THE APARTMENT was on the central square in an old pre-war building constructed during some period of authoritarian government. I got the keys from a friend who lives abroad. Her grandmother recently died and she said she would allow me to stay there while I was visiting the city. I just needed to know the number to open the front door, and the keys would be waiting for me in the mailbox. The flat was at the top of the first flight of stairs. The door was heavy, wooden. I worked both keys until the ancient lock turned and the door creaked open.
I went in.
The apartment was being renovated. All of the kitchen appliances had been unplugged from the walls. One of the rooms was completely being refinished and the workman’s ladder still stood in place. Two rooms were overflowing with stacks of old books. In the library, they still were ordered across the shelves. In a second room, they were stacked into seas of old boxes, one toppling over into another. The old woman had been religious and there was Christian imagery everywhere. There was also a tall, stained glass art nouveau lamp in the library. I paid almost no attention to this lamp as I spread my sheets out on the couch and went to sleep. When I woke up again, the lamp was shimmying back and forth and had grown a set of eyes.
The air was different too, thicker, as dense as water, and yet breathable. The art nouveau lamp was glowing and dancing and I stumbled past it to the corridor. The old woman’s cane was set against the wall in the corner, beside a silver crucifix. I felt up the side of the wall until I found the light switch and turned it on. With that first burst of electric light, the room became stationary, and the lamp returned to its usual form and shape. I noticed, as I walked back to the couch, that it was covered in a fine layer of dust. It must have all been my imagination.
The second time I woke up, the art nouveau lamp was glowing again and staring at me. It was brighter in the room again, and the air was even denser than before, like maple syrup. Books were removing themselves from the shelves and then reshelving themselves. An old wood spinning wheel in the corner was spitting out thread all by itself, as if run by some invisible hand. The light in the corridor was off again, but the room was so noisy and alive with flying books that I couldn’t even make my way across it. That’s when the woman fell out of the wall.
She was dressed in a cotton nightgown and was thin. Her hair was long and so blonde it was almost white. I couldn’t see her face because it was covered with her hair. She sat down beside me and was still, quiet. This, as I understood it, was Woman Number 2. She thus began to admonish me. “You have not been treating women well,” she said. “You have one in your heart and yet you entertain and use the others. It’s just not right!” She was clutching at a ball of white yarn and knitting away with a pair of soft, sun-browned hands. The room continued to pulse with light, and when I looked over at the art nouveau lamp, it winked at me and swayed.
Thereafter arrived Katla with two of her favorite girlfriends. They all went into the bathroom, where they disrobed. They were standing there under the spray of the shower and soaping up each other’s beautiful breasts. The women were younger than Katla, and one had very curly hair. After the lesbian shower, Katla dried off and put on some white clothes. She came into the room with the lamp, and I noticed that a small café had opened up in the corner. In fact, the entire side of the room had been replaced by the side of a street. Katla sat there with her blouse halfway open and ordered a coffee. A French waiter stepped quickly and brought it to her on a tray. Katla began to read through the morning’s newspaper in the August sunshine.
“But you have such beautiful eyes,” I told Katla. She only squinted at me over the paper. “Won’t you have me?” I implored her. “Please, tonight?” Katla only shook her head. “You have another woman in your heart now,” she said. “So go be with her.” “But I can’t be with her.” “She’s just your little saint now, isn’t she?” “You don’t even know who she is!” “I know everything already,” Katla said, sipping her coffee, “besides, I have no use for you anyway. You’re just a silly boy.”
I stepped away from her table at the café and was back in the room with the art nouveau lamp. The books were still flying off the shelves and landing again, like tiny birds in a park. The old gramophone in the corner began to spin, and a jazz song was playing through the dust. Woman Number 2 was now lying on the couch before me. She had pulled her ropey, yarny hair back from her strange blue eyes. I could see her face. She had pleasant features but almost look frightened. “Take me,” she whispered, as I crawled on top of her. “Take me, you bastard!”
When I woke up again, I noticed the dust on the lamp in the corner. Everything was back in its proper place. It had been a dream. Someone had turned off the light in the corridor though, and so I went to turn it back on. I was beginning to suspect the old woman’s apartment was haunted. Supposedly, it had once belonged to a pair of long-dead Lutheran deacons, and most of the religious art had belonged to them and not to her. Who were they, and what did they have to do with all of this? As I passed the lamp, it began to glow brilliantly and I saw its big eyes again. The room turned orange and the air was thick. The gramophone spun back to life and the lights began to flicker violently. I bolted for the door. It was ajar, and there were neighbors standing in the hall who had come to see what was up. They were in their pajamas.
Looking back, I saw Woman Number 2 sitting on the bed, waiting patiently for me in her nightgown. Katla was behind her, reading her newspaper at the boulevard café. She lifted her cup of coffee and the books began to fly off the shelves again. The works of Balzac, or that faded special commemorative volume about the ’84 Sarajevo Olympics. The books began to swarm in my direction as the door to the apartment shut. The lost old woman’s cane flew up from the corner and wedged itself in the door. I turned around and the jazz only played louder.
The orange light was so intense, I could no longer see.
north! 