The Big Book of Classic Fantasy

by The Big Book of Classic Fantasy (retail) (epub)

  First I closed the doors, shy of the empty spaces like suspicious eyes; I even stepped out to listen for footfalls of someone, who like myself wandered among these walls. The silence was my cue.

  I started my survey at the top. The top, sixth and fifth shelves, were occupied by four large baskets, from which, as soon as I touched them, a large rust-colored rat jumped out and flopped to the floor with a nauseating shriek. My hand spasmed as I stood, petrified with disgust. My next movement provoked the escape of two more vile creatures as they skittered between my feet like large lizards. I shook the baskets and banged on the side of the cabinet and jumped immediately back—would there be a deluge of these sinuous, gloomy little bodies, twisting their tails? But the rats, if there were any more, must have escaped through the back of the cabinet into the fissures in the wall—the cabinet stood still.

  Of course, I was surprised by the manner of keeping provisions in places where mice (Murinae) and rats (Mus decumanus) must have felt at home. But my delight outstripped all ruminations, they could barely squeeze through this whirlwind apotheosis, like water through the dam. Let no one tell me that the senses connected to food are base; that our appetite makes humanity equal with amphibians. In the moments such as I experienced, our entire being is transported, and our joy is no less radiant than at a sight of a dawn from the mountaintops. The soul marches along with the band music. I was already drunk with the sight of my treasures, especially since every basket held an assortment of homogenous, but varied if put together, delights. One basket contained cheeses—a collection of cheeses from dry blue to Rochester and brie. The second, no less hefty, smelled like a meat grocer’s shop; its hams, sausages, smoked tongues, and stuffed turkeys gave way to the next basket, filled with battery of canned goods. The fourth was engorged with mounds of eggs. I knelt, to examine the lower shelves. There I discovered eight hunks of sugar; a tea chest; an oaken barrel with copper hoops filled with coffee; baskets of tea biscuits, cakes, and toasts. Two lowest shelves resembled a restaurant basement, since their only contents were the wine bottles in the arrangement and abundance of a cord of firewood. Their labels mentioned every taste, every brand, every accolade and achievement of their winemakers.

  It was prudent if not hurry up then at least start eating, since, clearly, the treasure with the fresh appearance of a well-planned cache, could not have been abandoned out of somebody’s desire to cheer up an unexpected visitor of this place with such an enormous find. During the day or night, but a man could just show up and start yelling and raising his arms, if not something more dangerous—say, a knife. Everything indicated the dark stab of a coincidence. There were many things I should’ve been wary of in this place, since I had stood against the unknown. Meanwhile the hunger spoke its own language, and I, having closed the cabinet, sat on the cadaver of the couch, surrounded by provisions on large sheets of paper I used instead of plates. I ate the most substantial foods, that is toast, ham, eggs, and cheese, chasing it with tea biscuits and washing the lot down with Port. At first I could not hold back shivers and nervous uneasy laugh, but once I calmed down somewhat, when I somewhat accepted possessing all these scrumptious morsels, not even fifteen minutes ago mere fantasies, then I took possession of my movements and thoughts. Satiety happened quickly, much quicker than I expected when I just started eating, as the result of my excitement, strenuous even for my appetite. But I was too exhausted to simply resign, and my satiety offered succor without the usual mental dullness that accompanies the everyday consumption of voluminous courses. After I ate all that I took and then thoroughly destroyed the remains of my feast, I felt that this evening was good.

  Meanwhile as much as I strained myself with conjectures, they only scratched the surface of the event like a dull knife, leaving its gist hidden from the unenlightened eye. As I walked the sleeping enormousness of the bank, I possibly have quite accurately deduced how my shopkeep was connected to this paperwork Klondike: it was possible to remove and carry out hundreds of trainloads of wrapping paper, so valued by the shop clerks for its ability to skew the weighing of groceries. Besides, the electric cords and small armature could be exchanged for more than a handful of bills: it was no coincidence that the wiring and the outlets were cut out from most of the walls I examined. This is why I did not peg him for the owner of the hidden provisions; he probably kept his elsewhere. But I could not progress a single step past this point as all my ruminations were baseless. My find had not been touched by anyone in quite a while, as proven by the traces of rats; their teeth left vast gouges on cheeses and hams.

