Prisoner of Uroboros

by Germán Amatto

translation by Carmen Ruggero

conclusion

He opened the locks and raised the lid of the trunk. First, he removed a package containing the stained bandages. The bleeding was minimal, an excellent surgery. The blood residue on it would attract the fish. He threw it over the balustrade. He heard it splash in the river. Concentric circles expanded on the surface. Kaplansky observed the package disappear into the depths of the river. Then he bent over the trunk and removed the rest of its contents.

No. Nothing would happen. Splash! That was what the alarm clock had taught him and what he now, understood. Splash! That if one dismantles the pieces methodically, one gets to know the nature of any mechanism. Splash!

Assembling the pieces methodically makes it possible to force any mechanism to work as one wants it to work. Splash! That’s the difference between being a watchmaker and simply a prisoner trapped between gears. Splash. Splash. Splash!

And that’s what he did. He practiced cutting through circumstances with precision and manipulating people and delicate situations as he would surgical instruments. He wove into reality a web of indiscernible lies and perfect alibis.

The trunk was empty, now. Kaplansky placed it on the parapet and pushed it into the water. More circles formed on the river’s surface, each one spreading from the previous one, forming another circle, repeating: the sphere of the clock, a hole in the flesh, the orifice on the revolver’s barrel. Ah... almost forgot.

He buried his hand in his raincoat pocket, lightly touched the heavy, cold edges. Gears: No traces. The serial number had been filed. The gun had been bought from an unknown, illegal dealer. It was untraceable. He had never had a revolver and had never fired one. He stretched his arm over the balustrade and spread his fingers. Splash! As it fell into the water, the metal flashed bright, then blurred, and finally disappeared.

It was one thirty in the morning. The secret of Lotterstein’s death was sealed.

Dr. Kaplansky contemplated his work, and saw that it was good. He turned his back to the river. Whistling low, hands in his pockets, he walked away.

The end.

Hands in his pockets.

Kaplansky stopped and took his hands out of his raincoat’s pockets. They looked white, under the moon. The pulse was steady. They were the white and firm hands of a surgeon. White, firm, and empty. Something was missing.

He had left his briefcase containing his instruments and credentials in Lotterstein’s office.

He felt sick to his stomach. First, that tango, and now this. The unforeseen. The broken gears. And he had a vision of a clock breaking — panic — bursting into a tangled metal knot.

Easy does it. He leaned on a tree and inhaled the cold air trying to suppress the pounding on his chest, the stinging on his cheeks, the unstoppable tremor. Nothing will happen. Ten minutes before two — I have time. Nothing will happen. The plan is infallible and perfect. There’s time to go back and retrieve the briefcase.

His legs had gone numb. He forced himself to walk. How could he have made such a mistake? How could his perfect plan have failed? Aggravation kept him from thinking straight; he barely noticed he was retracing his steps, until he arrived at the bridge and looked down.

A symmetrical and hesitant Kaplansky observed him from beneath the water. It was the Kaplansky who resembled the watchmaker; the one who discovered the subtle nick, the insignificant scratch. The profanation was revealed.

Kaplansky clinched his teeth and swallowed his fear. Down the hatch; he left it to the hidden folds of his conscience, splash, just like Lotterstein. Dead weight, thrust into the deepest water. Buried, under circles and circles of water. Splash! It is not fear that burns, but the wind and the skin turning blue from the cold.

He didn’t turn to look at the turbulent water again, or the relentless Other. He went through the labyrinth of old buildings. Enraged, he tried to figure a way to recover the mechanism. Gears: the night watchman still had to be in the cellar, drunk; his replacement wouldn’t arrive until three in the morning. It was a matter of entering the building quietly, grabbing the briefcase, and disappearing. The pieces would fall back in place of their own accord.

He started up Viamonte Street gasping for air, feeling the thrust of pain through his chest. And with each pounding heartbeat, he remembered the interminable drum of the record player, the needle scratching the record. Come on, not far to go, he thought. Scratching the record. Barely a couple of blocks.

He was out of breath when he arrived. He stood across the street under an awning, waiting for the pain to stop, for his heartbeat to slow down. After a few minutes, he looked toward the building. He didn’t detect any movement. But...

