Snail on the Slope

Chapter Three

Pepper was awakened by the touch of cold fingers on his bare shoulder. He opened his eyes and perceived someone standing over him, dressed in underwear. The room was dark, but the man was standing in a shaft of moonlight. Pepper could make out his pale face and

staring eyes.

"What do you want?" whispered Pepper. "You have to vacate," the man whispered in return.

It's only the warden, thought Pepper, relieved. "Why vacate?" he asked loudly, raising himself on his elbow. "Vacate what?"

"The hotel is overbooked, you'll have to vacate the room."

Pepper glanced around the room in confusion. Everything was as it had been, the other three bunks were empty as before.

"You needn't stare," said the warden. "We know the situation. In any case the sheets on your bed have to be changed and sent to the laundry. You won't be washing them yourself, not brought up to..." Pepper understood. The warden was very frightened and was being rude to keep his spirits up. He was in that state where one touch and he would cry out, squeal, twitch convulsively, call for help.

"Come on, come on," said the warden and pulled the pillow from beneath Pepper's head in a sort of weird impatience. "Sheets, I said..."

"Look, what is this," said Pepper. "Does it have to be now? In the night?" "Urgent."

"Good God," said Pepper, "you're off your head. Well, all right... You collect the sheets, I'll get by. I've only got this one night left."

He slid from the bunk onto the chilly floor and began stripping the pillowcase off. The warden, as if frozen to the spot, followed his movements with bulging eyes. His lips quivered.

"Repairs," he said finally. "Repairs got to be done. All the wallpaper's peeling off, the ceiling's cracked, the floors need re-laying..." His voice took on a firmer note. "So you've got to vacate in any case. We're starting repairs right away here."

"Repairs?"

"Repairs. Look at that wallpaper. The workmen will be here directly."

"What, now?"

"Right now. Why wait? The ceiling's full of cracks. Just take a look."

Pepper began to shiver. He left the pillowcase and picked up his shorts.

"What's the time?" he asked.

"Well after twelve," said the warden, again whispering, and, forsome reason, glancing around.

"Where on earth shall I go?" said Pepper, pausing with one leg in his shorts. "You'll have to fix me up. Another room..."

"Full up. And where it isn't, repairs are under way."

"In the duty room, then."

"Full up."

Pepper stared at the moon in despair.

"Well, the storeroom will do," he said. "The storeroom, the laundry, the isolation ward. I've only got six more hours to sleep. Or maybe you can fix me up in your place..."

The warden began rushing about the room. He ran between the bunks, barefoot, white, and terrible as a specter. Then he stopped and groaned:

"What a business, eh? I'm a civilized man as well, graduate of two colleges, I'm not a savage or anything... I know it all. But it's impossible, get me? It's absolutely out of the question!"

He bounded up to Pepper and whispered in his ear, "Your visa has run out! Twenty-seven minutes ago it ran out and you're still here. You mustn't be here. I beg you..." He collapsed onto his knees and drew Pepper's boots and socks out from under the bed. "I woke up at five to twelve covered in sweat," he mumbled. "Well, I thought, this is it. This is the end of me. I ran off just as I was. I don't remember a thing. Clouds over the streets, nails catching my feet - and my wife's expecting! Get dressed, please, get dressed..."

Pepper got dressed in a hurry. He found it hard to think. The warden kept running between the bunks, shuffling across the moonlit squares, now glancing out into the corridor, now looking out of the window, whispering, "Good lord, what a business."

"Can I at least leave my suitcase with you?" inquired Pepper.

The warden clacked his teeth.

"Not at any price! You'll be the ruin of me... You might have some sympathy... Good lord, good lord..."

Pepper gathered his books together, closing his case with difficulty, and picked up his raincoat. "Where shall I go now?" he asked.

The warden was mute. He waited fidgeting with impatience. Pepper hefted his suitcase and went off down the dark and silent staircase to the street. He paused on the verandah and while attempting to control his shivering, spent some time listening to the warden instructing the somnolent duty clerk: "He'll ask for readmittance. Don't let him in! He's got ... [inaudible sinister whisper] Got it! You're responsible..." Pepper sat down on his suitcase and placed his raincoat across his knees.

"I'm afraid not, sorry," said the warden behind him. "I must ask you to leave the verandah. I must ask you to vacate the hotel premises completely."

He had to go down and put his case on the roadway. The warden stamped around, muttering: "I must ask you... My wife ... and no fuss... Consequences ... can't be done..." and left, white underwear gleaming, stealing along the fence. Pepper glanced at the dark windows of the cottages, the dark windows of the Directorate, the dark windows of the hotel. There was no light anywhere, even the street lighting was off. There was only the moon, round, brilliant, and somehow malevolent.

He suddenly realized he was alone. He had nobody. All around people were asleep and they all like me, I know that, I've seen it many times. Yet I'm alone, just as if they'd suddenly died or become enemies ... and the warden - kind, ugly man, a martyr to Basedow's disease, a loser who latched on to me the very first day. We played the piano together, four hands, and argued. I was the only one he dared to argue with and next to whom he felt himself a real person, not just the father of seven children. And Kim. He had returned from the chancellery and brought a huge document case with him, full of informers reports. Ninety-two denunciations of me, all written in one hand and with different signatures. That I steal official sealing wax at the post office, that I brought an underage girl in my suitcase and am now keeping her in the bakery cellar, and much besides... And Kim read these denunciations and threw some into the wastebasket, and kept others to one side, muttering: "I'll have to put some headwork in on that." And that was unexpected and horrible, senseless and repulsive... How he would timidly glance at me and drop his eyes at once.

