‘I’ll report everything to the police,’ I said.
I asked Ahmed if he would be a witness. He looked at me, a little bit derisorily.
‘I will, but all I can tell them are stories about spirits.’
I got up from the chair, almost jumping; the waiter came up to me, helped me put on my coat and saw me to the door.
‘I hope you will come here again. You will be a welcome guest. Ahmed will wait for you here, at the same table.’ The waiter’s smile showed all his teeth, which were unnaturally symmetrical.
I turned around. In the whole room, with its ten imposing tables, in the warm silence, the soft half-darkness, Ahmed was the only guest.19 He sat stoop-shouldered right in the centre of the bar. The low lamp hanging from the ceiling circled the table with a gentle light. Like in a monodrama.
* * *
Outside, it was the dead of night.20 I couldn’t believe I had been so long in the bar. I once read that one of the signs of the coming of Judgement Day would be a speeding up of the passage of time. Muslims believe the Prophet said that Judgement Day will not come about until time passes very quickly, so that a year will pass like a month, a month like a week, a week like a day, and an hour will be as long as the time it takes to burn one palm leaf.
Judging by the small number of lit windows, I presumed it was past midnight. I staggered along the streets, weak from excitement, fatigue, slippery footpaths, countless glasses of brandy… A few passers-by slipped past, hurrying to get off the street, to go somewhere warm and safe. The night was not welcoming, it seemed to me that it made the shadows more deformed and the people disfigured.
I dragged myself up to the apartment building, unlocked the metal door and only just managed to open it. A very strong draught seemed to be opposing me. They say that a thick line of apartment buildings were built in the path of the wind and that changed the climate of the town. I don’t know if that is true, but I do know that one side of the building is as cold as the grave even during the hottest weather.
I pressed the switch for the light and, as you can imagine, was very surprised when I saw Mustafa in front of the lift. He was staring at the list of ‘House Rules’ hanging on the wall. I was obliged to go past him. I thought he had not noticed me, but when I was one step away from him, all at once he turned, looked me directly in the eyes, hypnotically, like a snake with a mouse, and shouted:
‘Tell him that you haven’t slept for days!’
I was confused.
‘What did you say?’
‘Mustafa has spoken!’ he concluded, and marched off away from the vestibule.
In the apartment, I tried to decipher Mustafa’s message. This time it was certain that the message was meant only for me, but this knowledge did not help me to understand it. Only later would I understand and make good use of Mustafa’s advice… We’ll come to that in good time. Right now I should mention a different visitor, a new ringing at the door. After midnight, it sounded like an air-raid alert, ominous and full of panic.
Mirna was standing in the doorway, in the frame where I had already become used to seeing her. But the picture was quite different. She was not smiling this time, and that completely changed her face. She was angry, it was easy to see that – white skin, mouth pulled tight, eyes pressed down by her eyebrows…
‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ she whispered hoarsely.
‘Sorry, I had an appointment, I can explain…’
‘Maybe you can, but I can’t listen, you promised and you lied.’ She wasn’t angry, she was furious.
She confused me, as I was not expecting such force. It was as though between us, from the sheer force of her fury, a minefield had grown. I remained silent. She calmly pronounced new orders.
‘I’ll wait for you tomorrow. Again. At the same place. At the same time.’
Even though I am on the seventh floor, she turned towards the steps.
‘Wait, I’ll call the lift for you.’
She did not answer, I heard only her heels tapping even faster. Maybe she thought her departure would not be dramatic enough if she waited for the lift.
I could not tell her what I had learnt from Ahmed. Not until I was sure.
While I was shutting the door I realised I would not be sleeping that night either. I did not suspect insomnia, at least not in the form to which I was accustomed. This feeling was quite new, something I had never experienced before. There was a strange intensity in my body, as though another person, a fresh person, one who had slept well and was full of energy, was trying to install himself in the same skin with me, to lean against my skeleton and to hitch on to my circulatory system. He had taken possession of my brain too; my thoughts were overlapping one another, I could not choose which one I needed to follow. Every noise reverberated like it does in a hall for physical training. Everything had a rhythm, everything was looking for its partner. If I touched a glass I had to do it again, my small steps through the room had to be precise, all the same size and in a methodical rhythm. Not one movement could be carried out without my full concentration, and my co-inhabitor was the one making the decisions. If I did something incorrectly, if I made a mistake in the rhythm or resisted repeating a movement, he howled inside me, inside my skull a hot wind whirled, full of sharp dust. When I listened to him he laughed contentedly, but in a disgusting way, debauched; my eyes filled with tears because of his joy.
