Boris and Arkady Strugatsky. The snail on the slope
© Copyright Arcady And Boris Strugatsky
© Copyright Introduction by Theodore Sturgeon.
© Copyright Translated from the Russian by Alan Meyers, 1980
© Copyright Bantam Books, Inc.
Origin: "Ulitka na sklone"
Chapter One
From this height, the forest was like foam, luxuriant and blotchy, a
gigantic world--encompassing porous sponge, like an animal waiting in
concealment, now fallen asleep and overgrown with rough moss. A formless
mask hiding a face, as yet revealed to none.
Pepper shook off his sandals and sat down with his bare legs dangling
over the precipice. It seemed to him that his heels at once became damp, as
if he had actually immersed them in the warm lilac fog that lay banked up in
the shadows under the cliff. He fished out the pebbles he had collected from
his pocket and laid them out neatly beside him. He then selected the
smallest and gently tossed it down into the living and silent, slumbering,
all-enveloping indifference, and the white spark was extinguished, and
nothing happened--no branch trembled, no eye half-opened to glance up.
If he were to throw a pebble every one and a half minutes, and if what
the one-legged cook, nicknamed Pansy, said was true and what Madame Bardot,
head of the Assistance to the Local Population Group, reckoned, if what
driver Acey whispered to the unknown man from the Engineering Penetration
Group was untrue, and if human intuition was worth anything at all, and if
wishes came true once in a lifetime, then at the seventh stone, the bushes
behind him would part with a crash, and the director would step out onto the
soft crushed grass of the dew-gray clearing. He would be stripped to the
waist in his gray garbardines with the lilac braid, breathing heavily, sleek
and glossy, yellow-pink and shaggy, looking nowhere in particular, neither
at the forest beneath him nor at the sky above him, bending down to bury his
arms in the grass, then unbending to raise a breeze with his broad palms,
each time the mighty fold on his belly bulging out over his trousers, while
air, saturated with carbon dioxide and nicotine, would burst out of his open
mouth with a whistling gurgle.
The bushes behind parted with a crash. Pepper looked around cautiously,
but it wasn't the director, it was someone he knew, Claudius-Octavian
Haus-botcher from the Eradication Group. He approached without haste and
halted two paces away, looking Pepper up and down with his piercing dark
eyes. He knew something or suspected something, something very important,
and this knowledge or suspicion had frozen his long face, the stony face of
a man who had brought here to the precipice a strange, alarming piece of
news. No one in the whole world knew what this news was, but it was already
clear that everything had altered decisively; what had gone before was no
longer significant and now, at last, everyone would be required to
contribute all he was capable of.
"And whose might these shoes be?" said he, glancing about him.
"They're not shoes, they're sandals," said Pepper. "Indeed?"
Hausbotcher sneered and withdrew a large notepad from his pocket. "Sandals?
Ver-ry good. But whose sandals are they?"
He edged toward the brink, peeped cautiously down and stepped back
smartly.
"Man sits by the precipice," he said, "next to him, sandals. The
question inevitably raises itself: whose sandals are they and where is their
owner?" "They're my sandals," said Pepper. "Yours?" Hausbotcher looked
doubtfully at the large notepad. "You're sitting barefooted, then? Why?"
"Barefoot because I've no choice," explained Pepper. "Yesterday I
dropped my right shoe and decided from now on, I'll always sit barefoot." He
bent down and looked between his splayed knees. "There she lies. I can just
drop this pebble in. . "
Hausbotcher adroitly seized him by the arm and appropriated the pebble.
"It is indeed just a pebble," he said. "That, however, makes no
difference as yet. Pepper, it's incomprehensible why you're lying to me. You
can't possibly see the shoe from here--even if it's there, and whether it is
or not is another question, which will be gone into later--and if you can't
see the shoe, ergo you can't hit it with a stone, even if you possessed the
necessary accuracy and actually did wish to do that and only that. I mean
hitting. . . . But we'll sort all that out presently." He hitched up his
trousers and squatted down on his haunches.
"So you were here yesterday as well," he said. "Why? For what reason
have you come a second time to the precipice, where the other Directorate
personnel, not to mention temporary staff, only come to obey the call of
nature?"
Pepper slumped. This is just plain ignorance, he thought. No, no, it's
not a challenge, nor is it spite, no need to take it seriously. It's just
ignorance. No need to take ignorance seriously. Ignorance excretes itself on
the forest. Ignorance always excretes itself over something.
"You like sitting here, seemingly," Hausbotcher went on insinuatingly.
"You like the forest a lot, seemingly. You love it, don't you? Answer me!"
"Don't you?" asked Pepper.
"Don't you forget yourself," he said aggrieved and nipped open his
notepad. "As you very well know, I belong to the Eradication Group and
therefore your question, or rather your counterquestion is entirely devoid
of meaning. You understand perfectly well that my attitude to the forest is
defined by my professional duty; what defines your attitude to it is not
clear to me. That's bad, Pepper, you need to think about that. I'm advising
you for your own good, not for mine. You mustn't be so unintelligible. Sits
on the edge of the cliff in bare feet, throwing pebbles. . . . Why, one
asks? In your place I'd tell me everything straight out. Get everything
sorted out. Who knows, there could be extenuating circumstances. Nothing's
threatening you anyway. Is it, Pepper?"
"No," said Pepper, "that is, of course, yes." "There you are.
Simplicity disappears at once and never comes back. Whose hand? we ask.
Whither the cast? Or, perhaps, to whom? Or, as it may be, at whom? And why?
And how is it you can sit on the edge of the cliff? Is it inborn or have you
done special training? I, for example, am unable to sit on the edge of the
cliff, and I can't bear to think why I might train for such a thing. I get
dizzy at the thought. That's only natural. Nobody needs to sit on the cliff
edge. Especially if he doesn't have a permit to enter the forest. Show me
your permit, if you please, Pepper." "I haven't got one." "So. Not got. Why
is that?"
"I don't know. . . . They won't give me one, that's all."
"That's right, not given out. This we know. And why don't they give you
one? I've got one, he's got one, they've got one, plenty of people have
them, but for some reason you don't get one."
Pepper stole a cautious glance at him. Hausbotcher's long emaciated
nose was sniffing, his eyes constantly blinking.
"Probably it's because I'm an outsider," suggested Pepper. "Probably
that's why."
"I'm not the only one taking an interest in you, you know," Hausbotcher
confided. "If it were only me! People a bit higher up than me are taking an
interest. Listen, Pepper, could you come away from the edge, so we can carry
on. I get dizzy looking at you."
Pepper got up and began leaping about on one leg as he fastened his
sandal.
"Oh dear, please come away from the edge!" cried Hausbotcher in agony,
waving his notepad at Pepper.
"You'll be the death of me someday with your antics."
"That's it," said Pepper, stamping his foot. "I shan't do it again.
Let's go, shall we?"
"Let's go," said Hausbotcher. "I assert, however, that you haven't
answered a single one of my questions. You pain me, Pepper. Is this any way
to go on?" He looked at the bulky notepad and placed it under his armpit
with a shrug. "It's very odd, definitely no impressions, let alone
information."
"All right, what should I answer?" said Pepper. "I just wanted to have
a talk with the director here."
Hausbotcher froze, as if trapped in the bushes. "So that's how you go
about it." His voice was altered.
"Go about what? There's no going about. . . ."
"No, no," whispered Hausbotcher, gazing about him, "just keep silent.
No need for any words. I realize now. You were right."
"What've you realized? What was I right in?"
"No, no, I haven't understood anything. I haven't understood, period.
You may rest absolutely assured. Haven't understood a thing. I wasn't even
here, I didn't see you."
They passed by the little bench, climbed the crumbling steps, turned
into an alley strewn with red sand, and entered the grounds of the
Directorate.
"Total clarity can exist only on a certain level," Hausbotcher was
saying. "And everybody should know what he can lay claim to. I claimed
certainty on my level, that was my right and I exercised it fully. Where
rights end, obligations begin. . . ."
They passed the ten flat cottages with tulle curtains at the windows,
passed the garage, cut across the sports ground, and went by dumps and the
hostel, in whose doorway stood a deathly-pale warden with motionless
pop-eyes, and by the long fencing beyond which could be heard the snarling
of engines. They kept quickening their pace and as there was little time
left, they began to run. But all the same, they burst into the canteen too
late, all the seats were taken. Only at the duty table in the far corner
were there two places, the third being occupied by driver Acey, and driver
Acey, observing them shuffling in indecision on the threshold, waved his
fork at them, inviting them over.
Everybody was drinking yogurt and Pepper took the same, so that they
had six bottles on the crusted tablecloth, and when Pepper moved his legs a
bit under the table, making himself more comfortable on the backless chair,
there was a clink of glass and an empty brandy bottle rolled out between the
little tables. Driver Acey swiftly grabbed it and thrust it back under the
table; more glass clinked.
"Careful with your feet," he said.
"I couldn't help it," said Pepper. "I didn't know."
"Did I know?" responded Acey. "There's four of them under there. Prove
your innocence later if you can."
"Well I, for instance, don't drink at all," said Haus-botcher with
dignity.
"We know how you don't drink," said Acey. "That's how we all don't
drink."
"But I have liver trouble!" Hausbotcher was growing uneasy. "Look,
here's the certificate." He pulled a crumpled exercise-book page out from
somewhere; it had a triangular stamp. He shoved it under Pepper's nose. It
was indeed a certificate written in an illegible medical hand. Pepper could
only make out one word "antabus." "I've got last year's and the year before
that as well, only they're in the safe."
Driver Acey didn't look at the paper. He drained a full glass of
yogurt, sniffed the joint of his index finger, and asked in a tearful voice:
"Well, what else is there in the forest? Trees." He wiped his eyes with
his sleeve. "But they don't stand still: jump. Got it?"
"Well?" asked Pepper eagerly, "what was that-- jump?"
"Like this. It stands still. A tree, right? Then it starts hunching and
bending, then whoosh! There's a noise, crashing, I don't know what all. Ten
yards. Smashed my cab. There it is standing again." "Why?" asked Pepper.
" 'Cos it's called a jumping tree," explained Acey pouring himself more
yogurt.
"Yesterday, a consignment of new electric saws arrived," announced
Hausbotcher, licking his lips. "Phenomenal productivity. I would go so far
as to say that they weren't electrosaws but saw-combines. Our saw-combines
of eradication."
All around they were drinking yogurt out of cut glasses, tin mugs,
little coffee cups, paper cones, straight out of the bottle. Everybody's
legs were stuck , under their chairs. And everyone probably could show his
certificate of liver, stomach, small intestine trouble. For this year and
for the last several.
"Then the manager calls me in," Acey went on, raising his voice, "and
he asks why my cab's stove in. 'Again,' he says, 'sod, giving people lifts?'
Now you, Mr. Pepper, play chess with him, you might put in a little word for
me. He respects you, he often talks of you, 'Pepper,' he says, 'he's a
character! I won't give a vehicle for Pepper and don't ask. We can't let a
man like that go. Understand, all you zombies, we couldn't carry on without
him!' Put in a word, eh?"
"All right," Pepper brought out in a low voice, "I'll try."
"I can speak with the manager," said Hausbotcher. "We served together.
I was a captain and he was my lieutenant. He greets me to this day, bringing
his hand to his headgear."
"Then there's the mermaids," said Acey, weighing his glass of yogurt.
"In big clear lakes. They lie there, get it? Nothing on."
"Your yogurt's putting ideas into your head," said Hausbotcher.
"I haven't seen them myself," rejoined Acey. "But the water from those
lakes isn't fit to drink."
"You haven't seen them because they don't exist," said Hausbotcher.
"Mermaids, that's mysticism."
"You're another mysticism," said Acey, wiping his eye with a sleeve.
"Wait a bit," said Pepper, "wait a bit. Acey, you say they're lying ...
is that all? They can't just lie and that's all."
"Maybe they live underwater and float up onto the surface, just like we
go out onto the balcony to escape from smoke-filled rooms on moonlit nights
and, eyes closed, bare our face to the chill, then they can just lie. Just
lie and that's all. Rest. And talk lazily and smile at each other. . . ."
"Don't argue with me," said Acey, looking obstinately at Hausbotcher.
"Have you ever been in the forest? Never been in there once, have you, to
hell."
"Silly if I did," said Hausbotcher. "What would I be doing there in
your forest? I've got a permit into your forest. And you, Acey, haven't got
one at all. Show me, if you please, your permit, Acey."
"I didn't see the mermaids myself," repeated Acey, turning to Pepper,
"but I entirely believe in them. Because the boys have told me. So did
Kandid even, and he was the one who knew everything about the forest. He
used to go into that forest like a man to his woman, put his finger on
anything. He perished there in his forest."
