Who is it you’re looking for? The visitor had disturbed her at that late hour: I should have gone to open the door, but I was afraid it might be another of her guests; no one ever came to see me. Who are you looking for? Her voice sounded slightly irritated, she was probably in her bare feet on the cement. Who are you looking for? — but if she didn’t get an answer why didn’t she just slam the door? It was clear that there could be no answer, since the bird could not speak, it was a bird from the flea market, a poor ceramic bird with a horribly long neck, of course Matilda looked it up and down, she was shorter than it was, because the bird had grown, so much time had passed. . Or maybe it was the girl from the house opposite, or rather Irina, I’d have so much liked to see her just for a few moments, but I couldn’t manage it, it wasn’t the first time I’d tried and failed, however hard I tried I couldn’t reconstitute her face. It wasn’t that I’d forgotten her, sometimes I really missed her, but I couldn’t manage to see her; at most a fragment or two, an isolated anatomical feature, as if someone had chopped her up and strewn the pieces in all the corners of my memory; I also still saw her blond, shoulder-length hair, but that was more the visualization of an idea, a conventional image, there are so many young women with long blond hair; yes, a conventional image of the admiration I had for her beautiful hair.
The red velvet curtain parted slowly and the bird came into view, tall and slim, with a neck longer than an ostrich’s or perhaps even a giraffe’s, and, perched on top, a small head with glassy yellow eyes. Matilda, in a low-neck, see-through nightdress, stood with her arms folded across her fleshy breasts and looked in puzzlement at the unexpected visitor; she moved her eyes back and forth between the bird and me, but she was no longer furious, or even angry, her puzzlement had gradually taken on shades of admiration, and after a few minutes’ silence I began to feel a little awkward, Matilda stuck her head inside the curtain and called a man’s name: Costache or Mihalache, and the man appeared, wearing only a pair of shorts, bandy-legged, scarcely as high as the bird’s breast, and stood next to Matilda, covering his mouth with surprise, or maybe yawning from sleep; he too folded his arms across his chest, then looked at the corpulent woman beside him as if she had asked for his opinion or approval about something she was thinking of doing. Matilda put her arm round his shoulder and glued him to her, protectively, maternally. We stayed like that for a long time, without moving or saying a word, the red light was more and more tiring, I closed my eyelids. The bird lowered its head with a swanlike movement toward my bed, I saw its little yellow eyes through my lashes as they bored into me, and I decided to force my lids shut so that I wouldn’t see it anymore; somewhere, farther away, the river is turning red with blood and the stretcher-bearers keep on walking, I looked with horror at their shaven heads, their beak-like noses, and the white togas in which they were dressed. I shrieked.
The telephone was in its place, alert and hostile in its stillness. It seemed to be lying in wait for something or demanding an explanation; it was like the eye of a creature from the Great Beyond, cold but watchful, inert but pitiless, registering everything and weighing it up, so that one day. .
There was a single orange in the fruit bowl. The light was still too dim to make out the picture on the wall. For now all that could be seen was a rectangular stain, a little to the right of the telephone.
Below, the girl was hard at work studying. She wore a blue dressing gown and had switched on the lamp with the long flexible neck. I tried to attract her attention by waving a tie, a newspaper, a shirt, I took off my pajamas in slow sweeping movements, I turned on the light — for nothing. Then, closer to the window, I looked more closely and saw that she was smiling as she continued to look down. Outside it had started to rain. A gray curtain fell between her and me. Maybe she hadn’t been smiling. I looked away. The boy with the violin hadn’t yet begun his exercises.
Matilda’s gentle snoring could be heard from the other side of the door. I didn’t feel like doing anything. I looked once more at the girl, then put on my pajamas and climbed into bed. The ceiling was slightly cracked and dirty, only then did I realize how dirty it was; there was a spider web in a corner, though no sign of the spider, it was probably lying in wait inside a crack; but there were no flies, I didn’t see a single one. I shut my eyes, and again the group was heading toward the river that loomed black and oily in the distance. Ten paces farther on I spotted the bird: it was motionless, its little yellow eyes directed toward the river. .
I had never seen anyone speak on that telephone — not once. You’d have said the place was unoccupied, except that, through the window of the next room, which was obviously part of the same apartment, you sometimes saw in the evening the shape of a tall woman combing her hair or simply looking at herself in a wall mirror or disappearing through a door into another room or the bathroom. Only her outline was visible, thick curtains hung at the window, which was never opened. In the room with the telephone, which seemed to be the dining room, there were no curtains but only wooden blinds that were never lowered, or at least I never saw them down. Why should anyone lower them if no one ever went into the room? Perhaps it’s because it was never used that the telephone seemed so cruel in its menacing expectation. It’s true that I never spied for more than two hours at a time, I’d always lie on the bed, pick up a book, or simply fall asleep. So I can’t be sure that no one ever went into the room to speak on the phone, or to potter around in there, arranging the apples or oranges I saw in the fruit bowl, for example, sometimes many, sometimes few, sometimes none at all. Meals must have been eaten in another room, or modestly in the kitchen, or else, on the contrary, at a restaurant: it takes all kinds. .
My right eye was twitching. I’ve forgotten if that’s a good or bad omen. Anyway Matilda insists it’s bad (or good?), and Irina the opposite. That I know for sure.
It was no longer raining. The girl was off at school, of course, she wasn’t going to spend all day staring at me. Matilda wasn’t home either. I was alone. I stood by the window in my green pajamas, unable to take my eyes off that telephone. As usual, there wasn’t much light in the telephone room, the painting was no more than a stain on the gray wall. The sky was filled with thick clouds, which had drifted lower and lower over the roof of the house opposite. The light went on in a room to the side. A fat man in a khaki army uniform leaned out to look into the yard. It was quiet. A very quiet neighborhood. The quietness fascinated me — that’s why I rented the little room.
I didn’t know what to do. . I picked up a book, lay on the bed, tried to read. I didn’t understand a thing. I felt weighed down somehow, overcome by the heaviness of the air, increasingly dense, increasingly stuffy. The ceiling moved a little lower, making the room seem smaller. I should have gotten up and opened the window: I was choking. Of course, living in an attic, you can’t have too many pretensions. Matilda treats me wonderfully, there’s nothing I could reproach her with. Every morning she brings me coffee in my room, without knocking first; she thinks that shows how fond she is of me. First I hear a slight bumping sound, then scratching, I see the handle move slowly down under the pressure of a skillful white hand, the door opens a little, and there’s Matilda’s downy white arm carrying a green plastic tray, on which a cup of coffee sits steaming. Thank you, you’re very kind. She doesn’t answer. I can guess there’s a smile on her chubby round face, but because it’s smeared with cream she remains behind the door; only her arm extends into the room, almost unnaturally long as it places the coffee on the table.