Eduard put down his briefcase by the bed.
The washroom was at the other end of the hall. He thought at first the water had been cut off, for the pipe groaned when he turned the faucet, but then it spat rust, belched red, and ran clear. He was thirsty. He drank from the faucet. The water was rusty and cold and tasted of the north.
There was an old bookcase with glassed shelves in the hall, and he stopped before it for a minute, but the light was faint and the titles of the books meant nothing. He could not read. He went into the front bedroom and turned back the blue coverlet. The bed was made up with heavy linen sheets and a dark blanket. He took off his clothes, hung his coat and trousers in the empty closet, turned off the light, got into the cold bed in the dark room made tremulous by a distant street lamp shining through rain or the shadows of leaves; he stretched out and laid his head back on the hard pillow, and slept.
He woke in sunlit morning, lying on his side, looking at the swords, cavalry sabres, hung crossed on the chimneypiece.
They were tools, he thought, expressing purpose as simply as a needle or a hammer, their purpose, their reason or meaning, being death; they were made to kill men with; the slightly curved and still unpolished blades were death, were in fact his own death, which he saw with clarity and relaxation; for as his eyes were occupied with looking at that his mind was wandering to the other rooms, which he had not seen last night, the rooms whose doors, for which he had the keys, would lead to his life, his request for a transfer to the Bureau here in Brailava, the wild cherry flowering in the mountains in March, his second marriage, all that, but for the moment enough, this room, the swords, the sunlight; he had arrived.
North
SQ
I think what Dr. Speakie has done is wonderful. He is a wonderful man. I believe that. I believe that people need beliefs. If I didn’t have my belief I really don’t know what would happen.
And if Dr. Speakie hadn’t truly believed in his work he couldn’t possibly have done what he did. Where would he have found the courage? What he did proves his genuine sincerity.
There was a time when a lot of people tried to cast doubts on him. They said he was seeking power. That was never true. From the very beginning all he wanted was to help people and make a better world. The people who called him a power-seeker and a dictator were just the same ones who used to say that Hitler was insane and Nixon was insane and all the world leaders were insane and the arms race was insane and our misuse of natural resources was insane and the whole world civilisation was insane and suicidal. They were always saying that. And they said it about Dr. Speakie. But he stopped all that insanity, didn’t he? So he was right all along, and he was right to believe in his beliefs.
I came to work for him when he was named the Chief of the Psychometric Bureau. I used to work at the U.N., and when the World Government took over the New York U.N. Building they transferred me up to the thirty-fifth floor to be the head secretary in Dr. Speakie’s office. I knew already that it was a position of great responsibility, and I was quite excited the whole week before my new job began. I was so curious to meet Dr. Speakie, because of course he was already famous. I was there right at the dot of nine on Monday morning, and when he came in it was so wonderful. He looked so kind. You could tell that the weight of his responsibilities was always on his mind, but he looked so healthy and positive, and there was a bounce in his step—I used to think it was as if he had rubber balls in the toes of his shoes. He smiled and shook my hand and said in such a friendly, confident voice, “And you must be Mrs. Smith! I’ve heard wonderful things about you. We’re going to have a wonderful team here, Mrs. Smith!”
Later on he called me by my first name, of course.
That first year we were mostly busy with Information. The World Government Presidium and all the Member States had to be fully informed about the nature and purpose of the SQ Test, before the actual implementation of its application could be eventualised. That was good for me too, because in preparing all that information I learned all about it myself. Often, taking dictation, I learned about it from Dr. Speakie’s very lips. By May I was enough of an “expert” that I was able to prepare the Basic SQ Information Pamphlet for publication just from Dr. Speakie’s notes. It was such fascinating work. As soon as I began to understand the SQ Test Plan I began to believe in it. That was true of everybody in the office and in the Bureau. Dr. Speakie’s sincerity and scientific enthusiasm were infectious. Right from the beginning we had to take the Test every quarter, of course, and some of the secretaries used to be nervous before they took it, but I never was. It was so obvious that the Test was right. If you scored under 50 it was nice to know that you were sane, but even if you scored over 50 that was fine too, because then you could be helped. And anyway it is always best to know the truth about yourself.
As soon as the Information service was functioning smoothly Dr. Speakie transferred the main thrust of his attention to the implementation of Evaluator training, and planning for the structurisation of the Cure Centers, only he changed the name to SQ Achievement Centers. It seemed a very big job even then. We certainly had no idea how big the job would finally turn out to be!
As he said at the beginning, we were a very good team. We all worked hard, but there were always rewards.
I remember one wonderful day. I had accompanied Dr. Speakie to the Meeting of the Board of the Psychometric Bureau. The emissary from the State of Brazil announced that his State had adopted the Bureau Recommendations for Universal Testing—we had known that that was going to be announced. But then the delegate from Libya and the delegate from China announced that their State had adopted the Test too! Oh, Dr. Speakie’s face was just like the sun for a minute, just shining. I wish I could remember exactly what he said, especially to the Chinese delegate, because of course China was a very big State and its decision was very influential. Unfortunately I do not have his exact words because I was changing the tape in the recorder. He said something like, “Gentlemen, this is a historic day for humanity.” Then he began to talk at once about the effective implementation of the Application Centers, where people would take the Test, and the Achievement Centers, where they would go if they scored over 50, and how to establish the Test Administrations and Evaluations infrastructure on such a large scale, and so on. He was always modest and practical. He would rather talk about doing the job than talk about what an important job it was. He used to say, “Once you know what you’re doing, the only thing you need to think about is how to do it.” I believe that that is deeply true.