The Stranger - Max Frei [116]
Finally, he let go of my hand, opened his eyes, and smiled.
“Remember that last bit of advice well—it will come in handy in the future. Is everything clear?”
“Yes,” I said, rubbing my sore extremity.
“Will you do this, Max?”
“Sure I will. But streetcars don’t run on Green Street.”
“Maybe not . . .” Juffin said indifferently. “What, did you plan to travel between worlds on an ordinary streetcar? By the way, what’s a streetcar?”
When I woke up, I didn’t have to make any extra effort to remember my dream. I remembered it down to the most minute detail. Trying to figure out where I was at that very moment proved to be more difficult, but I managed.
It was three in the afternoon. I made myself some coffee. Then I sat in an armchair with my cup, and with the first, best cigarette of the day, intent on mulling over everything. By the last gulp, I decided there was nothing more to think about. Even if it was an ordinary dream, what did I have to lose? Taking a walk to Green Street wasn’t much trouble. I like to walk, and I didn’t have anything to do at night. But if the dream was prophetic . . . then it was the chance of a lifetime!
There was nothing to keep me here. My life stretched before me like a meaningless, empty expanse.
There wasn’t even anyone I needed to call to say goodbye to.
Well, there were, of course, people to call. A good fifty names in my telephone book, which I had acquired only a month ago. But there was no one I wanted to talk to, much less see. Maybe I was just depressed. In that case, long live depression! That hypothetical malady made it very easy for me to make the most important decision in my life. It surprises me to this day.
I was possessed by a strangely pleasant lightheadedness. I was moved neither to try to put my effects in order, nor to share my plans with trusted friends. I spent the evening not in tormented deliberation, but over endless cups of tea in front of the TV. Even the last episode of Twin Peaks didn’t seem to me to be a bad omen. I just thought that if I had been Agent Cooper I would probably have continued wandering around the Black Wigwam—anything was better than returning to reality and messing up the lives of others, along with one’s own.
Rather, I behaved as though the most intriguing event of the evening would be the ritual of taking out the trash. Packing my backpack with only a thermos of coffee and a three-day supply of sandwiches, I felt like a first-class idiot, but I thought that even being a first-class idiot would be a welcome change. In recent years I had been a paragon of sensible behavior, and the results were not impressive.
I left home at one o’clock in the morning, and it took me about twenty minutes to Green Street. I had to hang around there for quite a while. One of the last things I recall in that world was the sight of the enormous numbers on the electric clock hanging above the telephone company building: 2:22. I don’t know why, but symmetry like that has always struck me as an auspicious sign.
The loud rumble of the approaching streetcar shattered the stillness of the night, interrupting my contemplation of multiple twos. I wasn’t exactly afraid, but my head started spinning, my eyes saw double, and I just couldn’t get my mind around how the streetcar