The old woman asked me again: "Do you do these things because your own parents never come to see you?"
I said to her, "What business is that of yours?"
She continued: "They never write to you. They don't send you packages. And so you avenge yourself on the other children."
I rose from the bed and said, "Yes, and on you too."
I hit her with my cane, then fell.
She screamed.
She kept screaming and I kept hitting her, right there from the floor where I had fallen. My blows struck only her legs and knees.
Nurses came in, drawn by the screams. They pinned me and brought me to a little room like the first one, only here there was no desk, no bookshelf, just a bed and nothing else. There were also bars on the windows and the door was locked from the outside.
I slept briefly.
When I awoke I pounded on the door, kicked the door, shouted. I cried out for my things, my homework, my books.
No one answered.
In the middle of the night the teacher came into my room and lay down beside me on the narrow bed. I buried my face in her hair and suddenly I was seized by a fit of trembling. It shook my whole body; hiccups came out of my mouth, my eyes filled with water, my nose ran. I sobbed helplessly.
There was less and less food at the center; the park had to be turned into a vegetable garden. Everyone who could worked under the gardener's direction. We planted potatoes, beans, carrots. I was sorry I was no longer confined to a wheelchair.
More and more often we also had to go down into the basement because of air raid warnings, which came almost every night. The nurses carried in their arms those who couldn't walk. Amid piles of potatoes and bags of coal I found the teacher, pressed myself against her, and told her not to be afraid.
When the bomb hit the center we were in class; there had been no warning. Bombs started falling everywhere around us. The other pupils hid under the tables but I stayed where I was; I had just been reciting a poem. The teacher threw herself over me, knocking me to the ground; I couldn't see anything, and she was suffocating me. I tried to push her off, but she grew heavier and heavier. A thick, warm, salty liquid flowed into my eyes, my mouth, down my throat, and I fell unconscious.
I woke up in a gymnasium. A nun was wiping my face with a damp cloth, and she was saying to someone, "This one isn't hurt, I think."
I began to throw up.
Everywhere in the gymnasium people were lying down on straw mattresses. Children and adults. Some were crying; others weren't moving, and it was hard to tell if they were alive or dead. I looked for the teacher among them but couldn't find her. The little blond paralytic wasn't there either.
The next day they interrogated me, asking me my name, who my parents were, my address, but I blocked my ears and didn't answer the questions, didn't say a word. Then they thought I was a deaf-mute and left me alone.
I was given a new cane, and one morning a nun took me by the hand. We went to the station, got onto a train, and came to another town. We crossed it by foot until we reached the very last house, right next to the forest. The sister left me there with an old peasant woman whom I later learned to call "Grandmother."
She called me "son of a bitch."
I am sitting on a bench at the station. I am waiting for my train. I am almost an hour early.
From here I can see the whole town, the town where I have lived for nearly forty years.
At one time, when I first came, it was a charming small town with a lake, forest, low old houses, and many parks. Now it is cut off from the lake by a highway, its forest has been decimated, its parks have disappeared, and tall buildings have made it ugly. Its narrow old streets are packed with cars, even on the sidewalks. The old bistros have been replaced by soulless restaurants and fast-food places where people eat quickly, sometimes even standing up.
I look at this town for the last time. I will never come back; I do not want to die here.
I didn't say good-bye or farewell to anyone. I don't have friends here, much less girlfriends. My many mistresses must be married, housewives, and no longer so young now. It has been a long time since I last recognized one on the street.
My best friend, Peter, who had been my tutor in my youth, died of a heart attack two years ago. His wife, Clara, who had been my first mistress, killed herself a long time before that; she couldn't face the prospect of old age.
I go leaving no one and nothing behind me. I have sold everything. It wasn't much. My furniture was worth nothing, my books even less. I got a little money for my old piano and my few paintings, but that's all.
The train arrives and I get in. I have only one suitcase. I am leaving here with little more than I came with. In this rich and free country I have made no fortune.
I have a tourist visa for my native land, a visa that expires in only one month but that can be renewed. I hope my money will last me for a few months, perhaps a year. I have also stocked up on medications.
Two hours later I arrive at a large metropolitan train station. More waiting, and then I take a night train on which I have reserved a berth-a low berth, since I know that I will not sleep and that I will often get up to smoke a cigarette.
For the time being I am alone.
Slowly the compartment fills. An old woman, two young girls, a man of about my age. I go out into the corridor to smoke and look at the night. At around two I go to bed, and I think I sleep a little.
Early in the morning we come to another large station. Three hours of waiting, which I spend at the canteen, drinking coffee.
This time the train I board is from my native country. There are very few travelers. The seats are uncomfortable, the windows dirty, the ashtrays full, the floor black and sticky, the toilets almost unusable. No restaurant car or even bar car. The travelers take out their lunches and eat, leaving greasy paper and empty bottles on the windowsills or throwing them to the floor under the seats.
Only two of the travelers speak the language of my country. I listen but say nothing.