"If he did," said Hausbotcher significantly.
"What do you mean 'if'? Man flies off in his helicopter, three years no
sight or sound. His obituary was in the paper, we held the wake, what more
d'you want? Kandid crashed, that's for sure."
"We don't know enough," said Hausbotcher, "to assert anything with
complete certainty."
Acey spat and went to the counter to order another bottle of yogurt. At
this, Hausbotcher leaned over and whispered in Pepper's ear, his eyes
darting:
"Bear in mind that touching Kandid there was a sealed directive. ... I
consider it right for me to inform you, because you are a person from
outside."
"What directive?"
"To regard him as alive," said Hausbotcher in a hollow whisper and
moved away. "Nice, fresh yogurt today," he announced loudly.
Noise increased in the canteen. Those who had already breakfasted were
getting up, scraping chairs, and making for the exit, lighting up and
throwing match-sticks on the floor. Hausbotcher surveyed them malevolently
and said to everyone as they passed: "Strange behavior, gentlemen, you can
surely see we're having a discussion."
When Acey returned with his bottle, Pepper spoke to him.
"The manager didn't really say he wouldn't provide me with a vehicle,
did he? He was just joking, wasn't that it?"
"Why should he? He likes you, Mister Pepper, bored without you and it's
just not worth his while to let you go. ... Well if he lets you, what's in
it for him? No joking."
Pepper bit his lip.
"How the devil can I get away? There's nothing more for me to do here.
My visa's running out, and anyway I just want to get away."
"Anyhow," said Acey, "if you get three reprimands, they'll sling you
out in two shakes. You'll get a special bus, they'll get a driver up in the
middle of the night, you won't get time to collect your bits of things. . .
. Here the boys work it this way. First warning, a reduction in rank;
second, you're sent to the forest to expiate your sins. Third reprimand,
thank you and good night. If I wanted the sack, for example, I'd drink half
a jar and sock this guy in the jaw," he indicated Hausbotcher. "They'd take
away my privileges and transfer me to the crap-wagon. Then what do I do?
Drink another half-jar and give him another one--got it? They'd take me off
the crap-wagon and send me out to the biostation to catch some old microbes.
But I don't go. I drink another half-jar and give it to him across the chops
for the third time. Well that's the end of it. Sacked for hooligan conduct
and deported in twenty-four hours."
Hausbotcher waved a threatening finger at Acey.
"Misinformation, misinformation, Ace. In the first place, at least a
month must elapse between the actions, otherwise all the misdemeanors will
be regarded as one and the transgressor will simply be put in jail without
any further steps being taken within the Directorate. Secondly, following
the second misdemeanor, they send the convicted man to the forest at once
under guard, so that he will be deprived of any opportunity to carry out a
third offense at his own discretion. Don't pay any attention to him, Pepper,
he knows nothing about these matters."
Acey took a mouthful of yogurt, frowned, and wheezed out a confession.
"True, enough. I really . . . well. I'm sorry, Mister Pepper."
"Doesn't matter, what the. . . ." said Pepper sadly. "I still can't hit
a man in the face whichever way you put it."
"It doesn't have to be the . . . jaw," said Acey. "You can make it the
... the behind. Or just rip his suit." "No, I can't do it," said Pepper.
"Too bad, then," said Acey. "That's your trouble, Mister Pepper. Here's what
we'll do. Tomorrow morning around sevenish, come around to the garage, get
in my truck, and wait. I'll take you." "You will?" Pepper was overjoyed.
"Well I've got to take a load of scrap metal to the mainland. We'll go
together."
Somebody suddenly gave a terrible shout in the corner. "What do you
think you're doing? You've spilled my soup!"
"A man ought to be simple and straightforward," said Hausbotcher. "I
don't understand, Pepper, why you want to get away from here. Nobody wants
to leave,just you."
"I'm always like that," said Pepper. "I always do the opposite. Anyway,
why should a man always be simple and straightforward?"
"A man ought to be teetotal," announced Acey, sniffing the joint of his
index finger, "what d'you think, eh?"
"I don't drink," said Hausbotcher. "And I don't drink for a very simple
reason, one that anyone can understand. I have a liver complaint. You can't
catch me out, Ace."
"What gets me about the forest," said Acey, "is the swamps. They're
hot, get me? It turns me around. I just can't get used to it. You plop in
somewhere . . . then you're off the brushwood road. There I am in my cab,
can't climb out. Just like hot cabbage soup. There's steam coming off it and
it smells of cabbage soup--I tried a mouthful once, but it's no good, not
enough salt or something . . . no, the forest is no place for a man. What
more do they want to know about it? They drive their machines on and on into
it, like a hole in the ice--and they still write if off, and down they go,
and they still. ..
"Green odorous abundance. Abundance of colors, abundance of smells.
Abundance of life. And all of it alien. Somehow familiar, a resemblance
somewhere, but profoundly alien. The hardest part was to accept it as alien
and familiar at one and the same time, derived from our world, flesh of our
flesh--but broken away, not wishing to know us. An apeman might think the
same way about us, his descendants, grieving and fearful . . ."
"When the order comes out," proclaimed Hausbotcher, "we shall move some
real stuff in there, not your lousy bulldozers and landrovers--in two months
will turn it all into ... er ... a concrete platform, dry and level."
"You will turn it," said Acey. "If you don't cop one in the jaw, you'll
turn your own father into a concrete platform. For straighforwardness sake."
The siren started up thickly. The glass in the windows rattled and
above the door a massive bell hammered out, lamps flickered on the walls,
while above the counter a large sign lit up: "Get up and leave!" Hausbotcher
rose hastily, adjusted his watch and without a word went off at a run.
"Well, I'm off," said Pepper. "Work to be done."
"Time to go," agreed Acey. "Time's up."
He divested himself of his quilted jacket, rolled it up neatly, and
moved the chairs so as to lie down, using the jacket as a pillow.
"Tomorrow at seven, then?" said Pepper.
"What?" asked Acey in a drowsy voice.
"I'll be here tomorrow at seven."
"What d'you say?" Acey asked, tossing about on the chairs. "Place is
going to the dogs, bastards," he mumbled. "How many times have I told them
to get a sofa in here. . . ."
"To the garage," said Pepper. "Your truck."
"Ah-h. . . . Well, to do that thing, we'll see. It's not that easy."
He tucked up his legs, stuck his palms under his armpits, and started
snuffling. His arms were heavy and a tattoo could be glimpsed under the
hair. "What destroys us" was written there, also, "Ever onward." Pepper made
for the exit.
He crossed an enormous puddle in the backyard on a board, skirted a
mound of empty jam-jars, crept through a hole in the fence, and entered the
Directorate building via the service entrance. It was cold and dark in the
corridors, which reeked of tobacco, dust, and old papers. There wasn't a
soul anyway, no sound could be heard from behind the leatherette doors.
Pepper went up to the second floor by way of a narrow staircase without a
handrail, clinging to the dilapidated wall. He went up to a door above which
a sign flickered on and off. "Wash your hands before work." A large black
letter M showed up on the door. Pepper thrust at the door and experienced a
slight shock on discovering it was his own office. That is, of course, it
wasn't his office; it was Kirn's, chief of Science Security, but Pepper had
put a table in there and now it stood sideways near the door by the tiled
wall; half the table was, as usual, taken up with a mothballed Mercedes.
Kirn's table stood by the large, well-cleaned window; he was already at
work, sitting hunched-up and consulting a slide rule.
"I wanted to wash my hands," said Pepper, at a loss.
"Wash away, wash away," Kim nodded. "There's the washbasin. It's going
to be very convenient. Now everybody will be coming to see us."
Pepper went over to the basin and began washing his hands. He washed
them in hot and cold water, two kinds of soap, and special grease-absorbent
paste, rubbed them with a bast whisp and brushes of varying degrees of
stiffness. After that he switched the electric dryer on and for some time
held his moist pink hands in the howling stream of warm air.
"They announced at four that they were transferring us to the second
floor," said Kim. "Whereabouts were you? With Alevtina?"
"No, I was at the cliff-edge," said Pepper, seating himself at his
table.
The door opened wide and Proconsul entered the room with a rush, waved
his briefcase in greeting, and disappeared behind the curtain. The door of
his study creaked and the bolt shot home. Pepper took the sheet off the
Mercedes, sat without moving, then went over to the window and flung it
open.
The forest wasn't visible from here, but it was there. It always was
there, though it could only be seen from the cliff. Anywhere else in the
Directorate something was in the way. In the way were the cream structures
of the mechanical workshops and the four-story garage for staff cars. In the
way were the cattle-yards of the farm area and the washing hung out near the
laundry with its spin dryer permanently out of commission. In the way was
the park with its flowerbeds and pavilions, its big-wheel and
plaster-of-paris bathers, covered with penciled grafitti. In the way stood
cottages with ivy-draped verandahs adorned with the crosses of television
antennae. From here, however, the first-floor window, the forest was hidden
by a high brick wall, incomplete as yet, but very high, which rose around
the flat-roofed one-story Engineering Penetration building. The forest could
only be seen from the cliff-edge.
However, even a man who had never seen the forest, heard nothing about
it, never thought about it, wasn't afraid of it, and never yearned for it,
even such a man could easily have guessed at its existence if only because
of the simple existence of the Directorate. I, for example, have thought
about the forest, argued about it, dreamed about it, but I never even
suspected its actual existence. I became convinced of its existence not when
I first went out onto the cliff-edge, but when I first read the notice near
the entrance: "Forest Directorate." I stood before this notice with a
suitcase in my hand, dusty and dehydrated after the long journey, reading
and re-reading it, and felt weak at the knees, for now I knew that the
forest existed and that meant that everything that I had thought about it up
till now was the toyings of a feeble imagination, pale impotent falsehoods.
The forest exists and this vast, somewhat grim building is concerned with
its fate.
"Kim," said Pepper, "surely I'll get into the forest. I'm leaving
tomorrow, after all."
"You really want to go there?" asked Kim absently. "Hot green swamps,
irritable and timorous trees, mermaids, resting on the water under the moon
from their mysterious activity in the depths, wary enigmatic aborigines,
empty villages . . ." "I don't know," said Pepper.
"It's not for you, Peppy," said Kim. "It's only for people who've never
thought about the forest, who've never given a curse about it. You take it
too much to heart. The forest, for you, is dangerous, it will trap you."
"Very likely," said Pepper, "but after all I came here just to see it."
"What do you want the bitter truth for?" asked Kim. "What'll you do
when you've got it? What'll you do in the forest, anyway? Cry over a dream
that's become your destiny? Pray for it to be different? Or, who knows,
maybe start to re-work what there is and must be?"
"So why did I come here?"
"To convince yourself. Surely you realize how important it is--to be
convinced. Other people come for different reasons. Maybe to see miles of
firewood, or find the bacteria of life, or write a thesis. Or get a permit,
not to go into the forest but just in case: come in handy sometime and not
everybody's got one. The limit of their little intentions is to make a
luxury park out of the forest, like a sculptor producing a statue from a
block of marble. So they can keep it trim. Year in, year out. Not let it be
a forest again."
"It's time I got away from here," said Pepper. "There's nothing for me
to do here. Somebody's got to go, either me or all of you."
"Let's multiply," said Kim and Pepper seated himself at his table,
found the wall-plug by feel, and plugged in the Mercedes.
"Seven hundred and ninety three, five hundred and twenty-two by two
hundred and sixty-six, zero eleven."
The machine began to chatter and leap. Pepper waited for it to settle,
then hesitantly read out the answer.
"All right. Clear it," said Kim. "Now, six hundred and ninety-eight,
three hundred and twelve, divide for me by twelve fifteen. . . ."
Kim dictated the figures, Pepper picked them out, pressed the
multiplier and divider keys, added, subtracted, derived roots, everything
proceeded as normal.
"Twelve by ten," said Kim. "Multiply."
"One oh oh seven," dictated Pepper automatically, then woke up and
said: "Wait, it's lying. It should be a hundred and twenty."
"I know, I know," said Kim, impatient. "One zero zero seven," he
repeated. "Now get me the root of ten zero seven. . . ."
"Just a minute," said Pepper.
The bolt clicked again behind the curtain and Proconsul appeared, pink,
fresh, and satisfied. He began to wash his hands, humming the while "Ave
Maria" in a pleasant voice. After this he announced:
"What a marvel it is after all, this forest, gentlemen! It's criminal
how little we talk and write about it! And it is indeed worthy of
description. It ennobles, it arouses the highest feelings. It facilitates
progress. We, however, are totally unable to stem the spread of unqualified
rumors, stories, and jokes. There is no real forest propaganda being done.
