Best European Fiction 2013 (4 page)

The old lady whispered something to her husband and he kneeled on the floor and started poking around the man with the beard (who, meanwhile, had informed the others that he was a painter); soon the old man was squeezing carefully through the other people’s legs. The old lady explained that the sudden stop had caused her glasses to fall off, and she’d only just realized that they were missing. Some of the other passengers kneeled then too, wanting to help the old man, who was still on his knees, impressing the younger people in the elevator with his endurance and persistence. The number of people in the car blocked a lot of the light from the weak fluorescents, their silhouettes casting numerous shadows—a deep darkness on the floor that made their joint quest significantly more difficult. The man in the striped suit—a dandy, really—didn’t pitch in with the search, but instead started calling for help. He started yelling various names, as if he knew important building personnel who were in charge of keeping the place running day to day. No matter the volume, it was all in vain. The building’s elevators had only been recently installed and they were, as it was said, absolutely cutting edge. They had thick walls and solid insulation, which kept their movements perfectly quiet— an utter joy. Nothing like those rickety, terrifying, ancient elevators you find in older buildings, their decrepit mechanisms straining to pull vibrating cords tied to old tin cans up musty tunnels. No, these new models moved quickly and silently, and always stopped with the utmost gentleness. They gave the passengers a feeling of trust and security.

But everyone present had no choice but to accept the fact that the system wasn’t working properly—perhaps a flaw in the installation process? Soon enough, when he noticed that his yells were useless, the man in the suit started to slam his open palms violently against the closed metal doors—something of a shock for everyone else. When he figured out that even this wasn’t loud enough, he lifted his briefcase and he started to smack its tiny wheels against the silvery, mirrored surface. The echoes from this latest assault bounced all over the elevator car, occupying every plane and angle, and inciting even more unrest among his fellow passengers.

Suddenly, the tall fellow grabbed the dandy’s hands. Having gotten his attention, the giant then pointed toward the little girl, who was covering her ears with her hands and looking at them both in confusion. Her father tried to convince the panicking gentleman to apologize to the girl for the scene he was making, but the dandy refused, explaining that he was doing what he was doing for the collective welfare and common interests of all the stranded passengers. The doctor didn’t give up, however, but continued in dignified persistence until their juvenile bickering turned into a heated argument. This was the first actual fight of their ordeal, and it put everyone even more on edge.

Moments later, when he realized that he’d already missed his meeting, the man in the suit removed his jacket, holding it in one hand while still clutching his briefcase in the other, as though there was something strictly confidential in it. The other passengers began to indicate that the temperature, which should have been regulated by the ventilation system, was now increasing in waves, each even more unbearable than the last; they had to do something about that. Most of the men removed some layer of their clothes, and loosened their ties if they had one—or, if they didn’t, like the painter, they rolled up their pants. The old lady pulled out an electric hand fan and started whirring it in front of her face, turning it to her husband’s from time to time, letting her husband work it when she got tired of holding it up. Everyone else was wiping their dewy foreheads with everything within reach—their sleeves or facial tissues that they’d been keeping in their pockets, thinking that they would never need to use them—everyone, that is, except for the soldier and the woman in red, who were chatting incessantly now on various subjects. At that particular moment, the soldier was explaining to the girl how his gun worked, how to switch the safety on and off, how to aim and shoot—things that he wouldn’t be talking about so nonchalantly in other circumstances. The father interrupted them, saying that it would be appropriate to try, for a change, to keep quiet and listen, in case anything was happening outside—whether the elevator next to theirs was moving, for example, or whether they might be able to hear any workers trying to fix whatever malfunction had stranded them all there. They were longing to hear the updates and instructions that rescue teams would surely be calling out, discussing their prognosis and planning the best possible way to get them out of there.

