The Final Circle of Paradise

CHAPTER NINE

“You would do better to come at night. It’s too early now.”

“I prefer now.”

“Can’t wait, eh? Perhaps you’ve got the wrong address?”

“Oh no, I haven’t got it wrong.”

“You must have it now, you are sure?”

“Yes, now and not later.”

He clicked his tongue and pulled on his lower lip. He was short, well knit, with a round shaved head. He spoke hardly moving his tongue and rolling his eyes languidly under the lids. I thought he had not had enough sleep. His companion, sitting behind the railing in an easy chair, apparently also had missed some. But he did not utter a word and didn’t even look in my direction. It was a gloomy place, with stale air and warped panels which had sprung away from the walls. A bulb, dimmed with dust, hung shadeless from the ceiling on a dirty cable.

“Why not come later?” said the round-head. “When everybody comes.”

“I just got the urge,” I said diffidently.

“Got the urge…” He searched in his table drawer. “I don’t even have a form left. Eli, do you have some?”

The latter, without breaking his silence, bent over and pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper from somewhere near the railing.

The round-head said, yawning, “Guys that come at break of day… nobody here… no girls… they’re still in bed.” He proffered the form. “Fill it out and sign. Eli and I will sign as witnesses. Turn in your money. Don’t worry, we keep it honest. Do you have any documents?”

“None.”

“That’s good, too.”

I scanned the form. “In open deposition and of my own free will, I, the undersigned, in the presence of witnesses, earnestly request to be subjected to the initiation trials toward the mutual quest of membership in the Society of VAL.” There were blank spaces for signature of applicant and signatures of witnesses.

“What is VAL?” I asked.

“That’s the way we are registered,” answered round-head.

He was counting my money.

“But how do you decipher it?”

“Who knows? That was before my time. It’s VAL, that’s all there is to it. Maybe you know, Eli?” Eli shook his bead lazily. “Well, really, what do you care?”

“You are absolutely right.” I inserted my name and signed.

Round-head looked it over, signed it, and passed the form to Eli.

“You look like a foreigner,” he said.

“Right.”

“In that case, add your home address. Do you have relatives?”

“No.”

“Well then, you don’t have to. All set, Eli? Put it in the folder. Shall we go?”

He lifted up the gate in the railway and walked me over to a massive square door, probably left over from the days when the subway had been fitted out as an atomic shelter.

“There is no choice,” he said as though in self-defense.

He pulled the slides and turned a rusty handle with considerable effort. “Go straight down the corridor and then you’ll see for yourself.”

I thought that I heard Eli snickering behind him. I turned around. A small screen was fitted in the railing in front of Eli. Something was moving on the screen, but I could not see what it was. Round-bead put all his weight on the handle and swung back the door. A dusty passage became visible. For a few seconds he listened and then said, “Straight down this corridor.”

“What will I find there?” I said.

“You’ll get what you were looking for. Or have you changed your mind?”

All of which was clearly not what I was looking for, but as is well known, nobody knows anything until he has tried it himself I stepped over the high sill and the door shut behind me with a clang. I could hear the latches screeching home.

The corridor was lit by a few surviving lamps. It was damp, and mold grew an the cement walls. I stood still awhile, listening, but there was nothing to be heard but the infrequent tap of water drops. I moved forward cautiously. Cement rubble crunched underfoot. Soon the corridor came to an end, and I found myself in a vaulted, poorly lit concrete tunnel. When my eyes accommodated to the darkness, I discerned a set of tracks.

The rails were badly rusted and puddles of dark water gleamed motionless along their length. Sagging cables hung from the ceiling. The dampness seeped to the marrow of my bones. A repulsive stench of sewer and carrion filled my nostrils. No, this was not what I was looking for. I was not of a mind to fritter away my time and thought of going back and telling them that I would be back some other time. But first, simply out of curiosity, I decided to take a short walk along the tunnel. I went to the right toward the light of distant bulbs. I jumped puddles, stumbled over the rotting ties, and got entangled in loose wires. Reaching a lamp, I stopped again.

The rails had been removed. Ties were strewn along the walls, and holes filled with water gaped along the right of way. Then I saw the rails. I have never seen rails in such a condition. Some were twisted into corkscrews. They were polished to a high shine and reminded me of gigantic drill bits. Others were driven with titanic force into the floor and walls of the tunnel. A third group were tied into knots. My skin crawled at this sight. Some were simple knots, some with a single bow, some with a double bow like shoelaces. They were mauve and brown.

I looked ahead into the depths of the tunnel. The smell of rotting carrion wafted out of it, and the dim yellow lights winked rhythmically as though something swayed in the draft, covering and uncovering them periodically. My nerves gave way.

