He watches them from the room’s only window, late in the evening, or when he wakes up from a dream in the middle of the night.
The dreams are clear and show the past: a wife, children, a job, a house. When he wakes up the veil comes down again, quiet and intangible, unbeatable. Then the words disappear and then he walks through shadows. Sometimes there are faces, vague shapes within the mist. Mostly these are of the women, dressed in white, who do incomprehensible things. Things to do with food, or with needles, or the small, many-coloured round and oblong things that they hold in their hands.
(Now swallow.)
He swallows out of habit, not because he understands the command. Mostly, sleep follows, at times accompanied by dreams.
There are moments that the shadows open, when the veil lets the light through. Then there is a road or a house, the smell of flowers or the burning of autumn leaves in his parents’ garden. Sometimes it’s the face of a woman, who slowly ages and then doesn’t walk beside him anymore, doesn’t bring in his food any longer. At other times he hears a dog bark:
(”Toby?” he whispers.
The young nurse looks at her elder colleague, who has been taking care of the man for years.
“His dog, I think. Dead, of course.” the elder nurse explains.)
There are no stories attached to these images; no explanations or cohesion. They are mere shreds of a life - and then the shadows return, and the veil comes down again.
The days go by and leave no impression on the man. At night he dreams and almost recognizes things from the past - till he wakes up again and the dreams dissolve, unremembered. Sometimes, when he wakes up in the middle of the night, scared and confused, while the shadows are gathering again, he walks to the window, for no clear reason.
The man has no reasons, no answers, no words. Maybe it’s the light that falls through the window that calls him - like a newly born turtle claws itself out of the sand, towards the light, towards the smell of the waiting sea. He opens the curtains, more out of habit than impulse. He looks outside, and watches the moon uncomprehendingly. He sees the old oak tree that rules the garden and the small figures that walk beneath it: gathering leaves, putting up their tall, narrow ladders, climbing up and down, gathering acorns.
The man has no words to describe these activities, to understand what he sees. Yet from the shadows something rises to the surface. An old kitchen smelling of freshly baked bread; an old woman working the French beans at the rough, pine table; the cat looking out at the garden from the high window-sill.
The old woman sings. A boy listens. These images are clearer than his dreams. They are always the same: the kitchen, and the old woman, and the boy who is forever eight years’ old. The woman sings or tells stories, while she breaks the beans. The round, green pebbles drop into the pan that sits in her lap.
The old man looks through the window, sees the small figures hard at work, down in the garden. He smiles. He waves. He hears the old woman reading from an illustrated book. An old, tobacco-stained, trembling finger points at a drawing of a group of -
(”Goblins”, the boy says.)
“Goblins, goblins.” the old man repeats.
Days and nights go by. The man moves through shadows but sometimes there are things almost visible beyond the veil. And at times there is this hesitant, slow walk to the window, followed by a whispered:
“Goblins, goblins.”
****** ****** ******
“Have you heard?” the night porter asks a group of nurses who have arrived for the morning shift.
“Heard what?” one of the nurses asks.
“Yesterday evening.” the porter says; “That goblin guy. Heart attack.”
“He’s dead?”
“Before his head hit the mashed potatoes. And guess what his last words were.”
The porter winks. The nurses laugh. They are used to death here. Death is not the enemy. The true enemies are the bodies that slowly decay but keep breathing, and the thoughts that slowly leak away into the shadows.
“That’s easy.” one of the nurses says.
Another nurse adds, in a trembling, falsetto voice:
“Goblins, goblins.”
The night porter lights a cigarette.
“Of course.” he says; “Those damned goblins.”
“Jesus!” one nurse says, “The goblin man, dead. He’s been here for… How long was he here?”
“Fifteen years.” an elder colleague tells her; “He came when he was seventy. When he got Alzheimer.”
“Eighty-five.” the night porter says. “That would do me.”
“Not like that.” another nurse says; “Not like that, surely.”
“No,” the porter says; “You’re right. Not like that.”
****** ****** ******
The funeral didnâ’t take long. There were two surviving sons and five grandchildren. That was all in terms of living relatives, and the old man had outlived all his friends.
One of the old man’s sons lived in Canada and had not been able to come to the funeral on such short notice. Beside the grave, the other son was talking to the director of the old people’s home. His wife and two children had already left and were waiting in the car. All of them just wanted things to be over with, and to go home.
The man shook the director’s hand, and thanked her one more time for all the years of excellent care they’d given to his father. She smiled, said her goodbyes and then remembered something she decided to share with him.
When she had finished, he smiled ruefully. He shook his head and started to walk back to his car. Then he turned round, made one final remark and then quickly left. Shaking her head, the director laughed - a short bark, before she remembered that she was standing next to an open grave.
The man got into the car and muttered something.
“What was that?” his wife asked him.
The man sighed. The small anecdote the director had shared with him and his almost callous response now didn’t seem to be all that funny anymore.
“What do you think?” he asked. “More goblin stories, of course.”
His wife closed her eyes and sighed.
In the back of the car the children started to sing a song they had made up years ago. The song had undergone many changes and now had many, many stanzas. Only the refrain hadn’t changed over the years:
“Our granddad is a gobliner, a gobliner, a gobliner;
our granddad is insane.
Our granddad is a gobliner, a gobliner, a gobliner;
and that’s what he remains.”
Husband and wife looked at each other and smiled ruefully.
“At least it’s finally over.” she said.
“Thank God for that.” he replied.
The car drove off. It was a two hours’ drive back home. The children sang the gobliner song all the way. Their parents remained silent.
****** ****** ******
The next day the caretaker visited the newly dug grave. It was his custom to visit each recently filled grave, to see if everything had been done properly. When he came to the grave he nodded, well-satisfied. A good job; modest but dignified. Then he frowned and bent over.
Four minuscule wreaths had been placed on top of the mound. They were beautifully woven and clearly hand-made - but who could possibly have such nimble or such tiny fingers, and why were these wreaths so small, to the point of being invisible?
The caretaker smiled, then shook his head. In the back of his mind, where a child still hid, an image appeared and a word formed, which remained unspoken and was soon forgotten again. The caretaker had many other things to do that morning. He walked on.
