1
It was always crowded in the Square Café on Saturday, even without such pleasant weather as this, so unseasonably warm for early spring. Just before noon it seemed that the whole town had flocked to the large square with the fountain in the middle. The faces of the strollers were like sunflowers, raised towards the sun that had been so stingy during the long winter.
Only two waiters had been needed the previous Saturday to serve the customers who filled all the seats inside, getting out of the rain that had been pouring without letup for weeks. Today eight tables had been placed in front of the café, so backup had to be called in.
If the bad weather hadn’t changed, Vesna wouldn’t have been expected at work until Monday. Probably she alone was dejected by the window filled with blueness that morning. She knew that the telephone would soon start to ring and, of course, she wouldn’t be able to say no. The extra shift would be handsomely paid, but she would gladly have turned down the additional money to be able to spend the weekend reading, as she’d intended.
She briefly toyed with the idea of venting her anger on the customers, refusing to pay them professional courtesy. But they weren’t to blame for the predicament she was in, and in any case she didn’t look good wearing a frown.
Soon enough she realized that things could be worse. If she’d been assigned to work inside, there’d be three tables less to cover, but in conditions identical to those in winter. This way, she had her hands full, but at least she was in the sun. The cheerfulness that soon brightened her face as she skillfully worked the tables was not just professional. The beauty of the day—like all other beauty—had an intoxicating effect on her.
The museum on the square was almost empty. On a cloudy Saturday it would have been full of visitors, but today people clearly favored natural beauty to that made by human hands. Andrei also would have preferred to be outside, but he had to wait patiently until three o’clock when the museum closed. Then another twenty or so minutes would pass until he finished all his guard duties at the end of the shift. Nevertheless, he hoped that a little bit of sun would still be left before the early twilight.
The museum had no windows so that external light did not mix with the internal lighting. When there was no one in the four ground-floor rooms he supervised, Andrei would go into the central atrium. The quadrangular space rose up through the entire height of the building like a huge light well. It ended above the fourth floor with a frosted glass roof. The diffused sunlight that poured down from there seemed somehow deficient, but it was more appealing than the cold artificial light in the rooms.
Whenever he went back among the paintings, he felt a certain disaffection. Particularly when he was alone there. People came from far away to admire the works of art, but long ago they’d ceased to have any effect on him. That was the main drawback of being a museum guard. When you are surrounded by the same beauty every day, at some point you stop noticing it. He felt this to be a punishment that was all the harder to bear since he didn’t now what he’d done to deserve it.
Friday was the only day Nada didn’t clean the movie theater right after the last show. That day there was a late show at midnight after the regular shows at six, eight and ten o’clock. There was no reason to wait until two in the morning to do what could be done on Saturday before the first show. As a rule, there were hardly any viewers at the late show, so there wasn’t much to clean anyway.
After tidying the theater quickly at the end of the ten o’clock show, Nada would take her place at the ticket window. She stayed there until the beginning of the midnight show, then rushed to catch the last bus for the suburbs where she lived. The movie theater was small, with only twenty-eight seats, and it was rare for them all to be filled. Owing to the theater’s modest revenues, she had to cover two jobs—cleaner and cashier. The only other employee was the movie operator who also tore off the ticket stubs at the entrance.
The Rex Theater’s repertoire was behind the poor attendance. It didn’t put on films that attracted a big audience but those that some of her friends derisively called artsy. Over time, Nada had started to take this mocking tone as a personal affront.
Before she started working at the Rex, she hadn’t been much of a filmgoer. Now, instead of being bored in the foyer while the movie was playing, she preferred to spend time in the auditorium. It hadn’t taken long for her to become an art film buff. She watched every movie as many times as it was shown. Although she might have had a hard time explaining why she liked art films so much, if someone were to ask, she would simply say that they were beautiful.
This was enough of an explanation for her, just as it was enough to say that this Saturday was beautiful. If it had been raining, as it had the past days and weeks, she wouldn’t have gone to work until five-thirty. Today she was already there at two. She would clean the auditorium and then take the chair from the ticket booth out in front of the theater. She would sit there and enjoy herself, watching the busy square until sunset, which coincided with the first show.
Of all the people on the square, Zoran was the only one who could hold his head towards the sun and look straight at it. He was not afraid of injuring his eyes. Once sight has been lost it cannot be further harmed by staring at the fiery ball.
He never wore dark glasses or carried a white cane, refusing these tokens of blindness because he hadn’t come to terms with his handicap. Indeed, he’d been told by doctors long ago that there was no chance of regaining his sight, but that only concerned his eyes; during the years of darkness he’d discovered that it is possible to see with the other senses.
He saw best through his ears. When he listened to music, he clearly heard colors. Each instrument had its own. The sound of the violin was dark red, the cello was purple, the viola resembled saffron, the contrabass was orange, the harp ocher, the piano was a sort of lemon, the guitar was chestnut, the flute violet, the bassoon was azure, the French horn aquamarine, the trumpet was reseda, the trombone dark green, the timpani were silver, the dulcimer was ash and the drum almost black.
