The Sanatorium at the Sign of the Hourglass: -I- (II) -III- -IV- -V-
II
THE ROOM was dusky when I awoke. Father was sitting at the table, already dressed and drinking tea, in which he was dipping iced biscuits. He was wearing the still new, black suit of English cloth that he had made for himself the previous summer. His tie was knotted a little carelessly.
Seeing that I was not asleep he said with a pleasant smile on his pallid face: ‘I’m truly happy you’ve come, Józef. What a surprise! I’m so lonely here. I admit, I can’t complain in my position. I’ve suffered worse things, and if one wanted to draw the facit of all situations… But no more of that. Imagine, straight away on my first day here they gave me a magnificent filet de boeuf with mushrooms. That was an infernal piece of meat, Józef. I warn you most strongly — if they ever offer you filet de boeuf here… I can still feel the fire in my stomach. And diarrhoea upon diarrhoea… It was more than I could stand. But I must tell you my news,’ he continued. ‘Don’t laugh, but I have rented premises here, for a shop. It’s true. I congratulate myself for that idea. I was awfully bored, you see. You can’t imagine how dreary it is here. And so at least I now have a pleasant occupation. Don’t imagine anything too grand — nothing of the sort. These are far more modest premises than our old shop — a mere shed in comparison. In our town I would be ashamed of such a stall, but here, where we must to such an extent shake off our pretentions — is it not so, Józef..?’ He gave a pained laugh. ‘And so one lives somehow.’ I had an unpleasant feeling. I was embarrassed by Father’s confusion, his realisation that he had used an inappropriate word.
‘I can see that you’re sleepy,’ he said after a moment. ‘Go back to sleep for a while, and then you can visit me in the shop — yes? I’m in a hurry to get back there, to see how business is doing. You have no idea how difficult it was to get credit — they treat old merchants with distinct incredulity here, merchants with a reputable past. Do you recall the optician’s shop in the market square? Our shop is right next door to it. There’s no sign board yet, but you’ll find it. You can’t miss it.’
‘Father, are you going out without your overcoat?’ I asked anxiously.
‘They forgot to pack it — just imagine. I couldn’t find it in the trunk. But I don’t miss it at all. This gentle climate, this sweet atmosphere..!’
‘Wear my overcoat, Father’ I insisted. ‘Take it, please do.’ But Father already had his hat on. He waved his hand to me and slipped out of the room.
No, I was not sleepy now. I felt well rested... and hungry. With pleasure I remembered the buffet crammed with cakes. I dressed, imagining myself indulging in the various kinds of delicacy there. I would begin with the short cake with apple, not forgetting a magnificent sponge cake trimmed with orange peel that I had noticed. I stood before the mirror in order to knot my tie, but its surface, like a spherical mirror, held my image back, somewhere deep within, whirling with the murky depths. I vainly adjusted my distance, stepping forward, stepping back, but no reflection was willing to loom into view out of the flowing silver fog. Should I ask them to give me different mirror? I thought to myself, and left the room.
It was totally dark in the corridor. A faint gas lamp at a corner, burning with a small bluish flame, heightened the impression of solemn silence. In that labyrinth of doors, recesses and nooks I found it hard to recall the entrance to the restaurant. I shall go into town, I thought with sudden decisiveness. I shall eat somewhere in town. I will probably find a good confectioner’s shop there.
Outside a doorway, the heavy, humid and sweet air of that extraordinary climate blew over me. The chronic greyness of the weather sank a few shades deeper still. It was like a day seen through a funeral pall.
My insatiable eyes took in the velvety, juicy blackness of the darkest places, a scale of the extinguished greyness of soft ashes, wandering passages of the muffled tones of a keyboard stopped by a valve — that landscape nocturne! A soft sheet of abundant and voluminous air struck my face. It held inside it the nauseous sweetness of stale rainwater.
Once more that roar of the black forests, endlessly recurring within itself, dull chords churning up the heavens, already beyond the scale of audibility! I was in the rear courtyard of the Sanatorium. I turned to look at the high walls of the rear of the main building, bent into a horseshoe. All the windows were closed with black shutters. The Sanatorium was sleeping soundly. I went through a gate in an iron fence. Beside it stood a kennel of extraordinary proportions — empty. The black forestation embraced and absorbed me anew, in whose darkness I once more went gropingly on silent conifer needles, as if with closed eyes. As it grew a little brighter the contours of houses were described between the trees. A few more steps and I was in a spacious town square.
Strange — its beguiling resemblance to the market square of my hometown! How similar, when it comes down to it, are all the market squares of the world! Practically the same shops and houses!
The pavements were almost deserted. The mournful and late half gleam of the vague hour was sprayed from a sky of indeterminate greyness. I could easily read all the posters and signs, and yet I would not have been surprised to learn that it was the middle of the night! Only one or two shops were open. Others, hastily closing, had their blinds half drawn. In places, the dense and luxuriant air, the rich and intoxicating air, consumed part of the view; like a moist sponge it washed away a couple of houses, a lamp post or part of a sign board. At times it was difficult to raise one’s eyelids, heavy with sleepiness or strange abandon. I began to search for the optician’s shop Father had mentioned. He had spoken of it as if it were known to me, appealing to my presumed knowledge of local conditions. Did he not realise that I was here for the first time? Surely his mind had become confused. But what could I expect from Father — only half real, living a conditional, relative life curbed by so many reservations! It is hard to conceal how much good will was required to accord him any kind of existence at all. His was a pitiable surrogate of life, contingent on general understanding, that consensus omnium from which he drew his thin juices. It was clearly thanks to a determination to look only through one’s fingers, to a collective closing of the eyes to the obvious and striking deficiencies of this state of affairs, that this pitiful appearance of life could remain for a moment in the tissue of reality. The slightest opposition might shake it; the faintest breeze of scepticism might knock it down. Could Doctor Gotard’s Sanatorium provide it with that greenhouse atmosphere of kind tolerance, protect it from the cold breezes of sobriety and criticism? One could only marvel that, in such an endangered and questionable state of affairs, Father could still maintain such a remarkable bearing.