Pepper rose, gripped his case and wandered off, following his nose. His nose led nowhere. Not that there was anywhere to lead to along these dark empty streets. He kept stumbling, the dust made him sneeze, and he fell a time or two. The suitcase was incredibly heavy and somehow ungovernable. It rubbed its.bulk against his leg then swung out to one side and then, returning from the dark, struck his kneee a tremendous clout. In the park's dark alley where there was no light at all and only the statues, like the warden, glimmered shakily in the gloom, the case got caught up in a thread of his trouser-leg and Pepper abandoned it in despair. The hour of despair had arrived. Weeping and blind with tears, Pepper struggled through dry, dusty, spiky hedges, rolled down steps, fell, painfully striking his back, and finally drained of strength and gasping with exasperation and self-pity, went down on his knees at the edge of the cliff.

The forest, however, remained indifferent. So indifferent that it was invisible. Below the edge was inky blackness. Only on the far horizon something layered, gray, and formless lazily reflected the rays of the moon.

"Wake up," asked Pepper. "Look at me just this once, while we're alone, don't worry, they're all asleep. Surely you need at least one of us? Or don't you understand what a need is? It's when you can't do without ... when you think all the time about ... when all your life you've been striving toward... I don't know what you are. Nor do those who are dead sure they know. You are what you are, but I can hope that you're what I've wanted to see all my life: kind, intelligent, indulgent, and considerate, perhaps even grateful. We've dissipated all that, we've no energy or time for it, all we do is construct historical monuments, ever higher, ever cheaper, but consideration is something we can't manage. But you're different, because from a long way off I came to you, not believing you actually existed. So you really don't need me? No, I won't lie. I'm afraid I don't need you either. We've caught sight of each other, but came no closer. It shouldn't have been that way. Perhaps they stand between us? There are plenty of them and only one of me, but I'm - one of them, you, probably can't pick me out in the crowd, maybe it isn't worth the trouble.

Maybe I invented those human characteristics that would appeal to you myself, to you that is, not as you are, but as I had imagined you to be...

Suddenly from beyond the horizon, bright white puffs of light slowly swam up and hung, dissipating and at once to the right under the cliff, under the overhanging rocks, searchlight beams began hunting wildly, haring about the sky and encountering massed banks of fog. The light balls above the horizon continued to thin out and disperse and turned into silvery clouds before extinguishing. A minute later the searchlights went out.

"They're afraid," said Pepper. "I am too. I'm afraid for myself but I'm afraid for you as well. You don't know them after all, yet. Even I don't know them at all well. All I know is they're capable of any extreme, the furthest extremes of stupidity and wisdom, cruelty and pity, fury and restraint. There's only one thing they lack - understanding. They always substituted some sort of surrogate for understanding, be it faith, disbelief, indifference, or neglect. That always turned out to be the simplest way. Easier to believe than comprehend. Easier to become disenchanted than to comprehend. I'm leaving tomorrow, by the way, not that that matters. I can't help you here, here everything's too solid and well-established. I'm just too obviously superfluous here, alien. I'll find the pressure point though, don't worry. It's true they can ruin you irretrievably, but that needs time and plenty of it. They've yet to find the most effective, economic, and above all, cheap method of approach. We'll keep up the struggle, it will have been worth it... Good-bye."

Pepper got up from his knees and wandered back by way of the bushes, the park, the alley. He tried without success to locate his suitcase. After that he got back to the main street, empty and illuminated only by the moon. It was already after one when he halted outside the Directorate library, it was open invitingly. The windows were hung with heavy curtains but inside it was brightly lit, like a dance hall. The parquet floor had dried out and squeaked desperately; all around were books. The shelves groaned under the weight of books, books lay in heaps on tables and in corners, and apart from Pepper and the books there wasn't a soul in the library.

Pepper lowered himself into a big old armchair and stretched out his legs; reclining he calmly placed his arms on the rests. Well now, what are you standing there for, said he to the books. Lazy devils! That's not what you were written for? Tell us, you tell me how the sowing went, how many acres? How many acres "of the wise, the good, the everlasting"? What are the prospects for the harvest? Above all - how is it sprouting? Quiet now, you there, what's your name two-volume! How many people have read you? How many understood? I've a lot of affection for you, old man, you're a good, honest friend. You never bawled or boasted or beat your chest. Good and honest. Those who read you also become good and honest, at least for a time. At least to themselves. You know, though, don't you, that some are of the opinion that goodness and honesty are not all that indispensable if we're to forge ahead. For that you need legs. And boots. Even unwashed legs and dirty boots. Progress can be perfectly indifferent to concepts of goodness and honor, as it has been indifferent up to now. The Directorate, for example, has no need of goodness or honor in order to function properly. Pleasant, desirable, but by no means essential. Like a knowledge of Latin to a bathhouse attendant, or biceps on an accountant. Or respect for women to Hausbotcher... It all depends on your definition of progress. You can define it so the famous "for all that" appears: an alcoholic but for all that an outstanding specialist; a lecher but for all that an excellent preacher; a thief, you know, a rogue, but for all that what an executive! A murderer but for all that, what discipline and dedication... You can also look on progress as a transformation of everyone into good and honest men. Then we'll live to hear people say: he's a specialist, of course, knows his stuff, but he's a dirty type, he'll have to go...

