The Snail on the Slope

by Arkady Strugatsky

  “So I’m no womanizer,” he concluded. “I’m just a hot-blooded man, not some limp dick.” He finished his vodka, took away the folders, and left without saying good-bye, whistling and creaking the wooden floor, hunching strangely, suddenly resembling either a spider or a prehistoric man.

  Peretz was helplessly watching him go when Alevtina said, “Give me your hand, Perry.” She sat down on the top step, put her hands on his shoulders, and jumped down with a soft yelp. He caught her under her arms and lowered her onto the floor, and they stood this way for some time, close together and face to face. She kept her hands on his shoulders, and he held her under the arms.

  “I got kicked out of the hotel,” he said.

  “I know,” she said. “Come with me, if you’d like?”

  She was kind and warm, and she was looking calmly but not particularly confidently into his eyes. Looking at her, it was easy to imagine lots of kind, warm, and blissful images, and Peretz greedily flipped through them and tried to imagine himself next to her, but he suddenly realized that he couldn’t do it; instead of himself he saw Randy—handsome, insolent, precise in his movements, and smelling of feet.

  “Thank you, but there’s no need,” he said, and pulled his hands away. “I’ll manage.”

  She immediately turned around and started to gather the remaining food onto a sheet of newspaper. “Why should you manage?” she said. “I can make you a bed on the couch. You can get some sleep, and in the morning we’ll find you a place to stay. You can’t spend every night in the library.”

  “Thank you,” said Peretz. “But I’m leaving tomorrow.”

  She looked at him in astonishment. “Leaving? For the forest?”

  “No, I’m going home.”

  “Home . . .” She was slowly wrapping the food in the newspaper. “But you’ve always wanted to get into the forest, I’ve heard you say it myself.”

  “You see, I did want to . . . But they won’t let me in. I don’t even know why. And there’s nothing left for me to do in the Administration. So I arranged something . . . Randy will drive me tomorrow. It’s already past three. I’ll go to the garage, climb into Randy’s truck, and wait there until morning. So you don’t need to worry about me.”

  “That means we should say good-bye . . . Or maybe do come with me?”

  “Thank you, but I’d rather sleep in the truck . . . I’m afraid to oversleep. Randy won’t wait, you see.”

  They went out onto the street and walked to the garage arm in arm. “So you didn’t like Randy’s stories?”

  “No,” said Peretz. “I didn’t like them at all. I don’t like stories about that. What’s the point? It’s embarrassing, that’s all . . . I was embarrassed for him, and embarrassed for you, and embarrassed for myself. I was embarrassed for everyone. It’s all so meaningless. Like they only do it out of intense boredom.”

  “Most of the time, intense boredom really is why they do it,” said Alevtina. “And don’t be embarrassed for me, I don’t care about that. It doesn’t matter to me in the least. All right, here’s where we part ways. Kiss me good-bye.”

  Peretz kissed her, feeling some vague regret.

  “Thank you,” she said, turned around, and quickly walked in the opposite direction. For some reason, Peretz waved at her retreating back.

  Then he walked into the garage, which was illuminated by blue lights, stepped over the guard, who was snoring peacefully on a seat that he had dragged out of some vehicle, found Randy’s truck, and climbed into the cab. Here it smelled of rubber, gasoline, and dust. A Mickey Mouse, his arms and legs outstretched, swayed in front of the windshield. This is nice, thought Peretz. It’s cozy. I should have come here from the beginning. The guard was snoring loudly. The cars were sleeping, the guard was sleeping, and the whole Administration was sleeping. And Alevtina was getting undressed in front of the mirror in her room, next to her unmade bed—her large, king-sized, soft, hot bed . . . No, let’s not think about that. Because during the day, we’re distracted by the idle chatter, by the rattle of the arithmometer, by the meaningless chaos of working life, whereas now there’s no eradication, no engineering-based penetration, no scientific guard, and no other sinister nonsense, there’s only a sleepy world on a cliff, ghostlike in the way of all sleepy worlds, invisible and inaudible, and no more real than the forest. Actually, right now the forest is more real—after all, the forest never sleeps. Or maybe it’s sleeping and seeing us all in its dreams. We’re the forest’s dream. An atavistic dream. The coarse ghosts of its diminished sexuality . . .

