I shouted, “Let me! Let me through! I must…”
But someone’s fingers dug into my arms, my shoulders, like a vise, nailing me down. In the silence, the voice: “Run upstairs! They’ll cure you, they’ll stuff you full of rich, fat happiness, and, sated, you will doze off peacefully, snoring in perfect unison— don’t you hear that mighty symphony of snores? Ridiculous people! They want to free you of every squirming, torturing, nagging question mark. And you are standing here and listening to me. Hurry upstairs, to the Great Operation! What is it to you if I stay here—alone? What is it to you if I don’t want others to want for me, if I want to want myself—if I want the impossible…”
Another voice—slow, heavy: “Ah! The impossible? That means running after your stupid fantasies, which wag their tails before your nose? No, we’ll grab them by the tail, and crush them, and then…”
“And then gobble them up and snore—and there will have to be a new tail before your nose. They say the ancients had an animal they called an ass. To force it to go forward, ever forward, they would tie a carrot to the harness shaft before him, just where he could not reach it. And if he reached it and gobbled it down…”
Suddenly the vise released me. I rushed to the middle, where she was speaking. But at that moment everybody surged, crushed together—there was a shout behind: “They’re coming, they’re coming here!” The light flared, went out—someone had cut the wire. An avalanche of bodies, screams, groans, heads, fingers…
I don’t know how long we rolled so through the underground tube. At last, stairs, a dim light, growing lighter—and once more out in the street, fanlike, in all directions.
And now—alone. Wind, gray twilight—low, just overhead. On the wet glass of the pavement—deep, deep—the upside-down lights, walls, figures moving feet up. And the incredibly heavy roll in my hand-pulling me into the depths, to the very bottom.
Downstairs, at the table,—there was still no U, and her room was empty, dark.
I went up to my room, switched on the light. My temples throbbed in the tight circle of the hoop, I was still locked within the same circle: the table, on the table the white roll; bed, door, table, white roll… In the room on the left the shades were down. On the right, over a book—a knobby bald head, the forehead a huge yellow parabola. The wrinkles on the forehead—a row of yellow, illegible lines. Sometimes our eyes would meet, and then I felt: they were about me, those yellow lines.
It happened exactly at 21. U came to me herself. Only one thing remains clear in my memory: I breathed so loudly that I heard my own breathing, and tried and tried to lower it—and could not.
She sat down, smoothed her unif on her knees. The pink-brown gills fluttered.
“Ah, my dear—so it is true that you were hurt? As soon as I learned—I immediately…”
The rod was before me on the table. I sprang up, breathing still more loudly. She heard it, halted in mid-sentence, and also, for some reason, stood up. I saw already that place on her head… A sickening sweetness in my mouth… My handkerchief—but it wasn’t there; I spat on the floor.
The one behind the right wall—with yellow, intent wrinkles—about me. He must not see, it will be still more disgusting if he sees… I pressed the button—what difference if I had no right to, it was all the same now—the shades fell.
She evidently understood, dashed to the door. But I anticipated her—and, breathing loudly, my eyes fixed every moment on that spot on her head…
“You… you’ve gone mad! Don’t dare…” She backed away—sat down, or, rather, fell on the bed, thrust her folded hands between her knees, trembling. Tense as a spring, still holding her firmly with my eyes, I slowly stretched my hand to the table—only my hand moved—and seized the rod.
“I beg you! One day—only one day! Tomorrow-tomorrow I’ll go and do everything…”
What was she talking about? I swung at her…
And I consider that I killed her. Yes, you, my unknown readers, you have the right to call me a murderer. I know I would have brought the rod down on her head if suddenly she had not cried, “Please… for the sake… I agree—I… in a moment”
With shaking hands she pulled off her unif. The large, yellow, flabby body fell back on the bed… And only now I understood: she thought I had lowered the shades… that I wanted…
This was so unexpected, so absurd, that I burst out laughing. At once the tigthly wound spring within me cracked, my hand hung limp, the rod clanked on the floor. And I learned from my own experience that laughter was the most potent weapon: laughter can kill everything—even murder.