Listen, books, do you know there are more of you than there are people? If all the people were to disappear, you could populate the earth and supply their place. You've got good and honest among you, wise and erudite, frivolous rattles, sceptics and madmen, murderers, corrupters of children, children, prophets of doom, complacent fools, and hoarse demagogues with flaming eyes. You wouldn't know why you were here either. Why are you here, anyway? A lot of you give knowledge but what use is it in the forest? It has no connection with the forest. It's like drilling the principles of fortification into a future builder of sun cities, and then no matter how he tried to build sanatoria or stadia, he kept producing gloomy redoubts complete with bastions, scarps, and counterscarps. All you've given to people coming to the forest is prejudice, not knowledge... Others of you instill mistrust and depression. And that's not because they're miserable or cruel or suggest hope be abandoned, but because they lie. Occasionally they lie radiantly, accompanied by rousing songs and jaunty whistling, sometimes maudlin, moaning, and defensive, but - they lie. For some reason nobody ever burns books like that and never removes them from libraries, never has there been a case in human history where a lie has been given to the flames, unless people chanced not to understand it, or indeed believed in it. In the forest they're not needed either. They're never needed. Probably that's why there are so many of them ... or rather it's because people like them. "Dearer to us than the bitter truth..." What? who's that talking there... Oh, it's me ... as I was saying, there are other books... What? ...

"Quiet. Let him sleep." "Why sleep. Better have a drink." "Stop scraping about like that... Here, it's old Pepper!"

"What if it is, watch you don't fall." "He's sort of unlooked-after, he's pathetic!" "I'm not pathetic," mumbled Pepper as he woke up. A library stepladder stood opposite Pepper. On its top step sat Alevtina from the photo laboratory, while below, driver Acey was holding the steps with his tattooed arms and gazing upward. "He's always wandering about like a lost soul," said Alevtina, looking at Pepper. "No supper, likely. He wants waking up, a glass of vodka at least. What do people like that dream about, I wonder?"

"Ask me what I'm seeing awake!" said Acey gazing up.

"Anything new?" asked Alevtina. "Never seen it before?"

"Well, no," said Acey. "Can't say it's especially new, but it's like the movies - you see it twenty times over but it's still nice."

On the third step from the bottom lay pieces of a massive strudel, on the fourth were laid out cucumbers and peeled oranges, a half-empty bottle and a plastic pencil-cup stood on the fifth step.

"Look as much as you like as long as you keep the steps steady," said Alevtina, and she set to work getting weighty journals and faded folders down from the top shelves of the stack. She blew the dust off and frowned as she flipped the pages; she put some to one side and replaced the rest. Driver Acey snuffled loudly.

"Do you need the year's before last?" asked Alevtina.

"There's only one thing I want just now," said Acey mysteriously. "I'll just wake Pepper up."

"Keep near the steps," said Alevtina.

"I'm not asleep," said Pepper. "I've been watching you for ages."

"You can't see anything from there," said Acey. "Come over here, Monsieur Pepper. We've got the lot here, women, wine, fruit..."

Pepper got up, stumbling on one numb leg, and came uo to the steps; he poured himself a drink. "What did you dream about, Peppy?" inquired Alevtina from aloft.

Pepper glanced up mechanically and averted his eyes at once.

"What I dreamed ... rubbish... I was talking to the books."

He drained the drink and took a piece of orange. "Just a minute there. Monsieur Pepper," said Acey. "I'll have a drink myself."

"So do you want the year before last's?" "I'll say!" said Acey, splashing into his glass and choosing a cucumber. "And for the one before that. I always need it. I've always had it and can't do without it. Nobody can. Some need more, some less ... I always say, why lecture me? What I am, I am." Acey tossed down his drink with the greatest of pleasure and crunched into a cucumber. "But you can't live the way I live here. I'll put up with it just a little bit more and then I'll drive my truck into the forest and catch myself a mermaid..."

Pepper stood holding the steps and tried to think about the following day, while Acey seated himself on the bottom step and began relating a story of his youth. He and a group of cronies caught a couple on the edge of town, beat up the boyfriend and chased him off and tried to make use of the dame. It was cold and damp and being extremely young nobody could achieve anything, the lady friend was crying and afraid and one by one the boys drifted off. Acey on his own tagged after her for a long time through the dirty backstreets, grabbing at her, swearing. He kept thinking he would make it, but nothing transpired until he had got her to her own house and there in the dark hallway he had his way up against the iron railing. In Acey's account the incident seemed extraordinarily thrilling and cheerful.

"So the mermaids won't escape me," said Acey. "I never let go and won't start now. What I have in the window is what's in the shop - fair dealing."

He had a darkly handsome face, bushy eyebrows, lively eyes, and a full mouth of excellent teeth. He looked very like an Italian. Except that his feet smelled.

"Good lord, what've they been doing," said Alev-tina. "All the folders are mixed up. Here, hold this lot for a bit."

She bent down and gave Acey a pile of papers and journals. Acey took it, scanned several papers, read to himself, lips moving, and counted the folders.

"I need two more."

