Proska nodded.
The colonel marked a pause, fastidiously scratched his long head, and tried in vain to press his black, close-clipped hair down against his skull. In the end, he renounced this effort with a scant smile and said, “You have proved yourself, Proska, you’ve shown that you’re not a sentimental traditionalist. In general, a revolutionary state has no need to thank any given individual, for by the very fact of his cooperation, such an individual has received a guarantee for the future. In your special case, however, I want to say that we acknowledge a certain appreciation. You will receive your discharge from us today. We need men like you in our zone. We have big plans for you. Now you are to pack your things and come back to me with them. You’ll be assigned an office, and you’ll live in a room that’s already been prepared for you. But go now. Later, I’ll give you the necessary instructions…Have you understood everything I’ve said?”
“Yes,” said Proska, and then he stood up.
He’d received the necessary instructions; he’d also received new identity documents and, to his surprise, a selection of canteen items, and after he’d taken his leave of Colonel Swerdlow, the two Mongol soldiers had come to fetch him and bring him to his future apartment.
The Sunday silence lured him outside—clearly, the two soldiers weren’t coming back, so why should he wait for them?
Proska closed the window, gave his clothes a cursory adjustment, and walked out to the front garden. He turned around and observed the house he’d been brought to. He liked it, certainly, but he had the feeling the proprietor could appear before him at any moment and ask what he was doing there and what gave him the right to move about so blithely on someone else’s property. Speculating about the owner was surely idle, but Proska couldn’t get used to his new situation so quickly, and therefore he instinctively ducked down below every window and went to great pains to walk past in such a way that nobody inside could see him. Once, to be sure, he let himself go, he got careless and strutted bolt upright to the middle of a window, and then, in a fit of defiance, he turned his head toward the house and even stared through the glass pane. For the first time, he saw his own room from outside: the bed, cowering in one corner like a flat, gray animal, and the rigid chairs, and in front of the bed, the wooden chest that held his belongings. He smiled cautiously and continued his reconnaissance. He didn’t know who—besides himself—lived in this house; naturally, he would have been glad to find out, and had he noticed someone at one window or another, he would also have been prepared to strike up an acquaintance, but he saw nothing that might have led him to conclude that the house in question was occupied by anyone other than him. This, it turned out, was the sole result of his reconnaissance, but it was quite enough for him; the certainty gave him satisfaction. Had he not had this certainty, he would probably have left the garden gate open; now, however, he pulled the little gate closed almost pedantically, nor did he refrain from sliding home the useless bolt, which anyone could have easily reached.
Proska walked down the street. In the distance, he’d spotted two old women trying to cross the road diagonally. Apparently, their progress was slow at best, for Proska, striding toward them, had covered a considerable distance while the women had gone only a few steps. Proska picked up his pace; his intention was to greet the ladies, introduce himself, and then ask them some questions. He felt an urgent need to talk with people, and he walked faster and faster in order to intercept the two before they reached the single undamaged house that seemed to be their goal. When he was almost within hailing distance, they greatly increased their speed, and just as he was taking a deep breath and opening his mouth to call, the unexpectedly nimble old women, their black skirts flying behind them, sprang into the entrance.
Proska hastened after them—he wasn’t going to give up his plan so easily—but when he reached the entryway, he found it empty. He determined to hide in a wall niche and wait. He suspected that behind their apartment door—he could see it from his post—the women were laughing themselves breathless. He almost thought he could hear their heartbeats.
The stairwell, which received light only through a little window patched with cardboard, smelled strongly of boiled cabbage. Proska lurked in the niche, his head against the tiled wall, the words ready to leap from his tongue. Nothing happened; the apartment door stayed shut.
Maybe they’re not listening after all…why would they…I didn’t do anything to them…but people don’t run away for no reason…still, nobody here knows me…they ran from me…what am I doing in this building?
Someone inside seemed to be fiddling with the door. Proska, startled, pressed his body hard against the wall. Then he watched while a child, a little girl with a serious face, stepped out onto the landing, looked back, and nodded, as though receiving a final instruction. Then the girl, who was carrying a doll, came to the wall niche and knelt down quite close to Proska.
