"We have moved deeper into the seventeenth-century Englishman"s psyche."
"Are you trying to tell me that Shakespeare"s great poetry is nothing but b.a.s.t.a.r.d Matthews and tra la la? At that rate, your machine will reduce our monuments of literature, creations of genius, immortal works, all to complete gibberish!"
"Precisely," answered Prandtl. "Gibberish. The arts, literature, what is their true purpose? Diversion!"
"Diversion from what?"
"You don"t know?"
"No."
"You should."
I was silent.
"A cracked code remains a code. An expert can peel away layer after layer. It"s inexhaustible. One digs ever deeper into more and more inaccessible strata. That journey has no end."
"How can this be? What about "There will be no answer" -- didn"t you say that was the final result?"
"No. It was only a stage. Real enough, within the framework of those proceedings, but a stage nonetheless. Give it some thought; you"ll come to the same conclusion."
"I don"t understand."
"You will, in good time. Yet even that will be but another stage."
"Couldn"t you help me a little?"
"You"re on your own, as everyone is. It"s tough, to be sure -- but you"ve been singled out, you know the score. We"re out of time now. In the future I"ll do what I can for you. In the line of duty, of course."
"But how. . . I still don"t know --" I said in alarm. "Weren"t you supposed to brief me on the codes for the Mission?"
"Mission?"
"Yes."
"Specify it."
"I. . . I don"t have the details, I a.s.sume it"s all spelled out in my instructions. Here they are, in this folder. Of course, I"m not allowed to show you -- hold on, where"s my folder?"
I jumped up, looked under the table -- the folder was gone! The fat officer, bloated and gaping like a dead fish, snored heavily on his seat.
"Where"s my folder?!" I shouted in his ear.
"Easy," Prandtl said behind my back. "Nothing gets lost here. Kruuh! Kruuh!!" he scolded. "Give it back! Do you hear, give it back!"
The fat officer shifted his weight and something fell to the floor -- my folder. I grabbed it, checked to see if it was still full.
Had he been sitting on it, then? If he swiped it right from under my nose, he was more dexterous than he looked. I was about to open the folder when I remembered that I couldn"t read my instructions properly without the key, and Prandtl couldn"t give me the key unless he knew what they were about. A vicious circle. I explained it to him.
"Probably an oversight on Major Erms"s part," I concluded.
"Who knows?" he said.
"I"ll check it out!" I said, challenging him. In other words: I"ll go to him and tell him you are washing your hands of the whole affair, you are sabotaging my Mission, a Mission a.s.signed by the Commander in Chief himself!
"Do whatever you think is right," he said, then added with a shade of hesitation: "But. . . are you sure you know the proper procedure?"
"The same procedure that has me leave here empty-handed?" I asked coolly.
Prandtl took off his gla.s.ses. His face, as if suddenly unmasked, a.s.sumed a look of weary helplessness. I sensed that he wanted to tell me something, but couldn"t -- or wasn"t allowed. The hostility which had been mounting between us was suddenly dispelled. I began to feel sympathy for this man.
"You. . . you"re acting under orders?" he asked in such a small voice that I could hardly hear him.
"Under orders?. . . I guess."
"I am too."
He opened the door and stood there like a statue, waiting for me to leave. As I pa.s.sed him, his lips parted, but the word remained unspoken. He only sighed, stepped back and slammed the door in my face. Once again I found myself in the corridor, clutching my folder. But if my visit to the Department of Codes had not brought the desired results -- that is, to tell me something of my Mission -- at least this time I had a destination. That in itself was something. I repeated the number to myself: 9129. I would ask Major Erms for the meal tickets he promised me. A good pretext. . .
I pa.s.sed several white doors before I remembered the folder. If my instructions (I had to a.s.sume they existed) continued in the vein of the excerpts I had read in Major Erms"s office, then they would trace all my future movements through the Building. A staggering thought, that. And yet wherever I went there were indications that others knew more about my aimless wanderings from room to room than I myself. Could it be that the folder really held a complete itinerary of my journey, including what lay in store for me at its conclusion? The few lines I already read certainly suggested that possibility; even my innermost thoughts had been accurately recorded.
I decided to open the folder, wondering only why I hadn"t done that before. If I indeed held my fate in my own two hands, why not take a peek?
5.
The row of doors on my right came to a sudden end. Most likely, there was a very long room on the other side of the wall. A little farther along I found a corridor which led to a bathroom. The door was open, so I peeked in: the coast was clear. I locked myself in and took a seat on the edge of the tub, then noticed a small, dark object on the shelf under the mirror -- a straight razor placed invitingly on a clean hand towel. It bothered me for some reason. I picked it up; it looked brand new. Everything gleamed here with the dazzling cleanliness of an operating room. I put the razor back. Somehow I just couldn"t bring myself to open the folder here. I left the bathroom and took the elevator to the level below, to the same bathroom where I had stayed the night before.
This one was empty too and exactly as I had left it, except that the towels were new. I sat on the edge of the tub, untied the folder and pulled out a thick stack of paper.