I felt that this was nothing more than a stupid joke, but I couldn’t control myself. I squatted down and looked around. I soon found what I was looking for — a yard-long piece of reinforcing rod. I stuck it under my arm and went ahead. The iron was wet and cold and rough with rust.

The reflection of the winking lights glinted on slippery wet walls. I had noticed some time back the round, strange-looking marks on them, but at first did not pay them any attention. Then I became interested and examined them more closely. As far as the eye could reach, there were two sets of round prints on the walls at one-meter intervals. It looked as though an elephant had run along the wall — and not too long ago at that. On the edge of one of the prints, the remains of a crushed centipede still struggled feebly. Enough, I thought, time to go back. I looked along the tunnel. Now I could plainly see the swaying curves of black cables under the lamps. I took a better grip on the rod and went ahead, holding close to the wall.

The whole thing was getting through to me. The cables sagged under the arch of the tunnel, and on them, tied by their tails into hairy clusters, hung hundreds upon hundred of dead rats, swaying in the draft. Tiny teeth glinted horribly in the semi-dark, and rigid little legs stuck out in all directions.

The clusters stretched in long obscene garlands into the distance. A thick, nauseating stench oozed from under the arch and flowed along the tunnel, as palpable as glutinous jelly.

There was a piercing screech and a huge rat scurried between my feet. And then another and another. I backed up.

They were fleeing from there, from the dark where there was not a single lamp. Suddenly, warm air came pulsing from the same direction. I felt a hollow space with my elbow and pressed myself into the niche. Something live squirmed and squeaked under my heel; I swung my iron rod without looking. I had no time for rats, because I could hear something running heavily but softly along the tunnel, splashing in the puddles. It was a mistake to get involved in this business, thought I. The iron rod seemed very light and insignificant in comparison with the bow-tied rails. This was no flying leech, nor a dinosaur from the Kongo… don’t let it be a giganto-pithek, I thought, anything but a giganto-pithek. These donkeys would have the wit to catch one and let it loose in the tunnel. I was thinking very poorly in those few seconds. And suddenly for no reason at all I thought of Rimeyer. Why had he sent me here? Had he gone out of his mind? If only it was not a giganto-pithek!

It raced by me so fast that I couldn’t discern what it was.

The tunnel boomed from its gallop. Then there was the despairing scream of a caught rat right close by and… silence. Cautiously I peeked out. He stood about ten paces away directly under one of the lamps, and my legs suddenly went limp from relief.

“Smart-alec entrepreneurs,” I said aloud, almost crying. “They would dream up something like this.”

He heard my voice and raising his stern legs, pronounced: “Our temperature is two meters, twelve inches, there is no humidity, and what there isn’t is not there.”

“Repeat your orders,” I said, approaching him.

He let the air out of his suction cups with a loud whistle, twitched his legs mindlessly, and ran up on the ceiling.

“Come down,” I said sternly, “and answer my question.”

He hung over my head, this poor long-obsolete cyber, intended for work an the asteroids, pitiable and out of place, covered with flakes of corrosion and blobs of black underground dirt.

“Get down,” I barked.

He flung the dead rat at me and sped off into the dark.

“Basalts! Granites!” he yelled in different voices. “Pseudo-metamorphic types! I am over Berlin! Do you copy! Time to get to bed!”

I threw away the rod and followed him. He ran as far as the next lamp, came down, and began to dig the concrete rapidly, like a dog, with his heavy work manipulators. Poor chap, even in better times his brain was capable of performing properly only in less than one one-hundredth of a G, and now he was altogether out of his mind. I bent over him and began to search for the control center under his armor. “The rotters,” I said aloud. The controls were peened over as though battered with a sledge. He stopped digging and grabbed me by the leg.

“Stop!” I shouted. “Desist!”

He desisted, lay down on his side, and informed me in a basso voice, “I am deathly tired of him, Eli. Now would be the time for a shot of brandy.”

Contacts clicked inside him and music poured forth.

Hissing and whistling, he gave a rendition of the “Hunters’ March.” I was looking at him and thinking how stupid and repulsive it all was, how ridiculous and at the same time frightening. If I had not been a spaceman, if I had been frightened and run, he would almost certainly have killed me.

But nobody here knew I had been in space. Nobody. Not one person. Even Rimeyer didn’t know.

“Get up,” I said.

He buzzed and started to dig the wall, and I turned around and went back. All the time while I was returning to my turn-off I could hear him rattling and clanging in the pile of contorted rails, hissing with the electrowelder and ranting nonsense in two voices.

