Cockpit

by Jerzy Kosiński

  Robert lived in a two-bedroom apartment with a river view, on the eighth floor of a university-owned building. From the living-room windows, I used to watch transatlantic ships making their way from the river’s mouth up to their slips in the docks. On smogless days, I could see the skyscrapers of the financial district and the blurred silhouette of the Statue of Liberty.

  My bedroom was small but air-conditioned and comfortable. Robert and Martine, his girl friend, occupied the large master bedroom, which had its own bathroom. There was another bathroom, which I used, a big living room, a good-sized dining room and a kitchen.

  By the time I moved in, Martine had left for Europe to spend the summer with her family. From her photographs she appeared to be a chubby brunette, with large, expressive eyes. Robert told me he had met her in Germany, where he had been stationed with the army. He and Martine had become engaged, and a year before I met him, he had convinced her to come to the United States. They planned to marry in the winter.

  Robert seldom spoke of his own family. All I knew was that both his parents were alive and that he had three married sisters who lived near Seattle. The family got together at most once a year, but they kept in frequent touch by telephone.

  Over the next weeks, Robert became one of the closest, most thoughtful friends I had ever had. He insisted on my speaking to him in English, although he himself could have used practice conversing in Ruthenian. He continually corrected my speech, checked my term papers for grammatical mistakes and often helped me rewrite them. He relentlessly dragged me to movies and plays, especially those that would acquaint me with regional American dialects and slang; often, he went to see them first to decide whether they were worth my while.

  It was a particularly hot summer and I found that taking several hours of classes every day was exhausting. I had begun to lose weight and looked drawn and tired. Robert worried about my health, and to be sure I ate properly he insisted on keeping me company at meals. He also took me swimming in the university pool to make certain I got exercise. For every hour of Ruthenian I spoke with him, he paid me back with many more hours of English.

  When the heat had become stifling, Robert urged me to buy a summer suit to replace the heavier European ones I always wore. He went with me to a well-known men’s shop and saw to it that I was fitted with a light-weight suit. It was a very expensive model but, fortunately, on sale at half the original price.

  I was so pleased to be unburdened of my heavy clothing that I decided to buy another summer suit before the sale ended. This time, a different salesman asked if he could help me and I told him I wanted to see the suit I was wearing in another color. The second one fitted me as well as the first, but when I asked if it was still on sale the man replied that these suits were the finest models in the store and were never reduced. I contradicted him, quoting the price of the first suit, but he continued to insist I was mistaken. I called over the manager, who reluctantly revealed that Robert had paid half the cost of the suit. At home, I confronted Robert, who apologized for his deception but felt I wouldn’t have been able to manage without a summer suit. He said he had every right to buy me a present he could easily afford, and suggested I pay him back gradually after I had repaid my university loan.

  Late in July, my father wrote to say he had received several long letters from my American roommate. Robert’s letters had moved him and my mother greatly. They were letters about me written by a man who understood my character and my roots intimately. He saw in me what my father thought only he himself had detected. My father said he had translated all of Robert’s letters for my mother, and each time he read them to her she wept. But if my mother cried over Robert’s account of my new life, it was not merely that she was reminded how much she missed her only child, but because she was happy that, on a new continent, among strangers, I had found a friend so wise and so devoted. My father, who had usually disapproved of my friends and seldom found them worthy of his praise, considered my relationship with Robert a good omen. If I was capable of eliciting such a friendship, he wrote me, I could look forward to a bright future in a new country.

  Robert’s own life was very predictable. He got up early every morning, took a cold shower, then dressed in a fresh shirt and neatly pressed pants. Next, he prepared our breakfast. He never appeared to mind waiting on me.

  During our lunch breaks Robert and I would often meet in the cafeteria or have a sandwich by the river. Sprawled on the grass, cooled by the breeze coming off the water, we listened to the distant foghorns and watched the boats moving in front of us. I experienced a tranquillity I had never known before.

