Flaw (3 page)

Who does it all belong to, and whose property is being stolen? To this straightforward question, which naturally suggests itself – someone has said “I” several times already – there is no honest answer. Concealing oneself is exhausting, and in the long run quite impossible. But the word “I” explains nothing here. Alone, it means too little. Less than a signature on a promissory note – no more than a crooked initial left by some hand on a dilapidated wall. This single letter contains so very little that it belongs to everyone and to no one. A vague gesture in the air
directing attention to a button at the throat will not add much, yet at the same time it cannot be made any more comprehensible. Even the image of a silhouette in movement, devised from the cut and style of a garment, would merely be a starting point for facile, superficial associations. What do I need all this for? one might ask suspiciously; what's the use of events, or of the tribulations of the characters embroiled in them? In the face of such questions, there is nothing to do but duck, as if dodging a rock hurled from a street corner. If it struck you on the head, it could kill outright. But it will probably miss and only whistle past the ear.

G
IVEN THE DIMENSIONS OF THE SQUARE
, no more than two stops will be needed. One of them can be located on the north side, the other on the south – the former in front of the local government offices, the latter outside the boys' grammar school. In the deserted space, a character who plainly belongs to the previous day is presently staggering along. His body, taken from goodness knows where, and in its own way utterly without volition, is a perfect match for the cut of the jacket. Even the disdainful glint in his eye is merely the reflection of a dime-store signet ring. He is a student, drunk. He vomits as he holds on to an iron railing. The streetcar he stepped down from is already moving off towards the government offices. Left behind, rolling about under the seats is an abandoned stick
– a handy device for smashing windows. Even if the student flunked his Roman Law exam yesterday, he already managed to forget about it, because afterwards he put his heart and soul into roaming the streets all day with his pals, following which they spent half the night eating, drinking, and brawling in a club. And what if I am that student? My ears are still ringing with the sound of broken glass, while my stomach is convulsed by painful spasms. Though this particular moment is immensely disagreeable, some subsequent one is sure to bring relief. His only regret was losing the stick, which wouldn't have happened but for the crush of gloomy thoughts immediately beneath his diaphragm – thoughts that were easily ingested yet indigestible, and were violently seeking a way out.

Early in the morning, before the clear air fills with the dust and fug of the later hours, the policeman begins his rounds of the square. His footsteps echo. Pigeons flap out of his way and fly off to the ledges of the apartment buildings. The policeman pauses outside the government offices, lifting his head and gazing at the sky as if he were trying to figure out which way the wind was blowing or whether there would be rain in the afternoon. And now the streetcar is coming again. Amid a squeal of brakes it pulls up at the stop outside the offices. A group of airmen emerges – the first wearing what is undoubtedly a general's uniform, the second a major, after the major a captain, and bringing up the rear a young adjutant with the rank of lieutenant. They stand and look about. As they peer down
the side streets the major explains something to them, the general shrugs, the captain is upset and has something to say too, while the lieutenant remains silent, looking from one to the other till eventually the major shrugs his shoulders in a gesture of helplessness. There has evidently been a troublesome mistake concerning the coordinates, and perhaps also the calendar: where the hell is the airfield they were supposed to visit, with its hangars, its planes, and its mess hall, in which there would be coffee in gaudy paper cups, a pinball machine with flashing colored lights, and a jukebox playing loud music at the drop of a coin? Something had gotten mixed up in their itinerary, and at this early hour it could not be corrected. Weary and sleepy, they come to a halt in front of a hotel, allow the general to enter first, then disappear in turn through the door.

