Somewhat bewildered, I thought: But I’m not that child any longer. There was something I certainly shared with the boy so dependent on Mr Spector: thinking of the passive attitude I’d all along adopted towards Carla, as if her original act had fixed our relative positions for all time, it occurred to me that I’d merely exchanged one dependence for another. Perhaps I could only exist under a stronger nature’s dominion. But then I insisted to myself that my relationship with Spector had been quite different. There was no comparison; the two couldn’t be said to resemble each other in any way.
I jumped up abruptly, pushing a wisp of hair out of my eyes and, seeing Carla sitting there quietly, seized her in my arms. She struggled, laughing, protesting that she couldn’t breathe and, when I let her go, looked at me teasingly. ‘What’s the matter? I believe you were asleep down there — what were you dreaming about?’ My only answer was to embrace her again, forgetting my odd little journey into the past, which left me a disquieting legacy, nevertheless. My dependence had suddenly started to make me uncomfortable. I wasn’t a child any more. I knew I ought not to hide behind Carla’s strength. I ought to go out and grapple with life and find a home for us both. For her sake, I believed I could do anything, even turn myself into a responsible adult person.
This was how I came to start searching for somewhere to live. The prospect of getting involved with the phoney mysticism of the Housing Bureau was so repugnant to me that if I’d had to go far to get there I doubt if my resolve would have stood the strain. But the place happened to be almost next door, down a dreary side street I’d never explored.
Considering its fantastic reputation, and the interdependence of individuals in city life, it was only to be expected that fragments of stories I’d heard should keep coming to me on the way there. I told myself that these tales of frustration and failure had all emanated from people in an abnormal state; no wonder they failed, when they were so agitated, incapable of the thoroughness and perseverance essential to success in any undertaking. It was up to me to avoid their mistakes, to keep cool and above all to make myself impervious to whatever suggestive techniques had induced their semi-hysteria. But wasn’t I already falling into the very trap against which I was warning myself, attributing mysterious unknown powers to the Bureau, even before I got there? Thank goodness I still had a sense of the ridiculous. Smiling at my own absurdity, I suddenly felt more confident, very much better. Carla loved me, and that was enough; I needn’t fear anyone in the world.
But, all the same, I wasn’t exactly looking forward, as I approached the building, to the coming interview with officials who were universally reported to be tyrannical and capricious — though they probably weren’t half as bad as they were made out to be, I told myself, and entered boldly.
For a moment I was bewildered by the crowd filling the big room and by the dazzling fluorescent lights, which, presumably, were left on the whole day, for the wire-covered windows must have made the interior dark and gloomy at all times. As I grew accustomed to the scene, the details gradually emerged, and I saw a number of officials seated at large desks, like static islands, around which flowed sluggish streams of applicants, barely seeming to move. Evidently I was in for a long wait. This didn’t displease me; it would give me time to form my impressions and to decide which desk to approach.
No one took any notice of me, so I started a tour of inspection, following the narrow irregular spaces between the queues. What first struck me was the uncomplaining patience of all these people, for whom no convenience whatsoever had been provided, not even a wooden bench such as is to be found in the most Spartan waiting-rooms. Yet I observed old people and some who looked ill among them and women with babies in arms. Of course, I blamed the authorities for their lack of consideration; but it seemed to me the public were also to blame for their spineless submission, when, by making a combined protest, they could have got things put right.
After I’d been in the room a few minutes, I found that the light was starting to make my eyes ache. The naked tubes, fixed to the ceiling, diffused a stark white glare which lit up some faces with a ghastly pallor, distorting others by deep black shadows. This dazzle, no doubt, was the reason why all the officials wore eye-shades, extending in front of their faces like the peak of a jockey’s cap, casting a black pointed shade, which gave them all a curious similarity to one another, almost as if they were masked.
I could see how a credulous nervous person expecting horrors might find this effect sinister. But to me it was distinctly absurd, as if these dignified figures were sitting at their desks wearing paper caps made out of crackers. I really refused to be overawed by a man in a paper hat; and, humour again coming to my assistance, I decided, since the disguising shadow made it impossible to choose between them, to attach myself to the queue in front of a man who was distinguishable by his fox-red hair from the rest of his anonymous colleagues.
A slight stir diverted my attention, and, like a comment on what I’d been thinking, two hefty attendants in uniform pushed past with a stretcher, on which an old woman was lying unconscious. Her shabby hat, trimmed with a broken feather, must have fallen off and had been planted on her chest beside a worn black bag and some untidy parcels she’d evidently been holding, so that the general effect was of a collection of rubbish being carried off to the dustbin. I was astonished by the indifference of the bystanders, who listlessly drew back to let the stretcher pass, scarcely glancing at its pathetic burden. Their want of interest seemed to show such a fundamental lack of common humanity that, when I noticed a man near by reacting very differently, literally hopping about with rage and scowling at the attendants, I was glad one person at least shared my own feelings, and couldn’t resist saying to him, ‘Isn’t it outrageous? Why don’t people complain?’
At the sound of my voice, he turned and glared at me, perched on one leg, clutching the other foot with both hands, so that I belatedly realized he was angry because his toe had been stepped on, not on the old woman’s account, as I’d imagined. ‘Who are you? What’s your game?’ he muttered with such venom that I was thankful a sudden forward movement of the crowd separated us, taking him out of my sight. And soon after this it was my turn to stand in front of the official’s desk.
He, seeing I was the last person he’d have to deal with, had already begun to relax, leaning back, pushing his eye-shade up at a rakish angle and rubbing his eyes, revealing an unexpectedly young lively face. ‘Last but not least, eh?’ he said cheerfully, rather as if enjoying a secret joke in which I was involved.
Nothing could have surprised me more than his behaviour and appearance, and I probably showed this, for he seemed to become more amused, while continuing to rub his eyes, exclaiming, ‘Lord, what a day! The weekends are always the worst, but today’s been a record.’