I sat at the table and laughed—a desperate, final laugh—and could see no way out of this preposterous situation. I don’t know how it all would have ended if it had proceeded in a normal way—but suddenly a new, external component was added: the telephone rang.
I rushed, grasped the receiver. Perhaps it was she? But an unfamiliar voice said, “Just a moment”
A tormenting, endless hum. From a distance, a heavy tread, coming nearer, more resonant, more leaden. Then “D-503? Uh-uh… This is the Benefactor speaking. Report to me at once!”
Clink—the receiver was down—clink.
U still lay on the bed, eyes closed, gills spread wide in a smile. I gathered up her dress from the floor, flung it at her, and, through my teeth, “Here! Quick, quick!”
She raised herself on her elbow, her breasts swished sideways, eyes round, all of her waxen.
“What?”
“Just that. Well, hurry—get dressed!”
All doubled up into a knot, clutching her dress, her voice strangled. “Turn away…”
I turned, leaned my forehead against the glass. Lights, figures, sparks trembled in the black wet mirror. No, it is I, the trembling is within me… Why did He call me? Does He already know everything about her, about me, about everything?
U, dressed, was at the door. Two steps to her, and I squeezed her hands as though expecting to squeeze out everything I needed from those hands.
“Listen… Her name-you know whom I mean-did you name her? No? But only the truth—I must know… I don’t care—only the truth…”
“No.”
“No? But why—since you had gone there and reported…”
Her lower lip was suddenly turned out, like that boy’s—and from the cheeks, down the cheeks-drops…
“Because I… I was afraid that… if I named her… you might… you would stop lov-… Oh, I can’t—I couldn’t have…”
I knew it was the truth. An absurd, ridiculous, human truth! I opened the door.
Thirty-sixth Entry
TOPICS:
Blank Pages
The Christian God
About My Mother
It’s strange—there seems to be a blank white page inside my head. I don’t remember how I walked there, how I waited (I know I waited)—nothing, not a single sound, or face, or gesture. As if all the lines connecting me with the world were cut.
I recalled myself only when I stood before Him, and was terrified to raise my eyes: I saw only His huge, cast-iron hands upon His knees. These hands seemed to weigh down even Him, bending His knees. Slowly He moved His fingers. The face was somewhere high up, in a haze, and it seemed that His voice did not thunder, did not deafen me, was like an ordinary human voice only because it came to me from such a height.
“And so—you too? You, the Builder of the Integral? You, who were to have become the greatest of conquistadors? You, whose name was to initiate a new, magnificent chapter in the history of the One State___You?”
The blood rushed to my head, my cheeks. Again a blank page—nothing but the pulse in my temples, and the resonant voice above, but not a single word. It was only when He ceased to speak that I recovered. I saw: the hand moved with the weight of a hundred tons—crept slowly—and a finger pointed at me.
“Well? Why are you silent? Is this so, or is it not? An executioner?”
“It is so,” I answered obediently. And th
en I clearly heard every word He spoke: “Oh, well! You think I am afraid of this word? Have you ever tried to pull off its shell and see what is inside? I will show you.
Remember: a blue hill, a cross, a crowd. Some—above, splashed with blood, are nailing a body to a cross; others—below, splashed with tears—are looking on. Does it not seem to you that the role of those above is the most difficult, the most important? If not for them, would this entire majestic tragedy have taken place? They were reviled by the ignorant crowd: but for that the author of the tragedy—God—should have rewarded them all the more generously. And what about the most merciful Christian God, slowly roasting in the fires of hell all who would not submit? Was He not an executioner? And was the number of those burned by the Christians on bonfires less than the number of burned Christians? Yet—you understand—this God was glorified for ages as the God of love. Absurd? No, on the contrary: it is testimony to the ineradicable wisdom of man, inscribed in blood. Even at that time-wild, shaggy—he understood: true, algebraic love of humanity is inevitably inhuman; and the inevitable mark of truth is—its cruelty. Just as the inevitable mark of fire is that it burns. Show me fire that does not burn.