People talk and think about the forest hell knows. . . ."
"Seven hundred and eighty-five multiplied by four hundred and
thirty-two," said Kim.
Proconsul raised his voice. His voice was powerful and well modulated.
The Mercedes became inaudible.
" 'As if we lived in the forest. . .' 'Forest people . . .' 'You can't
see the wood for the trees.' 'If you're in the forest, you're after
firewood.' That's what we have to fight against! To eradicate! Let's say
that you, Monsieur Pepper, don't fight against it, why not? After all, you
could do a detailed, meaningful lecture on the forest at the club, but you
do no such thing. I've been keeping tabs on you for quite a while, it's been
wasted time waiting. What's the matter?"
"Well, I've never been there, have I?" said Pepper. "That doesn't
matter. I haven't been there either, but I've read a lecture, and judging by
the response, it was most useful. It's not whether you've been in the forest
or not, it's a matter of ridding the facts of this encrustation of mysticism
and superstition, laying bare the essence of things, having cleansed it of
adornments placed upon it by philistines and utilitarians. . . ."
"Twice eight divide into forty-nine minus seven times seven," said Kim.
The Mercedes got going. Proconsul once again raised his voice:
"I did it as a trained philosopher. You could do it as a qualified
linguist. I'll give you the points and you can develop them in the light of
the latest linguistic research ... if that's the theme of your thesis?"
"It's 'Stylistic and Rhythmic Characteristics of Feminine Prose in the
Late Heian based on Makwa-no Sosi,' " said Pepper. "I'm afraid that . . ."
"Ex . . . cell . . . ent! Just the thing. And emphasize the fact that
it's not swamps, it's excellent therapeutic mud-baths; not jumping trees but
the end product of high-power research; not natives or savages, rather an
ancient civilization of proud, free, modest, and powerful people with noble
intentions. And no mermaids. No lilac veils of fog, no veiled hints--forgive
me for a poor pun-- That will be excellent, mynheer Pepper, just splendid.
It's a good thing you know the forest, so's you can introduce your own
personal impressions. My lecture was good too, but, I fear, somewhat
over-speculative. As the basis of my material, I made use of conference
minutes. Whereas you as one who has researched into the forest . . .."
"I'm not a forest researcher," said Pepper earnestly. "I'm not allowed
into the forest. I don't know the forest at all."
Proconsul, nodding absently, wrote something swiftly on his shirt cuff.
"Yes!" said he. "Yes, yes. It is the bitter truth, alas. Alas, we still
find pockets of formalism, bureaucracy, heuristic approach to the
personality. . . . You can talk about that as well, by the way. You can, yes
you can, everybody talks about that. Meanwhile, I shall attempt to get your
speech agreed with the higher-ups. I'm damned glad that you'll give us a
hand in our work after all, Pepper. I've had a very careful eye on you for a
very long time. . . . There you are then. I've noted your name down for next
week!"
Pepper unplugged the Mercedes.
"I won't be here next week. My visa has expired and
I'm going tomorrow."
"Well, we'll fix that somehow. I'll go to the director, he's a club
member himself, he'll understand. You can reckon to stay another week."
"No," said Pepper. "That won't be necessary." "Oh, yes it will!" said
Proconsul, looking him straight in the eye. "You know perfectly well it is,
Pepper! Good day."
He brought two fingers to his temple and made off, waving his
briefcase.
"It's like a spider's web!" said Pepper. "Am I a fly to them or what?
The manager doesn't want me to leave, Alevtina doesn't and now this one.
..."
"I don't want you to leave either," said Kim.
"But I can't stand it here anymore!" "Seven hundred and eighty-seven,
multiply by four hundred and thirty-two. ..."
"I'll leave all the same," thought Pepper, depressing the keys. "I'll
leave anyway. You may not want it but I will. I shan't be playing ping-pong
with you, or playing chess, or sleeping with you, or drinking tea with jam.
I don't want to sing you any more songs or calculate for you on the
Mercedes, sort out your arguments for you or now read you lectures you won't
understand anyway. And I'm not going to think for you, either. Think for
yourselves, and I'm leaving. Leaving. Leaving. You'll never understand that
thinking isn't a pastime, it's a duty. . . ."
Outside, beyond the incomplete wall, a piledriver thumped heavily,
pneumatic hammers knocked, bricks spilled with a roar. Four workmen in
forage caps were sitting side by side, stripped to the waist and smoking. As
a finishing stroke, a motorcycle roared into life under his window and
ticked over noisily.
"Somebody from the forest," said Kim. "Better multiply me sixteen by
sixteen."
The door burst open and a man ran into the room. He had on a
boiler-suit and an unbuttoned hood dangled on his chest from a length of
radio flex. From boots to waist the boiler-suit bristled with the pale-pink
arrows of young shoots while the right leg was entwined with an orange
plaited liana of endless length and which trailed along the floor. The liana
was still twitching a bit and it seemed to Pepper a very tentacle of the
forest, which would reach out at any moment and drag the man back--through
the corridors of the Directorate down the staircase, along the yard wall,
past the canteen and the workshops, then down the dusty road, through the
park, past the statues and pavilions, up to the entrance to the Serpentine,
to the gates, but not into them, past them to the precipice, and down. . . .
He was wearing motorcycle goggles, and with his face thickly powdered
with dust, Pepper did not at once recognize Stoyan Stoyanov from the
biostation.
He was holding a large paper bag. He made several steps on the tiled
floor with its mosaic picturing a woman taking a shower, and halted in front
of Kim, concealing the paper bag behind his back and making odd head
movements as if his neck was itching.
"Kim," he said, "it's me."
Kim made no reply. His pen could be heard tearing and scratching the
paper.
"Kimmy," Stogan said, ingratiating. "I'm asking you, on my knees."
"Get lost," said Kim. "Maniac."
"It's the very last time," said Stoyan. "The very, very last little
time!"
He moved his head again and Pepper saw in the depression at the back of
his skinny shaven neck a tiny little pink shoot, sharply pointed and already
twining, trembling, avid.
"Just pass it over and say it's from Stoyan, that's all. If he starts
telling you to go to the cinema, tell him you've got urgent overtime. If he
offers you tea, say you've already had some. And don't accept any wine if he
suggests it. Eh? Kimmikins! For the very last time for ever and ever!"
"What're you fidgeting about for?" Kim asked irritably. "Here, turn
around!" "Got one again?" asked Stoyan, turning. "Well, it doesn't matter.
Just so you hand that over, nothing else matters."
Kim, leaning forward over the table, was busy with his neck, kneading
and massaging, elbows spread. He bared his teeth from squeamishness and
muttered curses. Stoyan patiently shifted his weight from foot to foot, head
bent and neck extended.
"Hello, Peppy," said he. "Long time no see. What're you doing here?
I've brought some again . . . what can I do? . . . Very, very last time
ever." He unwrapped the paper and showed Pepper a small bunch of
poison-green forest flowers. "Boy, what a smell! What a smell!"
"Stop pulling, you," cried Kim. "Stand still. Maniac.
Useless."
"Maniac. Useless," agreed Stoyan ecstatically. "But! For the last time
ever and ever!"
The pink shoots on his boiler-suit were already wilted and wrinkling,
raining down on the brick face of the lady under the shower.
"There," said Kirn. "Now get out."
He moved away from Stoyan and threw something half alive, squirming and
bloody into the waste-bin.
"I'm going," said Stoyan. "Right away. But, well, our Rita's acting up
again. I'm afraid to be away from the biostation. Peppy, you might come over
and have a word with them, eh?"
"What next!" said Kim. "Pepper's not needed there."
"What d'you mean, not needed?" Stoyan exclaimed. "Quentin's fading away
before your eyes! Just listen. Rita ran off a week ago--all right. Okay,
what can you do? But, she came back that night all wet, white, and icy cold.
The guard was questioning her, unarmed, and she did something to him, so
he's been senseless ever since. And the whole experimental compound has been
invaded by grass."
"Well?" said Kim.
"Quentin cried all morning. . . ."
"I know all about that," Kim broke in. "What I don't get is how Pepper
comes into it."
"What d' you mean how? What're you talking about? Who else if not
Pepper? Not me, eh? And not you. . . . We're not calling in Hausbotcher,
Claudius-Octavian."
"Stop it," said Kim, slamming his palm on the table. "Get back to work
and don't let me see you here in working hours again. Don't make me lose my
temper."
"All right," said Stoyan hastily. "Okay. I'm off. You'll hand it over?"
He placed the bouquet on the table and ran off, shouting as he left:
"and the cess-pit's working again."
Kim picked up a broom and swept all the droppings into a corner.
"Mad fool," he said. "And that Rita. . . . Now calculate the lot again.
To hell with them and their love affairs. . . ."
The motorbike started banging nerve-rackingly under the window, then
all was quiet, with only the piledriver thudding behind the wall.
"Pepper," said Kim. "Why were you at the cliff this morning?"
"I was hoping to catch sight of the director. I was told he sometimes
does physical jerks there. I wanted to ask him to send me but he didn't
come. You know, Kim, I think everybody lies here. Sometimes I even think you
do."
"Director," said Kim, ruminating, "you know that's an idea. You're on
the ball. You've got guts. . . ."
"All the same, I'm leaving tomorrow" said Pepper. "Acey's taking me, he
promised. Tomorrow I shan't be here, official."
"I never expected that, no," continued Kim, unheeding. "Plenty of guts
. . . maybe we should send you over there, to sort things out. . . ."
Chapter Two
Kandid woke and thought at once: I'll go tomorrow. At the same moment
Nava stirred in the other comer.
"Are you asleep?" she asked.
"No."
"Let's talk, then," she suggested. "We haven't spoken to each other
since yesterday evening after all. All right?"
"All right."
"First you tell me when you're going."
"I don't know," he said, "soon."
"That's what you always say: soon. Soon, or the day after tomorrow.
Maybe you think it's the same thing? Well no, you've learned to talk now. At
first you mixed everything up, mixed everything up, mixed the hut up and the
village, grass and mushrooms, even people and deadlings, mixed them up you
did and then you'd mutter away. We couldn't make it out, couldn't understand
a word. . . ."
He opened his eyes and stared at the low, lime-encrusted ceiling. The
worker ants were on the move in two even columns, from left to right loaded,
right to left empty. A month ago it had been the other way around, right to
left loaded with mushroom spawn, left to right empty.
A month hence it would be the other way again unless someone told them
to do something else. Dotted here and there along the column stood the big
black signalers motionless, antennae slowly waving, awaiting orders. A month
ago I used to wake up and think I'd go the day after tomorrow but we never
went, and long before that even I used to wake up and think the day after
tomorrow we'd be off at last and we never went. But if we don't go the day
after tomorrow, this time I'll go on my own. I used to think like that
before as well of course, but this time it's for sure. The best thing would
be to go now, straight away, no talking or trying to persuade. But that
needed a clear head. Better not. The best thing would be to decide once and
for all: as soon as I can wake with a clear head, be up, and straight out
into the street and away into the forest, and not let anybody start talking
to me. That's vital: don't let anybody start talking to you, distracting you
with their whining, starting your head buzzing, especially just here above
the eyes, till your ears start ringing and you feel like vomiting and the
whining goes on and on right through you. And Nava was already talking. . .
.
". . . so that's what happened," Nava was saying, "the deadlings took
us along in the night, and they can't see very well at night. Blind as bats,
anyone'll tell you that, even that Humpy, though he doesn't belong here,
he's from the village that was next to ours, not this one of ours where you
and I live now, but ours where I lived with mam, so you can't know Humpy, in
his village everything's covered in mushrooms, the spawn fell and that's
something not everybody likes, Humpy went away from the village straight
away. It's the Accession, he says, and now there's no place for people in
the village. . . . So-o-o. There was no moon that night and they probably
lost the track, anyway they all bunched together, us in the middle, and it
got so hot, you couldn't breathe. . . ."
Kandid looked at her. She was lying on her back, legs crossed, arms
folded behind her head. Only her lips moved endlessly, and from time to time
her eyes flashed in the half darkness. She went on talking even when the old
man came in and seated himself at the table. He drew a pot toward him,
sniffed at it noisily and with a slurp set to. At that Kandid got up and
with his palms wiped the night sweat from his body. The old man was champing
and slobbering, not taking his eyes from the bin with the lid protecting it
from mold. Kandid took the pot away and set it next to Nava to stop her
talking. The old man sucked his teeth comprehensively.
"Not very tasty," he said, "it's the same everywhere you go these days.
