by Ruby Namdar
14
Andrew barely managed to open his eyes, blinking in the darkness. He sniffed the air, trying to decipher its sour stench of vomit, unflushed urine, and detergent. Where was he? What had happened to him?
He shut his eyes again, uncertain if he was awake or asleep. He opened them. The thick darkness around him dissipated, revealing murky details, shadowy hints of things. A round object like the smokestack of a ship towered over him, its outlines visible in a dim light coming from an unknown source. He had to concentrate before realizing it was the toilet. He was in the bathroom. A chill ran over him. How had he gotten here? Slowly, he stretched his limbs, which were stiff from lying on the floor, and tried lifting his head from the smooth tiles whose crisscross pattern was imprinted on his cheek. The effort was too much for him. His weak, aching body refused to cooperate and he gave up, letting his muscles sink back into the cramped state they had been in all night. His half-raised head dropped to the floor as though in hope of falling back into a sleep that would shroud his waking nightmare. He lay in the dark, breathing the fetid air in and out. Sleep failed to come. Overwrought, he surrendered to the morbid wakefulness. Distant shouts rapped on the windows, rattling their panes. “Allelujah! Allelujah! Allelujah!” Hell! Hell on earth! Why didn’t the man shut up, for God’s sake? Didn’t he ever sleep?
He couldn’t go on lying in the bathroom like a dying beast. He had to get up, immediately! Although he tried relaxing his cramped muscles, they remained in spasm. Curled up on the bathroom floor, he felt panicked. He was paralyzed! He wriggled and squirmed, fighting for dear life to gain control of his body. Dragging himself toward the toilet bowl, he gripped its rim like a buoy, pulled himself into an upright position, stood, and went to the sink to wash his hands of their caustic filth. His frayed nerves recoiled from the hot water and he turned off the faucet. For a moment, he stood at the sink, debating whether to turn the water back on. Then, shaking his hands in the air to dry them, he wiped them disgustedly on his shirt as though to erase the stain of what had happened and went to the dark living room. In the sickly red glow of the streetlamps, it looked empty, inhabited by ghosts.
Andrew went to the microwave oven in the kitchen to check its illuminated digital clock. It was two a.m. He had been sleeping for twelve straight hours—if, that is, the cold, dark matrix he had been immersed in since early afternoon could be called sleep. His whole body was aching, but his mind was awake—not perfectly lucid, perhaps, but reasonably alert. Although he would have gladly slept another twelve hours, or even twenty, he knew he would sleep no more tonight. Should he turn on a light? His brain was too weary to cope with the profusion of detail it would reveal. Try to work? Watch television? He shuddered at the thought. He went to the window and leaned his head against its cold glass pane. An unseasonably strong wind was blowing outside, whipping the July night into a wintry storm. A torn piece of canvas flapped with the monotonous, unnerving rhythm of a metronome. The monstrously overblown trees tossed wild branches that threatened to break loose and dash themselves against the building. Riverside Drive, deserted, snaked below. A red traffic light was like a monster’s eye in a horror movie. The park, dark and menacing, lay beyond its low granite wall. A whorish red neon sign blinked across the river. Its reflection shimmered on the water like a seductive call to swim to it and never return. The river was as dark and heavy as the Styx, a great, turbid mass moving blindly from nowhere to nowhere in a senseless, purposeless, meaningless flow.
Andrew turned queasily back to the room from the window. His eyelids felt lined with slivers of glass as though he hadn’t slept in weeks. He walked distractedly about the room, his mind swarming with old angers, ancient insults, nameless fears, pathetic childhood anxieties. The air conditioner coughed and sputtered, alternately releasing blasts of cold and stale, tepid air. Andrew shivered, the fine hairs on his arms and neck bristling as if it were a cold winter night. His sour insides twirled like a balloon from which the air has been suddenly released. For a childish moment, he imagined the comfort of milk and cookies. The warm feeling this gave him vanished instantly: not only was turning on the kitchen light or opening the refrigerator door beyond his powers, the milk had run out two days ago and there hadn’t been a cookie in the apartment for years. Frustrated, he returned to the living room and threw himself on the couch, tucking his legs as far under him as he could. The contact with the expensive leather on which he loved to luxuriate now made his teeth chatter. He lay curled with his head on a cushion, hugging his knees to keep warm. His chills persisted, subsiding and breaking out anew from time to time. Although he desperately wanted to lie under the comforter from his bed, something kept him from entering the dark bedroom. His amorphous fears of it were now a living, breathing terror that grew realer by the minute. To hell with the comforter!
