We
Annoying, infinite buzzing. Heavy steps from afar, nearer and louder
like cast-iron, and....
"D-503? The Well-Doer speaking. Come at once to me."
Ding! He hung up the receiver. Ding! like a key in a keyhole.
U- was still in bed, eyes closed, gills apart in the form of a
smile. I picked up her clothes, threw them on her and said through
clenched teeth:
"Well. Quick! Quick!"
She raised her body on her elbow, her breasts hanging down to one
side, eyes round. She became a figure of wax.
"What?"
"Get dressed, that is what!"
Face distorted, she firmly snatched her clothes and said in a flat
voice, "Turn away...."
I turned away, pressed my forehead against the glass. Light,
figures, sparks, were trembling in the black, wet mirror.... No,
all this was I, myself,--within me.... What did he call me for?
Is it possible that he knows already about her, about me, about
everything?
U-, already dressed, was at the door. I made a step toward her and
pressed her hand as hard as though I hoped to squeeze out of it drop
by drop what I needed.
"Listen.... Her name, you know whom I am talking of,--did you report
her name? No? Tell the truth, I must.... I care not what happens,
but tell the truth!"
"No."
"No? But why not, since you...."
Her lower lip turned out like the lip of that boy and her face ...
tears were running down her cheeks.
"Because I ... I was afraid that if I did you might ... you would
stop lov-- Oh, I cannot, I could not!"
I understood. It was the truth. Absurd, ridiculous, human truth. I
opened the door.
RECORD THIRTY-SIX
Empty Pages
The Christian God
About My Mother
It is very strange that a kind of empty white page should be left
in my head. How I walked there, how I waited (I remember I had to
wait), I know nothing about it; I remember not a sound, not a face,
not a gesture, as if all communicating wires between me and the
world were cut.
When I came to, I found myself standing before Him; I feared to
raise my eyes,--I saw only His enormous cast-iron hands upon His
knees. Those hands weighed upon Him, bending His knees with their
weight. He was slowly moving His fingers. His face was somewhere
above as if in fog. And, only because His voice came to my ear from
such a height, it did not roar like thunder, it did not deafen me
but appeared to be an ordinary human voice.
"Then you too, you the Builder of the _Integral_! You, whose lot
it was to become the greatest of all _conquistadores_! You whose
name was to have been at the head of a glorious, new chapter of the
history of the United State! You...."
Blood ran to my head, to my cheeks,--and here again a white page;
only the pulsation in my temples and the heavy voice from above;
but I remember not a word. Only when He became silent I came to
and noticed how His hand moved heavily like a thousand pounds, and
crawled slowly,--a finger threatened me.
"Well! Why are you silent? Is it true, or not? Executioner? So!"
"So," I repeated submissively. And then I clearly heard every word
of His.
"Well then? Do you think I am afraid of the word! Did you ever try
to take off its shell and look into its inner meaning? I shall tell
you.... Remember a blue hill, a crowd, a cross? Some up on the hill,
sprinkled with blood, are busy nailing a body to the cross; others
below, sprinkled with tears, are gazing upward. Does it not seem to
you that the part which those above must play is the more difficult,
the most important part? If it were not for them, how could that
magnificent tragedy ever have been staged? True, they were hissed
by the dark crowd but for that the author of the tragedy, God,
should have remunerated them the more liberally, should he not?
And the Christian, most clement God himself, who burnt on a slow
fire all the infidels, is he not an executioner? Was the number
of those burned by the Christians less than the number of burned
Christians? Yet (you must understand this!), yet this God was for
centuries glorified as the God of love! Absurd? Oh, no. Just the
contrary. It is rather a patent for the imperishable wisdom of man,
written in blood. Even at the time when he still was wild and hairy
man knew that real, algebraic love for humanity must inevitably be
inhuman, and that the inevitable mark of truth is cruelty, just as
the inevitable mark of fire is its property of causing the sensation
of burning. Could you show me a fire that would not hurt? Well,
prove now your point! Proceed! Argue!"
How could I argue? How could I argue when those thoughts were once
mine, though I was never able to dress them in such a splendid,
tempered armor. I remained silent.
"If your silence is intended to mean that you agree with me, then
let us talk as adults do after the children have gone to bed; let
us talk to the logical end. I ask: what was it that man from his
diaper age dreamed of, tormented himself for, prayed for? He longed
for that day when someone would tell him what happiness is and then
would chain him to it. What else are we doing now? The ancient
dream about a paradise.... Remember: there in paradise they know no
desires any more, no pity, no love; there they are all--blessed. An
operation has been performed upon their centre of fancy; that is why
they are blessed, angels, servants of God.... And now, at the very
moment when we have caught up with that dream, when we hold it like
this": (He clenched his hand so, that if he had held a stone in it
sap would have run out!) "At the moment when all that was left for
us was to adorn our prize and distribute it amongst all in equal
pieces, at that very moment you, you...."
The cast-iron roar was suddenly broken off. I was as red as a piece
of iron on an anvil, under the moulding sledge-hammer. This seemed
to have stopped for a second, hanging in air, and I waited, waited
... until suddenly:
"How old are you?"
"Thirty-two."
