The Tenant by Roland Topor Page B

with an icy sweat the next. At first, he had refused to believe that anything was wrong, he had gone on as if nothing had happened. In the office, he was forced to hold his head in his hands, trying to shut out the constant buzzing in his ears. If he had to climb a flight of steps, no matter how short, he was in pitiful condition when he reached the top. He could not go on like this any longer; he was ill, he was desperately ill.
    Some kind of impurity had managed to work its way into the mechanism of his body, threatening to destroy it completely. But what was it? A mote that formed an obstacle to the proper functioning of two linked wheels? A gear that had somehow become unmeshed? A microbe?
    The neighborhood doctor gave him no information as to the causes of the breakdown. He confined himself to prescribing a weak dosage of antibiotics, as a precautionary measure, and some little yellow pills that he was to take twice a day. He also recommended that he eat a great deal of yoghurt. That had sounded like a joke, but the doctor shook his head vigorously.
    “No, no,” he said, “I assure you, I mean it. A lot of yoghurt. It will restore the condition of your intestines. Come to see me again in a week.”
    Trelkovsky stopped by the pharmacy on his way back to the apartment. He came out with his pockets full of little cardboard boxes which, in some manner, already gave him a feeling of reassurance.
    As soon as he was safely at home he opened the boxes, took out the sheets of instructions and recommendations, and read them carefully. The medicines prescribed for him certainly seemed to possess some extraordinary qualities. But the next night he was no better. His cautious optimism was replaced with dull despair. He realized now that the medicines were in no way miraculous, and the notices in the boxes were nothing but advertisements. He had known it from the beginning, actually, but he had felt compelled to go on playing the game until he could prove that it was crooked.
    He was in bed. He was very warm, but he felt that he was not warm enough. The upper sheet was pulled up around his nose, and he could feel a damp area where the saliva from his mouth had wet it. He didn’t have strength enough to blink his eyes. Either he lay there, holding them wide open, staring at nothing, or he drew a fleshy iron curtain across them, when the longing for oblivion became too strong. And even then, if he turned his head toward the window, the comfortable obscurity was tinged with a purple light.
    He curled up in a ball beneath the covers. He was more acutely conscious of himself than he had ever been before. All of his dimensions were thoroughly familiar to him. He had spent so many hours observing and redesigning his own body that now he felt like someone who had just come across an unfortunate friend. He tried to constrict himself into the smallest possible space, so that the invading forces of weakness could find no room for a beachhead. His knees were drawn up almost into his stomach, the calves of his legs were tight against his thighs, and his elbows pressed hard against his ribs.
    Above everything, it seemed imperative that he find a manner of placing his head on the pillow so that he could not hear the beating of his heart. He turned and twisted over and over again before finally discovering one position that left him blessedly deaf. He could not bear to listen to that horrible sound, constantly reminding him of the fragility of his existence. It had often occurred to him that perhaps every man was accorded at birth a specific number of heartbeats, thus predetermining the duration of his life. When he realized now that, in spite of all his efforts, he could still hear the hesitant beating of his heart against his chest he took refuge beneath the covers. He pulled his head in under the sheet, and stared wildly at the outlines of his body cowering in the gloom. Seen in this light, it took on a powerful, even massive, appearance. The