His favorite was the sky-blue color created by the oboe. He’d learned to play this instrument so he could hear it whenever he wanted. Over time he’d grown skillful and even ventured to play in public. He would play for about twenty minutes on the square around noon almost every day.
If the weather was bad, he would play under the arched roof of the passage in front of the second-hand bookstore, whose owner looked kindly upon his concert. When it was a nice day, such as this Saturday, he went out into the sun, but not near the center of the square where the gurgling fountain drowned out the oboe.
At the bottom of the open instrument case that he placed on the ground in front of him was a piece of cardboard with the inscription i play for free in large letters. Even so, whenever he finished he would find not only bills, but a variety of objects inside, mostly books or trifles bought in the second-hand bookstore.
He didn’t sense any bad intentions behind these gifts. Those who gave them knew that he couldn’t read or see the shapes, but he could listen as someone read to him, and long ago his sense of touch had become much more acute than that of those who had the use of their eyes.
2
Although Vesna had a good memory, she could not remember who had been the last person to sit at table number four. This was not unusual given the great turnover that day. Customers didn’t stay long at the eight tables in front of the Square Café. They had a quick drink and then joined the river of people out for a stroll. Their places were immediately taken by others. Sunny days encouraged movement, unlike rainy days when the customers would stay a long time, as though anchored there.
New customers were standing next to table number four, waiting for her to clear it. She rushed over and picked up the bottles, cups, glasses, spoons and napkins. Then she put the bill and money from the previous customers on her tray, replaced the pink paper tablecloth, and motioned with a smile for the three young girls and a boy to sit down.
When one of the girls pulled out her chair, she found a large notebook with a brown binding on it. She picked it up and looked at the waitress quizzically. Vesna took it and her smile broadened, as though in apology.
This happened every day. The café customers were proverbially forgetful. They usually left umbrellas, hats, keys, eyeglass cases and books, but also stranger things. The proprietor of the café had a showcase where he kept unusual objects that had never been claimed by their owners. It contained, among other things, a worn-out pair of false teeth, a quiver for arrows, a medal with a ribbon, a switchblade, a pack of condoms, a turtle shell, a gaudy wig and even a cracked glass eye.
Vesna took the notebook into the café and gave it to the cashier behind the bar. No explanation was needed. The woman took it without a word and leaned it against the side of the cash register. That was the usual place for forgotten items. It would stay there for the next two or three days. If no one came looking for it, the proprietor would decide whether it was worth putting into his collection.
If Vesna could remember who’d been sitting at table number four, she might see the person again. Most of the guests were regular customers at the Square Café. More than once, thanks to her alone, a forgotten item had been returned to its owner who hadn’t even come looking for it, since he hadn’t the slightest idea that he’d left it there.
Now it all depended on the forgetful customer. If he or she didn’t appear very soon, and the proprietor decided that the notebook didn’t suit him, it would end up in the garbage.
Just before closing, Andrei made his final round of the rooms. This was not necessary because the last visitors had already left his part of the museum more than half an hour ago, but he was a conscientious guard who followed the rules.
He found the large brown leather drawing portfolio in the fourth room. It was lying on the middle of three benches, blending in mimicry of the color of the wood. He’d seen such portfolios before, brought by art students who came to the museum to practice, learning from the great masters. They would spend hours studying them in detail and drawing. But this was the first time anyone had ever left their portfolio behind.
He stared pensively at the embossed leather surface. As far as he could remember, no one had come with a drawing portfolio that day. But evidently his memory was unreliable. His attention was proportionate to the number of visitors. Besides, his thoughts had also been preoccupied with the beautiful day, so it was no wonder he’d missed this. Indeed, it could have lain there a long time without attracting his attention.
He wondered what to do with it. The rules said that all found items were to be reported to the security service. But that meant writing a report, which would take at least fifteen minutes, thereby reducing the already short time he had left to spend in the sun.
Andrei was a conscientious guard but also a practical man. He would spare himself the trouble if he simply didn’t report the portfolio. There would be no harm since its owner couldn’t get hold of it until Monday when the museum opened again. He would put it in his locker and discreetly return it to the room on Monday morning.
When its owner turned up, what would be more natural than to contact him first? And if he or she didn’t appear, Andrei would make the report at the end of that working day. He wouldn’t be in a hurry then. The forecast was for protracted rain starting again tomorrow.
Nada always followed the same order when she cleaned the movie theater. Starting from the last of the seven rows, she first vacuumed the four seats covered in burgundy plush and then the matching carpet. The moviegoers took those seats first, while those closer to the screen were usually empty. She didn’t even have to clean there, but did it just the same. There would always be a bit of dust, and she thought it a sacrilege to show art films in a dusty auditorium.
