Tours of the Black Clock

111

THEIR ROOM ISN’T MUCH larger than my own, and no less spare. But it’s high enough to have a window near the top; water seeps in around the window’s edges and its smell is occasionally obnoxious. While nothing can really be seen from the window, it still lets in light. I envy their light. They don’t seem to notice it. For a long time I began coming to their room regularly; the two of them always sat in the same place, the old man at the table in the middle, slumped in his chair and staring straight ahead as the other read to him. The old man always wears the same black suit. He’s around eighty, his hair’s thin and white. The mustache is so white and scraggly it’s hardly there at all. I don’t think he recognizes me; he’s only actually seen me once before, after all. I didn’t recognize him until after I saw the picture. Like all old people he’s surrounded by his mementos, as with all old Germans I assumed at first they were the mementos of his Germanness. Pictures of him in his uniform, leading armies, posturing with statesmen, shouting at the people who worshipped him. Only after a while did I realize this wasn’t just another old German with pictures of his god, this was the god with pictures of himself. But it was the other picture that told me, the only picture that wasn’t of him. It stood alone on a small table by his cot, a dead brown flower crumbling from the photo’s heavy brass frame. At first I didn’t understand that it was her. At first it was just a picture of a girl I’d never seen before. But then I saw the inscription, and her name, and I remembered perfectly: I remembered perfectly that this was her: Yes, I told myself, this is exactly what she looks like. I remember exactly the eyes of blue and the hair of spun sunlight. When I picked up the photo that first time in their room, to look closely for something in the corner of her mouth, he became alarmed. As with all helpless old men he no longer could find the words for alarm, the alarm was all in his eyes. And then I realized. I put the picture down. It’s you, I said to him.