In the meantime, the streetcar has completed one circuit and is in the middle of another. At the stop in front of the grammar school, a maid is just getting out. She's carrying a basket with vegetables and a chicken to make soup for the notary and his family. It may be that the policeman would gladly have taken the basket and carried it up the kitchen steps for her, especially if he had been younger or in his civilian clothes, but the gravity of his uniform and the fact that he is on duty does not permit it, so he merely snaps his fingers to the shiny peak of his cap. The maid pouts fetchingly and casts him a lingering glance, but she walks on and vanishes into the entranceway at number seven. It makes no difference to her what whole this neighborhood is
taken from, of which city it is supposed to be a part. It should be added that the griffin or eagle on the policeman's cap is a miniature of the national emblem from over the entrance to the government offices – one of those numerous predators, white, black, silver, two-headed, or whatever, that are customarily found on the façades of public buildings. Their precise pose and the shape of their talons and wings depend simply on where the story is taking place. The policeman, taken in by the sight of bell towers and steeples in the background, above the rooftops, in the distance, indistinct and so not wholly self-evident, would also be fully entitled to know, would he not? But he never asks, being content with the reassuring sound of the word “hereabouts.” The story is not taking place here or there. It fits in its entirety into itself as into a glass globe containing all that is needed for every conceivable eventuality.

The policeman moves on as the streetcar continues its route around the square. How would that rather faded uniform sit on me? Maybe it would pinch under the arms? If I am the policeman, there was a time when I risked my neck in the trenches for the emblem that appears on my cap. Let's say that in my collarbone I bear a memento of the last war – the vestige of a brief and fortuitous instant of unparalleled heroism that can be recounted over a bottle for the rest of my life. On state holidays I pin a medal to my uniform. The fragment of shrapnel makes itself felt with a shooting pain when the weather's about to change, especially if rain is on the way. Still quite handsome,
I grunt in the bathroom every morning. Then, standing in my long johns in front of a cracked mirror, I soap up my cheeks with a shaving brush. I button up my uniform, which after years of service has grown a little tight around the waist. In the evening my wife, a dozen curlers in her hair, fries up some potatoes and pork rinds, griping all the while, and then stokes the stove with more coal since she still has to put the laundry on. The policeman sits on a kitchen stool in his undershirt, his pants rolled up, and soaks his corns in a basin.

At such moments, as if in a dream, through half-closed eyes he sometimes happens to picture the notary's maid and a shudder passes through his entire body. In principle, though, he prefers to reflect on bitter and concrete things – his woefully meager wages, and the promotion that passed him by. The endless tedium of writing reports. Day after day that onerous task is put off till the late evening, and then what? A person is even less inclined to do the job, but there's no getting out of it. His wife, shifting the pots about on the stovetop, has no idea how burdensome it is. The pork rinds sputter in the frying pan, and clouds of smoke fill the kitchen all the way up to the ceiling, which has grown black during all the years they've been married. A coating has accumulated on the painted paneling and the yellowed white of the cabinet doors. Every day it's washed off with a cloth soaked in soapy water. The stale mingled odor of soap and grease lingers in the nooks and crannies. But the policeman is unaware of it, since that is the smell of his entire life.

If I am the notary's maid, on the second floor of the apartment building at number seven I take the vegetables out of the basket and set about making lunch. I'm not attracted to the policeman whatsoever, but it's nice to see how, when he spots me, he pulls in his stomach beneath his tight uniform jacket. In any case, he's too old and he's married. I like someone else: the law student. Peelings fall into a bucket; all at once the knife slips, and blood drips from a cut on her finger. It's nothing serious; it'll heal before her wedding day, as the saying goes. It's all because of the student. Because of his smart jacket, and especially the sweater that he wears underneath on cold days. At the thought of the sweater her heart skips a beat – it's hard to believe wool can be so soft. In the evenings the maid sobs into a wet pillow. She does not get her hopes up. He's always looking the other way when he passes her. And even if he spoke to her, a giggle suppressed by a work-chapped hand would have to suffice for a response. She senses that she knows only words of the lowest quality, those which, like the chicken she is making broth with, have wings that are not made for flight. Other, better words are lacking. What they are, the maid does not know. Something light, easygoing and fanciful, since only words like that can capture the attention of well-dressed bachelors. Words created for eligible young ladies. Beyond a doubt created mostly for them. She would give anything to know what it is that young ladies talk about with the student. Yet she has never seen him with any of them; he's always alone. He would be walking along the
sidewalk beneath the windows overlooking the street, while the young ladies were on the illuminated screen in the dark movie theater, in silk dresses, lovely as butterflies.

