The Sanatorium at the Sign of the Hourglass: -I- (II) -III- -IV- -V-
II
THE ROOM was dusky when I awoke. Father, already dressed, was sitting at the table and drinking tea, into which he dipped 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 a little carelessly knotted.
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 can’t complain in my position. Of course. And I have suffered worse things. And if one wanted to draw the facit from all circumstances — but no more of that... Imagine, on my first day here, straight away they served me with a magnificent filet de boeuf with mushrooms. Józef, it was an infernal piece of meat. I warn you most strongly, should they ever offer you filet de boeuf here... I can still feel the fire in my stomach. And diarrhoea upon diarrhoea...! It was quite beyond my endurance.
‘But I must tell you my news,’ he continued. ‘Don’t laugh. I have rented premises here, for a shop. It’s true! And I congratulate myself for that idea. I was awfully bored, you see. You can’t imagine how dreary it is here. And now at least I have a pleasant occupation. Don’t imagine anything too grand. Nothing of the sort. They are far more modest premises than our old shop, a mere shack in comparison. In our town, I should be ashamed of such a stall. But here, where we must shake off our pretentions to such an extent — don’t you agree, Józef?’ He gave a pained laugh. ‘And so, somehow one lives...’
This struck me unpleasantly. I was embarrassed by Father’s confusion, his realisation that he had used an inappropriate word.
‘I can see that you’re still tired,’ he said after a moment. ‘Sleep a little longer, and then you can visit me in the shop — yes? I’m in a hurry to get back there, to see how the business is doing. You have no idea how difficult it was to get credit, or with what incredulity they treat old merchants here, merchants with a reputable past. Do you recall the optician’s shop in the market square? Our shop is right next door. There is no sign board as yet, but you will be able to find it. You can hardly 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 my trunk. But I don’t miss it at all. This gentle climate, this sweet air...’
‘Wear my overcoat, Father,’ I insisted. ‘Take it, please do.’ But Father had already put on his hat. He waved his hand in my direction, and slipped out of the room.
No, I was no longer tired. I felt well rested... and hungry. I remembered with pleasure the buffet crammed with cakes. As I dressed, I imagined indulging in the various kinds of delicacy there. I would begin with the short cake with apple, not forgetting a magnificent sponge cake I had noticed, trimmed with orange peel. I stood before the looking glass in order to knot my tie, but its surface, like a spherical mirror, held back my image, somewhere deep inside, swirling in the murky depths. I adjusted my distance from it to no avail, stepping backward and forward — no reflection was willing to loom into view out of that flowing, silvery fog. I must request a different mirror, I thought to myself, and stepped out of the room.
The corridor was extremely dark. A faint gas lamp, burning in a corner with a small, bluish flame, heightened still further the impression of solemn silence. In that labyrinth of doors, recesses and nooks, I found it difficult to retrace my steps to the restaurant. I shall go into town, I thought with sudden decisiveness. I shall eat somewhere in town. No doubt I will find a good confectioner’s shop there.
Outside the doorway, the heavy, sweet and humid air of that extraordinary climate blew over me. The chronic greyness of the weather sank a few shades deeper. It was a day seen as if through a funeral pall.
My eyes could not take in the velvety, juicy blackness of the darkest places — their scale of listless greyness, of soft ash, coursing in passages of stifled tones, notes stopped by a pipe organ valve — that nocturne landscape. A soft, voluminous and abundant sheet of 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, its dull chords churning up the heavens, and now beyond the scale of audibility! I was standing in the rear courtyard of the Sanatorium. I turned and looked at the high walls, bent into a horseshoe, of the rear of the main building. All the windows were secured with black shutters. The Sanatorium was sound asleep. I came to a gate in an iron fence. Beside it stood a kennel of extraordinary proportions — empty. Once more the black forestation embraced and absorbed me — in its darkness, as if with closed eyes, I once more went gropingly on noiseless conifer needles. As the light rose a little, the contours of houses were discernible through 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 that indeterminate hour was sprayed from a sky of indefinite 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 of the shops were open. Others, hastily closing, had their blinds half drawn. In some places, the dense and luxuriant, rich and intoxicating air had 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 some 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. Didn’t he realise that I was here for the first time? Surely his mind had become confused. But what, after all, could be expected of Father, only half real, living a life so conditional, so relative, and curbed by so many contingencies! It is difficult to conceal that, in order to accord him a certain kind of existence, a great deal of goodwill was required. It was a wretched surrogate of life, which hung on a general understanding, that consensus omnium from which he drew his thin juices. It was clearly only thanks to a collective determination to turn a blind eye to the obvious and striking deficiencies of that state of affairs that his pitiable appearance of life could remain even momentarily in the tissue of reality. The slightest opposition might shake it, the faintest breeze of scepticism knock it down. Could Doctor Gotard’s sanatorium really provide it with that greenhouse atmosphere of kind tolerance, protect it from the icy winds of criticism and indifference? One could only marvel that, in such an endangered and questionable state, Father was still able to maintain his so remarkable bearing.
