“Ah!” the crowd roared and broke off, stunned, when the sun flashed on.
For the first time in twenty days the sun flashed on: the golden disk blazed up at its usual spot, blinding them, searing their gray faces, glinting with unbearable brightness in the windowpanes, reanimating and enkindling millions of colors—the black smoke above distant roofs, the faded greenery of the trees, the red brick beneath the crumbling plaster…
The crowd roared wildly, and Andrei howled with them. Something unimaginable was happening. Caps went flying way upward, men hugged each other, some started firing wildly into the air, some flung bricks at the searchlight in their wild ecstasy, and Fritz Heiger, towering over them all like the Lord God Himself after he proclaimed, “Let there be light!” pointed his long, black arm at the sun, with his eyes glaring and his chin proudly thrust out. Then his voice rang out over the crowd again.
“Do you see? They are already frightened! They tremble at the sight of us! The sight of us! Too late, gentlemen! Too late! Do you wish to slam the trap shut again? But people have already broken out of it! No mercy for the enemies of mankind! The speculators! The parasites! The plunderers of the people’s wealth! The sun is with us again! We have torn it out of the black talons! Of the enemies of mankind! And we will never! Give it away again! Never! Not to anyone!”
“Aaah!”
Andrei came to his senses. Stas was no longer in the cart. Uncle Yura was standing on the front of the cart with his feet planted wide apart, brandishing his machine gun, and the crimson flush on the back of his neck showed that he was roaring inarticulately too. Selma was crying, hammering her little fists on Andrei’s back.
Very neat, Andrei thought coolly. All the worse for us. What am I doing sitting here? I ought to run for it, and I’m just sitting here… Fighting against the pain in his side, he stood up and jumped out of the cart. The crowd was roaring and swirling all around him. Andrei started bulldozing through it. At first he still tried to spare himself, protecting himself with his elbows, but how could he protect himself in a shambles like this! Soaked in sweat from the pain and the mounting nausea, he forced his way forward, shoving his way through, stepping on feet, even butting with his head, and eventually forced his way out onto Stool Closet Lane. And all this time he was pursued by Heiger’s thundering voice.
“Hatred! Hatred will guide us! No more false love! No more Judas kisses! From traitors to mankind! I myself set the example of sacred hatred! I blew up an armored car of murderous gendarmes! In front of your very eyes! I ordered the thieves and gangsters to be hanged! In front of your very eyes! I am sweeping the scum and the subhumans out of our City with a broom of iron! In front of your very eyes! I have not pitied myself! And I have earned the sacred right not to pity others!”
Andrei shoved his way into the entrance of the Gazette’s offices. The door was locked. He kicked it furiously, setting the panes of glass jangling. He started hammering on it with all his might, whispering appalling obscenities.
The door opened. The Mentor was standing in the doorway. “Come in,” he said, moving aside.
Andrei walked in. The Mentor bolted the door behind him and turned around. His face was pasty white, with dark circles under the eyes, and he kept licking his lips. Andrei’s heart sank—he had never seen the Mentor in such a dejected state before.
“Is everything really all that bad?” Andrei asked in a dismal voice.
“Oh yes.” The Mentor gave a wan smile. “What could be good about any of this?”
“But the sun?” said Andrei. “Why did you switch it off?”
The Mentor clasped his hands together and strode backward and forward across the hallway. “But we didn’t switch it off!” he said sorrowfully. “An accident. Totally and absolutely unplanned. No one was expecting it.”
“No one was expecting it,” Andrei repeated bitterly. He pulled off his raincoat and tossed it onto a dusty sofa. “If the sun hadn’t gone out, none of this would have happened…”
“The Experiment has run out of control,” the Mentor muttered, turning away.
“Run out of control…” Andrei repeated again. “I never thought the Experiment could run out of control.”
The Mentor cast a sullen glance at him. “Well now… That is, in a manner of speaking. You could also look at it this way… If the Experiment has run out of control, it is still the Experiment. Possibly something will have to be modified somewhat… recalibrated. And so in retrospect—in retrospect!—this ‘Egyptian night’ will come to be regarded as an integral, programmed part of the Experiment.”
“In retrospect,” Andrei repeated once again. A blind fury swept over him. “But what do you want us to do now? Try to save ourselves?”
“Yes. Save yourselves. And save others.”
“So we’ll save ourselves, and Fritz Heiger will conduct the Experiment?”
“The Experiment remains the Experiment,” the Mentor retorted.
“Oh yes,” said Andrei. “From baboons to Fritz Heiger.”
“Yes, to Fritz Heiger, and through Fritz Heiger, and regardless of Fritz Heiger. You can’t put a bullet through your brains because of Fritz Heiger! The Experiment must go on… Life goes on, doesn’t it, regardless of some Fritz Heiger or other? If you’re disenchanted with the Experiment, then think about the struggle for life…”
“The struggle for survival,” Andrei said with a crooked grin. “What sort of life is there now?”
“That will depend on you.”
“And on you?”
“Not much depends on us. There are many of you. We don’t decide everything here, you do.”
“That isn’t what you used to say before,” said Andrei.
“You were different before too!” the Mentor objected. “And you spoke differently!”
“I’m afraid I acted like a fool,” Andrei said slowly. “I’m afraid I was simply stupid.”
“That’s not all you’re afraid of,” the Mentor remarked in a sly tone of voice.
Andrei’s heart stood still, the way it does when you fall in a dream. And he answered harshly, “Yes, I am afraid. Afraid of everything. A real scaredy-cat. Has anyone ever kicked you repeatedly in the crotch with his boot?” A new idea suddenly occurred to him. “And you’re afraid yourself, aren’t you? Eh?”
“Of course! Didn’t I tell you the Experiment had run out of control—”
“Ah, come off it! The Experiment, the Experiment. It’s not a matter of the Experiment. First the baboons, then us, and then you—isn’t that right?”
The Mentor didn’t answer. The most terrible thing of all was that the Mentor didn’t say even a single word in reply. Andrei carried on waiting, but the Mentor merely prowled around the hallway without speaking, aimlessly shifting chairs from one spot to another and wiping the dust off tables with his sleeve, without even looking at Andrei.
Someone knocked on the door with a fist, and then immediately started kicking it. Andrei drew back the bolt and saw Selma standing there. “You abandoned me!” she said indignantly. “I almost couldn’t fight my way through!”
Andrei glanced around in embarrassment. The Mentor had disappeared. “I’m sorry,” said Andrei. “I had other things on my mind.”
It was hard for him to speak. He was trying to suppress a terrifying sense of loneliness and vulnerability. He slammed the door shut with a crash and hastily slid the bolt home.
3
The offices were empty. The staff had obviously fled when the shooting started up around City Hall. Andrei walked through the rooms, indifferently surveying the scattered sheets of paper and overturned chairs, the dirty plates with the remains of sandwiches and cups with the remains of coffee. Loud, rousing music was coming from somewhere farther inside, and that was strange. Selma plodded after him, holding on to his sleeve. She kept saying something over and over, something shrewish, but Andrei wasn’t listening to her. What did I come here for, he thought. They’ve all bolted, every last one of them, and they were right. I should be safe at home now, lying in bed, hugging my poor battered side and dozing, not giving a rotten damn for any of this…