• • •
The chair, the desk. . the comrade spy in front of it. . the nearby coworkers swallowed in white mist the way that mountains rise from fog at dawn among the trees after a chilly night. The somnolent prisoner among confused, rising voices like stray tones in the woods, barely plucked from night.
The bustle of the early hours: drawers slammed, voices, telephones, rustling paper. Between dry lips, the bitter white pill to chase away sleep, bodily fatigue. . soft steps, treading the white misty waters. Soon there will be earth under his feet. A narrow strip of light will insinuate itself on the peak of the hill, the color of a delayed morning. At the middle or a quarter of the way, words will suddenly come through the receiver raised to his ear.
You see him. He’s close, a step away, near your drawing board.
In the pocket of his portfolio, a bundle of white pages covered with signs, understandings that came too late. The envelope from Donca, the sister that he’d told you about. Stepping toward the door, hesitating, and turning back, his hand again on the gleaming white envelope. The door closed, shut — the avenues of retreat: blocked. Nothing could be delayed anymore. The gong had sounded, the due-date arrived. Stairs, the upholstered office. The phrase, rapidly, negligently hurled out:
— I can’t stand typewriters anymore.
We can’t stand typewriters anymore, those machines. We’re lunatics. We fall asleep within the nightmare of machines listening, recording, printing, and classifying. We go numb toward dawn, as though paralyzed. Speeches, fairy tales, and lullabies: traps at every step. We sleep in haste. We rise pale and groggy from the ritual of tiredness that subdues us like hypnosis, from which only murder could revive us.
He climbed the stairs, suddenly, disconnected from the tiny, senseless event resembling any other, like the drop that finally makes the water spill over the edge of the glass. The avoided meeting with an imagined sister banished between the sheets of a belated envelope — and the grotesque, the surrogate, little Moni-pig, Monica.
Anything could have been said, even the truth. They might have recapitulated the months of years, the days of weeks — the years of months of weeks of days — when the lunatic had gradually lost the strength to climb the hill of captive mornings anymore, and he heard, ever weaker and more distant, the words that once gave him strength: have to, and a bit more, again today, again tomorrow, maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after that. . until the sky would suddenly grow dark, thunderous, and the postponements would finally explode: that would be the end.
The interim and hierarchic chief, Comrade Caba, would have to listen to the warning and pass it on to his own interim and hierarchic bosses, for the warning was not addressed to him alone, or to them. Nor did it belong solely to the subordinate who delivered it. The cryptic lament would have to be uttered. It was, in fact, a threat.
Then, the first steps in the rain, the fugitive’s cadence, the liberating refrain of a moment in the professor’s moldy cage: I-can’t-stand-anymore, once, twice, the cadence ever more aggressive between the cold walls of the event that presumed you as witness and accomplice.
He could have said anything. Caba might have given anything in response — seeking a joke, a diversion, a recollection. He might have concocted any surprise — if anything he said could still surprise. . attempting one last chance, hoping that it’s never too late to mislead once again, to sweep away the foolish target, to manipulate and deceive.
— I knew then what you risked for me. We were only high-school students, but back then, any obstacle might have been able to delay me for several years or maybe even cause a definitive failure. Who on earth knows?
The subordinate to whom he was speaking wasn’t susceptible to surprises. He knew his interlocutor too well — and all of his worn-out tricks — about which he had explained to you over and over again.
Sebastian Caba might have complained about the way relations between them had been made too officiaclass="underline" the subordinate’s hasty and obsequious daily greeting, and the distance that the subordinate maintained.
— I don’t understand what happened. We were proud of you, envious even. In a way, we may even accuse you of allowing mediocrities to get ahead.
Raising his hands to mime helplessness or bewilderment, Caba rose to his feet behind the glass-topped desk: he knew how to listen and answer, and he continued maintaining perfect, benevolent, well-meaning, well-shining camaraderie, while assuming the appearance of amazement, with the perfect balance of emotion and expression, with studied cheerfulness, and with calculated compassion. He fell silent opportunely, understandingly, wisely. He went on listening.
— I can’t stand typewriters anymore.
His manicured, long, white hands rested on the thick glass covering the desk. He went on listening.
— I can’t stand typewriters anymore.
Concern united his hands, intertwining them, even and pale.
— I can’t stand typewriters anymore.
This stubbornly repeated phrase seemed like a sign of madness. Palms unclasped, Caba’s hands opened upward, showing him distressed and powerless in front of this strange mumbling.
— I can’t stand typewriters anymore.
The superior led his colleague to the door and raised the fine, pale fingers of his left hand to the doorframe, where he leaned his shoulder and head in a sad gesture.
Static finale: the left hand leaning against the doorframe like a thoughtful and frail branch.
• • •
Just like another time. The massive desk covered with a thick sheet of glass. The sentence settles over the glass rectangle, over the pale, manicured hands with the palms motionlessly waiting on the gleaming glass. Just like that other time.
Back then, he was counting banknotes. He had lifted his eyes and recognized a forgotten colleague. His gaze suddenly brightened the room. The air vibrated with his cordiality. You remained near the door, beside the unknown newcomer you’d accompanied to meet the chief, directing him toward the window at the end of the room, and then remaining forgotten near the door. Filling the room with words, Sebastian Caba had started exercising his amiability right away. The unshaven guest in a dusty blue shirt with traces of whitewash or lime was struggling — shy and awkward. Caba’s hands waved through the air, practically aflame, encircling the guest, weakening his opposition, and asking the questions, while his former colleague brought his hand to his throat, a defensive reflex.
Near the door, something rustled, like a cat’s hair. The stranger turned, amazed, and only then did he look carefully at the features of the girl who had brought him there, and your wiry hair seemed almost metallic.
Caba had the hands of an adolescent: thin, velvety — as though they’d never perspired — protected from cuts, eczema, or chilblains, untouched by warts or boils. He shook other people’s hands thoughtfully, slowly, patiently. It was perhaps the conquerors’ first surprise and his first triumph in the class of timid provincials where he’d appeared. The class followed him with their eyes, enamored from the start, and when he took his seat, his gaze lingered on the classmate right in front of him. Perhaps he suddenly wanted an ally, or believed himself to be discovered, endangered.
Now, he had raised his left hand, his pale fingers contrasted against the coffee-colored doorframe. He bowed his head, shoulders, and body while remaining dreamily in the doorway, unmoving, as in a picture, watching his subordinate rush down the stairs.
A chill ran down your spine. Your wiry hair rustled, as it had at the stranger’s first appearance, when he brought his hand to his throat, in defense. The gesture shouldn’t have ever been repeated. . No one had the right to mimic the well-known gesture of your dead father, and no one had the right to record him. You had imagined — over and over, too many times — the moment of triumph when some stranger would involuntarily bring his hand to his throat and you would be able to watch — uncaring, apathetic, able to live again among the living. When the stranger suddenly brought his hand to his throat, you grew pale. Your delicate palm rubbed against the whitewashed wall, and the fine plaster dust stuck to it.