Adjacentland

by Rabindranath Maharaj

  We all are, I told him, just so he would continue.

  I am the same person no matter where you choose to place me. A train station, a grotesque mansion, a town of ghosts, a compound. I will always be the same.

  Me? Why would I place you anywhere?

  He seemed quite annoyed and I felt he wanted to be alone. I went to the window and gazed at the drizzle, so wasted and crimson it seemed like a kind of vapour: the shell of some object that had long dissipated and which put in mind the swift second before an explosion. I walked up the stairs and left him to his book.

  When I awoke in the early morning, I recalled every detail of the dream, which was unusual. It took a while before I concluded that I had unconsciously been setting pieces together to come up with a picture of the owner of the house and that my dream was really a tendering of all this understanding. Perhaps, too, I had been influenced by the words written on the paper about looking between the frames. I felt I had spent too much time cooped up in the house and I decided I would clear my head by stepping outside, as it seemed relatively calm through the window. I put on the shoes I had found in the closet and walked out of the house. When I crossed the gate, I looked around for the tunnels I assumed the little girl was using to shelter but they had all been covered over with the red dust. I walked on, testing the ground with my shoes. After a while, I began to cough and I returned to the house.

  My eyes were burning and I washed my face in the kitchen sink and went to the bookcase. I got out a book that at first seemed to be describing this area, but as I read, I discovered it was about a compound of some kind. The place described was part of a town, the existence of which was hidden from cartographers and regulators and tax collectors. The compound was set in a town of interlocking streets and rows of identical houses and had once been the old administrative centre of the town. In this compound were scientists, writers, painters, teachers and musicians. I was thinking that it was some kind of retirement place; a retreat for burnt-out men and women, but the book seemed to suggest that they were surreptitiously monitored and were not free to leave if they chose. As I continued reading, I realized that the compound was not a retreat but a sort of holding house for men and women overwhelmed with madness and, moreover, they had been carefully chosen. But why? The book seemed to suggest that men and women with a particular sensibility, those who endlessly tried to find answers to abstract questions had been gathered there and carefully monitored. I tried to follow if this was so because their obsessions had transformed them into zealots, but the book’s tone shifted and it now appeared that these men and women were constantly forced into bouts of regression to the precise period when their inspiration scattered into lunacy. It was a rambling and evasive account and the last chapter gave a hint at the reason for this fogginess. The writer admitted to using a nom de plume because he had once been a psychiatrist at the place and following his decision to abandon the institution, he had been hounded with the rumours that he was delusional, had suffered a breakdown, had identified too closely with his patients at the place, a background check had revealed he was a criminal and so on. One of the more cutting accusations was that he was categorizing extreme irrationality not as an abnormality but as a vital spark only because he had himself been infected. The rumours spread among his associates were not the end of it and here the author hinted there may have been attempts on his life. He had been forced to hole up in decrepit little towns, constantly on the move.

  Now you might also be wondering if the haunted psychiatrist had finally found refuge in this forbidding area. The texts certainly suggested this and those that described barbaric medical practices may have been smuggled out of the compound as evidence. Perhaps Kothar had followed him here or had been brought along. But all of this was just speculation. I went to the bookcase and tried to see if there was some journal hidden away between the books. When I found nothing, I took my search to the rooms upstairs. I was about to give up when I thought of the undeveloped negatives in the darkroom.

  There were six and I placed two into the developing tray. As the photographs took shape, I saw a man with a crook in his thin lips that suggested the permanent imprint of some horrendous vision. The man’s mouth was partially open and I could see neither teeth nor tongue. I waited for the film to fully develop, for the features to fully emerge, but the man’s features remained the same. I fished it out of the tray and held it up against the lamp.