Pepper kept holding the ladder and looked at his clenched fists. Tomorrow at this time I won't be here, he thought. I'll be sitting next to Acey in the cab. It'll be hot. The metal will just be starting to cool down. Acey will switch on the headlights, settle down more comfortably with his elbow out of the window and will start up about world politics. I'm not going to let him talk about anything else. Let him stop at every snack bar. Let him pick up anybody he wants, even let him make a detour to deliver somebody's repaired motorbike. But we're going to talk about world politics only. Or I could ask him about various cars, fuel consumption, accidents, murders of bribe investigators. He tells a good story, and you can never guess if he's telling the truth.

Acey drank another, smacked his lips, glanced at Alevtina's legs, and continued his narration, fidgeting and making expressive gestures, bursting out in delighted laughter. With a scrupulous adherence to chronology he related the story of his life, from year to year, month to month. The cook at a concentration camp where he'd done time for stealing paper (the cook had commented meanwhile: "Don't let me down, Acey, see you don't! ..."), the daughter of a political prisoner at the same camp (it was all the same to her, she was sure she was a goner anyway), a sailor's wife in some seaside town, who was trying this way of revenging herself on her tomcat of a husband for his multitudinous betrayals. A certain rich widow, from whom Acey had had to flee in the middle of the night clad only in his drawers, as she wanted Acey under her wing and force him to traffic in drugs and shameful medical preparations. Women he'd transported when he was a taxi-driver; they paid him in coin for each of their guests, and at the end of the night with their bodies. ("I says to her, what's all this then, nobody thinks about me, you've had four and I've not had one yet...") Then a wife, a fifteen-year-old girl whom he married on a special dispensation - she bore him twins and finally left him when he attempted to use her in payment for the use of his friend's lady friends. Women ... birds ... stinkers ... butterflies ... shits ... bitches... "So you see I'm no lecher," he concluded. "I'm just a man with a bit of spirit, not some gutless impotent."

He finished off the liquor, collected up the folders, and left without saying good night, scraping the parquet and whistling. Oddly bent forward as he was, he was surprisingly like a cross between a spider and a neanderthal. Pepper was looking helplessly after him when Alevtina spoke.

"Give me your hand, Peppy."

She sat down on the top step, put one hand on his shoulder and leapt down with a small shriek. He caught her under the arms and lowered her to the floor; for some time they stood close to one another, face to face. She kept her hands on his shoulders and he kept holding her under the arms.

"I've been thrown out of the hotel," he said. "I know," she said. "Let's go to my place, okay?" She was kind-hearted and warm and looked him in the eyes calmly, though without any particular assurance. Looking at her, one could imagine many kindly, warm sweet pictures and Pepper avidly flicked through them all, one after the other, and tried to imagine himself next to her, but was suddenly aware that it wasn't working. Instead of himself he kept seeing Acey, handsome and naked, economical in movement and smelling of feet.

"No, thank you," taking his hands from her. "I'll get by all right."

She immediately turned from him and set about collecting the leftovers onto a newspaper.

"Why 'get by'?" she said. "I can put you up on the sofa. Sleep till morning, then we'll find you a room. You can't sit in the library every night..."

"Thank you," said Pepper. "Only I'm leaving tomorrow."

She looked around at him in astonishment. "Leaving. For the forest?"

"No. Home."

"Home..." She slowly wrapped the food in the newspaper. "But you've wanted to get into the forest all the time. I've heard you myself."

"Yes, you see, I did want to. But they won't let me go. I don't even know why. And there's nothing for me to do in the Directorate. So I've fixed it. Acey's taking me away tomorrow. It's three already. I'll go to the garage, get into Acey's truck and wait till morning. So don't you worry..."

"So, we'll be saying good-bye... Maybe we'll go to my place anyway?"

"Thanks, but better in the truck... I'd be afraid of oversleeping. Acey won't wait for me, will he?"

They went out into the street arm in arm and walked toward the garage.

"So you didn't like Acey's storytelling?" she asked.

"No," said Pepper. "I didn't like it at all. I don't like it when people talk about that. Why? It's sort of embarrassing ... for him, you and me ... for everybody. It's too pointless, all of this. Just one vast boredom."

"It usually is," said Alevtina. "But don't be embarrassed for me. I'm absolutely indifferent... Well, this is your road. Kiss me good-bye."

Pepper kissed her, aware of a vague regret. "Thank you," she said, turning away quickly and walking off in another direction. For some reason, Pepper waved a hand after her.

He came into the garage, which was lit up by blue lamps and, stepping across the snoring guard on his car-seat, found Acey's truck and got into the cab. It smelled of rubber, gas, and dust. On the windshield hung a spreadeagled Mickey Mouse. Nice and cozy, thought Pepper. I should have come here straight away. All around stood silent trucks, dark and empty. The guard snored sonorously. The trucks slept, the guard slept, the whole Directorate slept. And Alevtina was undressing before the mirror in her room alongside her neatly-made bed, large, double, soft, and very warm... No, no sense thinking about that because during the day the chatter got in the way, the tapping of the Mercedes, the whole busy, meaningless chaos, but now there was no eradication, no penetration, no security, or the other sinister stupidities. There was a dream world above the abyss, transparent like all dream worlds, invisible and inaudible, not a whit more real than the forest. The forest was at this moment more real: the forest, after all, never slept. Or perhaps it slept and dreamed us. We are the forest's dream. An atavistic dream. The crude ghosts of its cooled sexuality...

