“What should I be afraid of?” said Izya. “Let Heiger be afraid… And they won’t find it now if they didn’t find it immediately. I tossed it into a manhole, and then I kept wondering if I’d missed or not… But what did they work you over for? I thought you and Fritz were on excellent terms.”
“It wasn’t Fritz,” Andrei said reluctantly. “I was just unlucky.”
The women and Kensi barged noisily into the room, lugging an entire mound of letters on a stretched-out raincoat. Denny walked in after them, still wiping away his sweat. “Well, I think that’s all now,” he said. “Or have you come up with something else?”
“Come on, move over!” Kensi demanded.
The raincoat was set down beside the fireplace, and everyone started throwing letters into the flames. The hearth immediately started buzzing. Izya sank his good hand into the depths of this multicolored heap of paper covered with writing, extracted someone’s letter, and grinned in anticipation as he started reading it.
“Who was it that said manuscripts don’t burn?” Denny asked, panting for breath. He sat down at the desk and lit up a cigarette. “They burn wonderfully well, in my opinion… Phew, it’s hot. Maybe I should open the windows?”
The secretary suddenly squealed, jumped to her feet, and ran out, repeating over and over, “I forgot, I completely forgot.”
“What’s her name?” Andrei hastily asked Kensi.
“Amalia!” Kensi growled. “I’ve told you a hundred times… Listen, I just phoned Dupain…”
“Well?”
The secretary came back with an armful of notebooks. “That’s all of them—your instructions, boss,” she squeaked. “I forgot all about them. We probably ought to burn them too?”
“Of course, Amalia,” said Andrei. “Thank you for remembering. Burn them, Amalia, burn them… So what did Dupain say?
“I wanted to warn him,” said Kensi, “let him know everything’s all right, all the tracks have been covered. And he was terribly surprised—what tracks? Did he ever really write anything of that kind? He’s just finished a detailed dispatch on the heroic storming of City Hall, and now he’s working on an article called ‘Friedrich Heiger and the People.’”
“What a bastard,” Andrei said in a feeble voice. “But then, we’re all bastards.”
“You speak for yourself, when you say things like that!” Kensi snarled.
“OK, I’m sorry,” Andrei said weakly. “OK, we’re not all bastards. Just the majority.”
Izya suddenly started giggling. “There, now—an intelligent man!” he proclaimed, shaking the piece of paper in his hand. “‘It is absolutely clear,’” he recited, “‘that people like Friedrich Heiger simply wait for some great disaster or other to come along, some disturbance of the equilibrium, even if it is only temporary, in order to whip up passions so that the muddy waters of turmoil will raise them up…’ Who writes that?” He looked at the reverse side of the sheet of paper. “Ah, well, who else! Into the flames with it! Into the flames!” He crumpled up the letter and flung it into the hearth.
“Listen, Andrei,” said Kensi. “Isn’t it time we thought about the future?”
“What is there to think about it?” Andrei growled, working away with the poker. “We’ll survive somehow, we’ll get by…”
“I don’t mean our future!” said Kensi. “I’m talking about the future of the paper, about the future of the Experiment!”
Andrei looked at him in amazement. Kensi was the same as he had always been. As if nothing had happened. As if absolutely nothing at all had happened in the last few sickening months. He actually seemed even more ready for a fight than usual. Only now the fight was in the name of legality and ideals. Like a cocked firing hammer. But maybe nothing really had happened to him? “Have you been talking to your Mentor?” Andrei asked.
“Yes, I have,” Kensi replied defiantly.
“Well, and?” asked Andrei, overcoming that familiar awkwardness, the way he always had to in a conversation about the Mentors.
“That’s nobody else’s business and it has no significance. What have the Mentors got to do with this? Heiger has a Mentor too. Every bandit in the City has a Mentor. That doesn’t stop any of them from thinking for themselves.”
Andrei pulled a cigarette out of a pack, kneaded it, and lit it from the red-hot poker, narrowing his eyes against the heat. “I’m fed up with the whole thing,” he said quietly.
“What are you fed up with?”
“Every damn thing… I think we need to escape, get out of here, Kensi. To hell with all of them.”
“What does that mean—escape? What are you talking about?”
“We have to clear out, before it’s too late, make tracks for the swamps, for Uncle Yura’s place, as far away as possible from this whole mess. The Experiment has run out of control, you and I can’t bring it back under control, so there’s no point even trying. In the swamps at least we’ll have weapons, we’ll have strength—”
“I’m not going to any swamps!” Selma suddenly declared.
“No one’s asking you to,” Andrei said without looking around.
“Andrei,” said Kensi, “that’s desertion.”
“In your book it’s desertion, in mine it’s a rational maneuver. Anyway, you suit yourself. You asked me what I think about the future and I’m telling you. There’s nothing for me to do here. They’ll shut down the paper anyway, and send us to clear away the dead baboons. Under armed guard. And that’s the best scenario.”
“Now here’s another intelligent individual!” Izya proclaimed admiringly. “Listen: ‘I’m an old subscriber to your newspaper and on the whole I approve of its line. But why do you always come out in defense of F. Heiger? Perhaps you are inadequately informed? I know for certain that Heiger has a dossier on anyone who is even slightly noteworthy in the City. His people permeate the entire municipal establishment. They are probably in your newspaper too. I assure you, the PRR is by no means as small as you think. I know that they have weapons too…’” Izya looked at the reverse of the letter. “Ah, that’s who it is… ‘I ask you please not to publish my name…’ Into the fire with it, into the fire.”
“Anyone would think you know all the intelligent people in the City,” said Andrei.
“Well, as it happens, there aren’t all that many of them,” Izya retorted, lowering his hand into the heap of paper again. “Not to mention the fact that intelligent people don’t often write to the newspapers.”
Silence fell. Denny, who had smoked his fill, also came over to the fireplace and started tossing large armfuls of paper into the flames. “Stir it, boss, stir it!” he said. “Put more life into it! Let me have that poker…”
“I think it’s simply cowardice, running away from the City now,” Selma said defiantly.
“Every honest man counts now,” Kensi agreed. “If we go, who’ll be left? Will you tell them to give the newspaper to the Dupains?”
“You’ll be left,” Andrei said wearily. “You can hire Selma for the paper, or Izya—”
“You know Heiger well,” Kensi interrupted. “You could use your influence…”
“I haven’t got any influence,” said Andrei. “Or if I do, I don’t want to use it. I don’t know how to do things like that and I can’t stand it.”
Again everyone fell silent, with just the flames humming in the chimney.
“I wish they’d get here soon,” Denny growled, flinging the final pile of letters into the fire. “I’m dying for a drink, and there isn’t anything here.”
“They won’t come straight round, just like that,” Izya immediately retorted. “They’ll call first!” He threw the letter he was reading into the hearth and started walking around the office. “You don’t know that, you don’t understand. It’s a ritual! A procedure developed in three countries, honed to a fine edge, tried and tested… Girls, isn’t there anything to eat here?” he suddenly asked.