The Sanatorium at the Sign of the Hourglass: -I- -II- -III- (IV) -V-
IV
CONDITIONS in the Sanatorium are becoming more insufferable by the day. It is hard to deny that we have fallen straight into a trap. Since the moment of my arrival, when certain appearances of hospitable consideration were kept up before a newcomer, the management of the Sanatorium has not made the slightest effort to provide us with even the illusion of care. We are simply left to our own devices. No one takes heed of our needs. I long ago discovered that the wires of the electric bells are severed right above the door and lead nowhere. There are no servants to be seen. The corridors are submerged day and night in darkness and silence. I have the firm conviction that I am the only guest in this sanatorium, and that the mysterious and discrete manner in which the chambermaid closes the door when she enters or leaves one of the rooms is mere mystification.
I occasionally feel like throwing open the doors of these rooms, one after the other, and leaving them wide open to unmask this dishonourable intrigue in which we have become entangled.
And yet I can not be entirely sure of my suspicions. At times, late at night, I see Doctor Gotard in the corridor as he hurries somewhere in a white surgeon’s coat, holding an enema syringe, preceded by the chambermaid. At such times it would be awkward to stop him and pin him down with an obstinate question.
Were it not for the restaurant and confectioner’s shop in town one might die of hunger. So far I have been unable to procure a second bed. There is never any mention of fresh bedclothes. It must be admitted that even we have not been spared by the general laxity in mannerly habits.
To go to bed fully dressed and wearing one’s shoes has to me, as a civilised person, always been something simply unthinkable. And now I come home late, drunk with sleepiness, to the half-light of our room, the curtains swollen at the window by a cold breath. Listless, I crash onto the bed and bury myself in the eiderdown. Thus I sleep through whole irregular spaces of time, for days or weeks, travelling through empty landscapes of sleep, continually on my way, always on steep highways of respiration, sometimes sliding lightly and flexibly down its gentle slopes, or else struggling to clamber up a vertical wall of snoring. Having reached the summit, I embrace the enormous horizons of that rocky and soundless desert of sleep. At some hour, somewhere at an unknown, sharp turning point of snoring, I half awaken, half conscious, and I can feel Father’s body with my feet. There he lies, small as a kitten, rolled up into a ball. I go to sleep once more with my mouth open, and, unbidden, the whole enormous panorama of a mountain landscape wavily and majestically unfolds.
In the shop Father carries on his business with vigour; he makes transactions; he exerts all of his volubility to persuade his clients. His cheeks are pink with exuberance; his eyes shine. In the Sanatorium he lies seriously ill, as in his final weeks at home. It is hard to conceal that the process is rapidly nearing its fatal conclusion. In a weak voice he says to me: ‘You should call in more often at the shop, Józef. The shop assistants are robbing us. You can see, after all, that I’m no longer equal to the task. I’ve been lying sick here for weeks while the shop goes to ruin, left at the mercy of fate. Has there been no letter from home?’
I have begun to regret this whole venture. It can hardly be said to be a good idea that we, seduced by high-sounding advertising, sent Father to this place. Time set back... on the face of it, it sounds wonderful, but just what does it really amount to? Is it time at full value, genuine time, that passes here — time unwound from a new bale, as it were, redolent of newness and dye? Quite the reverse. It is entirely used up time, outworn by people, time worn through and riddled in many places with holes, transparent as a sieve.
No wonder, since it is only a kind of regurgitated time — understand me plainly — second-hand time. God help us..!
And then there is all this highly improper manipulation of time. These indecent dealings, sneaking into its mechanism through the back, riskily tiptoeing around its precarious secrets! Sometimes one feels like banging on the table and shouting at the top of one’s voice: ‘Enough of this! Keep your hands off time! Time is untouchable — it is forbidden to provoke time! Space is for man — in space you can go where you please, turn somersaults, fall head over heels, leap from star to star. But for the love of God, leave time alone!’
On the other hand, can I be expected to give notice to Doctor Gotard? However miserable this existence of Father’s may be, all the same, I can see him, be with him, talk to him… In fact, I ought to have infinite appreciation for Doctor Gotard.
Many times I have wanted to have a frank discussion with him. But Doctor Gotard was unavailable. ‘He has just gone to the restaurant,’ the chaimbermaid announces to me. I am heading in that direction when she catches up with me to tell me that she has made a mistake. ‘Doctor Gotard is in the operating theatre.’ I hurry to that floor, wondering just what sort of operations can be performed here — I enter an anteroom where I am told to wait. ‘Doctor Gotard will be out in a moment; he’s just finished an operation. He’s washing his hands.’ I almost see him, small, striding with huge steps, hurrying through a row of hospital wards, his coat billowing. A moment later, what am I told? Doctor Gotard was not even here; no operations have been performed here in years. Doctor Gotard is asleep in his room, his black beard sticking up in the air. His room fills up with snoring like swirls of cloud that rise, pile up, and carry Doctor Gotard, together with his bed, ever higher and higher on their billows — a great exalted Ascension on waves of snores and swollen bedding.
Even stranger things happen here — things I keep even from myself, things which are fantastic precisely because they are so absurd. How many times do I leave the room and it seems as if someone quickly retreats from the door and turns into a side corridor. Or someone walks ahead of me, not turning around. It is not a nurse. I know who it is! ‘Mother!’ I call out, my voice agitated and trembling, and Mother turns and looks at me for a moment with an imploring smile. Where am I? What is going on here? In what snare have I become entangled?
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