Pepper lay down, curled up, and put his rolled-up raincoat under his head as a pillow. Mickey Mouse swung gently on his thread. On seeing the toy the girls always cried: "Ah, isn't it pretty!" and driver Acey answered: "What's in the window's always in the shop." The gear-lever dug into Pepper's side and he didn't know how to remove it or whether it could be. Maybe if he moved it, the truck would move, slowly at first then quickening straight toward the sleeping sentry while Pepper flung himself about the cab pressing everything he could reach with a hand or foot, and the guard getting ever closer, his open snoring mouth already visible. Then the truck would leap and turn viciously, slamming into the garage wall; the blue sky would be seen through the hole...

Pepper woke up and saw it was already morning. Mechanics were smoking in the gaping garage doors, the square in front of the garage was yellow with sunlight. It was seven o'clock. Pepper sat up, wiped his face and looked at himself in the rear mirror. Need a shave, he thought but he didn't get out of the truck. Acey wasn't around yet and he had to wait for him here on the spot, since all the drivers were forgetful and always went off without him. There were two rules governing relations with drivers: first, never get out of the cab if you can be patient and wait; secondly, never argue with the driver who's carrying you. If worse comes to worst, pretend to be asleep.

The mechanics at the doors had thrown away their cigarette butts and ground them out carefully with their heels. They came into the garage. Pepper knew only one of them and he was no mechanic, he was the manager. They passed by Acey's truck, where the manager paused by the cab and, placing his hand on the wing, for some reason glanced under the vehicle. Then Pepper heard him giving orders:

"Move now, get the jack."

"Where is it?" asked the unknown mechanic.

"!" said the manager calmly. "Look under the seat."

"How should I know," said the mechanic, irritably. "I kept telling you I was a waiter." There was silence for a while, then the driver's door opened and the frowning tense face of the waiter-mechanic appeared. He glanced at Pepper, gazed around the cab, tugged the wheel for some reason, then put both arms under the seat and started feeling around.

"Would this be the jack?" he asked quietly.

"N-no," said Pepper. "I believe it's the starting handle."

The mechanic raised the handle to his eyes, examined it, placed it on the step, and thrust his arms once more under the seat.

"What about this?" he asked.

"No," said Pepper, "I can be absolutely sure of that one. It's a calculating machine. Jacks aren't like that."

The waiter-mechanic wrinkled his low forehead and looked the machine over carefully.

"What are they like then?" he inquired.

"We-11 ... a sort of metal rod ... there's different kinds. They've got a sort of movable handle."

"Well there's a handle on this, like a cash register."

"No, it's a different handle altogether."

"What happens if you turn this one?"

Pepper was completely at a loss. The mechanic waited for a moment, placed the machine on the step, and got back under the seat. "Would it be this?" he said.

"Could be. It looks very like it. Only there should be another metal spoke to it, a thick one."

The mechanic found that, too. He hefted it in his palm, saying: "Okay, I'll take this along to him for a start," then left, leaving the door open. Pepper lit a cigarette. Somewhere behind him came the sound of metal clanking accompanied by swearing. The truck began creaking and trembling.

There was still no sign of Acey, but Pepper wasn't worried. He was picturing them bowling down the main street of the Directorate and no one looking at them. Then they would turn toward the settlement dragging a cloud of yellow dust behind them. The sun would rise higher and higher, it would be to their right and would soon start scorching, then they'd turn from the settlement onto the main road, it would lie long, even, gleaming and monotonous, on the horizon mirages would flow like great shining pools...

Once again the mechanic walked past the cab, rolling before him a heavy rear wheel. The wheel raced along the concrete floor and it was obvious the mechanic wanted to stop it and lean it up against the wall. The wheel, however, wobbled a little and ponderously trundled out into the yard, the mechanic in awkward pursuit, but being outdistanced. At this point, they disappeared from view. Out in the yard the mechanic began shouting despairingly. Came the tramp of many feet past the gates and shouts of: "Catch it! Come in from the right." More people ran past.

Pepper noticed that the truck was not standing as evenly as before and looked out of the cab. The manager was busy with the rear wheel.

"Hello," said Pepper. "What're you ..." "Ah, Pepper, friend!" the manager cried happily, continuing his work. "You stay there, stay there, don't get out! You're not bothering us. Jammed, blast it. One came off fine, the other's jammed."

"How's that? Something broken?"

"Don't think so," said the manager, straightening up and wiping his brow with the back end of the palm with which he held the spanner. "Just rusted in a bit, probably. I'll do it right away. Then we'll get the chessmen out. What d'you say?"

"Chess?" said Pepper, "but where's Acey?"

"Acey? That is, Ace? Ace is our senior lab assistant. He's been sent to the forest. Ace doesn't work with us anymore. What d'you want him for?"

"Nothing, just ..." said Pepper quietly. "I just thought ..." He opened the door and leapt down onto the cement floor.

"No need to get out. You could have stayed there, you're not in our way."

"Why sit in here," said Pepper. "This truck's not going anywhere, is it?"

"No, it isn't. Can't go without wheels, and these want taking off. That's all I needed - jammed! Ah, to ... Never mind, the mechanics'll take them off. Let's go and set up the board."

He took Pepper's arm and led him into his office. They sat down at a table, the manager pushed away a heap of papers, set out the board, and disconnected the telephone.

"Are we going to play with a clock?" he asked.

