More thorough inspection, however, revealed the aftermath of destruction. The imploded TV tube gaped like a short-circuited time tunnel. The refrigerator was dead and empty. Only a few plates and glasses remained in the cupboard. The wall clock had stopped, and none of the electrical appliances worked. The slashed clothes were gone, leaving barely enough to fill one small suitcase. Someone had thrown out just about everything that was beyond hope, leaving the place with a generic, no-frills look. My apartment had never seemed so spacious.
I went to the bathroom, lit the gas heater, and after seeing that it functioned properly, ran the bathwater. I still had an adequate lineup of toiletries: soap, razor, toothbrush, towel, shampoo. My bathrobe was in one piece.
While the tub filled, I looked around the apartment. The girl sat in a corner, reading Balzac’s Chouans.
“Say, were there really otters in France?” she asked.
“I suppose.”
“Even today?”
“Who knows?”
I took a seat in the kitchen and tried to think who it was that might have cleaned up the apartment. Might have been those two Semiotecs, might have been someone from the System. Even if it was one of them, I couldn’t help feeling grateful.
I suggested that the chubby girl bathe first. While she was in the tub, I changed into some salvaged clothes and plopped down on what had been my bed. It was nearly eleven-thirty. I had to come up with a plan of action. For the last twenty-four hours of my life.
Outside, it was raining in a fine mist. If not for the droplets along the eaves, I wouldn’t have been able to tell. Drowsiness was creeping up on me, but this was no time to sleep. I didn’t want to lose even a minute.
Well, I didn’t want to stay here in the apartment. What was there to gain from that?
A person with twenty-four hours left to live ought to have countless things to do, but I couldn’t think of a single one. I thought of the Frankfurt travel poster on the supermarket wall. Wouldn’t be so bad to end my life in Frankfurt, though it probably was impossible to get there in twenty-four hours. Even if I could, I’d have to spend ten hours strapped into an airplane seat eating those yummy inflight snacks. Besides, posters have a way of looking better than the real thing: the reality never lived up to the expectation. I didn’t want to end my life disappointed.
That left one option: a fine meal for two. Nothing else I particularly wanted to do.
I dialed the Library.
“Hello,” answered my reference librarian.
“Thanks for the unicorn books,” I said.
“Thanks for the wonderful meal,” said she.
“Care to join me for dinner again tonight?”
“Din-ner?” she sang back to me. “Tonight’s my study group.”
“Study group?”
“My water pollution study group. You know, detergents getting into the streams and rivers, killing fish. Everyone’s got a research topic, and tonight we present our findings.”
“Very civic, I’m sure.”
“Yes, very. Couldn’t we make it tomorrow night? The library’s closed on Monday, so we could have more time together.”
“I won’t be around from tomorrow afternoon. I can’t really explain over the phone, but I’m going far away.”
“Far away? You mean travel?”
“Kind of,” I said.
“Just a sec, can you hold on?” She broke off to answer a reference inquiry. Sunday library sounds came through the receiver. A little girl shouting and a father trying to quiet her. People borrowing books, computer keys clicking away.
“Refurbishing and/or reconstructing farmhouses,” she seemed to be explaining to her inquirer, “Shelf F-5, these three volumes …” I could barely make out the inquirer’s voice in response.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said, picking up the phone. “Okay, you win. I’ll pass on the study group. They’ll all bitch about it, though.”
“Give them my apologies.”
“Quite all right. Heaven knows there’s no river around here with fish still alive. Delaying my report a week isn’t going to endanger any species. Shall I meet you at your place?”
“No, my place is out of commission. The fridge is on the blink, the dishes are unusable. I can’t cook here.”
“I know,” she said.
“You know?”
“But isn’t it much cleaner now?”
“It was you who straightened the place up?”
“That’s right. I hope you don’t mind. This morning I dropped by with another book and found the door ajar. The place was a mess, so I cleaned it up. Made me a little late for work, but I did owe you something for the meal. Hope I wasn’t being too presumptuous.”
“No, not at all,” I said. “I’m very appreciative.”
“Well, then, why don’t you swing by here at ten past six? The library closes at six o’clock on Sundays.”
“Will do,” I said. “And thanks again.”
“You’re very welcome,” said she, then hung up.
I was looking through the closet for something to wear to dinner as the chubby girl emerged from the bathroom. I handed her a towel and my bathrobe. She stood naked before me a moment, wet hair plastered to her forehead and cheeks, the peaks of her ears poking out from between the strands. From the earlobes hung her gold earrings.
“You always bathe with your earrings on?” I asked.
“Of course, didn’t I say so?”
The girl had hung her underwear and skirt and blouse to dry in the bathroom. Pink brassiere, pink panties, pink panty hose, pink skirt, and pastel pink blouse. The last day of my life, and here I was, sitting in the tub with nothing else to look at. I never did like underwear and stockings hanging in the bathroom. Don’t ask me why, I just don’t.
I gave myself a quick shampoo and all-over scrub, brushed my teeth, and shaved. Then I pulled on underpants and slacks. Despite all that crazy chasing around, my gut actually felt better; I hardly remembered the wound until I got into the tub.
