‘You know, my boy, what a heavy feeling disappointment is… God forbid you from experiencing it.’
He stopped by the door, and leaned against the post. Again he quoted Orwell, but slightly altered:
“‘A single – free – man always looses. That is how it should be, because every man is destined to die and it’s his biggest flaw. But if he can submit completely, without reserve, if he can abandon himself, if he can dissolve in his job in such way that he becomes the job himself, then he’ll become powerful and immortal.’”
I stayed silent.
“You reject an incredibly beautiful future,” The Baseball player added.
“If you want to imagine the future, then imagine a boot, stamping on your face. Constantly!” I muttered, not able to contain myself.
“It’s our last conversation, Mr. Kold,” the Ballplayer sighed and began to speak in an official tone. “If you pursue a course of action aimed against the state or capable of harming the defence capabilities of the United Sates, then all enforcement measure prescribed by the law will be applied to you. Remember this. I hope you’ll have enough prudence not to make mistakes. Goodbye.”
I was tempted to utter something along the lines of ‘See you in hell’, ‘Hasta la vista’ or ‘Au revoir, mon ami’. I don’t know why, probably out of powerlessness. Technically, Mr. Jenkins was completely right: freedom, slavery – these are just words, figures of speech. During the time of Socrates and Heraclites, maybe these words had an obvious natural meaning, but now, in the era when the conventional and cyberspace merged to create a new reality, it was all out of date. Orwell died more than sixty years ago. It’s silly to live according to his philosophic calculations and political settings, and it’s even more silly to break your life and the lives of those close to you because of it.
I was sitting in the middle of the hall with my head clutched between my hands. The peach stone still lay on the coffee table, with tiny Drosophila fruit flies circling around it. ‘Everything is so simple for them,’ I thought at that moment. ‘They mate, lay eggs, have some juice, eat some rotting fruit and die, and the new generation are already coming to replace them. And it goes on without an end…’
It was a night of crystal stillness. A huge moon rose from behind the mountain and spread its wide silvered path to the dark horizon over the limpid surface of the water. The lights blazed in my house, spilling their glow onto the bushes and the spreading Araucaria by the gate. Occasionally, cars raced along the road further down. I sat in front of the open door in the lotus position with my eyes shut. If somebody with a rifle happened to be on the hillside now and that somebody wanted to make a few shots, it would be hard for him to find an easier target.
I imagined the bullet from a .338 Lapua Magnum crashing into my skull, how the cartridge opens like a brass flower, and the steel core, after breaking through the bone, enters my brain and turns it into jelly, and, after making a few swift rotations, crashes into the back wall of my skull, then pulls out a piece of the bone together with bloody clots of what just a few moments ago was a thinking substance, the most complex and obscure thing in the universe. This substance flies across the hall.
Then two days later, Middy will come here in the morning and find my cold body with glazed eyes, with the Drosophila fruit flies circling above.
And that’s it.
I opened my eyes and stared into the darkness for a few seconds. Then I jumped up sharply, threw the peach stone out of the window, shut the door, turned the lights off everywhere, and rushed to the bathroom. For a long time, at least five minutes, I washed my hands in hot water.
A day later I flew to Hong Kong without saying anything to Middy. I didn’t tell her anything because she had become very important to me. It was the tightest constraint that I couldn’t avoid while constructing the algorithm. Sometimes even a programmer must rely not on logic but on divine Providence. By leaving Middy, I took her out of the game. I hope she’ll be happy and I also hope that one day we’ll meet again.
But when sitting down in to the seat of the Hawaiian Airlines Boeing, I was completely calm. Maybe explorers and conquerors in the Middle Ages experienced similar calmness when heading into the unknown.
When your fate is in God’s hands, there’s no point in worrying, because nothing that will happen can be changed or reversed.”
04:24 A.M._
The Lawyer’s phone began to vibrate on the table and the screen lit up.
“Just a moment!” The Lawyer pressed the button. “Yes! Good… Maybe it’s already a good morning, yes.”
He listened to the voice on the phone for a while, then it looked as if his face had begun to glow brightly from inside.
“Great!” The Lawyer smiled. “Yes, I’ll pass it on straight away. Thank you. All the best!”
Putting the phone aside, he looked at Kold slightly archly.
“In Russia on occasions like this people say: ‘You should dance, lucky man’. We’ve won, Mr. Kold. Your request has been met. I just had a call from the office of the head of the Federal Migration Service. Permission for temporary asylum in Russia for one year has been granted to you. The official document will be given to you in the nearest future.”
“Temporary asylum?” Kold said intently, looking straight at the Lawyer. “Please, explain…”
“Happily,” the Lawyer said, smiling, and taking a few pieces of paper from his briefcase: “Temporary asylum: the possibilities provided by the federal law ‘On Refugees’ to a foreign citizen or stateless person for a temporary stay on the territory of the Russian Federation.
“Temporary asylum can be granted to a foreign citizen or stateless person in two events:
“1) providing he has grounds for recognition as a refugee, and completes an application in writing with a request for temporary stay on the territory of the Russian Federation;
“2) if the person doesn’t have grounds for recognition as a refugee under the circumstances provided by the law of the Russian Federation ‘On Refugees’, but for humanitarian reasons cannot be expelled from the territory of the Russian Federation.
“In your case, Mr. Kold, we are dealing with the second point.”
“Humanitarian reasons,” Kold rubbed his chin in confusion. “Really… I never thought the moment would come when Russia would show humanity towards me.”
“Temporary asylum is provided for up to one year. The term of temporary asylum can be prolonged for each consecutive year by the decision of the territorial body on migration issues with which the person is registered,” the Lawyer went on. “A person, who receives temporary asylum, and members of his family arriving with him, have a right to use living accommodation on rental conditions, to receive assistance leaving the Russian Federation and can also claim other rights, provided by Russian Federation law, by international agreements of Russia and by the legislation for Russian Federation subjects.
“A person who receives temporary asylum in the Russian Federation has access to the internal labour market and can work without any special permission.”
“Oh, I can work in Russia and rent a flat here!” Kold exclaimed. He stood up, then sat down again and continued in complete confusion. “Honestly, I didn’t believe… The algorithm… You see – it’s been disrupted, it’s broken! I didn’t rely on Russia at all, I didn’t even consider it. I saw it only as a point of transit. I had everything itemised… I was going to travel, using only the airports of the states not on friendly terms with the United States. China, Russia, Cuba – and from there Ecuador, Bolivia or Venezuela. I considered all three possibilities. These were three of the most likely countries, although, in line with the algorithm, I applied to twenty-one countries… But when they began to play for time and then France and Portugal closed their airspace to Evo Morales’s aeroplane… Damn, I had been preparing to fly with him! And his plane was forced to land in Vienna and was searched as if it was an ordinary charter plane. Indeed, all animals are equal, but some are more equal and don’t care for international laws. I thought then that everything was lost… And to be honest, I thought that I’ll be here, in this underground prison, for the rest of my life. I did not suspect that you have such humane migration laws.”