The reflection of the moonlight from the roofs opposite mine shone into my room. I went over to the window. The rows of ornate gables were like a ghostly cemetery where the swarms of the living had gnawed out caverns and passageways.
For a long time I stood there, staring out into the night, until I gradually became aware of the sound of cautious steps from the apartment next door?
I listened. There was no doubt about it, someone was there. The brief groans from the boards betrayed each hesitant, creeping step. At once I was fully alert again. My sense of time was focused on the present.
I strained my ears, quietness.
Silently, I tiptoed to the cabinet and picked up a flashlight. Then I stood there, working out what I was going to do.
I decided that it probably was Frankie Wasser, prying around, perhaps rummaging through drawers to find more evidence against Dr. Savioli. I did not waste time thinking. The next moment I was standing by the door to the studio apartment. From inside came the scraping sound of someone opening a drawer.
I pushed the door.
Although it was dark, I had a view of the whole room. A man in a long black coat looked up in panic from a desk, hesitated for a second, uncertain what to do.”
Then, “Charles? Is it you?”
I recognized that the face belonged to the medical student I had previously stood next to in the rain, Seven. The flashlight gave the dark room a film noir quality. I saw him playing the role of the handsome stranger, perhaps a spy or a double crossed lover. Only then did I realize that he actually was a handsome stranger, and more than that, he was the vision of the monk I had seen in the cathedral. Even his dark hair draped over his right eye.
I was certain that the vision of the monk meant I could trust this young student.
After a long silence he said, in an unsteady voice, “I’m not a thief.”
I interrupted saying that I knew, and proceeded to tell him everything, with the few reservations I thought necessary, about the apartment and that I was afraid that a woman who was a close friend of mine and her lover were in danger from Wasser. I deduced that he already knew most of it, even if not the precise details.
Seven spoke, “I was right after all. Wasser intends to ruin Dr. Savioli, but hasn’t enough evidence yet. I found these photographs in this drawer and plan to keep them from Wasser,” he said, pointing to an envelope on the desk. “It is the only incriminating evidence I could find, let’s hope I haven’t missed any.”
I pulled the photos from the envelope and was surprised at the many angles and revealing positions the couple had been able to self-photograph. There seemed to be a third person in some of the more graphic photos. A closer look proved that it was not a human but a large doll often photographed straddled by Dr. Savioli and his insistent penis. If that manikin had been a human, Dr. Savioli would have been going way too far into the territory of sexual abuse. Even with this inanimate object I felt uncomfortable.
As Seven was talking, my eyes searched the room and I noticed a trapdoor in the floor. It was square door and had a ring as a handle.
I suggested I keep the envelope of photographs in my room.
-----
Seven returned home but a strange sense of unease was growing, distracting me. There was something invisible calling me. I had to see where the square trapdoor in the floor led. I saw no reason to hesitate.
I discovered a spiral staircase that descended to a small empty room. At first, nothing but darkness. Then I saw steep, narrow steps reaching further into the blackness. I carefully stepped down them, groping my way past alcoves damp with mold and mildew, around twists, turns and sharp corners, past passageways leading off to the left or the right, past the remains of an old wooden door, taking this fork or that, at random; and always more steps. Over it all was the heavy, odor of wet soil and mold.
If only I had brought the flashlight with me!
At last the ground became level. From the dull crunching sound of my footsteps I guessed I was walking on dry sand. It could only be one of those countless passages that drain rain water to the river.
A open door revealed a faint light. I could make out a scarcely perceptible shimmer of light coming from the ceiling. The remains of an iron spiral staircase led toward it.
At the top, the staircase came up against horizontal paneling which let through, in regular lines, the shimmer of light that I had seen from below. This was another trapdoor, with light seeping round the edges. I put my shoulder against it and pushed.
