‘Now you’re just being hysterical.’
‘Hysterical? You want to see hysterical?’ she said and grabbed the first thing she could find—a clipboard hanging on the wall—and flung it at my head. I barely dodged it, and it grazed my cheek.
Before she could pick up the coffee mug on the table next to her, I turned around and fled down the corridor the same way I came in.
CHAPTER FIVE
As I stormed out of the hospital, I was even more desperate to find another copy of Lives of the Saints. I wanted to prove to myself I wasn’t as big a fuck-up as Julieta thought. There had to be something to this Panther Energy business. There just had to be.
At first, I wandered the streets aimlessly, trying to think of a plan. But I couldn’t stand the idea of rummaging through any more bookstores, hoping, on the off-chance, I’d stumble upon another hand-written entry. (And I also didn’t relish the thought of anyone else biting me on the ear.) My internet searches had failed, my nerves were at their breaking point. I needed proof, real proof that the man calling himself Saint Perpetuus existed. I found my feet were taking me down Santa Fe, towards his apartment . . .
As I walked towards the entrance of that stern-looking, Art Deco building, I peered up at its cupola far above Santa Fe and Coronel Díaz. The tiny window at the top was dark, lifeless. (Had I ever noticed it before?)
I looked about at the people walking down the pavement—teenaged couples walking arm-in-arm, mothers pushing baby carriages, newspaper vendors counting out their coins. (The Herd.) I wondered what it would be like to be happy like them, buying chocolates from the kiosk on the corner, window shopping for new dresses, oblivious to the existence of that dark apartment towering above the street.
I stood before the closed entrance, with my finger poised above the buzzer to call the apartment custodian. I could have left right then. I could have gone back to the hospital and apologised to Julieta for my stupidity. But, instead, I took a deep breath, and I pressed the nub of the buzzer again and again. It was more than my pride that made me do it. It was my firm belief that I was on the threshold of Eternity.
After a few minutes of peering through the dirty grate, I could see a figure limping towards the door, his outline illuminated by the flashes of a television screen somewhere at the end of the darkened corridor. As he approached, I saw he was a small, balding man with a ring full of keys in his hands. A sour expression on his face, he tried one key after another, until he finally opened the door.
‘What’ya want?’ he wheezed, a fine mist of alcohol-scented spittle spraying from his mouth.
Drawing my handkerchief to my face, I said, ‘My good man, I’m interested in seeing the apartment all the way at the top. Is the owner in?’
‘No,’ he said flatly and turned on his heel, about to close the door in my face.
Sticking my foot in the door, I said, ‘I need to see him. It’s urgent.’
‘Can’t,’ he said, trying to swing the heavy iron door closed in spite of my foot. ‘Hasn’t been here for years. Good night.’
All the way walking there, I’d been trembling with fear at the thought that someone—that he—would still be living there. (After all, what would I have said, ‘Are you Mr Perpetuus, the saint in charge of time travel? I’ve read all your books.’) Now that there wasn’t anyone there, I was furious.
Clearing my throat, I said to the old man, ‘This is official business,’ and I held out my civil servant ID, extending my hand towards his blurry eyes.
‘Don’t make no difference,’ he replied. ‘Still not here,’ he spat and stubbornly tried to close the door with my foot wedged between.
‘Ouch,’ I said. ‘Stop that! I don’t think you understand me. You see it’s a question of national patrimony,’ I said, gesturing theatrically to the building’s rough sandstone surface and its peaked arches. Pointing skywards, I said ‘That cupola is one of the finest in Buenos Aires. I simply must see it from the inside.’
The man stared at me blankly.
I continued, ‘The Ministry of Parks, Public Monuments and Green Areas is thinking of proclaiming this a national landmark, so it can be preserved for future generations.’
‘Don’t mean nothin’ to me. Ain’t got no kids. Now, get out of here!’ he said, pushing against the door.
I pushed back, ‘Of course, we could always decide not to proclaim it a national landmark. If that happens, and the new zoning law’s enacted, it’ll triple or quadruple the housing taxes.’