It occurred to me, with difficulty, while he obstructed me with orders to open the window, to measure the room by stepping diagonally, to shut the door of the fridge – all at the same time – that I would succeed in resisting him if I lay down, and tried not to move and not to think. But that too was not easy, my breathing imposed itself as an obligation and demanded that I speed up the rhythm, until it became a frenzied panting that was unbearable…
The morning found me stiff and alone. He left me, completely exhausted, with the first light. Without any announcement, just as he had arrived. All at once I felt that I was quite alone, that once again I could be in control. I was shivering, even though everything in me and on me was burning. I put on my coat, pulled my scarf tight around my wet neck and ran out of the apartment. Mirna was waiting for me…
* * *
I’m going to meet Mirna, I’ll calm down on the way. I wasn’t successful. Nausea was rising in my stomach. I tried to breathe through my nose to press it down, but I couldn’t manage. My stomach heaved and pressed out a vile lump. It melted and softened in the cavity of my stomach, another contraction of my muscles resulted in, I presume, the whole mass spinning and forming into a geyser which found its way to my mouth. My neck straightened from the strength of the liquid, my jaws widened to let the torrent through, but nothing came out… There was no sign at all on the snow, and yet I felt a slight relief.
I reached the snowman. Mirna had not yet arrived; I decided to wait for her. I didn’t know how long I would wait, and I could not even guess what the time was. All I knew was that the day had dawned. It seemed that today was visitors’ day in the prison, for people with plastic bags were going through the gates – silent old people, pale women with noisy children, a few pretty women in fur coats…
‘So you did come!’ I heard Mirna’s voice.
I turned around. She looked wonderful, truly dazzling, and that’s not an empty phrase; she was the only colour on that grey day. You could not imagine a greater contrast between the three of us on the street – the dirty snowman, dazzling Mirna and crumpled me. I could not help the snowman, but I quickly smoothed my hair and cleaned the corners of my eyes. I tried to excuse my appearance.
‘I slept really badly…’
She stopped me.
‘We’ll talk afterwards When you come back from the flat.’
An old man was coming out through the gates of the prison. He was laughing loudly and applauding. Mirna took no notice of him, just moved graciously to the side to allow him to get to the building. I was envious of the old man’s hilarity; who could know what good n
ews he had learnt inside? I don’t think there was anyone in existence I did not envy at that moment, and both then and now, I could count a big number of things I would rather have done than stand again in front of that door. Among them; a visit to the dentist, an unfair fight, unexpected impotence, receiving a suspect doctor’s report… Things like that…
‘Get going, please.’ She pushed me.
My stomach again became angry and made my steps even more unsure. In front of the lobby, those same women were sitting, at least the caps, scarves and jumpers were the same. They were not talking, they were joined together by the stitches they were knitting. I slipped through between their stares, like a burglar between laser beams; with a lot of help from the balustrade, I conquered the steps and stopped in front of that disgusting door. It looked as though the dirty scum on it was even thicker, for now it was exactly like the back of some reptile. My stomach was pulsating like a machine from hell when I banged with my fist on the door. It opened. On the other side darkness was waiting for me. The Land of Oz is a wonderful place, but for me there are only places like this.
I stepped forward and I remember thinking it was like going into a mine shaft. It took me a few moments for my eyes to get used to the dark. The walls were sooty, the parquet scratched, the remains of fire, cardboard boxes and newspapers covered the corners. The only piece of furniture in the flat, at least as far as I could see, was one chair, placed near the filthy window. It was being used by a man with huge eyes, exactly like the one from my dream. Wrapped in a black coat, he was sitting motionless, his back straight, like a yoga teacher. Even in such a weak light I could clearly see that the bloodshot eyes and thin mouth revealed a terrible anger which seemed to be growing every second. It seemed as though he would do something unimaginably awful when he could no longer endure the pressure of his anger.
Very quickly, I said, ‘I haven’t slept for days.’
I saw that the anger began to recede; in a video game, the barometer would have slipped down from the colour red.
I continued:
‘I don’t think I shall ever go to sleep again.’
He looked at me with curiosity, measured me from head to foot like an unusual object. His small mouth opened for a moment; and he spoke.
‘How do you mean?’
‘I don’t know, but no matter how much I try, I can’t sleep.’
‘How do you manage that? I have to fight sleep all the time. I resist, but every seven days it strikes me down for at least half an hour.’
Calmly I informed him, ‘I think something or someone exists that will not let me sleep. And that something is inside me.’
He got up from the chair and went to the window.
‘The one who stops me from sleeping is lying in that building. I have to be awake when he comes out of jail.’
Suddenly, all at once, with no warning at all, no sort of announcement that would have prepared me, the scene was taken from in front of my eyes, the perspective changed, the view slanted unnaturally. As though I had entered a surrealist film, a black and white horror film. Some film director had taken over my life, was moving with his camera around the room, over the walls… I saw him for a moment, thin with red eyes, and then I saw myself – crazed, drained, sweaty, full of fear, fatigue, nausea, shock. After this striking take, the director fixed the camera on the ceiling. From above I could see myself standing and talking with Nosferatu hunched over by the window. It could all easily have been a dream. That occurred to me then; they say the brain during a dream is like a town at night, some functions do not work, and others are exceptionally active. My brain had been functioning in this way for months. Like in a nightmare.21 A new one was beginning. And in it a person can say anything at all:
‘I dreamt you. You came to my door. But I didn’t understand what you wanted to tell me.’
I didn’t perceive that this comment surprised him excessively. He was still staring through the window. However, he answered:
‘I don’t want to dream. And I have remembered many people.’