Except for the rumblings of their bodies and the clicking of the old couple’s dentures, however, there still wasn’t a sound to be heard. By now the old man had already stated his hypothesis that the tall fellow was the culprit. Despite everyone’s reasonable rejoinders, the old man blamed the tall fellow and his capricious decision to force himself upon the collective in the elevator for stranding them in this situation; the elevator must have had a weight limit, and the tall fellow must have caused an overload. On account of his being the cause of all of their troubles, the old man then demanded that the tall fellow—who had since revealed that he was a historian—tell everyone some stories, which would put their own unfortunate situation into the proper perspective. So he presented their time in the elevator as historically inevitable and spoke about the old legends, for instance when the galleys of the Githiesh navy got lost in the Salzburg Sea and so couldn’t take part in the battle of Getersburg, providing sea support to their infantry. Later, however, when the sailors worked together, and all the captains coordinated their movements, they surprised the enemy from behind, and thus defeated them utterly. The tall fellow would have certainly continued to dig through these musty catacombs if the well-dressed gentleman, who had been grinding his teeth all the while, hadn’t suddenly—after ferociously mashing his cell phone’s keypad—put his phone to his ear. Not a word was spoken, until this small cause for hope was extinguished as well: no signal.

It would have been one thing had the tenants in the building simply not cared about the passengers trapped in the elevator—that wouldn’t have concerned them quite so much—but the fact that there had been no sign of life, that not a single sound had penetrated the car, and that the passengers had been unable to get a single message through … this seemed to threaten their assumptions and beliefs about the state of the world they’d so recently left. Time was passing, and soon the woman in red, who was sitting on the floor with her back against the wall and her hands wrapped around her knees, declared quite loudly that she was about to faint from starvation. The soldier had leaned his head on her and was already dozing off. Swallowing his self-importance, the well-dressed man addressed the group as a whole, concluding that the day must now be over: it was probably night outside. The passengers had long since begun licking their dry lips, hoping to relieve their increasing thirst, and it was then that the artist pulled a liter water bottle out of his bag, and, after taking the first sip, passed it on to the others. When he was first offered a sip from the bottle, the man in the suit politely—albeit with a grimace— declined; a little later he was quick to grab the bottle and fiercely drink down what was left. The water seemed to calm the passengers down, and now they all lay down on the floor—inasmuch as this was possible—which had seemed wide enough at first, but now felt much smaller. Except for the soldier, who would occasionally wake up to keep an eye on his fellow prisoners, and the little girl, who kept complaining to her father—even though he was doing his best to placate her by telling her stories, patiently and quietly—the others soon fell asleep.

The snoring and the deep sighs that came from the passengers on the floor mixed with other bodily sounds, until the entire group sounded like a small, joyful band. Some of them bumped their heads together accidentally, or pushed aside their neighbor’s belongings, but overall there was no hostility, no angry shoves. This temporary respite didn’t last long, however: their peaceful dreams were interrupted by a jarring bang. Almost everyone jumped to their feet, save for the artist and the man in the suit, who—as if stuck to each other—didn’t budge. With messy hair and bleary eyes, they rose toward the light of the elevator’s ceiling; this time they looked at each other not with suspicion, but terror. Now several of them mentioned that they had to answer the call of nature. For a while they were wondering just what to do about this, until the tall historian came up with the idea to use the empty water bottle while the rest covered their eyes or turned their backs. Then they all fell asleep for the second time.