  Peretz lay down, contorting himself, and put his crumpled-up coat under his head. Mickey Mouse swayed gently on the string. Whenever girls saw this toy, they would squeal “What a cutie!” and truck driver Randy would answer, “It ain’t no false advertising.” The gearshift pressed into Peretz’s side, and Peretz didn’t know how to move it. Or whether it was a good idea to move it. Maybe if he moved it, the truck would go forward. At first slowly, then faster and faster, heading straight for the sleeping guard, and Peretz would flail around the cab and press anything within reach of his hands or his feet, and the guard would get closer and closer—you would already be able to see his open, snoring mouth. Then the truck would jump, make a sharp turn, crash into the garage wall, and blue sky would appear in the breach—

  Peretz woke up and saw that it was already morning. Mechanics were smoking in the open doors of the garage, and he could see the ground in front of the building, which was yellow in the sun. It was seven o’clock. Peretz sat up, rubbed his face, and looked at himself in the rearview mirror. I could use a shave, he thought, but he didn’t get out of the car. Randy wasn’t here yet, and he had to wait for him right there, in the truck, because drivers were all forgetful and they would always leave without him. There were two rules for dealing with drivers: first of all, never get out of the vehicle when you can bear to stay inside and wait, and second, never argue with a driver who’s giving you a ride. If worse comes to worst, pretend to be asleep.

  The mechanics standing in the doorway threw their cigarette butts on the ground, smeared them meticulously into the pavement with the toes of their boots, and came into the garage. Peretz didn’t know the first mechanic, and it turned out that the second one wasn’t a mechanic at all but the garage foreman. They walked right by Peretz, and the foreman actually paused by the cab, put a hand on the fender, and for some mysterious reason looked under the truck. Then Peretz heard him order the other one around: “Hey, you, get a move on, get me the jack.” “Where is it?” asked the unfamiliar mechanic. “#$@%!” the foreman calmly replied. “Look under the seat.” “How the hell should I know?” the mechanic asked, irritated. “I did warn you that I’m a waiter . . .” For a while it was quiet, then the driver’s side door of the cab opened, revealing the glum, disappointed face of the mechanic-waiter. He glanced at Peretz, looked around the cab, tugged on the steering wheel for some reason, then stuck both hands under the seat and began to clank around.

  “Is this thing the jack?” he asked softly.

  “N-No,” Peretz said. “I think that’s an adjustable wrench.”

  The mechanic brought the adjustable wrench close to his face, examined it, pursing his lips, put it on the running board, and reached underneath the seat again.

  “Is this it?” he asked.

  “No,” Peretz said. “I’m absolutely certain of that. This is an arithmometer. A jack doesn’t look like this.”

  The mechanic-waiter, his low forehead wrinkled, was examining the arithmometer. “What does a jack look like?”

  “Uhhh . . . It’s a sort of metal rod . . . There’s more than one kind. They have these cranks . . .”

  “This thing has a crank. Like on a cash register.”

  “No, it’s a completely different kind of crank.”

  “And what happens if I turn this crank?”

  Peretz was now completely stumped. The mechanic waited a bit, sighed, put the arithmometer on the running board, and looked u
nder the seat again.

  “Could this be it?” he asked.

  “It’s possible. Looks a lot like it. Except there should be another metal stick. A thick one.”

  The mechanic found this stick, too. He rocked it in the palm of his hand, said, “All right, that’ll do for a start,” and left, leaving the door open. Peretz lit a cigarette. Curses and sounds of clanking metal came from somewhere behind him. Then the truck began to shake and groan.