And that path's all grown over I used to go along; I used it a lot too, I
went to the training there and just bathing, I often went bathing in those
days, there was a lake there, now it's just a swamp and it's dangerous but
somebody still goes along there otherwise how come there's so many drowned
bodies? And reeds. I can ask anybody: how come there's paths through the
reeds? And nobody can tell me, and no more they ought. What have you got
there in that bin? If it's berries in soak I'll have them, I love soaked
berries, but if it's something of yesterday's then it doesn't matter, I
won't eat leavings, you can eat your own leavings." He paused, looking from
Kandid to Nava and back again. Getting no answer he went on:
"You can't sow anymore where the reeds have grown over. They used to
sow there before. They had to for the Accession, and they took everything to
Clay Clearing, they still take it there but they don't leave it on the
clearing, they bring it back. I told them they shouldn't, but they don't
know the meaning of the word. The elder asked me straight out in front of
them all: 'Why shouldn't we?' Buster was standing there, look, where you're
standing, closer even, and Ears just here, say, and over there where your
Nava's lying, there are the Baldy brothers, and he asks me in front of them,
in front of everybody. I tell him don't you realize, I tell him, we're not
alone here. . . . His father was a very wise man, or maybe he wasn't his
father, some say he wasn't and to be sure it doesn't seem like it. 'Why,' he
asks me, 'can't I ask why I shouldn't in front of eyeryone?' "
Nava got up and, passing the pot to Kandid, started tidying up. Kandid
began to eat. The old man fell silent and watched him for a while chewing on
his lip before observing: "That food's not good, you shouldn't eat it."
"Why not?" asked Kandid to tease.
The old man cackled.
"Eh, listen to him! Dummy, you'd do better to keep quiet. You'd be
better off answering what I keep asking, does it hurt much when you have
your head cut off?"
"What's it to you?" shouted Nava. "Why do you keep prying?"
"Shouts at me," announced the old man. "Lifts up her voice against me.
She's borne no child and raises her voice against me. Why don't you have a
child? Living with Dummy all this time and no child. Everybody has them but
not you. You shouldn't go on like this. Do you know what 'shouldn't' means?
It means undesirable, not approved, and since it's not approved it means you
shouldn't. What you should do may not be clear but what you shouldn't do,
you shouldn't. Everybody should know that and you most of all seeing as how
you live in a village not your own, got a house given, got Dummy for a
husband. Maybe he's got a different head stuck on him, but he's got a
healthy body, you've no right not to have a child. So that's it, shouldn't,
not desirable. . . ."
Nava, by now bad tempered and sulky, snatched the bin from the table
and went off into the pantry. The old man looked after her then went on,
snuffling:
"How else can shouldn't be understood? It can and ought to be realized,
shouldn't is harmful. . . ."
Kandid finished his meal and plunked the empty pot in front of the old
man. Then he went out onto the street. The house had been heavily overgrown
during the night and the only thing visible in the surrounding greenery was
the path made by the old man and the place by the door where he had sat
fidgeting waiting for them to wake up. The street had already been cleared,
the green creeper, thick as a man's arm, which had slid out of the network
of boughs hanging above the village on the previous night and put down roots
in front of the house next door had already been chopped up and fermenting
fluid poured on it. It had turned dark and was going nicely sour. It gave
out a strong appetizing smell and the neighbor's boys sat around it and tore
out chunks of the soft brown matter, damp and juicy, and stuffed them into
their mouths. When Kandid walked past, the eldest shouted with his mouth
full, "Dumbling--deadling!" but the cry was not taken up, they were all too
busy. Otherwise the street, orange and red from the tall grass in which the
houses lay drowned, somber, and mottled with dusky green patches where the
sun penetrated the forest roof, lay deserted. From the direction of the
field could be heard the monotonous ragged choir of voices: "Hey, hey, make
it gay, right way, left way, hey, hey."
From the forest came the echo. Or maybe not an echo. Maybe deadlings.
Hopalong was sitting at home, of course, massaging his leg. "Sit down,"
was his affable greeting. "Here I've put some soft grass for visitors. They
tell me you're going?"
Once more, thought Kandid, once more from the very beginning.
"What's the matter, leg hurting again?" he inquired, seating himself.
"Leg? No, it's just nice sitting here and giving it a rub. When are you
off then?"
"Just as we've been fixing it, you and I. If you were to come with me
then we could go the day after tomorrow. Now I'll have to find somebody else
who knows the forest. I can see you don't want to go."
Hopalong cautiously extended his leg and spoke weightily:
"As soon as you leave me, turn left, and carry on till you get to the
field. Across the field, past the two stones and you'll see the road
straight away, it's not much overgrown, there's too many boulders on it.
Along the road you'll pass through two villages. One's deserted, mushroomy,
mushrooms started growing there, so nobody lives there, there's funny folk
living in the other village, the blue grass went through there twice and
since then they've been sick, no need to start talking to them they won't
understand a word, it's like they've lost their memory. Through there then
and on the right you have your Clay Clearing. No need for guides, you can
get there on your own, no sweat."
"We'll get as far as Clay Clearing," agreed Kandid, "and after that?"
"What do you mean, after that?"
"Across the swamp where the lakes used to be. Remember you were telling
me about the stone road?"
"What road? To Clay Clearing. Well I'm trying to tell you, aren't I?
Turn left, across the fields up to the two stones. . . ."
Kandid heard him out before speaking.
"Now I know the way to Clay Clearing. We'll get there. But I have to go
further, as you know, I must get to the City, and you promised to show me
the way."
Hopalong shook his head in sympathy.
"To the Ci-i-i-i-ty, ah now, is that where you're heading. I remember,
I remember . . . yes to the City . . . you can't get there, Dummy. To Clay
Clearing now, that's easy; past the two stones, through the mushroom
village, past funny village, then Clay Clearing'11 be on your right. Or to
the Reeds, say, turn right as you leave me through the scrub, past Bread
Fen, then keep following the sun. Where the sun goes, you follow. It's three
days travel, but if you really have to go, we'll do it. We used to get pots
there before we planted our own. I know the Reeds like the back of my hand,
you should have said that's where you wanted to go. No need to wait till the
day after tomorrow either, we'll start tomorrow in the morning, we needn't
take any food with us, seeing as we're going by Bread Fen... .
"You know, Dummy, you speak so fast it hurts to listen to you. A man's
just started to take in what you say when you shut your mouth. Well, we'll
go to the Reeds, tomorrow morning we'll go. . . ."
Kandid heard him out once more.
"Listen, Hopalong, I don't have to go to the Reeds. The Reeds aren't
where I want to go. Where I want to be isn't the Reeds." Hopalong was
listening and nodding. "I want to go to the City. We've often spoken of it
before I told you yesterday I wanted to go to the City. I told you the day
before I wanted to to the City. I said a week ago I wanted to go there. You
told me you knew the way to the city. You said that yesterday. And the day
before. Not to the Reeds, to the City. I don't want to go to the Reeds
[don't let me get mixed up, he thought, maybe I'm mixed up already. Not the
Reeds, the City. The City and not the Reeds]. The City, not the Reeds," he
repeated aloud. "Understand? Tell me about the road to the City. Not to the
Reeds, to the City. Still better, let's go to the City together. Not to the
Reeds together, together to the City."
He stopped. Hopalong started rubbing his sore knee again.
"Likely when they cut your head off, Dummy, something got damaged in
there. Like my leg. It used to be just an ordinary leg like anybody else's,
then once I was going through the Anthills at night, carrying an ant queen
and I put this foot in a hollow tree and now the leg's twisted. Why it's
twisted nobody knows, but it doesn't walk straight, and that's a fact. But
it'll get me to the Anthills. And I'll take you along. What I don't get is
why you told me to get food ready for the trip-- the Anthills is only a
stone's throw from here."
He looked at Kandid, floundered, mouth open.
"Of course you don't want to go to the Anthills, do you? Where is it,
now? I know, the Reeds. Well I can't go there, I'd never make it. See how
twisted this leg is? Listen, Dummy, what is it you've got against going to
the Anthills? Let's go there, eh? I've never been there once since that day,
maybe the hills aren't there anymore. Let's have a look for that hollow
tree, what say?"
He'll sidetrack me, I know it, thought Kandid. He leaned over on his
side and rolled a pot over to him.
"Good pot you've got here," he said, "I don't remember when I saw a pot
as good as this ... so you'll take me to the City? You told me nobody knows
the road to the City except you. Let's go to the City, what do you think,
will we make it?"
"Make it? Course we'll make it! To the City, of course we will. And you
have seen pots as good as these, know where? The funny folk make them like
that. They don't grow them, you know, they make them out of clay, they're
not far from Clay Clearing, I told you: left away from me and past the two
stones as far as Mushroom Village, only nobody lives there anymore so
there's no sense in going. Why should we? Haven't we seen mushrooms before?
Even when my leg was all right I never went to Mushroom Village, I only know
the funny folk live two ravines past there. Yes ... we could go tomorrow,
yes. . . . Listen, Dummy, let's not go there eh? I don't like those
mushrooms. There's mushrooms in our part of the forest, that's different,
you can eat them, they taste good. Over there they're sort of green and they
smell rotten. Why do you want to go there? You'll bring spawn back with you
as well. We'd better go to the City. A lot nicer. Only we can't go tomorrow,
there's food to get together and we'll have to find out the way--or do you
know the way? If you do, I won't need to ask. In fact I can't think who to
ask. Maybe the elder knows --what do you think?"
"Don't you know the way to the City yourself?" asked Kandid. "You know
a lot about it, don't you? You even got to the City almost once, didn't you?
Only you got frightened of the deadlings and decided you couldn't get
through on your own. . . ."
"I wasn't frightened of deadlings any more than I am now," objected
Hopalong. "I'll tell you what I am afraid of, though. Are you going to be
quiet all the way? That's something I could never do. There's something else
as well . . . don't get angry at me. Dummy, just tell me, or if you don't
want to say it aloud, whisper, or nod, or if you don't even want to nod just
close that eye of yours, the right one in the shadow, nobody'll see only me.
The question I want to put is this: aren't you just a teeny bit of a
deadling? I can't stand deadlings, you know, I get the tremble when I see
them, can't do a thing with myself. . . ."
"No, Hopalong, I'm not a deadling," said Kandid. "I can't stand them
myself. If you're afraid I'll be too quiet for you, just remember we'll not
be alone, I've told you often enough, Buster's going with us, Barnacle, and
two men from New Village."
"I'm not going with Buster," said Hopalong with decision. "First Buster
took my daughter away and didn't take care of her. Lost her, he did. I
didn't mind him taking her, I do mind him not taking care of her. He was
going with her to New Village and robbers set on him and took my daughter
and he gave her up. Your Nava and me looked ages for her but we never found
her. No, Dummy, there's no sense messing with robbers. If we went to the
City, you and I, there'd be no peace from them. Now if it were the Reeds, no
trouble at all. We'll start tomorrow."
"The day after," said Kandid. "You'll go, Buster, Barnacle, and the two
from New Village. And we'll get right to the City."
"If there's six of us, we'll get there," said Hopalong confidently.
"I'd never get there on my own of course, but if there's six of us, we'll
get there. With six of us we'd get as far as Devil's Rocks, only I don't
know the way there. Shall we go to Devil's Rocks? Listen, Dummy, let's go to
the City and decide there, eh? There's food to get ready though, and plenty
of it."
"Okay," said Kandid, rising to his feet. "So the day after tomorrow, we
start for the City. Tomorrow I'll go to New Village, then I'll see and
remind you."
"Come around," said Hopalong. "I'd come to see you, only my leg aches,
no strength in it. You come around. We'll have a chat. There's a lot of folk
don't like talking to you, Dummy, it's pretty hard going, you know, but I
don't mind, I've got used to it, I even like it. Come around, and bring Nava
with you, she's a good girl, your Nava, no children though, they'll come
she's young yet, that Nava of yours. . . ."
Out on the street, Kandid wiped the sweat away with his palms.
Somewhere near, somebody cackled and started coughing. Kandid turned and saw
the old man waving a knotted finger of warning.
"The City, eh? So that's where you're off to? That's interesting,
nobody's ever got there alive, what's more it's not done. Even you should
know that even if you have got a transplanted head."
Kandid swung off to the right along the street. The old man trailed
along in the grass after him, muttering:
"If it's not done, then it's always forbidden in some sense or the
other, of course ... for instance, it's not done without the elder or the
assembly, with the elder and the assembly it is permissible, of course,
though not in every sense. . . ." Kandid was walking as quickly as the
ennervating heat and humidity would allow and the old man gradually fell
behind.
On the village square, Kandid caught sight of Ears. Ears, staggering
and crossing his bandy legs, was moving around in circles, sprinkling
handfuls of brown grass-kiHer from a huge pot slung around his belly. Behind
him the grass was already smoking and shriveling. Ears had to be avoided and
Kandid tried to do just that, but Ears smartly changed direction and came
face to face with him.