‘Don’t pay no taxes,’ the old man said, steadily squeezing me out of the entranceway.
Still keeping the door barely ajar, I gasped, ‘You know, it’s a shame how some tenants of older buildings like yours are getting rid of their custodians these days . . . because of rising electricity and gas bills. (After all, they figure they can save some money by opening and shutting the door themselves.) Come to think of it, your windows don’t look very energy efficient . . . Maybe I should send a note to the Housing Authority and have your meters checked.’
The old man stopped pushing against the door, and I saw a wrinkle of fear spread over his face. Wheezing heavily, he said, ‘You bastard. You wouldn’t dare . . .’
‘Oh, yes I would. Don’t fuck with me old man, or I’ll go back to my office right this very minute and type up a memo. I’ll even hand-deliver it to the Superintendent of the Housing Authority—a personal friend of mine—and CC every single, fucking member of your building consortium.’
He considered me for a moment with a snarl on his face. I hoped he wouldn’t see through my bluff.
‘Fine!’ he finally spat, and let go of the door. ‘A fat lot of good it’ll do you. The place is fallin’ apart, ain’t got no lights. I hope you break your fuckin’ neck!’ With these words of encouragement, he retreated back down the blackened corridor towards the flickering light of the television screen.
Riding high on my victory, I pushed into the entranceway. Luckily, I had the presence of mind to wad up a piece of paper I had in my pocket and jam the door latch open. (I didn’t relish the thought of that heavy door swinging closed and locking me inside.)
In spite of my success thus far, I soon found that the hallway lights weren’t working . . . and neither was the elevator.
By the time I reached the 8th floor, having groped my way along the staircase—and having stumbled over a large bag of garbage someone had left in the hallway—I was totally out of breath. The only light coming in was filtered through a tiny window high above on the curved ceiling, and I could just make out the base of a wooden ladder leaning against the wall.
‘Shit, shit, shit!’ I muttered under my breath, as I started up the shaky ladder, the top of which extended into the inky blackness above.
At the top, I edged myself out onto a sort of platform, apparently just slats of wood that creaked under my weight, and that, I prayed to God, wouldn’t give way and send me to my death. Feeling my way along the wall, I grasped hold of a greasy doorknob, turned it and opened the door slowly.
At that, just a bit more light filtered in from the room beyond. I stuck my head through the door and whispered—quite ridiculously—‘Hello, is anyone home?’
Just then, I heard a scratching noise from deep inside, and then a shriek. And then, suddenly, something flew out of the apartment at my head! I jumped back from the demon clawing at my head and fell face down onto the platform, the wood trembling as I did so. As I gripped the splintery boards—imagining it would be months before the smell of my decomposing body alerted the neighbours to my demise—I squealed in panic.
Just as I was picturing my own funeral, I saw the shadow of the pigeon that had startled me, flitting about, trying to find a way out. After a few seconds, I realised I’d been scared half to death by a bird and that the platform wasn’t going to give way. My pride slowly overcame my fear, and I stood up, took a deep breath and stepped through the doorway.
I saw dark objects here and there, but I couldn’t make sense out of anythin
g. I banged my shin against something hard and sharp and howled with pain. If only I’d been smart enough to have brought a flashlight with me!
Mercifully, I saw the dim outline of a kerosene lamp on an overturned box, what little light there was in the room glinting through the glass. Groping for it, I also came across a box of old matches. The matches were a bit damp, and I went through five or six before I found one—the last one—that flared just long enough to light the wick.
The kerosene lamp spluttered and suddenly flamed into life, casting a small, blue aura in the dark room. By the light of the tiny flame, I took in the apartment in bits and pieces. I found myself in a single room, much the same size as my kitchenette at home and about the same dimensions, long and narrow.
I made out the shape of the small, iron-framed bed in the middle of the room (the end of which I’d just banged my shin against). The sheet was covered in a thick layer of dust and pigeon droppings. I touched it, and tufts of the frayed fabric came off in my hands.
