After working the knots in my body out, I sat back down on the sofa, closed my eyes, and slowly brought my right brain and left brain together again. Thus concluded all work for the day. Manual-perfect.
The old man had a large canine skull set out on his desk and was taking measurements with slide calipers, noting the figures on a photo of the specimen.
“Finished, have you?” asked the old man.
“All done.”
“You put in a very hard day,” he said.
“I’ll be heading home to sleep now. Tomorrow or the next day I’ll shuffle the data and have it back to you by noon two days later. Without fail. Is that satisfactory?”
“Fine, fine,” said the old man, nodding. “But remember, time is absolutely critical. If you’re later than noon, there’ll be trouble. There’ll be real trouble.”
“I understand.”
“And I beg of you, make certain no one steals that list. If it gets stolen, it’ll be both our necks.”
“Don’t worry. We receive quite thorough training on that count. There’ll be no inadvertent straying of tabulated data.”
I withdrew a flex-metal document cache from a pocket behind my left knee, inserted the data list, and locked it.
“I’m the only one who can open this. If someone tampers with the lock, the contents are destroyed.”
“Mighty clever,” the old man said.
I slipped the document cache back behind my knee.
“Say now, sure you won’t have any more to eat? There’re a few sandwiches left. I don’t eat much when I’m caught up in research. Be a shame t’let them go to waste.”
I was still hungry, so I squared away the remaining sandwiches. The old man poured me a fresh cup of coffee.
I climbed back into rain gear, pulled on my goggles, took flashlight in hand, and headed back into the subterranean passage. This time the old man didn’t come along.
“Already put out ultrasonic waves t’drive those INKlings away, so shouldn’t be any of them sneakin’ around for the time bein’,” the old man reassured me.
Apparently, these INKlings were some kind of subterranean entity, which made me feel a bit squeamish about walking all alone out there in the dark. It didn’t help that I didn’t know a thing about INKlings, not their habits nor what they looked like nor how to defend myself against them. Flashlight in my left hand, knife in my right, I braced myself for the return trip.
When I saw the chubby pink-suited young woman waving her flashlight and coming my way, I felt saved. I made it over toward her. She was saying something which I couldn’t hear over the rumble of the de-sound-removed river. Nor could I see her lips in the darkness.
Up the long aluminum ladder we went, to where there was light. I climbed first, she followed. Coming down, I hadn’t been able to see anything, so there was nothing to be afraid of, relatively speaking, but going back up was something else entirely. I could picture the height only too well—a two- or three-story drop. I wanted to stop to regather my wits, but she was on my tail. Safety first, I always say, so I kept climbing.
We made it through the closet back into the first room and stripped off our rain gear.
“Work go well?” she asked. Her voice, now audible for the first time, was soft and clear.
“Well enough, thanks.”
“I really appreciate your telling Grandfather about my sound-removal. I would have been like that for a whole week.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that in writing? You could have been straightened up a lot sooner, and I wouldn’t have been so confused.”
She did a quick turn around the table without a word, then adjusted both of her earrings.
“Rules are rules,” she said.
“Against communicating in writing?”
“That’s one of them.”
“Hmph.”
“Anything that might lead to devolution.”
“Oh,” I said. Talk about precautions.
“How old are you?” she asked out of the blue.
“Thirty-five. And you?”
“Seventeen. You’re the first Calcutec I’ve ever met. But then, I’ve never met any Semiotecs either.”
“You’re really only seventeen?” I asked, surprised.
“Yes, why should I lie? I’m really seventeen. I don’t look seventeen, though, do I?”
“No, you look about twenty.”
“It’s because I don’t want to look seventeen,” she said. “Tell me, what’s it like to be a Calcutec?”
“We’re normal ordinary people, just like everyone else.”
“Everyone may be ordinary, but they’re not normal.”
“Yes, there is that school of thought,” I said. “But there’s normal and then there’s normal. I mean the kind of normal that can sit down next to you on the train and you wouldn’t even notice. Normal. We eat food, drink beer—oh, by the way, the sandwiches were great.”
“Really?” she said, beaming.
“I don’t often get good sandwiches like that. I practically ate them all myself.”
“How about the coffee?”
“The coffee wasn’t bad either.”
“Really? Would you like some now? That way we could sit and talk a little while longer.”
“No thanks, I’ve had more than enough already,” I said. “I don’t think I can manage another drop. And besides, I need to get myself home to bed quick.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Too bad for me, too.”
“Well, let me at least walk you to the elevator. The corridors are extremely complex. I bet you couldn’t find your way on your own.”
“I doubt it myself.”
The girl picked up what looked like a round hatbox, sealed several times over with wide adhesive tape, and handed it to me.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“A gift for you from Grandfather. Take it home and open it.”
I weighed the box in my hands. It was much lighter than I would have guessed, and it would have had to be an awfully big hat. I shook the box. No sound.
“It’s fragile, so please be careful with it,” the girl cautioned.
