The Elephant Vanishes (24 page)

—translated by Jay Rubin

I
T WAS SUNDAY
evening when the TV People showed up.

The season, spring. At least, I think it was spring. In any case, it wasn’t particularly hot as seasons go, not particularly chilly.

To be honest, the season’s not so important. What matters is that it’s a Sunday evening.

I don’t like Sunday evenings. Or, rather, I don’t like everything that goes with them—that Sunday-evening state of affairs. Without fail, come Sunday evening my head starts to ache. In varying intensity each time. Maybe a third to a half of an inch into my temples, the soft flesh throbs—as if invisible threads lead out and someone far off is yanking at the other ends. Not that it hurts so much. It ought to hurt, but strangely, it doesn’t—it’s like long needles probing anesthetized areas.

And I hear things. Not sounds, but thick slabs of silence being dragged through the dark.
KRZSHAAAL KKRZSHAAAAAL KKKKRMMMS
. Those are the initial indications.
First, the aching. Then, a slight distortion of my vision. Tides of confusion wash through, premonitions tugging at memories, memories tugging at premonitions. A finely honed razor moon floats white in the sky, roots of doubt burrow into the earth. People walk extra loud down the hall just to get me.
KRRSPUMK DUWB KRRSPUMK DUWB KRRSPUMK DUWB
.

All the more reason for the TV People to single out Sunday evening as the time to come around. Like melancholy moods, or the secretive, quiet fall of rain, they steal into the gloom of that appointed time.

L
ET ME EXPLAIN
how the TV People look.

The TV People are slightly smaller than you or me. Not obviously smaller—
slightly
smaller. About, say, 20 or 30%. Every part of their bodies is uniformly smaller. So rather than “small,” the more terminologically correct expression might be “reduced.”

In fact, if you see TV People somewhere, you might not notice at first that they’re small. But even if you don’t, they’ll probably strike you as somehow strange. Unsettling, maybe. You’re sure to think something’s odd, and then you’ll take another look. There’s nothing unnatural about them at first glance, but that’s what’s so unnatural. Their smallness is completely different from that of children and dwarfs. When we see children, we
feel
they’re small, but this sense of recognition comes mostly from the misproportioned awkwardness of their bodies. They are small, granted, but not uniformly so. The hands are small, but the head is big. Typically, that is. No, the smallness of TV People is something else entirely. TV People look as if they were reduced by photocopy, everything mechanically calibrated. Say their height has been reduced by a factor of 0.7, then their shoulder width is also in 0.7 reduction; ditto (0.7 reduction) for the feet, head, ears, and fingers. Like plastic models, only a little smaller than the real thing.

Or like perspective demos. Figures that look far away even
close up. Something out of a trompe-l’oeil painting where the surface warps and buckles. An illusion where the hand fails to touch objects close by, yet brushes what is out of reach.

That’s TV People.

That’s TV People.

That’s TV People.

T
HERE WERE THREE
of them altogether.

They don’t knock or ring the doorbell. Don’t say hello. They just sneak right in. I don’t even hear a footstep. One opens the door, the other two carry in a TV. Not a very big TV. Your ordinary Sony color TV. The door was locked, I think, but I can’t be certain. Maybe I forgot to lock it. It really wasn’t foremost in my thoughts at the time, so who knows? Still, I think the door was locked.

When they come in, I’m lying on the sofa, gazing up at the ceiling. Nobody at home but me. That afternoon, the wife has gone out with the girls—some close friends from her high-school days—getting together to talk, then eating dinner out. “Can you grab your own supper?” the wife said before leaving. “There’s vegetables in the fridge and all sorts of frozen foods. That much you can handle for yourself, can’t you? And before the sun goes down, remember to take in the laundry, okay?”

“Sure thing,” I said. Doesn’t faze me a bit. Rice, right? Laundry, right? Nothing to it. Take care of it, simple as
SLUPPP KRRRTZ!

