angel in sight. Here Paradise had been lost for good. If they were hoping to evoke a feeling of despair, it had worked. Erik caught himself thinking of original sin, confessionals and the musty smell that goes with them. Stale cigar smoke coming out of shadowy mouths which you could barely see in the semi-darkness, speaking of sin and penance.
No, these are not agreeable thoughts. Feeling as if he is being watched, he checks the walls for a hidden camera, but does not see one. The choice is clear: he can either give up right now or go on to the next clue. Go to the Paragon foyer, take the lift to level 5 and walk up the stairs to level 6 . An empty office suite, dust on the floor, a long row of metal filing cabinets. According to his count, there are twenty-nine of them. The rest of the space is empty, apart from two birdcages, each with two birds. A torn label attached to one of the cages turns out to be blank. Erik and the birds stare at each other, the way people and animals do – a meaningless gaze across an unbridgeable distance. He goes out again, passing through what was once a kitchen, climbs up a flight of metal stairs, listens to his ringing footsteps, and finds himself in another vacant office. Instead of filing cabinets, this one has a huge metal bin filled with books. The titles all have something to do with God or saints – Anglican life in an earlier era. A bit further away is another bin, this one filled with white feathers (angels have to start somewhere, after all), as if someone had given a good shake to a pillow full of cherubs. As he flees the building, a man thrusts a note into his hand: On your way to Bank West, please stop at the Hay Street Shop, between the Croissant Express and the Educina Café . He follows the directions. His hotel cannot be far off, he thinks, though everything looks different now. He does not want to become an ordinary pedestrian, but he catches sight of himself on a surveillance monitor and is unpleasantly surprised. The fruit has apparently already been plucked from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, because there is a box of apples on the pavement. Take an apple .
It is cool inside the Bank West building, with the sudden chill of air conditioning in the tropics. A girl in blue stands up and all but takes him by the hand. In the lift she presses 46 . The white-shirted office-workers who get in as the lift makes its way up have nothing to do with the angel hunt, but when he reaches the forty-sixth floor, another white-shirted man gets up from his desk, opens a door for him, then closes it behind him, so that he finds himself alone in an executive suite, listening to a fax machine regurgitate reams of white paper. He picks up one of the sheets and sees two dozen lines from Paradise Lost . On the desk are file folders about various projects. The text on the computer screen changes to read: ‘. . . if you will come I will put out fresh pillows for you. This room and this springtime contain only you,’ then switches over to the hierarchy in the kingdom of angels: Archangels, Powers, Virtues. ‘Come soon, Death is demanding: we have much to atone for, before little by little we begin to taste of Eternity. In a bed of roses the Seraphim slumber . . .’ Still not craving eternity, he stands by the window and stares down at the streams and streams of cars on the highway. As he leaves the room, he bumps into the Danish writer. Surely that cannot be part of the plan? They exchange guilty looks, then simultaneously raise their fingers to their lips. Later on, he sees a girl in a tight grey skirt. Is she an angel? She avoids his glance, struts around as if she owns the place, looks out towards the hills and the faraway ocean, and plays with the plastic water bottle in her hands. Once again, he is struck by the absurdity of the whole thing. Why is he here? What is he doing in a vacant office suite that has in it only a couple of flowerpots filled with primroses? Is he
No, these are not agreeable thoughts. Feeling as if he is being watched, he checks the walls for a hidden camera, but does not see one. The choice is clear: he can either give up right now or go on to the next clue. Go to the Paragon foyer, take the lift to level 5 and walk up the stairs to level 6 . An empty office suite, dust on the floor, a long row of metal filing cabinets. According to his count, there are twenty-nine of them. The rest of the space is empty, apart from two birdcages, each with two birds. A torn label attached to one of the cages turns out to be blank. Erik and the birds stare at each other, the way people and animals do – a meaningless gaze across an unbridgeable distance. He goes out again, passing through what was once a kitchen, climbs up a flight of metal stairs, listens to his ringing footsteps, and finds himself in another vacant office. Instead of filing cabinets, this one has a huge metal bin filled with books. The titles all have something to do with God or saints – Anglican life in an earlier era. A bit further away is another bin, this one filled with white feathers (angels have to start somewhere, after all), as if someone had given a good shake to a pillow full of cherubs. As he flees the building, a man thrusts a note into his hand: On your way to Bank West, please stop at the Hay Street Shop, between the Croissant Express and the Educina Café . He follows the directions. His hotel cannot be far off, he thinks, though everything looks different now. He does not want to become an ordinary pedestrian, but he catches sight of himself on a surveillance monitor and is unpleasantly surprised. The fruit has apparently already been plucked from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, because there is a box of apples on the pavement. Take an apple .
It is cool inside the Bank West building, with the sudden chill of air conditioning in the tropics. A girl in blue stands up and all but takes him by the hand. In the lift she presses 46 . The white-shirted office-workers who get in as the lift makes its way up have nothing to do with the angel hunt, but when he reaches the forty-sixth floor, another white-shirted man gets up from his desk, opens a door for him, then closes it behind him, so that he finds himself alone in an executive suite, listening to a fax machine regurgitate reams of white paper. He picks up one of the sheets and sees two dozen lines from Paradise Lost . On the desk are file folders about various projects. The text on the computer screen changes to read: ‘. . . if you will come I will put out fresh pillows for you. This room and this springtime contain only you,’ then switches over to the hierarchy in the kingdom of angels: Archangels, Powers, Virtues. ‘Come soon, Death is demanding: we have much to atone for, before little by little we begin to taste of Eternity. In a bed of roses the Seraphim slumber . . .’ Still not craving eternity, he stands by the window and stares down at the streams and streams of cars on the highway. As he leaves the room, he bumps into the Danish writer. Surely that cannot be part of the plan? They exchange guilty looks, then simultaneously raise their fingers to their lips. Later on, he sees a girl in a tight grey skirt. Is she an angel? She avoids his glance, struts around as if she owns the place, looks out towards the hills and the faraway ocean, and plays with the plastic water bottle in her hands. Once again, he is struck by the absurdity of the whole thing. Why is he here? What is he doing in a vacant office suite that has in it only a couple of flowerpots filled with primroses? Is he
Similar Books
