The Final Circle of Paradise

CHAPTER SIX

On the way home, I was overtaken by the change of shifts. The streets filled up with cars. Controller copters appeared over the intersections, and sweaty police cleared constantly threatening jams with roaring bull horns. The cars moved slowly, and the drivers stuck heads out of windows to light up from each other, to yell, to talk and joke while furiously blowing their horns. There was an instant screech of clashing bumpers. Everyone was happy, everyone was good-natured, and everyone glowed with savage glee. It seemed as though a heavy load had just fallen from the soul of the city, as though everyone was seized with an enviable anticipation. Fingers were pointed at me and the other pedestrians. Several times I was prodded with bumpers while crossing — the girls doing it with the utmost good nature. One of them drove alongside me for quite a while, and we got acquainted. Then a line of demonstrators with sober faces walked by on the median, carrying signs. The signs appealed to people to join the amateur club ensemble Songs of the Fatherland, to enter the municipal Culinary Art groups, and to sign up for condensed courses in motherhood and childhood. The people with signs were nudged by bumpers with special enthusiasm. The drivers threw cigarette butts, apple cores, and paper wads at them. They yelled such things as “I’ll subscribe at once, just wait till I put my galoshes on,” or “Me, I’m sterile,” or “Say, buddy, teach me motherhood.” The sign carriers continued to march slowly in between the two solid streams of cars, unperturbed and sacrificial, looking straight ahead with the sad dignity of camels.

Not far from my house, I was set upon by a flock of girls, and when I finally struggled through to Second Waterway, I had a white aster in my lapel and drying kisses on my cheeks, and it seemed I had met half the girls in town. What a barber! What a Master!

Vousi, in a flaming orange blouse, was sitting in the chair in my study. Her long legs in pointy shoes rested on the table, while her slender fingers held a long slim cigarette.

With her head thrown back, she was blowing thick streams of smoke at the ceiling, through her nose.

“At long last!” she cried, seeing me. “Where have you been all this time? As you can see, I’ve been waiting for you.”

“I’ve been delayed,” I said, trying to recollect if I had indeed promised to meet her.

“Wipe off the lipstick,” she demanded. “You look silly! What’s this? Books? What do you need books for?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You are really quite a problem! Comes back late, hangs around with books. Or are those pornos?”

“It’s Mintz,” I said.

“Let me have them!” She jumped up and snatched the books out of my grasp. “Good God! What nonsense — all three are alike. What is it? History of Fascism… are you a Fascist?”

“How can you say that, Vousi!”

“Then, what do you need them for? Are you really going to read them?”

“Reread them.”

“I just don’t understand,” she said peevishly. “I liked you from the first. Mother says you’re a writer, and I went and bragged to everyone, like a fool, and then you turn out to be the next thing to an Intel.”

“How could you, Vousi!” I said with reproach. By now I had realized that it was impermissible to be taken for an Intel.

“These bookos were simply needed in my literary business, that’s all.”

“Bookos!” she laughed. “Bookos! Look at what I can do.”

She threw back her head and blew two thick streams of smoke out of her nostrils. “I got it on the second try. Pretty good, right?”

“Remarkable aptitude,” I remarked.

“Instead of laughing at me, you should try it yourself… A lady taught me at the salon today. Slobbered all over me, the fat cow… Will you try it?”

“How come she did that?”

“Who?”

“The cow.”

“Not normal. Or maybe a sad sack… What’s your name? I forgot.”

“Ivan.”

“An amusing name! You’ll have to remind me again. Are you a Tungus?”

“I don’t think so.”

“So-o… and I went and told everyone that you are a Tungus. Too bad… Say, why not have a drink?”

“Let’s.”

“Today I should have a strong drink to forget that slobbering cow.”

