I looked for Vousi. She was nowhere to be seen. The cafe began to empty. Everyone was in a hurry to get somewhere. I got off my stool, too, and left the cafe. Streams of people flowed down the street. They were all going in the same direction, and in about five minutes, I was swept out onto a big square. It was huge and poorly lighted, a wide gloomy s.p.a.ce bordered by a ring of streetlights and store windows. It was full of people.
They stood pressed against each other, men, women, and youngsters, boys and girls, shifting from foot to foot, waiting for I knew not what. There was almost no talking. Here and there cigarette tips flared, lighting hollow cheeks and compressed lips. Then a clock began to strike the hour, and over the square, gigantic luminous panels sprang into flaming light. There were three of them -- red, blue, and green, irregularly shaped rounded triangles. The crowd surged and stood still. Around me, cigarettes were put out with subdued movements. The panels went out momentarily and then started to flash in rotation: red-blue-green, red-blue-green... I felt a wave of hot air on my face, and was suddenly dizzy. They were astir around me. I got up on tiptoes. In the center of the square, the people stood motionless; I had the impression that they were seized rigid and did not fall only because they were pressed in by the crowd. Red-blue-green, red-blue-green.
Wooden, upturned faces, blackly gaping mouths, staring, bulging eyes. They weren"t even winking there, under the panels. A total quiet fell, so that I jumped when a piercing woman"s voice nearby yelled: "Shivers!" All at once, tens of voices responded: "Shivers! Shivers!" People on the sidewalk on the square"s perimeter began to clap hands in rhythm with the flashes, and to chant in even voices, "Shi-vers! Shi-vers!
Shi-vers!" Somebody prodded me in the back with a sharp elbow.
I was pressed forward to the center, toward the panels. I took a step and another and started through the crowd, pushing the stiffened bodies aside. Two youngsters, rigid as icicles, suddenly started thrashing wildly, grabbing at each other, scratching and pounding with all their strength, but their faces remained frozen in the direction of the flashing sky...
red-blue-green, red-blue-green. And just as suddenly as they started, they grew still again.
At this paint, finally, I understood that all this was extraordinarily amusing. Everyone laughed. There was lots of room around me and music thundered forth. I swept up a charming girl and we began to dance, as they used to dance, as dancing should be done and was done a long, long time ago, as it was done always with abandon, so that your head swam, and so that everyone admired you. We stepped out of the way, and I held on to her hands, and there was no need to talk about anything, and she agreed that the van driver was a strange man. Can"t stand alcoholics, said Rimeyer, and pore-nose is the most genuine alcoholic, and what about Devon I said, how could you be without Devon when we have an excellent zoo, the buffaloes love to wallow in the mud, and bugs are constantly swarming out of it. Rim, I said, there are some fools who said that you are fifty years old -- such nonsense when I wouldn"t give you over twenty-five -- and this is Vousi, I told her about you, but I am intruding on you, said Rimeyer; no one can intrude on us, said Vousi, as for Seus he"s the best of Fishers, he grabbed the splotcher and got the ray right in the eye, and Hugger slipped and fell in the water and said -- wouldn"t it be something for you to drown -- look your gear are melting away, aren"t you funny, said Len, there is such a game of boy and gangster, you know, you remember we played with Maris... Isn"t it wonderful, I have never felt so good in my life, what a pity, when it could be like this every day. Vousi, I said, aren"t we great fellows, Vousi, people have never had such an important problem before, and we solved it and there remained only one problem, Vousi, the sole problem in the world, to return to people a spiritual content, and spiritual concerns, no, Seus, said Vousi, I love you very much, Oscar, you are very nice, but forgive me, would you, I want it to be Ivan, I embraced her and felt that it was right to kiss her and I said I love you...
Boom! Boom! Boom! Something exploded in the dark night sky and tinkling sharp shards began to fall on us, and at once I felt cold and uncomfortable. There were machine guns firing!
Again the guns rattled. "Down, Vousi," I yelled, although I could not yet understand what was going on, and threw her down on the ground and covered her with my body against the bullets, whereupon blows began to rain on my face.
Bang, bang, rat-tat-tat-tat... around me people stood like wooden pickets. Some were coming to and rolling their eyeb.a.l.l.s inanely. I was half reclining on a man"s chest, which was as hard as a bench, and right in front of my eyes was his open mouth and chin glistening with saliva... Blue-green, blue-green, blue-green... Something was missing.
