Cockpit (33 page)

The elevator persisted in its constant shuttle, rebounding off the top floor only to begin its journey down again. Using the sole of my shoe as a lever, I attempted to force the doors apart, but they remained tightly shut. I then tried to pry open the instrument panel with a pocket knife,
but the blade was too flimsy and snapped off at the base. Next, I used the edge of a metal money clip, but I managed only to twist the clip out of shape. The protective devices I always carry could defend me against hostile passengers, but in an empty elevator they were useless.

I began to wonder if I had been trapped so that someone could enter my apartment. My first thought was that the girl was part of the plot. Then I imagined what her captors would do to her if she wasn’t.

The temperature inside the elevator rose until it was easily over ninety degrees. While I sweated from heat, I was also beginning to shiver from panic. I guessed that whoever had imprisoned me had not just wanted to break into my apartment, but had planned on my body breaking down so I’d die from apparently natural causes.

My wristwatch was the only contact I had with reality. Although I could gauge exactly how long it took the elevator to get from top to bottom, when the car hit the ground level it rebounded instantly, and I did not have time to attract the attention of people who might be waiting for the elevator. Then, I realized that, at that time of night, the lobby would be deserted anyway and that my attackers would certainly have taken precautions to get any potential help out of the way.

I looked at my watch: I had been in the elevator for almost forty-five minutes. Perspiration was streaming down my body, and the persistent loss of fluids made me feel dizzy. Although I had both tranquilizers and stimulants with me, I decided not to take any, since I could not predict how I might react to them in my dehydrated state. In order to conserve my energy and body fluids, I undressed and sat naked on the linoleum-tiled floor.

From time to time, I shouted, kicked and banged on the door, but no one came. I was exhausted. Overcome by helplessness, I collapsed against the steel wall.

Three hours passed. I vomited. Then my stomach
began to contract and I eliminated on the elevator’s floor. I was breathing with difficulty.

Although I have always thought of myself as moving horizontally through space, invading other people’s spheres, my life has always been arranged vertically: all my apartments have been at least midway up in tall buildings, making elevators absolutely essential. Now, one of these necessary devices had suddenly become a windowless cell. The forces that propelled it up and down seemed as arbitrary and autonomous as those that spin the earth on its axis. Here, in the solitude of my capsule, I sensed a curious time warp. Encased in a steel and rubber sarcophagus, I was completely cut off from my past: a royal mummy, safely cradled and sealed for the long voyage ahead.

I fell asleep with exhaustion and woke to voices. The overhead light had gone out while I slept, but the car still glided up and down. I looked at my watch: I had been imprisoned for eight hours. When I listened more closely to the voices, I realized that men were working in the corridors of several floors. I began to shout for help and at last someone shouted back. Several minutes later, the elevator abruptly stopped, then inched jerkily to the nearest floor, opened its doors and released me.

The building superintendent told me that, the day before, a sign had been posted in every hall, announcing that the elevator was out of order. Someone had removed my floor’s warning. “Probably a child,” he said, “probably a prank.” He asked if I had pressed both the up and down buttons to get the elevator to arrive faster. I admitted that I had. He speculated that, by pushing both buttons, I must have caused a further breakdown, which had cut out all floor stops.

When I returned to my apartment, the girl wasn’t there. She had left a note explaining that she had become bored and eventually gone home. The apartment was in order and there was no trace of intruders.

I gave myself a large injection of vitamins, took a bath, ate a light breakfast and fell asleep.

I look out my window. Far below, the ice-skating rink stands out like a bright corona against the dark mass of the city and the park. The skaters move smoothly in their circle of light, gliding in uninterrupted movement to slow, silent music. From the rink’s apron other figures spill onto the ice, find an opening and blend in with the flow.

Now the rink appears to revolve around the skaters as they stand like frozen sculptures growing out of the ice. I close my eyes. I remember a great old army tank, hit decades ago by an enemy shell, sunken in a shallow lagoon. The iron flaps of the tank’s turret are rusted open, steadily washed over by the waves; its corroded gun defiantly trains on trenches and machine-gun nests, long buried in the sands of a deserted beach.

Tihon began coming straight to the point: “Legally you are well-nigh invulnerable—that is what people will say first of all—with sarcasm. Some will be puzzled. Who will understand the true reasons for the confession?”

FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY,
The Possessed