The Lair (The Margellos World Republic of Letters) (2 page)

“I’m not saying anything. I’m just asking you to forgive me. Believe me, I am ashamed. But things like this happen. They can happen to anyone.”

“And what do we do when they happen?”

“Look, let’s go to the subway station. Right here, near the bank. We can check the card on the machine. It’ll show that it’s not used up. Twenty dollars left on it. It’ll only take a minute.”

“And who’s going to do that?”

“Well, I … or no, better you. You check it. I’ll wait here in the cab.”

“Sure, I go check it, and you take off!”

He whistles out a short phrase in Russian, or Ukrainian.

“Take my bag with you. Believe me, I won’t leave without my bag. It’s too important. Here, I’ll give it to you. I’ll wait here.”

The passenger struggles to get the bag over the divider. Lyova takes it and groans at its weight.

“What’ve you got inside, granite? Mercury? Mercury is heavier, isn’t it?”

“Books, stuff. Personal things.”

“Personal things! That’s why they’re so heavy!”

Lyova heads toward the subway station, with the bag in tow. He waddles like a potbellied duck. He comes back, slouching to the left, because of the bagful of mercury.

“Okay. It’s unused. Twenty dollars. I’ll take it.”

He goes to get back into the car but his door is blocked by a cheerful Italian. Jacket, pants, hat, all made of black leather.

“I have to get out to Westchester, fast. It’s very urgent. I’ll give you a hundred.”

“Westchester! I can’t. I’m in enough of a mess as it is. This jerk doesn’t have the money to pay for his ride.” “How much is it?”

“Eight dollars. Actually, twelve. Now it’s twelve.”

“I’ll give you eight bucks, twelve, whatever. I’ll give you twenty. A hundred and twenty bucks to Westchester. Let’s go. Right now.”

Lyova measures up the mobster, takes a step toward the car, raising his hands up in the air like a heavyweight.

“Look buddy, I’m not going to any Westchester! I’m taking this passenger to Penn Station. Penn Station! He’s going to miss his train.”

“Penn Station! Let the guy walk, it’s close enough! I’m offering you a hundred and twenty bucks!”

“I’m not going! I already told you.”

“You’re an idiot! An idiot!” yells the mobster.

Lyova doesn’t seem offended. He agrees, “Yes, sir, I’m an idiot.” He returns the bag to the passenger in the back, slams the door, spits some words in Russian, or Ukrainian, and sits behind the wheel. He doesn’t start the engine. He wants to calm himself. Distracted, he looks at the passenger in the mirror.

“Why were you at the doctor’s? Are you sick?”

The patient doesn’t answer.

“Is it serious?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“Why did you go to the doctor? A checkup, as Americans call it? But you’re not American. What’s the matter with you?” “Nothing, I told you.”

“Here, we’re just numbers. Nothing more. Insurance, accounts, credit. Numbers. Why see a doctor? The wife? Is your wife sick?” “My wife?”

“Your significant other, as they say here? Wife, friend, partner,
significant other.
Is she sick?”

“No, she works at that doctor’s office. I go there to see her from time to time. She finds out when my appointments are and makes sure she’s not around. She knew this time, too, I’d bet on it. No sign of her.”

“Divorced? I mean, are you separated? You go to see her even though she doesn’t want to see you? Is that how it is?”

“We’re not divorced.”

“Okay. Let’s go to the station.”

Lyova turns the key, the cab sputters, and then they are at the station. The customer descends; the bag descends.

“Wait, mister! Take your goddamn MetroCard. Take it with you.”

“What’s that? I thought we agreed …”

“Beat it! Go on, get out of here!” Lyova shouts, swearing in Russian, or Ukrainian.

Crowd. Hubbub, commotion. The traveler eventually finds the timetables, then gets lost. Then finds track 9. Then the train.

T
he present
, nothing else. Not too bad, not too bad, the train repeats in rhythm as it slowly leaves the metropolis behind.

It’s not bad, it could be worse, the exhausted passenger thinks, once in his seat. The bag next to him in the empty seat by the window. He considers the brand new MetroCard. Lyova’s gift. A good man, that Russian. Or, rather, that Ukrainian, er, Soviet. Solid. A solid, good man, that’s the conclusion of the day, Doctor. Lu wasn’t there, but it was better that way. I need to get used to it. She’s already gotten used to it, probably. No, she hasn’t gotten used to it. Otherwise, she’d be there. She wouldn’t care. She’s avoiding the past. As well as the present, of late. The present is the past; that’s why she wasn’t there. So that I’d have no mirror. She’s sparing me the mirror, the old as well as the new. She’s protecting me, the sweetheart.