I was gladdened at the sight of the display window of a confectioner’s shop, filled with pastries and layer cakes. My appetite returned. I opened the glazed door — it had a sign board which read: ‘Ices’ — and I entered the dark premises. They were fragrant with coffee and vanilla. A salesgirl emerged from the depths of the shop and took my order, her face daubed with the dusk. Finally, after such a long time, I could now eat my fill of magnificent doughnuts, which I dipped in my coffee. In the darkness, in the midst of the dance of the whirling arabesques of twilight, I consumed cake after cake, feeling the darkness stealthily squeeze its way under my eyelids, secretly gain power over my insides with its warm pulsation, a swarm of millions of delicate touches. In the end only the rectangle of the window was glowing, a grey smear in the utter darkness. In vain, I tapped on the tabletop with my teaspoon. No one came to take payment for my meal. I left a silver coin on the table and went out into the street. There was still a light shining in a bookshop next door. The shop assistants were busily sorting books. I inquired about Father’s shop. It was, they informed me, the shop next door to theirs. One accommodating boy even ran up to the door to point it out to me. The entrance was glazed; the display window, covered with brown paper, was still not dressed. From the door I now saw with surprise that the shop was full of customers. My father was standing behind the counter and adding up the items on a long bill, licking his pencil continually. The gentleman for whom he was preparing this bill, bent over the counter, ran his index finger over each figure in turn, counting in hushed tones. Other patrons were looking on in silence. My father glanced over his spectacles at me and said, marking his place on the bill: ‘A letter has come for you. It’s on the desk, among my papers.’ Then he was engrossed in his adding up once more. The shop assistants were meanwhile piling up the purchased goods; they wrapped them in paper and tied them with string. The shelves were only partly filled with cloth. Most of them were still empty.
‘Why don’t you sit down, Father?’ I asked quietly, stepping behind the counter. ‘You’re not looking after yourself at all, being so unwell.’ But he raised his hand in refusal, as if dismissing my persuasions, and went on counting. He looked extremely miserable. It was blatantly obvious that only artificial excitement, feverish activity, was holding up his strength, warding off the moment of complete breakdown.
I rummaged on the desk. It was more a package than a letter. I had written to a bookshop several days ago in the matter of a certain pornographic book, and here it was — they had discovered my address, or rather Father’s address, even though his shop had barely been opened and still had no business name or sign board. Their administration of the transaction was truly stupendous, their efficiency in dispatching admirable! And such uncommon haste!
‘You can read it in the office at the back,’ said Father, sending a dissatisfied look my way. ‘You can see for yourself that this is not the place.’
The office behind the shop was still empty. A little light from the shop fell in through the glass door. The shop assistants’ overcoats hung on the walls. I opened the letter and began to read in the faint light from the door.
They wished to inform me that the book I had requested was unfortunately out of stock. A search had been instigated for it, but they could not be sure of the result. Meanwhile, the firm was willing to send me, without obligation, a certain item in which, they anticipated, I would doubtless be interested. There followed a convoluted description of an extendable refracting astronomical telescope, its great light-gathering power and sundry other virtues. Curious, I pulled from the wrapping paper an instrument made of black oilcloth or stiff canvas, folded into a flat accordion. I have always had a weakness for telescopes. I began to open out the instrument’s multifariously folded cover. Under my hands it grew into the enormous bellows of a view camera, stiffened with thin rods, its empty hood drawing out to the length of the whole room — a labyrinth of black chambers, a long complex of light-proof boxes, each slotted half way inside the next. It was somewhat in the shape of a long car, made of meadow linen, some theatrical prop, its light fabric of paper and stiff canvas imitating the massiveness of reality. I looked into the black funnel of the eyepiece and caught a glimpse deep within of the faintly looming outlines of the courtyard façade of the Sanatorium. Inquisitive, I slipped deeper into the rear chamber of the apparatus. I now tracked the chambermaid in the visible field of the telescope, walking along a semi-dark corridor of the Sanatorium with a tray in her hands. She turned and smiled. Can she see me? I wondered. Irresistible sleepiness misted my eyes. In fact, I was sitting in the rear chamber of the telescope as if in the passenger’s seat of a carriage. A gentle upward pull of a lever and, lo and behold, the appatratus began to rustle with the flutter of a paper moth, and I felt it move, with me inside it, and turn toward the door.
The telescope advanced into the lighted shop like a great black caterpillar — a many limbed trunk, an enormous paper cockroach with two imitation lanterns at the front. The customers crowded together, retreating before that blind paper dragon; the shop assistants opened wide the door to the street and I slowly went out in that paper car, amid the row of patrons who followed with a look of outrage that essentially scandalous departure.
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