"Well I don't know, really," said Pepper.

It was dim and cold in the office, blue tobacco smoke floated between the cupboards like frozen seaweed, and the manager, warty, rotund, and covered in mottled patches, was like a gigantic octopus opening the lacquered shell of the chess board with two hairy tentacles, and busily extracting its wooden innards. His round eyes held a dull gleam, the righthand one, the false one, was permanently directed toward the ceiling, whereas the left one, lively as a mercury dot, rolled freely in its srcket, fixing its stare in turn on Pepper, the door, and the board.

"With a clock," the manager decided finally. He took a clock from the cupboard, wound it up and, pressing the button, made his first move.

The sun was coming up. From the yard came a shout of "come in from the right!"

At eight o'clock, the manager, in a difficult position, went into deep thought, then abruptly ordered breakfast for two. Cars were rumbling out of the garage. The manager lost one game and proposed another. They breakfasted solidly, two bottles of yogurt and a crustly strudel apiece. The manager lost a second game and offered a third, his good eye gazing at Pepper with devoted admiration. He played an identical queen's gambit every time, indefatigably sticking to an inevitably losing variation. He had, as it were, worked out his defeat perfectly and Pepper moved his pieces absolutely automatically feeling like a programmed machine; neither in him nor in the world was there anything except a chess board, clock buttons, and a firmly fixed program of action.

At five to nine the tannoy crackled and announced in a sexless voice: "All Directorate personnel to stand by telephones. The Director will address all staff." The manager became most serious, reconnected the telephone and put the receiver to his ear. Both his eyes were now contemplating the ceiling. "Can I go, now," asked Pepper. The manager frowned horribly, placed his finger to his lips, then waved his hand at Pepper. An unpleasant quacking resounded in the receiver. Pepper left on tiptoe.

There were lots of people in the garage. Every face was stern and impressive, even solemn. No one was working, everybody had telephone receivers pressed to their ears. In the yard, only the waiter-mechanic, sweaty, red and tormented, pursued his wheel, breathing heavily. Something very important was taking place. This can't go on, thought Pepper, it just can't. I'm always left out, I never know anything, perhaps that's the whole trouble, perhaps everything's really all right, but I don't know what's what, so I'm always superfluous.

He sprang into the nearest automatic telephone, snatched the receiver, and listened eagerly. He could only hear the ringing tone. At once he was aware of a sudden fear, a nagging apprehension that he was missing something again, that somewhere everybody was getting something, and he, as usual, was going without. Leaping over the ropes and inspection pits, he crossed the construction site, gave a wide berth to a guard blocking the road with a pistol in one hand and a receiver in the other, and shinned up a ladder onto the partially-built wall. In all the windows he could make out people frozen to telephones in attitudes of concentration; just then something whined above his ear and almost at once he heard the sound of a revolver shot. He leaped down into a heap of rubbish and rushed to the service entrance. It was locked. He yanked at the handle several times until it came off. He flung it to one side and for a second debated what to do next. There was a narrow open window alongside the door and, covered in dust, his nails torn, he climbed in.

There were two tables in the room in which he found himself. At one sat Hausbotcher with a telephone. His eyes were closed, his face stony. He was pressing the receiver to his ear with his shoulder and jotting something down with a pencil on a large notepad. The other was vacant, on it stood a telephone. Pepper took off the receiver and began to listen.

Hissing. Crackling. An unfamiliar squeaky voice: "Directorate can in practice only control an infinitesimal area in the ocean of the forest, which laps the continent. The meaning of life does not exist, nor does the meaning of action. We can do an extraordinary amount, but up to now we have not understood what, out of what we can do, we really need. It does not resist, it simply takes no notice. If an action has brought you pleasure - well and good, if it hasn't - it was pointless." More hissing and crackling. "We oppose with millions of horsepower, dozens of land-rovers, airships, and helicopters, medical science and the finest logistics theory in the world. The Directorate has at least two major failings. At the present time similar actions can have far-reaching cipher communication in the name of Herostratus, so that he remains our dearly beloved friend. It cannot create at all without destroying authority and ingratitude..." Hooting, whistling, noises like an explosive cough. "... it is particularly fond of so-called simple solutions, libraries, internal communications, geographical and other maps. The ways it regards as shortest, so as to consider the meaning of life for everyone at once, and people don't like that. Personnel sit with their legs dangling over the cliff, each in his own place, tussle together, make jokes and hurl stones, each trying to hurl a heavier stone, at the same time, the expenditure on yogurt does not help grafting or eradication, nor the due amount of forest security. I am afraid that we have not realized what we really want, and nerves, let us face it also need to be trained, as capacity for receptivity can be trained. Reason does not blush or suffer from pangs of conscience, since a question from a scientific, a correctly posed one, becomes a moral one. It is deceitful and slippery, it is impermanent and dissimulates. But someone must irritate, not relate legends, and carefully prepare himself for a trial exit. Tomorrow I will receive you again and see how you have prepared yourself. Twenty-two hundred hours - radiological alarm and earthquake. Eighteen hundred - meeting of all off-duty personnel in my office, so to speak, on the carpet. Twenty-four hundred - general evacuation..."

Through the receiver came a sound of pouring water. Then everything went quiet and Pepper noticed Hausbotcher watching him with sternly accusing eyes.

"What's he saying?" asked Pepper in a whisper. "I can't understand a thing."