The child hadn’t noticed him yet. She held the doll at arm’s length, turned it this way and that in the meager light, and started to give it a stern talking-to. Proska squinted down at the child. He dared not turn his head, because he was afraid the little girl would discover him and take fright.
“Be good and stand there,” said the girl to the doll. “You mustn’t fall over now. If you fall over, you’re going to get it. First one leg, and then—”
The doll fell over onto the cement floor; its head hit the metal strip on the edge of one of the steps.
“See what happens when you disobey? So let’s try again. First one leg—”
The doll fell over again, and the girl uttered an angry little scream, turned up the doll’s tiny checkered skirt, exposed its minuscule panties, and spanked its behind with two fingers. Proska smiled to himself and breathed a bit less warily.
“Come on,” said the girl. “For the last time. If you won’t be good, I don’t want you anymore. I’ll find myself another doll. I have to say, you’re not very nice.”
Taking great care, the little girl spread the doll’s legs, let it go, and…stood up in mute rage. The doll had fallen over again. The child looked down on it contemptuously and moved closer to it, centimeter by centimeter. Then she suddenly raised a foot and brought it down on the doll’s head. There was a sharp crack. That crack was too much for Proska. He groaned, came charging out of the wall niche, gave the little girl a slight shove, raced down the few steps, and regained the street. He slowed down only after turning into a side alley.
He looked behind him several times, and after he’d made certain he wasn’t being followed, he continued at a leisurely pace, assessing the damage the buildings had suffered, casting a glance over a garden fence here and there, and sometimes—just in passing—gazing into windows. Since the sun was now cheerfully sitting on his back, and since he was enjoying his walk, his inner comrade started feeling merry and demanded a song. And Proska warbled a tune to himself. Ah, yes. His legs weren’t heavy, no straps were compressing his shoulders, and there was nothing in his hands. Nothing. He warbled to himself: “Ro-hose Ma-rie.” My God, am I in a good mood, or what? All the meat-processing factories were closed. “Cuddlin’, kissin’, I’ve been missin’.” What a day. Flex those thighs, flex those calves…Ah, yes. He warbled to himself, “Come a-gain-gain-gain,” “God’s no older than thirty, and he wears a woolen tie,” “When I come, when I come, I will certainly be there.”
A saxophone tugged at his sleeve—a tune played by a saxophone, of course. Well, say. Where are you hiding, marvel of holes and keys? Proska came to a stop. Without realizing it, he’d been walking for hours. “I’ll be there soon,” the darkness said.
Proska entered the bar and went straight through to the dance hall. The saxophone had seduced him. The dance floor was almost square. The orchestra was playing a slow fox-trot, and eight or so couples were dancing. The room smelled of hay and tobacco and sweat. A waiter cried, “Coming through!” and once again, “Coming through!�
� and skillfully balanced a tray of beers all the way to the tables. “One-eighty. And you, that comes to, wait, stop, you’re paying for both? Then three-sixty, please.”
Proska waited. He had nothing in his hands, and his hands were used to having something in them. Something that weighed around four kilograms. He slipped his hands into his pockets. And when the orchestra had ended the slow fox-trot, he observed that five of the men who were leaving the dance floor likewise thrust their hands into their pockets. He felt drawn to them, and he sensed that they also felt drawn to him. Apparently, they knew one another—from somewhere. But where? He had no idea.
“Will you please move away from the door?” said the waiter to Proska. “Sit at one of the tables. There’s no shortage of chairs—plenty of room for you. Do you want something to drink?”
“Yes, a beer. A lager.”
As Proska was squeezing past the occupied tables, he gave a sudden start and fixed his eyes on a young woman. She wore a leaf-green dress with a narrow belt around her hourglass waist. He closed his eyes as though in a daze, he trembled, he stood as stiff as a clothes pole among the tables.
Wanda, he thought. Wanda, Wanda. Here? That’s not possible. Wanda, now, dancing, here?