“Some kind of souvenir?”
“I don’t know. You’ll find out when you open it, won’t you?”
Then the girl opened her pink handbag and gave me an envelope with a bank check. Filled out for an amount slightly in excess of what I’d expected. I slipped it into my wallet.
“Receipt?”
“No need,” she said.
We exited the room and walked the same long maze of corridors back to the elevator. Her high heels made the same pleasant clicking on the floor, but her plumpness didn’t make as strong an impression as it had at first. As we walked along together, I almost forgot about her weight. Given time, I’d probably even get used to it.
“Are you married?” she asked, turning to me.
“No, I’m not,” I said. “I used to be, but not now.”
“Did you get divorced because you became a Calcutec? I always hear how Calcutecs don’t have families.”
“That’s not true. Some Calcutecs are fine family men. Though certainly, most seem to pursue their careers without a home life. It’s a nerve-racking line of work, sometimes very risky. You wouldn’t want to endanger a wife and kids.”
“Is that how it was with you?”
“I became a Calcutec after I got divorced. The two had nothing to do with each other.”
“Sorry for prying. It’s just that you’re my first Calcutec and there’re so many things I don’t know.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Well then, I’ve also heard that Calcutecs, when they’ve finished a job, that they get all pumped up with sex drive.”
“I couldn’t … umm … really say. Maybe so. We do work ourselves into a very peculiar mental condition on the job.”
“At those times, who do you sleep with? A special somebody?”
“I don’t have ‘a special somebody’.
”
“So then, who do you sleep with? You’re not one of those people who have no interest in sex. You’re not gay or anything, are you?”
“No, I’m not,” I said.
“So who do you sleep with?”
“I guess I sleep with different women.”
“Would you sleep with me?”
“No. Probably not.”
“Why not?”
“That’s just the way I am. I don’t like to sleep with people I know. It only complicates things. And I don’t sleep with business contacts. Dealing with other people’s secrets like I do, you have to draw the line somewhere.”
“Are you sure it’s not because I’m fat or I’m ugly?”
“Listen, you’re not that overweight, and you’re not ugly at all,” I said.
She pouted. “If that’s the way you feel, then, do you simply pick up someone and go to bed with her?”
“Well … yes.”
“Or do you just buy a girl?”
“I’ve done that too.”
“If I offered to sleep with you for money, would you take me up on it?”
“I don’t think so,” I replied. “I’m twice your age. It wouldn’t be right.”
“It’d be different with me.”
“Maybe so, but no offense intended, I’d really rather not. I think it’s for the best.”
“Grandfather says the first man I sleep with should be over thirty. He also says if sex drive builds up to a particular point, it affects your mental stability.”
“Yes, I heard this from your grandfather.”
“Do you think it’s true?”
“I’m afraid I’m not a biologist.”
“Are you well endowed?”
“I beg your pardon?” I nearly choked.
“Well, it’s just that I don’t know anything about my own sex drive yet,” she explained. “So I’d like to try lots of different things.”
We reached the elevator. It waited with open doors. What a relief!
“Until next time, then,” she said.
I got in the elevator and the doors slid shut without a sound. I leaned against the stainless-steel wall and heaved a big sigh.
6
Shadow
THE first old dream she places on the table is nothing I know as an old dream. I stare at the object before me, then look up at her. She stands next to me looking down at it. How is this an “old dream”? The sound of the words “old dream” led me to expect something else—old writings perhaps, something hazy, amorphous.
“Here we have an old dream,” says the Librarian. Her voice is distant, aimless; her tone wants not so much to explain to me as to reconfirm for herself. “Or it is possible to say, the old dream is inside of this.”
I nod, but do not understand.
“Take it in your hands,” she prompts.
I pick it up and run my eyes over the surface to see if I can find some trace of an old dream. But there is not a clue. It is only the skull of an animal, and not a very big animal. Dry and brittle, as if it had lain in the sun for years, the bone matter is leached of whatever color it might originally have had. The jutting jaw is locked slightly open, as if suddenly frozen when about to speak. The eye sockets, long bereft of their contents, lead to the cavernous recesses behind.
The skull is unnaturally light, with virtually no material presence. Nor does it offer any image of the species that had breathed within. It is stripped of flesh, warmth, memory. In the middle of the forehead is a small depression, rough to the touch. Perhaps this is the vestige of a broken horn.
“Is this a skull of one of the Town unicorns?” I ask her.
“Yes. The old dream is sealed inside.”
“I am to read an old dream from this?”
“That is the work of the Dreamreader,” says the Librarian.
“And what do I do with the dreams I read?”
“Nothing. You have only to read them.”
“How can that be?” I say. “I know that I am to read an old dream from this. But then not to do anything with it, I do not understand. What can be the point of that? Work should have a purpose.”
She shakes her head. “I cannot explain. Perhaps the dreamreading will tell you. I can only show you how it is done.”
