Night Work

by Thomas Glavinic

  While driving to Hollandstrasse he remembered the dream he’d had that afternoon. It had had no plot. Again and again half a head or a mouth had appeared. An open mouth, its most notable feature being that it was toothless, with cigarette butts embedded in the gums where teeth should have been. That gaping mouth, with its uniform rows of cigarette butts, had appeared to him again and again. Nothing was said. There had been a cool, empty feeling about things.

  The truck was standing outside. Jonas pulled up a few metres beyond it, where the Spider wouldn’t get in his way. He put two cameras in his bag and slung it over his shoulder.

  It was stuffy inside his parents’ former flat. His footsteps echoed as he walked across the old parquet floor to the windows and opened each in turn.

  Fresh, warm evening air flooded into the room. He perched on the window sill and looked out. The truck was blocking his view of the street. It didn’t bother him. He was filled with a feeling of familiarity. This was where he had stood as a small child, a box under his feet so he could look out at the street. That hole in the window flashing, that drain in the gutter, the colour of the roadway – all were familiar to him.

  He got to his feet again. No time to lose.

  In the hallway he laid some planks down on the short staircase that led to the ground-floor flats, making a ramp for the trolley. Having wheeled the two halves of the bedstead up it, he leant them against the wall.

  He wouldn’t be able to put the bed up again without technical aids of some kind. He could try to glue them together again, it was true, but they probably wouldn’t support his weight. So he went and fetched some blocks of wood from the truck, blocks he’d obtained from a building site specifically for the purpose. Outside in the street he glanced anxiously at the sky. It would soon be getting dark.

  He arranged the blocks on the floor. They were of different heights. He went outside again and returned with a box of books. The first three volumes he took out were valuable, he even remembered their former position in the mahogany bookcase. The next half dozen were Second World War tomes his father had collected after his mother’s death. They were dispensable.

  He balanced two of them on the smallest block and distributed the rest, then checked the height. He switched two around, checked again, picked out a slender volume he didn’t need and added it to one of the supports. Now they were equal in height.

  He wheeled in the first half of the bed, his mother’s side. Carefully, he tipped the bulky frame over and lowered it until the edge came to rest plumb in the centre of the supports. He did the same with the other half of the bedstead. That done, he fetched the mattresses and laid them down on top.

  Gingerly at first, then more confidently, he rested his weight on the bed. When it didn’t collapse as he’d expected, he pulled off his shoes and stretched out on the mattresses.

  Job done. Night could fall. He wouldn’t be faced with a choice between braving the darkness on the drive home to his flat on the Brigittenauer embankment and sleeping on the floor here.

  Although he was feeling faint with hunger and the light was steadily fading, he worked on. One piece of furniture after another was wheeled in and placed in position. He wasn’t as careful as he’d been when loading up. Rattles and bangs filled the air, the walls shed flakes of plaster, black streaks disfigured the wallpaper. He didn’t care as long as nothing got broken. Even professional removal men scratched things.

  The last load of the evening consisted of two pictures, three cameras and the TV. Jonas turned on the TV. He fancied something, he didn’t know what. He untangled some leads and connected a camera to the TV. He had to press several buttons on the remote before the screen went blue, indicating it was ready.

  It was dark now, but the street lights hadn’t come on as he’d hoped. Hands on hips, he looked through the window at the truck. All that could be heard behind him was the faint hum of the camera, which was on stand-by.

  Chocolate.

  He was ravenously hungry, but what tormented him most of all was a craving for chocolate. Milk chocolate, chocolate with nuts, chocolate creams, anything, even cooking chocolate, would have done. As long as it was chocolate.

  The hallway was in darkness. Shotgun in hand, he groped his way to the light switch. When the dim bulb in the ceiling came on, he cleared his throat and let out a hoarse laugh. He tried the door of the flat opposite. Locked. He tried the next one. Just as he turned the handle he realised that it was Frau Bender’s former home.

  ‘Hello?’