While the grammar school custodian is cleaning up the mess by the school railings, cursing the unknown drunk who puked on his sidewalk, the policeman stops outside number three, by the window display of the photographic studio, to cast a dreamy glance in its direction as he does every day. Here everything is in its place; in the middle is a large photograph of a woman in a white fur coat. With the passage of years, she has not aged in the slightest and is still just as beautiful and just as unattainable. She looks absently at the policeman from the depths of a different story – one that is black and white but even so is more attractive and more edifying than this one, which matches the color of the yellowing plaster and twines in a crooked knot round the flower bed in the square. The policeman touches the peak of his cap respectfully, then moves on. Aside from the portrait there is nothing dear to him in the window, which is filled entirely with wedding pictures, including one of him and his wife, rather discolored now. The pairs all look alike – a black tailcoat and a white veil. If the veils were separated from the tailcoats and the halves of pictures shuffled, the newlyweds themselves would probably be unable to find their own likenesses in the mass of almost identical figures. Nevertheless the photographer, at this time of the morning closed up in his darkroom, is developing pictures of infants one after another. These prints, paid for in
advance and impatiently awaited, bear witness, on the contrary, to the permanence of the order that joins couples together till death, and even beyond.

At this hour the notary, burdened by his own weight and suffering from insomnia, is just getting out of bed. He blows his nose into a white handkerchief, marking it with dark flecks of congealed blood; he brushes his teeth, leaving streaks of red on the porcelain washbasin. Somehow or other a few dark red specks have even managed to appear on the mirror, right in the middle of the reflection of his bald head. A tense and unpleasant grimace twists his mouth as he wipes the mirror clean. He reaches for the shaving brush, then for his razor. In the reflection, his artery pulses beneath his unprotected skin. If I am the notary, I shave with caution, and my hand never trembles. Before my eyes I can still see the blood I just wiped off the mirror, a reminder that my body is tired and all set to lower its tone. To cheer himself up, the notary hums a popular aria from an operetta in a rather pleasant baritone. He has a hope that things will once again return to the way they used to be; against common sense he believes he will never give in. Yet even if capitulation is inevitable, he has no choice but to endure in wordless resistance as long as his strength permits. What else can he do? Nothing but fasten the buttons on his pants, his shirt, his vest. Slip his watch into its pocket and pin the gold chain across his fat belly.

Before he puts on the jacket of the three-piece suit, he ought
to ring for the maid and have her bring him his coffee. But instead he himself quietly enters the kitchen. He sees the maid's back as she leans over the table, peeling vegetables. He measures her with his gaze from the threshold, and recalls one by one the women he once used to visit. All were better looking than her, and all better dressed. Secretaries, nightclub singers, wealthy widows of his clients. But that is all gone for good. The notary sighs. He walks up to her and places his hands under her apron and her blouse, no more. In order to allow himself such a caprice in his own home, he has to abandon for a moment his role as respectable lawyer, breadwinner, and paterfamilias – or rather, to take advantage of the fact that the real notary is still suspended on the wooden hanger used for the three-piece suit, blind and deaf, sleeves hanging inertly at each side. The thought of doing something behind the real notary's back always involves a certain risk. At such a moment it's the easiest thing to fall and dislocate one's spine, for instance, and thus for the longest time to be unable to return to the point of departure, where there is simply the glint of a wedding ring as the hand raises a cup of coffee to the lips.

The maid, on the other hand, has no desire whatever to slip out of character, as is quite understandable – she runs the risk of being seriously hurt. So she must pretend that he is not resting his cheek on her shoulder, nor is his hand at the same time groping her body. She has to go on peeling vegetables, oblivious to anything else. He has done this so many times that the situation
has begun to seem quite safe to her. It should be added that from the notary's perspective, it would have been foolish not to touch her after he had moved so close. Yet at the same time he knows that nothing else is left for him. Tired right from the start of the day, he longs to feel the beating of his own heart, if only for a second, since he's obliged to gather his strength and head out once again to his office, where he will resume the trivial little procedures that his profession requires. If the notary is to hold up the sky of shared quotidianness, he unquestionably deserves a pillar that can help to keep him in place with his burden.