Judging from the smooth layer of filth over everything, I suspected no one had been there for ages. But how long had this place been abandoned? Five years? Ten? Thirty?
From the entries I’d read, my anonymous diarist must have lived there at least until the mid-1980s, but there wasn’t an article in the room that dated later than the 1930s.
An old Underwood sat perched on a tea trolley pushed next to the bed. I smiled as I pressed some keys and heard the precise ‘click-click’ noise. Beside it, I noticed a chipped tea cup filled with mould, a string running out of it, with the letters ‘Earl Grey’ just barely visible on its faded tag.
I was especially pleased to see the contraption of water pipes, with an old shower curtain lying, in mouldy tatters, on the floor. The valve for the hot water pipe was rusted closed, and I couldn’t make it budge. But I found that, by gripping the cold water handle with both hands, I could just force it open. As a result, I heard a tiny pinging noise from far away that then turned into a mild groan, but not a drop of water came out.
No matter. At least it was real. At least, now I had proof a real man had lived there, had slept in this bed, had drunk his tea, had written those journal entries by the light of the kerosene lamp I held in my hands. Why, then, couldn’t the rest of it be true? Why couldn’t there be a way to control the flow of Time?
As I mused this over, the pipes started humming. Then they started rattling, and soon they were making a terrible racket, as if a steam locomotive were passing through the middle of the room. The pipes shook so violently I was afraid they were going to break loose from the walls and burst.
I tried to force the valve closed, but it snapped off in my hand, slicing my palm wide open. ‘Shit, shit, shit!’ The rattling became almost deafening, and a thick sludge began to ooze out of the nozzle and onto the floor. Desperate to stop the room from being flooded, I rushed madly about, looking for anything to close the shower with. Thankfully, I felt the shape of a letter opener by the typewriter. I grabbed it and, with the utmost effort, screwed the valve closed.
As the rattling slowly subsided, I slumped down onto the filthy bed and nursed my hand. What a mess I’d made of everything! The room was filled with the stench of raw sewage, and papers were scattered all over the floor.
Papers! Some pages were still fluttering down like ancient butterflies . . . but from where?
Standing up and lifting the lamp as high as I could, I could see row upon row of shelves and cubbyholes. They sloped here and there, crisscrossing the walls on all sides, up and up as far as I could see, until they were lost in the blackness above.
I clutched at some of the pages fluttering down: a stockholders’ report from the Anglo-Argentine Train Company from 1936; the train union’s dispute resolution procedures from 1923; regulations for measuring air quality of underground work from 1941. I was beginning to feel less like an idiot, because at least the fiasco with the shower had shaken loose the papers from the shelves above.
I winced as a roll of paper hit me on my head and dropped to my feet. Just as I bent to pick it up, the little flame in the lamp began to fade. I shook the lantern carefully to see how much kerosene was left, and it sounded dry. Desperate that I’d be lost in the darkness, I lifted the glass tube from the lamp and tried to light the paper roll, but it didn’t catch. The flame was dying out.
I stuffed the roll of paper into my jacket pocket and grabbed another sheaf that had rolled off one of the shelves. (If I remember correctly, it was some commentary on Peron’s nationalisation of the trains.) The lamplight flickered out, just as I lit the papers. Holding up my little torch, I could see papers still fluttering down, and I wondered what treasures those shelves must hold and how far up they extended. Perhaps there were even further copies of Lives of the Saints!
By stretching up on tip-toe, the lowest of the shelves was still out of reach. (How in the world were these shelves ever built?) If there was a ladder somewhere, I couldn’t find it.
Therefore, with one arm on the metal pipes and the other holding my torch, I carefully stepped up on the tea trolley. My legs straddling the ancient Underwood, I could just peep over the first shelf. Then thrusting my torch as far as it would go, I thought I saw a book spine with faint gold lettering. Yes, another copy of the Saints! I reached up even further, and I could just barely scrape the book cover with my fingernails.
At this point, I must admit that my curiosity got the better of me. Just to reach a little further, I stepped up onto the typewriter and could almost pinch the cover between my thumb and forefinger, when . . . CRASH!