With his eyes closed, he took two little steps, and his thigh bumped into the edge of a table.
“Hey, watch where you’re going, man, you’re not blind! You almost knocked over the beer glasses. You’ve got plenty of room!”
Proska emerged from his thoughts and looked at her. She paid him no attention. Who was she, anyway? He didn’t know her at all. Maybe she looked something like Wanda. Something like, no more. The orchestra played a fox-trot. The girl danced with a one-armed man. He held her tight, you had to give him that. He never lost his grip on her.
Now Proska no longer felt like sitting at one of the tables. He slowly left the bar, and as he was leaving, he said to the waiter, “No beer for me.”
The waiter nodded.
* * *
—
While still a good distance away, Proska spotted a light on the upper floor of the house he now called home. Either someone had already been living up there before his arrival, or someone had taken advantage of his absence and moved in fast. The bolt on the garden gate was not shot; Proska remembered that he had shot it. He entered his room, undressed in the dark, and after waiting for a longish time in the vain hope of hearing voices or the sound of footsteps overhead, he fell asleep. That night, he didn’t dream.
• FIFTEEN •
In the beginning, Proska’s office colleagues changed very quickly. There was a constant, soundless coming and going; people would appear and do their job for a period of time, and then an immense shadow would fall on them from one side or another and they would disappear overnight. Only Proska remained. He was allowed to remain. When he came out from behind his double doors in the evening, he’d go up to every person in the office and very conscientiously say goodbye, because he didn’t know whether he’d find them there the following day. He didn’t have the power to do anything about that, he didn’t even know who was responsible for those changes, but they happened, and therefore someone must have decreed them. Proska gradually acquired a knack for identifying who would be the next to go; the people concerned bore their fate on their faces unmistakably, like a stigma. Only very seldom did Proska’s forecasts turn out to be wrong. And when he did get one wrong, he’d assume not that his prophecy had been mistaken, but that the bureau in charge of making personnel changes had revoked its decision at the last minute. On what grounds, he of course had no idea. He wasn’t indifferent to knowing, but he saw no possibility of finding out. Sometimes he thought that the colonel had a hand in this; however, there was no proof of his involvement. Proska sat behind his double doors and pondered. He racked his brains with the most remarkable hypotheses, but his fickle cogitations bore no fruit. Nothing corroborated them, and his anxiety grew. His anxiety grew, even though he himself had nothing to complain about. The double doors warned him whenever anyone tried to pass through them, so that he never had any fear of being disturbed. When he heard the first handle turning, he changed the expression on his face and cleared his desk of everything not connected to his work, and in this way he was forearmed at all times.
The people who brought Proska a document to sign or asked him to take a look at a case eschewed any attempt at familiarity, they remained impassively humble in his presence until he made his decision, and they didn’t allow themselves to proffer any helpful advice, which he never expected anyway. When he was alone again, he began to brood, he thought despairingly about Wanda, he kept wondering why she hadn’t answered any of the many letters he’d sent her since their last meeting. He reflected on the possibility that a child of his was alive in the world, and he tried to imagine what that child looked like. Proska thought himself back to the marsh; a stealthy longing for the Fortress and the old river overcame him. Wolfgang, Zwiczosbirski, Maria…if Maria knew…if she found out I killed Rogalski…she’ll find out sooner or later, if she hasn’t already…the past isn’t all that merciful…it comes back…it’ll shine a light on my secret one day…everything’s stored somewhere…the words we spoke in the rain, our movements, our looks, our thoughts, everything…there’s no depth so deep that time couldn’t bring it back up to the surface…Sit and breathe and wait…breathe…wait…almost all the people have been replaced…they’ll replace me too…and then what happens?…They can’t just let me go…Why do they favor one person and let the other disappear?…On Thursday they arrested Mospfleger because he was in a bar soliciting for the conscientious objectors’ organization…This morning Jupp was missing…I bade him a proper farewell last night…Maybe they’re intercepting my letters to Wanda?…Outposts, the colonel said…
Proska suddenly decided to pull open a drawer and toss into it everything that was on his desk.