Well—argue with me, prove the contrary!”
How could I argue? How could I argue, when these were (formerly) my own ideas—except that I had never been able to clothe them in such brilliant, impenetrable armor? I was silent…
“If this means that you agree with me, then let us talk like adults, after the children have gone to bed: let us say it all, to the very end. I ask you: what did people—from their very infancy—pray for, dream about, long for? They longed for some one to tell them, once and for all, the meaning of happiness, and then to bind them to it with a chain. What are we doing now, if not this very thing? The ancient dream of paradise… Remember: those in paradise no longer know desires, no longer know pity or love. There are only the blessed, with their imaginations excised (this is the only reason why they are blessed)—angels, obedient slaves of God… And now, at the very moment when we have already caught up with the dream, when we have seized it so (He clenched His hand: if it had held a stone, it would have squeezed juice out of it), when all that needed to be done was to skin the quarry and divide it into shares—at this very moment you—you…”
The cast-iron echoing voice suddenly broke off. I was red as a bar of iron on the anvil under the striking hammer. The hammer hung silently, and waiting for it was even more terrify…
Then, suddenly: “How old are you?”
“Thirty-two.”
“And your naivete is of someone half that age—someone of sixteen! Has it really never entered your head that they—we still don’t know their names, but I am certain we shall learn them from you—that they needed you only as the Builder of the Integral? Only in order to use you as…”
“Don’t! Don’t!” I cried.
It was like holding up your hands and shouting it to a bullet: you still hear your ridiculous.
“Don’t,” and the bullet has already gone through you, you are already writhing on the floor.
Yes, yes—the Builder of the Integral… Yes, yes… and all at once—the memory of U’s raging face with quivering brick-red gills—that morning, when they both were in my room…
I clearly remember: I laughed, and raised my eyes. Before me sat a bald, Socratically bald, man, with tiny drops of sweat on his bald head.
How simple everything was. How majestically banal and ridiculously simple.
Laughter choked me, broke out in puffs. I covered my mouth with my hand and rushed out.
Stairs, wind, wet, jumping fragments of lights, faces—and, as I ran: No! To see her! Only once more—to see her!
And here again there is a blank white page. I can remember one thing only—feet. Not people-feet.
Hundreds of feet falling from somewhere down on the pavement, stamping without rhythm, a heavy rain of feet. And a gay, mischievous song, and a shout—probably to me—“Hey, Hey! Come here, to us!”
Then—a deserted square, filled to the brim with dense wind. In the middle, a dim, heavy, dreadful mass—the Benefactor’s Machine. And—such a strange, seemingly incongruous echo within me: a dazzling white pillow; on the pillow, a head, thrown back, with eyes half-closed; the sharp, sweet line of teeth… And all of this absurdly, terrifyingly connected with the Machine—I know how, but I still refuse to see, to name it aloud—I do not want to—no.
I shut my eyes and sat down on the stairs leading up to the Machine. It must have been raining. My face was wet. Somewhere in the distance, muffled cries. But no one hears me, no one hears me cry: Save me from this—save me!
If I had a mother, like the ancients: mine—yes, precisely—my mother. To whom I would be—not the Builder of the Integral, and not number D-503, and not a molecule of the One State, but a simple human being—a piece of herself, trampled, crushed, discarded… And let me nail, or let me be nailed—perhaps it’s all the same—but so that she would hear what no one else heard, so that her old woman’s mouth, drawn together, wrinkled…
Thirty-seventh Entry
TOPICS:
An Infusorian
End of the World
Her Room
In the dining room in the morning, my neighbor on the left said to me in a frightened whisper, “Why don’t you eat! They’re looking at you!”