In my balancing act, I had tipped the typewriter slightly to one side, at which point the carriage detached itself and went whizzing across the room. Then the Underwood followed suit, tumbling off the tea trolley and, by the sound of it, smashing through the rotting floor boards and falling through I don’t know how many stories of empty space. For a second, I held myself aloft by gripping the shelf . . . until, with a terrible ‘SNAP!’, a huge chunk of it broke off in my hands, and I fell.
For one, awful second, I thought I was going to follow the Underwood through the gaping hole in the floorboards, but I was merely flung on my back on the floor—which, thank God, held my weight—and it winded me completely. Looking up at the inner darkness of the cupola, I could see a few bits of burning paper from my torch floating here and there, and then it was completely black.
As I tried to suck in some breath, the planks underneath me shuddered and moaned slightly, like the sound of a capsized ship about to sink below the waves. Then the moaning gave way to the sound of boards splitting and splintering and, with them, the water pipes bursting. All of a sudden, I could hear them being wrenched from the walls and the bolts holding them breaking loose.
Still stunned and barely breathing, I rolled over onto my stomach and crawled for the dim outline of the door. As I reached the ladder, the platform began to sway, and I half-slid, half-fell, to the bottom, filling my fingers full of splinters. As I hobbled down the staircase, the whole precarious structure collapsed behind me, and, as I stumbled down each flight, I could hear the drip of sewage close at my heels.
Good, I thought. That son-of-a-bitch custodian would have his hands full cleaning up after me. That’d serve him right for almost killing me! What the hell was he thinking letting me go up there?
Thankfully, no one was in the entranceway, and my little piece of paper was still wedged in the front door. I adjusted my tie and smoothed down my hair and left the building as nonchalantly as possible, darting down Colonel Diaz and away from the crowds. As I turned down a side street, I looked at myself in the mirror of a hairstylist’s store that had closed for the night: I was completely covered in filth from head to toe. ‘Shit, shit, shit,’ the dry cleaning bill was going to kill me!
I smeared a patch of sludge off the face of my wristwatch and saw it was almost midnight. Good. At least Julieta would be spending the night at the hospital, and I could slip into our apartment unnoticed.
/> ***
A few minutes later, I was on my hands and knees scrubbing my suit with a nailbrush in the bathtub. I wasn’t going to get it completely clean, but at least I could get out the worst stains, so Julieta wouldn’t get suspicious.
Don’t get me wrong. I was happy to have escaped that rickety, wooden death-trap, but I was kicking myself that I hadn’t been capable of rescuing that copy of Lives of the Saints. It was probably the one key to this whole mystery of Saint Perpetuus, and now it was lost forever!
I reached into the tub to pull the plug, and I saw something floating there.
It was the paper I’d stuffed into my pocket! How could I have forgotten it? ‘Shit, shit, shit.’ I fished it out of the filthy water and wiped it off with one of my son’s bibs that was hanging on a hook behind the door. I couldn’t unknot the string that fastened the paper, so I cut it with a toenail clipper.
As I unrolled it, I saw that it wasn’t paper after all, but some other material. It was supple like the oil cloth of a revolver or a chamois. It was also slightly greasy, and it smelled . . . what did it smell like?
The edges all around it were irregular, as if it had been cut with a knife. In the bathroom light, it looked like a map of some sort, but there was no key or scale. Just a diagram cut into the material—surely it was leather, although something about it didn’t seem right—of what looked like a river.
I wrapped a towel around myself and went into my study. Studying it more closely, I could see it was a map of three, parallel rivers, left to right, one slightly longer than the next. The left two were relatively straight. The last one, to the right, a bit crooked, with a slight, almost imperceptible notch bored into it half-way down its length. Then there was a fourth river, at the bottom of the confluence of the three.
By the look of it, it had to have been several hundred years old. I had no idea what it was, and yet, it seemed strangely familiar to me.
The St Perpetuus Club of Buenos Aires Page 9
