P’an Tsiang-kuei stared at the assistant with surprise.
“I don’t understand you, comrade. Or rather, I believe I’m starting to understand you,” he said roughly. “Unless I’m mistaken, you want my support. You’re asking that we break the rules of our struggle with the plague in order to prolong the life of an infected individual by a few days, owing to the fact that this individual is your wife. You’ve forgotten, it would appear, that every day dozens of our best workers are dying, and that only through implementing this law to execute the infected have we managed to decrease the mortality rate by over 50%.”
The Japanese man quickly batted his eyelids.
“…We’re testing a new vaccine… The results will be in tomorrow… Tomorrow the plague may turn out to be curable… Stop the whole firing squad today… If the experiment fails, you can execute them tomorrow. But maybe we can save them? And I’m certain that my wife doesn’t have the plague… Just a simple stomach flu… If she were to be isolated…”
P’an Tsiang-kuei abruptly cut him off:
“Always the same old song and dance. If your wife wasn’t infected before, she certainly is now. No one leaves the plague barracks. Anyway, we can’t make exceptions and foster plague-sowers. None of the serums to date have had any effect. We have no reason to assume this one will fare any better. We would have to put off the executions from one day to the next and house the infected, and we wouldn’t be able to keep them from coming in contact with the healthy, because we don’t have the sanitation staff to deal with that. In other words, it would mean hiking the mortality rate back up to the 50% it was before. I’m surprised at you, comrade.”
The lips of the small Japanese man silently quivered.
P’an Tsiang-kuei ran downstairs and out through the gate. On the street the little squeaky-clean Japanese man appeared once more before his mind’s eye, the corners of his ashen lips twitching.
“Infect everybody for the sake of one skirt!” he thought bitterly. “People like that ought to be shot…”
But a moment later, the whole incident was already forgotten.
Two weeks went by. Caught up in the affairs of the miniature republic, P’an Tsiang-kuei had not checked in on the professor until now. He had been receiving detailed daily telephone bulletins on the old scholar’s work, which had stubbornly refused to produce the desired results, in spite of his tireless efforts. Seizing a free moment, P’an Tsiang-kuei decided to pay him a visit.
His trained legs led him down the crepuscular alleys to Panthéon Square. The window on the third floor of house No. 17 was illuminated, as usual, with the white of a closed shutter.
Rain suddenly started to fall, veiling the homes with curtains of glass beads. P’an Tsiang-kuei went to the open Panthéon to wait it out.
The Panthéon was empty; a chilly silence blew from its high cupola and from its shadowy naves. The empty ticket office was aglow, as always, with its uninviting inscription: “Entry 2 francs.” His lonely footsteps on the stone floor mimicked themselves with long, reverberating echoes. From all sides, famous figures stared at the arrival with eyes of solid white…
The rain had long ceased when P’an Tsiang-kuei reappeared in the entrance to the Panthéon.
Meanwhile, a group of Chinese men had gathered about the railings, greeting the dictator with shouts of enthusiasm. Bowing awkwardly, P’an Tsiang-kuei flipped up the collar of his trench coat and quickly vanished in the twisting alleyways.
Dusk had already fallen; the decks of the sidewalks were shrouded in darkness, and Chinese lamplighters were hastily hanging the intricate balls of paper lanterns, multicolored ornaments from some phantasmagoric Venetian night.
A nauseating, bathhouse air had settled in the professor's laboratory, turning all the contours into wavy double lines. The drowsy, languid assistants staggered around like flies under a thick bell jar.
The wild-haired professor was pouring a cloudy whitish fluid from retort to retort, mixing it with substances in a row of test tubes, preparing a reaction. He mumbled incoherently in response to P’an Tsiang-kuei’s questions, impatiently shooing him away. There was no getting a word out of him.
The assistants, insensible from exhaustion, appeared not to understand his questions. Their answers were delayed and incoherent.
Having made his rounds, P’an Tsiang-kuei cast a glance at his watch. It was seven o’clock, time for his evening report. P’an Tsiang-kuei hurried toward the exit. At the door he collided with a small assistant in a white smock. Glass shattered. Liquid sprayed across P’an Tsiang-kuei’s face and clothing. The little assistant apologized. P’an Tsiang-kuei stared at the neck of the smashed beaker still in the fingers of the assistant, and lifted his gaze to the pale smear of the face before him. It seemed somehow familiar. He tried to jog his memory. The narrow quivering lips. The little squeaky-clean Japanese. He had pleaded for his wife’s protection…
The Japanese man apologized profusely. P’an Tsiang-kuei looked him sharply in the eye and met a pair of cold, piercing pupils. For an instant he thought he saw taunting sparks inside them. Without another word, he turned on his heel and vanished into the depths of the laboratory. He took a large bottle of corrosive sublimate solution from the medicine cabinet, splashed it over his clothing, and washed his face and hands thoroughly. Then, without so much as noting the assistant still muttering apologies, he quickly ran downstairs.
Returning to the institute, P’an Tsiang-kuei busied himself with taking reports and issuing orders for the following day. The hands of the big clock were steadily approaching twelve when the dictator dismissed the last courier and turned off the harsh lamplight.
By the wall in the corner of the room there was a narrow cot that had been brought there three days earlier and for three days had remained untouched. P’an Tsiang-kuei made it himself and began to undress for the first time in a while. When he was completely naked, he carefully slathered his entire body in a transparent solution. Arriving at his armpits, he stopped a moment and, lifting an arm, examined them carefully. His underarm glands seemed somewhat swollen. He inspected them scrupulously with his fingers.
“Autosuggestion…,” he mumbled tonelessly, and throwing on a nightshirt, he dove quickly under the covers. He fell asleep in an instant.
That night he dreamt of streets decorated with flags, of bands and columns of Chinese armies marching down streets. The Panthéon was hung with a red flag and stood wide open. A chain of flower-strewn trucks was parked by its front railing. On either side of the entrance two lanes of soldiers stiffly stood at arms. P’an Tsiang-kuei was surprised and asked a sentry why the ceremony was being held.
“We’re transporting them to China,” the soldier responded.
Only now did P’an Tsiang-kuei recall why he had come here, and cutting through the nave he ran quickly down to the crypts.