But he couldn’t see the night watchman’s table from there. He had to go inside; there was no other way. What a coincidence it would be, that the poor devil should have chosen to abstain from drinking that night. What a coincidence, he might have decided to remain on the job, spoiling Kaplansky’s plot, ruining his reputation and the rest of his life — too much of a coincidence, too much.

Enough. Calm down. The plan was infallible; the alibi, perfect. He was the only one who could ruin it by going against reason.

He crossed the street, pretending casual innocence, as he had done a thousand times already, and would do it again. He opened the glass inner door, stepped into the lobby, and then threw an indifferent glance at the reception desk. Nobody.

This time, he wouldn’t use the elevator; it was noisy. He aimed for the stairs. Almost euphoric, he raised up the steps — two at the time, imagining himself at the edge of an immense gear.

This was the last stretch, and Monday...

He disappeared? Lotterstein disappeared? How strange. He had planned to meet with the Commission. No, he didn’t say anything to me; I haven’t seen him since Friday. Just ask. Anyone can tell you; at no time during the weekend did I meet with the accountant. I was never in his office, and I never shot him. I don’t have the slightest idea where he could have gone. There is no reason for them to look in the river for those bandages drifting in the water. They simply attract the fish.

Infallible and perfect. Tick-tock.

He got to the corridor on the fourth floor. He turned left towards the office; he could see the door and the light shining through the frosted glass. Light.

He had turned the light off when he left.

Kaplansky’s face blanched; it was drenched in cold, shiny beads of fear. He frantically went over the movements he’d taken earlier that night. Every move, every action, had been meticulously adjusted to the plan, eradicating the unexpected.

He had turned off the light when he left. Now, it was on. A broken gear, a flawed suture. The doctor was still tossing doubts in his mind when he heard steps. They came from inside the office. They were heavy steps, well-known steps. Then he saw a shadow, a heavy dark form that eclipsed the frosted glass.

Kaplansky stumbled as he stepped back. A small image began to scream in his head. A boy shaking an alarm clock was shouting that the light was impossible, the shadow couldn’t exist, that the perfect mechanisms, tick-tock, could never be ruined. But the shadow remained on the glass. It was the impossible, the nonexistent, yet visible silhouette of accountant Lotterstein.

Light. Dark. Kaplansky’s back hit the wall. The freezing grasp of terror took over his mind. He was being swallowed by gigantic swells, splash! The ones that snatched the boy and dragged him down into bottomless whirlpools. The boy was swinging his arms, but he couldn’t swim. Something kept dragging him down, something heavy in his raincoat pocket.

Kaplansky placed his hand inside his pocket. Clumsily he felt between the folds of the fabric but found nothing, until his fingertips touched sharp angles of steel. He withdrew his hand — incredible; the revolver was in his grasp.

It was the same revolver. He was certain of it, although the weapon was dry and all the bullets still in the chambers. He inspected the firing pin and the orifice of the barrel. There was no sign that it had even been fired. As if it were still about to be used.

Circle of water, a hole in the flesh, sphere of the clock. He checked the time. Ten twenty-five. In the silence, he almost heard the tick-tock; without a doubt. For the second time in his life, Kaplansky understood.

Tick-tock: the mechanism was not ruined.

Tick-tock: each piece in its place, each spring, and each gear continued to turn.

He had grafted his sublime plot into reality. And reality, like a submissive patient, agreed: he was not in the Foundation building that weekend. He was not with Lotterstein. He never fired that revolver.

Predestination. Symmetry. That night was infinite, the armature on a record player that would always start and finish at the same place. Perpetuity was another characteristic of perfection.

The gear Kaplansky returned the gear revolver to his pocket. He stepped into the corridor and approached the door. Across the way, the gear Lotterstein waited as he had waited before, as he would wait time and time again. Assassin and victim, reiterating the unrepeatable act.

Nearby, he heard the beginning beat of a tango. This time Kaplansky recognized it. It was called: “The Return.” He knew that soon after crossing the threshold he would forget. He would forget everything and, by forgetting, be condemned to repeat the chain of inevitable acts.

Between the walls of his skull, he heard a gentle weeping, a child’s sobbing. He held the door knob in his hand and, with the desperate resignation of one who faces eternity, he opened the door.