“Did you say something, dear?” she asked.

“No, nothing,” I said.

All afternoon I take it easy and loll around on the sofa. I have nothing better to do. I read a bit—that new novel by García Márquez—and listen to some music. I have myself a beer. Still, I’m unable to give my mind to any of this. I consider going back to bed, but I can’t even pull myself together enough to do that. So I wind up lying on the sofa, staring at the ceiling.

The way my Sunday afternoons go, I end up doing a little bit of various things, none very well. It’s a struggle to concentrate
on any one thing. This particular day, everything seems to be going right. I think, Today I’ll read this book, listen to these records, answer these letters. Today, for sure, I’ll clean out my desk drawers, run errands, wash the car for once. But two o’clock rolls around, three o’clock rolls around, gradually dusk comes on, and all my plans are blown. I haven’t done a thing; I’ve been lying around on the sofa the whole day, same as always. The clock ticks in my ears.
TRPP
Q
SCHAOUS TRPP Q SCHAOUS
. The sound erodes everything around me, little by little, like dripping rain.
TRPP
Q
SCHAOUS TRPP
Q
SCHAOUS
. Little by little, Sunday afternoon wears down, shrinking in scale. Just like the TV People themselves.

T
HE TV PEOPLE
ignore me from the very outset. All three of them have this look that says the likes of me don’t exist. They open the door and carry in their TV. The two put the set on the sideboard, the other one plugs it in. There’s a mantel clock and a stack of magazines on the sideboard. The clock was a wedding gift, big and heavy—big and heavy as time
itself
—with a loud sound, too.
TRPP
Q
SCHAOUS TRPP
Q
SCHAOUS
. All through the house you can hear it. The TV People move it off the sideboard, down onto the floor. The wife’s going to raise hell, I think. She hates it when things get randomly shifted about. If everything isn’t in its proper place, she gets really sore. What’s worse, with the clock there on the floor, I’m bound to trip over it in the middle of the night. I’m forever getting up to go to the toilet at two in the morning, bleary-eyed and stumbling over something.

Next, the TV People move the magazines to the table. All of them women’s magazines. (I hardly ever read magazines; I read books—personally, I wouldn’t mind if every last magazine in the world went out of business.)
Elle
and
Marie Claire
and
Home Ideas
, magazines of that ilk. Neatly stacked on the sideboard. The wife doesn’t like me touching her magazines—change the order of the stack, and I never hear the end of it—so I don’t go near them. Never once flipped through them. But the
TV People couldn’t care less: They move them right out of the way, they show no concern, they sweep the whole lot off the sideboard, they mix up the order.
Marie Claire
is on top of
Croissant; Home Ideas
is underneath
An-An
. Unforgivable. And worse, they’re scattering the bookmarks onto the floor. They’ve lost her place, pages with important information. I have no idea what information or how important—might have been for work, might have been personal—but whatever, it was important to the wife, and she’ll let me know about it. “What’s the meaning of this? I go out for a nice time with friends, and when I come back, the house is a shambles!” I can just hear it, line for line. Oh, great, I think, shaking my head.

E
VERYTHING GETS REMOVED
from the sideboard to make room for the television. The TV People plug it into a wall socket, then switch it on. Then there is a tinkling noise, and the screen lights up. A moment later, the picture floats into view. They change the channels by remote control. But all the channels are blank—probably, I think, because they haven’t connected the set to an antenna. There has to be an antenna outlet somewhere in the apartment. I seem to remember the superintendent telling us where it was when we moved into this condominium. All you had to do was connect it. But I can’t remember where it is. We don’t own a television, so I’ve completely forgotten.

Yet somehow the TV People don’t seem bothered that they aren’t picking up any broadcast. They give no sign of looking for the antenna outlet. Blank screen, no image—makes no difference to them. Having pushed the button and had the power come on, they’ve completed what they came to do.

