Replacement

Начало книги

A twitch, a nervous tic, so to speak, in the light (or the dark), an occasional spasm, a breeze fingering the gap between the curtains, letting in a faint hint of the summer night, creating a narrow slit that gapes for a moment and then vanishes, leaving behind a provisional darkness, before a new twitch and a new darkness; this happens every time the wind (he’s purposefully left the window open on account of the heat) parts the gap between the curtains, which ripple and bulge (like curtains on stage when actors or stagehands bustle by behind them) before settling again into relatively still, skirtlike folds. A skirt with a high slit and the whole world hidden behind it. In theory, you just have to open the door and go to find everything, absolutely everything.

It’s dark. He’s lying almost motionless in the dark, he’s motionlessly heading toward rest and sleep. He’s used to it, he’s friends with it, he’s darkness’s friend, the short dark period, that is, after the curtains have been drawn, but before he turns on the reading lamp. So long as everything’s in its usual place, he can make his way, like he’s just done, across the room from the window to the bed. Besides, it’s not completely dark, but only halfway dark; the sun, after all, is still a bright, burning reflection on the high-rise’s topmost windows, while darkness, or half-darkness, or shadow thickens below and slowly rises (he knows) from floor to floor, like water up a ruler: soon to be submerged. In the evening he entered into the apartment’s odors as a stranger might, but now he recognizes the comforting, metallic scent of gun oil again; it’s within reach of the bed as usual, loaded as usual. He’s ready. Of course, the ammunition is half his age, so around forty-something years old.

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