  Toward evening, Robert and I often met in libraries to review the most recent American, English and Ruthenian journals and magazines.

  We attended many lectures, concerts and parties given by various departments in the university, and I began dating a girl I met at one of them. Robert would occasionally join us for dinner, but toward the end of the evening, under the pretext of having to work, he would leave us alone.

  He often invited us along to visit his friends, who seemed to be as impressed by him as I was. I was struck by his ease among them, how he never raised his voice and remained calm during even the most heated discussions.

  There were nights when he did not come home, but he would always call in the morning to say he’d slept at a friend’s and was going straight to work. I began to suspect that while Martine was away he was seeing another woman; but he would never discuss his love life with me.

  One afternoon, a man telephoned Robert at home. When I said he wasn’t in, the man asked where he could be located. Although Robert had stayed out the night before, he had not called me, so I could honestly say I didn’t know where he was. The caller asked who I was and I told him I had been Robert’s roommate for the last few months. When I suggested he leave his name and number, he reluctantly admitted he was Robert’s doctor and was calling to inquire why Robert had missed two appointments. He said he had already called the Economics Department and been told that Robert hadn’t shown up for work for the last three days. The doctor asked me to remind my roommate he had an appointment on the following day.

  Robert came back late the next afternoon, unshaven, filthy and exhausted. He cheerfully told me that he had been in a rough neighborhood assisting social workers. After he had bathed, shaved and changed, I gave him the doctor’s message, which he shrugged off. He mumbled something about not needing an annual check-up yet.

  In the middle of that night, I was awakened by a flashlight glaring in my face. Without thinking, I leaped off the bed and flung myself straight at the figure inside the doorway. The impact of my body against his threw us both down. He must have fallen against the light switch as he sank to the floor because light suddenly filled the room. As I started to get up, I got my first chance to look at the intruder. It was Robert.

  He was wearing a clean white shirt and immaculate white pants and still clutched the flashlight in his hand. By now, we were both on our feet and when he saw how upset I was he tried to calm me. He told me he thought he had heard me cry out and had come in to see what was wrong. He sounded as though he were telling the truth. When he smiled, his face was as gentle and friendly as ever. There was no question of my going straight back to sleep, and I asked him to watch the late TV movie with me. He hardly spoke during the program. Half an hour later, he said he was going to sleep and went to his bedroom, but on my way back to bed I noticed the light under his door. When I peered through the keyhole, I saw Robert lying on top of the bed, still dressed, his hands folded behind his head and his ankles crossed, apparently staring at the ceiling. I was struck by the fixedness of his expression. I wanted to ask if something bothered him, but I decided not to disturb him.

  When I got up in the morning, he had already left but there was a note reminding me it was my turn to do the laundry and food shopping. He added that he might be away for a day or two.

  That afternoon, I answered a long-distance, person-to-pers
on call from Robert’s father. As soon as he heard me informing the operator that Robert was away for a couple of days, he said he would speak to me. He told me he was surprised to learn that Robert had a roommate, because Robert had never mentioned me. Then he asked me off-handedly if I knew why Robert was not seeing his doctor. I said Robert felt he didn’t need an annual check-up yet. His father paused, and weighing his words, suggested that I urge Robert to see his doctor. He ignored me when I asked whether Robert was ill, and insisted I take the doctor’s home phone number in case Robert needed it.

  Robert did not return that night, and as I left for school in the morning I wrote him a note saying that his father had called him about contacting his doctor.

  When I got back from classes that day, I found the front door wide open. My first thought was that we had been robbed, so I entered quietly in case the robbers were still there. I walked slowly down the long corridor to the dining room, carefully checking each room I passed but everything seemed in order. As I walked through the kitchen, I saw that my note to Robert was still on the table.

