Adjacentland

by Rabindranath Maharaj

  As you might well expect, I was a little disappointed. It now seemed likely the old man was a tailor and his suitcases were stuffed with fabric and half-finished clothes and sewing material. Perhaps his business had dried up when the town’s inhabitants had moved away. I closed the suitcase and even though I knew that the world, in its present state – if I could judge from the town – might well be filled with tradespeople for whom there was no place, I felt sorry for this old man trapped in a house with suitcases that would never be moved until he was dead. “It’s nothing,” I told the lizard, which was still on the ceiling, clicking away. “People like him living alone must be dismayed by the idea of all their possessions being calmly audited and thrown away after they passed.” I contemplated this state all night; the passing of a life with nothing to show for it but accumulated debris, insignificant and useless to anyone not familiar with the prior owner. Tokens and mementoes and other objects burnished over the years reduced to junk.

  The following morning, when I walked up the stairs and knocked on his door, this thought was still with me. The door was unlocked and when I entered his room, I noticed that the curtain was drawn and he was nowhere in sight. I worried he had stumbled somewhere between his suitcases and had fatally hit his head. I had this image of a stiff body with a gaping wound covered in dried blood. Then I saw him on his sofa, his head thrown back. There was a greyish pallor on his face and the scatter of blue veins on his wrist seemed like the fingerpainting of a child. I walked over and asked if he was okay. He fumbled to raise the leg of his trouser and tapped his feet on the floor twice. I now saw that he had taken some time with his grooming. He wore matching socks and his shoes were shining. As I took in his jacket, adorned with cufflinks, a thought that could be considered unfair crossed my mind; I wondered why he had taken the time. An old man, his life almost over, with nothing to look forward to. Waiting for the end and a witness to see him through. Or perhaps he wanted more than a witness. It was a disarming thought but for a mere second the darkness shifted and something sprang to life.

  I was young and the world was rushing by so swiftly I felt it would soon come to a grand and dashing end, like a merry-go-round or a cartwheel that had lost its mooring, spinning faster and faster. This is how the end would be, my younger self believed, not a steady and stumbling decline but a frenzied keeling before the final crash. This young man had no idea of life dwindling away, of decay and deliquesce, of bloated organs and strangled veins and a heart not willing to work as hard. I wished I could see him clearly and take in his features, this young man; I wished I could understand his optimistic belief that his life would end as swiftly as it began. It was the starkest and – in spite of its brevity – the most distinct recollection of myself I had so far dislodged. It seemed to have come from another place and it was the first recollection not associated with the disarming banging in my head.

  My little reverie was interrupted by what sounded like an animal groan from the couch. I rushed down the stairs and straight out of the front door. Perhaps it was dread that instigated my panic but the farther away I walked, the sharper the fleeting sense of this young, indifferent man grew. How many years passed since I had been cloaked with that naïveté and how many more would have to pass before I transformed into the old man whose house I had fled? This old man, unburdening himself of all he had gathered over the years, waiting for the end. Travelling light, I thought.

  But at the moment I was more interested in this unexpected retrieval; I wanted to sustain and prolong it. So I walked through the town, pretending I was seeing it for the first time, as a newly arrived resident would. And as a newly arrived resident, I tried to summon some bit of nostalgia, some remembrance, some regret about the place I had left behind. This must work, I thought as I stumbled through the uneven lanes and byways, the narrow pavements overtaken by hedges and shrubbery. But there was nothing more. And I was left with an aching envy of this young man who measured his life not in years but in velocities.

