A Book of Memories Read Online Free PDF Page B

of a gas lamp, and then disappear again, and I was walking toward myself on a familiar wet street that may have been Schönhauser Allee, deserted on the night before my departure, a little after midnight, on my way home from my old friend Natalya Kasatkina; but on the corner of Senefelder Platz in front of the public lavatory I stopped to wait for myself, and while my footsteps were clattering toward me, the unlighted little structure at the center of the bare bushes on the square seemed to be making noises, as if panting, the wind was battering at its door, opening and closing it to the rhythm of my own breathing, and when it was open, I could see inside: a tall man was standing, facing the wall shining with tar, and when I finally got there he grinned at me and offered me a rose.
    A purplish-blue rose.
    But I didn't want to touch it, somehow I had to dismiss this image, too; how lovely it would be, I thought, to come to rest in some calm, luminous space —and then, quite gently, my bride floated into my cocoon. The moment she whipped off her hat and veil (rather roughly, I thought) and her massive red tresses fell to her shoulders, she breathed with bestial eagerness into my face, but instead of'the aroma of her breath, I got a whiff of something unpleasant, foul almost.
    Somewhere nearby a door was slammed shut.
    I sat up in bed, awake and maybe a little alarmed.
    The bedroom door was open, and I could see the bluish shine of the white furniture in the living room.
    And there was no window through which to see the crowns of the pine trees, the curtains were drawn, there was no sound of wind, only the murmur of the sea coming from afar, because my room faced the park.
    It was as if the door of the public lavatory that slammed shut became, in my wakeful state, the final chord of a dream that had just ended.
    But I heard hurried, retreating footsteps out in the corridor, and in the adjacent room someone cried out, or screamed, sounding much too loud — or the walls were too thin—and then came a heavy thud, as if a large object or a body had fallen on the floor.
    I listened for more, but heard nothing.
    I was too frightened to move; the creaking of the bed, the swishing of the sheets might have obliterated the moment, a careless rustle made by moving the eiderdown might have covered up the noise of murder —but what followed was silence.
    And I couldn't be sure I wasn't dreaming all of this, because we often dream of waking up, but it's not a real awakening, only a new phase of sleep, a slide downward, a descent to greater depths; and it's also true that the cry, the scream, and the thud of the falling body sounded familiar, reminding me again of Father; my eyes were open, I could still see him writhe in his sleep, start up, and then fall from the sofa onto the light-streaked floor; at the time, twenty years ago, he took his afternoon naps on the sofa that at night was my bed, and in those days we rented the very same place from which these peculiar noises were now coming, so it was quite possible that I wasn't actually experiencing these things but dreaming them anew, which was all the more likely, because the event that had put an end once and for all to the beautiful days at Heiligendamm had come to mind again just before I went to bed, as I was closing the terrace door.
    Back then, on warm nights we would leave not only all the windows but the terrace door wide open, which made me especially glad, because it meant that shortly after my parents had finally closed their bedroom door, I could carefully get out of bed and, pretending to have overcome all my fears, steal out onto the terrace.
    At times like that the terrace seemed menacingly empty, wide, enormous, reaching far into the park; on moonlit nights it was like a sharp wedge between the trees, on moonless nights it blended in more softly, almost as if it were afloat among the gently swimming shadows of the pointed pines, and if I kept watching this, this and