She ran out into the living room and came back with a tray. We had some brandy and looked at each other, not having anything to say. I felt ill at ease. I couldn’t say why, but I liked her. I sensed something, something I couldn’t put my finger on; something which distinguished her from the long-legged, smooth-skinned pin-up beauties, good only for the bed. I had the impression that she sensed something in me, too.

“Beautiful day, today,” she said, looking away.

“A bit hot,” I observed.

She sipped some brandy; I did too. The silence stretched.

“What do you like to do the most?” she asked.

“It depends. And you?”

“Same with me. In general, I like to have fun and not have to think about anything.”

“So do I,” I said. “At least I do right now.”

She seemed to perk up a little. I understood suddenly what was the matter: during the whole day, I had not met a single truly pleasant person, and I simply had gotten tired of it.

There was nothing to her, after all.

“Let’s go somewhere,” she said.

“We could,” I said. I really didn’t want to go anywhere, I wanted to sit and relax in the cool room for a while.

“I can see you’re not too eager,” she said.

“To be honest, I would prefer to sit around here for a bit.”

“Well then, amuse me.”

I considered the problem, and recounted the story of the traveling salesman in the upper bunk. She liked it, but I think she missed the point. I made a correction in my aim, and told her the one about the president and the old maid. She laughed a long time, kicking her wonderfully long legs. Then, taking courage from another shot of brandy, I told about the widow with the mushrooms growing on the wall. She slid down to the floor and almost knocked over the tray. I picked her up under the armpits, hoisted her back up in the chair, and delivered the story of the drunk spaceman and the college girl, at which point Aunt Vaina came rushing in and inquired fearfully what was going on with Vousi, and whether I was tickling her unmercifully. I poured Aunt Vaina a glass, and addressing myself to her personally, recounted the one about the Irishman who wanted to be a gardener. Vousi was completely shattered, but Aunt Vaina smiled sorrowfully and confided that Major General Tuur liked to tell the same story, when he was in a good mood. But in it there was, she thought, a Negro instead of the Irishman, and he aspired to the duties of a piano tuner and not a gardener. “And you know, Ivan, the story ended somehow differently,” she added after some thought. At this point I noticed Len standing in the doorway, looking at us. I waved and smiled at him. He seemed not to notice, so I winked at him and beckoned for him to come in.

“Whom are you winking at?” asked Vousi, through lingering laughter.

“It’s Len,” I said. It was really a pleasure to watch her, as I love to see people laugh, especially such a one as Vousi, beautiful and almost a child.

“Where’s Len?” she wondered.

There was no Len in the doorway.

“Len isn’t here,” said Aunt Vaina, who was sniffing the brandy with approval, and did not notice a thing. “The boy went to the Ziroks’ birthday party today. If you only knew, Ivan…”

“But why does he say it was Len?” asked Vousi, glancing at the door again.

“Len was here,” I said. “I waved at him, and be ran away.

You know, he looked a bit wild to me.”

“Ach, we have a highly nervous boy there,” said Aunt Vaina. “He was born in a very difficult time, and they just don’t know how to deal with a nervous child in these modern schools. Today I let him go visit.”

“We’ll go, too, now,” said Vousi. “You’ll walk with me.

I’ll just fix myself up, because on account of you everything got smeared. In the meantime, you can put on something more decent.”

Aunt Vaina wouldn’t have minded staying behind to tell me a few more things and maybe show me a photo album of Len, but Vousi dragged her off and I heard her ask her mother behind the door, “What’s his name? I just can’t remember it. He is a jolly fellow, isn’t he?”

“Vousi!” admonished Aunt Vaina.

I laid out my entire wardrobe on the bed and tried to imagine what Vousi would consider a decently dressed man. Until now, I had thought I was dressed quite satisfactorily. Vousi’s heels were already beating an impatient rat-a-tat on the study floor. Not having come up with anything, I called her in.

“That’s all you have?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.

“It really isn’t good enough?”