  As I was returning to the house, I tried the same approach: to see it as a stranger would. This was not easy because from the moment my eyes opened in the lower floor of the chapter house, I had forced myself to look for familiarity. But gradually, I began to see it differently; I saw it as a building that had shaken off its mooring and was floating on a churning lake. Doubtless this was because of the blanket of mist that had pooled over the road and around the tree trunks. I imagined the old man looking out from his window and waving as from a departing vessel. Eventually I turned away and crossed a path to a bench partially hidden by a stooped and forlorn-looking willow. I dusted off the dried stems and the leaves that, at first glance, appeared to be nematode worms, and sat. The entire town seemed conjured from the mind – from the minds, I corrected myself – of a committee of deranged dreamers. I looked up to the sky, watching tiny, furry tufts of clouds appearing to reform around a larger mass that resembled a sinking vessel. I must have fallen asleep and, as I was rubbing my eyes, I noticed that the clouds had not shifted their positions for the duration of my nap: the furry bits were still detached from the larger mass. I must have dozed off for just a few seconds, I thought, even though it felt much longer.

  A few minutes later, I walked up the front steps of the chapter house and opened the door. I saw my housemate standing at the top of the stairs. He was smiling but in the stunned manner of someone who had just suffered an injury and had not yet decided on a reaction to the pain. I looked at him carefully but I did not climb the stairs. The young man who had appeared so unexpectedly and briefly might have imagined that the deteriorating senses of the old, blinding them to their worn-down bodies, were blessings. The much older man standing at the base of the stairs saw something else: he knew there would be all these attempts at preservation, like embalming in stages. I felt ashamed to be thinking of this, just beneath this man with blue veins and skin so sallow and loose it seemed bloodless. I looked away and considered going into my room. But I knew he had been waiting for me. When I glanced up, I saw a slanted roguish smile now, as if he had read my mind. (But, more likely, a reflex from an earlier time.) He walked slowly to his room and I climbed the stairs. As before, he tottered between his suitcases, glancing this way and that until he tapped a grey bag. I felt we should talk and discuss his former profession, but he seemed impatient for me to depart.

  I opened the bag in my room. I had been expecting more sewing supplies, but I saw bottles and brass cans, all wrapped in cotton. There were lotions and tinctures and balms, and in a small purse, a pair of pliers and a steel brush. The commingled odour of ammonia and sulphur reminded me, unexpectedly, of a hospital’s waiting room and I paused for a while to agitate any memory of the duration and purpose of my visit to such a place. I returned to the bag several times in the night and by the next morning, I was impatient to get to the old man’s room.

  Yet once again, he was not interested in my questions. I delayed, told him that I had no use for whatever lay within the portmanteau he had tapped and that, furthermore, the lower floor was small and already cluttered, but he just stood silently with an impatient look. When I was leaving, he withdrew a pair of snuffers from his trousers and smiled his roguish smile.

  “Do you want me to take this?” I asked. He continued smiling and there was something unnerving about his fixed expression. Perhaps all of us, normal and afflicted, old and young, associate this rigidity of emotion, the absence of gestures with death. I repeated my question just to dispel my uneasiness.

  I left his room a few minutes later with the same unease and by the time I got to the bottom stair, I was determined to end my visits. But I turned up the next night. And the night after. Each night I observed his deterioration, the blue discolouration and puffiness on his body, the scratches on his wrists one night, the bruises on his cheek the next. But I continued going up the stairs; I suppose I wanted to see how it would end. (Maybe, as an infant learning of the ebb of life by observing the increasing immobility of favoured grandpare
nts.)

  In the meantime, I cleared out a fair bit of his room until the lower floor was stuffed with suitcases and bags. Some of the larger items – a globe with a tilting axis and with all the continents but Europe painted over, a reading lamp with an angel base, two old lanterns that seemed plucked from a lighthouse, a brass goddess with a crack around her neck, a pocket watch with the hands stuck at three, a medallion with a circle or a zero in the centre, a mandolin (it may have been an ukulele) with a crudely drawn figure of a dancing woman on its lower bout – I placed on my shelves; the rest, mostly primers on euthanasia and methods of illustrations – two completely opposing sets of manuals – I replaced within their containers. It occurred to me that while I was arranging his stuff he was perhaps doing the same; settling which item he should give me next. I told this to Little Clicker, the name I had given to my companion on the ceiling.