  There was still no sign of Randy, but Peretz wasn’t worried. He was imagining how they’d drive down the main street of the Administration, no one paying any attention to them. Then they’d turn down a dirt road, raising clouds of yellow dust, and the sun would keep rising higher and higher on their right, and the cab would soon get hot, and they would turn off the dirt road onto the highway, which would be long, flat, smooth, and boring, and mirages resembling large pools of water would shimmer on the horizon . . .

  The mechanic walked past the cab again, rolling a truck’s heavy rear wheel in front of him. The wheel had gathered speed as it rolled on the concrete floor, and you could tell that the mechanic was trying to stop it and lean it against the wall, but the wheel only changed course slightly and rolled heavily outside, the mechanic running clumsily after it, falling farther and farther behind. They both disappeared from view, then the mechanic screamed loudly and desperately outside. Peretz heard the pounding of many feet, then a number of people rushed past the door, shouting, “Grab hold! Get on its right side!”

  Peretz noticed that the vehicle wasn’t as level as before, and stuck his head out of the cab. The garage foreman was doing something by the rear wheel.

  “Morning,” said Peretz. “What are you—”

  “Peretz, my friend!” the foreman shouted joyfully, continuing to work. “You just sit, you sit, no need to get out! You aren’t in our way. Damn thing is stuck . . . One came off without a hitch, but this one’s stuck.”

  “What do you mean, it’s stuck? Did something break?”

  “Doubt it,” said the garage foreman, standing up and wiping his forehead with the back of the hand holding the wrench. “Just a bit rusty, I’d guess. I’ll deal with it quick . . . Then the two of us can go play some chess. What do you say?”

  “Chess?” Peretz said. “But where’s Randy?”

  “Randy? You mean Randall? Randall is now a senior lab technician. He was sent to the forest. Randall doesn’t work for us anymore. What do you want him for?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Peretz said quietly. “I just thought . . .” He opened the door and jumped onto the cement floor.

  “You didn’t need to get out, you know,” said the foreman. “Should have stayed where you were—you weren’t in the way.”

  “What’s the point?” Peretz said. “This truck isn’t going anywhere, right?”

  “No, it’s not going anywhere. Can’t go anywhere without wheels, you know, and the wheels need to come off . . . Stuck right on, the piece of shit! Ah, damn you . . . Forget it, the mechanics will do it. Let’s go play a game instead.”

  He took Peretz by the arm and led him to his office. They sat down at his desk; the foreman pushed a pile of papers aside, took out the chessboard, and unplugged the phone.

  “Should we use a clock?” he asked.

  “I don’t even know,” said Peretz.

  The office was dimly lit and cold, bluish tobacco smoke drifted between the cabinets like gelatinous seaweed, and the foreman—warty, bloated, covered in varicolored spots, resembling a giant octopus—opened the lacquered shell of the chessboard with two hairy tentacles and began to fussily extract its wooden innards. His round eyes glistened dully; the glass right eye kept pointing at the ceiling, while the left eye, lively like dusty mercury, rolled freely around its socket, constantly shifting between Peretz, the door, and the chessboard.

  “Let’s use a clock,” the garage foreman finally decided. He took the clock out of the cabinet, wound it up, pressed his button, and made the first move.

  The sun continued to rise. Outside, people were shouting “Get on its right side!” At eight, the foreman was deep in thought over a difficult position, then suddenly demanded breakfast for two. Vehicles kept rumbling out of the garage. The foreman lost a game and proposed another one. They had hearty breakfasts: each drank two bottles of buttermilk and ate a stale strudel. The foreman lost another game, looked at Peretz with devotion and admiration with his real eye, and proposed a third game. He kept opening with the same exact Queen’s Gambit, never deviating by a single move from his once- and forever-chosen losing variation. It was as if he were fulfilling a quota of defeats, and Peretz moved the chess pieces completely automatically, feeling like a piece of training equipment: there was nothing either inside or outside him other than the chessboard, the button on the clock, and the rigidly specified plan of action.