There were piercing screams, cursing, someone thrashed and screeched hysterically. A mechanical roar grew louder over the square. I raised my head with difficulty. The panels were right overhead, the blue and green flashing regularly, while the red was extinguished and raining gla.s.s rubble. Rat-tat-tat-tat and the green panel broke and darkened. In the blue remaining light unhurried wings floated by, spewing the reddish lightning of a fusillade.
Again I attempted to throw myself on the ground, but it was impossible, as they all stood around me like pillars.
Something made an ugly snap quite near me, and a yellow-green plume rose skyward from which puffed a repulsive stench. Pow!
Pow! Another two plumes hung over the square. The crowd howled and stirred. The yellow vapor was caustic like mustard, my eyes and mouth filled, and I began to cry and cough, and around me, everyone began to cry and cough and yell hoa.r.s.ely: "Lousy b.u.ms!
Scoundrels! Sock the Intels!" Again the roar of the engine could be heard, coming in louder and louder. The airplane was returning. "Down, you idiots," I yelled. Everyone around me flopped down all over each other. Rat-tat-tat-tat! This time the machine gunner missed and the string apparently got the building opposite us. To make up for the miss, the gas bombs fell again right on target. The lights around the square went out, and with them the blue panel, as a free-for-all started in the pitch-black dark.
Chapter SEVEN.
I"ll never know how I arrived at that fountain. It must be that I have good instincts and ordinary cold water was exactly what I needed. I crawled into the water without taking off my clothes, and lay down, feeling better immediately. I was lying on my back, drops rained on my face, and this was unbelievably pleasant. It was quite dark here, and dim stars shone through the branches and the water. It was very quiet. For several minutes I was watching a brighter star, for some reason unknown to me, which was slowly moving across the sky, until I realized that I was watching the relay satellite Europa. How far from all this, I thought, how degrading and senseless to remember the revolting mess on the square, the disgusting foul mouthings and screechings, the wet phrumping of the gas bombs, and the putrid stench which turned your stomach and lungs inside out.
Understanding freedom as the rapid satisfaction and multiplication of needs and desires, I recollected, people distort their natures as they engender within themselves many senseless and stupid desires, habits and the most unlikely inventions....
Priceless Peck, he loved to quote old pundit Zosima as he circled around a well-laid table, rubbing his hands. We were snot-nosed undergrads then and ingenuously believed that such p.r.o.nouncements, in our time, were meant only to show off flashes of humor and erudition.... At this point in my reflections, someone noisily plunged into the water some ten paces from me.
At first he coughed hoa.r.s.ely, spat and blew his nose, so that I hurried to leave the water, then he started to splash, finally became quiet, and suddenly discharged himself of a string of curses: "Shameless lice," he growled. "Wh.o.r.es, swine... on live people! Stinking hyenas, rotten sc.u.m... learned prost.i.tutes, filthy snakes." He hawked furiously again. "It bothers them that people are having a good time! Stepped on my face, the crud!" He groaned nasally and painfully, "The h.e.l.l with this shiver business. That will be the day when I"ll go again."
He moaned again and rose. I could hear the water running from his clothes. I could dimly perceive his swaying figure. He saw me too.
"Hey, friend, have a smoke on you?"
"I did," I replied.
"Low-lifers! I didn"t think to take them out. Just fell in with everything on." He splashed over to me and sat down alongside. "Some moron stepped on my cheek," he informed me.
"They marched over me, too," I said. "The people went ape."
"But, you tell me, where do they get the tear gas?" he said. "And machine guns?"
"And airplanes," I added.
"An airplane means nothing," he contradicted. "I have one myself. I bought it cheap for seven hundred crowns.... What do they want, that"s what I don"t understand."
"Hoodlums," I said. "They should have their faces pulped properly, and that would be the end of that argument."
He laughed bitterly.