"Hardly surprising," said Hausbotcher icily. "You picked up the wrong telephone." He dropped his eyes, noted something on his pad and went on: "That is, incidentally, an absolutely impermissable contravention of the rules. I insist that you replace the receiver and leave. Otherwise I shall summon official personnel."

"All right," said Pepper. "I'll go. But where's my telephone? This isn't mine. Where's mine, then?"

Hausbotcher made no reply. His eyes had closed again, and he once more pressed the instrument to his ear. Pepper could hear croaking noises.

"I'm asking you, where's my phone?" shouted Pepper. Now he could hear nothing at all. There was hissing, there was crackling, then came the rapid beeps of the signing-off signal. He dropped the instrument and ran out into the corridor. He opened the doors of the offices one after another and everywhere saw staff familiar and unfamiliar. Some were sitting or standing, frozen into total immobility, like wax figures with glassy eyes; others were treading from one corner to another, stepping over the telephone wires they trailed after them; still others were feverishly writing in thick exercise books, on scraps of paper, or the margins of newspapers. And every one of them had the telephone clamped close to his ear, as if afraid to miss even a word. There were no spare telephones. Pepper attempted to take a receiver away from one of the entranced ones, a young man in a boiler-suit. He, however, at once came alive, began squealing and kicking, at which the others began shushing and waving their hands. Somebody shouted hysterically: "Disgraceful! Call the guard!"

"Where's my telephone?" Pepper was shouting. "I'm a man like you and I have a right to know! Let me listen! Give me my telephone!"

He was pushed out and the doors locked in his face. He wandered up to the last story, where, almost into the attic, next to the never-working elevator machinery, there sat two duty mechanics at a table, playing noughts and crosses. Pepper leaned against the wall, out of breath. The mechanics glanced at him, gave him an absent smile, and once more bent over the paper.

"Haven't you got your own telephone?" asked Pepper.

"Yes," said one. "Naturally. We haven't come to that yet."

"Well, why aren't you listening?" "You can't hear anything. Why listen?" "Why can't you hear anything?"

"Because we've cut the wire."

Pepper wiped his face and neck with a crumpled handkerchief, waited till one mechanic defeated the other, then went downstairs. The corridors had become noisy; doors were open wide, staff were coming out for a smoke. Lively, excited, exhilarated voices exclaimed and buzzed. "I'm telling you the truth. Eskimos invented the Eskimo ice cream. What? Well, all right, I just read it in a book... You can't hear the assonance yourself? Es-ki-mos. Es-ki-mo. What? ..." "I saw it in the Hiver catalogue, a hundred and fifty thousand francs - and that was in fifty-six. Can you imagine what that would be today?" "Funny cigarettes. They say they aren't putting tobacco into cigarettes anymore. They get special paper, crush it, and saturate it in nicotine..." "You can get cancer from tomatoes as well. Tomatoes, a pipe, eggs, silk gloves..." "Did you sleep well? Imagine, I couldn't get to sleep all night: that piledriver keeps thumping all the time. Can you hear it? Like that all night. Hello, there, Pepper! They were saying you'd left... You're staying, good lad!" "They've found that thief at last, remember, all those things kept disappearing? It turned out to be the discus-thrower from the park, you know, the statue near the fountain. He had something filthy written on his leg, too." "Peppy, be a pal, lend me five till payday - tomorrow that is..." "But he wasn't after her. She kept throwing herself at him. Right in front of her husband. You won't believe this, but I saw it with my own eyes..."

Pepper went down to his office, said hello to Kirn, and washed his hands. Kim wasn't working. He was sitting quietly with his hands on the table, gazing at the tiled wall. Pepper took the dust-cover off the Merce-des, plugged it in, and glanced expectantly at Kim.

"Can't work today," said Kim. "Some goon is going around repairing everything. I'm sat here not knowing what to do."

At this point a note on his desk caught Pepper's eye. "To Pepper. We are to advise you that your telephone is located in office 771." Signature illegible. Pepper sighed.

"No use sighing," said Kim, "you should have got to work on time."

"Well, I didn't know," Pepper said. "I was intending to leave today."

"It's your own fault," Kim said shortly.

"Anyway I did hear something. Kim, you know. I didn't understand it at all. Why was that?"

"Hear something! You're a fool. You're an idiot. You missed such an opportunity I can hardly bear to speak to you. I'll have to introduce you to the director. Out of pity."

"Do that," said Pepper. "You know," he went on, "sometimes I thought I caught the sense of something, some scraps of ideas, I think very interesting ones, but I'm trying to recall them - and nothing."

"Whose telephone was it?"

"I don't know. Where Hausbotcher sits!"

"Ah-h, yes, she's having a baby. Hausbotcher's out of luck. Gets a new assistant, works six months - and a baby. Yes, Pepper, you got a woman's telephone. So I don't know how I can help you... Nobody listens to it all right through, women either, I suppose. After all, the director is addressing everybody at once, but at the same time everybody separately as well. Understand?"

"I'm afraid not."

"I for instance, recommend listening like this. Put the director's speech into one line, omitting punctuation marks, and choose the words at random, mentally putting down dominoes. Then if the domino halves coincide, the word is accepted and noted down on a separate list. If it doesn't - the word is temporarily rejected, but remains in the line. There are a few other refinements to do with the frequency of vowels and consonants, but that is an effect of secondary significance. Get it?"