‘Do you remember Aleksa?’
His head slowly turned towards me, I heard his bones creaking. Just when I thought I was going to see a scene from The Exorcist, the rest of his body turned too. Luckily…
‘I have nothing to do with him. No sort of reckoning.’
He was pale, terribly thin, his skull was stretching his skin taut. In the reflection in his eyes I could see that I did not look much better.
‘They told me to visit him and to tell him what he already knew. That was all I did.’
Of course, I asked him who told him that.
‘The two of them. They had red hair. They said they would give me this flat if I did that. And I need the flat; from here I can keep track of that war criminal, Yankee.’
‘What Yankee?’
‘That one over there.’ With his chin he pointed to the jail.
‘That Yankee is in jail?’
He stared at the building. He did not blink. Maybe he had no eyelashes, for I did not notice then.
‘Yes, but he has to come out some time. I shall wait however long it takes. He killed all my family. In front of my eyes.’
‘Where is the little girl?’ I turned to look around the room.
‘What little girl?’ He looked at me, and it seemed to me his eyes widened even more and became even more bloodshot.
‘The one with a blonde ponytail…’
I thought I would drown in those eyes, that their sad, bloody darkness would suffocate me.
‘She’s gone. Because of her I must not and will not sleep.’
Our conversation lasted a lot longer than it takes to put it down on paper. He thought for a long time before answering, made big pauses in his sentences, stopped speaking as soon as someone appeared at the gates of the jail and then went on with the interrupted syllable. During one especially long pause I went to the window to see what had engrossed him so much.
The film director generously followed me. On the window there was only one little square cleaned, like a loop-hole for gunfire. I stood next to him and was aware of a strong smell, which I had never experienced before and which it is very hard for me to describe. It pressed the air out of my lungs, and the nausea spread from my stomach over my whole body. He turned around suddenly, I think I even heard the whistling of air; he grabbed me by the hand. His eyes were flashing.
‘Look after yourself. The redheads have no heart. They are not of this world. They know what is under the earth.’
His nails were stabbing into my hand. I was afraid, of him, of his words… Yet I still asked, I had to…
‘Please tell me, why have I been dreaming of you?’
He let go of my hand and looked earnestly into my face.
‘You must not sleep! I was in the prison camp for six months and I didn’t fall asleep even for one night. That’s how I stayed alive,’ he warned me, turning towards the window again. He tightened his thin lips and his eyes gazed towards some point outside. And I could, at last, again control my range of vision.
I shut the door quietly behind me. The lobby with no windows was a lot lighter than the room I had just left.
‘Who is inside?’ Mirna asked me.
I stood before her, breathing deeply and turning it all over deep in my mind. How could I tell her everything I wanted to; how could I convey to her at least a part of the things which had imprisoned my head in a red-hot crown. I sighed as profoundly as I could; I think I tried to explain like this, but I believe it was a lot more unintelligible. I spoke quickly, loudly and nervously:
‘There is a man inside who has not slept for months. During the war his whole family was killed, and he ended up in the prison camp. Since then he has been trying to find the person who destroyed his life. He believes this man is in the jail. He doesn’t seem like a spirit now, but like a man. He could easily be a spirit, because they exist. I’m sure of that, and your father believed in spirits too. I think the Pegasus brothers know wher
e your father is. Aleksa thought they could lead him to you and your mother, and also to Perkman. Maybe because he knew the two of them were demons. True demons who can predict the end of the world.’
I said all that, took another breath and continued:
‘My wife left me and I don’t think she will ever come back. Her departure is my fault. I think only about that. I won’t make the same mistake twice. Why shouldn’t the two of us try? I can’t stand solitude. And you are alone too, aren’t you? Would you have searched for me otherwise?’
Leaning on the snowman, she looked at the snow. She was surprised, how could she not be, the last sentences had surprised me too. I wanted to lift up her head, to see what she was thinking; if there was a reaction to my explanation, conclusion and overture. I think she turned and left in the middle of my sentence: ‘It will be nice for us together; we’ll read books, listen to music and talk about painting.’
I watched her leave, her footsteps becoming more rapid, becoming a race, then a solid sprint. She was running away as though from a lynch mob. It was one of the strongest blows to my vanity that I had ever suffered in my life.
I had made a mistake and I thought that alcohol might help me. Actually, I knew it would not help me, but I could not think of anything else.
The vodka was drinkable, fresh, sweet right from the first mouthful. I could not get enough. Quite predictably, the world slowly started to change. It became more interesting. I relaxed with a speed which made my ears burn. It was not important to me what anyone thought about me, they didn’t even bother me. There were a lot of them, a real crowd, some bodies even touched me with their edges. They were sitting around me, calm, seemingly civilised, drinking, talking. The music was pleasant, it really was, I had no complaints, I remember very well, they were playing ‘I Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You’. I lit one cigarette after another, and enjoyed every puff. It was nice to be among people. Maybe soon I could even have started to smile. Stupidly and with glassy eyes, but smile just the same. The night was before me, amazing things could have happened.
Seven Terrors Page 9