The Caretaker

by Doon Arbus

  The move proves just enough to tip the balance. Like patients at a hospital cafeteria, like sinners at communion, the remaining holdouts fall into line, their carefully chosen objects in hand, and await their turn, one behind the other, to surrender what they’re willing to give in exchange for freedom. Some do so in exasperation, yes, some in despair, some almost eagerly, or with feigned indifference, some under protest, or wearily, or spitefully, some chastened by remorse or fear, but regardless of the how or why, all appear at last to have exhausted their attachments. Even the vociferous dissenter, red-faced and still spluttering, ultimately relents and takes his place behind the others.

  You might not have expected them to concede so easily, but it has been a long enervating day, full of small shocks, and their will — maybe even their desire — to resist has sunk to its lowest ebb. The price, at this point, looks cheap enough. Besides, to allow oneself to be lured into battle to defend a cuff link or a belt or wristwatch (however precious, however irreplaceable) — to stubbornly insist upon some petty right of ownership in the face of such a determined, unpredictable opponent — seems now an act of madness in itself, one that might almost make the man confronting them look sane by contrast. They have become, at least for the moment, as intent on sacrifice as any would-be saint.

  The caretaker, head cocked to one side, holds out an open palm — the scarred one, which feels nothing — and waits to receive them and their offerings, studying with the disquieting tenderness of a healer the wreckage of each face as it approaches. Sometimes he even touches them, brushing an exposed wrist or forearm ever so lightly, almost by accident, with his fingertips. He takes what he is given and examines it, turning it over in his hands, acquainting himself with its shape, its surfaces and its dimensions before somberly nodding his approval and lowering it into the receptacle’s growing collection. The cowboy boot of fine-tooled leather, which he has rescued, stands upright, empty, beside his left leg. The ritual of surrender takes place in silence. Maybe this is what they came for after all: to be relieved — whether by force or subterfuge — of something they no longer needed, some stale attachment long since faded from passion to mere habit, which nonetheless, until that moment, they could not voluntarily have given up.

  No key, as it turns out moments later, had ever been necessary. The claim had merely been a ploy, an empty threat, maybe an impromptu test of faith. Now, as the caretaker — his plunder safely stashed away for future study — stands poised at the door with the departing visitors gathered anxiously at his back, pressuring him merely with the fact of their presence, a couple of swift flourishes of the wrist is all it takes to flip the deadbolt lock counterclockwise, turn the brass knob, and fling the front door open to the world beyond, unceremoniously inviting their departure. He is done.

  What confronts them out there is almost blinding. Even though the sky has grown so choked with clouds as to be virtually cloudless — an impenetrable uninflected pale grey mass that has consumed the sun — blazing particles of sunlight still permeate the atmosphere, still ricochet off scarcely visible walls and glass and pavement, and glare remorselessly into the unprotected faces and defenseless eyes of the nine people who are emerging from the entrance of the building onto the shallow front stoop with escape on their minds. They hesitate there briefly, feeling for their neighbors, grabbing the nearest elbow or leaning on a shoulder for support as they descend the stairs, but upon reaching the sidewalk without mishap, they grow increasingly emboldened by the solid pavement underfoot and soon gain the courage to disperse, careening along the street in all directions, frenzied as ants, dazzled by the alluring vision of the haven that awaits, that unassailable place with all its familiar comforts, the place each once called home.

  Perhaps one day, months or maybe years from now, others may come (innocents not unlike themselves, equally curious, equally restive and bemused, craving a little cultural diversion, or merely an excuse to while away an hour or two), others who may discover quite by chance as they wander through the maze of overstuffed display cases and vitrines or gaze intently at the scrupulously labeled contents of a festooned wall — nestled without fanfare there among the ancient tools and weapons and dislocated machine parts, among the miniature figurines and ivory carvings, the faded fabrics and the jewels and bones and coins and bits of broken crockery, among the priceless artifacts and objects d’art — a pair of red-framed sunglasses, the earpiece tips dented by tiny teeth marks, or a slightly tarnished bangle bracelet, or — hanging upside down from its wispy thinning tail — a hank of braided human hair.

  Perhaps those future unsuspecting strangers taking note one day of what they see and pondering the nine abandoned objects and their rightful place within the rest of the collection will ultimately be enough to redeem the sacrifice their visiting predecessors made, but that time will have to wait. Right now — at this particular moment on this bright grey waning summer afternoon and into the foreseeable future until who knows when — the sign that hangs on the Morgan Foundation’s obstinate front door says with some finality, in big block letters, CLOSED.

  Peace at last. Solitude.

  No one to answer to, no one to impress, charm, chastise, care for, enlighten or entertain, no one, that is, at least until tomorrow. The caretaker presses his damp forehead against the cool of the impartial plaster wall. He stays there motionless and listens. In the wake of the recent invasion, there is only silence. The building holds its breath. He holds his, too, and waits. And still no sound.

