THE DEAD MAN’S HOUSE
Chapter 1
The story I now wish to tell began on New Year’s Eve, and it probably did not happen purely by chance, if anything can ever be excused by chance alone.
New Year’s Eve, alongside Midsummer Eve, has always been one of the hardest nights. But it is more than the melancholy of spring turning into summer; it does not drift in through open windows. It is already within, an iron-cold block in the middle of the room, its icy breath spreading from the inside out. And it has always been so, for as long as I can remember.
The warmth of Christmas Eve in my childhood was so great that I did not even notice when my feet grew cold. I have even lain on the Christmas straw and found it not at all cold, although it had been brought in from outside. That was then. Later one begins to pay more attention, not only to whether the straw is warm or cold, but to whether it is one’s own or someone else’s. Later, it becomes more a matter of borrowing. (I am not speaking of theft – this story is not a confession.) Borrowing once a year, with no prospect of paying it back, can just about be managed. In any case, there are not as many years as there are days in a year. The other evenings must therefore be got through on one’s own resources.
Let that serve to explain why I was alone that evening. I did not go to see the New Year in with acquaintances, although I had been invited. I no longer remember what excuse I made so as not to offend the kind people who invited me. I had firmly decided to manage on my own. One always finds something to do if one is afraid to stay at home and listen, in the emptiness, to those twelve booming strokes, coming closer and sounding louder every year until they leave one deaf. Worse things can happen – bells can be deadly, as Dorothy Sayers demonstrated in one of her novels.
I went out. In this city, the old year is seen out in many ways, not only in homes and restaurants. Looking at the newspaper advertisements or watching the stream of people in the streets, one might conclude that very few stay at home for the occasion. The simplest thing is to go to the cinema, where it is dark. It is a pleasant darkness, warm and protective, like the darkness surrounding a sleeping child. Everyone sits there in the darkness; only the screen is white, and there are no people on it, only shadows. This too creates a certain sense of equality. There are also other performances, more or less entertaining, where one can sit quietly among the audience without anyone finding it odd. The paid performers at least seem to do all they can to put the audience in a festive mood. I am not entirely sure how they would react if they actually succeeded. The doorman in a blue uniform with gold buttons, the so-called vaktmästare standing behind me, certainly would not approve. He looks more like a customs officer keeping close watch to ensure that no one brings in contraband. I have sat through such night performances a couple of times, once at the Concert Hall, where the programme was even more respectable than the audience: a little applause broke out by mistake during Grieg’s Piano Concerto. But when the programme ended and the clock struck twelve over the loudspeaker, I did not see anyone wish anyone else a happy New Year, and I do not know whether it was forbidden or merely superfluous.
This time I went nowhere. I remained in the street. I had read so much about the primeval-forest solitude of a metropolis’s streets that I allowed myself to be led astray. I soon realized that I should not have done it. People differ, and so do cities; what merely raises one person’s spirits may knock another off their feet.
It was as if I had wandered into a madhouse. (My deepest experiences of fear have always been connected with madness. I remember the terror with which I walked past Kopli Cemetery after seeing The Testament of Dr Mabuse at the cinema. Not because it was a cemetery – it could have been any forest or empty place.) The whole street, pavement and roadway alike, was packed with young people of both sexes, moving about in groups, shouting, whooping and blowing paper trumpets. There was something menacing and furtive in that last sound, an idiocy that could at any moment turn into an act of senseless violence. For the time being, however, it went no further than firecrackers.
I had imagined, of course, that the people would be cheerful and high-spirited. And sincere, exuberant joy is not always expressed with the grace and harmony of an operetta stage. But I did not see a single cheerful face, a single happy person. A happy person’s elbows do not hurt – unless, perhaps, you are in mourning. But I had gone out neither mourning nor rejoicing. I had gone out empty, like a woman setting out vessels before rain to collect soft rainwater. To pursue the comparison, I might say it was a hailstorm. The faces were sullen and malevolent, the sounds scornful and angry. They appeared to be directed at companions, but were always calculated to graze passing strangers as if by accident. Some regard this as a kind of humour. Who among us has not laughed at American farces in which a cake intended for someone else veers slightly off target and flies straight into the face of a dignified lady just entering the room? Those cries, spat from the back of the throat, were likewise deliberately aimed away from their apparent targets. I found it difficult to appreciate the humorous side of the situation when all I could see were hands clenched into fists, hands that remained fists even when placed around a girl’s waist. I did not see a single person laughing, although I heard laughter. But the laughter was more like feigned, ghostly whinnying – idiotic and bestial, yet calculated with considerable intelligence.