"Someone did! For that you get worked over good.... You think they didn"t get beat up? And how they got beat up! But apparently that isn"t enough.... We should have driven them right into the ground, together with their excrement, but we pa.s.sed up the chance.... And now they are giving us the business! The people got soft, that"s what, I tell you. n.o.body gives a d.a.m.n. They put their four hours in, have a drink and off to the shivers! And you can pot them like clay pigeons." He slapped his sides in desperation. "Those were the times," he cried. "They didn"t dare open their mouths! Should one of them even whisper, guys in black shirts or maybe white hoods would pay a night visit, crunch him in the teeth, and off to the camp he went, so there wouldn"t be a peep out of him again.... In the schools, my son says, everyone bad-mouths fascism: Oh dear, they hurt the Negroes" feelings; oh dear, the scientists were witch-hunted; oh dear, the camps; oh dear, the dictatorship!
Well, it wasn"t witch-hunting that was needed, but to hammer them into the ground, so there wouldn"t be any left for breeding!" He drew his hand under his nose, slurping long and loud.
"Tomorrow morning, I have to go to work with my face all out of shape.... Let"s go have a drink, or we"ll both catch cold."
We crawled through the bushes and came out on the street.
"The Weasel is just around the corner," he informed me.
The Weasel was full of wet-haired half-naked people. They seemed depressed, somehow embarra.s.sed, and gloomily bragging about their contusions and abrasions. Several young women, clad only in panties, cl.u.s.tered around the electric fireplace, drying their skirts. The men patted them platonically on their bare flesh. My companion immediately penetrated into the thick of the crowd, and swinging his arms and blowing his nose with his fingers, began to call for "hammering the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds into the ground." He was getting some weak support.
I asked for Russian vodka, and when the girls left, I took off my sport shirt and sat by the fireplace. The barman delivered my gla.s.s and returned at once to his crossword in the fat magazine. The public continued its conversation.
"So, what"s the shooting for? Haven"t we had enough of shooting? Just like little boys, by G.o.d... just spoiling some good fun."
"Bandits, they"re worse than gangsters, but like it or not that shiver business is no good, too."
"That"s right. The other day mine says to me, "Papa, I saw you; you were all blue like a corpse and very scary" -- and she"s only ten. So how can I look her in the eyes? Eh?"
"Hey anybody! What"s an entertainment with four letters?"
asked the barman without raising his head.
"So, all right, but who dreamed all this up -- the shiver and the aromatics? Eh and also..."
"If you got drenched, brandy is best."
"We were waiting for him on the bridge, and along he comes with his eyegla.s.ses and some kind of pipe with lenses in it. So up he goes over the rail with his eyegla.s.ses and his pipe, and he kicked his legs once and that was that. And then old Snoot comes running, after having been revived, and he looks at the guy blowing bubbles. "Fellows," he says, "What the h.e.l.l is the matter with you, are you drunk or something, that"s not the guy -- I am seeing him for the first time..."
"I think there ought to be a law -- if you are married, you can"t go to the shiver."
"Hey somebody," again the bartender, "What"s a literary work with seven letters -- a booklet, maybe?"
"So, I myself had four Intels in my squad, machine gunners they were. It"s quite true that they fought like devils. I remember we were retreating from the warehouse, you know they"re still building a factory there, and two stayed behind to cover us. By the way, n.o.body asked them, they volunteered entirely by themselves. Later we came back and found them hanging side by side from the rail crane, naked, with all their appurtenances ripped off with hot pincers. You understand? And now, I"m thinking, where were the other two today? Maybe they were the very same guys to treat me to some tear gas, those are the types that can do such things."
"So who didn"t get hung? We got hung by various places, too!"
"Hammer them into the ground right up to their noses, and that"ll be the end of that!"
"I"m going. There is no point in hanging around here, I"m getting heartburn. They must have fixed everything up by now, back there."
"Hey, barman, girls, let"s have one last one."
My shirt had dried, and as the cafe emptied, I pulled it on and went over to sit at a table and to watch. Two meticulously dressed gentlemen in the corner were sipping their drinks through straws. They called attention to themselves immediately -- both were in severe black suits and black ties, despite the very warm night. They weren"t talking, and one of them constantly referred to his watch. After a while, I grew tired of observing them. Well, Doctor Opir, how do you like the shivers? Were you at the square? But of course you were not.