"Just double the age, and as simple as at sixteen! Listen. Is it
possible that it really never occurred to you that _they_ (we do
not yet know their names but I am certain you will disclose them to
us), that _they_ were interested in you only as the Builder of the
_Integral?_ only in order to be able through the use of you--"
"Don't! Don't!" I cried. But it was like protecting yourself with
your hands and crying to a bullet: you may still be hearing your
own "don't" but the bullet meanwhile has burned you through, and
writhing with pain, you are prostrated on the ground.
Yes, yes; the Builder of the _Integral_.... Yes, yes.... At once
there came back to me the angry face of U- with twitching, brick-red
gills, on that morning when both of them....
I remember now, clearly, how I raised my eyes and laughed. A
Socrates-like, bald-headed man was sitting before me; and small
drops of sweat dotted the bald surface of his cranium.
How simple, how magnificently trivial everything was! How simple!
Almost to the point of being ridiculous. Laughter was choking me and
bursting forth in puffs; I covered my mouth with my hand and rushed
wildly out....
Steps. Wind. Damp, leaping fragments of lights and faces.... And
while running: "No! Only to see her! To see her once more!"
Here again, an empty white page. All I remember is feet; not people,
just feet; hundreds of feet, confusedly stamping feet, falling
from somewhere on the pavement; a heavy rain of feet.... And some
cheerful, daring voice, and a shout that was probably for me: "Hey,
hey! Come here! Come along with us!"
Afterward--a deserted square heavily overloaded with tense wind. In
the middle of the square a dim, heavy threatening mass--the Machine
of the Well-Doer; and a seemingly unexpected image arose within me
in response to the sight of the Machine: a snow-white pillow and on
the pillow a head thrown back, and half-closed eyes and a sharp,
sweet line of teeth.... All this seemed so absurdly, so terribly
connected with the Machine. I know _how_ this connection has come
about but I do not yet want to see it nor to say it aloud--I don't
want to! I do not!
I closed my eyes, sat down on the steps which lead upwards to
the Machine. I must have been running for my face was wet. From
somewhere very far away cries were coming. But nobody heard them;
nobody heard me crying: "Save me from it--save me!"
If only I had a mother as the ancients had,--my mother, _mine_, for
whom I should be not the Builder of the _Integral_ and not D-530,
not a molecule of the United State but merely a living human piece,
a piece of herself, a trampled, smothered, a cast-off piece.... And
though I were driving the nails into the cross or being nailed to
it (perhaps it is the same), she would hear what no one else could
hear; her old grown-together wrinkled lips....
RECORD THIRTY-SEVEN
Infusorian
Doomsday
Her Room
This morning while we were in the refectory, my neighbor to my left
whispered to me in a frightened tone:
"But why don't you eat? Don't you see, they are looking at you!"
I had to pluck up all my strength to show a smile. I felt it--like a
crack in my face; I smiled and the borders of the crack drew apart
wider and wider; it was quite painful.
What followed was this: no sooner had I lifted the small cube of
paste upon my fork, than my fork jerked from my hand and tinkled
against the plate, and at once the tables, the walls, the plates,
the air even, trembled and rang; and outside too, an enormous, iron,
round roar reaching the sky--floating over heads and houses it died
away in the distance in small, hardly perceptible circles like those
upon water.
I saw faces instantaneously grow faded and bleached; I saw mouths
filled with food suddenly motionless and forks hanging in air. Then
everything became confused, jumped off the centuries-old tracks,
everybody jumped up from his place (without singing the Hymn!)
and confusedly, in disorder, hastily finishing chewing, choking,
grasping one another.... They were asking: "What? What happened?
What?..." And the disorderly fragments of the Machine which was once
perfect and great, fell down in all directions,--down the elevators,
down the stairs.... Stamping of feet.... Pieces of words like pieces
of torn letters carried by the wind....
The same outpour from the neighboring houses. A minute later the
avenue seemed like a drop of water under a microscope: the infusoria
locked up in the transparent, glass-like drop of water were tossing
around, to the sides, up and down.
"Ah!" Some one's triumphant voice. I saw the back of a neck
and a finger pointing to the sky. I remember very distinctly a
yellow-pinkish nail and under the nail a crescent crawling out as if
from under the horizon. The finger was like a compass; all eyes were
raised to the sky.
There, running away from an invisible pursuit, masses of cloud
were rushing upon each other; and colored by the clouds the aeros
of the Guardians, with their tubes like antennae, were floating.
And farther to the west--something like.... At first nobody could
understand what it was, even I, who knew (unfortunately) more
than the others. It was like a great hive of black aeros swarming
somewhere at an extraordinary height--they looked like hardly
noticeable, swiftly moving points.... Nearer and nearer.... Hoarse,
guttural sounds began to reach the earth and finally we saw _birds_
just over our heads! They filled the sky with their sharp, black,
descending triangles. The stormy wind drove them down and they began
to land on the cupolas, on the roofs, poles and balconies.
"Ah--ah!" and the triumphant back of the neck turned, and I saw that
man with the protruding forehead but it seemed that the title, so
to speak, was all that was left of him: he seemed to have crawled
out from under his forehead and on his face, around the eyes and