The TV is brand-new. It’s not in its box, but one look tells you it’s new. The instruction manual and guarantee are in a plastic bag taped to the side; the power cable shines, sleek as a freshly caught fish.

All three TV People look at the blank screen from here and there around the room. One of them comes over next to me and
verifies that you can see the TV screen from where I’m sitting. The TV is facing straight toward me, at an optimum viewing distance. They seem satisfied. One operation down, says their air of accomplishment. One of the TV People (the one who’d come over next to me) places the remote control on the table.

The TV People speak not a word. Their movements come off in perfect order, hence they don’t need to speak. Each of the three executes his prescribed function with maximum efficiency. A professional job. Neat and clean. Their work is done in no time. As an afterthought, one of the TV People picks the clock up from the floor and casts a quick glance around the room to see if there isn’t a more appropriate place to put it, but he doesn’t find any and sets it back down.
TRPP
Q
SCHAOUS TRPP Q SCHAOUS
. It goes on ticking weightily on the floor. Our apartment is rather small, and a lot of floor space tends to be taken up with my books and the wife’s reference materials. I am bound to trip on that clock. I heave a sigh. No mistake, stub my toes for sure. You can bet on it.

All three TV People wear dark-blue jackets. Of who-knows-what fabric, but slick. Under them, they wear jeans and tennis shoes. Clothes and shoes all proportionately reduced in size. I watch their activities for the longest time, until I start to think maybe it’s
my
proportions that are off. Almost as if I were riding backward on a roller coaster, wearing strong prescription glasses. The view is dizzying, the scale all screwed up. I’m thrown off balance, my customary world is no longer absolute. That’s the way the TV People make you feel.

Up to the very last, the TV People don’t say a word. The three of them check the screen one more time, confirm that there are no problems, then switch it off by remote control. The glow contracts to a point and flickers off with a tinkling noise. The screen returns to its expressionless, gray, natural state. The world outside is getting dark. I hear someone calling out to someone else. Anonymous footsteps pass by down the hall, intentionally loud as ever.
KRRSPUMK DUWB KRRSPUMK DUWB
. A Sunday evening.

The TV People give the room another whirlwind inspection, open the door, and leave. Once again, they pay no attention to me whatsoever. They act as if I don’t exist.

F
ROM THE TIME
the TV People come into the apartment to the moment they leave, I don’t budge. Don’t say a word. I remain motionless, stretched out on the sofa, surveying the whole operation. I know what you’re going to say: That’s unnatural. Total strangers—not one but three—walk unannounced right into your apartment, plunk down a TV set, and you just sit there staring at them, dumbfounded. Kind of odd, don’t you think?

I know, I know. But for whatever reason, I don’t speak up, I simply observe the proceedings. Because they ignore me so totally. And if you were in my position, I imagine you’d do the same. Not to excuse myself, but
you
have people right in front of you denying your very presence like that, then see if you don’t doubt whether you actually exist. I look at my hands half expecting to see clear through them. I’m devastated, powerless, in a trance. My body, my mind are vanishing fast. I can’t bring myself to move. It’s all I can do to watch the three TV People deposit their television in my apartment and leave. I can’t open my mouth for fear of what my voice might sound like.

The TV People exit and leave me alone. My sense of reality comes back to me. These hands are once again my hands. It’s only then I notice that the dusk has been swallowed by darkness. I turn on the light. Then I close my eyes. Yes, that’s a TV set sitting there. Meanwhile, the clock keeps ticking away the minutes.
TRPP Q SCHAOUS TRPP Q SCHAOUS
.

C
URIOUSLY, THE WIFE
makes no mention of the appearance of the television set in the apartment. No reaction at all. Zero. It’s as if she doesn’t even see it. Creepy. Because, as I said before, she’s extremely fussy about the order and arrangement of furniture and other things. If someone dares to move
anything in the apartment, even by a hair, she’ll jump on it in an instant. That’s her ascendancy. She knits her brows, then gets things back the way they were.