There wasn’t much to clean in the back rows either. The people who came here were different from the public in other movie theaters. They didn’t leave scattered popcorn, empty plastic cups, chewing gum stuck under the seat or even more unseemly things. Actually, there was usually nothing but puddles on the floor left by their umbrellas. There was enough space in the foyer for a cloakroom where coats and umbrellas could be left, but there was not enough income to pay someone to work there.
The puddles from the previous night’s late show had long since dried. When she finished vacuuming the seventh and sixth rows, Nada was tempted to stop cleaning and go out into the sun. Even if there was some dust in the other rows, this would not spoil the first showing very much, and she would certainly vacuum the whole auditorium before the second show.
Knowing that this would give her a guilty conscience as she sat in front of the theater, she decided on a compromise. She would quickly vacuum just the carpet and not the seats. After all, they hadn’t even been used. She hurried to the fifth row.
A surprise was waiting for her in the first row. There was something on the raised seat of number four. Because of the poor lighting she didn’t recognize it until she got up close. It was a CD in a brown see-through plastic box. She picked it up carefully as though it wasn’t a commonplace item and turned it over, searching for something more specific, but found nothing. There wasn’t any sleeve and nothing was written on the disk except that it was a DVD and not a CD.
What surprised Nada was not so much the object as where she’d found it. Why would someone sit on the worst seat in the theater? That seat was taken only on rare occasions when the auditorium was full, and the late show the night before had certainly not been one of them. Only five tickets had been sold for the ten o’clock show also.
She mused a while over this unusual event and then shrugged her shoulders. It was stupid to stand there in the gloom racking her brains while everything was shining brightly outside. It actually made no difference how the DVD got there. Someone had left it, and if they wanted it they would come looking for it.
She returned to the foyer, placed the plastic box on the counter in the ticket booth, put the vacuum cleaner in the corner, picked up the chair and went out into the sun.
Someone always listened to Zoran’s concerts even when the weather was bad, and today quite a lot of people had gathered. He was not aware of the size of his public until their applause echoed from all sides once he had finished. He always felt awkward as he bowed to people he couldn’t see. He hoped that they would be no less enthusiastic even without his handicap.
He stood there for a while after the applause died down. When he could tell by the sounds that the circle around him had broken up and he was no longer the center of attention, he knelt down by the case. Before he could put the oboe inside he had to take out what had been put there in spite of the warning.
First he felt for money. He knew inevitably it would be there. He sighed and shook his head after he’d collected quite a sum. He put the bills in the breast pocket of his shirt. When he got home, he would put today’s earnings with the rest that he kept in a shoebox. He didn’t have any plans for the money. He put it in a box simply because he had to keep it somewhere.
The same box held the letters that a secret admirer regularly left on Saturday. The long envelope was there again today. She admired his playing in grandiose terms and considered him to be a kindred spirit to whom she could confide her most intimate feelings. She was convinced the two of them would make a perfect couple and that she alone would understand him perfectly. At the end of every letter she promised to approach him the next Saturday, but this had never happened, and the new letter never mentioned the promise that she’d made.
The case was full of objects too. He had no difficulty recognizing them by their feel. There were two books, a small picture in a frame, a brass figurine of three monkeys holding their hands over their eyes, ears and mouth, a large wooden block with two holes on one side, a long-necked vase, an enormous comb that could only be used for decoration, and a round bottle that probably contained some fragrance.
He was delighted when he felt the last item, a CD. He hadn’t receive
d music as a present in a long time. Strangely enough, his listeners rarely thought of rewarding him with something that really had meaning for him. He would keep only this out of all the gifts. It was the only one that seemed fitting. Like some sort of exchange. He had received in return what he himself had given.
He would take the other items to the second-hand bookstore. The owner would take them with feigned hesitation and excessive gratitude. It was a tacit agreement between them. The second-hand bookstore owner’s kindness towards Zoran’s playing in front of his store came at a price.
3
Monday mornings were never very crowded in the Square Café, and today only three tables were taken. If the weather had been nicer there might have been more customers, but the rain that had started on Sunday morning was still pouring without letup. The square’s Saturday radiance now seemed a distant memory. Swollen, leaden clouds had descended almost to the roofs of the tallest buildings on the square. They’d had to turn on the lights in the café just as if it was already growing dark.
This gloomy atmosphere would have been easier for Vesna to take if she had had more work. After serving the four customers, she busied herself behind the counter for a while, doing superfluous tasks just to pass the time. Then there seemed to be no point, so she leaned her elbows on the counter, nestled her face in the palms of her hands and stared blankly out the café window at the wet grayness of the empty square.
If her boss found her in that position he wouldn’t criticize her in the least. He wasn’t bothered by idleness if the customers were taken care of. But he would get angry if he saw her with a book in hand. She would have loved to spend these free moments reading, just to take her mind off the terrible weather. But she could do nothing because of her boss’s extreme intolerance. Vesna suspected it was because he didn’t read at all. When she finally found another job, she would have to make a biting comment to him about it before she left.
Impossible Stories II Page 17
