“I’m waiting for my wife.”
“A purely formal question. She isn’t white, is she?”
Gavein lowered his eyes.
“You’ve misunderstood me, surely.”
Gavein said, “She’s tall, graceful, slender. A natural blonde.”
“White.”
“My wife won’t stick a knife in me.”
“I didn’t mean to insult you. Our classification of people is sensible. Even our climate doesn’t favor whites. Their hair falls out, their teeth, their nails. Too little pigment . . . Possibly it’s in the genes. But you’ll see for yourself. In ten years your tall and natural wife will be . . . still tall and natural, but bald and toothless. The thallium in the atmosphere affects them. Why do you need an old hag? You’re better off forgetting her.”
Gavein didn’t reply. He was not about to get into an argument with the official.
“Where is this lecture?”
“That’s after orientation. You’ll be given a schedule.”
And when you move to Ayrrah in a few years, Gavein thought bitterly, you’ll have to listen to this same crap.
“Over there is the airline representative. He’ll take care of you.” The official pointed.
Gavein got up from his chair. He put the folded brochure in his pocket. He didn’t intend to read it.
His place was taken by the next passenger, who had been standing, per regulations, at a distance of six meters from the window.
4
Again, the redhead official. As if she was sticking to him. Gavein followed her down corridors that went on and on.
The long flight, and perhaps also the fact that the air here was cleaner than in Lavath, made him feel slightly dazed.
Finally they reached the communal bedroom: iron beds, their frames scratched but not rusting. These were not bad accommodations; it could have been just pallets on the floor. Into a tag holder on a bed, the official put an airline tag that read Dave Throzz.
“Forgive the quality of the bedding, poor for us. In Davabel we have good mattresses, both foam rubber and inflated. What you see here is designed to help new arrivals make the transition. The beds come from a military hospital, that’s why they’re all white and identical. You’ll stay here a night or two. In the meantime the Immigration Department will find something for you. Blacks get the best jobs.” Her lip curled a little.
She shouldn’t betray her feelings, he thought. Social segregation, after all, is inevitable.
When she left, Gavein shoved his bag under the bed, took off only his boots and coat, and fell as he was on the dirty sheets. He had been told that people coming to Davabel had no resistance to local diseases; he feared infection.
The lights came on a few more times—more passengers from the plane, all of them retireds, not one middle.
It was hard falling asleep in a hall with a hundred and twenty men. The air was stuffy, but you couldn’t open a window because of the wind. The snoring didn’t let up—this one, that one—and the man to the right chomped in his sleep. When he finally closed his mouth and started grinding his teeth instead, it got quieter. Unfortunately, someone else started making muffled groans, as if smothered by a pillow. A nightmare, no doubt.
Gavein mentally calculated the time of Ra Mahleiné’s trip. She should have arrived. The thirty-two extra minutes made no important difference.
He slept poorly, kept waking up at first, and the dreamless sleep he finally fell into brought no relief.
Someone was shaking him by the shoulder. He thought at first that it was early dawn, but it was day, only overcast, dismal. He opened his heavy eyes: the redhead.
“You’re not diabetic?” she asked.
Aeriella . . . He didn’t like her any better today. Though she had the same Name as Ra Mahleiné.
“No,” he snapped.
“We were afraid you’d gone into a coma. It’s four in the afternoon. There’s a talk in just a little while for blacks.”
“You work two shifts?” he asked. His head was clearing.
“Today I’m on duty in the afternoon. I was assigned to you.”
You assigned yourself to me, red bitch, he thought.
He was wrong: she left him immediately. He joined a group of a few dozen people waiting in a small conference room. A few more travelers were brought in: all black middles. Finally the speaker appeared: it was the official from Hierarchy and Classification whom Gavein met yesterday.
“Many of you were surprised,” he began, “by the careful attention to social segregation that you encountered here upon your arrival.” He spoke from memory, though he had an index card with notes on the table before him. “Everything is written down in the flier that was given to you, but I’ll wager a month’s salary that none of you has taken a look at it.” He smiled benevolently and looked around the room.
The reply was silence.
“Exactly.” The official removed his cap and placed it on the table, badge facing the room. “Here in Davabel we have discovered the law of the sequence of incarnations and can say with complete confidence that a white born among us is in the first incarnation, the lowest form of person. A white middle coming to Davabel represents a second incarnation, and so on.”
This idea of four incarnations can’t be the only way of describing the human condition, Gavein thought, recalling a lecture given in Lavath. And here they’ve gone and made an inalterable law of sequence.
“As one changes Land, his passport category rises, until in a subsequent Land that category is wiped to zero—until, in other words, his imperfection is revealed. But if he moves on, his category begins to grow,” explained the official. At the same time he drew four bar graphs on the board, with rising columns. The highest column of each graph was at a different place on the x-axis. “This makes it clear. Even a moron can see that the more times one is incarnated, the longer the revelation of his imperfection will be postponed. Any questions?”
Again no one said anything.
