instructed to act as quickly as possible to cover up the holes gaping on every side. It is the backdrops that determine the look of the world; they give it a trustworthy face and bolster faith in its substantiality, in the belief that everything the eye sees actually exists. There will be no other perspective than the one drawn on plywood boards at a deceptive angle, depicting the continuation of the street from the point where the wall and the pavement come to an end. Closing the space, the boards open it up at the same time, offering an illusory distance that seems to stretch into the unseen suburbs.
On the other side of the boards are all the hidden lighting installations and heating and cooling ducts; work is in full swing around the red-brick workshops, forklifts crisscrossing the whole time, though never cutting across the field of vision painted on the backdrops in the appropriate colors, with a predominance of yellow ochre imitating the hue of plasterwork. Thus, the workshops themselves are not seen either, nor the workmen in overalls, nor the huge gantry cranes, even though these are in constant use. Standing on the square as the firstcharacter at hand and gazing down the street, one is unable to imagine the real topography of the terrain. Besides, such surplus knowledge would be of no use to the characters. Itâs better to live tranquilly, though in the dark, and have no notion of what one is participating in. And if the order of things has already been disturbed, ignorance absolves one of inquiring into the reason, of wondering what led to the collapse. Whose calculations lay behind it, and which layers of sand were disturbed. Why those and not others. Here and there cracks had appeared; foundations had begun to settle dangerously, and a number of walls had collapsed on the spot. To avoid an unexpected and tragic end in one of the stories resembling this one, some hurried evacuations had to be arranged.
The apprentices fashion poles into a new construction to prop up the backdrop. They work quickly but unwillingly. After the last nail is knocked in, they move away at last to light up a longed-for cigarette. As chance would have it, the painted back-drops they took from the warehouses had been used once before in a story about the difficulties of life under an oppressive regimen, and bore evident signs of censorship. To be precise, they were missing sizable fragments of pavement and wall, which had been removed along with the matching parts of the plywood base. It was not hard to guess why they had been cut out: to get rid of certain unsettling details that would have stirred recollections and emotions. It may have been, for example, that in this place there were bullet holes in a row, along withdisturbing red smears. Repugnant circumstances, the memory of which some character harnessed to his own paltry drama of power had at one time attempted to erase, were written permanently into the background in this indirect way, through the removal of the traces they had left behind. Who reached for a saw to carry out such an order, when, and what did they get for it? Hardly anything, that much is certain. It was probably done by inexperienced apprentices, because only they â without the knowledge of the masters, and perhaps deceived by the trappings of majesty â could have violated the principle of paying no attention to the desires of the characters, and the practice of avoiding all contact with them. The largest holes were patched with pieces of thick cardboard, without even taking the trouble to color them ochre to conceal the repair. No eye will linger over them anyway. The gaze will rather be drawn towards the gaudy pennants jutting from the rows of windows painted on the plywood. This distant view was not without influence on the course of events; it reminded the concierges that in their apartment buildings too there were flags in the same national colors, stowed away in dusty closets and dark storage
On the other side of the boards are all the hidden lighting installations and heating and cooling ducts; work is in full swing around the red-brick workshops, forklifts crisscrossing the whole time, though never cutting across the field of vision painted on the backdrops in the appropriate colors, with a predominance of yellow ochre imitating the hue of plasterwork. Thus, the workshops themselves are not seen either, nor the workmen in overalls, nor the huge gantry cranes, even though these are in constant use. Standing on the square as the firstcharacter at hand and gazing down the street, one is unable to imagine the real topography of the terrain. Besides, such surplus knowledge would be of no use to the characters. Itâs better to live tranquilly, though in the dark, and have no notion of what one is participating in. And if the order of things has already been disturbed, ignorance absolves one of inquiring into the reason, of wondering what led to the collapse. Whose calculations lay behind it, and which layers of sand were disturbed. Why those and not others. Here and there cracks had appeared; foundations had begun to settle dangerously, and a number of walls had collapsed on the spot. To avoid an unexpected and tragic end in one of the stories resembling this one, some hurried evacuations had to be arranged.
The apprentices fashion poles into a new construction to prop up the backdrop. They work quickly but unwillingly. After the last nail is knocked in, they move away at last to light up a longed-for cigarette. As chance would have it, the painted back-drops they took from the warehouses had been used once before in a story about the difficulties of life under an oppressive regimen, and bore evident signs of censorship. To be precise, they were missing sizable fragments of pavement and wall, which had been removed along with the matching parts of the plywood base. It was not hard to guess why they had been cut out: to get rid of certain unsettling details that would have stirred recollections and emotions. It may have been, for example, that in this place there were bullet holes in a row, along withdisturbing red smears. Repugnant circumstances, the memory of which some character harnessed to his own paltry drama of power had at one time attempted to erase, were written permanently into the background in this indirect way, through the removal of the traces they had left behind. Who reached for a saw to carry out such an order, when, and what did they get for it? Hardly anything, that much is certain. It was probably done by inexperienced apprentices, because only they â without the knowledge of the masters, and perhaps deceived by the trappings of majesty â could have violated the principle of paying no attention to the desires of the characters, and the practice of avoiding all contact with them. The largest holes were patched with pieces of thick cardboard, without even taking the trouble to color them ochre to conceal the repair. No eye will linger over them anyway. The gaze will rather be drawn towards the gaudy pennants jutting from the rows of windows painted on the plywood. This distant view was not without influence on the course of events; it reminded the concierges that in their apartment buildings too there were flags in the same national colors, stowed away in dusty closets and dark storage
Similar Books
