“Good day to you, Mr. Counselor!” a respectful voice declared.
They had already emerged from the derelict district. The granite parapet was there, running along on their left, there were patterned concrete slabs under their feet on their right, and ahead of them stood the colossal white bulk of the Glass House, and immediately in their path, standing to attention and holding two fingers to the visor of his uniform cap, was a young, dapper, black-skinned policeman in the light blue uniform of external security.
Andrei nodded to him absentmindedly and said to Selma, “I’m sorry, you were saying something, I got lost in thought…”
“I was saying, don’t forget to call Ruhmer. I’ll need the man for more than the rug now. We have to get in wine, and vodka… The colonel likes whiskey, and Dolfuss likes beer… I think I’ll get a whole crate.”
“Yes! Get him to change the ceiling lamp in the lavatory!” said Andrei. “And you make beef bourguignonne. Shall I send Amalia round?”
They parted at the path leading off from their road to the Glass House. Selma walked on, and Andrei savored watching her walk before he turned to the side and walked toward the west entrance.
The broad plaza, paved with concrete slabs, that surrounded the building was empty, with only the blue uniforms of security men dotted around here and there. As always, new arrivals were loitering idly under the trees bordering the plaza, avidly gawping at the seat of power, and pensioners with walking canes were giving them explanations.
Dolfuss’s old jalopy was already standing at the entrance with the hood raised as always and the bottom half of the driver, encased in glittering chrome leather, protruding from the engine. Standing right beside it was a filthy, stinking farm truck, straight out of the swamps, with grubby, scraped, red and blue legs of beef jutting up untidily above its sides. Flies circled around above the meat. The owner of the truck, a farmer, was arguing abusively with the security guard in the doorway. They had apparently been arguing for quite a long time: the duty head of security was already there, as well as three policemen, and another two were approaching at a leisurely pace, walking up the broad steps from the plaza.
Andrei thought the farmer looked familiar—a skinny beanpole of a man with dangling ends to his mustache. He reeked of sweat, gasoline, and stale alcohol fumes. Andrei showed his pass and walked through into the vestibule, and on the way he heard the farmer demanding to see President Heiger in person and the security guard trying to impress on him that this was the staff entrance and the farmer should go around the building and try his luck at the reception office. As they argued, the men’s voices gradually grew louder and louder.
Andrei rode up in the elevator to the fifth floor and stepped inside a door embellished with an inscription in gold and black: PERSONAL CHANCELLERY OF THE PRESIDENT FOR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY. The couriers sitting at the entrance got to their feet when he entered, and all hid their smoking cigarette butts behind their backs with identical gestures. In the broad, white corridor there was no one else to be seen, but from behind the doors, exactly the way it used to be in the newspaper offices, he could hear telephones ringing, voices briskly dictating, and typewriters clattering. The chancellery was working at full tilt. Andrei opened a door with a plaque that said COUNSELOR A. VORONIN and stepped into his own reception office.
Here too people rose to their feet to greet him: the fat, constantly sweating head of the Geodesy Sector, Quejada; the apathetic, mournful-looking chief of the personnel department, Vareikis; a fidgety, aging woman from the finance office; and some unfamiliar, athletic-looking young boy—he had to be a new arrival, waiting to be presented. And his personal secretary, Amalia, smiling at him as she quickly got to her feet at her little desk with a typewriter by the window.
“Good day, good day, ladies and gentlemen,” Andrei said in a loud voice, putting on his most benign smile. “I beg your pardon! The damned buses are packed solid—I had to foot it all the way from the Construction Site…”
He started shaking hands: Quejada’s massive, sweaty paw, Vareikis’s flaccid fin, the finance lady’s bunch of dry bones (Why the hell has she come to see me? What could she possibly want here?), and the cast-iron blade of the sullen-looking new arrival.
“I think we’ll let the lady to the front of the line,” he said. “Madam, if you please…”—that was to the finance woman. “Is there anything urgent?”—that was to Amalia, in a low voice. “Thank you…” He took the phonogram that she held out to him and opened the door into his own office. “After you, madam, after you…”
He unfolded the telephonogram as he walked over to the desk. Glancing at the piece of paper, he pointed out a chair for the woman to sit on, then sat down and placed the phonogram in front of him.
“What can I do for you?”
The woman started jabbering. Andrei listened to her attentively, smiling with just the corners of his lips and tapping a little pencil on the telephonogram. Everything was clear to him from the first few words she uttered.
“Pardon me,” he said, interrupting her after a minute and a half. “I understand you. It is not actually our practice to hire people as a personal favor. However, in your case, we are undoubtedly dealing with an exception. If your daughter really is so interested in cosmography that she has studied it independently while still in school… Please call my head of personnel. I’ll have a word with him.” He stood up. “Such ambition in our young people should definitely be welcomed and encouraged in every possible way…” He showed her to the door. “This is entirely in the spirit of the new times… Don’t thank me, madam, I am simply performing my duty. All the very best to you…”
He went back to the desk and reread the phonogram: “The president invites Mr. Counselor Voronin to his office at 1400.” That was all. On what business? What for? What should I take with me? Strange… Probably Fritz is simply feeling bored and wants to chew the fat for a while. Fourteen hundred hours—that’s the lunch break. So we’re having lunch with the president…
He picked up the internal phone. “Amalia, let me have Quejada.”
The door opened and Quejada walked in, leading the athletic-looking youth after him by the sleeve. “Allow me to introduce you, Mr. Counselor,” he began straight from the doorway, “to this young man… Douglas Ketcher… He is a new arrival, who arrived here only a month ago, and he gets bored with being stuck in the same place all the time.”
“Well,” Andrei laughed, “we all get bored with being stuck the same place all the time. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Ketcher. Where are you from? And from what time?”
“Dallas, Texas,” the youth replied in a surprisingly deep voice, smiling shyly. “Sixty-three.”
“Have you graduated from anywhere?”
“A regular college. Then I went on a lot of expeditions with geologists. Oil prospecting.”
“Excellent,” said Andrei. “That’s just what we need.” He toyed with the little pencil. “Perhaps you don’t know this, Ketcher, but here it’s customary to ask: Why? Did you run away from something? Or were you seeking adventure? Or were you intrigued by the Experiment?”
Douglas Ketcher frowned, grasped the thumb of his left hand in his right hand, and looked out the window. “You could say I ran away,” he mumbled.
“Their president was shot,” Quejada explained, mopping his face with a handkerchief. “Right there in his home city.”
“Ah, so that’s it,” Andrei said in an understanding tone of voice. “Did you fall under suspicion for some reason?”
The youth shook his head, and Quejada said, “No, that’s not it. It’s a long story. He had very high hopes of this president, the president was his idol—in short, it’s psychological.”