The leather chafed his bare neck, which felt suddenly separate from him. Its sticky dampness felt alive, like the skin of a frog. The skin of a frog? He had never touched a frog in his life. He had hardly seen one since he was a boy. Why frogs? A fat, greedy, evil-eyed frog. Calm down! Calm down! He had to keep his wits about him. Why was it so cold? Something was wrong with the damn air conditioner. It was always too hot or too cold. Why did nothing ever work the way it was supposed to? Andrew jumped from the couch, dumbfounded by the jagged scream that he had loosed without intending to. He went to the antique linen chest that served as an end table, removed the old lamp that sat on top of it and other carefully arranged bric-a-brac, heaved it open, and took out the fleecy white cashmere throw, which he and Linda had bought in Italy. In winter, he draped it over the couch to give it an elegantly warm look. Without putting anything back in place, he returned to the couch and covered himself. The delicate fabric evoked long-forgotten sensations. Memories of any kind were more than he could bear. The fourth-or fifth-grade nature teacher slits the frog open. He removes its male genitals with a pincer, places the tiny testicles on a glass slide, and shows his pupils their semen. Why were children made to see such things? What was the point of it? He shook out the folded blanket, hoping it would cover the couch. Had the frog at least been killed first? The blanket wasn’t big enough. He struggled to fit it over the couch’s heavy bolsters until every last bit of leather was invisible—he didn’t care that he was stretching it out of shape. No sooner had he lain down again than his body weight dragged it off the bolsters, its ends falling on him like tattered wings. He wrapped them around him, snuggling into them like a fledgling in its nest while shutting his eyes as if to shut out something he knew. The Nazis used human skin. They upholstered chairs, bound books, and made lampshades with it. A Jew-skin couch, the horror of it! What would become of him? How would it end?
He opened his eyes, staring at nothing in particular. The night stretched before him, as black and endless as a road to perdition. Although he knew he should turn on the light to drive away the demons that multiplied with every breath he took, he couldn’t force himself to get up. Glued to the couch, he let cold flames of dread spread through his limbs. Only his eyes moved, running up and down the wall like a frightened mouse. The pale, garish light peeled the detached look of amusement from the antique tribal masks, exposing them for the dark epitomes of violence, ignorance, and evil that they were. A paralyzing dread took possession of him. He could feel it entering his bloodstream and turning it black as ink. He was being stared at by empty, malevolent eyes whose large, crudely carved orbs bulged with hate. Black, cavernous mouths yawned, exposing uneven rows of sharp teeth. Pointy, large-nippled wooden breasts projected above bellies swollen with the flesh of dead, sacrificed infants. Wooden tongues vied with menacing phalluses to see which was longer. Andrew felt violated by their extravagant, grotesque sexuality. Their compactly carnal penises, stomachs, and breasts, stacked one on top of another, threatened to invade his being. He shut his eyes and mouth tight to keep them out. His pulse soared. His heart reared in its rib cage like a wild stallion. He mustn’t look! He mustn’t! The dreadful creatures
would turn on him the moment they saw the whites of his eyes, overrun him, and tear him to pieces. He felt a powerful urge to tear the terrible masks from the wall and rip them apart. He would sell them—he would give them away—he would burn them—he would trash them! For a second, the thought of their destruction made him feel strong. Then an immobilizing reaction set in as he pictured the nail holes in the wall, dotting its bare surface like scars. What morbid, pathological thoughts!
