"Cause and Effect," I said crisply. "My a.s.signment, if you please!"
He paled, but was silent. "I am waiting." No answer.
"Why did you tell me about the millions of plans? Or perhaps I should ask who told you to tell me? You don"t feel like talking? Very well. I have time, I can wait."
He only clasped his palsied hands and lowered his head.
"What are you doing?" I shouted and grabbed his arm. The face twisted in a hideous grimace and the eyes bulged in terror; he was sucking the ring on his finger. There was a faint click, metal on metal, and I felt the rigid muscles turn to water. A second later I was holding a corpse. I let it fall to the floor. The spectacles came off and with them a fold of silver hair and baby pink skin, revealing a shock of jet-black hair underneath. I stood there, the dead man at my feet, and listened to the pounding of my heart. I looked around frantically -- I had to escape, any moment now someone could come in and find me with the body of a man who had held some important post. Underdecoder? Eavesdropper? It didn"t matter now. I made for the door, but stopped halfway. I couldn"t possibly get through, they would recognize me for sure. And then how would I explain? An alibi. . .
I went back and lifted the body; the wig slid off -- how much younger he looked in death! Carefully, I put the wig back on, fought down a wave of revulsion, gripped the body under the arms and dragged it to the door. I could say he had a fainting spell -- that would have to do.
The office was empty. There were two doors: one led to the secretaries, the other probably led to the hall. I sat him in his chair behind the desk. He slumped. I tried to make him sit up. Impossible -- the left arm dangled over the chair. I left the body as it was and ran out the second door. I didn"t care what happened now!
3.
It looked like the lunch hour -- officers, clerks, secretaries, everyone flocked to the elevators. I fell in with the largest group and was soon riding down -- away from the scene of the crime, the farther the better!
Lunch wasn"t very good: a limp salad, leathery roast beef, the usual mashed potatoes, vile coffee as black as tar. No one paid, fortunately there was no conversation, not even about the food; they were all busy solving puzzles instead -- crosswords and word ladders, anagrams and cryptograms, brain teasers and riddles. To avoid calling attention to myself, I scribbled something on a sc.r.a.p of paper I found in my pocket. After an hour of this, I elbowed my way back to the hall. Now people were returning to work, taking the elevators up. The crowd was thinning fast, I had to find someplace to go, so I jumped on one of the last elevators and got out at the first stop. The hall here, like all the others I had seen so far, had no windows. Rows of gleaming white doors stretched out on either side, with milky globes over the door signs: 76/947, 76/948, 76/950. . .
I stopped. That number, that same number! How did I, wandering aimlessly, happen to return exactly to this spot? Behind that door -- if they hadn"t discovered it yet -- was a body propped up at a desk, a pair of twisted gold spectacles perched on its nose. . .
Someone was coming. It took considerable effort not to break into a run. A tall officer with a cap came around the corner. I stepped aside to let him pa.s.s, but he walked up to me with a vague smile.
"Step this way, please," he said in a lowered voice, indicating the door next to the one with the body.
"I don"t understand," I said, also lowering my voice. "There must be some mistake."
"Oh no, there"s no mistake. In here, please." He opened the door and I found myself in a bright yellow office. Other than a desk and a few telephones and chairs, there was no office equipment. I stayed near the door. The officer closed it quietly and walked around me.
"Won"t you have a seat?"
"You know who I am?" I asked slowly.
"Of course." He nodded, bringing me a chair.
"What is there to talk about?"
"I understand you perfectly. Let me a.s.sure you that I"ll do all in my power to keep this strictly confidential."
"Confidential? What do you mean?" He came so close that I could feel his breath on my face. Our eyes met.
"You see, you are working. . . how should I put it?. . . outside the plan," he said in a barely audible whisper. "Actually, I should keep out of your way, not interfere. On the other hand, it might be better if I give you some. . . that is, if I tell you, in private, of course. . . well, it might avoid needless complications."
"I have nothing to say," I replied, on my guard. It wasn"t the tone of his voice or what he said that gave me hope, but his strikingly unmilitary manner. Unless this was a plan to allay my suspicions, in which case. . .