  I found Robert in the dining room, hunched in a chair facing the wall, his hands folded in his lap. His shirt and pants were torn and filthy. His feet were gray with dust and grease, as if he had been walking the streets barefoot. When I got closer, I smelled his stench. He was breathing almost imperceptibly. I went back, closed the front door and returned to attend to him.

  I put my hand on his shoulder, but he did not respond. I dragged the chair away from the wall, got down on my knees and stared at him. His eyes were open and blinking sporadically but his expression was vacant. He could neither see nor hear me. I had never encountered that blankness in anyone before, and I could not imagine what had ever possessed him.

  “Robert, please answer me.” I was practically shouting but he did not respond. Placing my fingers on his temples and my thumbs on either side of his jaw, I gently pushed back his head; he froze where I had moved him, his eyes glassy, his face colorless.

  I hurried to the kitchen to get water, then ran back and splashed it on his face. Shivering and confused, he began to come out of the trance. “Robert,” I urged him, “please tell me what happened. Shall I call the doctor? Please answer me!”

  Suddenly, his eyes cleared and he sat back in the chair, mumbling a phrase I gradually began to comprehend. “I’m going to kill you,” he muttered over and over in a voice drained of all inflection. “I’m going to kill you. I have to. I have no other choice. Do you understand? I am going to kill you. I have no choice.”

  I backed away very slightly. “You are sick, Robert, and you don’t mean what you’re saying,” I said. “Please tell me what you feel.” He jumped abruptly from his chair, pushed me aside and dashed into the kitchen. I stood for a few seconds, trying to decide whether to go to him. When I finally moved toward the kitchen, he appeared in the doorway. One hand held a long carving knife and the other was extended for balance. “Robert,” I pleaded, “why do you want to kill me?”

  “I have no other choice,” he apologized in a toneless voice. “I am going to cut your head off. Now. Please don’t try to run away.” As he moved toward me, I withdrew behind the heavy mahogany dining table in the center of the room. I was paralyzed by the unreality of it all and could not make myself believe he wanted to kill me.

  “Please put the knife down, Robert. Let’s talk,” I reasoned. He stared at me, then lunged, barely missing my head with the knife.

  It was real. I had no time to take off my jacket to ward off the blows with it. Robert stalked me around the table while I maneuvered desperately to stay on the opposite side. When he leaped onto the table, I grabbed a heavy vase and hurled it at him. It hit with enough force to knock him to the floor. As he was struggling to his feet, I grabbed a chair and swung it at him, trying to knock the knife out of his grip, but he wrested the chair from me with his free hand and threw it against the wall, where it splintered.

  Suddenly, he was above me, wrestling me to the floor with the knife at my chest. As he raised the blade, I rolled over on my stomach, crawled backward, grabbed a broken chair leg and struck his shoulder. He did not drop the knife, but the blow slowed him down. Before he could recover his strength, I grabbed another chair and hurled it at the window to get attention. The glass shattered and I could hear the chair smash as it hit the ground. I counted on someone noticing the commotion and calling the police.

  Just then, Robert attacked again. He had me cornered and he thrust like a duelist ready to deliver the coup de grâce. I yelled, ducked and grasped his leg with my hands, trying to pull him off balance. He slipped but got back on his feet. Before I could run out of the room, he blocked my path to the corridor, standing with both arms extended, his knife slicing the air. I was breathless but he showed no sign of fatigue.

  For an instant, we faced each other without moving. Then, with his free hand, he cleared a path between us by throwing the three remaining chairs out the window one after another. “I have to cut off your head. Now,” he repeated. “I have no other choice.”

  “We’re friends, Robert,” I shouted at him. “Why do you want to kill me?”

  “You know why,” he said, jumping onto the table to bridge the distance between us. He waited for me to move, then threw himself at me, but I leaped sideways and he missed. We began running around the table like two boys playing tag. I was tempted to make a dash for the corridor but knew he was too fast for me.

