Yes, that was it: ill, seriously ill, and Petrache asked him why he didn’t go to the doctor and ask for sick leave, things couldn’t go on like this forever. He said “forever” holding his arm perfectly straight in front of him, as in a gymnastics exercise, moving it vigorously from left to right and back again, and it must be clear to everyone that you can’t just come to work when you feel like it, there’s such a thing as discipline and fixed working hours, no one can do as he pleases. .
Was he ill? Steel swords are growing instead of plants in the flowerpots, glistening in the moonbeams, and a lion that looks as if it has walked out of a flag or a postage stamp is circling above the house — these were signs one couldn’t ignore. I haven’t a clue how I found my way here, I went to the movies and found the film boring, monotonous, with the same scenes repeated over and over again as in a nightmare, I got irritated and walked out, the usherette seemed taken aback, she shrugged her shoulders, then gave me a complicit smile with her big red mouth. I left the theater and wandered the streets aimlessly, it felt good, it was a warm, peaceful night, full of fragrances, smelling of lilies and flowering tobacco. Then I saw the black wrought-iron gate twisted in all manner of ornamental flourishes, and I stopped. I’d never seen such a high yet alluring gate. I don’t know why, but all that latticework drew your eyes into the front garden, where not a single flower or blade of grass was growing, but white gravel paths gleamed as they wound around gray stone blocks that looked like tombstones, except that they were taller and had no crosses.
Only afterward, when he went in, did he see the swords. He heard the gravel crunch underfoot and he wasn’t afraid; of course he was agitated, but you couldn’t have said he was afraid.
. . no one does as he pleases in this country, I thought at least that much was clear to everyone. Petrache’s arm chopped the air, first horizontally, from left to right, never the other way round, then vertically, and his words became jerkier, his voice rougher and more forceful.
. . go on sick leave for a week or two, check yourself into the hospital if necessary. That is, if you’re ill. Anyway, I can see you’re at least tired — that’s obvious, although it’s strange to get tired so easily at your age. Valentin stood up and, with a very respectful stare, followed the movements of the boss’s arm stretched out like a sword.
He’s very tired, it’s true. My legs hurt particularly from so many nights running or standing and waiting like a fool, I don’t know myself what I wait for. Then I set off again: I go up and down stairs, then up again, that twisted spiral staircase with hundreds and hundreds of steps that get narrower and narrower as you go, so many steps and corridors that lead nowhere, but that’s of no importance at all, and anyway you can’t be sure, sometimes it seems as if everything has a point, including the endless stairs and the deserted corridors, terrifyingly white and long, all there just to keep you from ever reaching the end of it all (what end?), the huge white door at the end of a final short corridor, or else you imagine you’ve reached it, after going up and down hundreds and hundreds of steps, panting, sweating, hoping that everything will have an end, although sometimes you realize that what you’d like to call an end is only a pause, a parenthesis: instead of the white spectral corridors, this other corridor with a cherry-colored carpet, on which you drag your dusty feet and stop for a few seconds to listen to the tapping of the typewriters, the laughter and giggling of the typists, and you know you’re late (to where?), you’re only a few steps away from the door — it’ll open for sure — and, before you press on the handle, you’re tempted for a few seconds to look through the keyhole, but it’s pointless and ludicrous at the same time. Petrache is certainly sitting inside there, no doubt about it at all, his arms folded on his chest in front of the window, and Valentin is writing diligently, Magda filing or admiring her long, polished nails, and she’ll speak in your defense, yes, the trolleybus and all those crowds are terrible, and then Petrache leaves (sometimes after a little speech: no one does as he pleases in this country, I thought that much was clear!) and Magda’s voice becomes shriller, but also friendlier, are you ill? why did you sit there not saying anything? why didn’t you open your mouth? what’s the matter with you? tell me, what’s the matter? He rolled his pencil between his fingers, forehead down low, admitting his guilt to everyone, and even with her, who always defends him to the boss and worries about him like a fool, he remains silent, not saying a word, not apologizing, not making the slightest attempt to explain himself, however implausibly. He’s in no state to do anything but recount the plots of those delirious movies that only he seems to have seen, probably in a dream, that’s all he’s good for.
He rolled the pencil between his fingers. His eyes were red, the lids swollen, he was obviously ill, but he couldn’t find a way of explaining it to Petrache, who wouldn’t understand or, worse, would assume he was lying. To wander the streets every night like a madman, to go into people’s gardens and houses like a thief, like a sleepwalker. He couldn’t sleep (why don’t you take a sleeping pill?), and if he did he still dreamed of those places: the iron gate, the gravel and swords, the empty white corridors, the endless stairs he kept going up and down, the brightly lit landing he sometimes reached, from where he turned right into another corridor, much shorter than the rest, with marble walls, and a door at the end that he was unable to open.
My God, how I begged, how I banged, with fists and feet and forehead, and all to no avaiclass="underline" the door remained shut. Nothing could be heard inside, apart from a slight buzzing sound and a long faint ringing that may have existed only in my ears after all that pointless waiting. The door remained shut.
You waited for hours, days, years: in fact, if you think about it, you’ve been waiting all your life — waiting for the door at the end (or not quite the end!) of the corridor to open, the attic door beyond which is probably nothing, only emptiness, a huge white void. At least that’s what could be seen most times when you fell on your knees and looked through the keyhole, your forehead glued to the cold shiny wood. A huge white void — that is, nothing! Only now and then a blue stripe, and beneath it a greenish ribbon that soon disappears, then the white void again, and you wait and wait, Valentin’s strident voice, then Magda: are you ill? what’s the matter?
How could he explain to them, what could he say? Each time, each morning, as he dragged his feet over the cherry-colored carpet, he thought of telling them — perhaps not all at once, but a few things, little by little. It would have been easier to tell them, his workmates, finding a roundabout way, taking it slowly, until they believed him in the end — or rather understood, he didn’t need them to believe him. In fact he tried it: Magda leaning with her elbows on his desk, showing her breasts through the opening in her blouse; Valentin holding the end of his pen between his teeth; both listening attentively. Go on, tell us some more! Magda may have guessed, feeling instinctively that he needed to tell them about the movie he had or hadn’t seen, to describe those imaginary scenes (whether imagined by him or someone else) that became jumbled in his head, and eventually, however hard he tried, in their heads as well. Go on from where you left off! They smiled in disbelief, but they liked to listen to him, both attentive and curious, until they got tired and bored or Petrache came into the office.
. . he glimpsed the swords after he went in. He heard the gravel crunch beneath his feet and he wasn’t afraid; agitated, yes, but not afraid.