Left alone, curious and vaguely excited, he had poked all around the work room, examining papers and opening drawers, then had wandered over to the doorway of the room into which Emma had disappeared. But no sooner had he put his nose timidly inside than her voice piped, “Go away! Go away, go away, go away!”
Since then there had been silence from the room next to his. At feeding time Wenzl had come in with a cart, had left one tray for him, another for Emma. But although he listened intently, he had not heard a sound of knife or fork, or a glass set down.
It was exciting to think of having another biped to talk to. It was not right for her to refuse to talk to him. Why should she want to make him miserable?
As he stared through the window, his eye met that of a darkhaired young man who had paused outside. The man was carrying a camera and looked vaguely familiar. Perhaps he had been one of the reporters. He was slight and stooped, with very pale, clear skin and large, soft eyes. As they looked wordlessly at each other, Fritz felt an abrupt slipping and sliding; the room whirled arpund him.
He struggled to get up from the floor. He could not understand what had happened to him, why it was suddenly so dark, why the room had grown so large. Then he squirmed up to hands and knees, and discovered that he was looking across an iron railing, through a window into a little lighted room in which a biped lay half sprawled in a chair, looking back at him with glazed eyes and making feeble motions with his arms.
The afternoon breeze was crisp and sibilant along the path. There were smells of damp earth and of animals. Gravel crunched beside him, and a courteous voice said, “Is anything wrong, good sir?”
The biped in the lighted room was floundering across the floor.
Now he was beating with both hands on the glass, and his mouth opened and shut, opened and shut.
You have dropped your camera, said the same voice. Allow me. Someone’s hands were patting him, with a curious muffled feeling, and he turned to glimpse a kindly, mustached face. Then something glittering was being thrust at him and he stared, with a kind of disbelieving wonder, as his hands closed automatically around the camera … his pink, hairy, five-fingered hands, with their pale fingernails.
II
DR. GRIICK was alone in his office, with some preliminary budget figures spread out on his desk, and the greasy remains of a knackwurst dinner on a little table beside him. Wearing his reading spectacles, he looked like a rosy, good-humored old uncle out of Dickens. His little blue eyes blinked mildly behind the spectacles, and when he counted, his sausage-fat thumb and fingers went eins, zwei, drei.
Humming, he turned a paper over. The melody he was humming was I Lost My Sock in Lauterbach.
The paneled room was warm, comfortable and silent. And without my sock, I won’t go home, hummed the Director.
The little desk visiphone flickered to life suddenly, and the tiny face in the screen said, “Doctor, if you please-”
Griick frowned slightly, and pressed the stud. “Yes, Freda?”
“Herr Wenzl wishes to speak with you, he says it is urgent.”
“Well then, if it’s urgent, Freda, put him on.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
The screen flickered again. Wenzl’s pale, fanatical face appeared.
“Trouble with the new biped,” he began immediately.
Griick took his glasses off, with fingers that fumbled. “The mischief!” he said. “What sort of trouble, Wenzl?”
“Ten minutes ago,” said the head keeper precisely, “I was notified that Fritz was making a disturbance in his cage. I went there, and found he had been trying to break the window with a wooden chair.”
“Terrible, but why?” cried Dr. Griick, his jowls wobbling. “I endeavored to calm Fritz,” continued Wenzl, “but he informed me that I was without authority over him, since he was not Fritz, but a journalist named Martin Naumchik.”
Griick pursed his lips several times, unconsciously forming the syllable Num. He found some papers under his hand, looked at them in surprise, then pushed them aside with hasty, abstracted motions.
“He also told me,” said Wenzl, “that Fritz had gone off in his body, with his camera and all his clothes.”
Griick put both palms on his cheeks and stared at Wenzl’s image. In the little screen, Wenzl looked like a portrait doll made by someone with an unpleasant turn of fantasy. Full-sized, Wenzl was really not so bad. He had a mole, there were hairs in his nostrils, one saw his adam’s apple move when he spoke. But at the size of a doll, he was unbearable.
“What steps have you taken?” Griick asked.
“Restraint,” said Wenzl.
“And your opinion?”
“The animal is psychotic.”
Griick closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and finger for a moment. He opened his eyes, settled himself before the desk. “Wenzl,” he said, “the biped is not necessarily psychotic. In our ten years with Emma, we have also seen some little fits of nerves, not so? As for Fritz, possibly he is only frightened, being in a new Zoo. Perhaps he wants reassurance, to dramatize himself a little, who knows? Can you show me in the handbooks where it says a biped goes psychotic?”
Wenzl was silent and did not change expression.
“No,” said Griick. “So let’s not be hasty, Wenzl. Remember that Fritz at present is our most valuable animal. Kindness, that does more than harsh words and beatings. A little sympathy, perhaps a smile -” He smiled, showing his small, blunt teeth as far back as the molars. “So, Wenzl? Yes?”
“You are always right, Doctor,” said the head keeper sourly.
“Good, then we shall see. Go and talk to him reasonably, Wenzl; take off the jacket, and if he is calm, bring him to me.”
“I WILL give you five reasons why I am Martin Naumchik,” said the biped in a high, furious voice. His naked, greenspined body looked slender and fragile in the dark wooden chair. He leaned over the table toward Wenzl and Dr. Griick; his eyes were pink-rimmed, and the wide lipless mouth kept opening and closing.
“First. I know Berlin, whereas your menagerie animal has never been here before, and certainly never had liberty to roam the streets. Ask me anything you like. Second. I can tell you the names of the editor, managing editor and all the rest of the staff of ParisSoir, I can repeat my last dispatch to them word for word, or nearly. If you give me a typewriter I’ll even write it out. Third …”
“But my dear Fritz -” said Griick, spreading his fat pink hands, with an ingratiating smile.
“Third,” repeated the biped angrily. “My girl-friend, Julia Schorr, will vouch for me, she lives at number forty-one, Heinrichstrasse, flat seventeen, her visi number is UNter den Linden 8-7403, I can also tell you that she keeps a Siamese cat named Maggie and that she cooks very good spaghetti. My God, if it comes to that, I can tell you what kind of underclothing she wears. Fourth, you can examine me yourselves, I took a degree at the Sorbonne in 1999 - ask about literature, mathematics, history, whatever you like! Fifth and last, I am Martin Naumchik, I have always been Martin Naumchik, I never even saw this ridiculous biped of yours until today, and if you don’t help me, I promise you, I’ll make such a stench … He fell silent. Well?”
Griick and Wenzl exchanged glances. “My dear young sir,” said Griick, rumpling his untidy blond hair; his little eyes were squeezed together in a frown. “My dear young sir, you have convinced me, beyond any shadow of doubt-” the biped started eagerly- “that you believe yourself to be one Martin Naumchik, a human being, and a correspondent for ParisSoir, and so on, and so on.”
The biped said in a choked voice, “Believe! But I’ve told you -”