Slowly, irresistibly, they plow through the crowd. And it is clear that if there were a wall, a tree, a house in their way, they would without halting plow through the wall, the tree, the house. Now they are in the middle of the avenue. Hands locked, they spread out into a chain, facing us. And we—a tense knot, necks stretched, heads bristling forward—wait. Clouds. Whistling wind.
Suddenly the flanks of the chain, on the right and the left, bend quickly and rush upon us, faster, faster, like a heavy machine speeding downhill. They lock us in the ring—and toward the gaping doors, into the doors, inside…
Someone’s piercing scream: “They’re driving us in! Run!”
And everybody rushes. Just near the wall there is still a narrow living gateway, and everyone streams there, head forward—heads instantly sharp as wedges, sharp elbows, shoulders, sides. Like a jet of water, compressed inside a fire hose, they spread fanlike, and all around—stamping feet, swinging arms, unifs. From somewhere for an instant—a glimpse of a double curved, S-like body, translucent wing-ears—and he is gone, as though swallowed by the earth, and I am alone, in the midst of flashing arms and feet—I run…
I dive into a doorway for a moment’s breath, my back pressed to the door—and instantly, a tiny human splinter—as if driven to me by the wind.
“I was… following you… all the time… I do not want to—you understand—I do not want to. I agree…”
Round, tiny hands upon my sleeve, round blue eyes: it is O. She seems to slide down along the wall and slump onto the ground. Shrunk into a little ball below, on the cold stair, and I bend over her, stroking her head, her face—my hands are wet. As though I were very big, and she—altogether tiny—a tiny part of my own self. This is very different from die feeling for I-330. It seems to me that something like it may have existed among the ancients toward their private children.
Below, through the hands covering the face, just audibly: “Every night I… I cannot… if they cure me… Every night—alone, in darkness—I think about him: what he will be like, how I will… There will be nothing for me to live by—you understand? And you must, you must…”
A preposterous feeling, but I know: yes, I must. Preposterous, because this duty of mine is yet another crime. Preposterous, because white cannot at the same time be black, duty and crime cannot coincide. Or is there no black or white in life, and the color depends only on the initial logical premise? And if the premise was that I unlawfully gave her a child…
“Very well-but don’t, don’t…” I say. “You understand, I must take you to I-330—as I offered that time—so that she…”
“Yes.” Quietly, without taking her hands from her face.
I helped her to get up. And silently, each with our own thoughts—who knows, perhaps about the same thing—along the darkening street, among mute, leaden houses, through the taut, swishing branches of wind…
At a certain transparent, tense point, I heard through the whistling of the wind familiar, slapping steps. At the corner, I glanced back, and in the midst of the rushing, upside-down clouds reflected in the dim glass of the pavement I saw S. Immediately, my hands were not my own, swinging out of time, and I was telling O loudly that tomorrow—yes, tomorrow—the Integral would go up for the first time, and it would be something utterly unprecedented, uncanny, miraculous.
O gave me an astonished, round, blue stare, looked at my loudly, senselessly swinging arms. But I did not let her say a word—I shouted on and on. And there, within me, separately—heard only by myself—the feverish, humming, hammering thought, No, I must not… I must somehow… I must not lead him to I-330…
Instead of turning left, I turned right. The bridge offered its obedient, slavishly bent back to the three of us—to me, O, and to S—behind us. The brightly lit buildings on the other side scattered lights into the water, the lights broke into thousands of feverishly leaping sparks, sprayed with frenzied white foam. The wind hummed like a thick bass string stretched somewhere low overhead. And through the bass, behind us all the time…
The house where I live. At the door O stopped, began to say something. “No! You promised…”
I did not let her finish. Hurriedly I pushed her into the entrance, and we were in the lobby, inside. Over the control desk, the familiar, excitedly quivering, sagging cheeks. A dense cluster of numbers in heated argument; heads looking over the banister from the second floor; people running singly down the stairs. But I would see about that later, later… Now I quickly drew O into the opposite corner, sat down, back against the wall (behind the wall I saw, gliding back and forth, a dark, large-headed shadow), and took out a note pad.
O slowly sagged into her chair—as though her body were melting, evaporating under her unif, and there were only an empty unif and empty eyes that sucked you into their blue emptiness.
Wearily, “Why did you bring me here? You lied to me!”
“No… Be quiet! Look that way—you see, behind the wall?”
“Yes, A shadow.”
“He follows me all the time… I cannot. You understand—I must not. I’ll write two words—you’ll take the note and go alone. I know he will remain here.”
The body stirred again under the unif, the belly rounded out a little; on the cheeks—a faint, rosy dawn.
I slipped the note into her cold fingers, firmly pressed her hand, dipped my eyes for the last time into her blue eyes.
“Good-by! Perhaps, some day we shall…” She took away her hand. Stooping, she walked off slowly… Two steps, and quickly she turned— and was again next to me. Her lips moved. With her eyes, her lips, all of herself—a single word, saying a single word to me—and what an unbearable smile, what pain…
And then, a bent tiny human splinter in the doorway, a tiny shadow behind the wall—without looking back, quickly, ever more quickly…
I went over to U’s desk. Excitedly, indignantly inflating her gills, she said to me, “You understand—they all seem to have lost their heads! He insists that he has seen some human creature near the Ancient House—naked and all covered with fur…”
From the dense cluster of heads, a voice: “Yes! I’ll say it again—I saw it, yes.”
“Well, what do you think of that? The man’s delirious!”
And this “delirious” of hers was so sure, so unbending that I asked myself: Perhaps all of it, all that’s been happening to me and around me lately is really nothing but delirium?
But then I glanced at my hairy hands, and I remembered: “There must be a drop of forest blood in you… Perhaps that’s why I…”
No—fortunately, it is not delirium. No— unfortunately, it is not delirium.
Thirty-third Entry
Quick, the newspaper. Perhaps it… I read it with my eyes (precisely—my eyes are now like a pen, a calculator, which you hold in your hands and feel—it is apart from you, an instrument).
In bold type, across the front page:
The enemies of happiness are not sleeping. Hold on to your happiness with both hands! Tomorrow all work will halt—all numbers shall report for the Operation. Those who fail to do so will be subject to the Benefactor’s Machine.
Tomorrow! Can there be—will there be a tomorrow?
By daily habit, I stretch my hand (an instrument) to the bookshelf to add today’s Gazette to the others, in the binding stamped with the gold design. And on the way: What for? What does it matter? I shall never return to this room.
The newspaper drops to the floor. And I stand up and look around the room, the whole room; I hastily take with me, gather up into an invisible valise, all that I’m sorry to leave behind. The table. The books. The chair. I-330 sat in it that day, and I—below, on the floor… The bed…