The girl lay on the bed, drying her hair with the drier, reading Balzac. Outside, the rain showed no more sign of stopping than it had before.
Underwear hanging in the bathroom, a girl lying on the bed with a hair drier and a book, it all brought back memories of married life.
I sat down next to her, leaned my head against the bed-stand, and closed my eyes. Colors drifted and faded. I hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in days. Every time I was about to fall asleep, I was rudely awakened. The lure of sleep swam before my leaden eyes, an irresistible undertow pulling me toward dark depths. It was almost as if the INKlings were reaching up to drag me down.
I popped open my eyes and rubbed my face between my hands. It was like rubbing someone else’s face. The spot on my neck where the leech had attached itself still stung.
“When are you going back for your grandfather?” I asked.
“After I sleep and my things dry,” she said. “The water level down there will drop by evening. I’ll go back the same way we came.”
“With this weather, it’ll be tomorrow morning before your clothes dry.”
“Then what am I supposed to do?”
“Ever heard of clothes driers? There’s a laundromat near here.”
“But I don’t have any other clothes to wear out.”
I racked my brains, but failed to come up with any spark of wisdom. Which left me to take her things to the laundromat. I went to the bathroom and threw her wet clothes into a Lufthansa bag.
So it was that part of my last precious hours were spent sitting on a folding chair in a laundromat.
32
Shadow in the Throes of Death
I OPEN the door to the Gatehouse and find the Gatekeeper at the back door splitting firewood.
“Big snow on the way. I can feel it in the air,” says the Gatekeeper, axe in hand. “Four beasts dead in this morning alone. Many more will die by tomorrow. This winter the cold is something fierce.”
I
take off my gloves and warm my fingers at the stove. The Gatekeeper ties the splits into a bundle and tosses it onto a stack in the woodshed, then shuts the door behind him and props his axe up against the wall. Finally, he comes over and warms his fingers, too.
“From now on, looks like I burn the beasts alone. Made my life easier having the help, but everything has to end sometime. Anyway, it was my job to begin with.”
“Is my shadow so ill as that?”
“The thing is not well,” answers the Gatekeeper, rolling his head on his shoulders. “Not well at all. Been looking after it as best I can, but only so much a person can do.”
“Can I see him?”
“Sure, I give you a half hour. I have to go burn dead beasts after that.”
The Gatekeeper takes his key ring off the hook and unlocks the iron gate to the Shadow Grounds. He walks quickly across the enclosure ahead of me, and shows me into the lean-to. It is as cold as an icehouse.
“Not my fault,” the Gatekeeper says. “Not my idea to throw your shadow in here. No thrill for me. We got regulations, and shadows have to be put in here. I just follow the rules. Your shadow even has it better than some. Bad times, there are two or three shadows crammed in here together.”
Objection is by now beside the point. I nod and say nothing. I should never have left my shadow in a place like this.
“Your shadow is down below,” he says. “Down below is a little warmer, if you can stand the smell.”
The Gatekeeper goes over to a corner and lifts a damp wooden trapdoor to reveal not a staircase but a ladder. The Gatekeeper descends the first few rungs, then motions for me to follow. I brush the snow from my coat and follow him.
Down below, the stale smell of shit and piss assaults the senses. Without a window, the air cannot escape. It is a cellar the size of a small trunkroom. A bed occupies a third of the floor. Beneath the bed is a crockery chamber pot. A candle, the sole source of light and heat, flickers on a tottering old table. The floor is earthen, and the dampness in the room chilling. My shadow lies in bed, unmoving, with a blanket pulled up to his ears. He stares at me with lifeless eyes. As the old Colonel has said, my shadow does not seem to have much time left.
“I need fresh air,” says the Gatekeeper, overcome by the stench. “You two talk all you want. This shadow no longer has the strength to stick to you.”
The Gatekeeper leaves. My shadow hesitates a moment, cautiously looking about the room, then beckons me over to his bedside.
“Go up and check that the Gatekeeper isn’t listening,” whispers the shadow.
I steal up the ladder, crack open the trapdoor, see that no one is about.
“He’s gone,” I say.
“We have things to talk about,” declares my shadow. “I’m not as weak as I appear. It’s all an act to fool the Gatekeeper. I am weak, that’s true, but my vomiting and staying bedridden is pretend. I can still get up and walk.”
“To escape?”
“What else? If I wasn’t making to get out of here, why would I go to all the trouble? I’ve gained myself three days doing this. But three days is probably my limit. After that, I won’t be able to stand. This stinking cellar air is killing me. And the cold—it pierces to the bone. What’s the weather like outside?”
“It’s cold and snowing hard,” I say, hands in my coat pockets. “It’s even worse at night. The temperature really drops.”
“The more it snows, the more beasts die,” says the Shadow. “More dead beasts mean more work for the Gatekeeper. We’ll slip out when he’s occupied, while he’s burning the carcasses in the Apple Grove. You’ll lift his keys, unlock the enclosure, and we escape, the two of us.”
“By the Gate?”
“No, the Gate’s no good. He’d be on top of us in no time. The Wall’s no good either. Only birds can make it over the Wall.”
