I felt something unpleasantly abnormal about my left arm and quickly raised it, only to discover that my watch was missing.
“My watch!” I exclaimed, jumping to my feet. “Someone’s stolen my watch!”
By now I was completely awake and completely sober. The sun had already come up and there was a raw wind blowing in from the mountain pass. The rollers were breaking heavily against the shore. Standing on a strip of beach across from us was an elderly tourist, doing his morning calisthenics. As he lowered himself slowly, painfully slowly on his long thin legs, I couldn’t help wondering if he would ever get up again. But having rested at the bottom of his deep knee bend, he managed to raise himself in slow, wobbling fashion. Once fully erect, he stretched out his arms and froze in position as if he were trying to regain his balance. Or perhaps he merely wished to listen to the inner workings of his body after this strenuous exertion.
The policemen had also been following the old man’s movements and now, no longer worried on his account, one of them turned to me and asked:
“What make was your watch — a Pobeda?”[7]
“No, a Doxa — a Swiss watch,” I replied bitterly, though not without feeling a certain pride at the magnitude of my loss.
“Who was with you?” asked the other policeman.
“I was alone,” I replied cautiously.
“We’ll go back to the station and file a report,” said the policeman who had taken my passport. “Then if it turns up, we’ll notify you.”
“Okay, let’s go,” I said. And we set off.
I felt very sad at the loss of my watch, which I’d come to think of almost as an old friend. It had been a high school graduation present from my uncle, and I had worn it all these years without anything ever happening to it. It was waterproof, shatterproof, antimagnetic, and its black shiny face gleamed like a miniature night sky. Several times during my student days at the Institute I had accidentally left it in the dormitory washroom, but the cleaning lady or one of my classmates had always returned it to me. Thus, over the years I had somehow come to believe that in addition to all its other virtues it was also theftproof.
“Do you have an import authorization form for your watch?” asked one of the policemen.
“How could I?” I replied. “It was war booty, my uncle brought it back in forty-five.”
“Do you remember the serial number?” he asked, continuing with his questions.
“No,” I answered, “but I’ll recognize it without that.”
We had cut diagonally through the park and come out onto a quiet, unfamiliar street. This street — as indeed every street in town — was lined with one-story houses mounted on long, rickety piles. The residents of this town were occupied solely with the building of such houses. And once they had built one, they would immediately begin selling it or exchanging it at additional cost for some other house which was supposedly more attractive — though in what way, one could never figure out, for all of these houses were as much alike as peas in a pod. The owners themselves scarcely had time to enjoy them, since for half the year they would rent them out to tourists in order to accumulate enough capital to begin frantically building a new house with even longer and ricketier legs. In this town a man’s whole worth was defined by the phrase: “He’s building a house.”
A man who’s building a house is an honest man, a decent and deserving man. A man who’s building a house is a man who keeps himself busy in his spare time, a man who has put down roots. If something happens, he’s not going to take off — which means he’s trustworthy. And a trustworthy man is a man you can invite to weddings and funerals, a man who would make a good son-in-law or a good father-in-law. In short, he’s a man you can do business with.
I mention all this not because it was here that my watch was stolen, but because such has always been my opinion of the town. Actually it’s not even a question of personal gain in this case, since the house or, more accurately, the process of building the house is merely a symbol for something else. If, for example, it were agreed that from this day forth a man’s worth was to be measured by the number of peacocks he had raised, everyone in town would immediately start raising peacocks and would soon be swapping them back and forth, feeling their tails and boasting about the size of their eggs. Man’s passion for self-esteem can take the strangest and most varied forms. The form itself is immaterial as long as it catches the eye and represents a sufficiently large investment of time and energy.
Passing through a creaking wicket gate, we entered the well-kept grounds of the local police station. A spreading mulberry tree stood in the center of the luxuriant green lawn, and placed conveniently under its leafy branches were some benches and a solidly anchored table for backgammon or dominoes. Between the lawn and the picket fence there was a row of young apple trees heavily laden with fruit. This was the most hospitable-looking police yard I had ever laid eyes on, and I could easily imagine the police chief sitting here with a flock of penitent criminals, putting up preserves on a fall afternoon.
We followed the well-beaten path which led up to the building and went inside. A policeman was sitting behind a wooden partition in the middle of the room, and right by the door a young couple was seated on a long bench. The girl reminded me of the girl I had seen the night before, except that now she wasn’t wearing a sweater. I gave her a questioning look.
One of my police escorts left the room. The other took a seat on the bench, and turning to me, he said:
“Well, go ahead and file your complaint.”
Then he took a good look at the young couple on the bench and glanced questioningly at the policeman seated behind the partition.
“Picked up wandering around without any papers,” the latter explained matter-of-factly.
The girl had turned her head and was now gazing in the direction of the open door. Once again she reminded me of the girl from the night before.
“Where’s your sweater?” I asked her, suddenly overcome by a desire to play detective.
“What are you talking about — what sweater?” she said with a haughty glance in my direction and then turned her head once again toward the door. The boy looked up in alarm.
“Excuse me,” I mumbled, “I mistook you for someone else.”
From her voice I realized that she was not the same girl. I have a bad memory for faces, but voices I remember very well. Taking out my notebook, I walked over to the partition and began thinking about how I would phrase my complaint.
“You can’t use that for an official statement,” said the policeman behind the partition as he handed me a clean sheet of paper.
I gave in, now realizing once and for all that my notebook was not destined for use on this assignment.
“Please let us go, comrade policeman,” the boy pleaded dully. “You’d think we’d committed a crime or something.”
“As soon as the captain arrives, he’ll decide what to do,” replied the policeman from behind the partition. His tone was clearly conciliatory, and the boy said nothing more. Through the open windows one could hear the distant scraping of the caretaker’s broom and the chirping of birds.
“How much longer do you expect us to wait?” the girl asked angrily. “We’ve already been sitting here for an hour and a half.”
“Now don’t get smart, young lady,” said the policeman without raising his voice or changing his position. He sat there at his table, with his cheek resting on one hand and a sad, sleepy look on his face. “The captain’s out making his rounds. There’s been a rape case,” he added after a moment’s reflection, “and here you are wandering around without any papers.”