No, that wasn’t how the morning had started … The irreversible chronometer of the day had been set off earlier in Dr. Koch’s office.

“Look in the mirror,” the doctor ordered.

The patient looked at his shoes. Giant. Surly. Mummies, prehistoric animals!

“Have you looked in the mirror recently? I’ve told you before, exercise. Exercise, diet, rest! In the old days, the plowman didn’t have neuroses. And neither did the forester, who worked in the woods whole days on end. The body is our home. If we don’t take care of the body, life becomes miserable. Have you looked in the mirror?”

Leaden back of the neck. Pain in his arm. Shivers, cold sweats, panic.

“Lose some weight! Get some exercise, avoid stress. Your head aches? Take an aspirin. Confusion? Apathy? This time, it wasn’t a crisis. Tics. Nervous tics. Neuro-vegetative, as we used to call them in the Old Country. Lazy stomach. The sedentary life.”

The doctor stares at the patient, the patient stares, thoughtfully, at his shoes.

“Ulcer? Maybe. Pressure 140 over 92. That’s not too bad. Pain in the back of your neck? From sitting still too much. Movement, man! Have you looked in the mirror? Have you looked in the mirror, recently? Electrocardiogram? Money in the garbage. Your heart’s not the problem. Exercise, diet, fresh air! That’s the prescription. Lifestyle. Did you look in the mirror? Did you look? An elephant!”

The patient abandons the doctor’s office, stumbling. He sits on a bench, in a nearby park.

Friday, after lunch. The rush before the break. The nine-to-fivers hurrying across the week’s river, toward the weekend. Before anyone is aware of what’s happening, another seven days and nights blow by. Spring’s uncertain sky; the doctor is there. Avicenna-Koch! A mirror, what do you know! The patient waves the image away. The trio of puppeteers in the park juggles burlesque marionettes on the ends of long, delicate fingers. Thundering music. Alleys to the left and right. Passersby of all ages and ethnicities. The doctor among them. The kaleidoscope of the city spins, with little Koch in the center of it all.

The river moves gently to the left of the train. You never step twice in the same primordial water. This is what the passenger sees out the window, along the length of the train tracks: water that doesn’t grow old and is never the same water. Nor the air. Nor the fluid, therapeutic horizon.

Past, present, future, time at one with itself, was that the horizon? Mild waters, moments aging, rot and dejection. The water grows slowly, quietly, comfortingly, over the sleeping passenger. The conductor taps him gingerly on the shoulder. The train is stopped in the station.

He quickly gathers his bag, his jacket. He descends; he’s on the platform; look at him, poor lost sucker, in the station, gazing at the wide and quiet river in front of him.

Oof, he’s arrived! The empty platform, the mountains in the distance, the river only a stone’s throw away. A clear, cold afternoon.
The beginning of the world. He doesn’t yet have a clue how close the end is. The end of his world.

The chronometer swallows the seconds of the armistice.

Peter appeared suddenly, as though in a dream, or in a nightmare.

“Peter. Ga
par. Mynheer. Mynheer Peter Ga
par here.”

A voice from the void. Professor Gora was no longer sure where he was. He took note of the walls lined with books and remained silent. He was in no mood to answer; it was an aggressive surprise.

Peter! Was it
Mynheer Pieter Peeperkorn,
the popular protagonist from the great novel he’d read decades ago, once the novel of his world? Or Peter Ga
par, dubbed
Mynheer,
from the socialist literary cafe in the Balkans?

Nothing was certain, except for the bookshelves, those in front of him and the ones in his mind.

Young Ga
par’s only publication from the years of “legalized bliss,” as he used to call his former utopia, was titled
Mynheer.
The story behind the nickname was thin and bizarre; chance had conspired with the library.

How had Peter Ga
par found the phone number of Professor Augustin Gora, who had vanished into the great United States of America?

“Where are you? Have you also made it to the other world?”

The ghost confirmed that, yes, he’d come some time ago, as a doctorate fellow at New York University.

“A doctorate? In architecture? Weren’t you … ?”

“No, I wasn’t an architect. Just a technician-architect. A junior in college when they arrested my father again; they expelled me. Three years of architecture were equivalent to a midrange school.”