An Invitation

The envelope was pushed under the door of my hotel room while I was over on the other side of the bed, so when I rushed across to open the door and see who was there, it was too late. The corridor was empty and I was left standing on my own to wonder who might have delivered whatever it was.

I had not been in the small Dutch town long and had yet to get my bearings. I had some business to undertake the following day and had nothing else in mind that evening other than going out for a meal and then straight to bed. I knew nobody here, so who on earth could be pushing strange notes under my door?

I opened the envelope as I stood there. The card inside bore an invitation, of sorts. All it said was:

“Come to 28 Prinzengracht at any time you like. Just walk in and come upstairs. MCE.”

The only thought that came to mind was to quote Lewis Carroll: “Curiouser and curiouser”.

But, just like Alice, I had no intention of letting the mystery lie where it was. I decided that, after my meal, I would take up the invitation to visit the address on the card.

I had no idea where Prinzengracht was, so after I had eaten in the small restaurant near my hotel, I asked the waiter for directions. He was curious as to why I wanted to go there at what was now quite a late hour. What number was I going to?

I thought I could detect a hint of a smile on his face after I said “Twenty-eight”, but maybe I was imagining this. Or maybe not.

The door of Number 28 was closed, but the handle turned easily enough and I walked straight in, just as suggested by the invitation.

There was no passageway or sign of other doors, just a staircase leading upwards. “Come upstairs”, the invitation had said, so I did just that. At the top of the first flight there was a sharp turn to the right, and another flight of stairs. There were no windows or doors on either side, but the stairs were well lit. I kept climbing upwards.

After the second flight there was another right-angled turn, then another, and another. The stairs just kept going on, and on, and on.

The thought struck me that this house must be immensely tall, given how many stairs I must have climbed, but I had certainly not been aware as I walked along Prinzengracht that any of the houses were higher than what one might expect to find in a typical street in a small town in the Netherlands.

At last, I could see a window in the side wall. When I got there I peered through it to see just how high up I was. But the view I had was of a typical street in a small town in the Netherlands. I was no higher off the ground than the lampposts that shed their weak light over the street.

I decided that I had had enough of this, so I turned round to take the stairs back the way I had come.

But that was when things got even stranger than they were already, if that was possible. The stairs did not go down at all, only up. What? If I had climbed all that way up, how come I could not go down? But that was precisely what I was faced with – whichever way I turned, the stairs only went up, and they never took me any higher than I was already.

When I next came to the window I could see a card on the window sill, which I could swear had not been there before. I picked it up and read:

“Welcome to my house. I hope you like it. Don’t worry, just snap your fingers and you’ll be back on the street. Yours in jest, M C Escher”.

© John Welford