"Ah . . . Dummy!" he cried joyously, hastily un-slinging the pot from
his neck and setting it on the ground. "Where are you off to. Dummy? Home,
is it to Nava? Well could be wrong but your Nava's not at home, your Nava's
in the field, with these eyes I saw her going to the field, you may believe
me or not. . . . Maybe, of course, she hasn't gone to the field, could be
wrong. Dummy, but your Nava definitely went along tha-at alley over there
and if you go along there the field's the only place you come to, and
where's else should she go, your Nava? Not looking for you, would she be. .
. ."
Kandid made another effort to get by but again ended up face to face
with Ears.
"No need anyway to follow her to the field. Dummy," he went on
convincingly. "Why go after her? I'm just killing off the grass then I'll be
calling them all here, the land surveyor came and said the elder had told
him to tell me to kill the grass on the square because there's to be a
meeting on the square. As there's a meeting they'll all come here from the
field, your Nava among them if it's to the field she's gone, and where else
could she have gone along that alley? Although now I think of it, you can
get to other places than the field there, you can. . . ."
He suddenly stopped and gave a shuddering sigh. His eyes screwed up,
his hands lifted palms upward, as if of their own accord. His face broke
into a sweet smile, then abruptly sagged. Kandid about to make off, stopped
to listen. A small dense purplish cloud had formed around Ears' bare head,
his lips quivered and he began to speak swiftly and distinctly, in a voice
not his own, a sort of announcer's voice; the intonation was alien and the
style was one no villager would use, it was as if he spoke an alien language
so that only certain phrases seemed comprehensible.
"In the far Southlands new . . . are going into battle. . . .
retreating further to the South ... of the victorious march . . . the Great
Harrowing in the Northern lands has been temporarily halted owing to
isolated and sporadic . . . new advances in Swamp-making are giving
extensive areas for peace and new progress toward ... In all settlements . .
. great victories . . . work and efforts . . . new detachments of Maidens .
. . tomorrow and forever calm and amalgamation."
The old man had caught up to Kandid and now stood at his shoulder
interpreting wildly:
"All the settlements, hear that? That means here as well. . . . 'Great
victories.' It's what I always say, you can't . . . calm and amalgamation .
. . you've got to understand. Here as well, if they say everywhere . . . and
new detachments of Maidens, got it?"
Ears fell silent and dropped to his haunches. The lilac cloud had
dissipated. The old man impatiently tapped Ears on his bald pate. He blinked
and rubbed his ears.
"What did I say?" he asked. "Was it a broadcast? How's the Accession
going? Progressing or what? And you don't go to the field, Dummy, at a guess
I'd say you're going after your Nava, but your Nava ..."
Kandid stepped over the pot of grass-killer and hurried on.
The old man was no longer audible--either he'd got caught up with Ears
or else he'd gone into one of the houses to get his breath back and have a
bite to eat on his own.
Buster's house stood on the very edge of the village, There an
embattled old woman, neither aunt nor mother, said with a sneer full of
malice that Buster wasn't at home, Buster was in the field and if he was at
home, there'd be no point in looking for him in the field, but as he was in
the field, why was he, Dummy, standing there for nothing?
In the field the sowing was in progress. The oppressive stagnant air
was saturated with a powerful range of odors, sweat, fermenting fluid,
rotting grain. The morning harvest lay in great heaps along the furrow, the
seed already beginning to sprout. Clouds of working flies swarmed over the
pots of fermenting fluid and in the heart of this black, metallic-glinting
maelstrom stood the elder. Inclining his head and screwing up one eye, he
was minutely examining a single drop of whey on his thumbnail. The nail was
specially prepared, flat, polished to a gleam and cleaned with the necessary
fluids. Past the elder's legs the sowers crawled along the furrows, ten
yards apart. They had stopped singing by now, but the heat of the forest
still oohed and aahed, obviously now, no echo.
Kandid walked along the chain of workers bending and peering into the
lowered faces. Finding Buster, he touched him on the shoulder and Buster at
once climbed out of the furrow without question. His beard was clogged with
mud.
"Who're you touching, wool on yer nose?" he croaked, looking at
Kandid's feet. "Somebody once touched me like that, wool on yer nose, and
they took him by his hands and feet and threw him up in a tree, he's up
there to this day, and when they take him down he won't do any more
touching, wool on yer nose. . . ." "You coming?" asked Kandid shortly.
"Course I'm coming, wool on yer nose, when I've prepared leaven for seven;
it stinks in the house, there's no living with it, why not go, when the old
woman can't stand it and I can't bear to look at it--only where are we
going? Hopalong was saying yesterday we were going to the Reeds, and I
shan't go there, wool on yer nose, there's no people there, in the Reeds,
never mind dames. If a man wants to grab somebody by the leg and throw him
into a tree, wool on yer nose, there's nobody there, and I can't live
without dames any longer and that elder'll be the death of me. . . . Look at
him standing there, wool on yer nose, staring his eyes out and him as blind
as a mole, wool on yer nose . . . somebody once stood like that on his own,
he got one in the eye, doesn't stand anymore, wool on yer nose but I'm not
going to the Reeds, just as you like. . . ." "To the City," said Kandid.
"Oh well, the City, that's another affair altogether, I'll go there all
right, specially as I hear tell there's no City there anyway, that old
stump's lying his head off--he comes in the morning eats half a pot and
starts, wool on yer nose, laying down the law: that's not right, you
shouldn't do that. ... I ask him: who are you to tell me what's right and
what's wrong, wool on yer nose? He doesn't say, he doesn't know himself. . .
. Mutters on about some City."
"We'll set off the day after tomorrow," said Kandid. "What are we
waiting for then?" burst out Buster. "Why the day after tomorrow? I can't
sleep at night in my house, the leaven is stinking, let's go this evening,
somebody once waited and waited, they gave him round ears and he's stopped
waiting, never waited since. . . . The old woman's cursing there's no life,
wool on yer nose! Listen, Dummy, let's take my old woman with us maybe the
robbers would take her, I'd give her up all right!"
"The day after tomorrow we'll go," repeated Kandid patiently. "You're a
good fellow, making up so much leaven, from New Village, you know. . . ."
He failed to finish; from the fields came shouting.
"Deadlings! Deadlings!" roared the elder. "Women home! Run off home!"
Kandid looked around. Between the trees on the extreme edge of the
field stood the deadlings: two blue and quite close, one yellow a bit
farther off. Their heads with the round eye-holes and the black slash of a
mouth slowly revolved from side to side. Their huge arms hung loosely along
the length of their bodies. The earth where they stood was already smoking,
white trailers of steam mingled with gray-blue smoke.
The deadlings knew a thing or two and so behaved with extreme caution.
The yellow one had the whole of his right side eaten away by grass-killer
while the blue ones were covered in rashes caused by ferment burns. In
places, the skin had died off and hung in rags. While they stood and stared
about them, the shrieking women fled to the village and the menfolk,
muttering threats, crowded together with pots of grass-killer at the ready.
Then the elder spoke. "What are we standing here for, I ask you? Let's
go, why stand here?" Everyone moved slowly forward, spreading out into a
line, toward the deadlings. "Get them in the eyes," the elder kept shouting.
"Try and splash them in the eyes. Best get the eyes, not much good if we
can't get their eyes. . . ."
The line sang out ominously. "Ooh-hoo-hoo, get out! Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!"
Nobody was inclined to get too close.
Buster, picking the dried mud from his beard, walked next to Kandid and
shouted louder than the others; between shouts he argued with himself.
"No, no-o-o, we're wasting our time, wool on yer nose, they won't stay,
they'll run in a minute. . . . Deadlings are they? Rubbish, I'd say, they
won't stay. . . . Hoo-hoo-hoo! You lot!"
Coming within twenty paces of the deadlings, the men stopped. Buster
hurled a clod of earth at the yellow one, but with surprising agility it
stuck out its broad palm and deflected the clod to one side. Everybody
started hooting and stamping their feet, some displayed the pots and made
threatening motions toward the deadlings. Nobody wanted to waste the fluid
and nobody wanted to drag all the way to the village for more. The deadlings
were battered and wary, they could be got rid of this way.
So it turned out. Steam and smoke thickened under the deadlings' feet,
they were faltering. "Well that's it" was said along the chain. "They've
given ground, they'll turn in a minute. . . ."
The deadlings imperceptibly altered, as if they were turning inside
their own skins. Their eyes and mouth disappeared from view--they had turned
their backs. In a second they were retreating, flickering among the trees.
Where they had stood, a cloud of steam slowly settled.
The men, in an excited hubbub, moved back toward the furrow. It was
suddenly realized that it was time to return to the village for the meeting.
They set off.
"Go onto the square," repeated the elder to everyone. "Onto the square.
The meeting will take place on the square, so everyone must go to the
square."
Kandid was looking for Barnacle, but he was nowhere in the crowd for
some reason. Barnacle had disappeared somewhere. Buster was talking nervily
beside him.
"Remember, Dummy, when you jumped on that deadling? Yes, jumped on him,
you did, wool on yer nose, took him by the head an' all, cuddling him like
your Nava, wool on yer nose, and what a yell. . . . Remember, Dummy, what a
yell you gave out with? You got burned, and then came out in blisters, wet
and painful as well. . . . Why did you jump on him, Dummy? Somebody did
that, jumpy-jumped on a deadling, took all the skin off his belly, now he
doesn't jump anymore; tells children to jump, wool on yer nose. . . . They
say, Dummy, you jumped on his back so he'd carry you to the City, but you're
no dame, why should he carry you away with him? Anyway there's no City at
all, it's that old stump making up his words City, Accession. . . . Who's
seen this Accession? Ears gets drunk on beetles and goes out burbling, the
old stump listens, then he wanders off everywhere, guzzling other people's
food and repeating. . . ."
"I'm going out to New Village in the morning," said Kandid. "I'll be
back at night, I shan't be here during the day. You see Hopalong and remind
him about the day after tomorrow. I've been reminding him and I'll do it
again, still, you do it, otherwise he'll wander off . somewhere."
"I'll remind him," promised Buster. "I'll remind him if I have to break
his other leg off."
The whole village had come out onto the square. Everybody was talking,
shoving and scattering seeds on the bare earth so that stems might come up
and provide soft seating. Children were mixed in underfoot; their parents
were pulling them along by their ears or hair to avoid a mix-up. A column of
poorly trained ants attempting to drag worker-fly larvae straight across the
square were being driven off by the cursing elder. He was asking by whose
orders there were ants here, it was a disgrace that's what. Ears and Kandid
were suspected, but the matter was not conducive to proof.
Kandid found Barnacle and wanted to talk with him, but failed as the
assembly was then declared open and as always the old man crawled forward to
speak first. What he spoke about nobody could understand but everybody sat
quietly listening and hissed at their scuffling children not to scuffle.
Some--those seated most comfortably well away from the sunny spots--fell
into a doze.
The old man went on at length about what was not "right" and in what
senses this was to be understood. He called for a mass Accession, threatened
victories in North and South, cursed the village and, separately, New
Village, announced that new detachments of Maidens were everywhere and that
neither in the village nor in the New Village was there calm or
amalgamation, that all this was a consequence of people forgetting the word
"shouldn't" and thinking everything was permitted. Dummy, for instance, was
set on going to the City, though nobody had summoned him. The village bore
no responsibility for that, seeing as he was foreign, but if it turned out
by chance that he was a deadling after all, and such an opinion existed in
the village, then nobody knew what would happen, especially as Nava, though
of course she was an alien too, had had no children by Dummy, and this was
not to be tolerated, yet the elder tolerated it. ...
Toward the middle of the oration, the elder dozed off as well, but
hearing his own name, started and immediately gave a threatening bark: "Hey!
No sleeping! You can sleep at home," he said, "that's what houses are for,
sleeping in, nobody sleeps on the square, meetings are held on the square.
Nobody has ever been allowed to sleep on the square, nobody is allowed and
nobody will be." He glanced toward the old man.
The old man gave a satisfied nod. "And so we have our general 'not
permitted.' " He smoothed his hair and announced: "A bride has been
announced at New Village. And we have a groom, Loudmouth, whom you all know.
Stand up. Loudmouth, and show yourself, no better not, you just sit there,
everybody knows you anyway. Now we have the question: shall Loudmouth go to
New Village or alternatively shall we bring the bride here to the village. .
. . No, no. Loudmouth, sit you down, we'll decide this without you . . .
those sitting next to him keep a good hold on him till the meeting is over.
Who has any opinion, let him speak."