“Well, it will pass. Take off the jacket and put on this Hawaiian shirt… or better yet, this one here. They sure have dressing problems in your Tungusia! Hurry up. No, no, take off the shirt you have on.”

“You mean, without an undershirt?”

“You know, you really are a Tungus. Where do you think you are going — to the pole or to Mars? What’s this under your shoulder blade?”

“A bee stung me,” I said, hurriedly pulling on my shirt.

“Let’s go!”

The street was already dark. The fluorescents shone palely through dark foliage.

“Which way are we bound?” I asked.

“Downtown, of course… Don’t grab my arm, it’s hot! At least you know how to fight, I hope?”

“I know how.”

“That’s good. I like to watch.”

“To watch, I like, too,” I said.

There were a lot more people out in the streets than in the daytime. Under the trees, in the bushes, and in the driveways there were groups of unsettled-looking individuals.

They furiously smoked crackling synthetic cigars, guffawed, spat negligently and often, and spoke in loud rough voices.

Over each group hung the racket of radio receivers. Under one streetlight a banjo twanged, and two youngsters, twisting in weird contortions and yelling out wildly, were performing fling, a currently fashionable dance, a dance of great beauty when properly executed. The youngsters knew how. Around them stood a small crowd, also yelling lustily and clapping their hands in rhythm.

“Shall we have a dance?” I offered.

“But no, no…” hissed Vousi, taking me by the hand and increasing her pace.

“And why not? You do fling?”

“I’d sooner hop with alligators than this crowd.”

“Too bad,” I said, “They look like regular fellows.”

“Yes, each one by himself,” said Vousi, “and in the daytime.”

They hung around on the corners, huddled around streetlights, gauche, smoked to the gills, leaving the sidewalks behind them strewn with bits of candy paper, cigarette butts, and spittle. They were nervous and showy melancholic, yearning, constantly looking around, stooped. They were awfully anxious not to look like others, and at the same time, assiduously imitated each other and two or three popular movie stars. There were really not that many, but they stood out like sore thumbs, and it always seemed to me that every town and the whole world was filled with them — perhaps because every city and the whole world belonged to them by night. And to me, they seemed full of some dark mystery. But I too used to stand around of evenings in the company of friends, until some real people turned up and took us off the streets, and many a time I have seen the same groups in all the cities of the world, where there was a lack of capable men to get rid of them. But I never did understand to the very end what force it is that turns these fellows away from good books, of which there are so many, from sport establishments, of which this town had plenty, and even from ordinary television sets, and drives them out in the night streets with cigarettes in their teeth and transistor sets in their ears, to stand and spit as far as possible, to guffaw as offensively as possible, and to do nothing. Apparently at fifteen, the most attractive of all the treasures in the world is the feeling of your own importance and ability to excite everyone’s admiration, or at least attract attention. Everything else seems unbearably dull and dreary, including, perhaps above all, those avenues of achieving the desirable which are offered by the tired world of adults.

“This is where old Rouen lives,” said Vousi. “He has a new one with him every night. The old turnip has managed it so that they all come to him of their own will. During the fracas, his leg was blown off… You see there is no light in his place, they are listening to the hi-fi. On top of which, he’s ugly as mortal sin.”

“He lives well who has but one leg,” I said absent-mindedly.

Of course she had to giggle at this, and continued.

“And here lives Seus. He is a Fisher. Now there’s a man for you!”

“Fisher,” I said. “And what does he do, this Seus-Fisher?"’

“He Fishers. That’s what Fishers do — they Fisher. Or are you asking where he works?”

“No, I mean to ask where does he Fisher?”

“In the Subway.” Suddenly she stopped. “Say, you wouldn’t be a Fisher?”

“Me? Why, does it show?”

“There is something about you, I noticed at once. We know about these bees that sting you in the back.”

“Is that right?” I said.

She slipped her arm through mine.

“Tell me a story,” she said, cajoling. “I never had a Fisher among my friends. Will you tell me a story?”