With an enormous effort, I forced myself to smile. And felt it like a crack in my face: I smiled— the edges of the crack spread wider, hurting me more and more…
Then, just as I picked up a tiny cube of food with my fork, the fork shook in my hand and clicked against the plate. And at that moment the tables, the walls, the dishes, the air itself—all shook and rang and clattered, and outside—an immense, round, iron roar, up to the sky—over heads, over buildings, slowly dying out far away in faint, small circles, like circles on the surface of water.
I saw faces instantly blanched, faded, mouths stopped in mid-motion, forks frozen in the air.
Then everything was thrown into confusion, slipped off the age-old tracks. Everybody jumped up (without singing the Hymn) —chewing without rhythm, swallowing hastily, choking, grasping at each other. “What is it? What happened? What?” And, like disorderly fragments of a once harmonious, great Machine, they poured down, to the elevators, the stairs: steps, thumping, parts of words-like pieces of a torn letter swept by the wind…
People were also pouring out of the other buildings, and in a minute the avenue was like a drop of water under a microscope: infusoria locked within the glasslike, transparent drop, rushing in wild confusion up, down, sideways.
“Ah-ah!” Someone’s triumphant cry. Before me, the back of his neck, and a finger aimed at the sky—I remember with utmost clarity the yellowish-pink nail and at its base a white crescent, like the moon rising over the rim of the horizon. And, as if following a compass needle, hundreds of eyes turned up to the sky.
There, escaping from some invisible pursuit, clouds were flying, crushing, leaping over one another—and, shadowed by the clouds, dark aeros of the Guardians with black, suspended elephant trunks of observation tubes—and, still farther—in the west, something resembling…
In the beginning, no one understood it. Even I, to whom (unfortunately) more had been revealed than to the rest, did not understand. It looked like an enormous swarm of black aeros: barely visible quick dots at an incredible height. Nearer and nearer; hoarse, guttural sounds from above—and finally, over our heads—birds. Their sharp, black, piercing, falling triangles filled the sky. The storm flung them down, they settled on cupolas, on roofs, on poles, on balconies.
“Ah-ah.” The triumphant neck turned, and I saw that one, of the overhanging brow. But now the only thing remaining of his old self was the description; he had somehow emerged from under his eternal brow, and his face was overgrown with bright clusters of rays, like hair—around the eyes, at the lips: he was smiling.
“Do you realize it?” he cried to me through the
whistling of the wind, the wings, the cawing. “Do you realize?—the Wall, the Wall was blown up! You understand?”
Past us, somewhere in the background, flashing figures—heads stretched forward—running quickly inside, into the houses. In the middle of the street— a rapid, yet seemingly slow (because of their weight) avalanche of operated ones, marching westward.
Hairy clusters of rays at the lips, the eyes. I seized him by the hand. “Listen, where is she, where is I-330? Is she there, behind the Wall? Or… I must—you hear? At once, I cannot…”
“Here,” he cried gaily, drunkenly—strong, yellow teeth… “She’s here, in the city, in action. Oh-ho— we are acting!”
Who are we? Who am I?
Near him there were some fifty like him—out from under their dark brows, loud, gay, with strong teeth. Gulping the storm with open mouths, swinging seemingly innocuous electrocutors (where did they get them?), they also moved westward, behind the operated ones, but flanking them—by the parallel Avenue Forty-eight…
I tripped against tight, wind-woven cables and ran to her. What for? I don’t know. I stumbled. Empty streets, an alien, wild city, an incessant, triumphant chorus of bird cries, the end of the world. Through the glass walls of some houses I saw (it etched itself in memory) male and female numbers copulating shamelessly—without even dropping the shades, without coupons, at midday…
A house—hers. A door gaping wide in confusion. Below, at the control table—no one. The elevator was stuck somewhere in the shaft. Panting, I ran up the endless stairs. A corridor. Quick—like wheel-spokes—figures on the doors: 320, 326, 330… I-330, here!
Already through the glass door I saw everything in the room—scattered, confused, crumpled. A chair turned over in haste, its four legs in the air, like a dead animal. The bed—pushed somehow absurdly sideways from the wall. On the floor—like trampled, fallen petals—a spray of pink coupons.
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