The anti-atomic door was already open, and I stepped over the sill, swinging it shut behind me.

“Well, how was it?” asked round-head.

“Dumb,” I replied.

“I had no idea you were a spaceman. You have worked out on the planets?”

“I have. But it’s still dumb. For fools. For illiterate keyed-up boobs.”

“What kind?”

“Keyed-up.”

“Well — there you got it wrong. Lots of people like it. Anyway, I told you to come at night. We don’t have much amusement for singles.” He poured some whiskey and added some soda from the siphon. “Would you like some?”

I took the glass and leaned on the railing. Eli gloomily regarded the screen, a cigarette sticking to his lip. On the screen careened shifting views of the glistening tunnel walls, twisted rails, black puddles, and flying sparks from the welder.

“That’s not for me,” I announced. “Let barbers and accountants enjoy it. Of course, I have nothing against them, but what I need is something the likes of which I have not seen in my entire life.”

“So you don’t know yourself what you want,” said roundhead. “It’s a hard case. Excuse me, you aren’t an Intel?”

“Why?”

“Well, don’t take offense — we are all equal before the grim reaper, you understand. What am I trying to say? That Intels are the most difficult clients, that’s all. Isn’t that right, Eli? If one of your barbers or bookkeepers comes here, he knows very well what it is he needs. He needs to get his blood going, to show off and be proud of himself, to get the girls squealing, and exhibit the punctures in his side. These fellows are simple, each one wants to consider himself a man.

After all, who is he — our client? He has no particular capabilities, and he doesn’t need any. In earlier times, I read in a book, people used to be envious of each other — the neighbor is rolling in luxury and I can’t save up for a refrigerator — how could you put up with that? They hung on like bulldogs to all kinds of trash, to money, to cushy jobs — they laid down their lives for such things. The guy with a foxier head or a stronger fist would wind up on top. But now life has become affluent and dull and there is a plenty of everything. What shall a man apply himself to? A man is not a fish, for all that, he is still a man and gets bored, but can’t dream up something to do for himself. To do that you need special talents, you need to read a mountain of books, and how can he do that when they make him throw up. To become world-famous or to invent some new machine, that’s something that wouldn’t pop into his head, but even if it did, of what use would it be? Nobody really needs you, not even your own wife and children if you examine it honestly. Right, Eli? And you don’t need anybody either. Nowadays, it seems, clever people think things up for you, something new like these aerosols, or the shivers, or a new dance. There is that new drink — it’s called a polecat. Wanna me knock one together for you? So he downs some of this polecat, his eyes crawl out of their sockets, and he’s happy. But as long as his eyes are in their sockets, life is just as dull as rainwater for him. There is an Intel that comes here to us, and every time he complains: Life, he says, is dull, my friends… but I leave here a new man; after, say, ‘bullets’ or ‘twelve to one,’ I see myself in a completely new light. Right, Eli? Everything becomes sweet all over again, food, drink, women.”

“Yes,” I said sympathetically. “I understand you very well. But for me it’s all too stale.”

“Slug is what he needs,” said Eli in his bass voice.

“What’s that again?”

“Slug is what I said.”

Round-head puckered in distaste.

“Aw, come on, Eli. What’s with you today?”

“I don’t give a hoot for the likes of him,” said Eli. “I just don’t like these guys. Everything is insipid for him, nothing suits him.”

“Don’t listen to him,” said round-head. “He hasn’t slept all night and is very tired.”

“Well, why not,” I contradicted. “I am quite interested.

What is this slug?”

Round-head puckered his face again.

“It’s not decent, you understand?” he said. “Don’t listen to Eli, he is a good enough guy, a simple fellow, but it’s nothing for him to lambaste a man. It’s a bad term. Certain types have taken to writing it all over the walls. Hooligans, that’s what they are, right? The snot-noses hardly know what it’s about, but they write anyway. See how we had to plane off the railing? Some son of a bitch carved into it, and if I catch him, I’ll turn his hide inside out. We do have women coming here too.”

“Tell him,” pronounced Eli, addressing himself to roundhead, “that he should get hold of a slug and quiet down.

Let him find Buba…”

“Will you shut up, Eli?” said round-head, now angry.

“Don’t pay any attention to him.”

Having heard the name Buba, I helped myself to another drink and settled more comfortably on the railing.

“What’s it all about?” I said. “Some kind of secret vice?”

“Secret!” boomed Eli, and let out an obscene horselaugh.

Round-head laughed, too.

“Nothing can be a secret here,” he said. “What had of secrets can there be when people are living it up at the age of fifteen? The dopes, the Intels, manufacture secrets. They’d like to get a fracas going on the twenty-eighth, they are all in a huddle, took some mine launchers out of town recently to hide them, like kids, honest to God! Right, Eli?”