“So how do we escape?”
“Leave it to me. I’ve got it worked out from the information I’ve pieced together. I pored over your map enough to wear holes in it, plus I learned all sorts of things from the Gatekeeper himself. The ox took it into his head that I wasn’t a problem anymore, so he was willing to talk about the Town. The Gatekeeper is right that I don’t have the strength to stick to you. Not now anyway. But once we get out and I recover, we can be back together. I won’t have to die here like this; you’ll regain your memory and become your former self.”
I stare into the candle flame and say nothing.
“What’s the matter? Out with it.”
“Just what was this former self of mine?”
“What’s this now? Don’t tell me you’re having doubts,” jeers my shadow.
“Yes, I have doubts,” I say. “To begin with, I can’t even recall my former self. How can I be sure that self is worth returning to? Or that world?”
The shadow is about to say something, but I raise my hand to cut him short. “Wait, please. Just let me finish what I have to say. It is not only that I may have forgotten how things used to be. I am beginning to feel an attachment to this Town. I enjoy watching the beasts. I have grown fond of the Colonel and the girl at the Library. No one hurts each other here, no one fights. Life is uneventful, but full enough in its way. Everyone is equal. No one speaks ill of anyone else, no one steals. They work, but they enjoy their work. It’s work purely for the sake of work, not forced labor. No one is jealous of anyone. There are no complaints, no worries.”
“You’ve forgotten no money or property or rank either. And no internal conflicts,” says the shadow. “More important, there’s no growing old, no death, no fear of death.”
“Tell me, then—what possible reason would I have for leaving this Town?”
“It all makes sense, what you say,” he allows, extending a shadowy hand from under his blanket to touch his parched lips, “on the face of it. The world you describe would truly be a utopia. I cannot fault you that. You have every right to be taken with it, and if that’s the case, then I will accept your choice and I will die. Still, you are overlooking things, some very important things.”
The shadow breaks into a cough. I wait for him to resume.
“Just now, you spoke of the Town’s perfection. Sure, the people here—the Gatekeeper aside—don’t hurt anyone. No one hurts each other, no one has wants. All are contented and at peace. Why is that? It’s because they have no mind.”
“That much I know too well,” I say.
“It is by relinquishing their mind that the Townfolk lose time; their awareness becomes a clean slate of eternity. As I said, no one grows old or dies. All that’s required is that you strip away the shadow that is the grounding of the self and watch it die. Once your shadow dies, you haven’t a problem in the world. You need only to skim off the discharges of mind that rise each day.”
“Skim off?”
“I’ll come back to that later. First, about the mind. You tell me there is no fighting or hatred or desire in the Town. That is a beautiful dream, and I do want your happiness. But the absence of fighting or hatred or desire also means the opposites do not exist either. No joy, no communion, no love. Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without the despair of loss, there is no hope.
“Then, of course, there’s love. Which surely makes a difference with this Library girl of yours. Love is a state of mind, but she has no mind for it. People without a mind are phantoms. What would be the meaning of loving someone like that? Do you seek eternal life? Do you too wish to become a phantom? If you let me die, you’ll be one of the Townfolk. You’ll be trapped here forever.”
A stifling silence envelops the cellar. The shadow coughs again.
“I cannot leave her here,” I brave to say. “No matter what she is, I love her and want her. I cannot lie to my own mind. If I run out now, I will always regret it.”
“This is just great,” my shadow says, sitting up in bed and leaning against the wall. “You’re an old, old friend. I know how stubborn you can be. You had
to make an issue at the last minute, didn’t you? What is it you want? It is impossible for you and me and the girl to escape, the three of us. People without a shadow cannot live outside of here.”
“I know this too,” I say. “I wonder, why don’t you escape alone? I will help you.”
“You still don’t understand, do you?” says my shadow, wearily resting his head. “If I run away and leave you behind, your life here would be sheer misery. That much the Gatekeeper’s told me. Shadows, all shadows, die here. Banished shadows all come back to die. Shadows that don’t die here can only leave behind incomplete deaths. You’d live out all eternity in the embrace of what’s left of your mind. In the Woods. Those with undead shadows are driven out of Town to wander through the Woods forever and ever, possessed by their thoughts. You’re acquainted with the Woods?”
He knows I am.
“Nor would you be able to take her to the Woods,” my shadow continues. “Because she is perfect, she has no mind, no conflict in herself. Perfect half-persons live in Town, not in the Woods. You’ll be alone, I promise you.”
“But then, where do people’s minds go?”
“You’re the Dreamreader, aren’t you?” retorts my shadow. “I don’t know how you haven’t managed to figure that one out!”
“I’m sorry. I haven’t …”
“Fine, let me tell you. People’s minds are transported outside the Wall by the beasts. That is what I meant by skimming off. The beasts wander around absorbing traces of mind, then ferry them to the outside world. When winter comes, they die with a residue of self inside them. What kills them is not the cold and not the lack of food; what kills them is the weight of self forced upon them by the Town. In spring, new young are born—exactly the same number as the beasts that died—and it happens all over again. This is the price of your perfection. A perfection that forces everything upon the weak and powerless.”