I look out the window. The countryside changes. We leave the mountains and come onto a plain.
My pains start again.
I swallow my medications without water. I didn't think to bring a drink with me and I am repelled at the thought of asking for one from the other travelers.
I close my eyes. I know that we are approaching the border.
We're there. The train stops, and border guards, customs officials, and policemen come aboard. I am asked for my papers and they are given back to me with a smile. On the other hand, the two travelers who speak the language of the country are lengthily questioned and their bags are searched.
The train moves off; at each stop now, the only people who get on are from this country.
My little town is on another line than that of the trains coming from abroad. I reach the neighboring town, which is farther into the country and bigger. I could make my connection immediately; I am shown the small red train, only three cars long, that leaves for the little town on the hour from Track One. I watch the train pull out.
I leave the station, get into a taxi, and have myself taken to a hotel. I go up to my room, get in bed, and fall asleep immediately.
When I awake I draw the curtains from my window. It faces west. Over there, behind my little town's mountain, the sun is setting.
Every day I go to the station and watch the red train come and leave again. Then I take a walk around town. At night I drink at the hotel bar or at another bar in town, surrounded by strangers.
My room has a balcony. I often sit there now that it's getting warmer. From there I look at an immense sky of the sort I haven't seen for forty years.
I walk farther and farther in the town; I even leave it and go out into the countryside.
I skirt a wall of stone and steel. Behind it a bird sings and I glimpse the bare branches of chestnut trees.
The cast-iron gate is open. I enter and sit down on the big moss-covered boulder just insid
e the wall. We used to call this boulder the "black" rock even though it was never black but rather gray or blue, and now it is completely green.
I look at the park and recognize it. I also recognize the big building at its far end. The trees may be the same, but the birds probably aren't. So many years have passed. How long does a tree live? A bird? I have no idea.
And how long do people live? Forever, it seems to me, since I see the center's director approaching.
She asks me, "What are you doing here, sir?"
I rise and say, "I am only looking, Madame Director. I spent five years of my childhood here."
"When?"
"About forty years ago. Forty-five. I recognize you. You were the director of the Rehabilitation Center."
She cries out, "What nerve! For your information, sir, I wasn't even born forty years ago, but I can spot perverts from a mile away. Leave or I will call the police."
I go, return to my hotel, and drink with a stranger. I tell him about what happened with the director. "Obviously they're not the same person. The other one must have died."
My new friend raises his glass. "Conclusion: Either directors across the ages all look alike, or they live for a really long time.
Tomorrow I'llgo to your center with you. You can see it again for as long as you want."
The next day the stranger picks me up at the hotel. He drives me to the center. Just before we turn in, at the gate, he says to me, "You know, the old woman you saw, it really was her. Only she's no longer director here or anywhere else. I looked into it. Your center is now an old folk's home."
I say, 'I'd just like to see the dormitory. And the garden."
The walnut tree is there, but it seems stunted to me. It will die soon.
I say to my companion, "It's going to die, my tree."
He says, "Don't be sentimental. Everything dies."
We enter the building. We walk down the corridor and go into the room that belonged to me and so many other children forty years ago. I stop at the threshold and look. Nothing has changed. A dozen beds, white walls, the white beds empty. They always are at this hour.
I take the stairs at a run and open the door to the room where I had been locked up for several days. The bed is still there, in the same place. Perhaps it's even the same bed.
A young woman shows us out and says, "Everything here was bombed out. But it was all rebuilt. Just like before. Everything is like it was before. It's a very beautiful building and it must not be altered."
My pains come back one afternoon. I return to the hotel, take my medications, pack my bags, pay my bill, and call a taxi. 'To the station."
The taxi stops in front of the station and I say to the driver, "Please go buy me a ticket for the town of K. I'm ill."
The driver says, "That's not my job. I brought you to the station. Get out. I want nothing to do with a sick man."
He puts my suitcase down on the sidewalk and opens my door. "Out. Get out of my car."
I hand my wallet with its foreign money to him. "I beg you."
The driver goes into the station building, comes back with my wallet, helps me out of the car, takes me by the arm, carries my suitcase, accompanies me to Track One, and waits for the train with me. When it comes he helps me in, sets my suitcase down beside me, and asks the conductor to look after me.
The train leaves. There is almost no one in the other compartments. Smoking is forbidden.
I close my eyes and my pain fades away. The train stops nearly every ten minutes. I know that I once made this journey forty years ago.
The train had stopped before it arrived at the station in the little town. The nun grabbed my arm and shook me but I didn't move. She jumped out of the train, ran, and lay down in a field. All the passengers had run out and lain down in the fields. I was alone in the compartment. Planes flew over us and strafed the train. When silence returned the nun returned too. She slapped me and the train started moving again.
I open my eyes. We will arrive soon. I can already see the silver cloud over the mountain, and then the castle walls and the bell towers of many churches appear.
On the twenty-second of the month of April, after an absence of forty years, I am again in the small town of my childhood.