  One night, I asked the creature, “What exactly is it that he wants me to do with all his junk? It seems as if he had been waiting for me to show up. No, that’s almost as crazy as talking to a lizard. He has been living alone for so long he is just relieved that anyone would show up.” A few minutes later, I decided to do what I should have done from the beginning: I returned with some of his smaller items. The door was open when I got there, and upon my entrance I was quite startled to see him standing rigidly before me. He seemed different somehow and instead of walking through his stuff, he stared silently while I replaced the items I had brought to their shelves. He did not seem unduly offended – or even appeared to notice – and when I was done, he pointed to a sturdy brown musical instrument case with brass clasps fashioned in the form of knuckles and bound with rope. I had resolved not to take anything from his place, but he walked to the grip with his slow steps and a lopsided smile and I decided that he would no longer have use for the organ or whatever lay within. Although it was smaller than the suitcases I had lugged from his room, it was surprisingly heavy. When I was leaving, he extended his hand and I noticed he was wearing a tan suit that seemed brand new and which fitted him perfectly. I made a joke and asked him if he was leaving for a trip, but he said nothing. I saw him staring with his lopsided smile at the knotted rope securing a grip.

  An hour or so later, I placed the case on my bed and withdrew a packet of porridge from the cupboard. While I was heating the porridge, I wondered how the old man had managed in his frail state to cook and care for himself. I could not recall a stove in his room but with all his junk, I could easily have missed it. While the water was boiling, I closed my eyes and tried to imagine him in his younger days. I saw a man who looked dandyish and spritely. He seemed to be in transit and although he was alone, both his dress and his air of expectancy suggested he was on a rendezvous of some sort. I had no idea where this image sprang from and it may well have been a slice from my own past. (Or from yours, related to me.)

  I regretted my weakness in taking his instrument case. I finished my porridge, returned to my room and, as I had done so many times, I reread your letter. Perhaps it was my mood but I felt we may have been friends once.

  I put away your letter and walked up the stairs. The Watcher was sitting on a sofa. His skin was startlingly pale and he was gazing lifelessly at the floor. Next to him was a Gladstone bag. “I came to thank you for the tools but I can no longer take any of your stuff.” He said nothing and I added, “Perhaps there is some other person who might find it useful. Is there anyone else?” I was surprised I had not thought of this before. He shook his head so ruefully it seemed more an admission of regret than an answer. “I am going to leave now.” I turned to leave.

  “Baa baa baa.” I jumped because he had actually screamed and when I returned I saw he was crying. He was grinding his teeth as if he was trying to say something but he uttered the same distressing animal sound.

  “Is there something...something you want to say?”

  He rested his hand on the bag.

  “I am sorry. There is no space downstairs. I thought at first that someone might have come for your stuff. Please understand.”

  “Baa baa baa.” He now seemed quite frantic and he settled only when I grasped the bag’s handle.

  I left his room with a fair bit of trepidation, wondering about the bag’s contents that had distressed him so much. I took it to my own room and immediately opened it. I was relieved to see a stack of record albums. There were singers and musicians, posing with their harps and guiros and ukuleles and accordions and other equipment I could not place. I decided to stack them on a shelf but when I was moving the pile, I once more noticed their lightness. I replaced the albums in the grip, withdrew the one on the top, The Tawny Leopard, a calypso collection by an old man with a slanted hat and I felt inside. At the centre of the phonograph record was an illustration of a little girl with her arms stretched over her head.

