I’m proud of you.”

This tribute moved Malgas deeply. It seemed to him that the time had now come to express his feelings. “I think we’ve both been marvellous,” he said, lumbering to his feet and embracing Nieuwenhuizen. His confinement had left him thinner and drier than ever: he felt like a bundle of reeds. When Malgas released him he staggered back and blinked his droopy eyes. “It’s bright in here.”

Malgas averted the reading-lamp, suddenly ashamed of his own tears, and said bluffly, “Can I get you something? Juice? Lager?”

“It’s cold for beer. But a whisky would hit the spot.”

“Let’s make our way then to the built-in bar.”

Malgas bustled Nieuwenhuizen out of the doorway, pulled the door shut and took him by his sharp elbow. They walked. When Malgas heard the tentative squee? squee? of Nieuwenhuizen’s rubber soles and the affirmative patter of his own velskoene, the turmoil in his heart subsided and he began to recover his composure. They went upstairs and passed down a long, gleaming gallery. At the end they turned right and elbowed through batwing doors into the bar. Nieuwenhuizen sat on a tall stool, which had brass trimmings and was bolted to the floor, while Malgas mixed the drinks.

Then side by side, with glasses in hand, Nieuwenhuizen, on the left, and Malgas, on the right, walked through the new house.

At the end of every sparkling corridor they saw their own reflections in full-length mirrors and polished stone, in smoked-glass partitions and lacquered panels, and all these silent witnesses to their containment conspired to give Malgas the courage of his convictions.

In one of the guest-rooms a log was burning in an ornate fireplace and they stopped to warm their hands. Malgas gave the fender a smart kick. “White Sicilian marble,” he murmured, as if to himself, “and beige sandstone shot through with lilac.”

“Decorative mouldings in the traditional style, riddled with character,” Nieuwenhuizen assented in a whisper. “Fluted pilasters and hand-carved rosettes. Tuffaceous blocks?”

They drew closer together and went on, in a rosier light and a more companionable silence, which their muted conversation served only to enhance.

“Light fittings.”

“Rise and fall shades. .”

“. . with bobble fringes.”

Their words shuttled between them, binding them temple to temple in a soft shell of naming.

“Occasional chairs.”

“Diamond-padded backs. .”

“. . in ruby dralon.”

“Swags and festoons.”

“Alabaster plinths. .”

“. . and plastic dados.”

“Occasional tables.”

“Dappled sunlight. .”

“. . on melamine.”

Later, Nieuwenhuizen dozed off in the library with a dusty old volume on his lap, and Malgas tiptoed out onto the observation deck for a breath of fresh air.

It was a glorious night. The moonlight gleamed like lengths of chrome-plated beading on the balusters and telescopes. The moat was a mass of silvery brushmarks. Nieuwenhuizen’s camp, tucked away in a corner of the yard near the servants’ quarters, with all its quaint equipment scattered about, looked small and remote. Malgas had never seen a more beautiful sight; his heart overflowed with wonder and gratitude.

“We’ll have a garden too,” he said to himself, surveying the barren soil, “with patios and grottos, red-hot pokers and bottle-brushes, tennis-courts and hiking trails, an aviary and a fishpond with a wooden bridge going over. But we’ll keep the camp just as it is, for the generations who come after us. We’ll declare it a monument, an open-air museum. We’ll never forget where we came from.”

Then Malgas wished that he could gaze down upon his own house as well and make some comment about it, but it was nowhere to be seen.

He went inside. Nieuwenhuizen was still slumped in a wicker chair drawn up to the fire. The familiar cadence of his snoring moved Malgas anew. He touched the hem of Nieuwenhuizen’s safari suit, as if to assure himself that he was real, and said softly,“Father?”

Nieuwenhuizen woke up with a start, his book fell face-down on the carpet, he sneezed and said, “Please, you must call me Otto.”

“Bless you! Pardon?”

“Otto.”

“Ot-to?”

“Otto.”

“Ot-to.” The name snapped in Malgas’s mouth. He swallowed one piece gamely, tucked the other into his cheek with his tongue, and went on, “Do you mind if I make an observation at this point in time?”

“So long as it’s brief. Sometimes you’re like a bloody broken record.”

Malgas swallowed again. “I would just like to say that if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be standing here today.”

“Ditto. Do you play chess?”

“No… In the early days I played a little checkers. .”

“Rummy? Good. There’s a deck of cards in the rumpus room.”

Nieuwenhuizen led the way there. Malgas walked behind, looking at the back of Nieuwenhuizen’s scruffy head as if he was seeing it for the first time, and saying “Otto” to himself shyly.