There was truth in it: if each subsequent incarnation elevated a person, then the wiping of his category to zero must occur later and later in life, and therefore, when it occurred, it would befall fewer people.
“You see,” said the official triumphantly. He went on to discuss the principle in more detail, from which it turned out that not only was Gavein black and Ra Mahleiné white but, in addition, he was in his third incarnation and she only in her second, a further disqualification of her as a wife for him.
I wonder who here is in the same boat, Gavein thought, looking around the room. Everyone in the audience seemed bored. No one was sitting forward. The ones who had married prematurely were no doubt pleased by this opportunity to dump their wives.
After the talk there was no time for questions. The necessary formalities of annulment were taken care of for the men who wanted. Those who remained had to listen to a recorded speech that—as far as Gavein could tell—said nothing new about the four incarnations.
5
Then he was conducted to a minibus parked in front of the terminal. They waited for a few other travelers and left.
Immediately beyond the airport they entered the metropolitan area of Davabel, kilometer after kilometer of buildings.
Small wooden houses, single level or double level, with tiny gardens stuck on. Impermanent, uninteresting. Now and then larger complexes went by, several stories that housed government offices, a hospital, a bank, a department store.
Whereas Lavath was covered with concrete high-rises that went on and on. They soared like rock cliffs, the canyons among them barely a few hundred meters in width. At the bottom of the canyons were narrow asphalt streets and a chessboard of well-trod footpaths across extensive lawns. The severe climate made the huddling of buildings necessary: heat conservation. In comparison, the buildings of Davabel seemed pitiful, lacking the proper mass.
; He remarked this to the driver.
“We have a simple system, topologically,” the driver replied. “The streets go from north to south, the avenues from west to east.”
“It’s the same with us,” Gavein said. He still felt himself a citizen of Lavath. “Except that ours are a bit farther apart. And if a street goes from northwest to southeast, it’s called a promenade; from northeast to southwest, it’s called a concourse. They’re numbered consecutively. A clear and logical system.”
“Sure,” muttered the driver. “We have concourses and promenades too.”
“You’re in Davabel now, Dave,” said the official sitting beside the driver. “‘We’ means Davabel now for you, not Lavath.” After a moment he added, “In Ayrrah, I understand, it’s the same. I’ll be going there soon.” He looked old: gray temples, bags under his eyes. A three on his passport, but with the prospect of shortly emigrating to Ayrrah as an object of contempt.
If I reach his age, I’ll look the same, Gavein thought. “I imagine that in Llanaig,” he said aloud, “the streets are arranged similarly. Changing them would be an unnecessary complication.”
As it grew dark, lights came on in the windows. The city was covered with a layer of new snow. The yellow windows and the deepening blue of the snow made the homes seem warm and cozy. At the intersections were signs, all the same size, with rows of white numbers on black, and Street or Avenue. The driver didn’t read the signs but counted the number of intersections. When he miscounted, the official laughed at him.
I should like these houses, Gavein thought. After all, Davabel was built by people from Lavath, people who grew up in giant residential bunkers. Houses are houses, but these—he shrugged—look cheap.
The driver turned at the correct street. Gavein read: Avenue 5665. After ten minutes the bus parked at a corner house with the number 5665-5454-A.
“You got an apartment in the center of town. Only 454 streets and 666 avenues from the center,” quipped the driver.
“No one walks,” said the official. “We’ll give you a line of credit for a car. You must have one. It’s a part of life here.”
They got out. The sidewalk ice was covered by a dusting of snow.
A person could break his ass, Gavein thought, keeping his balance with difficulty. In Lavath, we would use sand or salt.
6
A hefty woman in a cretonne housecoat opened the door for them. Her hair was kerchiefed (polka dots); it was wet, had just been washed. In the kitchen her son was busy; he was almost grown, his red hair stiffened into a Mohawk. In front of a mirror, he adjusted his black leather jacket, which had skulls on it. From upstairs came the cry of a baby.
“Mrs. Eisler?” asked the official.
The woman stepped back, pulling the housecoat around her bosom.
“Yes . . . yes, come in. We’ve been waiting since noon,” she clucked. She put on a tight nylon windbreaker, her son’s. The stairs were outside, behind the building, made of wood.
The apartment was modest: two rooms, a kitchen, a bathroom. The small windows would let in little light. The floor was covered with a shag rug. No furniture, only an inflatable mattress, rolled up.
“In the newspaper ads, this is one of the cheapest places. The location is not bad, and you have a lot of room,” said the official. “What are you asking per month?” he asked the woman.
“Three hundred eighteen packets. And if my cooking is acceptable to you, Dave, it’s another sixty-four packets for dinners.” They had told her the name of her future boarder.
Gavein already heard these rates, at the airport. They were waiting now for his decision.
“And what other terms are there?”
“Yes, as everywhere,” she said quickly. “For the first and last month you pay in advance, a deposit. Then at the beginning of each month. Gas, electricity, and heat are included.”