  Jonas turned the light on. His throat tightened. He gulped. He slid along the walls like a shadow. The flat was unrecognisable. Its occupants appeared to have been young people. Photos of film stars hung on the walls. The video collection filled two cupboards. TV magazines were lying around. In one corner stood an empty terrarium.

  Everything looked unfamiliar. All he remembered was the handsome parquet floor and the moulded ceilings.

  He was astonished to note that Frau Bender’s flat had been almost three times the size of his parents’.

  He found no chocolate, only some biscuits of a kind he disliked. Then he remembered the grocer’s two streets away. Jonas had often shopped at Herr Weber’s as a boy. He’d even been allowed to buy things on account. The old man with the bushy eyebrows had eventually given up the business. If he remembered correctly, the shop had been acquired by an Egyptian who sold oriental specialities. Still, perhaps he’d stocked chocolate as well.

  Out in the street it was a mild, windless night. Jonas peered left and right. The hairs stood up on the back of his neck as he set off through the gloom. He felt tempted to turn back, but he summoned up all his willpower and walked on.

  The shop wasn’t locked. There was chocolate. In addition to tinned goods and powdered soups, the establishment had sold milk, bread and sausage – all of it spoilt now, of course. The owner had dealt in almost all the basic necessities. Alcohol was the only thing Jonas couldn’t find.

  He put several bars of chocolate in a rusty shopping basket and added a few tins of bean soup, some peanuts and a bottle of mineral water. He also raided the shelves for a random assortment of sweets and biscuits.

  The shopping basket proved a nuisance on the return trip. It was impossible to carry the thing and hold his gun at the ready at the same time. He walked slowly. Here and there a lighted window illuminated a stretch of pavement.

  He couldn’t shake off the notion that someone was lying in wait behind the parked cars. He paused to listen. All he heard was his own tremulous breathing.

  In his imagination a woman was lurking behind that van parked on the corner. She was wearing a kind of nun’s wimple, and she had no face. There she crouched, waiting for him as if she’d never moved before. As if she’d always been there. And she wasn’t waiting for just anyone. She was waiting for him.

  He had an urge to laugh, to yell, but he didn’t utter a sound. He tried to run, but his legs refused to obey him. He approached the building steadily, not daring to breathe.

  In the hallway he turned on the light, walked up the ramp and along the passage to the flat. He didn’t look back. He went in, put the basket down and pushed the door shut with his behind. Only then did he turn round and lock it.

  ‘Hahaha! Now we’ll feast! Now we’ll guzzle! Hahaha!’

  He looked round the kitchen. The units and all the equipment had belonged to the Kästner family. He put a large saucepan on the stove and emptied the contents of two tins into it. His tension gradually eased as the scent of bean soup rose into the air.

  After eating he took the shopping basket into the living room, where he was greeted by the hum of the camera. The bed didn’t collapse this time either, when he tested its stability with his foot. He went to get a blanket and a pillow and lay down. Tearing the wrapper off a bar of milk chocolate, he thrust a couple of squares into his mouth.

  He surveyed the room. Although the furniture was still far from complete, the pieces he’d so far brought in were back in their ori
ginal places. The brown bookcase and the yellow one. The ancient standard lamp. The rather greasy armchair. The rocking chair with the worn arms, in which he’d sometimes felt queasy as a child. And, on the wall opposite the bed, ‘Johanna’, the picture of an unknown woman that had always hung there: a beautiful, dark-haired woman leaning against a stylised tree trunk and gazing into the beholder’s eyes. His parents had jokingly christened her Johanna, although no one knew who had painted the picture or whom it represented. Or even where it had come from.

  The undersheet was soft. It still gave off a familiar odour.

  Jonas turned on his side and reached for another piece of chocolate. Tired and relaxed, he stared at the window that overlooked the street. A double window, it was so ill-fitting that old blankets had been laid on the sill between the inner and outer casements to prevent draughts in winter.

  This was where he’d handed over his letter addressed to the Christkind just before Christmas.

