It happened exactly at 21. U came to me herself. Only one thing remains clear in my memory: I breathed so loudly that I heard my own breathing, and tried and tried to lower it – and could not.
She sat down, smoothed her unif on her knees. The pink-brown gills fluttered.
“Ah, my dear – so it is true that you were hurt? As soon as I learned – I immediately…”
The rod was before me on the table. I sprang up, breathing still more loudly. She heard it, halted in mid-sentence, and also, for some reason, stood up. I saw already that place on her head… A sickening sweetness in my mouth… My handkerchief – but it wasn’t there; I spat on the floor.
The one behind the right wall – with yellow, intent wrinkles – about me. He must not see, it will be still more disgusting if he sees… I pressed the button – what difference if I had no right to, it was all the same now – the shades fell.
She evidently understood, dashed to the door. But I anticipated her – and, breathing loudly, my eyes fixed every moment on that spot on her head…
“You… you’ve gone mad! Don’t dare…” She backed away – sat down, or, rather, fell on the bed, thrust her folded hands between her knees, trembling. Tense as a spring, still holding her firmly with my eyes, I slowly stretched my hand to the table – only my hand moved – and seized the rod.
“I beg you! One day – only one day! Tomorrow-tomorrow I’ll go and do everything…”
What was she talking about? I swung at her…
And I consider that I killed her. Yes, you, my unknown readers, you have the right to call me a murderer. I know I would have brought the rod down on her head if suddenly she had not cried, “Please… for the sake… I agree – I… in a moment”
With shaking hands she pulled off her unif. The large, yellow, flabby body fell back on the bed… And only now I understood: she thought I had lowered the shades… that I wanted…
This was so unexpected, so absurd, that I burst out laughing. At once the tigthly wound spring within me cracked, my hand hung limp, the rod clanked on the floor. And I learned from my own experience that laughter was the most potent weapon: laughter can kill everything – even murder.
I sat at the table and laughed – a desperate, final laugh – and could see no way out of this preposterous situation. I don’t know how it all would have ended if it had proceeded in a normal way – but suddenly a new, external component was added: the telephone rang.
I rushed, grasped the receiver. Perhaps it was she? But an unfamiliar voice said, “Just a moment”.
A tormenting, endless hum. From a distance, a heavy tread, coming nearer, more resonant, more leaden. Then “D-503? Uh-uh… This is the Benefactor speaking. Report to me at once!”
Clink – the receiver was down – clink.
U still lay on the bed, eyes closed, gills spread wide in a smile. I gathered up her dress from the floor, flung it at her, and, through my teeth, “Here! Quick, quick!”
She raised herself on her elbow, her breasts swished sideways, eyes round, all of her waxen.
“What?”
“Just that. Well, hurry – get dressed!”
All doubled up into a knot, clutching her dress, her voice strangled. “Turn away…”
I turned, leaned my forehead against the glass. Lights, figures, sparks trembled in the black wet mirror. No, it is I, the trembling is within me… Why did He call me? Does He already know everything about her, about me, about everything?
U, dressed, was at the door. Two steps to her, and I squeezed her hands as though expecting to squeeze out everything I needed from those hands.
“Listen… Her name-you know whom I mean-did you name her? No? But only the truth – I must know… I don’t care – only the truth…”
“No.”
“No? But why – since you had gone there and reported…”
Her lower lip was suddenly turned out, like that boy’s – and from the cheeks, down the cheeks-drops…
“Because I… I was afraid that… if I named her… you might… you would stop lov-… Oh, I can’t – I couldn’t have…”
I knew it was the truth. An absurd, ridiculous, human truth! I opened the door.
Thirty-sixth Entry
Topics: Blank Pages. The Christian God. About My Mother
It’s strange – there seems to be a blank white page inside my head. I don’t remember how I walked there, how I waited (I know I waited) – nothing, not a single sound, or face, or gesture. As if all the lines connecting me with the world were cut.
I recalled myself only when I stood before Him, and was terrified to raise my eyes: I saw only His huge, cast-iron hands upon His knees. These hands seemed to weigh down even Him, bending His knees. Slowly He moved His fingers. The face was somewhere high up, in a haze, and it seemed that His voice did not thunder, did not deafen me, was like an ordinary human voice only because it came to me from such a height.
“And so – you too? You, the Builder of the Integral? You, who were to have become the greatest of conquistadors? You, whose name was to initiate a new, magnificent chapter in the history of the One State…You?”
The blood rushed to my head, my cheeks. Again a blank page – nothing but the pulse in my temples, and the resonant voice above, but not a single word. It was only when He ceased to speak that I recovered. I saw: the hand moved with the weight of a hundred tons – crept slowly – and a finger pointed at me.
“Well? Why are you silent? Is this so, or is it not? An executioner?”
“It is so,” I answered obediently. And then I clearly heard every word He spoke: “Oh, well! You think I am afraid of this word? Have you ever tried to pull off its shell and see what is inside? I will show you.
Remember: a blue hill, a cross, a crowd. Some – above, splashed with blood, are nailing a body to a cross; others – below, splashed with tears – are looking on. Does it not seem to you that the role of those above is the most difficult, the most important? If not for them, would this entire majestic tragedy have taken place? They were reviled by the ignorant crowd: but for that the author of the tragedy – God – should have rewarded them all the more generously. And what about the most merciful Christian God, slowly roasting in the fires of hell all who would not submit? Was He not an executioner? And was the number of those burned by the Christians on bonfires less than the number of burned Christians? Yet – you understand – this God was glorified for ages as the God of love. Absurd? No, on the contrary: it is testimony to the ineradicable wisdom of man, inscribed in blood. Even at that time-wild, shaggy – he understood: true, algebraic love of humanity is inevitably inhuman; and the inevitable mark of truth is – its cruelty. Just as the inevitable mark of fire is that it burns. Show me fire that does not burn.
Well – argue with me, prove the contrary!”
How could I argue? How could I argue, when these were (formerly) my own ideas – except that I had never been able to clothe them in such brilliant, impenetrable armor? I was silent…
“If this means that you agree with me, then let us talk like adults, after the children have gone to bed: let us say it all, to the very end. I ask you: what did people – from their very infancy – pray for, dream about, long for? They longed for some one to tell them, once and for all, the meaning of happiness, and then to bind them to it with a chain. What are we doing now, if not this very thing? The ancient dream of paradise… Remember: those in paradise no longer know desires, no longer know pity or love. There are only the blessed, with their imaginations excised (this is the only reason why they are blessed) – angels, obedient slaves of God… And now, at the very moment when we have already caught up with the dream, when we have seized it so (He clenched His hand: if it had held a stone, it would have squeezed juice out of it), when all that needed to be done was to skin the quarry and divide it into shares – at this very moment you – you…”