  I was sated and I examined the cabinet again, discovering some things I had missed in the first flash of discovery. Among the baskets there were packages with knives, forks, and napkins; behind the hunks of sugar, a large silver samovar hid; one chest clinked with colliding glasses, champagne flutes, and etched glassware. It looked like the society that gathered here did so in pursuit of either debauched or conspiratorial aims, counting on isolation and secrecy—perhaps some influential organization, with knowledge by and help from the housing association. If it was so, I had to keep alert. I tidied the cabinet the best I could, hoping that the small amounts I consumed for supper would not be missed. However (and I did not feel guilty) I took a few things, wrapped them and another bottle of wine in a tight package, and hid it under an avalanche of paper near a bend of the twisting corridor.

  Of course in those moments I lacked the inclination to not only sleep but to even lie down. I lit a blond, fragrant cigarette, made with fibrous tobacco, with a long holder—my only find I fully gave its due, filling all my pockets with delightful cigarettes. I was in a state of intoxicating, musical anticipation, a man who had a long chain of loud improbabilities awaiting him. In this brilliant turmoil, I remembered the girl in a gray kerchief who pinned my collar closed with a safety pin—could I ever forget this motion? She was the only person of whom I thought in beautiful and touching words. It is useless to quote them, since the moment one sounds them out they lose their enchanting air. This girl, whose name I did not even know, disappeared, leaving a trace similar to a streak of light running across water to the setting sun. Such a meek effect she made with her simple safety pin and the sound of her focused breathing as she rose on tiptoe. This is truly what white magic is; since the girl, like I, was in need, I fervently wanted to spoil her with my blinding discovery. But I did not know where she was and I could not call her. Even if my charitable memory would cry out the forgotten number, it would not help here, even with the abundance of telephones to which my eyes inexorably turned: they did not work—could not work, for reasons all too obvious. I stared at one of the apparatuses with a certain pernicious doubt, in which the rational thought took no part whatsoever. I reached for it playfully. The urge to commit an act of silliness would not let go, and, like all nighttime nonsense, festooned itself with ephemera of the sleepless fantasies. I had convinced myself that I would remember the number if only I took the physical position of talking on the phone. And those mysterious wall fungi with a caoutchouc mouth and a metal ear always seemed to me objects not entirely knowable—a kind of superstition, inspired among other things by The Atmosphere by Flammarion, with its story about lightning. I highly recommend to everyone to reread this book and contemplate the peculiarities of the electrical storms, and especially the actions of ball lightning capable, for example, of hanging a frying pan or a shoe on the knife handle of the knife it previously drove into the wall; or re-tiling a roof in such a way that all the tiles are laid in the precise reverse order; and not to mention the photographs on the bodies of those killed by the lightning, the photographs of their surroundings at the moment where the tragedy happened. They are always faint blue, like the old daguerreotypes. “Kilowatts” and “amperes” mean little to me. In my case, the apparatus was the case for a premonition, without the strange languid haziness that usually accompanies most of the absurdities we commit. And so, I can explain to you now, I was ak
in to an iron rod in front of a magnet.

  I picked up the receiver. It seemed colder to me than it actually was, numb, facing the indifferent wall. I put it to my ear expecting not much more than from a broken watch, and pressed the button. Was it the ringing in my ears or an aural memory, but I trembled when I heard the buzzing of a fly, the insect-like vibration of the wires, which, under these conditions, was the very absurdity I strove for.

  The persnickety urge to comprehend, like the decay that wears even a marble sculpture, strips any experience with a secret source of its immediate impact. The desire to comprehend the incomprehensible was not among my assets, but I did test my impression. I took the receiver away from my ear and reproduced that characteristic sound in my imagination, but it only reappeared once I listened to the receiver once more. The sound did not waver, did not cease, did not wane, and did not increase; the invisible space hummed in the receiver, as it was supposed to, awaiting contact. Strange impressions took hold of me, strange like the humming of the telephone wire in this dead house. I saw the knots of entangled wires, torn by gale winds and connecting at imperceptible nexuses of their own chaos; bouquets of electrical sparks shooting out of hunched backs of cats jumping from roof to roof; magnetic flashes of tram lines; the fabric and the heart of matter in the shape of sharp angles of a futurist drawing. These thoughts-visions lasted no longer than a single heartbeat; my heart reared up, beating, drumming out the sensations of night forces in some untranslatable language.