  His mother used to remind him to make out a wish list for the Christkind at the beginning of December. She never forgot to mention that he must be modest in his requests because the Christkind was too poor to be able to afford more than a thin garment. So Jonas would sit at the table with his feet dangling clear of the floor, chewing his pencil and dreaming. Would a remote-controlled jeep be too expensive for the Christkind? How about a toy racetrack? Or an electric motorboat? The most wonderful presents occurred to him, but his mother said his requests would put the Christkind in an awkward position because they couldn’t all be granted.

  As a result, Jonas’s wish list eventually consisted of just a few small items. A new fountain pen. A packet of transfers. A rubber ball. His letter ended up on the threadbare blanket between the windows, ready to be collected by an angel on one of the following nights and delivered to the Christkind.

  How would the angel manage to open the outer window?

  That was the question Jonas pondered before going to sleep. He didn’t want to shut his eyes and yearned to stay awake. Would the angel come tonight? Would he hear him?

  His first thought on waking: I fell asleep after all. But when, when?

  He ran to the window. If the envelope had disappeared, as it usually did on the second or third day, seldom on the first because angels were so busy, Jonas experienced a feeling of happiness far greater than anything he felt weeks later on Christmas Eve itself. He was delighted with his presents, and with the thought that the Christkind had been near enough in person to leave the parcels beneath the Christmas tree while he was sitting in the kitchen. His parents used to invite Uncle Reinhard and Aunt Lena, Uncle Richard and Aunt Olga to dinner. The tree was lit up with candles. Jonas would lie on the floor half-listening to the grown-ups’ conversation, which had become a steady murmur by the time it reached him. He felt enveloped by the sound as he leafed through a book or examined a toy train. This was all very lovely and mysterious, but nothing compared to the miracle that had occurred a week or two earlier, when an angel had come to collect his letter during the night.

  Jonas sighed and turned over. Only a few squares of chocolate were left. He put them in his mouth and crumpled up the wrapper.

  Aware that he wouldn’t be able to remain awake much longer, he overcame his inertia and got to his feet.

  He stationed three cameras side by side, facing the bed. He looked through the lenses, adjusted their angle, put a tape in each. When everything was ready he turned his attention to the TV and the camera connected to it. Last night’s tape was in his trouser pocket. He inserted it and pressed ‘Play’.

  *

  The camera wasn’t pointing at the bed, nor was it located in the bedroom. The screen displayed the shower cubicle in the bathroom. The bathroom of this flat. In Hollandstrasse.

  Someone seemed to have been taking quite a long shower, a hot one. The glass sides of the cubicle were misted up and steam was rising above them, but the swoosh of the water couldn’t be heard. The scene appeared to have been shot without sound.

  After ten minutes Jonas began to wonder if this waste of water would go on for much longer.

  Twenty minutes. He was so sleepy, he had to switch to fast-forward. Thirty minutes, forty. An hour. The bathroom door was shut, the room became more and more steamed up. The door of the shower cubicle was barely visible.

  After two hours, all that could be seen on the screen was a dense grey mass.

  Another fifteen minutes, and visibility rapidly improved. The bathroom door reappeared. It was open now. So was the door of the shower cubicle.

  The cubicle itself was empty.

  The tape ended without his having seen anyone.

  Jonas turned off the TV. Warily, as if there were a direct connection between what he’d seen on the tape and what was happening at this moment, he peered into the bathroom. He looked at the rubber mat. The shower head. The soap dish projecting from the tiles. Nothing had changed.

  That was impossible, though. Something had to be different. Something.

  This was where what he’d seen on the tape had occurred, so it belonged to the place. But the place had sloughed it off – no vestige of the past clung to it. Just a shower cubicle. No steamed-up glass. No condensation. Just a memory. A void.

  It was shortly after eleven. He programmed one camera to come on at 2.05 a.m. and another at 5.05. Then he turned on the third, undressed and got into bed.

  17

  He could hardly believe it when he checked the time on his mobile. It was after ten. He’d slept for eleven hours, but he didn’t feel refreshed in the least.

  In the kitchen he realised he’d forgotten to get any bread from the Egyptian’s shop the night before. He heated up another tin. There was some coffee, but it was a sort he disliked. He made do with mineral water.