"I see," he said after a long pause. There was a note of desperation in the voice. He ran a hand through his hair. "Under similar circ.u.mstances, on such an a.s.signment. . . every officer would do the same. Yet sometimes, for the sake of the Service of course, one may make an exception. . ."
I looked him in the eye. He winced.
"Very well," I said, taking a seat and resting my fingertips on the desk. "Tell me what you think I ought to know."
"Thank you, thank you! I won"t beat around the bush. Your orders come from high up. Now, I am not supposed to know about any change in those orders, not officially. But -- well, you know how it is -- there are always leaks! Why, you yourself. . ." He waited for some word from me, a sign, a wink, anything. But I sat there like a statue. Finally he blurted out, his face pale and eyes shining feverishly: "Listen! That old man had been working for them for some time. When I unmasked him and he confessed, instead of turning him over to D.S. according to the rules, I decided to keep him in the same position. They still considered him their agent, but he was really working for us. One of their couriers was recently sent to meet him, so I laid a trap. Except that instead of the courier, you showed up and. . ." He shrugged.
"Wait a minute! He was working for us?"
"Of course! Thanks to me! D.S. would have done the same of course, but that way the matter would have gone out of our hands, I mean my department, though it was I who unmasked him, and someone else would have gotten the credit! Of course, that"s not why I did it, don"t misunderstand me, I only wanted to expedite matters. . . for the sake of the Service, of course."
"Of course, But why did he --"
"Poison himself? He took you for that courier, he thought you knew about his betrayal. He was only a p.a.w.n, after all."
"Yes. . ."
"Yes, it"s really quite simple. I went beyond the limits of my authority when I made the decision to keep him. So they sent you to the old man, to get back at me. A typical ploy. . ."
"But wait, I stumbled into that room by accident!"
The officer shook his head and gave a sad smile.
"How could you have known what waited in the other rooms?. . ."
"You mean? --"
His words conjured up an image of a long line of identical old men, each with white hair, pink scalp and gold spectacles, each waiting patiently at his desk, smiling. . . an endless gallery of neat, brightly lit rooms. . . I shuddered.
"Then -- it wasn"t only in that room?"
"Naturally, we cannot afford to take risks --"
"Then in the other rooms -- the same thing?"
He nodded.
"And all those others?"
"Subst.i.tutes, of course."
"Working for --?"
"For us, and for them. You know how it is. But we keep a close watch; for us they work harder."
"Wait a minute -- what was it the old man was babbling about? -- operational plans, millions of variants of the original?"
"A pa.s.sword. You didn"t recognize it because it was their code; he thought you were pretending not to understand, which would mean you knew all about his defection. After all, everyone wears portable decoders."
He unb.u.t.toned his shirt and showed me a flat device strapped to his chest. Now I remembered how one officer who had talked with me in an elevator suddenly pressed his hand to his heart.
"You mentioned a ploy. Whose ploy?"
He turned pale. The eyelids flickered and fell. For a few minutes he sat with his eyes shut.
"Someone high up," he whispered. "Someone very high up aimed at me, but I swear I am innocent. If you could use your influence and. . ."
"And what?"
"Get them to drop this matter. I would be glad to. . ."
He didn"t finish. He made a careful examination of my face. The whites of those staring eyes were wide and gla.s.sy. His nervous fingers pulled at his uniform.
"Nine hundred sixty-seven by eighteen by four hundred thirty-nine," he pleaded with me.
I was silent.
"Four hundred, four hundred eleven, six thousand eight hundred ninety-four by three. . . How about it? No? Forty-five? All right, seventy!" He was on his knees, his voice shook. I said nothing. White as a sheet, he got up. "Nine. . . nineteen. . ." One last try. It sounded like a moan. But I said nothing. Slowly, he b.u.t.toned his jacket.
"So that"s how it is," he said. "I understand. Sixteen. Very well. In accordance with. . . you"ll excuse me. . ."
He went to the next room.
"Wait!" I shouted. "You"re not going to --?"
A shot, the thud of a body. I froze, my hair stood on end, something urged me to leave at once, to run for my life. There were sounds from the next room, a faint knocking, like a heel tapping the floor, then a rustling -- then silence. A dead silence. Through the open door I saw a trouser leg; not taking my eyes off it, I backed towards the exit, groped for the doork.n.o.b. . .