I would rather not give the impression that I am exaggerating. It is possible that I was unfair to them, that I was not as neutral as I believed – a blank white page on which all colours appear in their natural shades. After living for seven years as a refugee in one country, it is hard suddenly to set out one evening as a tourist … I say ‘seven years’ because the poetic ring of the phrase led me astray from the truth. In reality, my exile has lasted several times seven years.
I have tried for so long to see the good in people that I inevitably notice first what I dislike. It is not as paradoxical as it sounds. Nor does it mean that I approached them with prejudice, still less hostility. It is much easier to break through a hostile world than to adopt a hostile attitude oneself. On the contrary, I had gone out in a mild, tender Saturday mood. Although not deliberately, I was nevertheless half-consciously looking for some sign of friendliness: a welcoming smile or a jest flung across the crowd in a moment of carefree abandon, free for all to share. It might have allowed me, if only for a moment, to feel that I too belonged to that high-spirited company. It need not have been personal. It could have been like a joke thrown from the stage into the auditorium, at which everyone is allowed to laugh. Nothing of the kind happened. I had no part in that noisy current except to be dashed painfully against one submerged rock after another. Only my own reaction was different that evening. Usually I had withdrawn, resigned or embittered, and gone home. But that evening I suddenly felt too weak to do so. I was unable to use the sole means of defence – flight.
I became afraid. I had strayed too far from home to run back there. This was not the first time I had felt fear, but I had never been afraid in this way before. Perhaps ‘fear’ is not the right word – it is difficult to find the right word for a psychological state one experiences for the first time. It was not fear in the physical sense, nor fear of something I expected to come. It was already here, surrounding me on every side.
I have searched through my memories for something that might correspond to this feeling. As a child, stories I had heard or read about ghosts sometimes made me afraid of the dark. In Sauna-Mihkel’s room hung a brightly coloured picture of a Chinese man, which I once thought I was afraid of – especially after Mihkel stepped on a sea mine washed ashore during the war and was blown to pieces. I also remember the vague, dark terror of waking after a half-forgotten dream and burrowing deeper under the covers – into another darkness, warm and protective. All I remember is that I had seen a black dog that was actually supposed to be a fox. If I say now that there was even a certain enjoyment in this fear, I am thinking back to when I read Treasure Island and, like its hero, who was about my age, still imagined after finishing the book that I could hear the parrot’s hoarse cry: ‘Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!’ But that fear always had some unreal cause; it had grown out of fantasy. As a more or less grown man, I had experienced it only twice: in connection with the aforementioned Dr Mabuse and Dreyer’s Vampyr. This time, however, there was no such definite cause. This may seem ridiculous when compared with much more serious causes, such as aerial bombs exploding all around or the fate of a new manuscript when one has no more than twenty cents in one’s pocket for the stamp. On the other hand, the very real groundlessness of this feeling serves as a kind of excuse: it does not force one to feel quite so ashamed or to play the cold-blooded hero.
At last I could bear it no longer. I began to feel it physically; my legs grew weak, as sometimes in dreams when one has to climb a mountain. I had to escape the icy, paralysing current as quickly as possible. But moving forwards became increasingly difficult. I felt that I could not walk to the end of the street; I would not have the strength to run the gauntlet. The street seemed to have no end – the cool, coloured glow of neon signs drew two parallel lines that appeared to meet at infinity, while the empty darkness of the overcast sky seemed to lengthen them still further. I tried to find a way out by turning into the first quiet side street. The thought helped for a moment: I had found a destination, temporary though it was and close at hand. I felt almost like a hunted criminal, afraid of being caught at any moment. Again I felt as if I were on forbidden territory. The scorn and hatred of the people, which I felt as physically as the icy wind blowing in my face, took on a personal cast. What was more, it seemed justified. I could not defend myself, even morally. I had no right to be there. The space I occupied with my earthly body was intended for others. I was a stranger, an uninvited stranger.