There turned out to be two opinions. One (Loud-mouth's neighbors for
the most part) demanded Loudmouth's dismissal to New Village, let the rest
live here. Others, calm and serious men, living well away from Loudmouth
proposed the opposite, women were getting short, some had been stolen,
therefore the bride should come to the village. Loudmouth was that all
right, but suppose there would be children, let there be no doubt, that was
for sure. The argument was long, and at first to the point. Then Hopalong
unfortunately shouted out that it was wartime and everybody was forgetting
that. Loudmouth was instantly forgotten. Ears started to explain that there
was no war and never had been, there was and would be the Great Harrowing.
Not Harrowing, objected someone in the crowd, it was Essential Swamping. The
Harrowing was over long ago, the Swamping had been going on for years, Ears
didn't know a thing, how could he, he was Ears wasn't he? The old man got up
and rolling his eyes, croaked out hoarsely that there was no war, no
Harrowing; there was no Swamping either, there had been, was, and would be
the Personal Struggle in North and South. How was there no war, wool on yer
nose, came from the crowd, when there was a whole lake full of drowned
bodies past Funny Village? The meeting exploded. What about the drowned
bodies? Where there was water you found bodies, past Funny Village wasn't
like here, you couldn't go by Funny Village, they ate out of clay there,
lived under clay, gave their wives to the robbers, now people talked about
drowned bodies. It wasn't drowned bodies, no struggle and no war, it was
Calm and Amalgamation in the interests of the Accession! Why then was Dummy
going to the City? Dummy was going to the City, therefore the City existed,
and if it existed where was your war? It must be Amalgamation! Anyway did it
matter where Dummy went? Somebody went as well once, they gave it him right
in the nose and he doesn't go anywhere anymore. . . . Dummy was going to the
City because there was no City, they knew Dummy, Dummy was a fool if ever
there was one, and if there was no City, how could there be Amalgamation?
There was no Amalgamation, there had been one time mind you, but that was
ages ago . . . and no Accession either! Who says there's no Accession? What
do you mean? What's that? Loudmouth . . . hold Loudmouth! They've let him
go! Why couldn't they hold onto him?
Kandid, knowing this would go on for long, attempted to start a
conversation with Barnacle, but Barnacle was in no mood for conversation.
"Accession," he shouted. "Then what about the deadlings? You're forgetting
the deadlings! Why? Because you haven't any idea what to think about them,
that's why you're all shouting about this Accession! . . ."
They went on shouting about the deadlings, then about the mushroomy
villages, then they got tired and began to quiet down, mopping their faces
and shrugging one another off wearily. Soon it transpired that everybody had
fallen silent and only the old man and Loudmouth were carrying on. Everyone
came to their senses. Loudmouth was borne down and his mouth stuffed with
leaves. The old man went on for a while but lost his voice and became
inaudible. Then a disheveled representative from New Village got up and
pressing his hands to his breast and staring about him, began to beg in a
broken voice that Loudmouth shouldn't be sent to New Village, they had no
need of him, they had lived a hundred years without him and could do it
again, they should bring the bride to the village and then they would see
New Village would make no trouble over a dowry. . . . Nobody had the
strength to start arguing again--they promised to think about it and decide
later, especially as the matter wasn't urgent.
People began to drift off to dinner. Barnacle took Kandid by the arm
and dragged him to one side under a tree.
"Right, when do we leave?" he asked. "I'm so fed up here in the
village, I want off into the forest, I'll be ill of boredom here soon. ...
If you're not going, say so and I'll go alone, I'll talk Buster or Hopalong
into going too."
"We're going the day after tomorrow," said Kandid. "You've prepared
food?"
"Prepared it and eaten it. I haven't got patience to look at it, lying
there and nobody to eat it except the old man--he's getting on my nerves,
I'll make a cripple of him yet if I don't go soon. . . . What do you think,
Dummy, who is that old man and why does he eat everybody out of house and
home, where does he live? I'm a traveled man, I've been in a dozen villages,
I've been with the funny folk, I've even visited the skinnies, spent the
night there--nearly died of fright, but I've never seen an old man like
that, he must be a rare specimen, that's why we keep him and don't beat him,
but I've no patience left to watch him rummage around my pots day and
night--he eats in the house and takes stuff away with him, why my father
used to curse him before the deadlings smashed him up. . .. Where does he
put it all? He's just skin and bones, there's no room inside him, but he can
lap up two jars and take two away with him, and he never brings any jars
back. . . . You know, Dummy, maybe we've got more than one old man, maybe
there's two or even three? Two sleep while one works. When he's had his fill
he wakes up the next and goes to sleep himself. . . ."
Barnacle accompanied Kandid as far as the house but declined to have
dinner, out of tact. After chatting for fifteen minutes about how they lured
fish in the Reed-bed lake by wiggling their fingers, and promising to drop
in on Hopalong to remind him of the journey to the City, and asserting that
Ears was no Ears at all, but only a very deranged man, and that the
deadlings caught women for food, since men had tough flesh and the deadlings
had no teeth, and promising to prepare fresh supplies and drive off the old
man without mercy, he at last departed.
Kandid got his breath back with difficulty, and before going in stood
awhile in the doorway shaking his head. You, Dummy, don't forget that
tomorrow you've to go to New Village, early in the morning, don't forget:
not to the Reed-beds, not to Clay Clearing, but New Village . . . and why
should you go there, Dummy, better go to the Reed-beds, lots of fish there .
. . good fun. ... To New Village, don't forget, New Village, don't forget
Kandid . . . tomorrow morning to New Village . . . talk the boys into it,
you'll never get to the City with just the four of you. ... He entered the
house without realizing it.
Nava was still absent, but the old man was seated at the table waiting
for someone to put his dinner out. He squinted testily at Kandid and said:
"You walk slow, Dummy, I've been in two houses-- everybody's having
dinner but here there's nothing. . . . Likely that's why you've got no
children, you walk slow and there's nothing in the house at dinner time. . .
."
Kandid went right up to him and stood there for some time, reflecting.
The old man continued:
"How long will you take to get to the City, if you're as late as this
for dinner? It's a long way to the City, they say, a mighty long way, I know
everything about you now, I know you've decided to head for the City, only
thing I don't know is how you're going to reach it if you spend a whole day
getting to a pot of food and still don't get there. . . . I'll have to go
with you, I'll lead you there, I should have gone long ago, only I don't
know the road, but I've got to get to the City to fulfill my duty and tell
everything about everything to the proper person. . . ."
Kandid took him under the arms and hoisted him swiftly from the table.
The old man was dumbfounded. Kandid carried him out of the house in
outstretched arms and placed him on the road; he wiped his hands on the
grass. The old man recovered his wits.
"Just don't forget to take along food for me," he said to Kandid's
back. "Take a lot of good stuff for me, because I'm going to fulfill my duty
and you're going for your own pleasure and though 'not done'. . . ."
Kandid returned to the house, sat down at the table and lowered his
head onto clenched fists. Never mind, I'm leaving the day after tomorrow, he
thought. Let me not forget that: day after tomorrow. Day after tomorrow, he
thought, day after tomorrow.
Chapter Three
Pepper was awakened by the touch of cold fingers on his bare shoulder.
He opened his eyes and perceived someone standing over him, dressed in
underwear. The room was dark, but the man was standing in a shaft of
moonlight. Pepper could make out his pale face and
staring eyes.
"What do you want?" whispered Pepper. "You have to vacate," the man
whispered in return.
It's only the warden, thought Pepper, relieved. "Why vacate?" he asked
loudly, raising himself on his elbow. "Vacate what?"
"The hotel is overbooked, you'll have to vacate the room."
Pepper glanced around the room in confusion. Everything was as it had
been, the other three bunks were empty as before.
"You needn't stare," said the warden. "We know the situation. In any
case the sheets on your bed have to be changed and sent to the laundry. You
won't be washing them yourself, not brought up to. . . ." Pepper understood.
The warden was very frightened and was being rude to keep his spirits up. He
was in that state where one touch and he would cry out, squeal, twitch
convulsively, call for help.
"Come on, come on," said the warden and pulled the pillow from beneath
Pepper's head in a sort of weird impatience. "Sheets, I said. . . ."
"Look, what is this," said Pepper. "Does it have to be now? In the
night?" "Urgent."
"Good God," said Pepper, "you're off your head. Well, all right. . . .
You collect the sheets, I'll get by. I've only got this one night left."
He slid from the bunk onto the chilly floor and began stripping the
pillowcase off. The warden, as if frozen to the spot, followed his movements
with bulging eyes. His lips quivered.
"Repairs," he said finally. "Repairs got to be done. All the
wallpaper's peeling off, the ceiling's cracked, the floors need re-laying. .
. ." His voice took on a firmer note. "So you've got to vacate in any case.
We're starting repairs right away here."
"Repairs?"
"Repairs. Look at that wallpaper. The workmen will be here directly."
"What, now?"
"Right now. Why wait? The ceiling's full of cracks. Just take a look."
Pepper began to shiver. He left the pillowcase and picked up his
shorts.
"What's the time?" he asked.
"Well after twelve," said the warden, again whispering, and, forsome
reason, glancing around.
"Where on earth shall I go?" said Pepper, pausing with one leg in his
shorts. "You'll have to fix me up. Another room. ..."
"Full up. And where it isn't, repairs are under way."
"In the duty room, then."
"Full up."
Pepper stared at the moon in despair.
"Well, the storeroom will do," he said. "The storeroom, the laundry,
the isolation ward. I've only got six more hours to sleep. Or maybe you can
fix me up in your place. . . ."
The warden began rushing about the room. He ran between the bunks,
barefoot, white, and terrible as a specter. Then he stopped and groaned:
"What a business, eh? I'm a civilized man as well, graduate of two
colleges, I'm not a savage or anything. ... I know it all. But it's
impossible, get me? It's absolutely out of the question!"
He bounded up to Pepper and whispered in his ear, "Your visa has run
out! Twenty-seven minutes ago it ran out and you're still here. You mustn't
be here. I beg you. . . ." He collapsed onto his knees and drew Pepper's
boots and socks out from under the bed. "I woke up at five to twelve covered
in sweat," he mumbled. "Well, I thought, this is it. This is the end of me.
I ran off just as I was. I don't remember a thing. Clouds over the streets,
nails catching my feet--and my wife's expecting! Get dressed, please, get
dressed. . . ."
Pepper got dressed in a hurry. He found it hard to think. The warden
kept running between the bunks, shuffling across the moonlit squares, now
glancing out into the corridor, now looking out of the window, whispering,
"Good lord, what a business."
"Can I at least leave my suitcase with you?" inquired Pepper.
The warden clacked his teeth.
"Not at any price! You'll be the ruin of me. .. . You might have some
sympathy. . . . Good lord, good lord... ."
Pepper gathered his books together, closing his case with difficulty,
and picked up his raincoat. "Where shall I go now?" he asked.
The warden was mute. He waited fidgeting with impatience. Pepper hefted
his suitcase and went off down the dark and silent staircase to the street.
He paused on the verandah and while attempting to control his shivering,
spent some time listening to the warden instructing the somnolent duty
clerk: "He'll ask for readmittance. Don't let him in! He's got ...
[inaudible sinister whisper] Got it! You're responsible. .. ." Pepper sat
down on his suitcase and placed his raincoat across his knees.
"I'm afraid not, sorry," said the warden behind him. "I must ask you to
leave the verandah. I must ask you to vacate the hotel premises completely."
He had to go down and put his case on the roadway. The warden stamped
around, muttering: "I must ask you. . . . My wife . . . and no fuss. . . .
Consequences . . . can't be done. ..." and left, white underwear gleaming,
stealing along the fence. Pepper glanced at the dark windows of the
cottages, the dark windows of the Directorate, the dark windows of the
hotel. There was no light anywhere, even the street lighting was off. There
was only the moon, round, brilliant, and somehow malevolent.
He suddenly realized he was alone. He had nobody. All around people
were asleep and they all like me, I know that, I've seen it many times. Yet
I'm alone, just as if they'd suddenly died or become enemies . . . and the
warden--kind, ugly man, a martyr to Basedow's disease, a loser who latched
on to me the very first day. We played the piano together, four hands, and
argued. I was the only one he dared to argue with and next to whom he felt
himself a real person, not just the father of seven children. And Kim. He
had returned from the chancellery and brought a huge document case with him,
full of informers reports. Ninety-two denunciations of me, all written in
one hand and with different signatures. That I steal official sealing wax at
the post office, that I brought an underage girl in my suitcase and am now
keeping her in the bakery cellar, and much besides. . . . And Kim read these
denunciations and threw some into the wastebasket, and kept others to one
side, muttering: "I'll have to put some headwork in on that." And that was
unexpected and horrible, senseless and repulsive. . . . How he would timidly
glance at me and drop his eyes at once.
