trachea and into his stomach.
Only gradually does consciousness return, and when it does he wishes it hadn’t. Slow, inconsequential thoughts float though his head like spuds of soapy water.
Did I really want to kill myself or was it just a test for the man with the wig or a cry for attention? I am alive. I’m still here, still a prisoner. I didn’t die and I’m not dead. I tried to kill myself but he didn’t let me go, the man with the wig. I haven’t yet served my purpose to him.
At least there is that, the new knowledge. The man does care. And he must be watching after all.
Karl finds proof of this when he is finally lucid enough to sit up, to ignore a body that is protesting, that doesn’t want any sudden moves; a body weakened from the drug and from the fact that his stomach was pumped while he was out.
And what is this?
There is a letter, an envelope near the metal door. The man must have pushed it through the narrow gap.
A message for Karl. A sign of life, at last. Communication. He is not alone.
He stumbles to the door and tears at the envelope to read the message from beyond the door.
‘Dear Friend. Things will change. You are not forgotten and your time is neigh.
Today is your birthday. At eight o’clock – not before – open the small envelope.
Many Happy Returns.’
The note is typed and without signature. Karl picks up the envelope that he discarded seconds earlier. Indeed, there is another, smaller envelope inside of it.
He’s not supposed to open it until eight o’clock. Fine, but how is he going to know when it’s eight? And his birthday? His birthday is on February 23 – is that today?
Karl’s heart is pounding. He feels he is returning from a long absence, coming back to date. What day did he meet the man with the wig? It was early January 1982, a Thursday probably, though he can’t remember the exact date.
The tenth, it must have been around the tenth.
Assuming it is really his birthday, that would make it about a month and a half, maybe seven weeks that he has been here, imprisoned. It feels like an eternity.
Only after a while — he is still sitting on the floor by the door, hasn’t moved since reading the letter — does Karl start to question the veracity of its contents. It could be any day, any year, any time as far as he can say.
But then he makes a new discovery, this one at least as exciting and disturbing as the first. There is a metal alarm clock on the fresh pile of clothes and towels, right in the centre of the table. The flannel swallows the ticking. That’s why he hadn’t heard the intrusive noise in the familiar silence before.
It doesn’t matter if the time on the round display is accurate. What matters is that from now on, as long as he keeps the clock wound up, he can measure absolute time, at least relatively speaking. Starting right now. If this is Hour Zero, from now on he will know how much more time passes, minute by minute.
He is back in time.
He picks up the alarm clock, feels its coolness in his hands, cradles it like a precious stone. According to the clock it’s seven-thirty, half-past seven. In thirty minutes’ time he can open the second envelope. Another half an hour after the timeless eternity he has spent locked up in here. It’s not asking too much, surely. Surely waiting for another thirty clicks of the minute hand whilst doing nothing but listening to the sounds of his growing beard and fingernails is as easy as a junkie prostitute at Bahnhof Zoo. Surely. Except that —
Without thinking another thought Karl tears open the small envelope. If this is really his birthday, he must be within his rights.
In the envelope there is a small piece of cardboard, like a page from a public library’s filing system. On the card there is another typed message.
‘Look under your pillow. Place the chair facing away from the door and apply the found items in a logical way to facilitate your birthday treat.’
Karl turns the card over in his hands after reading it several times. There are no other messages so he proceeds to his bed and lifts up the pillow.
It’s there, all right. The drugs were too strong, the anaesthetic too effective for him to have noticed that a sack the size of a paperback novel was indeed concealed under his resting head. The material is black, shiny satin, and the words ‘Happy Birthday, Friend,’ are embroidered across the sack in golden letters.
When he picks it up Karl is surprised by the weight. He turns the sack over, dumps the contents on the bed. There are only two items inside – a pair of handcuffs and a different piece of black satin cloth. The cuffs are open and there is no key. Under closer examination Karl finds the cloth to be a hood. He tries it on for size and is not disappointed – it fits his head like a glove. There are breathing holes but no slits for his eyes.
So, the man wants him to cuff his arms into the chair facing away from the door, and the hood means Karl won’t be able to see what’s coming. Or who.
More importantly, somebody will be coming in. Another human being.
He glances at the clock – it claims to be seven-thirty four, a.m. or p.m. he doesn’t know and it probably doesn’t matter. Whoever the surprise visitor may be, Karl won’t be able to see, attack or run. The way he is feeling now he probably couldn’t have done either if he tried.
His mood is improved. Curiosity is getting the better of him, a curiosity that he hasn’t experienced for a long time, at least since he started this imprisonment.
He knows that a part of his life is now irrefutably over.
He winds the clock again and sets the alarm to go off at eight o’clock. Then he positions the chair as instructed and puts his left wrist into the cuffs. He wraps the short chain around the back of the chair, thus inhibiting his mobility. He briefly considers the possibility of trying to cheat in this game. Maybe he could close the cuffs behind him but without actually enmeshing his arms into the chair, without actually chaining himself to it.
But what would be the point? He has no intention of attacking the wigged man.
No, let’s do this right, show him I can be trusted.
He threads his left arm into the opening in the back of the chair and places his right wrist inside the other cuff. Once he clicks it shut he will be tied, his arms utterly useless behind his back.
He almost forgets to place the hood over his face.
There, done.
He can’t see behind his back anyway so he relies on his sense of touch to fulfil the remainder of the instructions. The metallic click of the closing cuff has a final ring to it. Unless somebody comes in with a key he will starve to death on this chair.
Trust is what he needs, trust in the man with the wig.
Karl can hear the sound of the ticking clock and nothing else. Gone are the subtle variances he has become so familiar with: his breathing, his heartbeat, his follicle growth. Now the only audible sound is time passing. How much longer will he have to wait until eight o’clock? If he’d adhered to the instructions and hadn’t opened the envelope early, he would still be free to move and look around. Knowing how much time is passing is already making his life harder, not easier.
He tries counting off seconds and minutes, but he loses count all too soon, can’t concentrate on the banal task of counting to sixty and starting again, so he just stops and waits.
It’s agony.
*
After what feels like a long, long while the alarm clock rings. It’s a loud, hollow sound and it reminds Karl of how, as a kid, he used to run along a metal fence with a stick that he pressed against the bars, rattling them like a warder in a prison movie, but faster.
When at last the ringing stops,