  He has begun again to monitor the passage of time — an old familiar habit to help fend off panic — invoking the reassuring certainty of numbers as they follow each other with inexorable, if meaningless, precision (eleven, twelve, thirteen . . .). He pictures the shapes of the numerals, their lines and arcs superimposed in thickening succession one upon the next, blotting out everything that came before. The sequence of syllables composes a rhythmic nonsense nursery rhyme in his head while he counts out the seconds to himself like a junkie compulsively postponing the relief of his next fix: sixty makes one minute, and then sixty more makes two, and after two will soon come three. Is he hastening time by means of this ritual, or retarding it? Or is he just fiddling helplessly, irrelevantly, on the sidelines until the inevitable arrives and overtakes him?

  At last, just when he thinks he can bear it no longer, something shudders briefly somewhere down below, a tremulous stuttering gulp — the protest of a faulty pipe, perhaps — but as spontaneously as it erupts, it dies away, leaving him to wonder if he really heard it after all, or if it were instead some random auditory hallucination conjured out of nothingness by hope. More silence. The noisy irreverent departure of the nine unwelcome visitors — the latest trespassers to violate the place with his permission and defile the sanctity of its private places with their strange voices and their strange indifferent eyes — is not even an echo anymore. How much longer must this cruel, protracted game go on before his most recent transgression will have earned forgiveness? And still he waits, head bowed, still motionless, still scarcely breathing now, while his sweaty, burning forehead pressed into the wall congeals itself there, obliterating any palpable distinction between flesh and plaster.

  And then, at last, it happens. His forbearance is rewarded. The thing he has been longing for occurs. With a sudden tremor, the whole building, all three stories of it, exhales, heaves a long, low sigh, and settling a little deeper into its foundations like a luxuriating drowsy cat, surrenders. Everything it has been withholding from him, it now releases.

  Close by, within what might have been a hollow space inside the wall, something shifts, dislodges itself, scuttles its way downward a short distance and comes to rest again, clunk. At the same moment, a windowpane rattles in its frame — precipitated by a wayward breeze, the voice of reason would insist, pedantically, by way of explanation (thereby explaining, in fact, nothing.) Another rattles in reply. A third joins in, making a noisy rattling opinionated chorus o
f impatient glass, agitating for freedom. The draft that might allegedly have caused all this, as if fortified by its success, moves on now, disturbing curtains, rustling other loosened fabrics along the way as it goes from room to room, probing every corner, and slinks upstairs. An isolated floorboard creaks somewhere above his head. Things stretch themselves, expanding and contracting, emitting groans and whines and low-pitched whispers. From the rear of the building comes a hiss like steam escaping — but it is summertime, or hovering on the brink of autumn, if you insist; at any rate, there is no steam. Without warning, something upstairs falls to the carpet with a thud but does not seem to break.

  Blame gravity. Blame an erratic movement of the air. Blame condensation or decay. Blame what you like: the whole place has come alive again and has found its voice and is chattering away in its native language to the solitary listener, the secret language he alone in his devout apprenticeship has had the patience to begin to comprehend. Such a riot of competing sounds tantalize his ears — familiar sounds that have scarcely any names and, being nameless, may be alleged by the outsiders not to exist at all except perhaps in their pathetic onomatopoetic approximations: the pings and thwacks and clicks and plops and sizzles a jealous human tongue attempts in vain to emulate. The caretaker, seeking to lend encouragement by keeping up his end of things, ventures a few bars of his tuneless whistle and, moments later, receives in answer a wheezing groan, as if an idle motor in a distant room had spontaneously started up again.

  Slowly raising his head, he gingerly separates his forehead from the damp discolored patch of plaster against which it has been resting, unwittingly retaining as he does so — but no matter, there is no one there to see — a whitened smudge like ash upon his brow that mirrors the stain of sweat he has left behind blistered upon the wall, commingling the DNA of man and building. The caretaker is almost smiling now. He insinuates a moistened fingertip into the tiny opening in the newly wounded wall, just far enough to remove a bit of exposed plaster dust, which he tests on the tip of his tongue, sampling its chalky bitterness. There are plenty of scars to be explored. Closing his eyes to concentrate his senses, he traces several of the meandering fissures of cracked paint etched into the uneven pebbled surface of the wall, almost caressing them, not so much to heal them as to know them.

  For a while he lingers there in the anteroom, still listening, still touching things, breathing in the reassuring fragrance of stale air, gradually eradicating his recent estrangement from the place. Then, bending over, he unties the laces and removes, first his shoes, then Dr. Morgan’s silky chartreuse socks, which he rolls together into a single ball and slips inside the monogrammed breast pocket of the Charvet shirt. With the shoes tucked securely under his arm, he heads back toward the first gallery on his way upstairs. The soles of his feet, indifferent to the risk of splinters, deliberately scuff along the floor, reacquainting themselves with its familiar flaws and subtle undulations. One by one, he turns out lights as he goes. Darkness trails after him.

  If this were actually the end — and perhaps it is, although no one seems to know it yet — then whatever comes next amounts to no more than an epilogue.