  Suddenly, he halted at the old-fashioned bookcase that stood against the wall, and pulled it over. It hit the floor like thunder, strewing books over the floor. Now there was another obstacle, and Robert had resumed the chase. Because he was a trained jumper, his chances of catching me increased each time I hurdled the bookcase. Twice I fell over it and bruised myself, getting up only seconds before his knife reached me. I was saved not by my speed but by his choosing to aim only at my throat.

  An hour had passed since I entered the apartment. My strength was ebbing, but the deadly game of tag continued. Suddenly, we heard hammering and shouts of, “Open up. Police,” at the front door. Robert paused, distracted by the sounds, and I took advantage of the interruption to pick up a thick dictionary from the floor and throw it into the corridor to further distract him.

  The hammering and shouting increased. Determined to finish me off, Robert attacked again. I tried to run away but tripped over the bookcase, and the distance between us shortened. The police still pounded on the door. I took a desperate chance and bent down to pick up another book; just then Robert lunged again. He missed my neck but nicked my jacket collar. Again, I managed to break away and hurled the book into the corridor over his head.

  At that moment, the police shot open the lock and entered with guns drawn. I shouted to them not to fire because Robert was sick. They raced down the corridor. Reaching the dining room, their guns still cocked, they ordered him to drop the knife and raise his arms above his head.

  Robert’s face suddenly regained its alertness and he turned from me, charging at the two men with a speed and ferocity far beyond what he had shown in chasing me. It was then I realized he could have caught and killed me at almost any point, but that he had intentionally slowed himself down.

  Against the policemen, he became a natural killer. Within seconds, he had cut one officer’s uniform twice. The policeman was about to shoot but I pleaded with him not to. For the first time since the police entered, Robert became aware of my presence. He turned his head in my direction and, as he did, the other policeman slugged him. Robert’s body went limp and he fell at our feet.

  He was taken to the hospital and I to the police station. The officer in charge referred to Robert as my “schizo friend” and told me that Robert had a record of violent attacks and was supposed to have been under psychiatric care. I made a deposition and went to visit Robert, but the attending doctor told me Robert was under heavy sedation and was not allowed any visitors. The doctor’s only comment was that I was lucky to be alive.


  I called Robert’s parents. When his father answered, I told him what had happened, and he said he would fly in immediately to see Robert and me. He stopped by the apartment the following afternoon, having spent the morning at the hospital. He was in excellent shape for a man his age, with a handsome, impassive face. He surveyed the wreckage in the dining room and looked at my bruised head. “Robert has been under medical supervision ever since he returned from the army,” he said. “He has been hospitalized many times before.”

  “Why didn’t you warn me when I talked to you the first time?” I asked. He didn’t answer. “Why did he stop seeing his doctor?” I demanded.

  He looked at me blandly. “You should know. You lived with him.” We both stopped talking, strangers with only one hideous interest in common.

  “When did Robert become ill?” I finally asked.

  “When he was in the army,” he said. “When they realized how sick he was, they discharged him.”

  “Was there any indication of disturbance before he enlisted?” I asked.

  Robert’s father rose and picked up his hat from the table. “When Robert was a small boy, I gave him a dog,” he said. “A big, strong animal. The kid loved it more than anything else in the world. Two years later he cut off the dog’s head.”

  Shortly after Robert was committed I went back to Europe. Even now, whenever I become involved with others enough to expect certain patterns of behavior or to rely on them, the memory of my experience with Robert returns to alert me. In a sense, Robert continues to be a close friend, reminding me from time to time of the estrangement that may lie beneath apparent mutual understanding.

  I settled in Switzerland and began working in a small chemical laboratory. To earn money for ski weekends, I worked overtime in the lab and did free-lance translations. I boarded with a family in their small house to make my money last. The couple worked on weekends during the tourist season and asked me if I would mind taking their ten-year-old daughter to the ski slopes with me. The little girl loved to ski, but her parents wouldn’t let her try the higher slopes by herself and were pleased that I accompanied her.