The hall was empty. I shut the door, pressed my back against it -- there, directly across the hall, standing casually in an open doorway, a fat officer was watching me. My heart skipped a beat. That bored, indifferent expression on his face -- it overwhelmed me. He took something out of his pocket -- a penknife? -- tossed it up and caught it, once, twice, a third time, then held it in his fist, turned his wrist -- the blade sprang open with a clock. He tested the edge with his thumbnail and grinned. Then he closed his eyes, nodded, stepped back into the room and shut the door. I waited. There was the whine of an elevator, then nothing. I listened to the blood hum in my ears, and I watched the door. Was there someone behind the keyhole?
Cautiously, I started to walk. Once again I was walking alone down endless corridors, corridors that continually branched out and converged, corridors with dazzling walls and rows of white, gleaming doors. I was exhausted, too weak to make another attempt at breaking in somewhere, finding some point of entry into the system. Now and then I leaned against a wall to catch my breath. But they were all too slippery, too perpendicular to rest on. My watch had stopped long ago; I no longer knew whether it was day or night. Sometimes I seemed to fall asleep on my feet, then the slamming of a door somewhere or the whir of a pa.s.sing elevator would wake me up. I stepped aside for people with briefcases. Now the halls were empty, now they swarmed with officers all heading in the same direction. Work went on around the clock here; one shift left, another took its place. I remember little of the following hours: I was walking, getting on and off elevators, even holding my own in casual conversations -- didn"t somebody wish me "good night?" But nothing made an impression on me, my mind was like a mirror, or rather like the glazed surface of procelain.
Then somehow I was outside a bathroom. I entered. Everything was bright and gleaming like an operating room in a hospital. The marble bathtub was like a sarcophagus. I sat down on the edge of it and began to doze. I made one feeble attempt to turn off the blinding light, but there was no switch. The glare from the nickel-plated fixtures was painful, bore into my eyes like fire through the lids, like needles. But I sank into that hard bed, covered my face with an arm, and drifted off. My head struck something sharp, but the pain couldn"t wake me.
How long I slept I don"t know. It took a while to wake up, to overcome the formless obstacles that haunted my dreams. After a struggle I awoke and was immediately a.s.saulted by a blast of light. A naked bulb hung high on the white ceiling.
My bones felt like they had taken a bad fall. I got up, stripped, had a quick shower. On the wall was a silver dispenser of some fragrant liquid soap, and I found towels embroidered with staring eyes. I dried myself briskly, restoring the circulation, then hurriedly dressed. For the first time in a long time I felt fresh and confident. It was only when my hand touched the door that I remembered where I was. The realization hit me like an electric shock. An endless white labyrinth lay in wait out there, I knew, and an equally endless wandering. The net of corridors, halls and soundproof rooms, each ready to swallow me up. . . the thought made me break out in a cold sweat. For one mad moment I was ready to run out screaming, screaming for help, or for a quick and merciful end. But this weakness pa.s.sed; I took a deep breath, lifted my head, straightened my clothes, and calmly walked out, my step firm, purposeful, in time to the rhythm of the Building.
I set my watch at eight, picking the hour at random, in order to keep track of at least the relative pa.s.sage of time. The little-frequented pa.s.sageway in which I found myself soon led into the usual traffic. Around me the office work continued. I took an elevator down, on the chance it might be breakfast time. But the cafeteria doors were shut; a cleaning crew was at work inside. I turned back and rode up to the third level-the third only because that b.u.t.ton looked more worn than the others. The corridor there was empty.