  The following day, August 29, is — or would have been — Dr. Morgan’s ninety-first birthday. In keeping with the long-standing Foundation tradition, an evening of celebrations was scheduled to mark the occasion. By mid-afternoon the caterers would arrive and begin their preparations. Furniture in the third-floor study would be uprooted from its accustomed place, maneuvered into corners and covered with protective cloths creating mounds of ghostly silhouettes, or stored away along with various vulnerable items of memorabilia in other nearby rooms behind locked doors for safekeeping. Three dozen folding chairs, rented for the occasion, would be delivered and arranged symmetrically six rows deep to accommodate the anticipated overflow of invited guests forecast by the unprecedented success of the previous year’s event. Two distinguished academics with widely divergent views had been selected to provide the entertainment by reading from their as yet unpublished papers on the impact of the Morgan legacy and engaging in a brief moderated discussion that, given the nature of the participants, promised to be heated enough to hold the audience’s attention while still maintaining the required aura of civility. Afterwards cocktails and hors d’oeuvres were to be served, accompanied by toasts to the absent honoree. The caretaker — who had from time to time on previous occasions managed to insinuate himself into an inconspicuous spot near the back of the room from which to witness the festivities — prided himself on being a member of the servant class and was once again, as usual, pointedly omitted from the list of invitees.

  Loose ends. No matter how long the night, it won’t be long enough to do what must be done. Who knows, night may have come already, be it only the perpetual night of windowless rooms, of closets where he had spent a good part of his childhood crouched behind the drooping weary musty clothes with all their musty secrets. At any rate, oblivious to the state of things in the outside world, the barefoot man has now methodically retraced his steps, as if doing so might magically reverse the past. Once more he penetrates the depths of the building and once more ascends the stairs, moving slowly, purposefully, making each step count. Haste would only breed carelessness and be of no avail. He watches his right hand gliding up along the banister the way it had more than a dozen times each day since that first rainy afternoon before his interview, before the commitment, before the wound. The longer he studies its reptilian progress, the more alien it becomes. His palm performs a kind of incidental cleansing action in the process, absorbing the day’s accretions, the sweat and smudgy fingerprints left behind upon the surface by all those careless strangers who had come and gone. What had once been part of them is part of him now.

  He makes his way past the familiar landmarks: the forlorn reproachful plinth still waiting for something to display, the Dürer portrait with its single watchful eye, incapable of actually seeing anything yet equally incapable of letting anything get by it unobserved. In a remote corner of the second floor, the timepieces — some mute, others only barely audible — go on bemoaning, each in its own idiosyncratic way, the incessant seepage of time. The rhythm of his heartbeat listens and, with nothing better to obey, joins in. Time, in fact, is catching up with him. If there were such a thing as mandatory retirement around here, it would long since have made him obsolete. Already he is one year older than the dead man ever got to be.

  The study door remains ajar the way the hasty departure of its recent visitors had left it. The room is beckoning. A pale shaft of lamplight from inside oozes out along the hall carpet, blanching a sliver of its ornate pattern and turning the voluptuous red roses pictured on it an unearthly pink. Such are the stratagems by means of which the building has contrived to plead, complain, seduce, and make known its needs. Right now, of course, the place is teeming with demands on his attention, but none so urgent as the one directly up ahead. Unfortunately, he only manages to make it halfway down the corridor to his intended destination before an apparition startles him and arrests his progress.

  On the west wall, a few feet from the entrance to the study, hangs an oval gilt framed mirror, the dimmed surface of its glass tarnished and speckled with opacities, within which a face has just materialized that is staring back at him, relentless and unblinking. Despite the oblique angle of his view as he stands there transfixed by what he sees, despite the incidental mottling of the complexion and slight distortion of the features engendered by the imperfections in the glass, despite the superficial lack of resemblance to, for example, the picture on his recently expired passport, the image he is now looking at in disbelief nonetheless purports to be his own reflection. Its perfect stillness immobilizes him, as if it were actually the original and he no more than a poor mimic, the creature of its whims, incapable of any action it does not initiate. The raised eyebrow hints at mockery. Is he really smiling, or is that just a shadow transfiguring the corner of the mouth?
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  Several minutes pass before he manages to disentangle himself from the delusion: the face he is confronting in the mirror is not, in fact, the one he has learned to call his own, the one that he recalls from his shave that morning, the one with the sunken cheeks, the one whose flesh his fingers press aside to rescue from the blade as it glides treacherously upwards along his Adam’s apple. No, it is the face of the Other, a face he knows at least as well and — thanks to the myriad portraits he has been contemplating on a daily basis for years — possibly better than his own. How could he have failed to recognize it? And given the frequency of his journeys along this very route, how could he have failed to encounter the phenomenon before?

  Directly opposite the study door, catty-corner to the mirror, hangs the twin of the image he had unaccountably mistaken for himself. It is a black and white portrait of Dr. Morgan, probably made when the man was in his early sixties, one of those posed, formal, close-up photographs that employ an exaggerated chiaroscuro as a means of dramatizing the importance of the subject. The raised eyebrow, the subtle suggestion of a smile, the look of irony — these are merely the defensive measures of a sophisticate attempting, not entirely successfully, to signal his detachment from the process and divorce himself from the cliché. If what the caretaker had been looking at was a reflection of Morgan’s image then, according to the laws of physics, Morgan had been looking back at him and somewhere in the mirror, unbeknownst to either, their gazes must have met.