  At five to nine, the internal broadcasting system grunted and announced in a genderless voice, “All Administration workers report to your phones. The Director will be addressing the employees.” The garage foreman became very serious, plugged in his phone, picked up the receiver, and put it to his ear. Both his eyes were now pointing at the ceiling. “Can I go?” asked Peretz. The garage foreman gave a terrible frown, put a finger to his lips, then waved Peretz away. A nasal squawking sounded from the receiver. Peretz tiptoed out.

  The garage was full of people. Their faces were all stern, serious, and even solemn. No one was working; they were all pressing phones to their ears. Only the mechanic-waiter—sweaty, red, disheveled, and gasping for breath—was still chasing the wheel in the brightly lit yard. Something very important was happening. This isn’t right, thought Peretz. This isn’t right, I’m always on the sidelines, I never know anything—maybe that’s the whole problem, maybe everything’s exactly the way it should be, but I don’t know what’s what, and that’s why I’m always left out.

  He jumped into the nearest phone booth, picked up the receiver, and listened greedily, but there was only a busy signal. Then he felt a sudden apprehension, a nagging anxiety that he was again late for something, that someone somewhere was giving things away, and that he’d be left empty handed as always. Leaping over ditches and potholes, he cut across the construction site, recoiled from the guard with a gun in one hand and a phone in the other who tried to block his way, and clambered up a ladder to the top of the unfinished wall. He had just enough time to glance into each window, seeing concentrating, frozen people with phones in every single one, when there was a piercing screech in his ear, and a moment later a revolver went off behind his back. He jumped down onto a pile of garbage and ran to a service entrance. The door was locked. He yanked on the handle a few times and the handle broke off. He tossed it aside and took a moment to figure out what to do. The narrow window next to the door was open, so he climbed through it, getting completely covered in dust and tearing his nails.

  The room he found himself in had two desks. Bootlicherson was sitting at one of the desks, holding a phone receiver. His face was as still as a statue’s, and his eyes were closed. He was pressing the receiver to his ear with his shoulder, and he was rapidly writing something down in his large notebook with a pencil. The second desk was empty, and there was a phone on the desk. Peretz greedily grabbed the receiver and started to listen.

  Rustling. Crackling. An unfamiliar high-pitched voice: “. . . The Administration can realistically only manage an insignificant portion of the territory in the ocean of forest that envelops the continent. There is no meaning of life, nor is there any meaning to our acts. We can do a great many things, but we still haven’t figured out which of these things we actually ought to do. It doesn’t even resist, it simply doesn’t notice. If an act has brought you pleasure, it was good; if it didn’t—it was meaningless.” More rustling and crackling. “We resist with millions of horsepower, with dozens of ATVs, airships, and helicopters, with medical science and with the best theory of logistics in the world. The Administration has revealed itself to have
at least two serious flaws. Currently, deeds of this sort can have far-reaching encrypted messages in the name of Herostratus, so that he remains our most beloved friend. It is completely incapable of creating without undermining authority or showing ingratitude.” Beeps, whistles, something that sounded like a bad cough. “It is very fond of the so-called simple solutions: libraries, internal communications, geographical and other maps. The paths it deems shortest, in order to think about the meaning of life for all people at once, but people don’t like that. Employees sit there, dangling their feet over the abyss, everyone in his or her place, shoving each other, cracking jokes and throwing stones, the heavier the better, while the consumption of buttermilk helps neither cultivate nor eradicate nor even sufficiently conceal the forest. I’m afraid we haven’t even figured out what it is that we want, and nerves do need to be trained, after all, just like we train our ability to perceive, and the intellect does not blush nor does it feel remorse, because the question morphs from a correctly posed, scientific one into a question of morals. It’s deceitful, shifty, fickle, and it’s always pretending. But someone does need to be the irritating one, and instead of telling tales, thoroughly preparing for a trial exit. I will see you again tomorrow and see how well you’ve prepared. At twenty-two hundred hours, there will be a radiological alarm and an earthquake; at eighteen hundred hours, I will call a meeting with the off-duty personnel on, how do you say it, the carpet; at twenty-four hundred hours, there will be a general evacuation.”