  Then from the walls an image of that girl, clear like a new moon, arose. Could I have expected that the impression of her would be so viable and enduring? A force of a hundred people bound and hummed in me when, staring at the rubbed out numbers of the apparatus, I led my memory through the snowstorm of integers, vainly trying to conjure up a combination that would restore the lost phone number.

  Sly, inconstant memory! It swears to never forget neither numbers nor days nor details, nor a dear face, and when we doubt it it responds with a look of innocence. But the time comes, and the naive one realizes that he made a deal with a shameless ape, who would trade a precious diamond ring for a handful of nuts. The features of the remembered face are incomplete and hazy, the important number is missing digits, and uselessly he clutches his head in his hands, tormented by a slippery memory. But if we remembered, if we could recall everything—what mind would be able to withstand without price the entire life beheld in one instance, especially the remembrances of feelings?

  I senselessly repeated digits, moving my lips to grasp their trustworthiness. Finally an array reminiscent of the forgotten number flashed—107-21. “One hundred and seven, twenty-one,” I enunciated, probing, but did not know with certainty if I was mistaken again. A sudden doubt blinded me when I pushed the button the second time, but it was too late: the buzzing filled into a roar, something pinged and shifted in the telephone distance, and right against the skin of my cheek a tired female contralto said, “Station.” “Station!” it repeated impatiently, but even then I would not speak right away—my throat constricted so coldly!—because in the depths of my heart I was still merely playing a game.

  Whatever the case, if I bound and summoned these spirits—call them “Atmosphere” or “Kilowatts” of the society of year 86—I spoke and I was answered. The wheels of a broken watch turned the gears. Above my head, the steel rays of its hands started moving. Whoever gave the pendulum its push, the mechanism started to turn. “One hundred seven twenty-one,” I said dully, watching my candle growing short among the rubbish. “Group A,” the displeased answer followed, and the roar was clapped down with a distant movement of a weary wrist.

  At these moments, I felt mentally overheated. My finger pressed the very button with the letter A on it; it not only meant that the phone worked but also confirmed the miraculous reality of the entangled wires—a detail remarkable for the impatient soul. As I tried to connect A, I pressed B. Then in the tonality of the electrical current set free, as if a door suddenly swung open, sharp voices barged in, as if from a gramophone loudspeaker—the unknown screamers, beating in my hand holding the receiver. They interrupted each other with the impatience and harshness of people arguing in the streets. Their mixed exclamations were like the concerto of rooks: “Ah-la-la-la-la!” an unknown being yowled against a baritone of someone else’s measured and slow speech, separated with pauses and punctuation, and a cloying expression. “I cannot offer…”—“If you see…”—“Someday…”—“I am telling you that…”—“You are listening…”—“Size thirty and five…”—“Over…”—“The car has been sent…”—“I don’t understand any of this…”—“Hang up the phone…” And into this marketplace trance weakly, like the mosquito whining, crept moans, distant weeping, laughter, cries, violin scales, the shuffle of slow footfalls, rustles, and whispers. Where, in which streets did these words of worry and reproach and pleas and complaints sound? Finally, a businesslike movement clanged, the voices fell silent, and into the hum of the wires entered the same voice. “Group B.”

  “A! I need A,” I said. “The wires are mixed up.” After a silence in which the hum fell quiet twice, a new voice announced, with a lilt and softer, “Group A.”

  “One hundred and seven twenty-one,” I enunciated as clearly as I could.

  “One hundred and eight zero one,” the phone girl said thoroughly and indifferently, and I barely held back the deadly correction—the mistake certainly restored the forgotten number: I recognized it the moment I heard it, as one discerns a familiar face in the passerby.

  “Yes yes,” I said in extreme excitement, running high along the rim of a vertiginous abyss. “Yes, exactly—one hundred and eight zero one.”

  Everything froze inside and around me. The sound of the connection squeezed my heart with a rising icy wave; I did not even hear the usual “Dialing now” and “You are connected”—I do not remember what had been said. I listened to birds, trilling compelling songs. Swooning, I leaned against the wall. Then, after a pause—such cruelty—fresh, fresh like fresh air, a reasonable and small voice cautiously said, “I am trying. I am speaking into a non-functioning telephone because you heard a ring? Who is it?” She spoke apparently not expecting an answer, just in case, in a tone of lighthearted scolding.