"No," said Pepper. "That is, yes. Pity I didn't know that method. And what did he say today?"

"It's not the only method. There is, for example, the

intermittent spiral method. It's rather crude, but if the speech is only about equipment and economic problems, it's very convenient because it's simple. There is the Stevenson-Zade method, but that requires electronic gadgets... So that, all round, the domino method's the best, but when the terminology is specialized and narrow - the spiral method."

"Thank you," said Pepper. "But what was the director talking about today?"

"What d'you mean, what about?"

"What? ... Well... what about? Well, what did he ,say?"

"To whom?"

"To whom? Well, you for instance." "Unfortunately, I can't tell you that. It's classified material, and after all. Peppy, you're not on permanent staff here. So don't get mad."

"No, I'm not angry," said Pepper. "I'd have liked to know, that's all... He said something about the forest and free will... I'd recently been lobbing pebbles over the cliff, well, just like that for no real reason and he said something about it."

"Don't you tell me about that," said Kirn nervously. "It's nothing to do with me. Or you either if it wasn't your telephone."

"Now wait a minute, did he say something about the forest?"

Kim shrugged.

"Well, naturally. He never talks about anything else. Anyway, let's stop this sort of talk. Tell me how you meant to get away." Pepper told him.

"You shouldn't beat him all the time," said Kim, thoughtful.

"There's nothing I can do. I'm a pretty strong player, you know, and he's just an amateur. And he plays a queer game."

"That doesn't matter. I'd have thought a bit in your shoes. I'm getting not to like you just lately... They're writing denunciations about you... You know what, I'll fix a meeting with the director for you tomorrow. Go to him and explain yourself fully. I reckon he'll let you go. Stress the fact that you're a linguist, an arts graduate, and got here accidentally. Mention, as if in passing, that you were very keen to get into the forest, but you've changed your mind, because you don't think you're competent." "All right."

They were silent for a while. Pepper imagined himself face to face with the director and was terrified. Domino method, he thought, Stevenson-Zade...

"Main thing, don't be afraid to cry," said Kim. "He likes that."

Pepper sprang to his feet and paced the room in agitation.

"Good lord," he said. "If I only knew what he looks like. What sort of a man he is."

"What sort? He's not very tall, gingerish..."

"Hausbotcher was saying that he was a real giant."

"Hausbotcher's a fool. Boaster and liar. The director is a ginger sort of guy, stoutish, small scar on right cheek. Bit pigeon-toed when he walks, like a sailor. In fact that's what he used to be."

"But Acey said he was skinny and had long hair because of his missing ear."

"What Acey is this?"

"Driver. I was telling you about him."

Kim gave an irritated laugh.

"How would driver Acey know about all that? Take my advice, Peppy, and don't be so trusting."

"Acey said he'd been his driver and seen him several times."

"Well, what of it? He's lying, probably. I was his personal secretary and never saw him once."

"Who?"

"The director. I was his secretary for ages till I got my further degree."

"And never saw him once?"

"Well, naturally! You imagine it's that easy?"

"Wait a minute, how do you know he's ginger and so forth?"

Kim shook his head.

"Peppy," said he tenderly. "Dear lad. Nobody's ever seen a hydrogen atom, but everybody knows it has an electron shell having certain characteristics and a nucleus consisting in the simplest instance of one proton."

"That's true enough," said Pepper limply. He felt weary. "So I'll see him tomorrow."

"Now, now, ask me something easier," said Kim. "I'll fix you a meeting, that I can guarantee you. But what you'll see or who - that I don't know. Or what you'll hear, either. You don't ask me whether the director will let you go or not, do you? And rightly so, I can hardly know that, can I?"

"That's a different matter, surely," said Pepper. "Same thing. Peppy," said Kim. "Believe me, the same."

"I must seem very stupid," Pepper said sadly. "A bit." "I just slept badly, that's all."

"No, you're not practical, that's all. Why did you sleep badly anyway?"

Pepper told all and became alarmed. Kirn's kindly face flushed and his hair became disarranged. He snarled and grabbed the telephone, dialed furiously and barked:

"Warden? What does this mean? How dare you turn Pepper out? Si-1-ence! I didn't ask what had run out. I'm asking you how you dared move Pepper out? What? Si-1-ence! You don't dare! What? Rubbish, blather! Si-1-ence! I'll walk all over you! You and your Claudius-Octavian! You'll clean out my toilet, you'll go into the forest in twenty-four hours, in sixty minutes! What? Yes ... yes... What? Yes ... that's right. Now you're talking. And the best sheets... That's your business. In the street if you like... What? All right. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Sorry to disturb you... Well, naturally. Thanks a lot. Bye." He replaced the receiver.

"Everything's okay," he said. "Marvelous man when all's said. Go and lie down. You'll be living in his flat, he and his family are moving into the hotel room you had, otherwise, unfortunately, he can't... And don't argue, for heaven's sake, it's not at all our business. He decided himself. Go on, go, that's an order. I'll call you about the director."

Pepper went out into the street, swaying. He stood for a moment, blinking in the sun, then set off for the park to look for his suitcase. He did not find it at once since it was firmly held in the muscular gypsum hand of the thieving discus-thrower by the fountain. The filthy inscription on his thigh was not as filthy as all that. A chemical pencil had written: "Girls, beware of syphilis."