“Well now… shall I tell you about the pilot and the cow?”

She tweaked my elbow.

“No, really…”

“What a hot evening,” I said. “It’s a good thing you had me take off my jacket!”

“Anyway, everybody knows. Seus talks about it, and so do others.”

“Ah, so,” I said with interest. “And what does Seus tell?”

She let go of my arm at once.

“I didn’t hear it myself. The girls told me.”

“And what did they tell?”

“Well, this and that… Maybe they put it all on. Maybe, you know. Seus had nothing to do with it.”

“Hmmm,” I said.

“Don’t think anything about Seus, he’s a good guy and he keeps his mouth closed.”

“Why should I be thinking about Seus?” I said to quiet her. “I have never even laid eyes on him.”

She took my arm again and enthusiastically announced that we were going to have a drink now.

“Now’s the very time for us to have a drink.”

She was already using the familiar address with me. We turned a corner and came out on a wide thoroughfare. Here it was lighter than day. The lamps shone, the walls glowed, the display windows were lambent with multicolored fires. This was, apparently, one of Ahmad’s circles of paradise. But I imagined it differently. I expected roaring bands, grimacing couples, half-naked and naked people. But here it was relatively quiet.

There were lots of people, and it seemed to me that most were drunk, but they were all very well and differently dressed and all were gay. And almost all smoked. There was no wind, and waves of bluish smoke undulated around the lights and lanterns.

Vousi dragged me into some establishment, found a couple of acquaintances, and disappeared after promising to find me later. The crowd was dense, and I found myself pressed against the bar. Before I could gather my wits, I found myself downing a shot. A brown middle-aged man with yellow whites of the eye was booming into my face.

“Kiven hurt his leg — right? Brush became an antique and is now quite useless. That makes three — right? And on the right they haven’t got nobody. Phinney is on the right, and that’s worse than nobody. A waiter, that’s what be is.”

“What are you drinking?” I asked.

“I don’t drink at all,” replied the brown one with dignity, breathing strong fumes at me. “I have jaundice. Ever hear of it?”

Behind me, someone fell off a stool. The noise modulated up and down. The brown one, sitting down next to me, was shouting out some story about some character who almost died of fresh air after breaking some pipe at work. It was hard to understand any part of it, as various stories were being shouted from all sides.

“… Like a fool, he quieted down and left, and she called s taxi truck, loaded up his stuff, and had it dumped outside the town…”

“… I wouldn’t have your TV in my outhouse. You can’t think of one improvement on the Omega, my neighbor is an engineer, and that’s just what he says — you can’t think up an improvement on the Omega…”

“… That’s the way their honeymoon ended. When they returned home, his father enticed him in the garage — and his father is a boxer — and trounced him until he lost consciousness. They called a doctor later…”

“… So, all right, we took enough for three… and their rule is, you know, take as much as you wish, but you get to swallow all of it… and they are watching us by now, and he is carried away — and says — let’s take more… well, I says to myself, enough of this, time to break knuckles…”

“… Dear child, with your bust, I wouldn’t know any grief, such a bosom is one in a thousand, but don’t think I’m flattering you, that’s not my style…”

A scrawny girl with bangs down to the tip of her nose climbed up on the vacant stool next to me and began to pound with puny fists on the bar, yelling, “Barman, barman, a drink.”

The din died down again, and I could hear behind me a tragic whisper — “Where did he get it?” “From Buba, you know him, he is an engineer.” “Was it real?” “It’s scary, you could croak.” “Then you need some kind of pill -” “Quiet, will you?”

“Oh, all right, who would be listening to us? You got one?”

“Buba gave me one package, he says any drugstore has them by the ton… here, look.” “De… Devon — what is it?” “Some sort of medicine, how would I know?” I turned around. One was red-faced with a shirt unbuttoned down to his navel, and with a hairy chest. The other was strangely haggard-looking with a large-pored nose. Both were looking at me.