There were no outbursts of desperation come morning, only the gurgling noises of their empty stomachs, like abandoned kittens mewling on someone’s porch, permeating the car. Their shared vulnerability had turned into a mutual compassion and softened their lonely hearts. The woman in red went on and on about some recent events in her neighborhood. Reminiscing remorsefully about her lack of sympathy for a stray dog that had been playing in front of her building, she promised she would mend her ways once they got their lives back. Now they all started to evoke similar poignant memories from their lives, as if standing in front of some invisible adjudicator who would soon make a final decision about their destinies and allow only a few to go back to address their errors. Through these recollections they felt they were somehow guaranteeing their futures, giving evidence of their own worth—or their pretentions to superiority. After the soldier explained what had brought him out to the building the previous day, his companions concluded that he shouldn’t have been there in the first place—he’d gotten the wrong address. But squeezed between the bodies of the father and the woman in red, who every so often was taking out a book and pretending to read attentively, the soldier didn’t regret his mistake for a minute. The businessman, on the other hand, suddenly turned toward the old man and his wife, saying that he’d never liked old people and almost never let them cross the road, when he was driving—he’d zoom right into the crosswalk and cut them off. He demanded then that the old couple apologize in the name of their entire generation.

After they’d all purged their souls, they went silent again. The painter dozed off, snoring loudly. When they began to stir again, they noticed that the heat coming from the ventilation system had been replaced with cool air. It was blowing steadily from above and now everyone started to put their clothes back on and lie closer to each other. Some of them switched their seats, depending on their ability to tolerate the chill. Some time later, you could hear a sort of chewing sound coming from one of the elevator’s corners, shortly enough followed by a loud smacking of lips. Those who were closer to the old man and woman could see for themselves, and those who were farther could simply sense that they were chewing candies without sharing. The woman in red crawled closer to them and begged for some. At first the old woman held tightly to her bag and wouldn’t give in. She relented soon enough and opened her bag to give the woman a single nicely wrapped candy. This only served to reaffirm dislike of the old couple, especially given the way the doctor’s young daughter was staring with watery eyes at the woman eagerly munching her prize.

A new ray of hope emerged when the elevator suddenly restarted, moving down one stop. And yet, they were all certain that—if, for some reason, the elevator resumed its travels—it should go up, not down. Still, this development reassured them that their ordeal—which had lasted more than twenty-four hours now—was nearing its end. The well-dressed businessman and the tall historian jumped to their feet and again started to yell out to their invisible saviors and bang uselessly on the doors with the soles of their shoes. This time no one complained. This supposed glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel made them increasingly impatient. For a while now, the painter had been scribbling lines on the smooth walls of the car, using a pencil he’d taken out of his pocket. He claimed to be an artist, but, in fact, his drawings seemed more like imperfections being introduced onto the surface of the hitherto spotless elevator, which, until then, had been shining like a crown jewel. But such purity was lost on the car’s current inhabitants, who were staring at the painter without complaining or criticizing his sketch. The painter was scrawling from the floor to the ceiling, slowly turning their dungeon into a sort of scribbled whirlwind that they all felt they were being drawn into as time went by. To them it seemed that these lines were the only thing expressing their situation—cold, hungry, thirsty, tired—forced to contend with all the fallacies that their current ambiguous state brought into relief. It was because of this that the painter—who hadn’t said a word since beginning his drawing—became an object of renewed suspicion, since the passengers would have dearly liked to find someone to blame for their predicament. Spitefully, though with curiosity as well, they began to question the bearded man. The old woman accused him of stealing her misplaced glasses when she’d been unable to find them on the floor. The historian, who’d previously blamed everything on the inevitability of history, questioned the painter’s decision to keep his water bottle a secret for so long. And the old man concluded that only the painter seemed as though he’d been fully prepared for this incident. The soldier, the woman in red, and the father and daughter all refused to take part in this new trial, only mumbling quietly on occasion, as if trying to douse this fire. It was the father who eventually succeeded in calming everyone down by saying that it was useless to worry about who was responsible for the accident, and how it would make more sense to do so afterward, when they got out. But—they realized he’d said “when” instead of “if.” This was somehow the final blow. Exhausted and tired, they all gave up on the idea of being rescued. The soldier and the woman in red were hugging each other; he was playing with her belly-button ring while she was tracing the tattoo on his left forearm. The little girl finally calmed down and sat in her father’s lap, while the painter gave up on his drawings and dropped his blunt pencil onto somebody’s shoe, without checking whose.