beautiful place. I'm thankful to you for that.
Then why don't you let me see it? I can't even open the goddamned window.
It's for your own protection. You wanted to be on the top floor, but we can't take any chances, can we?
I'm not going to commit suicide, if that's what you mean.
I know that. But not everyone shares my opinion.
Another one of your compromises, huh?
By way of response, Quinn shrugs his shoulders, glances down, and looks at his watch.
Time is running short, he says. I've brought along the files of one case, and I think we should get to it now. Unless you're feeling too tired, of course. If you prefer, I could always come back tomorrow.
No, no, Mr. Blank answers, waving his arm in disgust. Let's get it over with now.
Quinn opens the top folder and removes four eight-by-ten black-and-white photographs. Wheeling himself forward in the chair, he hands them to Mr. Blank and says: Benjamin Sachs. Does the name ring any bells?
I think so, the old man replies, but I'm not sure.
It's a bad one. One of the worst, as a matter of fact, but if we can mount a compelling defense against this charge, we might be able to set a precedent for the others. Do you follow me, Mr. Blank?
Mr. Blank nods in silence, already beginning to look through the pictures. The first one shows a tall, gangly man of about forty, perched on the railing of a fire escape in what appears to be Brooklyn, New York, looking out into the night in front of him—but then Mr. Blank moves on to the second photo, and suddenly that same man has lost his grip on the railing and is falling through the darkness, a silhouette of splayed limbs caught in midair, plunging toward the ground below. That is disturbing enough, but once Mr. Blank comes to the third picture, a shudder of recognition passes through him. The tall man is on a dirt road somewhere out in the country, and he is swinging a metal softball bat at a bearded man who is standing in front of him. The image is frozen at the precise instant the bat makes contact with the bearded man's head, and from the look on his face it is clear that the blow will kill him, that within a matter of seconds he will fall to the ground with his skull crushed as blood pours from the wound and gathers in a puddle around his corpse.
Mr. Blank clutches his face, tearing at the skin with his fingers. He is finding it difficult to breathe now, for he already knows the subject of the fourth picture, even if he can't remember how or why he knows it, and because he can anticipate the explosion of the homemade bomb that will tear the tall man apart and cast his mangled body to the four winds, he does not have the strength to look at it. Instead, he lets the four photographs slip out of his hands and fall to the floor, and then, bringing those same hands up to his face, he covers his eyes and begins to weep.
Now Quinn is gone, and once again Mr. Blank is alone in the room, sitting at the desk with the ballpoint pen in his right hand. The onrush of tears stopped more than twenty minutes ago, and as he opens the pad and turns to the second page, he says to himself: I was only doing my job. If things turned out badly, the report still had to be written, and I can't be blamed for telling the truth, can I? Then, applying himself to the task at hand, he adds three more names to his list:
John Trause
Sophie
Daniel Quinn
Marco Fogg
Benjamin Sachs
Mr. Blank puts down the pen, closes the pad, and pushes both articles aside. He realizes now that he was hoping for a visit from Fogg, the man with all the funny stories, but even though there is no clock in the room and no watch on his wrist, meaning that he has no idea of the time, not even an approximate one, he senses that the hour for tea and light conversation has passed. Perhaps, before long, Anna will be coming back to serve him dinner, and if by chance it isn't Anna who comes, but another woman or man sent in as a substitute, then he means to protest, to misbehave, to rant and shout, to cause such a ruckus that it will blow the very roof clear into the sky.
For want of anything better to do just now, Mr. Blank decides to go on with his reading. Directly below Trause's story about Sigmund Graf and the Confederation there is a longer manuscript of some one hundred and forty pages, which, unlike the previous work, comes with a cover page that announces the title of the piece and the author's name:
Aha, Mr. Blank says out loud. That's more like it. Maybe we're finally getting somewhere, after all.
Then he turns to the first page and begins to read: The old man sits on the edge of the narrow bed, palms spread out on his knees, head down, staring at the floor. He has no idea that a camera is planted in the ceiling directly above him. The shutter clicks silently once every second, producing eighty-six thousand four hundred still photos with each revolution of the earth. Even if he knew he was being watched, it wouldn't make any difference. His mind is elsewhere, stranded among the figments in his head as he searches for an answer to the question that haunts him.
Who is he? What is he doing here? When did he arrive and how long will he remain? With any luck, time will tell us all. For the moment, our only task is to study the pictures as attentively as we can and refrain from drawing any premature conclusions.
There are a number of objects in the room, and on each one a strip of white tape has been affixed to the surface, bearing a single word written out in block letters. On the bedside table, for example, the word is table. On the lamp, the word is lamp. Even on the wall, which is not strictly speaking an object, there is a strip of tape that reads WALL. The old man looks up for a moment, sees the wall, sees the strip of tape attached to the wall, and pronounces the word
He is dressed in blue-and-yellow striped cotton pajamas, and his feet are encased in a pair of black leather slippers. It is unclear to him exactly where he is. In the room, yes, but in what building is the room located? In a house? In a hospital? In a prison? He can't remember how long he has been here or the nature of the circumstances that precipitated his removal to this place. Perhaps he has always been here; perhaps this is where he has lived since the day he was born. What he knows is that his heart is filled with an implacable sense of guilt. At the same time, he can't escape the feeling that he is the victim of a terrible injustice.
There is one window in the room, but the shade is drawn, and as far as he can remember he has not yet looked out of it. Likewise with the door and its white porcelain knob. Is he locked in, or is he free to come and go as he wishes? He has yet to investigate this matter—for, as stated in the first paragraph above, his mind is elsewhere, adrift in the past as he wanders among the phantom beings that clutter his head, struggling to answer the question that haunts him.
The pictures do not lie, but neither do they tell the whole story. They are merely a record of time passing, the outward evidence. The old man's age, for example, is difficult to determine from the slightly out-of-focus black- and-white images. The only fact that can be set down with any certainty is that he is not young, but the word
Mr. Blank stands up from the bed at last, pauses briefly to steady his balance, and then shuffles over to the desk at the other end of the room. He feels tired, as if he has just woken from a fitful, too short night of sleep, and as the soles of his slippers scrape along the bare wood floor, he is reminded of the sound of sandpaper. Far off in the distance, beyond the room, beyond the building in which the room is located, he hears the faint cry of a bird—