  You are looking at it the wrong way, came the voice from the end of the room. I was startled and I called out Kothar’s name, but the voice was not as abrasive and rusty. In fact, it was remarkably similar to that of the dream man. I heard the voice again saying, when you measure everything in time, you see nothing else. You see only the hours and days and years falling like blank slates on a concrete floor. You can see the cascading slates but never hear the sound of them shattering on the floor. Death is the end of time. It’s as simple as that. And what happens before is of little consequence. I cannot understand why this is so hard to grasp.

  Once more, I called out but there was no answer. I felt I saw someone standing at the end of the darkroom. The figure seemed to have absorbed some of the gloominess and appeared a light shade of blue, like a plant from a sea cave. But when I walked to the area, I saw it was a canister perched on a stool. I returned to the developing prints and once more, I heard the voice but from another side of the room. When a child is born, it looks around the room to determine its contours and how far away the walls are and the depth of the floor. Everything else is irrelevant to its tiny eyes. And years later, we endlessly repeat this act when we already know the answer. This is how we live our lives. Marking and measuring. Setting boundaries. Circling the wagons. It’s how we measure our lives. Beginning, middle and end. Death is the end of time. Everything else is an accessory, a fable, a conversation with ourselves that possesses no real meaning. Why won’t you understand?

  I felt stupid saying, “Is that what I am doing now? Having a conversation with myself?”

  In the second print shimmering in the liquid, I noticed the downward turn of his lips and I tried to determine if, in his smile, there was despair or contempt or skepticism. I hung the print on the drying hook.

  The sequence is wrong. You have arranged the prints in the wrong order. You need to reverse them all.

  I wondered if I had inhaled some of the red dust on my brief trip outside. I put the last print into the tray and I saw the outline of a slim man taking shape, the shoulders slightly hunched, the thinning hair swept back. I held the print against the lamp – before it could completely dry – and I saw the same figure. I carried it upstairs and held it against the window, hoping that in the natural light I would see it correctly. It had developed further to show a crook in the man’s thin lips that suggested the permanent imprint of some horrendous vision. The subject’s mouth was partially open and I could see neither teeth nor tongue. But it was unmistakably a photograph of myself.

  I was confused and, I will admit it, frightened, as I returned to the basement to develop the remaining film. Half an hour later, I saw they were all blank; the glossy paper overlaid with red ripples that resembled an ocean rising against itself. I tried to convince myself that, in my haste, I had probably mixed the developing liquids in the wrong proportion and so the photographs had been undeveloped. Likewise, the one I took upstairs had been overdeveloped.

  I rummaged around the shelves to see if there were batches of fresh print paper and as I did so, I heard a sound from one of the tunnels. I called out a couple times and when there was no answer, I assumed it was the fierce wind blowing through the vents. That night, though, I was sure I heard voices downstairs, but twice I checked and saw no one. The third time, I saw a man looking through the window. He had a hat that seemed too big and when he turned I noticed his striking nose. “What are you doing here?” I asked just to be sure this was not another vision.

  “I am fixing everything,” he said. “The titles must be arranged alphabetic
ally.”

  “Where did you come from?” I asked him. “Were you part of the team?”

  “I am the Librarian,” he said in a fussy manner. “The books must be arranged properly. They are all out of place.”

  Given the situation, it seemed silly to apologize for anything, so I told him, “I didn’t expect to see anyone here.” He continued replacing the books. I thought of something. “Was it you who was hiding in the shadows and –”

  “I am the Librarian,” he replied with some irritation. “Did you read everything in their proper order?”

  “What order are you talking about?”

  Instead of answering, he hurried down the steps to the basement. I noticed he had a funny limp. After a while I decided to follow him. “Hello,” I shouted. I heard my voice echoing in the tunnels and the patter of footsteps. I followed the sound, calling out every minute or so. The tunnel was damp and the odour of sulphur increased with each step. I was about to turn back when I came to an opening. Three men were seated close to each other on what looked like a bench cut from the wall. I was both startled and relieved. “Are you part of the rescue team?” I asked immediately.

  The man in the middle laughed in a funny way, like the forced unscrewing of a rusty nut. “Yes, you may consider us in this manner.”