The pages were blank, all of them. A senseless, wild rattling ran through the pipes, the sort of noise that accompanies the opening of a tap on another floor. It moaned with an almost human voice, then gurgled and faded as it traveled out in the cast-iron intestines of the Building. My hands trembled as I turned the white sheets over, one by one; I counted them mechanically, pointlessly. It was Prandtl -- no, it was that fat officer! I"d beat that swollen swine to a pulp, so help me!
My anger pa.s.sed as quickly as it had come. Of course the whole thing had been planned, carefully planned. But why steal my instructions? All Major Erms had to do was not give them to me in the first place.
But wait, there was something here, hidden between all these blank pages -- a layout of the Building, with a map of the mountain that contained the Building, and attached to this, sewn on with white thread, a twelve-point plan, "Operation Shovel." Of course, I would have to turn this over to the authorities, explain how it came into my possession. But would they believe me? How could I prove I hadn"t familiarized myself with this cla.s.sified material? That I hadn"t committed the Building"s location to memory -- one hundred and eighteen miles south of Mount Harvurd -- or the layout of the Building for that matter, or the position of Headquarters for the Chiefs of Staff? No, I hadn"t a prayer. Now I began to see a pattern to the events of the past four days: all those accidental, unrelated incidents had actually been weaving an intricate net to pull me ever deeper, ever closer to this moment of truth.
How I longed to tear those compromising doc.u.ments to shreds and flush them down the toilet forever! But I remembered Major Erms"s caution. How true it was that nothing happened here by chance! Every word, every move of the head, the least expression, the most absentminded gesture -- everything was by design, part of an enormous machine that was obviously bent on my destruction! I felt as if I were surrounded by a million brightly shining eyes. If only there were someplace to hide, a crevice, a ledge, if only I could vanish into air, cease to exist. . . The razor! Is that why it was there? They knew I would want to be alone, they placed it there on purpose. . .
Automatically, I put the papers back in the folder one by one. As the folder gradually filled, so my mind was gradually emptied of its ideas, it hopes to find some way out, to hit on some bold stratagem, some trump card. More and more I could see before me the image of my own face, the cringing, sweaty face of a condemned man. I was defeated, destroyed -- what more was there to lose? That simple thought emerged from the mult.i.tude of my wild desperate schemes as a kind of salvation.
As I was preparing to accept the th.o.r.n.y crown of a martyr, an index card slipped out and dropped at my feet. There was a number on it, almost illegible -- 3883 -- and now I saw that someone had printed in "Rm" before the number, evidently a precaution to make the message clear. Or was it an order?
So be it! I picked up my folder and took a last look around. There was my face in the mirror, watching me as if through a dark and broken window. Broken because of the flaws in the gla.s.s, or was I seeing myself through the prism of fear? We observed one another, myself and I. So that"s how it looked to be a traitor! This ugly face, bathed in sweat and twisted in fear, would soon cease to exist. The thought was almost pleasant. Ah, but I had known all along that it would come to this!
Yes, there was something to savor in this bowing to the inevitable. . . But wait, what if I were to misplace these papers? Then I would be left with nothing, not even a Mission, not even my betrayal. . . Was I caught in the machinery of some giant conspiracy, ground in the gears of some struggle between two opposing forces? If that were indeed the case, some higher authority might yet intercede on my behalf.
Room 3883, I decided, would be the last resort. In the meantime there was Prandtl. Whatever the true situation was, he did sigh in my face. That signified something. He sighed -- he was on my side. True, he had distracted me while the fat officer stole my instructions. Orders were orders. He admitted he was acting under orders.
The corridor was empty on the way to Prandtl. I went very slowly. Something seemed to be holding me back. When I entered the office at last, no one was in. There were two cups on the table. Mine was the one with the metal flies in the saucer: they lay there like two pits. The desk near the wall was cluttered with various doc.u.ments. I went over and picked through them on the off chance that at least some of my instructions might have found their way there. I did find a yellow folder, but it contained only the payroll, a list of curious specialties: Infernalist, Counterinformant First Cla.s.s, Top Envelope Macerator, Undercover Perjurer, Master Cremator and Osteophage Provocateur ... The phone suddenly rang with an urgency that made me jump. I lifted the receiver.
"h.e.l.lo?" came a masculine voice. "h.e.l.lo?"
Before I could reply, someone else hooked up on the line. I could hear both voices.
"It"s me," said the first voice. "We have a problem, Captain!"
"He"s in trouble, eh?"
"We"re afraid he might do something to himself."
"Weak, eh? I"m not surprised."
"He"s all right, really, but you know what can happen. We need to keep the lid on this --"
"That"s up to Six, not me."
"Can"t you do anything?"
"For him? Not a thing, not a blessed thing. . ."
I listened with bated breath; the suspicion that they were talking about me was becoming a certainty. There was a pause.
"You"re sure?"
"Take it up with Six."
"That means retiring him from the a.s.signment."
"So?"
"Then we have to give him up?"
"You don"t want to, eh?"
"It"s not a matter of what I want, sir -- it"s just that, well, he"s become accustomed to --"
"Look, you have your own specialists there, don"t you? What does Prandtl say?"