Too bad. It would have been interesting to know what you thought of it. On the other hand, to the devil with you. What do I care what Doctor Opir thinks? What do I think about it myself? Well, high-grade barber"s raw material, what do you think? It"s important to get acclimatized quickly and not stuff the brain with induction, deduction, and technical procedures. The most important thing is to get acclimatized as rapidly as possible. To get to feel like one of them.... There, they all went back to the square. Despite everything that happened, they still went back to the square again. As for me, I don"t have the slightest desire to go back there. I would, with the greatest of pleasure at this point, go back to my room and check out my new bed. But when would I go to the Fishers? Intels, Devon, and Fishers. Intels -- maybe they are the local version of the Golden Youth? Devon... Devon must be kept in mind, together with Oscar. But now the Fishers.
"The Fishers; that"s a little bit vulgar," said one of the black suits, not whispering, but very quietly.
"It all depends on temperament," said the other. "As for me, personally I don"t condemn Karagan in the slightest."
"You see, I don"t condemn him either. It"s a little shocking that he picked up his options. A gentleman would not have behaved that way."
"Forgive me, but Karagan is no gentleman. He is only a general manager. Hence the small-mindedness and the mercantilism and a certain what I might call commonness..."
"Let"s not be so hard on him. The Fishers -- that"s something intriguing. And to be honest, I don"t see any reason why we should not involve ourselves. The old Subway -- that"s quite respectable. Wild is much more elegant than Nivele, but we don"t reject Nivele on that account."
""You really are seriously considering?"
"Right now, if you wish.... It"s five to two, by the way.
Shall we go?"
They got up, said a friendly and polite goodbye to the bartender, and proceeded toward the exit. They looked elegant, calm, and condescendingly remote. This was astounding luck. I yawned loudly, and muttering, "Off to the square," followed them, pushing stools out of my way. The street was poorly illuminated, but I saw them immediately. They were in no hurry.
The one on the right was the shorter, and when they pa.s.sed under the street lights, you could see his safe, spa.r.s.e hair.
As near as I could tell, they were no longer conversing.
They detoured the square, turned into a dark alley, avoided a drunk who tried to strike up a conversation, and suddenly, without one backward glance, turned abruptly into a garden in front of a large gloomy house. I heard a heavy door thud shut. It was a minute before two.
I pushed off the drunk, entered the garden, and sat down on a silver-painted bench under a lilac bush. The wooden bench was situated on a sandy path which ran through the garden. A blue lamp illuminated the entrance of the house, and I discerned two caryatids supporting the balcony over the door.
This didn"t look like the entrance to the old subway, but as yet, I couldn"t tell for sure, so I decided to wait.
I didn"t have to wait long. There was a rustle of steps and a dark figure in a cloak appeared on the path. It was a woman. I did not grasp immediately why her proudly raised head with a high cylindrical coiffure, in which large stones glistened in the starlight, seemed familiar. I arose to meet her, and said, trying to sound both respectful and mocking, "You are late, madam, it"s after two."
She was not in the least startled.
"You don"t say!" she exclaimed. "Can it be my watch is so slow?"
It was the very same woman who had the altercation with the van driver, but of course she did not recognize me. Women with such disdainful-looking lower lips never remember chance meetings. I took her by the arm, and we mounted the wide stone steps. The door turned out to be as heavy as a reactor-well cover. There was no one in the entrance hall. The woman, without turning, flung the cloak on my arm and went ahead, and I paused for a second to look at myself in the huge mirror.
Good man, Master Gaoway, but it still behooved me to stay in the shadows. We entered the ballroom.
No, this was anything but a subway. The room was enormous and incredibly old-fashioned. The walls were lined with dark wood, and fifteen feet up, there was a gallery with a railing.
Pink blond-curled angels smiled down with only their blue lips from a far-flung ceiling. Almost the entire floor of the room was covered with rows of soft ma.s.sive chairs covered with embossed leather. Elegantly dressed people, mostly middle-aged men, sat in them in relaxed and negligent poses. They were looking at the far end of the room, where a brightly lit picture blazed against a background of black velvet.
No one turned to look at us. The woman glided toward the front rows, and I sat down near the door. By now, I was almost sure that I had come here for nothing. There was silence and some coughs, and lazy streams of smoke curled upward from the fat cigars; many bald pates glistened under the chandeliers. My attention turned to the picture. I am an indifferent connoisseur of paintings, but it looked like a Raphael, and if it was not genuine, it was certainly a perfect copy.