  I walked closer so I could get a better view in the gloom. “What are you doing here? I was looking for someone who called himself the Librarian. It’s lucky I followed him. Are there others?”

  The little gnomish man on the left tapped the side of his head and said, “Inside here.” He began to titter.

  “I meant other survivors.” I wondered if they had been affected by the sulphurous dust and needed some time to recover. “I believe there may have been someone else here. Not the Librarian.”

  They leaned closer so I could not catch their whisperings. Eventually the middle man cleared his throat and said, “Yes, we are familiar with your friend.” As he said friend, the little man made two air quotes and he looked like a child climbing a wall. “Believe it or not but most of the inmates have their own special companions. Your own, we have to admit, is more unique.” There was another huddle before he continued. “We believe your previous profession allowed you to add layers that gave him more...”

  He seemed to be searching for a word. His own companion on the right said, in a sombre voice, “Heft. Height, weight, expressions, personality, background details and –”

  “And so on and so forth. We know what you are thinking. Why would I do this?” He managed to sound both bored and melancholy.

  Now the impish one took over. He related a story about a writer who, years after he had committed the perfect crime, created a fictional double to whom he could relate the details of this crime. “Pan has goat ears,” he finished with a giggle.

  His companions did not share his amusement. “What we are getting at,” the middle man said, “is that for men with your condition, the creation of a friend, a protagonist, an acolyte – call it what you will – is not unusual. What is unusual is the attempt to augment the phantasms of others. When you use your imagination to fill in the –”

  “I believe you all should rest for a while,” I told them with utmost sincerity. “The air outside might be poisonous.”

  “Let us continue, please. When you use your resourcefulness to convince others of their own imaginary friends. When you shade and shadow them. We believe this is a way of controlling those less resourceful than you.”

  “Again, I must suggest you all rest for a while.”

  The middle man acted as if he had not heard my request. He said, “Our theory is that whenever you find something that is propelling you toward the truth, you sabotage it. You burn, disfigure and rearrange.” He tapped his head and added, “Your friends inside there don’t want to be spurned.”

  As they did one of their huddles, I asked them, “How did you all get here?” I was now certain that they had been affected by the dust, but their presence indicated a rescue vehicle not far off. When they did not answer, I walked to the door and added, “Please wait here.”

  “We have all the time in the world. All the time. Before you leave, can you tell us your name?”

  I had no intention of alerting them of my memory loss. I recalled the authors of all the books in the recessed library and gave them a composite name. “Don Velesco Alejo Tomas Pascual Garibay.”

  “This is more inventive than usual,” one of the trio said in a gloomy voice.

  I took a deep breath, pulled my jacket up and pressed the collar against my face, and walked out of the house. Ten minutes later, I realized I had made a mistake in leaving, as I could see nothing but swirling dust. When my face began to sting, I pulled my jacket farther up to cover my eyes. I felt this was what trying to breathe in quicksand must feel like. It felt as if I were walking on quicksand, too, as the ground felt soft and unstable. Soon, I could see just a few feet ahead of me and it was becoming almost impossible to breathe. Twice I stumbled and each time I recovered, I saw a tiny figure standing some distance ahead. The second time, I tried to call out, but my mouth immediately filled with dust. It was too late to turn back so I pressed on and when I saw what appeared in the distance to be a man with a wolf, I felt it was my mind playing tricks. This is what death looks like, I thought.

  STAGE

  FOUR

  14 THE TRAIN STATION

  I have to conclude that I am a director. Not of a company or a business of some kind, but a movie director. Your instructions were very vague and I hoped that I would get a clearer understanding once my drug-induced haze had passed and I could better grasp what I was doing in this old train terminal and why I could recall nothing of the film and, more alarmingly, nothing of how I found myself here. But as the morning progressed, I realized my amnesia had either been instigated by some potent cocktail of drugs or something more serious. What that may be, I have no idea.