I set the skull down on the table and lean back to look at it. The skull is enveloped in a profound silence that seems nothingness itself. The silence does not reside on the surface, but is held like smoke within. It is unfathomable, eternal, a disembodied vision cast upon a point in the void.
There is a sadness about it, an inherent pathos. I have no words for it.
“Please show me,” I say. I pick the skull up from the table once again and feel its weight in my hands.
Smiling faintly, she takes the skull from me and painstakingly wipes off the dust. She returns a whiter skull to the table.
“This is how to read old dreams,” the Librarian begins. “Watch carefully. Yet please know I can only imitate, I cannot actually read. You are the only one who can read the dreams. First, turn the skull to face you in this way, then gently place your hands on either side.”
She touches her fingertips to the temples of the skull.
“Now gaze at the forehead. Do not force a stare, but focus softly. You must not take your eyes from the skull. No matter how brilliant, you must not look away.”
“Brilliant?”
“Yes, brilliant. Before your eyes, the skull will glow and give off heat. Trace that light with your fingertips. That is how old dreams are read.”
I go over the procedure in my head. It is true that I cannot picture what kind of light she means or how it should feel, but I understand the method. Looking at the skull beneath her slender fingers, I am overcome with a strong sense of déjà vu. Have I seen this skull before? The leached colorlessness, the depression in the forehead. I feel a humming, just as when I first saw her face. Is this a fragment of a real memory or has time folded back on itself? I cannot tell.
“What is wrong?” she asks.
I shake my head. “Nothing. I think I see how. Let me try.”
“Perhaps we should eat first,” she says. “Once you begin to work, there will not be time.”
She brings out a pot of vegetable stew and warms it on the stove. The minestra simmers, filling the room with a wonderful aroma. She ladles it out into two bowls, slices walnut bread, and brings this simple fare to the table.
We sit facing each other and speak not a word as we eat. The seasoning is unlike anything I have ever tasted, but good nonetheless. By the time I finish eating, I am warmed inside. Then she brings us cups of hot tea. It is an herbal infusion, slightly bitter and green.
Dreamreading proves not as effortless as she has explained. The threads of light are so fine that despite how I concentrate the energies in my fingertips, I am incapable of unravelling the chaos of vision. Even so, I clearly sense the presence of dreams at my fingertips. It is a busy current, an endless stream of images. My fingers are as yet unable to grasp any distinct message, but I do apprehend an intensity there.
By the time I finally manage to extract two dreams, it is already past ten o’clock. I return to her the dream-spent skull, take off my glasses, and rub my eyes.
“Are you tired?” she asks.
“A little,” I reply. “My eyes are not accustomed to this. Drinking in the light of the old dreams makes my eyes hurt. I cannot look too long for the pain.”
“I am told it is this way at first,” she says. “Your eyes are not used to the light; the readings are difficult. Work slowly for a while.”
Returning the old dream to the vaults, the Librarian prepares to go home. She opens the lid of the stove, scoops out the red coals with a tiny shovel, and deposits them in a bucket of sand.
“You must not let fatigue set in,” she warns. “That is what my mother said. Let your body work until it is spent, but keep your mind for yourself.”
“Good advice.”
“To tell the tru
th, I do not know this thing called ‘mind,’ what it does or how to use it. It is only a word I have heard.”
“The mind is nothing you use,” I say. “The mind is just there. It is like the wind. You simply feel its movements.”
She shuts the lid of the stove, takes away the enamel pot and cup to wash, and returns wrapped in a blue coat of coarse material. A remnant torn from a bolt of the sky, worn so many years that it too has lost memory of its origins. She stands, absorbed in thought, in front of the extinguished stove.
“Did you come from some other land?” she asks, as if the thought had only then occurred to her.
“I think so.”
“And what was that land like?”
“I cannot remember,” I say. “I cannot recall a single thing. They seem to have taken all memory of my old world when they took my shadow. I only know it was far, far away.”
“But you understand these things of mind?”
“A little.”
“My mother also had mind,” she says. “But my mother disappeared when I was seven. Perhaps it was because she had this mind, the same as you.”
“Disappeared?”
“Yes, she vanished. I do not want to talk about it. It is wrong to talk about people who have disappeared. Tell me about the town where you lived. You must remember something.”
“I can only remember two things,” I say. “That the town I lived in had no wall around it, and that our shadows followed us wherever we walked.”
Yes, we all had shadows. They were with us constantly. But when I came to this Town, my shadow was taken away.
“You cannot come into Town with that,” said the Gatekeeper. “Either you lose the shadow or forget about coming inside.”
I surrendered my shadow.
The Gatekeeper had me stand in an open space beside the Gate. The three-o’clock afternoon sun fixed my shadow fast to the ground.
“Keep still now,” the Gatekeeper told me. Then he produced a knife and deftly worked it in between the shadow and the ground. The shadow writhed in resistance. But to no avail. Its dark form peeled neatly away.
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World Page 6