There was a deep bra.s.sy gong, and simultaneously a tall, thin man in a black mask appeared by the side of the picture. A black leotard covered his body from head to toe. He was followed by a limping, hunchbacked dwarf in a red smock. In his short, extended pawlike arms, he held a dully glinting sword of a most wicked appearance. He went to the right of the picture and stood still, while the masked individual stepped forward and spoke in a measured tone: "In accordance with the bylaws and directives of the Honorable Society of Patrons, and in the name of Art, which is holy and irreproducible, and the power granted me by you, I have examined the history and worth of this painting and now --"
"Request a halt," sounded a curt voice behind me.
Everyone turned around. I also turned around and saw that three young, obviously very powerful, and immaculately dressed men were looking at me full in the face. One had a monocle in his right eye. We studied each other for a few seconds, and the man with the monocle twitched his cheek and let it drop. I got up at once. They moved toward me together, stepping softly and soundlessly. I tried the chair, but it was too ma.s.sive. They jumped me. I met them as best I could and at first everything went well, but very quickly it became evident that they wore bra.s.s knuckles, and I barely managed to evade them. I pressed my back against the wall and looked at them while they, breathing heavily, looked at me. There were still two of them left. There was the usual coughing in the auditorium. Four more were coming down the gallery steps, which squeaked and groaned loudly enough to reverberate in the hall. Bad business, thought I, and launched myself to force a breach.
It was hard going, just like the time in Manila, but then there were two of us. It would have been better if they were armed, as I would have had a chance to expropriate a gun.
But all six of them met me with knuckles and truncheons.
Luckily for me it was very crowded. My left arm went out of commission, and then the four suddenly jumped back, while the fifth drenched me with a clammy liquid from a flat container.
Simultaneously, the lights were extinguished.
These tricks were well known to me: now they could see me, but I could not see them. In all probability that would have been the end of me, were it not that some idiot threw open the door and announced in a greasy ba.s.so, "I beg forgiveness, I am terribly late and so sorry..." I charged toward the light, over some bodies, mowed down the latecomer, flew across the entrance hall, threw open the front door, and pelted down the sandy path holding my left arm with my right hand. No one was pursuing me, but I traversed two blocks before it dawned on me to stop.
I flung myself down on a lawn and lay for a long time in the short gra.s.s, grabbing lungfuls of the warm moist air. In no time, the curious gathered around me. They stood in a semicircle and ogled me avidly, not saying a word. "Take off,"
I said, getting up finally. Hurriedly, they scooted away. I stood awhile, figuring out where I was, and began a stumbling journey homeward. I had had enough for today. I still didn"t get it, but I had had quite enough. Whoever they were, these members of the Honorable Society of Art Patrons -- secret art worshippers, extant aristocrat-conspirators or whoever else -- they fought cruelly and without quarter, and the biggest fool in that hall of theirs was still apparently none other than I.
I pa.s.sed by the square, where again the color panels pulsed rhythmically, and hundreds of hysterical voices screamed, "Shi-vers! Shi-vers!" Of this too I had had enough.
Pleasant dreams are, of course, more attractive than unpleasant ones, but after all, we do not live in a dream. In the establishment where Vousi had taken me, I had a bottle of ice-cold soda water, observed with curiosity a squad of police peacefully camped by the bar, and went out, turning into Second Waterway.
A lump the size of a tennis ball was rising behind my left ear. I weaved badly and walked slowly, keeping close to the fences. Later, I heard the tap of heels behind me and voices: "... Your place is in the museum, not in a cabaret."
"Nothing of the sort, I am not drunk. Can"t you und-derstand, only one measly bottle of wine..."
"How disgusting! Soused and picking up a wench."
"What"s the girl got to do with it? She is a m-model!"
"Fighting over a wench. Making us fight over her."
"Why in h.e.l.l d-do you believe them and don"t believe me?"
"Just because you"re drunk! You"re a b.u.m, just like they all are, maybe worse...."
"That"s all right. I"ll remember that scoundrel with the bracelet quite well.... Don"t hold me! I"ll walk by myself!"
"You"ll remember nothing, friend. Your gla.s.ses were knocked off in the first instant, and without them, you aren"t even a man, but a blind sausage.... Stop kicking, or it will be the fountain for you...."