"Prandtl? Nothing, not since the parting sigh. Anyway, he"s at a meeting."
"Have him paged. I mean it, I refuse to have anything to do with this business."
"I"ll send him operatives from the Medical Department."
"Suit yourself. I have to go now. That"ll be all."
"Yes, sir."
They both hung up and I was left with a soft whispering in my ear, as if the receiver were a sea sh.e.l.l. Were they talking about me or not?
At least I had learned that Prandtl was at a meeting. There were footsteps, someone was coming from the next room. I ran out into the corridor, hesitated -- but I could hardly go back now. No, now it was a choice between Major Erms and Room 3883. Room 3883 had to be somewhere on the third level. The Department of Investigation? Once there, you never leave. . . Then again, walking up and down the corridors was not so bad, really, I could rest in an elevator, stand around, hide in the bathroom. . .
The razor. Strange I hadn"t thought of it till now. Meant for me? Perhaps. But I was too agitated to think that through. I took the staircase down, feeling dizzy. The fifth level. The fourth. Third. The corridor was white, extremely clean and straight -- 3887, 3886, 3885, 3884, 3883. My heart in my throat, I resolved to take a peek inside. If anybody would ask, I could say I was looking for Major Erms and happened to open the wrong door. They wouldn"t grab the folder from my hands by force -- would they? These were my instructions. I"d demand that they phone the Department of Instructions, Major Erms. . . But then, they would know all that, so why should I worry myself to death? Quickly I tried to review the whole chain of events, to prepare my report according to procedure. I couldn"t contradict myself; that would be fatal. But I was so confused. For example, did that whole affair with the little old man take place before or after they arrested my first guide in the hall? I took a deep breath and turned the doork.n.o.b.
There wasn"t a soul in the large, gloomy office, only cabinets and catalogs of all sizes and descriptions, huge ledgers, piles of papers tied with string, jars of glue, scissors, blotters, rubber stamps and all sorts of office debris all over the big desks along the walls. I heard feet shuffling; in a doorway off to the side there appeared an old, disheveled man in a uniform full of ink spots.
"You came to see us?" he croaked. "A rare guest indeed! Welcome, welcome! What can we do for you? Something to be checked out, no doubt?"
But before I could say a word, the old man rattled on, vigorously sniffing as he talked, trying to sniff back the disgusting drop that hung at the tip of his nose.
"Civilian clothes, you"re in civilian clothes, that means you want something from the catalog. . . just a minute, it"s all right here. . ."
He hobbled over to a huge card file and began to pull out one drawer after another. I looked around the room again. There were piles of junk all over the floor, in the corners, under the chairs; the air was thick with dust and the smell of molding paper. The old geezer rasped in explanation: "Chief Archive Custodian Glouble ain"t here. He"s at a meeting, don"t you know. The Underclerk ain"t here either, he didn"t give a reason, he just left. So you see, sir, here I am all by my lonesome to watch the store. It"s Antheus Kappril at your service, sir, Custodian Ninth Degree, ready for retirement after forty-eight years of faithful service, believe it or not. Oh yes, it"s the life of leisure for me all right, that"s what they tell me! But on the other hand, sir, as you can see for yourself, I"m indispensable here! Indispensable! But here I am talking away and you"re in a frightful hurry, I bet. Business, business. You place your call slips in this little old box here and lean on the buzzer when you"re ready; I come in a jiffy, find what you need even quicker, and if you want to read it here, no problem, and if you don"t, then put your serial number here, under the fifth column, IV-B, and that"s all there is to it."
He concluded this gravelly monologue with an odd little dance intended as a bow -- or else his legs were giving way -- and he pointed invitingly at the card file, gave an ingratiating smile, then began to back away.
"Kappril," I suddenly asked, afraid to look him in the eye, "is -- is the Department of Investigation on this floor?"
"Come again?" He cupped his ear with his hand. "Department of what? Didn"t hear you, didn"t hear you."
"Or the Prosecution Bureau?" I went on, ignoring the possible consequences of such open inquiry.
"Prosecution Bureau?. . ." He seemed genuinely perplexed. "Never heard of it, sir, we"re the only department here, I never heard of that other. . ."
"These are the Archives?"
"That"s us. The Archives, Records, the Library. . . Anything else we can do for you?"
"Not right now, thank you."
"No need to thank me, it"s my job, it"s my job. Here"s the buzzer, don"t forget to buzz."
He shuffled out, then I heard a fit of violent coughing from the next room. Or was someone trying to strangle him? But the sound faded, and I was alone with endless rows of drawers, their labels framed in bra.s.s.
What did this mean? Were they trying to learn my interests? What could they possibly gain from that? My eyes wandered over the labels. The catalog was arranged by subject, not alphabetically -- ESCHATOSCOPY, THEOLOGY, PONTIFICES AND ARTIFICES, APPLIED CADAVEROLOGY. I tried THEOLOGY. The cards were in no apparent order:
ANGELS -- See Communicants, Communiques. Air power. Also see Daily orders (Give us this day our --).
LOVE -- see Diversion. Also see Treason (But hate the traitor).
RESURRECTION -- see Cadaverology. Corpse Corps.