  After breakfast he tidied up. He opened all the windows to ventilate the stuffy rooms and shook the bedclothes. He rewound the tapes, filling the air with their threefold hum, and put the dirty crockery in the dishwasher. While engaged in these activities and without admitting it to himself, he kept a constant watch. For changes. For pointers to something he hadn’t noticed the day before.

  He had a cold shower without shutting his eyes, belting out a sea shanty in which pirates were keelhauled and made to walk the plank. While he was drying himself in the living room his eye lighted on a bar of chocolate. He hesitated for a moment, then reached for it.

  Within an hour he’d emptied the entire truck. Everything was inside the flat. All the chairs, all the bookcases, all the cupboards, all the boxes. Not sorted out yet, of course, but he didn’t have to leave the building from now on. He could watch last night’s tapes while working.

  It took him just under three hours to dust all the furniture, check it for damage and shift it into position. While the Sleeper slept on the screen beside him, Jonas dusted lampshades, mended a hole in an armchair and buffed off the scratches on a cupboard, watching the TV at every opportunity.

  The Sleeper seemed to have had a quiet night. He turned over now and then, but most of the time he lay still. Jonas even thought he heard an occasional snore. He wondered why he was so tired.

  Between the first and second tapes he took a break. He found a ready-to-serve meal in a kitchen drawer and heated it up in a little wok. It was inedible. He added some soy sauce and other seasoning. No use. Grimly, he plunged the opener into yet another tin of bean soup.

  The second tape began the way the first had ended. He fast-forwarded it. Meanwhile, he tidied things away. When he was working in the kitchen and out of sight of the TV, he switched to normal play and turned the volume up full. He also darted into the living room every couple of minutes to see if the Sleeper was still buried beneath the bedclothes. On the right stood the bed. Facing it on the left was its miniature reflection on the TV screen. He himself was lying asleep in that reflection.

  The Kästner family’s crockery and kitchen utensils ended up on the rubbish dump in the backyard. All he kept were some frying pans and
saucepans, because he’d noticed that his father’s kitchen equipment was less than ideal. He couldn’t find the mug with the bear on it, the one he’d drunk from as a child. Only three of the old glasses were there. As for kitchen gadgets that required some skill, such as a pressure cooker or a coffee machine, his father appeared to have got rid of them.

  He switched to fast-forward again. Whatever might eventually happen to him, it was impossible to make complete recordings of himself while asleep and watch those recordings conscientiously during the day. That would mean doing nothing but sleeping and watching himself sleeping. He wouldn’t be able to do a thing, he would be tied to the cameras.

  Towards the end of the second tape, when the Sleeper was still lying motionless under the bedclothes, Jonas felt he’d been taken for a fool. His movements became more sluggish. He slammed cupboard doors and stuffed clothes into drawers regardless of whether or not he was creasing them. Until, among a pile of books, he discovered some old comics that had escaped his notice while packing.

  Jonas liked comics. Even as an adult he had bought the occasional Mort & Phil comic without blushing. There was even one in the toilet at his flat on the Brigittenauer embankment. But these were special. He leafed through them as if they were much sought-after rarities, examining every dog-eared, jam-stained page. He must have been twelve, or fourteen at most, the last time he’d held this comic in his hand. Twenty years had gone by since he’d cut the slice of bread whose butter and jam had smeared this page. This comic had languished unopened on a shelf for two whole decades. He’d finished reading it one day, put it away and forgotten all about it. And he hadn’t had a clue how long it would be before he saw this picture, this speech balloon, again. He was seeing them again only now.

  A marginal note scrawled in a childish hand: Funny!

  He had written that. He didn’t know why, only that he’d written it, that it was twenty years ago, and that he’d still known so little at the time. That this ‘Funny!’ had been written by a boy who knew nothing about girls, who would later study physics and aspire to become a teacher or academic, who was interested in football and may have had some maths homework to do. And that the person who had rediscovered this comic was wondering why he hadn’t come across it before. The comic. And the memory.