The tower was there one morning.
That was strange, but not strange enough to immediately raise the alarm in DenkDorp.
Something often appeared there that did not exist the day before. A side road. A form. A memory that three people said was theirs. Usually something like this disappeared on its own as soon as someone wanted to set up a committee for it.
That didn't happen with the tower.
He stood on the north side of the village, where It Paad made a bend towards Dwaalstad. Dark bricks, narrow windows and on top an edge with battlements that seemed to protect against nothing.
There was a sign at the foot.
Tower of Enlightenment
Climb at your own discretion.
When you reach the top, you understand why.
If you understand it, you don't have to go upstairs anymore.
Everyone laughed about it on the first day.
The second day a little less.
On the third evening there was a light on in the top window.
Not bright. More like the warm, yellowish light of a kitchen where someone has just made coffee.
According to the tower keeper, no one lived there.
No one knew where the tower keeper came from.
Every morning he sat on a wooden chair next to the door and looked up. There was a second chair next to him, but no one was allowed to sit on it.
“Who is it for?” asked the baker.
“For the one who comes back,” said the tower keeper.
The baker did not like that answer. He went home and baked only round loaves that day.
Tersake
Then came Mr. Tersake.
Tersake chaired the municipal committee for matters that urgently needed to be discussed before anyone discovered that they were of no use.
He walked around the tower three times, measured the doorway with his briefcase and wrote down that the tower probably did not comply with the current regulations for buildings that appear unexpectedly.
“Is this the road to Dwaalstad?” he asked.
The tower keeper looked up.
“That depends on what you were thinking downstairs.”
Tersake waited for the rest of the answer.
It didn't come.
“I'm going upstairs,” he said.
“Most people do.”
“And after that?”
“After that, most of them come down.”
The door opened before Tersake touched her.
Inside, a stone spiral staircase began. There was no lamp, but every step became visible as soon as he lifted his foot. Behind him the light disappeared again.
After twelve steps he looked back.
The door was gone.
Where she had been sitting, the stairs simply continued downwards.
Tersake called the tower keeper.
His own voice sounded from deep below him.
“I'm going upstairs.”
Then he heard the door close.
The room
The staircase had three hundred and fourteen steps.
Or twenty-nine.
Tersake had counted them both.
Upstairs he found a circular room with one window, one table and two cups of coffee. One was steaming. The other was cold.
A map of DenkDorp hung on the wall.
His house was not listed.
That was impossible. Tersake had lived in the same house for twenty-eight years, next to the mailbox that was officially a bus stop due to an error in the administration.
He took a closer look at the map.
There was a small white area where his house stood.
Below it was written in pencil:
Here lived someone who was everywhere except at home.
Tersake felt something he usually only felt when a meeting had started without him.
He turned around.
A man sat across the table.
The man was wearing the same jacket as Tersake. The same glasses. The same light spot on his left hand.
Only he didn't look angry.
“Who are you?” Tersake asked.
“That's what I wanted to ask you.”
“This is not an answer.”
“You've said that often.”
The man pushed the hot coffee towards him.
“I don't drink coffee after four o'clock.”
“Your wife puts it on every night at half past seven.”
“My wife knows that I have meetings then.”
“She put it anyway.”
Outside the window was DenkDorp, but not the DenkDorp that Tersake knew. There were no straight streets. No town hall. No signs telling you what was not allowed.
His house was there.
His wife sat in front of the window with two cups of coffee.
His coat lay on the empty chair.
“That didn't happen,” Tersake said.
“No,” said the other man. “That's the problem.”
Downstairs
When Tersake came outside again, it was dark.
The tower keeper was still sitting next to the door. The second seat was empty.
“How long have I been up there?” Tersake asked.
“You haven't been upstairs.”
Tersake looked at his shoes. There was gray dust on it that did not come from It Paad.
In his hand he held a cold cup of coffee.
He walked home.
All windows were lit. Through the kitchen window he saw his wife sitting at the table. Opposite her sat a man in his coat.
The man laughed at something she said.
Tersake knocked on the window.
His wife looked up.
She was shocked.
Not like her husband came home after a long day.
As if a stranger tapped on her kitchen window late at night.
The man at the table stood up and came to the door.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
Tersake looked at his own face.
“You live in my house.”
The man looked over his shoulder at the woman.
“I think you are mistaken.”
Behind Tersake the tower clock chimed once.
The Tower of Enlightenment had no clock.
The second chair
The next morning, the residents of DenkDorp found Tersake at the foot of the tower.
He sat in the second chair.
An empty cup stood next to him.
“Are you the tower keeper now?” asked Kwartsoog.
Tersake looked up.
“That depends on what you were thinking downstairs.”
Kwartsoog took a step back.
The old tower keeper was nowhere to be seen.
There was only a briefcase on his chair.
Since then, the tower has remained dark most of the time.
During the day the light did not work.
Not always at night either.
But sometimes, when someone in DenkDorp was very sure who he was, a warm glow appeared at the top.
Then it smelled like fresh coffee on It Paad.
And Tersake already straightened the second chair.
That night there was a light in the tower below for the first time.
And someone knocked on the door upstairs.