Almost at the very end, just before the turn, a soldier stood guard at a door. His uniform carried no sign of any rank, which was unusual -- just a white belt. The soldier held a submachine gun in his gloved hands and stood like a statue. He didn"t even blink as I pa.s.sed. After a few steps I turned back to the door he was guarding: if this was indeed an official entrance to Headquarters, I had little hope of getting in -- on the other hand, what was there to lose? I touched the doork.n.o.b and glanced at him. He paid no attention, his gaze fixed on the opposite wall. I entered and was amazed to see, straight ahead, a spiral staircase. There was an unusually cold draft. I put out my hand -- the chill seemed to come from above, so I started climbing. At the top only the gla.s.s of an open door glimmered in the dimness. I found myself on the threshold of a dark chapel. Inside, under a crucifix lay an open coffin. The flickering candles threw little light on the dead man"s face. Ma.s.sive benches stood on either side of the aisle, barely visible in the darkness, and beyond them were niches, their contents altogether hidden. I heard heels clicking on stone but could see no one. I groped up the aisle, pondering my next move, when my eyes happened to fall on the face of the dead man -- it was that little old man! He lay in the casket, covered with a flag that fell to the ground in elaborate folds. His face, serene and waxen, was nestled in starched lace; the spectacles were gone -- perhaps that was why his features lacked their former look of alarm and mischief. Now he was quite solemn, as if thoroughly settled, composed. The hands were carefully arranged on either side of the flag, but one little finger had refused to bend with the rest and stuck out in a mocking, or warning gesture. It called attention to itself. From high up came a single note, then a second, with the wheeze and whine of an organ. It sounded as if some pa.s.ser-by had tried a few notes on the keyboard and then had given up. Again there was silence.
The honors shown the dead man puzzled me; in fact, the whole situation was very odd. I stood at the foot of the casket, my feet freezing, and caught a warm whiff of stearin. A candlewick hissed. Then there was a light tap on my shoulder and a whisper in my ear: "He"s already been searched."
"What?" I blurted out. The word, though certainly not shouted, set up a long and loud echo in the place. A tall officer stood nearby. His face was pale and bloated, his nose blue. A stiff white collar turned back to front shone from under the uniform lapels.
"Did you say something, uh, Father?" I asked. He closed his eyes solemnly, as if to acknowledge my presence as discreetly as possible.
"No, no -- a misunderstanding. . . I took you for someone else. Anyway, I"m not a priest, I"m a monk."
"I see."
We stood a while in silence. He lowered his head: it was shaven and covered with a small skullcap.
"Pardon my asking. . . you were acquainted with the deceased?"
"In a way. . . though not very well," I replied.
Though all I could see of his eyes were tiny reflections from the candles, it was obvious he was slowly looking me over.
"Paying your last respects?" he whispered with an unpleasant familiarity, and scrutinized me even more closely. I countered with a bold, contemptuous stare. He stiffened.
"You were a.s.signed here then," he sighed. I said nothing.
"There will be Ma.s.s," he observed piously. "Obsequies first, then Ma.s.s. If you wish. . ."
"It doesn"t matter."
"Of course not."
It was growing colder, an icy wind stirred the candles. Then something near the casket caught my eye: a large, heavy air conditioner, churning out freezing air through its metal grating.
"Not a bad arrangement," I remarked. The monk looked quickly over his shoulder and touched my sleeve with an incredibly white, soft hand.
"Permit me to report," he whispered, ". . . many cases of gross negligence, incompetency, conduct not becoming an officer. . . The sergeant prior is not performing his duties. . ."
He said this through his teeth, at the same time watching me closely, ready to retreat at any moment. But I kept silent, my eyes fixed on the shadowy dead man. This lack of response seemed to embolden the monk.
"Of course, it"s none of my business. . . I hardly dare," he breathed in my ear. "But if I might ask, in the hope that I could be of some a.s.sistance, in the course of duty. . . your orders are from. . . high up?"
"That"s right," I said. He grimaced in admiration, exposing large, horsy teeth.
"Permit me -- I -- I am not disturbing you?"
"Not at all."
"Well. . . you must know that the failures of the Mission are becoming so grave that --"
"You"re a missionary?" I asked. He smiled.
"I was speaking of our division, not of our dedication to the Lord."
"Your division?"
"The Theological Division. Quite recently, Father Amnion from the Confidence Section misappropriated. . ."
And he went on. But I lost the thread of what he said -- the dead man"s little finger, the one that refused to bend with the others, was now moving. The other fingers seemed carved from one piece, like a wax model of a sh.e.l.l, but this one, plumper and pinker than the rest, twitched back and forth, as if to express the slightly rakish character of the deceased. Yet there was something so incorporeal, so fantastically light in that motion, one thought less of resurrection and more of hummingbirds and the kind of tiny insects that appear only in a blur before us. The tremor became more and more p.r.o.nounced. "Impossible!" I cried. The monk cringed and clutched me.
"You have my sacred word! I speak the truth!"