From behind, from the densely breathing crowd of bodies – a loud voice: “But this is madness!”
And then it seems that I – yes, I believe it was I – jumped up on the stone. Sun, heads, a green serrated line against the blue, and I shout, “Yes, yes, madness! And everyone must lose his mind, everyone must! The sooner the better! It is essential – I know it.”
Next to me, I-330. Her smile – two dark lines: from the ends of her lips – up, at an angle. And the coal is now within me, and all this is instant, easy, just a bit painful, beautiful…
After that, only broken, separate fragments.
Slowly, just overhead – a bird. I see: it is alive, like me. Like a man it turns its head right, left, and black, round eyes drill into me…
Another fragment: a back, with shiny fur the color of old ivory. A dark insect with tiny, transparent wings crawls along the back, and the back twitches to drive it off, then twitches again…
Another fragment: the shadow of the leaves-interlaced, latticed. In the shadow people are lying and chewing something that resembles the legendary food of the ancients – a long yellow fruit and a piece of something dark. A woman thrusts it into my hand, and it is funny: I don’t know whether I can eat it.
Again – a crowd, heads, feet, hands, mouths. Faces flash momentarily and disappear, burst like bubbles. And for a moment – or did it merely seem to me? – transparent, flying wing-ears.
With all my strength I press the hand of I-330. She glances back. “What is it?”
“He is here… It seemed to me…”
“He? Who?”
“S… just a moment ago – in the crowd…”
The coal-black, thin eyebrows rise to the temples: sharp triangle, a smile. I do not understand why she is smiling; how can she smile?
“Don’t you see – don’t you see what it means if he or any of them is here?”
“Silly! Would it occur to anyone there, inside the Wall, that we are here? Try to remember-did you ever think that it was possible? They are hunting for us there – let them! You’re dreaming.”
She smiles lightly, gaily, and I smile. The earth-intoxicated, light, gay – floats…
Twenty-eighth Entry
Topics: Two Women. Entropy and Energy. The Opaque Part of the Body
If your world is like the world of our distant forebears, imagine that you have stumbled upon a sixth, a seventh continent in the ocean – some Atlantis with fantastic labyrinth-cities, people soaring in the air without the aid of wings or aeros, rocks lifted by the power of a glance – in short, things that would never occur to you even if you suffer from dream-sickness. This is how I felt yesterday. Because, you understand – as I have told you before – not one of us has been beyond the Wall since the Two Hundred Years’ War.
I know: it is my duty before you, my unknown friends, to tell in greater detail about the strange and unexpected world that revealed itself to me yesterday. But I am still unable to return to that. There is a constant flood of new and new events, and I cannot collect them alclass="underline" I lift the edges of my unif, I hold out my palms, and yet whole pailfuls spill past, and only drops fall on these pages.
First I heard loud voices behind my door, and recognized the voice of I-330, firm, metallic, and the other – almost inflexible, like a wooden ruler – the voice of U. Then the door flew open with a crash and catapulted both of them into my room. Yes, exactly – catapulted.
I-330 put her hand on the back of my chair and smiled at the other over her right shoulder, only with her teeth. I would not like to be faced with such a smile.
“Listen,” I-330 said to me. “This woman, it appears, has set herself the task of protecting you from me, like a small child. Is that with your permission?”
And the other, her gills quivering, “Yes, he is a child. He is! That is the only reason he doesn’t see that you’re with him… that it’s only in order to… that it is all a game. Yes. And it’s my duty…”
For a moment, in the mirror – the broken, jumping line of my eyebrows. I sprang up and, with difficulty restraining within me the other with the shaking hairy fists, with difficulty squeezing out each word through my teeth, I threw at her, straight at the gills, “Out! Th-this very moment! Get out!”
The gills swelled out, brick red, then drooped, turned gray. She opened her mouth to say something, then, saying nothing, snapped it shut and walked out.
I rushed to I-330. “I’ll never – I’ll never forgive myself! She dared – to you? But you don’t think that I think, that… that she… It’s all because she wants to register for me, and I…”
“Fortunately, she won’t have time to register. And I don’t care if there are a thousand like her. I know you will believe me, not the thousand. Because, after what happened yesterday, I am open to you – all of me, to the very end, just as you wanted. I am in your hands, you can – at any moment…”
“What do you mean – at any moment?” And immediately I understood. The blood rushed to my ears, my cheeks. I cried. “Don’t, don’t ever speak to me about it! You know that it was the other I, the old one, and now…”
“Who can tell? A human being is like a noveclass="underline" until the last page you don’t know how it will end. Or it wouldn’t be worth reading…”
She stroked my head. I could not see her face, but I could tell by her voice: she was looking far, far off, her eyes caught by a cloud, floating soundlessly, slowly, who knows where…
Suddenly she thrust me away – firmly but tenderly. “Listen, I’ve come to tell you that these may be the last days we… You know – the auditoriums have been canceled as of this evening.”
“Canceled?”
“Yes. And as I walked past, I saw – they were preparing something in the auditoriums: tables, medics in white.”
“But what can it mean?”
“I don’t know. No one knows as yet. And that’s the worst of it But I feel – the current is switched on, the spark is running. If not today, then tomorrow… But perhaps they won’t have time enough.”
I have long ceased to understand who “They” are, who are “We.” I do not know what I want – whether I want them to have time enough, or not. One thing is clear to me: I-330 is now walking on the very edge – and any moment…
“But this is madness,” I say. “You – and the One State. It is like putting a hand over the muzzle of a gun and hoping to stop the bullet. It’s utter madness!”
A smile. “ ‘Everyone must lose his mind – the sooner the better.’ Somebody said this yesterday. Do you remember? Out there…”
Yes, I have it written down. Hence, it really happened. Silently I stare into her face: the dark cross is especially distinct on it now.
“Darling, before it is too late… If you want, I will leave everything, I will forget it all – let’s go together there, beyond the Wall, to those… whoever they are.”
She shook her head. Through the dark windows of her eyes, deep within her, I saw a flaming oven, sparks, tongues of fire leaping up, a heaping pile of dry wood. And it was clear to me: it was too late, my words would no longer avail…
She stood up. In a moment she would leave. These might be the last days – perhaps the last minutes… I seized her hand.
“No! Just a little longer – oh, for the sake… for the sake…”
She slowly raised my hand, my hairy hand which I hated so much, toward the light. I wanted to pull it away, but she held it firmly.
“Your hand… You don’t know – few know it – that there were women here, women of the city, who loved the others. You, too, must have some drops of sunny forest blood. Perhaps that’s why I…”