He threw his scarf around his neck, pulled on his overcoat, and opened the double doors. The people in the outer office looked up in surprise; they’d never seen Proska behave that way; they found his grim determination unsettling, and they started frenetically rummaging through the papers they had in front of them. It was the first time he’d ever left the office during working hours. They were aware of his recent past, and they respected him for it. But none of them knew what it was that he actually did behind those double doors; they had absolutely no idea what kind of role he played, for he neither participated in training sessions nor showed up at meetings or demonstrations. Naturally, they sometimes wondered why he nevertheless stayed on. The only explanation they could come up with was his past.
“Kunkel,” said Proska. “You sit by the telephone. And if the phone rings, then you pick up the receiver and say I’ll be back soon.”
“Very well,” said Kunkel. “I have two more documents for you to sign—”
“Later,” said Proska. “We’ll do all that later.”
And he left the office.
Benches were ranged on both sides of the long, tiled corridor, and on the benches sat people waiting their turn to enter Proska’s department; and when he walked past them, his upper body bent forward, his footsteps echoing, their murmured conversations died out, and he was the focus of all eyes. Those individuals were dependent on him, and they seemed to suspect that this was the case. The flying skirts of his overcoat occasionally grazed someone’s knee or snatched another’s breath from his mouth. Proska turned to no one. Up until then, his outer office had spared him all direct contact. He’d never walked down the fully occupied corridor before, and at that moment, he vowed to deal in future with the waiting supplicants himself. To be sure, doing so would prevent him from getting as wrapped up in his thoughts as heretofore, but on the other hand, he knew he could use some distraction.
As Proska briefly paused on the stairs to button his overcoat, he heard the murmuring—an anonymous trickle—start up again in the corridor. It struck his
ear like distant drumming. He sprang down the stairs, strode past giant posters, loyalty ribbons, and pithy admonitions, turned his head away as he passed the porter’s glass cage, and stepped out to the street.
Outside, rain was falling. Proska turned up his coat collar and walked across a deserted square.
It was a cold and gloomy autumn afternoon. The sun hadn’t shown its face for several days. The air was oddly heavy; his lungs seemed reluctant to take it in. A cloud of haze usually hung over the factories for only a while before being dispersed by the wind, but now the haze was obstinately squatting on the city. It got into your pores, your nostrils; you could taste it on your tongue.
Proska walked through the public gardens. Not a human in sight. He slowed his pace, and someone who didn’t know him might have assumed that he was trying to go in two directions at once, for he trotted forward a few meters and then made a tight loop that brought him back to a spot not too distant from his starting point. He continued in this way until the gardens were behind him, and by then he was already at the train station. The colonel will be at his friendliest if I come to see him right before he gets off…now is too early, I might disturb him in the middle of some important work…hope he’s not vacationing somewhere on Lake Ladoga at this very minute…actually, I think he lives there…it’ll be best for me to get to his office in an hour or so…no earlier…under no circumstances should I get there earlier.
There were a strikingly disproportionate number of women in the station, many of them holding children by the hand. They looked up at the clock and then out at the platform. The platform was wet with many puddles, which the rain was gradually enlarging. With the exception of the railroad employee at the ticket window and an old man supporting himself with a cane, Proska was the only man in the concourse. He stuck a cigarette between his lips and lit it, and when he did, everyone looked at him. He pretended not to notice, walked over to a red poster, and feigned reading the black words. This, he hoped, would make the people spare him their looks; but he could feel those looks burning through the back of his overcoat, as sharp as before. Then he turned around and asked the woman standing nearest to him, “Why are you all waiting here? Is this some kind of meeting? Why aren’t you in your houses at this time of day? Your men will want their dinner when they get home from work. Me, I’d let my wife know…” His voice became unsure, thin. He realized that his clumsy bonhomie was out of place. But how was he to retreat now? The old man was blinking at him suspiciously, the ticket puncher craned his neck for a better view, and the other women inconspicuously crowded forward and surrounded Proska in an open circle.
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