Bunker by Andrea Maria Schenkel Page B

closed my eyes tightly, but everything is still bright, almost glaringly bright. All the same, it’s nice. Everything is incredibly bright and colourful. Red light around the rim, then brighter and darker colours alternating, converging on the middle of the picture in a semi-circle. In the middle there’s a deep blue.
    The blue gets lighter, washes itself out, I see a stage.
    A tree in the middle of the big stage, a willow tree made of papier mâché, with coloured leaves. Mist slowly rises. There are two people on the stage. One, the smaller one, is lying down. The other, an adult, is standing beside the first.
    What is this, a play, an opera? The actor who is standing purses his lips, opens his mouth wide, shows his teeth. It’s all done very slowly. I wait for a sound, but no sound comes out. I can see that the actor is singing. But there’s not a note to be heard. No, that’s not quite right, I do hear a sound. Very quiet at first, then rising, growing stronger and stronger, like whimpering from the orchestra pit. The sound swells, grows louder, dies away, only to rise again. I’m sitting in the front row of the stalls, right behind the orchestra pit. I lean forward, peer over the bar in front of the seats. All the chairs in the pit are empty. There’s only one musician there in his tailcoat, sitting to one side of the conductor’s rostrum. He’s moving the bow of a violin over the blunt edge ofa huge handsaw. The saw is jammed between his knees, his free hand holds the top of it, he is pressing it down hard so that the blade curves slightly. His expression is grave, almost rapt.
    I lean back again, looking expectantly at the stage. The smaller character, the one lying down, is clothed in a sheet, stomach sprayed with bright red paint. One ear is bright red as well. Now this other actor also begins to sing, but without a sound. I can tell from the movement of the lips, the singer’s gestures show what an effort he is making. Lying there, he keeps pointing to his stomach with one hand, and with the other to the standing actor.
    The standing actor raises both arms, fending everything off with exaggerated gestures and wide open eyes. Those faces remind me of the actors’ pottery masks of classical antiquity that were once painted in bright colours. I saw some in the showcases of the Municipal Museum. The lighting changes; now the larger actor looks like an American Indian in warpaint. Marks like stripes run down both sides of his skull.
    The curtain falls. In the pit, the musician puts down his bow and the saw, takes a red banana out of his jacket pocket, starts thoughtfully peeling it. And as he looks up at me he slowly eats the banana. He glances at the time, quickly putsthe banana peel down, picks up his instrument and the bow, and begins playing that dreadful, monotonous melody again.
    The curtain rises. The same set as before, but this time the musical accompaniment breaks off in the middle of the scene. The musician has gone to sleep; only the falling curtain wakes him. He comes to with a start and jumps up. He inspects his musical instrument closely, then sits down again. The actors come on stage and bow deeply.
    My loud clapping re-echoes, all by itself. I look around. I am the only spectator. I lean over the bar in front of me and look down into the orchestra pit. The musician bows very low to me. He is holding the violin bow in one hand and the saw in the other. He takes both saw and bow in his left hand and begins waving his other hand.
    Mist gathers on the floor of the stage, flows slowly over the edge of the platform and down into the orchestra pit. Envelops the musician, swallows him up. Everything turns blue, but with a reddish tinge at the edges, and slowly changes to a bright red.
    I feel sick.
    I open my eyes, see the wooden ceiling above the bed.

I’m lying in the Fiesta in a sleeping bag. The side window is open and I breathe in the forest smells. I