I was heartened by the sight of the display window of a confectioner’s shop, filled with pastries and cakes. My appetite returned. I opened the glazed door, which bore a sign board that read ‘Ices’, and entered the dark premises. They were fragrant with coffee and vanilla. A salesgirl emerged from the depths of the shop to take my order, her face daubed with the dusk. After such a long time, I could finally eat my fill of excellent doughnuts, which I dipped into my coffee. In the darkness, amid a dance of whirling crepuscular arabesques, I consumed cake after cake, feeling the darkness squeezing its way stealthily under my eyelids, secretly gaining power over my insides with its warm pulsation, a swarm of millions of delicate touches. At length, only the rectangle of the window still glowed, a grey smear in the utter darkness. In vain I rapped on the tabletop with my teaspoon — no one came forward to take payment for my meal. I left a silver coin on the table, and went out into the street. A light still shone in a bookshop adjacent; the shop assistants there were busily sorting books. I enquired about Father’s shop. It was, they informed me, the one next to theirs. One accommodating fellow even ran up to the door and pointed it out to me. It had a glazed entrance, and the display window, not yet dressed, was covered with brown paper. From the doorway I was surprised to see that the shop was nonetheless filled with customers. My father was standing behind the counter, adding up the items on a long bill, incessantly licking his pencil. He ran his index finger over each figure in turn, counting under his breath, whilst the gentleman for whom this bill was being prepared leaned over the counter, and the other patrons looked on in silence. He cast a glance at me over his spectacles, and marking his place, said: ‘A letter has arrived for you. It’s on the desk, among my papers.’ And he returned to his engrossing calculations. The shop assistants meanwhile were piling up delivered goods, wrapping them in paper and tying them with string. The shelves were only partially filled with new cloth. Most of them remained empty.
‘Why don’t you sit down, Father?’ I said 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 with his counting. He had a thoroughly miserable appearance. It was as plain as day that only artificial arousal, 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 several days beforehand to a bookshop in the matter of a certain pornographic volume — and it had arrived here. They had discovered my address, or rather, Father’s address, his shop only so recently opened, and still without a business name or sign board. How incredible their administration of the transaction! How admirable their competence in dispatching! Such uncommon efficiency!
‘You can read it in the office at the back,’ said Father, directing a dissatisfied look at me. ‘You can see for yourself that there is no room here.’
The office at the rear of the shop was still empty. Some scant illumination fell in through the glass door. On the walls hung the shop assistants’ overcoats. 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, but since they could not guarantee the result, the firm was meanwhile 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, with great light-gathering power and sundry other properties. Curious, I pulled the instrument from its wrapping paper. It was made of black oilcloth or stiff canvas, folded into a flat accordion. I have always had a passion for telescopes. I began to unfold the instrument’s endlessly pleated cover. It grew in my hands into the enormous bellows of a view camera, stiffened with thin rods, its empty hood drawing out to the full dimensions of the room — a labyrinth of black chambers, a long complex of light-proof boxes, each slotted half way into the next. It was shaped not unlike a long motor car — some theatrical prop made of meadow linen, its light fabric of paper and stiff canvas imitating the solidity of reality. I looked into the black funnel of the eyepiece, and deep inside I could see of the faintly looming outlines of the courtyard façade of the Sanatorium. Curious, I slipped deeper into the rearmost chamber of the apparatus, and now in the visible field of the telescope I spied the chambermaid, walking along a semi-dark corridor of the Sanatorium, carrying a tray in her hands. She turned and smiled. Can she see me? I wondered. Irresistible sleepiness misted my eyes. I was actually sitting in the rear chamber of the telescope now, as if in the passenger compartment of a carriage. A gentle upward pull of a lever, and lo and behold, the apparatus began to rustle, fluttering like some paper moth. I felt it move, with me inside it, and turn toward the door.
Like a great, black caterpillar, the telescope advanced into the lighted shop — a many limbed trunk, an enormous paper cockroach with two replica lamps at the front. The customers crowded together, retreating before that blind paper dragon. The shop assistants threw wide open the door to the street, and I drove slowly out in that paper motor car, amid the row of patrons, who followed with a look of outrage that essentially scandalous exit.
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