He read it dispassionately, which I found amusing.
‘Why are you smiling?’ asked the second one in a wounded tone.
‘I find it comical that I could have said such things. I’m a peaceful person. Perhaps your witness is exaggerating?’
‘Do you deny that you appeared before the magistrate’s court on a charge of overturning and destroying hunting pulpits?’
‘No, I wouldn’t dream of denying it. I paid a fine in court. There are documents to prove it.’
‘What aren’t there documents for?’ asked one of them, imagining he was posing a trick question, but I think I evaded it quite cleverly by saying: ‘For many things, sir. In my life and in yours. It’s impossible to record everything in words, let alone official documents.’
‘Why did you do it?’
I gave him a look as if he had fallen from the moon. ‘Why are you asking me about something you know perfectly well?’
‘Please answer the questions. It must be included in the transcript.’
By now I was entirely relaxed.
‘Aha. So, once again: I did it so that no one would shoot at Animals from them.’
‘How come you have such precise knowledge of certain details of the murders?’
‘Such as?’
‘To do with the President, for instance. How did you know the insect was’ – he looked at his notes – ‘Cucujus haematodes? That’s what you told the Writer.’
‘Oh, did I? It’s a common Beetle in these parts.’
‘So how do you know that? From that ento… the insect fellow who stayed with you in the spring?’
‘Perhaps. But above all from Horoscopes, as I have already explained. Horoscopes contain everything. All the smallest details. Even how you’re feeling today, or your favourite colour for underwear. You just have to know how to read it all. The President had very bad aspects in the third house, which is the house of small Animals. Including Insects.’
The Policemen couldn’t stop themselves from exchanging meaningful looks, which to my mind was impolite. In their line of work nothing should surprise them. I continued with complete self-confidence; by now I knew they were a pair of bunglers.
‘I have been practising Astrology for many years, and I have extensive experience. Everything is connected with everything else, and we are all caught in a net of correspondences of every kind. They should teach you that at Police training college. It’s a solid, old tradition. From Swedenborg.’
‘From whom?’ they asked in unison.
‘Swedenborg. A Swede.’
I saw that one of them noted the name down.
They talked to me like this for two more hours, and that afternoon they presented me with a forty-eight-hour detention order and a warrant to search my house. Feverishly I wondered if I had left any dirty underwear out on view.
That evening I was handed a carrier bag, and I guessed it was from Dizzy and Good News. There were two toothbrushes in it (why two? For morning and evening perhaps?), a nightdress, very luxurious and sexy (Good News must have dug it out of the new stock), some sweets and a volume of Blake translated by someone called Fostowicz. Dearest Dizzy.
For the first time in my life I ended up in a purely physical prison, and it was a very difficult experience. The cell was clean, poor and dismal. When the door was locked behind me, I was seized with panic. My heart thumped in my chest and I was afraid I’d start to scream. I sat down on the bunk bed and was afraid to move. At this point it occurred to me that I would rather die than spend the rest of my life in a place like this. Oh yes, without a doubt. I didn’t sleep all Night – I didn’t even lie down. I just sat in the same position until morning. I was sweaty and dirty. I felt as if the words I had spoken that day had soiled my tongue and mouth.
Sparks come from the very source of light and are made of the purest brightness – so say the oldest legends. When a human Being is to be born, a spark begins to fall. First it flies through the darkness of outer space, then through galaxies, and finally, before it falls here, to Earth, the poor thing bumps into the orbits of planets. Each of them contaminates the spark with some Properties, while it darkens and fades.
First Pluto draws the frame for this cosmic experiment and reveals its basic principles – life is a fleeting incident, followed by death, which will one day let the spark escape from the trap; there’s no other way out. Life is like an extremely demanding testing ground. From now on everything you do will count, every thought and every deed, but not for you to be punished or rewarded afterwards, but because it is they that build your world. This is how the machine works. As it continues to fall, the spark crosses Neptune’s belt and is lost in its foggy vapours. As consolation, Neptune gives it all sorts of illusions, a sleepy memory of its exodus, dreams about flying, fantasy, narcotics and books. Uranus equips it with the capacity for rebellion; from now on that will be proof of the memory of where the spark is from. As the spark passes the rings of Saturn, it becomes clear that waiting for it at the bottom is a prison. A labour camp, a hospital, rules and forms, a sickly body, fatal illness, the death of a loved one. But Jupiter gives it consolation, dignity and optimism, a splendid gift: things-will-work-out. Mars adds strength and aggression, which are sure to be of use. As it flies past the Sun, it is blinded, and all that it has left of its former, far-reaching consciousness is a small, stunted Self, separated from the rest, and so it will remain. I imagine it like this: a small torso, a crippled being with its wings torn off, a Fly tormented by cruel children; who knows how it will survive in the Gloom. Praise the Goddesses, now Venus stands in the way of its Fall. From her the spark gains the gift of love, the purest sympathy, the only thing that can save it and other sparks; thanks to the gifts of Venus, they will be able to unite and support each other. Just before the Fall it catches on a small, strange planet that resembles a hypnotised Rabbit, and doesn’t turn on its own axis, but moves rapidly, staring at the Sun. This is Mercury, who gives it language, the capacity to communicate. As it passes the Moon, it gains something as intangible as the soul.
Only then does it fall to Earth, and is immediately clothed in a body. Human, animal or vegetable.
That’s the way it is.
I was released the next day, before those unfortunate forty-eight hours had elapsed. All three of them came to fetch me, and I threw myself into their arms as if I had been in another world for years and years. Dizzy had a cry, while Good News and Oddball sat stiffly in the back of the car. They were plainly horrified by what had happened, far more than I was, and in the end I was the one who had to comfort them. I asked Dizzy to stop at the shop, and we bought ice cream.
But on the whole, from the time of my brief stay in custody I became very absent-minded. I couldn’t come to terms with the fact that the policemen had searched my house, and from then on I sensed their presence everywhere – they’d rummaged in the drawers, in the wardrobes and the desk. They hadn’t found anything, for what could they have found? But order had been disturbed, peace destroyed. I drifted about the house, incapable of any work. I kept talking to myself, and realised that there was something wrong with me. My large windows attracted me – I stood in them, unable to tear my gaze from what I could see – rippling russet grasses, their dance in the invisible wind, the instigators of that motion. And shimmering patches of green in all shades too. I’d become pensive and would be lost in thought for hours at a time. I put down my keys in the garage, for instance, and couldn’t find them for a week. I burned the kettle. I’d take vegetables out of the freezer and only rediscover them once they were shrivelled and past their best. From the corner of my eye I could see how much movement there was in my house – people coming and going, from the boiler room upstairs and into the garden, then back again. My Little Girls running joyfully through the hall. Mummy sitting on the terrace drinking tea. I could hear the clink of the teaspoon striking the cup and her long, sad sighs. It only went quiet when Dizzy came; and he was almost always with Good News, as long as she didn’t have a delivery of goods the next day.