The station hasn't changed. Except that it's cleaner, even flower-filled, with the local flowers whose name I don't know and that I have never seen anywhere else.
There is also a bus, which pulls out filled with the few travelers from the train and workers from the factory across the street.
I don't take the bus. I stay here, in front of the station, my suitcase on the ground, and I look at the avenue of chestnut trees along Station Street, which leads into town.
"May I carry your suitcase, sir?"
A child of about ten is standing before me.
He says, "You've missed the bus. There won't be another one for half an hour."
I say to him, "No matter. I'll walk."
He says, "Your suitcase is heavy."
He picks up my suitcase and doesn't let go. I laugh. "Yes, it's heavy. You won't be able to carry it very far, that I know. I've done your sort of work before."
The child sets the suitcase down. "Really? When?"
"When I was your age. A long time ago."
"And where was that?"
"Here. In front of this station."
He says, "I can carry this suitcase. No problem."
I say, "Fine, but give me ten minutes' head start. I want to walk alone. And take your time, I'm in no hurry. I'llwait for you at the Black Garden. If it still exists."
"Yes, sir, it exists."
The Black Garden is a small park at the end of the avenue of chestnuts, and there's nothing black in it except the cast-iron fence that encloses it. There I sit on a bench and wait for the child. He soon arrives, puts my suitcase down on another bench across from me, and sits, out of breath.
I light a cigarette and ask, "Why do you do this?"
He says, "I want to buy a bike. A dirt bike. Would you give me a cigarette?" "No. No cigarettes for you. I'm dying because of cigarettes. Do you want to die of cigarettes too?"
He says to me, "We're all dying of one thing or another. That's what all the experts say, anyway."
"What else do they say, the experts?"
"That the world is fucked. And that there's nothing to do about it. It's too late."
"Where have you heard all this?"
"Everywhere. At school. Especially on television."
I toss away my cigarette. "You're not getting a cigarette, no matter what."
He says to me, "You're mean."
I say, "Yes, I'm mean. So? Is there a hotel somewhere in this town?"
"Sure, there are a couple. You don't know? And you seem to know the town so well."
I say, "When I lived here there weren't any hotels. Not one."
He says, "That must have been a long time ago then. There's a brand-new hotel on Central Square. It's called the Grand Hotel because it's the biggest."
"Let's go."
In front of the hotel the child sets down my suitcase.
"I can't go in, sir. The woman at the reception desk knows me. She'll tell my mother."
"What? That you carried my suitcase?"
"Yes. My mother doesn't want me carrying suitcases."
"Why?"
"I don't know. She doesn't want me doing it. She just wants me to study."
I ask: "Your parents-what do they do?"
He says, "I don't have parents. Only a mother. No father, I've never had one."
"And what does she do, your mother?"
"She works right here at the hotel. She cleans the floors twice a day. But she wants me to have an education."
"An education as what?"
"That she couldn't say, since she doesn't know what educated people do. She thinks professor or doctor, I guess."
I say, "Good. How much for carrying the suitcase?"
He says, "It's up to you, sir."
&n
bsp; I give him two coins.
"That enough?"
"Yes, sir."
"No, sir, that's not enough. Don't tell me you've carried that heavy suitcase all the way from the station for as little as that."
He says, "I take what I'm given, sir. I don't have the right to charge more. And then there are poor people. Sometimes I end up carrying suitcases for free. I like the work. I like waiting at the station. I like seeing the people who arrive. The people from here, I know them all by sight. I like seeing the people who come from other places. Like you. You've come from far away, haven't you?"
"Yes, very far. Another country."
I give him a banknote and enter the hotel.
I choose a corner room from which I can see the whole square, the church, the grocery store, the shops, the bookseller's.
It's nine at night and the square is empty. Lights are on in the houses. Blinds are being lowered, shutters closed, curtains pulled; the town is going to bed.
I settle down at one of the windows in my room and watch the square, the houses, late into the night.
During my childhood I often dreamed of living in one of the houses on Central Square -it didn't matter which one-but most of all the blue house where there was and still is a bookseller's.
But the only one I lived in when I was here was the ramshackle one belonging to Grandmother, far from the center of town, at its very limits, near the frontier.
At Grandmother's I worked from morning till night, as she did herself. She fed me and housed me, but she never gave me money, which I needed to buy soap, toothpaste, clothes, and shoes. So at night I came to town and played the harmonica in bars. I sold the wood that I gathered in the forest along with mushrooms and chestnuts. I also sold eggs that I stole from Grandmother, as well as fish, which I quickly learned to catch. I also did all sorts of work for anyone who would pay. I delivered messages, letters, and packages; people trusted me because they thought I was a deaf-mute.
In the beginning I didn't speak, not even to Grandmother, but soon I had to talk numbers in order to sell my wares.
I spent much time at night on Central Square. I looked through the window of the bookseller-stationer's, at the white paper, the school notebooks, the erasers, the pencils. All of it was too expensive for me.
The Book of Lies Page 25