  Many of the jackets were missing their records but they all held sketches, old, faded and creased. A few were discoloured at the edges, most likely because they had been removed from a frame or from a photograph album and half a dozen, all of the same girl with a square, dirty face and a scatter of curls, were unfocused as if drawn from a distance. There were other sketches on onion skin, of men flying over burning cities and prostrate women in some kind of cornfield and a man dragging a wolf and a creature with three human heads and a train hurtling down a mountainside and a deluge that had trapped an entire town. Although a different style had been deployed with each sketch, I could see from the firmness of the brushes and pencils, the broad strokes and the proliferation of dots and crackles, they had all been done by the same person. I wondered if the artist had been trying to experiment or to mask his style, but then I realized they been sketched over a protracted period as the girl had been portrayed at different ages. When I examined the drawings more closely, I saw that the crackles were really huddles of skinny children holding out bowls of some kind. Soma, the name at the bottom of each picture, I took to be an identification of the subject rather than the artist’s signature. Beneath each illustration was this confusing statement: Today is a new day but yesterday was the same day. The last picture I replaced in its jacket was of a dashing young man in a military outfit. It seemed a self-portrait and I was confused by the familiarity of its subject. Eventually, I concluded this was so because the military man was a younger representation of the Watcher from the house. This picture contained another odd adage: Nothing exists until we deliver our verdict.

  I replaced everything carefully, pressing down on the contents so that I could properly close the bag. In doing so the lining came undone and I saw another page, folded so many times it resembled a table’s temporary wedge. When I unfolded it, I saw it was the upper half of a letter. Or it may have been the lower. It bore the same handwriting as that on the portrait and if anything, it was even more confusing. I wish I could introduce you to your younger self so you could see what you alone possessed and what you wisely hid for most of your life. You tried to warn them but they would not listen. Too late, they understood your concern but expect no gratitude. Be careful. Do not ignore anything as the clues are always before us. Think of what might be rather than what has passed. The last sentences were difficult to read, several words obscured by the creases. They want from you what they have cast aside themselves.... They are dead souls walking.... I cannot say more.... In time you will understand the reason.... Ignore the words meant for others... They have constructed a world that exists only in your mind....

  I spent the night reading and rereading the letter. Was it addressed to the old man or had he himself hidden it in the bag? Did he even know of its existence? And the most pressing question: Was it meant for me? The writing matched the letter I had found earlier – did that contain the words I should ignore? – but I could not understand why it was hidden so carefully. As I am writing this I keep hoping you will walk through the door of my room and explain everything. But my only companion is Little Clicker who is at his usual spot on the ceiling, his head turning thi
s way and that, following all my moves. Poor thing!

  Early the next morning I walked out of the house. The air was morning-cool but it felt different and, as I walked on, I felt that warm ribbons of wind had stolen inside the breeze that came at first in hesitant spurts before levelling out. In my hand was the Gladstone bag. I believed I would understand its contents better in a different setting. What did the writer mean by instructing me to ignore the words meant for others? It all seemed so covert and unlikely. But really no less unlikely as awakening in this town with a lizard, a cat and a senile old man. And three idiots loitering at a gate.

  Maybe they might help. With bag in hand, I walked past the forest where I had heard a horrible wailing and to the promenade that led to the albatross gate, but when the two jokers stood to attention as they noticed my approach, I turned around and retraced my steps. And I looked at the roofs, walls, porches and hedges and tried to pretend you had placed me into this quaint town of so many architectural styles because of my old profession; to spark a memory.

  This has been very frustrating as you can well imagine. There is a smidgen of familiarity about everything, but these memories are shuttered and because they are linked to no other remembrances, they shatter as soon as they are born. I feel that alongside the promised revelations hinted by the letterwriter, there is another hand at play; one designed to keep me perpetually confused. I say this because the town, as I already mentioned, is designed in a series of loops, almost as if the intention is to perpetually keep its inhabitants here. Unfortunately, there are just two of us and one seems to be on his way out. (Not out of the town, but I guess you understand my meaning.) I am writing this seated on a bench between two cypresses. They look like old aunts and I cannot explain why I remember something so arbitrary. I can see a cathedral’s spires in the distance. The cathedral seems to be built into the wall that stretches for miles. Less than half an hour earlier, I had discovered that its front doors were secured with three huge deadbolts. And so here I sit, bag next to me. Just before me, in a sage mulberry bush, I see a hat stuck on a branch. I want to retrieve it for the old man since he is the only other person in the town but it’s too high. Besides, I am a bit tired. This has been my longest journey in the town so far. I must do this more often. Maybe I will discover a way out of the town.