“All right.” He took out a roll of bills.
“You’re carrying that much cash?” The official whistled. “To the bank with it! Why tempt fate?”
The woman looked sidelong at the money and nodded. It was hot in the room, stuffy. Gavein took off his jacket. Under it he had another one, gray, a military-style tunic.
“There’s nothing to sit on,” he said, surprised.
“People sit on the rug,” said the official. “The place settings at the table are disposable plastic.”
“My husband and I couldn’t get used to it either,” said the woman, “so we bought a lot of furniture. Chairs for the dining room . . . and in general.”
“But this room is empty.”
“Yes, I think we should have a longer orientation period for new arrivals,” said the official. “But staying at the airport is expensive. It would put you more in the hole. The halfway hotels aren’t cheap either. You can always buy yourself some furniture. But it costs more than in Lavath, much more.”
The woman said, “What you need is a car, a telephone, a TV . . . Spend less on clothing, as little as possible on furniture. No one here dresses up.” She was trying to brief him.
“In Lavath the clothing is no fancier than here, but what people wear is more appropriate,” said Gavein, immediately aware that the remark wasn’t tactful.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. Appropriate to the occasion.”
The woman smoothed the jacket she wore.
“This apartment is fine,” he said, breaking the silence. Actually, he thought it was cramped and depressing, but he couldn’t afford anything better. The walls were dirty, but at least the white paint underneath brightened the place. The paint on the window frames was flaking in several places.
“We have another room like this on the first floor, and another in the basement,” she said.
“This will do.”
“Call me Edda. Dinner is in an hour. You’ll meet my husband and the other boarders. We all eat together.”
7
In light sport shoes, he fell on the sheet of ice that covered the porch and almost broke a tooth. He got up and knocked on the door. A formality, it wasn’t locked, and they could see him through the window. The others were waiting for him at the table; apparently he was the main attraction that evening.
Leo Eisler, R, was smaller and trimmer than Edda, but his hair was as red. When he lowered his head over his plate, his bald spot gleamed under the lightbulb, showing freckles.
Haifan Tonescu, B, and his wife, Gwenda, also B, were both sure of themselves and loud; they were obviously the important people here. They had the best apartment, on the first floor, with air-conditioning and their own little garden. Between them sat their two repulsive boys—both, ironically, flaming red. With the regularity of a clock, the older boy jabbed the younger with a finger, then made a face at him. When the parents were looking the other way, the younger, in revenge, would take some cottage cheese with his dirty hand and wipe it on the pants of the older. Then began the pinching and screaming.
There was also Hilgret, G, undistinguished, as gray as a mouse and as quiet. She rented one room.
A family of whites ate in the kitchen. In return for their food, they helped Edda with the household chores. They lived in the basement, under Haifan and Gwenda. Gavein saw them when he took his plate to the kitchen. The parents had hair that was practically gray, so they could have been assigned a higher social category. The arbitrary decision of some official had determined their fate for the next thirty-five years.
Both daughters, however, were fair-haired, with white eyelashes and pink complexions.
In Lavath this house would have belonged to them, he thought, looking at the woman, who was prematurely aged, stooped over, and at her toothless husband and emaciated girls.
Seeing him, they stood and presented themselves.
“Their future will be good,” he said quietly to the parents, indicating t
he daughters with a jut of his chin. Blacks didn’t converse with whites. That he spoke to them was a great courtesy.
“May they live to see it,” said the man. “It’s not that bad here. The family is kind to us,” he added quickly.
At the table, Edda was giving an account of the latest news:
“Even here, a lamp shook, the glasses rattled . . .”
“You exaggerate,” said her dour husband. “The lamps shake whenever a truck passes outside. And the glasses always rattle when the refrigerator motor goes on. The vibration travels along the kitchen counter.”
“We noticed nothing. It happened too far away for the concussion to reach us. No, impossible,” said Haifan, settling the debate. He was a physics teacher and black, so unquestionably a more reliable observer than the excitable, red Edda.
They were talking about an earthquake reported in the papers. The epicenter was in the southeast region of Davabel, beneath the shoreline or perhaps the ocean bed. Davabel sat on a continental plate, and even in the historical record no quake like this had ever been recorded. Seismic activity was possible only out in the ocean, but no one had conducted a study there.
Near the epicenter was the Division of Science, Davabel’s research facility. Some joked that the earth was sinking there and that soon the level of the facility’s buildings would equal the level of the work being carried out in them.
The mystery of the quake remained a mystery, and the conversation turned to other topics. Edda told of a fatal accident that befell a baker.
“He was on a bicycle, and a truck hit him.”
In Davabel, bicycles rode on the sidewalks. The baker had tried to cross the street at a pedestrian walkway.
“No one knows if the light was green or not, or whose fault it was.”
“And what was his name?” asked Leo.
“Bryce.”
“No, I mean his Name.”
“Plosib. He told me once,” Gwenda spoke up. “You could check in the papers.”
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