Pepper rose, gripped his case and wandered off, following his nose. His
nose led nowhere. Not that there was anywhere to lead to along these dark
empty streets. He kept stumbling, the dust made him sneeze, and he fell a
time or two. The suitcase was incredibly heavy and somehow ungovernable. It
rubbed its.bulk against his leg then swung out to one side and then,
returning from the dark, struck his kneee a tremendous clout. In the park's
dark alley where there was no light at all and only the statues, like the
warden, glimmered shakily in the gloom, the case got caught up in a thread
of his trouser-leg and Pepper abandoned it in despair. The hour of despair
had arrived. Weeping and blind with tears, Pepper struggled through dry,
dusty, spiky hedges, rolled down steps, fell, painfully striking his back,
and finally drained of strength and gasping with exasperation and self-pity,
went down on his knees at the edge of the cliff.
The forest, however, remained indifferent. So indifferent that it was
invisible. Below the edge was inky blackness. Only on the far horizon
something layered, gray, and formless lazily reflected the rays of the moon.
"Wake up," asked Pepper. "Look at me just this once, while we're alone,
don't worry, they're all asleep. Surely you need at least one of us? Or
don't you understand what a need is? It's when you can't do without . . .
when you think all the time about . . . when all your life you've been
striving toward. ... I don't know what you are. Nor do those who are dead
sure they know. You are what you are, but I can hope that you're what I've
wanted to see all my life: kind, intelligent, indulgent, and considerate,
perhaps even grateful. We've dissipated all that, we've no energy or time
for it, all we do is construct historical monuments, ever higher, ever
cheaper, but consideration is something we can't manage. But you're
different, because from a long way off I came to you, not believing you
actually existed. So you really don't need me? No, I won't lie. I'm afraid I
don't need you either. We've caught sight of each other, but came no closer.
It shouldn't have been that way. Perhaps they stand between us? There are
plenty of them and only one of me, but I'm--one of them, you, probably can't
pick me out in the crowd, maybe it isn't worth the trouble.
Maybe I invented those human characteristics that would appeal to you
myself, to you that is, not as you are, but as I had imagined you to be. ...
Suddenly from beyond the horizon, bright white puffs of light slowly
swam up and hung, dissipating and at once to the right under the cliff,
under the overhanging rocks, searchlight beams began hunting wildly, haring
about the sky and encountering massed banks of fog. The light balls above
the horizon continued to thin out and disperse and turned into silvery
clouds before extinguishing. A minute later the searchlights went out.
"They're afraid," said Pepper. "I am too. I'm afraid for myself but I'm
afraid for you as well. You don't know them after all, yet. Even I don't
know them at all well. All I know is they're capable of any extreme, the
furthest extremes of stupidity and wisdom, cruelty and pity, fury and
restraint. There's only one thing they lack--understanding. They always
substituted some sort of surrogate for understanding, be it faith,
disbelief, indifference, or neglect. That always turned out to be the
simplest way. Easier to believe than comprehend. Easier to become
disenchanted than to comprehend. I'm leaving tomorrow, by the way, not that
that matters. I can't help you here, here everything's too solid and
well-established. I'm just too obviously superfluous here, alien. I'll find
the pressure point though, don't worry. It's true they can ruin you
irretrievably, but that needs time and plenty of it. They've yet to find the
most effective, economic, and above all, cheap method of approach. We'll
keep up the struggle, it will have been worth it. ... Good-bye."
Pepper got up from his knees and wandered back by way of the bushes,
the park, the alley. He tried without success to locate his suitcase. After
that he got back to the main street, empty and illuminated only by the moon.
It was already after one when he halted outside the Directorate library, it
was open invitingly. The windows were hung with heavy curtains but inside it
was brightly lit, like a dance hall. The parquet floor had dried out and
squeaked desperately; all around were books. The shelves groaned under the
weight of books, books lay in heaps on tables and in corners, and apart from
Pepper and the books there wasn't a soul in the library.
Pepper lowered himself into a big old armchair and stretched out his
legs; reclining he calmly placed his arms on the rests. Well now, what are
you standing there for, said he to the books. Lazy devils! That's not what
you were written for? Tell us, you tell me how the sowing went, how many
acres? How many acres "of the wise, the good, the everlasting"? What are the
prospects for the harvest? Above all--how is it sprouting? Quiet now, you
there, what's your name two-volume! How many people have read you? How many
understood? I've a lot of affection for you, old man, you're a good, honest
friend. You never bawled or boasted or beat your chest. Good and honest.
Those who read you also become good and honest, at least for a time. At
least to themselves. You know, though, don't you, that some are of the
opinion that goodness and honesty are not all that indispensable if we're to
forge ahead. For that you need legs. And boots. Even unwashed legs and dirty
boots. Progress can be perfectly indifferent to concepts of goodness and
honor, as it has been indifferent up to now. The Directorate, for example,
has no need of goodness or honor in order to function properly. Pleasant,
desirable, but by no means essential. Like a knowledge of Latin to a
bathhouse attendant, or biceps on an accountant. Or respect for women to
Hausbotcher. ... It all depends on your definition of progress. You can
define it so the famous "for all that" appears: an alcoholic but for all
that an outstanding specialist; a lecher but for all that an excellent
preacher; a thief, you know, a rogue, but for all that what an executive! A
murderer but for all that, what discipline and dedication. . . . You can
also look on progress as a transformation of everyone into good and honest
men. Then we'll live to hear people say: he's a specialist, of course, knows
his stuff, but he's a dirty type, he'll have to go. ...
Listen, books, do you know there are more of you than there are people?
If all the people were to disappear, you could populate the earth and supply
their place. You've got good and honest among you, wise and erudite,
frivolous rattles, sceptics and madmen, murderers, corrupters of children,
children, prophets of doom, complacent fools, and hoarse demagogues with
flaming eyes. You wouldn't know why you were here either. Why are you here,
anyway? A lot of you give knowledge but what use is it in the forest? It has
no connection with the forest. It's like drilling the principles of
fortification into a future builder of sun cities, and then no matter how he
tried to build sanatoria or stadia, he kept producing gloomy redoubts
complete with bastions, scarps, and counterscarps. All you've given to
people coming to the forest is prejudice, not knowledge. . . . Others of you
instill mistrust and depression. And that's not because they're miserable or
cruel or suggest hope be abandoned, but because they lie. Occasionally they
lie radiantly, accompanied by rousing songs and jaunty whistling, sometimes
maudlin, moaning, and defensive, but--they lie. For some reason nobody ever
burns books like that and never removes them from libraries, never has there
been a case in human history where a lie has been given to the flames,
unless people chanced not to understand it, or indeed believed in it. In the
forest they're not needed either. They're never needed. Probably that's why
there are so many of them ... or rather it's because people like them.
"Dearer to us than the bitter truth. . . ." What? who's that talking there.
. . . Oh, it's me ... as I was saying, there are other books. . . . What? .
. .
"Quiet. Let him sleep." "Why sleep. Better have a drink." "Stop
scraping about like that. . . . Here, it's old Pepper!"
"What if it is, watch you don't fall." "He's sort of unlooked-after,
he's pathetic!" "I'm not pathetic," mumbled Pepper as he woke up. A library
stepladder stood opposite Pepper. On its top step sat Alevtina from the
photo laboratory, while below, driver Acey was holding the steps with his
tattooed arms and gazing upward. "He's always wandering about like a lost
soul," said Alevtina, looking at Pepper. "No supper, likely. He wants waking
up, a glass of vodka at least. What do people like that dream about, I
wonder?"
"Ask me what I'm seeing awake!" said Acey gazing up.
"Anything new?" asked Alevtina. "Never seen it before?"
"Well, no," said Acey. "Can't say it's especially new, but it's like
the movies--you see it twenty times over but it's still nice."
On the third step from the bottom lay pieces of a massive strudel, on
the fourth were laid out cucumbers and peeled oranges, a half-empty bottle
and a plastic pencil-cup stood on the fifth step.
"Look as much as you like as long as you keep the steps steady," said
Alevtina, and she set to work getting weighty journals and faded folders
down from the top shelves of the stack. She blew the dust off and frowned as
she flipped the pages; she put some to one side and replaced the rest.
Driver Acey snuffled loudly.
"Do you need the year's before last?" asked Alevtina.
"There's only one thing I want just now," said Acey mysteriously. "I'll
just wake Pepper up."
"Keep near the steps," said Alevtina.
"I'm not asleep," said Pepper. "I've been watching you for ages."
"You can't see anything from there," said Acey. "Come over here,
Monsieur Pepper. We've got the lot here, women, wine, fruit. . . ."
Pepper got up, stumbling on one numb leg, and came uo to the steps; he
poured himself a drink. "What did you dream about, Peppy?" inquired Alevtina
from aloft.
Pepper glanced up mechanically and averted his eyes at once.
"What I dreamed . . . rubbish. ... I was talking to the books."
He drained the drink and took a piece of orange. "Just a minute there.
Monsieur Pepper," said Acey. "I'll have a drink myself."
"So do you want the year before last's?" "I'll say!" said Acey,
splashing into his glass and choosing a cucumber. "And for the one before
that. I always need it. I've always had it and can't do without it. Nobody
can. Some need more, some less ... I always say, why lecture me? What I am,
I am." Acey tossed down his drink with the greatest of pleasure and crunched
into a cucumber. "But you can't live the way I live here. I'll put up with
it just a little bit more and then I'll drive my truck into the forest and
catch myself a mermaid. . . ."
Pepper stood holding the steps and tried to think about the following
day, while Acey seated himself on the bottom step and began relating a story
of his youth. He and a group of cronies caught a couple on the edge of town,
beat up the boyfriend and chased him off and tried to make use of the dame.
It was cold and damp and being extremely young nobody could achieve
anything, the lady friend was crying and afraid and one by one the boys
drifted off. Acey on his own tagged after her for a long time through the
dirty backstreets, grabbing at her, swearing. He kept thinking he would make
it, but nothing transpired until he had got her to her own house and there
in the dark hallway he had his way up against the iron railing. In Acey's
account the incident seemed extraordinarily thrilling and cheerful.
"So the mermaids won't escape me," said Acey. "I never let go and won't
start now. What I have in the window is what's in the shop--fair dealing."
He had a darkly handsome face, bushy eyebrows, lively eyes, and a full
mouth of excellent teeth. He looked very like an Italian. Except that his
feet smelled.
"Good lord, what've they been doing," said Alev-tina. "All the folders
are mixed up. Here, hold this lot for a bit."
She bent down and gave Acey a pile of papers and journals. Acey took
it, scanned several papers, read to himself, lips moving, and counted the
folders.
"I need two more."
Pepper kept holding the ladder and looked at his clenched fists.
Tomorrow at this time I won't be here, he thought. I'll be sitting next to
Acey in the cab. It'll be hot. The metal will just be starting to cool down.
Acey will switch on the headlights, settle down more comfortably with his
elbow out of the window and will start up about world politics. I'm not
going to let him talk about anything else. Let him stop at every snack bar.
Let him pick up anybody he wants, even let him make a detour to deliver
somebody's repaired motorbike. But we're going to talk about world politics
only. Or I could ask him about various cars, fuel consumption, accidents,
murders of bribe investigators. He tells a good story, and you can never
guess if he's telling the truth.
Acey drank another, smacked his lips, glanced at Alevtina's legs, and
continued his narration, fidgeting and making expressive gestures, bursting
out in delighted laughter. With a scrupulous adherence to chronology he
related the story of his life, from year to year, month to month. The cook
at a concentration camp where he'd done time for stealing paper (the cook
had commented meanwhile: "Don't let me down, Acey, see you don't! . . ."),
the daughter of a political prisoner at the same camp (it was all the same
to her, she was sure she was a goner anyway), a sailor's wife in some
seaside town, who was trying this way of revenging herself on her tomcat of
a husband for his multitudinous betrayals. A certain rich widow, from whom
Acey had had to flee in the middle of the night clad only in his drawers, as
she wanted Acey under her wing and force him to traffic in drugs and
shameful medical preparations. Women he'd transported when he was a
taxi-driver; they paid him in coin for each of their guests, and at the end
of the night with their bodies. ("I says to her, what's all this then,
nobody thinks about me, you've had four and I've not had one yet. . . .")
Then a wife, a fifteen-year-old girl whom he married on a special
dispensation--she bore him twins and finally left him when he attempted to
use her in payment for the use of his friend's lady friends. Women ... birds
. . . stinkers . . . butterflies . . . shits . . . bitches. . . . "So you
see I'm no lecher," he concluded. "I'm just a man with a bit of spirit, not
some gutless impotent."
