He was just able to read the headline, REALLY HUMAN, ZOO BIPED CLAIMS. Then a guard snatched the newspaper away and led the man off, lecturing him severely.
The biped would have given a day’s meals for that newspaper, but now at least he knew that Tassen had written the story and the city editor had printed it.
Now he could wait. Once the truth was out, they would never be able to hush it up again, whatever they did. The biped schooled himself to patience. For a while he had toyed with the idea of lettering some messages on large pieces of cardboard and holding them up to the crowd. But he was afraid that if he did so he would be taken out of the front room, and then he could not watch for Tassen.
On the third day, Emma was brought in after breakfast, looking feeble and wild-eyed, her spines draggled. She gave the biped a look as she passed which he could not interpret - wistfulness, a reproach, an appeal of some kind?
He found himself worrying about it and wanting to talk to her, but she did not emerge from her rooms.
A little later, the outer door opened again and Otto came in. He stood in the doorway and growled, “Wanted upstairs. An interview. Come.”
The biped got to his feet, feeling his heart begin to pound. He asked wryly, “No soap this time?” But the keeper stared at him in brute incomprehension.
This time, instead of going to Griick’s office they passed it and entered a smaller room on the opposite side ofthe corridor. The room was empty except for a table and two chairs.
Otto held the door without comment, waited until the biped was inside, then went out again, closing the door.
The biped looked around nervously, but there was nothing to see: only the three pieces of furniture, the scuffed black tiles of the floor and the mud-brown walls, which were dirty and in need of paint.
After a long time, the door opened again and a large, oliveskinned man in a red surcoat appeared. Behind him the biped glimpsed the leviathan bulk of Griick, and heard his rich, fluting voice.
“Of course, my dear Herr Opatescu, of course! We have always desired -”
“Don’t think I am taken in by these games,” said the visitor furiously, pausing in the doorway. “If I had not threatened to go to the Council-”
“You are mistaken, Herr Opatescu, I assure you! We only wished-”
“I know what you wished,” said Opatescu with heavy sarcasm. “Go on, I’ve had enough of it.”
GRIICK retired, looking chastened, and the visitor closed the door. He was carrying a pig skin briefcase, which he put down carefully on the table. Then, with a toothy smile, he advanced on the biped and shook his hand cordially.
“We newsmen have to stick together when it comes to dealing with swine like that, he said. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Opatescu. You have no idea the tricks they played to keep me out - but here I am! Now then, Herr Naumchik … one moment.” He busied himself with the briefcase, from which he produced a flat, clear crystic solid-state recorder and a microphone. “Here we are. Sit down, please - so.” He pushed the microphone toward the biped, adjusted the controls of the instrument and switched it on. The indicator began to crawl over the surface of the record block.
Opatescu sat down opposite the biped, leaning forward on his arms, without bothering to remove his bulky surcoat. “This recording is being made in the Berlin Zoo, June seventeenth, 2002. Present are Martin Naumchik, otherwise known as the biped Fritz, and the reporter Opatescu.”
He settled himself more comfortably and began again. “Now, Herr Naumchik - for I believe that you are in reality Martin Naumchik - I want you to tell me, if you will, in your own words just how your amazing experience took place. Begin then, if you please.”
The biped did as he was asked willingly enough, although Opatescu was a type he did not like - glib, assertive, the sort of reporter you expected to find working on Central European scandal sheets. But since the man was on his side, and anyhow a recording was being made -
Opatescu listened rather restlessly but without interruption until the biped had brought his story up to date. Then, with a thoroughness which made the biped wonder if his first estimate had not been mistaken, Opatescu took him over the story all over again, asking questions, eliciting more details, getting him to repeat certain points several times in different words. When he was satisfied with this, he began questioning the biped about his past life, and particularly about sources of evidence that he was actually Naumchik. They went over this ground with equal thoroughness. When Opatescu finally turned off the recorder and began to pack it away, the biped watched him with grudging respect.
“I must tell you I’m grateful to you for all this,” he said. “I suppose you’re a friend of Tassen’s, the man who broke the story?”
“Tassen, yes, I know Tassen,” said Opatescu, busily fastening his briefcase. “He’s written some follow-up yarns, good stuff, you’ll see when you get out.”
The biped moistened his stiff lips. “I don’t suppose you have any idea-”
“When that will be? Not long. You’re going to have a press conference, a big one this time - newspapers, sollies, TV. They can’t hold you after that. The public wouldn’t stand for it. Well, Naumchik, it’s been a pleasure.” He held out his meaty hand.
“For me, too, Herr Opatescu. By the way, what paper did you say you were from?”
“Pravda.” Opatescu glanced at his watch, then swung his briefcase off the table and turned to go.
“Do you happen to know Kyrill Reshevsky, the-”
“Yes, yes, but let’s reminisce some other time, shall we?” He smiled, showing large gleaming teeth. “I’ve got a deadline. You understand. Goodbye, Herr Naumchik-patience.” Still smiling, he backed out and closed the door.
The keeper Otto appeared almost at once to take the biped back. Though usually laconic, he spoke lip on the way down to the cages. “So now they are going to let you out, are they?”
“So it seems,” said the biped happily.
“Well, well,” said Otto, shaking I his head. “What next?”
FOR the next two days the biped could not read or sit still for more than a few minutes at a time. He kept the television turned on, and watched every hourly news broadcast. Once, early on the first day, a commentator mentioned his story, and a brief glimpse of him on film - evidently taken on the day of his arrival at the Zoo - was flashed on the screen. After that, there was nothing.
In between news broadcasts, he spent most of his time pacing up and down the office space, imprisoning poor Emma, who no sooner put her head out of her room than the biped, by some gesture or exclamation, frightened her back in again. He gave the switchboard girl no rest, ringing , her up all day long and demanding to speak to Griick, to Prinzmetal, to anyone. On the afternoon of the second day the phone went dead. The line had been disconnected.
Shortly afterward, Otto entered. He had a bundle of newspapers and magazines on his cart. “They send you these,” he said, dumping the bundle onto a vacant desk. Read, and don’t bother Fraiilein Muller. He turned and left.
The biped forgot him at once.
He snatched up the topmost paper - it was the Frankfurter Morgenblatt-and leafed through it with trembling fingers until he found a column headed, STRANGE STATEMENTS OF ZOO BIPED.
He read the story avidly, although it was evidently nothing more than a rehash of his interview with Tassen. Then, curbing his impatience, he began sorting out the papers in the stack by date and piling them on the floor. When he got to the bottom of the stack, to his delight, he found a scrapbook and a pair of shears.