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By Root 243 0

were scattered some cushions. I had an impression that far away on the floor below me they were singing "Can you hear my voice, my distant one?" But I could not be sure what my ears were hearing, or of what my eyes could see in the trembling light. There was a constant slow movement in the room, as if someone big and heavy were stirring sleepily in a corner, or crawling on all fours, or clumsily tumbling over and over between the chest of drawers and the closed window. It must have been the quivering of the flashlight that produced this illusion, but I felt that behind my back, too, where the darkness was total, something was slowly creeping. I had no idea where from or where to.

What was I doing here? I had no answer to the question. And yet I knew that this abandoned bedroom was where I'd been wanting to come since the beginning of the evening and maybe for a long time before. I suddenly heard the sound of my own breathing and felt sorry that my breath punctured the damp silence that filled the room, since the rain had stopped, the wind had died down, and the singers downstairs had abruptly stopped singing. Maybe it was finally time for wine and cheese. I had no desire for wine or cheese. I had no further reason to turn my back on despair. So I got down on my hands and knees at the foot of the double bed and, rolling back the bedspread, tried to grope with the pale beam of my flashlight into the dark space underneath.

In a faraway place at another time

ALL NIGHT LONG, poisonous vapors blow in from the green swamp. A sweetish smell of decay spreads among our huts. Iron tools rust here overnight, fences rot with a damp mold, mildew eats at the walls, straw and hay turn black with moisture as though burnt in fire, mosquitoes swarm everywhere, our homes are full of flying and crawling insects. The very soil bubbles. Woodworm, moths and silverfish eat away the furniture, the wooden palings and the wooden roofs. The children are sick all summer with boils, eczema and gangrene. The old folks die from atrophy of the airways. The stench of putrefaction comes even from the living. There are many people who are crippled, who suffer from goiter, from mental deficiency, twisted limbs, facial tics, drooling, because they all interbreed: brothers and sisters, sons and mothers, fathers and daughters.

I was sent here twenty or twenty-five years ago by the Office for Underdeveloped Regions, and I still go out every evening at twilight to spray the swamp with disinfectant; I administer quinine, carbolic acid, sulfur, skin ointments and antiparasitic drugs to the suspicious locals; I encourage a hygienic and abstinent lifestyle and distribute chlorine and DDT. I'm holding the fort until a replacement arrives, perhaps someone younger with a stronger character than mine.

In the meantime I am the pharmacist, teacher, notary, arbitrator, nurse, archivist, go-between and mediator. They still doff their shabby caps to me and clasp them to their chest as a mark of honor, bow and scrape with sly, toothless smiles and address me in the third person. But increasingly I have to curry favor with them, turn a blind eye, accommodate their vain beliefs, ignore their impudent grimaces, put up with their body odor and bad breath, overlook the outrageous obscenity that is spreading through the village. I have to admit to myself that I have no power left. My authority is dwindling. I only have left some tattered shreds of influence that I exercise by means of subterfuges, honeyed words, necessary lies, veiled threats and little bribes. All that I have left to do is to hang on a bit longer, until my replacement arrives. Then I shall leave this place forever, or I might take over an empty hut, get myself a lusty peasant wench and settle down.

Before I came here, a quarter of a century ago or more, the district governor once came on a visit, surrounded by a large retinue. He stayed for an hour or two, and gave orders for the course of the river to be diverted so as to put an end to the malignant marsh. The governor was accompanied by officers