  I have tried to spark my memory from your instructions scattered across the storyboard. The actors are not professionals. They need firm instructions. Be firm but patient. Learn from them. It would have been helpful if you had included an actual summary of the plot because I have decoded three or perhaps four separate narratives from the storyboard. The first, of a madman endowed with a vast array of powers he was reluctant to use because each heroic act transported him to some earlier trauma, I discarded altogether. The second was the story of a group of ragtag second-grade superheroes who grew increasingly frustrated because they were summoned for mundane tasks like locating lost buttons in retirement homes and reading to old ladies and repairing obsolete appliances. They hungered for some truly heroic mission and increasingly they grew disconsolate and depressed. This narrative was told from the perspective of a psychiatrist into whose office they filed and whom they assumed was the leader of their team. The underwhelming name they had given him was Adequateman. (Likely because he possessed no powers.) The third and most intriguing involved a comic book writer who grew increasingly convinced that all his creations sprang from an external source, which had been using him to desensitize and perhaps prepare his readers for some coming Armageddon. His spiral continued when he began to have pockets of amnesia followed by bouts of paranoia, which he attributed as attempts by the entities – in the storyboard, they appeared as blue divine beings – to pre-empt any broadcast of his unexpected insight.

  Some of the images in the storyboard make no sense. There are flexible machines and troops of flying monkeys and a blue man on a chariot that appears to barely skim the ground, and above him a figure that seems to be dancing in the air, unconcerned about the havoc beneath. But the next page depicts the dancing figure shedding tears that transform into leaves. On the succeeding pages, I see men dressed in robes straining with huge bows and these same men witnessing the immolation of horses.

  The sketches are mostly hurried with explosions represented as starburst splotches, although there are a few that are remarkably detailed. One of these depic
ted a scene in which a man is strapped in some kind of machine in a bubble-shaped room while three scientists watch through a glass door as the images – drawings and photographs – flash before the trapped man. Another shows a child on a mountain throwing a boomerang while water spouts from fissures into the valley.

  This old abandoned train station with its desultory and dystopian appearance, its crumbling pillars and tunnels, and the stream-leaking manholes and the surrounding amphitheatre which must have been some sort of waiting gallery, seem most suited to the third storyline. If there is some way the three storylines come together, I have missed it altogether. Perhaps this is a prequel of some sort. So far, I have not noted the presence of either the actors or anyone from the film crew. There is an old bus in the parking lot, but the trains must have been out of service for decades.

  I hope the rest of the crew arrives soon because I have almost used up the stock of stale chocolates and candies in the vending machines. Additionally, I have no desire to continue sleeping on any of the concrete benches in the terminal. It’s now late at night, although I cannot tell the exact time from the clock just above the ticket counter. It’s stuck at nine-thirty and the hour hand beats like the claw of a dead bird against whatever malformation is blocking the cogs within.

  I had hoped that sleep would return my memories but this morning I am no closer to recalling anything prior to the moment I awoke on the bench facing a useless clock. I went outside to see if there was any sign of the crew and, seeing no one, I decided to explore the passageways. Most led to platforms where I saw dead trains sitting on the rails. There were three tracks and the trains were parked parallel to each other. As I explored, I discovered the doors were locked and when I peered through the lower windows, I noticed the long seats at the end of each carriage. They would be infinitely more comfortable than the bench in the station so I moved from carriage to carriage, testing all the doors and windows. This took several hours and I was about to give up when I skipped across the track and tried the doors of the carriages on the middle rail. At the end of the lot, almost half a mile from the platform, I came across an unlocked door. I climbed on and peeped through the little porthole at the adjoining carriage. I saw that it was a canteen with half a dozen tables scattered around. Most of the tables were occupied. Everyone glanced up when I walked in and, because they seemed either impatient or annoyed, I explained that I had been in the station and I had no idea it was the meeting area. I did not mention anything about my amnesia because I still hoped it would wear off. They all had a ghastly pallor as if the makeup had been overapplied. I wondered if this was residue from a previous film where they had all been cadavers.