“Shall we have a drink?” I said.

“Alcoholic,” said the pore-nose.

“Don’t, Pete. Don’t start up, please,” said the red-faced one.

“If you need some Devon, I’ve got it,” I said loudly.

They jumped back. Pore-nose began to look around cautiously. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see several faces turn toward us and grow still.

“Let’s go, Pat,” said red-face. “Let’s go! The hell with him.”

Someone put a hand on my shoulder. I turned around and saw a handsome sunburned man with powerful muscles.

“Yes?” I said.

“Friend,” he said benevolently, “drop this business. Drop it while it’s not too late. Are you a Rhinoceros?”

“I am a hippopotamus,” I joked.

“No, don’t. I’m serious. Did you get beat up, maybe?”

“Black and blue.”

“All right, don’t feel bad about it. Today it’s you, tomorrow it’s them… As for Devon and all that — that’s crap, believe me. There’s lots of crap in the world, but that is the crap of all crap.”

The girl with the bangs advised me, “Crack him in the teeth… what’s he sticking his nose in for… lousy dick.”

“Lapping it up, and doing it up brown, aren’t you?” said the sunburned one coolly, and turned his back on us. His back was huge, and studded with bulging muscles under a tight half-transparent shirt.

“None of your business,” said the girl at his back. Then she said to me, “Listen, friend, call the barman for me — I can’t seem to get through to him.”

I gave her my glass and asked, “What’s to do?”

“In a minute, we’ll all go,” replied the girl. Having swallowed the alcohol, she went limp all at once. “As to what to do — that’s up to luck. Without luck, you can’t make out.

Or you need money if you deal with promoters. You’re probably a visitor? Nobody here drinks that dry vodka. How is it your way, you should tell me about it… I’m not going anywhere today, I’ll go to the salon instead. I feel terrible and nothing seems to help… Mother says — have a child. But that’s dull too, what do I need one for?”

She closed her eyes and lowered her chin on her entwined fingers. She looked brazen, but at the same time crestfallen. I attempted to rouse her but she stopped paying attention to me, and suddenly started shouting again, “Barman, barman, a drink!”

I looked for Vousi. She was nowhere to be seen. The cafe began to empty. Everyone was in a hurry to get somewhere. I got off my stool, too, and left the cafe. Streams of people flowed down the street. They were all going in the same direction, and in about five minutes, I was swept out onto a big square. It was huge and poorly lighted, a wide gloomy space bordered by a ring of streetlights and store windows. It was full of people.

They stood pressed against each other, men, women, and youngsters, boys and girls, shifting from foot to foot, waiting for I knew not what. There was almost no talking. Here and there cigarette tips flared, lighting hollow cheeks and compressed lips. Then a clock began to strike the hour, and over the square, gigantic luminous panels sprang into flaming light. There were three of them — red, blue, and green, irregularly shaped rounded triangles. The crowd surged and stood still. Around me, cigarettes were put out with subdued movements. The panels went out momentarily and then started to flash in rotation: red-blue-green, red-blue-green… I felt a wave of hot air on my face, and was suddenly dizzy. They were astir around me. I got up on tiptoes. In the center of the square, the people stood motionless; I had the impression that they were seized rigid and did not fall only because they were pressed in by the crowd. Red-blue-green, red-blue-green.

Wooden, upturned faces, blackly gaping mouths, staring, bulging eyes. They weren’t even winking there, under the panels. A total quiet fell, so that I jumped when a piercing woman’s voice nearby yelled: “Shivers!” All at once, tens of voices responded: “Shivers! Shivers!” People on the sidewalk on the square’s perimeter began to clap hands in rhythm with the flashes, and to chant in even voices, “Shi-vers! Shi-vers! Shi-vers!” Somebody prodded me in the back with a sharp elbow.