Andrew tightened his grip on the blanket, gulping the inert air. The aura surrounding the morbid figures on the wall was on the verge of engulfing the apartment. Something tangible, abhorrent, fluttered close to his face. He shrank from it with a cry, his eyes wide with terror. Someone had touched him. Soft but deliberate, the unexpected contact was terrifying. He tossed his head like a frightened animal, moaning gutturally. His eyes grew bigger to take in all the dim light that they could. No, there was no one there. He was alone in the room. Its only sound was the rattle of the air conditioner. But how could that be? Someone had just touched him, he could swear it! In a panic, he ran to turn on the overhead light and all the lights in the living room and kitchen. From there he ran to the hallway and bedroom, groping for their switches with his eyes shut as if fearing for his sanity should he see something. Lastly, he turned on the light in the bathroom, searching the linen closet to make sure no one was hiding there. More deliberately, he returned to the kitchen for a look at the broom closet and the space behind the refrigerator where he kept the detergent and paper towels. Only after having checked every possible hiding place and dark nook in the apartment did he dare return to the living room, lie down again on the couch, and pull the cashmere blanket back over him.
What time was it? Every light in the apartment was on. The air conditioner wheezed consumptively. The bright light hurt Andrew’s eyes. He blinked wearily, shaking off the cobwebs of sleep and ignoring the masks on the wall. No, he wouldn’t take them down now. It was a crazy thought, and anyway, he didn’t have the strength for it. Even turning on the television, or his computer to check his e-mail, was more than he was capable of. Shutting his eyes, he imagined his in-box, its unanswered mail arrayed on the screen like a court indictment, the fiery black seal of condemnation at its bottom a letter from the editor to whom he owed his article. He opened his eyes. The computer screen was gone. He mustn’t fall asleep now! He absolutely must not! He was in the ancient shrine again. How had he gotten here? He looked around him. The sheen of pure radiance faded from the curtain of the Sanctuary, retreating inward like the petals of a flower closing for the night. The soft splendor withdrew to the threshold, lingered there, and was gone. The Ark’s two Cherubs, pristinely aglow just a moment ago, turned gray, their clear complexion blotched with darkness. The Temple’s roof gleamed golden, catching fire in a bright flame that went out all at once. The wall of the Gallery glinted in a last sunbeam and darkened. The Altar flared up as its flames dwindled and died, collapsing into the ashes gathered at its feet. Although the city no longer could hold on to the light, the mount in its midst clung to it a bit longer before letting go and sinking into a sea of obscurity. The desert glimmered on until its soft hills, resigned to their fate, let go of the day. Darkness. Utter darkness. Darkness and great consternation.
Andrew roused himself from the powerful reverie. He looked at the window. Dawn was breaking. Shades of blue and green streaked the pale sky. The night had fled, taking with it his desperate struggle, wrapped in black sheets. The Kingdom of Day held sway. A deep weariness took hold of Andrew. He rested his head on the pillow and breathed deeply. He shut his eyes, let the air in his lungs run out through his nostrils, and set out with a slight rocking sound on the quiet waters of sleep.
15
Large, wet snowflakes fall haphazardly, like stray shots from the sky. Harsh, skeletal German words rain down like hail. Distant sirens wail in the night. Searchlights slash the darkness, crisscrossing the black sky. A black luxury Mercedes appears out of thin air and brakes sharply by the little corpse, its wheels cutting dirty tracks in the ice. The motor is still running. Large, bug-eyed headlights beam two shafts that conjoin on the snowy earth in a small circle, as though spotlighting a stage. Walter, naked and stripped of his shrouds, lies curled on the ground. His dead face, pressed to a grimy patch of ice, is chalk-pale in the strong light. His eyes are wide open. His blue lips are pulled back in a contorted grin, baring his long, old man teeth whose half-visible roots protrude from receding gums. What’s that scream? Who’s screaming like that? It’s hard to say. It may be me.