I was standing in a room lit by a dim light. It was fairly small and completely empty apart from a pile of clothes in one corner. There was only one window, and that had strong iron bars. I checked the walls several times, but however carefully I searched I could find no door or other kind of entrance, apart from the one I had just used. The bars over the window were too close for me to put my head through, but from what I could see, I was in a tower next to the proscenium of a large stage. The curtains were open and the stage was empty. One bare light on a stand stood in the center of the stage. The rows of seats disappeared into the darkness only lit by faint EXIT signs.
I looked round my tower room. The walls and ceiling were bare, the whitewash and plaster had long since flaked off and the floor was ankle-deep in dust.
I shuddered at the idea of examining the rubbish in the corner. Again I couldn’t believe I made this trip without the flashlight. At first glance it appeared to be rags tied up in a bundle. Or was it a couple of old, black suitcases? I prodded it with my foot and managed to use my heel to drag part of it towards the bit of light cast across the room. It looked like a broad, dark strip of material that was slowly unrolling. It was some curiously old-fashioned coat, and beneath that was a little white box, playing cards. One card had fallen out of the deck, a joker.
The long walk without any coat through the underground passages had left me cold. Fits of shivering rippled across my skin, penetrating deeper and deeper into my body. Walking round the room, stamping my feet on the ground, beating my arms against my sides, nothing helped. I clenched my teeth to stop the chattering.
Then I remembered the clothes in the corner, and I pulled a coat over my own clothes with shaking hands. It was a tuxedo jacket with long tails. It must have been from some old musician who played the theater. Rummaging further I found a top hat and plopped it on my head. A perfect fit. I felt warmer almost immediately, though it did have an odor of decay.
Then I huddled down in the opposite corner and felt my skin slowly, very slowly begin to grow warmer. But the awareness of the icy skeleton inside my body refused to leave. I sat there motionless, my eyes wandering round the room. The playing card I had noticed, the joker, was still in the light that ran across the middle of the room.
If only I had brought my phone, though I’m not sure where I was. I could wait for morning, and ask a worker to tell me how to get out other than the dark way I got in. Without a light I would never manage to find my way back through the maze of tunnels. There seemed to be no other exit from the room.
In the opposite corner, the joker card was swelling into blistered lumps, it seemed to be taking on human form and soon a human dressed like the joker card was squatting in the corner staring at me with vacant eyes. The joker and I had the same face only his looked strangely flat. Leaning to the side I could see that the head was incomplete, and missed its back side entirely. Hour after hour I sat there without moving, huddled up in my corner, a frozen skeleton in a fancy tuxedo that belonged to some musician. And across the room from me, a version of me also sat, me with half a head.
Mute and motionless, we stared into each other’s eyes, one a mirror-image of the other. Can he see me as I see him? Perhaps the back of my head is also missing.
Dr. Hill had told me that I had this power. I was not afraid of my creation. I only wished I knew how to control the power so to have created him outside my prison, so he could bring me a flashlight.
He grew smaller and smaller as I lost interest, and eventually I picked him up, being careful not to squash him and dropped him in my pocket. Now we were brothers.
I slept.
I heard voices! Two women were walking slowly down one aisle. I forced my head part-way through the bars and called out to them. Open-mouthed, they stared up, but when they saw me they let out a puny shriek and ran away. I realized that I must be a startling image. All theaters are thought to be haunted.
An hour passed. I realized that I had to try the tunnels again. Perhaps there would be light now that it was day.
I backed down the spiral stairs and, once I reached the tunnel, discovered that the opening to the river was close by.
The river was brown from flooding. I was fortunate the tunnel was not filled with water.
The first person I met as I walked home gave me a disgusted look. I wasn't sure why until I looked down at myself. I was still wearing the tuxedo and top hat from the night before over my suit. I chuckled that I must look like I had attended quite a party. Quickly I discarded the clothes in an alley.
Then I saw that some woman talking of having seen the TAR. She had seen too many horror films, I thought. Truthfully I could be the TAR walking among them looking as ordinary as any other man.