He finished off the liquor, collected up the folders, and left without
saying good night, scraping the parquet and whistling. Oddly bent forward as
he was, he was surprisingly like a cross between a spider and a neanderthal.
Pepper was looking helplessly after him when Alevtina spoke.
"Give me your hand, Peppy."
She sat down on the top step, put one hand on his shoulder and leapt
down with a small shriek. He caught her under the arms and lowered her to
the floor; for some time they stood close to one another, face to face. She
kept her hands on his shoulders and he kept holding her under the arms.
"I've been thrown out of the hotel," he said. "I know," she said.
"Let's go to my place, okay?" She was kind-hearted and warm and looked him
in the eyes calmly, though without any particular assurance. Looking at her,
one could imagine many kindly, warm sweet pictures and Pepper avidly flicked
through them all, one after the other, and tried to imagine himself next to
her, but was suddenly aware that it wasn't working. Instead of himself he
kept seeing Acey, handsome and naked, economical in movement and smelling of
feet.
"No, thank you," taking his hands from her. "I'll get by all right."
She immediately turned from him and set about collecting the leftovers
onto a newspaper.
"Why 'get by'?" she said. "I can put you up on the sofa. Sleep till
morning, then we'll find you a room. You can't sit in the library every
night. . . ."
"Thank you," said Pepper. "Only I'm leaving tomorrow."
She looked around at him in astonishment. "Leaving. For the forest?"
"No. Home."
"Home. . . ." She slowly wrapped the food in the newspaper. "But you've
wanted to get into the forest all the time. I've heard you myself."
"Yes, you see, I did want to. But they won't let me go. I don't even
know why. And there's nothing for me to do in the Directorate. So I've fixed
it. Acey's taking me away tomorrow. It's three already. I'll go to the
garage, get into Acey's truck and wait till morning. So don't you worry. . .
."
"So, we'll be saying good-bye. . . . Maybe we'll go to my place
anyway?"
"Thanks, but better in the truck. ... I'd be afraid of oversleeping.
Acey won't wait for me, will he?"
They went out into the street arm in arm and walked toward the garage.
"So you didn't like Acey's storytelling?" she asked.
"No," said Pepper. "I didn't like it at all. I don't like it when
people talk about that. Why? It's sort of embarrassing ... for him, you and
me ... for everybody. It's too pointless, all of this. Just one vast
boredom."
"It usually is," said Alevtina. "But don't be embarrassed for me. I'm
absolutely indifferent. . . . Well, this is your road. Kiss me good-bye."
Pepper kissed her, aware of a vague regret. "Thank you," she said,
turning away quickly and walking off in another direction. For some reason,
Pepper waved a hand after her.
He came into the garage, which was lit up by blue lamps and, stepping
across the snoring guard on his car-seat, found Acey's truck and got into
the cab. It smelled of rubber, gas, and dust. On the windshield hung a
spreadeagled Mickey Mouse. Nice and cozy, thought Pepper. I should have come
here straight away. All around stood silent trucks, dark and empty. The
guard snored sonorously. The trucks slept, the guard slept, the whole
Directorate slept. And Alevtina was undressing before the mirror in her room
alongside her neatly-made bed, large, double, soft, and very warm. . . . No,
no sense thinking about that because during the day the chatter got in the
way, the tapping of the Mercedes, the whole busy, meaningless chaos, but now
there was no eradication, no penetration, no security, or the other sinister
stupidities. There was a dream world above the abyss, transparent like all
dream worlds, invisible and inaudible, not a whit more real than the forest.
The forest was at this moment more real: the forest, after all, never slept.
Or perhaps it slept and dreamed us. We are the forest's dream. An atavistic
dream. The crude ghosts of its cooled sexuality. . . .
Pepper lay down, curled up, and put his rolled-up raincoat under his
head as a pillow. Mickey Mouse swung gently on his thread. On seeing the toy
the girls always cried: "Ah, isn't it pretty!" and driver Acey answered:
"What's in the window's always in the shop." The gear-lever dug into
Pepper's side and he didn't know how to remove it or whether it could be.
Maybe if he moved it, the truck would move, slowly at first then quickening
straight toward the sleeping sentry while Pepper flung himself about the cab
pressing everything he could reach with a hand or foot, and the guard
getting ever closer, his open snoring mouth already visible. Then the truck
would leap and turn viciously, slamming into the garage wall; the blue sky
would be seen through the hole. . ..
Pepper woke up and saw it was already morning. Mechanics were smoking
in the gaping garage doors, the square in front of the garage was yellow
with sunlight. It was seven o'clock. Pepper sat up, wiped his face and
looked at himself in the rear mirror. Need a shave, he thought but he didn't
get out of the truck. Acey wasn't around yet and he had to wait for him here
on the spot, since all the drivers were forgetful and always went off
without him. There were two rules governing relations with drivers: first,
never get out of the cab if you can be patient and wait; secondly, never
argue with the driver who's carrying you. If worse comes to worst, pretend
to be asleep.
The mechanics at the doors had thrown away their cigarette butts and
ground them out carefully with their heels. They came into the garage.
Pepper knew only one of them and he was no mechanic, he was the manager.
They passed by Acey's truck, where the manager paused by the cab and,
placing his hand on the wing, for some reason glanced under the vehicle.
Then Pepper heard him giving orders:
"Move now, get the jack."
"Where is it?" asked the unknown mechanic.
"!" said the manager calmly. "Look under the seat."
"How should I know," said the mechanic, irritably. "I kept telling you
I was a waiter." There was silence for a while, then the driver's door
opened and the frowning tense face of the waiter-mechanic appeared. He
glanced at Pepper, gazed around the cab, tugged the wheel for some reason,
then put both arms under the seat and started feeling around.
"Would this be the jack?" he asked quietly.
"N-no," said Pepper. "I believe it's the starting handle."
The mechanic raised the handle to his eyes, examined it, placed it on
the step, and thrust his arms once more under the seat.
"What about this?" he asked.
"No," said Pepper, "I can be absolutely sure of that one. It's a
calculating machine. Jacks aren't like that."
The waiter-mechanic wrinkled his low forehead and looked the machine
over carefully.
"What are they like then?" he inquired.
"We-11 ... a sort of metal rod . . . there's different kinds. They've
got a sort of movable handle."
"Well there's a handle on this, like a cash register."
"No, it's a different handle altogether."
"What happens if you turn this one?"
Pepper was completely at a loss. The mechanic waited for a moment,
placed the machine on the step, and got back under the seat. "Would it be
this?" he said.
"Could be. It looks very like it. Only there should be another metal
spoke to it, a thick one."
The mechanic found that, too. He hefted it in his palm, saying: "Okay,
I'll take this along to him for a start," then left, leaving the door open.
Pepper lit a cigarette. Somewhere behind him came the sound of metal
clanking accompanied by swearing. The truck began creaking and trembling.
There was still no sign of Acey, but Pepper wasn't worried. He was
picturing them bowling down the main street of the Directorate and no one
looking at them. Then they would turn toward the settlement dragging a cloud
of yellow dust behind them. The sun would rise higher and higher, it would
be to their right and would soon start scorching, then they'd turn from the
settlement onto the main road, it would lie long, even, gleaming and
monotonous, on the horizon mirages would flow like great shining pools. . .
.
Once again the mechanic walked past the cab, rolling before him a heavy
rear wheel. The wheel raced along the concrete floor and it was obvious the
mechanic wanted to stop it and lean it up against the wall. The wheel,
however, wobbled a little and ponderously trundled out into the yard, the
mechanic in awkward pursuit, but being outdistanced. At this point, they
disappeared from view. Out in the yard the mechanic began shouting
despairingly. Came the tramp of many feet past the gates and shouts of:
"Catch it! Come in from the right." More people ran past.
Pepper noticed that the truck was not standing as evenly as before and
looked out of the cab. The manager was busy with the rear wheel.
"Hello," said Pepper. "What're you . . ." "Ah, Pepper, friend!" the
manager cried happily, continuing his work. "You stay there, stay there,
don't get out! You're not bothering us. Jammed, blast it. One came off fine,
the other's jammed."
"How's that? Something broken?"
"Don't think so," said the manager, straightening up and wiping his
brow with the back end of the palm with which he held the spanner. "Just
rusted in a bit, probably. I'll do it right away. Then we'll get the
chessmen out. What d'you say?"
"Chess?" said Pepper, "but where's Acey?"
"Acey? That is, Ace? Ace is our senior lab assistant. He's been sent to
the forest. Ace doesn't work with us anymore. What d'you want him for?"
"Nothing, just . . ." said Pepper quietly. "I just thought . . ." He
opened the door and leapt down onto the cement floor.
"No need to get out. You could have stayed there, you're not in our
way."
"Why sit in here," said Pepper. "This truck's not going anywhere, is
it?"
"No, it isn't. Can't go without wheels, and these want taking off.
That's all I needed--jammed! Ah, to ... Never mind, the mechanics'll take
them off. Let's go and set up the board."
He took Pepper's arm and led him into his office. They sat down at a
table, the manager pushed away a heap of papers, set out the board, and
disconnected the telephone.
"Are we going to play with a clock?" he asked.
"Well I don't know, really," said Pepper.
It was dim and cold in the office, blue tobacco smoke floated between
the cupboards like frozen seaweed, and the manager, warty, rotund, and
covered in mottled patches, was like a gigantic octopus opening the
lacquered shell of the chess board with two hairy tentacles, and busily
extracting its wooden innards. His round eyes held a dull gleam, the
righthand one, the false one, was permanently directed toward the ceiling,
whereas the left one, lively as a mercury dot, rolled freely in its srcket,
fixing its stare in turn on Pepper, the door, and the board.
"With a clock," the manager decided finally. He took a clock from the
cupboard, wound it up and, pressing the button, made his first move.
The sun was coming up. From the yard came a shout of "come in from the
right!"
At eight o'clock, the manager, in a difficult position, went into deep
thought, then abruptly ordered breakfast for two. Cars were rumbling out of
the garage. The manager lost one game and proposed another. They breakfasted
solidly, two bottles of yogurt and a crustly strudel apiece. The manager
lost a second game and offered a third, his good eye gazing at Pepper with
devoted admiration. He played an identical queen's gambit every time,
indefatigably sticking to an inevitably losing variation. He had, as it
were, worked out his defeat perfectly and Pepper moved his pieces absolutely
automatically feeling like a programmed machine; neither in him nor in the
world was there anything except a chess board, clock buttons, and a firmly
fixed program of action.
At five to nine the tannoy crackled and announced in a sexless voice:
"All Directorate personnel to stand by telephones. The Director will address
all staff." The manager became most serious, reconnected the telephone and
put the receiver to his ear. Both his eyes were now contemplating the
ceiling. "Can I go, now," asked Pepper. The manager frowned horribly, placed
his finger to his lips, then waved his hand at Pepper. An unpleasant
quacking resounded in the receiver. Pepper left on tiptoe.
There were lots of people in the garage. Every face was stern and
impressive, even solemn. No one was working, everybody had telephone
receivers pressed to their ears. In the yard, only the waiter-mechanic,
sweaty, red and tormented, pursued his wheel, breathing heavily. Something
very important was taking place. This can't go on, thought Pepper, it just
can't. I'm always left out, I never know anything, perhaps that's the whole
trouble, perhaps everything's really all right, but I don't know what's
what, so I'm always superfluous.
He sprang into the nearest automatic telephone, snatched the receiver,
and listened eagerly. He could only hear the ringing tone. At once he was
aware of a sudden fear, a nagging apprehension that he was missing something
again, that somewhere everybody was getting something, and he, as usual, was
going without. Leaping over the ropes and inspection pits, he crossed the
construction site, gave a wide berth to a guard blocking the road with a
pistol in one hand and a receiver in the other, and shinned up a ladder onto
the partially-built wall. In all the windows he could make out people frozen
to telephones in attitudes of concentration; just then something whined
above his ear and almost at once he heard the sound of a revolver shot. He
leaped down into a heap of rubbish and rushed to the service entrance. It
was locked. He yanked at the handle several times until it came off. He
flung it to one side and for a second debated what to do next. There was a
narrow open window alongside the door and, covered in dust, his nails torn,
he climbed in.
There were two tables in the room in which he found himself. At one sat
Hausbotcher with a telephone. His eyes were closed, his face stony. He was
pressing the receiver to his ear with his shoulder and jotting something
down with a pencil on a large notepad. The other was vacant, on it stood a
telephone. Pepper took off the receiver and began to listen.
Hissing. Crackling. An unfamiliar s