16
What time was it? He had no watch. He had fallen asleep. It was a dream. Andrew lay perspiring on the couch, staring at the distant ceiling while struggling to restore his sense of reality—any sense of it at all. How long had he been sleeping? Not that long. To judge by the light in the window, it still was early. The cashmere blanket was crumpled beneath him in a shapeless, uncomfortable ball. Throwing it on the rug, he forced himself to raise his head. He would clean up afterward. He wasn’t up to it now. He wasn’t up to anything. He needed to rest and get back his strength.
Andrew froze in an odd half-sitting, half-lying position, uncertain what to do. Go back to sleep? Get up, take a shower, and scrub away the memory of last night with hot water and soap? He wavered, wallowing in his helplessness, until his body decided for itself by slowly pushing itself up like a heavy piece of machinery. He stood shakily in the middle of the room, dizzily blinking to shield his eyes from the light. A shower? No, not now. The thought of the stinging hot water made him cringe. Unthinkingly, he went to the television, took the remote control from its little basket, and pressed the red button at its top. With a start, the TV crackled with electricity and came to life. A tide of color from the suddenly bright screen bathed the melancholy living room.
Hi, Bert. Are you sleeping?
Yes, Ernie. I’m sleeping.
But I can’t fall asleep, Bert.
Try counting sheep, Ernie.
There was a lump in Andrew’s throat. Warm, phlegmy tears welled in his sinuses. He felt as light-headed as if he had just drunk a double whiskey or come down with a sudden fever. Sesame Street! It was Sesame Street! Could it still be on the air? As if daydreaming, he let himself be transported from an ordinary state of awareness to the far, fanciful regions of cloudy memory. The lovable puppets raced madly across the screen. He stretched out on the couch with his feet extended before him, laughing half-apologetically at the childish glee aroused by their comical voices, to which he surrendered unconditionally. The scenes kept changing, revolving like a carousel. Large letters emerged from a swimming pool to the accompaniment of a Hollywoodish sound track. Children reported in excited voices what they liked to do best with their fathers. Elmo, his strident voice too cute to be annoying, tickled the cheeks of a fat, laughing baby in a high chair with loud, fleecy kisses. Andrew relaxed and breathed evenly, soothed by the near but distant voices. His shut eyes approached the rapid movement of a dream state. A repellent, lilac-gray sky hangs over the rooftops like an old sack. Sounds of pounding are heard. They grow louder and quicker, as if someone were battering the city with a huge sledgehammer. There is a sound like an avalanche. The legionnaires, drunk with rage, swarm through the breached wall. A yellow summer sandstorm, savage and merciless, interrupts the pillar of smoke rising from the altar, blithely scattering it to the four winds.
17
The bright afternoon light hurt Andrew’s eyes, half waking him and forcing him to turn over on his side. He lifted the back of his neck, sticky with perspiration, from the leather bolster, leaving a dark, elongated stain. He sat up and looked at it indifferently, feeling a vague dread. What day was it? What time? There was somewhere he was supposed to be! He had forgotten something important. Whatever it was, he had to get there. Where was his calendar? Frantically, he racked his brain. He mustn’t be late. It would be disastrous if he were. His fear surged and subsided like a wave breaking on the shore. His mind went blank.
His eyes shut. His head fell back upon the bolster, his cheek nestling into its little pocket of sweat. At once he fell into a restless, dreamless sleep from which he awoke two hours later, feeling like an escaped prisoner who has been hiding in a ditch. The strong afternoon light streaming through the windows facing the river made him blink.
The television, which had been left on all day, was blasting away. Andrew sat up, snatched the remote control, and turned it off. The silence in the apartment was broken only by the anguished wheezing of the air conditioner, which was no longer cooling anything. He remained sitting on the couch, his wet shirt clinging to him, running a hand through his disheveled hair. It stuck up in tufts that made him look like a strange, horned creature. He hadn’t shaved in a week. He must get up and take care of himself! Cumbersomely, he rose from the couch and went to the bathroom. His eyes stung despite all the sleep he had gotten in the last day. He felt as though he had a hangover. He had better buy some pills and get some real sleep! It couldn’t go on like this. He wouldn’t shave now. He was too weak. He had to eat something and have a glass of water.