“I’m willing to give you a percentage. All I ask is that you arrange something between myself and the artist.”
Dalha sat down in a chair next to the curtained doorway separating the front and back sections of the art gallery. She pulled her emerald shawl around herself and said, “Even if I wished to arrange something I could not do it. I have no idea what his name is myself. A few nights ago he walked up to me on the street while I was waiting for a cab to take me home.”
“What does he look like?” I had to ask at that moment.
“It was late at night and I was drunk,” Dalha replied, somehow evasively it seemed to me.
“Was he a younger man, an older man?”
“An older man, yes. Not very tall, with bushy white hair like a professor of some kind. And he said that he wanted to have an artwork of his delivered to my gallery. I explained to him my usual terms as best I could, since I was so drunk. He agreed and then walked off down the street. And that’s not the best part of town to be walking around all by yourself. Well, the next day a package arrived with the tape-recording machine and so forth. There were also some instructions which explained that I should destroy each of the audio tapes before I leave the art gallery at the end of the day, and that a new tape would arrive the following day and each day thereafter.
There was no return address on the packages.”
“And did you destroy the bungalow house tape?” I asked.
“Of course,” said Dalha with some exasperation, but also with insistence. “What do I care about some crazy artist’s work or how he conducts his career. Besides, he guaranteed I would make some money on the deal, and here I am already with seventy-five dollars. “
“So why not sell me this dream monologue about the derelict factory? I won’t say anything.”
Dalha was quiet for a moment, and then said, “He told me that if I didn’t destroy the tapes each day he would know about it and that he would do something. I’ve forgotten exactly what he said, I was so drunk that night.”
“But how could he know?” I asked, and in reply Dalha just stared at me in silence. “All right, all right,” I said. “But I still want you to make an arrangement. You have his money for the bungalow house tape and the tape about the derelict factory. If he’s any kind of artist, he’ll want to be paid. When he gets in touch with you, that’s when you make the arrangement for me. I won’t cheat you out of your percentage. I give you my word on that.
“Whatever that’s worth,” Dalha said bitterly.
But she did agree that she would try to arrange something between myself and the tape-recording artist. I left the art gallery immediately after these negotiations, before Dalha could have any second thoughts. That afternoon, while I was working in the Language and Literature department of the library, I could think about nothing but the derelict factory that was so enticingly pictured on the new audiotape. The bus that takes me to and from the library each day of the working week always passes such a structure, which stands isolated in the distance just as the artist described it in his dream monologue.
That night I slept badly, thrashing about in my bed, not quite asleep and not quite awake. At times I had the feeling there was someone else in my bedroom who was talking to me, but of course I could not deal with this perception in any realistic way, since I was half-asleep and half-awake, and thus, for all practical purposes, I was out of my mind.”
Around three o’clock in the morning the telephone rang. In the darkness I reached for my eyeglasses, which were on the nightstand next to the telephone, and noted the luminous face of my alarm clock. I cleared my throat and said hello. The voice on the other end said hello back to me. It was Dalha.
“I talked to him,” she said.
“Where did you talk to him?” I asked. “On the street?”
“No, no, not on the street,” she said, giggling a little. I think she must have been drunk. “He called me on the telephone.”
“He called you on the telephone?” I repeated, imagining for a moment what it would be like to have the voice of that artist speak to me over the telephone and not merely on a recorded audiotape.
“Yes, he called me on the telephone.”
“What did he say?”
“Well, I could tell you if you would stop asking so many questions.”
“Tell me.”
“It was only a few minutes ago that he called. He said that he would meet you tomorrow at the library where you work.”
“You told him about me?” I asked, and then there was a long silence. “Dalha?” I prompted.
“Yes, I told him about you. But I never knew what you did for a living. How long have you worked at the library?”
“Fifteen years. Did he say anything else to you?” I asked Dalha.
“No, nothing.”
“Maybe it was only a coincidence that he said he would meet me at the library and that I also work at the library,” I said. “People meet all the time at the library. I see them meeting there everyday.”
“Of course they do,” said Dalha, a little patronizing it seemed for someone who was so drunk at three o’clock in the morning. Then she said good-bye and hung up before I could say good-bye back to her.
After talking to Dalha I found it impossible to sleep anymore that night, even if it was only a state of half-sleeping and half-waking. All I could think about was meeting the artist of the dream monologues. So I got myself ready to go to work, rushing as if I were late, and walked up to the corner of my street to wait for the bus.
It was very cold as I sat waiting in the bus shelter. There was a sliver of moon high in the blackness above, with several hours remaining before sunrise.
Somehow I felt that I was waiting for the bus on the first day of a new schoolyear, since after all the month was September, and I was so filled with both fear and excitement. When the bus finally arrived I saw that there were only a few other early risers headed for downtown. I took one of the back seats and stared out the window, my own face staring back at me in black reflection.
At the next shelter we approached I noticed that another lone bus rider was seated on the bench waiting to be picked up. His clothes were dark colored (including a long loose overcoat and hat), and he sat up very straight, his arms held close to the body and his hands resting on his lap. His head was slightly bowed, and I could not see the face beneath his hat. His physical attitude, I thought to myself as we approached the lighted bus shelter, was one of disciplined repose. I was surprised that he did not stand up as the bus came nearer to the shelter, and ultimately we passed him by. I wanted to say something to the driver of the bus but a strong feeling of both fear and excitement made me keep my silence.
The bus finally dropped me off in front of the library, and I ran up the tiered stairway that led to the main entrance. Through the thick glass doors I could see that only a few lights illuminated the spacious interior of the library.
After rapping on the glass for a few moments I saw a figure dressed in a maintenance man’s uniform appear in the shadowy distance inside the building. I rapped some more and the man slowly proceeded down the library’s vaulted central hallway.
“Good morning, Henry,” I said as the door opened.
“Hello, sir,” he replied without standing aside to allow my entrance to the library. “You know I’m not supposed to open these doors before it’s time for them to be open.”
“I’m a little early, I realize, but I’m sure it will be all right to let me inside. I work here, after all.”
“I know you do, sir. But a few days ago I got talked to about these doors being open when they shouldn’t be. It’s because of the stolen property.”
“What property is that, Henry? Books?”