I pressed myself to the edge of the pavement nearest the buildings, right against the walls, where I repeatedly stumbled over projecting steps. But before the first laughter at my stumbling had faded from my ears, I reached a quiet side street that was almost dark and, as far as I could see, entirely deserted. Still, when I turned into it, the street was no longer entirely deserted. A couple, a boy and a girl, passed me at a half-run, holding each other tightly, and then suddenly vanished, as if they had stepped through an invisible door and immediately closed it behind them. For a moment I thought I saw the street’s name on a sign at the corner: Eratänav, ‘Private Street’. But it may have been a trick of the senses, for surely no street here, in this city, could have an Estonian name.
The whole street seemed somehow closed, its face turned away. For some reason I guessed that it must be a dead end, leading nowhere, which was why there were no people. Almost every window was dark. Only a couple of artificial Christmas stars shone in the top-floor windows further along. One window reflected flickering candlelight, though I could not discover its source. The ground-floor windows were fitted with shutters or heavy iron grilles; perhaps these were goldsmiths’ shops. The street itself was narrow, but the pavement was broad and smooth, and even in the darkness I could make out a parquet pattern of dark and light stone slabs. I heard only my own footsteps echoing, but the echo came so much later that it seemed as if someone were walking behind me. At first it deceived me, and I looked back several times. But I saw nothing there except the glow of the main street.
I cannot say that I was freed from my fear at once in this alley. At first it followed me; then it seemed to be lurking ahead. The feeling grew deeper and darker, but a heedless, foolhardy courage, equally incomprehensible and unfounded, rose to its surface. As a boy I had sometimes fought the darkness by whistling; the only difference was that now no whistle came. Suddenly I felt that I was setting out towards some adventure whose nature I could not guess, yet which drew me irresistibly onwards. I even felt a slight sense of mounting anticipation – almost impatience.
Here the street made a slight bend, and as I rounded it I suddenly saw a stream of light cutting across the street from one of the houses. It startled me, and for a moment I slowed my pace. At the same moment I began to hear faint music, probably from the same house. When I reached the beam of light, I saw that it came through a doorway standing wide open, contrary to the custom of city streets.
I immediately found an explanation, and it was a slight disappointment. It was probably some public New Year’s Eve celebration, a cinema or small theatre tucked away on a side street. At this hour the performance must already have begun, which would also explain why no one could be seen hurrying towards that oasis.
I hoped I might nevertheless manage to step inside for a moment. Since the door stood so invitingly open, I could assume that the auditorium in such a forlorn place was not sold out. At last I could spend the hour or so remaining of the year in light and warmth bought for a couple of kronor. This would of course mean retreating from my earlier decision. But better to end the old year by acknowledging failure than to begin the new year with it.
And I stepped through the open door.
The first chapter, translated by Adam Cullen, was originally published in the Baltic literary magazine No More Amber. This translation has been revised by K. H. for publication on the EstLit website.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Karl Ristikivi (1912–1977) was a major figure in 20th-century Estonian literature. He wrote much of his work in exile in Sweden. European cultural history and religious symbolism shape his novels. His measured prose often returns to solitude and questions of conscience.
The Night of Souls (Hingede öö, 1953) is one of the central works of Estonian exile literature and marked a sharp turn in Ristikivi’s writing. In its dreamlike opening, an unnamed man enters a mysterious building on New Year’s Eve: the House of a Dead Man. As he moves from room to room, the people he meets appear to be playing roles whose purpose remains obscure. With each encounter, the ordinary world recedes further.
Written in post-war Sweden, the novel’s modernist form marked a departure from Ristikivi’s earlier fiction. Kafka and Calderón are often named as points of comparison. The journey through the house becomes an inquiry into guilt and meaning. It ends with a trial in which seven witnesses are questioned, each representing one of the Seven Deadly Sins.