  I said, almost screamed, “I am the one who spoke to you at the market and left with your safety pin. I was selling books. Please remember, I beg you. I don’t have the name—please tell me it is you.”

  “How strange.” The voice coughed thoughtfully. “Wait, don’t hang up. I am pondering. Old man, have you ever seen such a thing?”

  The latter was not addressed to me. A male voice answered her indistinctly, probably from another room.

  “I remember our meeting,” she again addressed my ear. “But I don’t remember the pin you’re talking about. Oh yes! I did not realize your memory is so robust. But it is so strange to talk to you—our phone has been turned off. What happened? Where are you calling from?”

  “Can you hear me well?” I answered, avoiding to name the place where I was located, as if I didn’t get that question, and once I received her assurance, I continued, “I am not sure how much longer we can talk. There are reasons why I cannot dwell on it. Like you, I don’t know many things. So please tell me your address right away—I do not have it.”

  For a while the current hummed evenly, as if my last words had interrupted the transmission. Again the distance stretched like a solid wall—the repellent disappointment and embarrassed longing almost sent me into a long and inappropriate tirade on the nature of phone conversations, preventing us from free expressions of nuances of the most simple and natural emotions. In some cases, face and the words are inalienable. Perhaps she was contemplating the same during the silence, and then I heard, “What for? But all right. Here, write it down.” She said “write it down” not without certain slyness. “Write this down. My address: 5th line, 97,
apartment 11. But why, why do you need my address? To be honest, I don’t understand. I am usually home in the evenings….”

  The voice continued unhurried but had grown quiet and dull, as if trapped in a chest. I could hear her—she seemed to be expounding on something—but without discerning words. Her speech grew more distant and blurred, until it sounded like the drumming of raindrops—and finally the barely perceived pulse of the current indicated that it had stopped. There was no connection and the apparatus remained dumbly silent. In front of me, there was the wall, the case, the receiver. The night rain was drumming on the windowpanes. I pressed the button; it clanged and stopped. The resonator died; the enchantment departed.

  But I heard, I spoke, what happened could not have not happened. The impressions of these minutes flooded and left in a whirlwind, and I was still filled with its echoes and I sat down, suddenly exhausted, as if I had just run up a steep staircase. Meanwhile I was in the mere beginning of the events. Their development began with the knock of distant footfalls.

  VII

  Still very far away from me—was it at the very beginning of my trek?—and maybe on the other side, quite a long way from the first sound I caught, the mysterious footsteps sounded. One could tell that it was someone alone, stepping lively and lightly, taking a familiar route in the dark and possibly lighting their way with a handheld flashlight or a candle. However in my mind I saw him hurrying cautiously in the dark; he walked looking around and behind him. I didn’t know why I imagined that. I sat immobile and panicked, as if grabbed from afar by a pair of giant pliers. I was filled with anticipation to the point of pain in my temples, I was in distress robbing me of any ability of counteraction. I would be calm or at least would’ve grown calmer were the footfalls to grow more distant, but I heard them more and more clearly, closer to me, and I was held as if in a stupor by this languidly long walk across the empty building, tormenting my hearing. The premonition that I would not be able to escape the meeting touched my consciousness repulsively; I stood and then sat again, unsure of what to do. My pulse followed the rhythms and pauses of the footfalls precisely, and once it was able to overcome the glum dullness of the body, the heart started beating with full force, and I felt my existence in its every contraction. My intentions got confused; I hesitated whether to put out the candle or leave it burning, and it was not a rational thought—but the very possibility of any action seemed to me a good way of avoiding the dangerous meeting. I had no doubt that the meeting would be dangerous and alarming. I had felt calm among these uninhabited walls, and longed to hold on to this night’s illusion. Once I stepped outside the doors, trying to step silently, to see whether I could hide in any of the adjacent rooms, as if the room I sat in, my back blocking the candle light from my nub, was already marked for visitation and someone knew that I am in it. I abandoned the idea, realizing that as I move about, I would act as a roulette player, who would see with consternation, once he changed numbers, that he only lost because he was unfaithful to its chosen digit. It would be most prudent to sit and wait, after I put out the fire. I did so, and waited in the dark.