I was pressed forward to the center, toward the panels. I took a step and another and started through the crowd, pushing the stiffened bodies aside. Two youngsters, rigid as icicles, suddenly started thrashing wildly, grabbing at each other, scratching and pounding with all their strength, but their faces remained frozen in the direction of the flashing sky… red-blue-green, red-blue-green. And just as suddenly as they started, they grew still again.

At this paint, finally, I understood that all this was extraordinarily amusing. Everyone laughed. There was lots of room around me and music thundered forth. I swept up a charming girl and we began to dance, as they used to dance, as dancing should be done and was done a long, long time ago, as it was done always with abandon, so that your head swam, and so that everyone admired you. We stepped out of the way, and I held on to her hands, and there was no need to talk about anything, and she agreed that the van driver was a strange man. Can’t stand alcoholics, said Rimeyer, and pore-nose is the most genuine alcoholic, and what about Devon I said, how could you be without Devon when we have an excellent zoo, the buffaloes love to wallow in the mud, and bugs are constantly swarming out of it. Rim, I said, there are some fools who said that you are fifty years old — such nonsense when I wouldn’t give you over twenty-five — and this is Vousi, I told her about you, but I am intruding on you, said Rimeyer; no one can intrude on us, said Vousi, as for Seus he’s the best of Fishers, he grabbed the splotcher and got the ray right in the eye, and Hugger slipped and fell in the water and said — wouldn’t it be something for you to drown — look your gear are melting away, aren’t you funny, said Len, there is such a game of boy and gangster, you know, you remember we played with Maris… Isn’t it wonderful, I have never felt so good in my life, what a pity, when it could be like this every day. Vousi, I said, aren’t we great fellows, Vousi, people have never had such an important problem before, and we solved it and there remained only one problem, Vousi, the sole problem in the world, to return to people a spiritual content, and spiritual concerns, no, Seus, said Vousi, I love you very much, Oscar, you are very nice, but forgive me, would you, I want it to be Ivan, I embraced her and felt that it was right to kiss her and I said I love you…

Boom! Boom! Boom! Something exploded in the dark night sky and tinkling sharp shards began to fall on us, and at once I felt cold and uncomfortable. There were machine guns firing!

Again the guns rattled. “Down, Vousi,” I yelled, although I could not yet understand what was going on, and threw her down on the ground and covered her with my body against the bullets, whereupon blows began to rain on my face.

Bang, bang, rat-tat-tat-tat… around me people stood like wooden pickets. Some were coming to and rolling their eyeballs inanely. I was half reclining on a man’s chest, which was as hard as a bench, and right in front of my eyes was his open mouth and chin glistening with saliva… Blue-green, blue-green, blue-green… Something was missing.

There were piercing screams, cursing, someone thrashed and screeched hysterically. A mechanical roar grew louder over the square. I raised my head with difficulty. The panels were right overhead, the blue and green flashing regularly, while the red was extinguished and raining glass rubble. Rat-tat-tat-tat and the green panel broke and darkened. In the blue remaining light unhurried wings floated by, spewing the reddish lightning of a fusillade.

Again I attempted to throw myself on the ground, but it was impossible, as they all stood around me like pillars. Something made an ugly snap quite near me, and a yellow-green plume rose skyward from which puffed a repulsive stench. Pow! Pow! Another two plumes hung over the square. The crowd howled and stirred. The yellow vapor was caustic like mustard, my eyes and mouth filled, and I began to cry and cough, and around me, everyone began to cry and cough and yell hoarsely: “Lousy bums! Scoundrels! Sock the Intels!” Again the roar of the engine could be heard, coming in louder and louder. The airplane was returning. “Down, you idiots,” I yelled. Everyone around me flopped down all over each other. Rat-tat-tat-tat! This time the machine gunner missed and the string apparently got the building opposite us. To make up for the miss, the gas bombs fell again right on target. The lights around the square went out, and with them the blue panel, as a free-for-all started in the pitch-black dark.