“Tell him,” the good simple fellow Eli was persisting.

“Tell him to be off to Hell and gone. And don’t go protecting him. Just tell him to go to Buba at the Oasis and that’s that.”

He threw my wallet and form on the railing. I finished the whiskey. Round-head said soberly, “Of course, it’s entirely up to you, but my advice is to stay away from that stuff. Maybe we’ll all come to it someday, but the later, the better. I can’t even explain it to you, I only feel that it is like the grave: never too late and always too soon.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“He even thanks you.” Eli let loose another horselaugh.

“Have you seen anything like it! He thanks you!”

“We kept three dollars,” said round-head. “You can tear up the blank. Or let me tear it up. God forbid something should happen to you, the police will come looking to us.”

“To be honest with you,” I said, putting the wallet away, “I don’t understand how they haven’t closed your office already.”

“Everything is on the up and up with us,” said round-head.

“If you don’t want any, no one is forcing you. But if something should happen, it’s your own fault.”

“No one is forcing the drug addicts either,” I retorted.

“That’s some comparison! Drugs are a profiteering corrupt business!”

“Well, okay, I’ll be seeing you,” I said. “Thanks, fellows. Where did you say to look for Buba?”

“At the Oasis,” boomed Eli. “It’s a cafe. Beat it.”

“What a polite fellow you are, my friend,” I said. “It gets me right in my heart.”

“Go on, beat it,” repeated Eli. “Stinking Intel.”

“Don’t get so excited, pal,” I said, “or you’ll earn yourself an ulcer. Save your stomach, it’s your most valuable possession.”

Eli started to move slowly out from behind the railing, and I left. My shoulder had started to ache again.

A warm, heavy rain was falling outside. The leaves on the trees shone wetly and joyfully, there was a smell of ozone, freshness and thunderstorm. I stopped a taxi and named the Oasis. The street ran with fresh streams, and the city was so pretty and comfortable that it seemed improper to think of the moldy and abandoned Subway.

The rain was pelting in full swing when I jumped out of the car, ran across the sidewalk, and burst into the Oasis.

There were quite a few people, most of them were eating, including the bartender, who was spooning some soup out of a dish placed among drinking glasses. Those who had finished eating sat smoking and abstractedly staring out of the streaming window at the street. I approached the bar and inquired in a low voice whether Buba was there. The bartender put down his spoon and surveyed the room.

“Naah,” he said. “Why don’t you have something to eat now, and he’ll be along soon enough.”

“How soon?”

“Twenty minutes, half an hour maybe.”

“So!” I said. “In that case I’ll have dinner, and then I’ll come over and you can point him out to me.”

“Uhuh,” said the bartender, returning to his soup.

I picked up a tray, collected some sort of a meal, and sat down by the window away from the rest of the patrons. I wanted to think. I sensed that there was enough data to ponder the problem effectively. Some sort of pattern seemed to be forming.

Boxes of Devon in the bathroom. Pore-nose spoke about Buba and Devon (in whispers). Eli talked of Buba and “slug.” A clear chain of links — bath, Devon, Buba, slug. Further: the sunburned fellow with the muscles cautioned that Devon was the worst of junk, while the roundhead saw no difference between slug and the grave. It all had to fit together. It seemed to be what we were looking for. If so, then Rimeyer had done the right thing to send me to the Fishers. Rimeyer, I said to myself, why did you send me to the Fishers? And even order me to do as I was told and not to fuss about it? And you didn’t know, after all, that I was a spaceman, Rimeyer. If you did know, there were still the other games with bullets and “one against twelve,” besides the demented cyber. You really took a dislike to me for something or other, Rimeyer. Somehow I have crossed you. But no, said I, this cannot be. It is simply that you did not trust me, Rimeyer. It is simply that there is something that I do not know yet. For example, I do net know just who this Oscar is who trades in Devon in this resort city and who is connected with you, Rimeyer. Most likely you have been meeting with Oscar before our conversation in the elevator… I don’t want to think about that.

There he was lying like a dead man and here I was thinking such things about him when he could not defend himself.

Suddenly I felt a repulsive cold crawling feeling inside. All right, suppose we trapped this gang. What would change? The shivers would remain, lop-eared Len would be up all night as before, Vousi would be coming home disgustingly drunk, while customs inspector Pete would be smashing his face into broken glass. And all would be concerned about the “good of the people.” Some would be irrigated with tear gas, some would be driven into the ground up to their ears, others would be converted from apehood into something which passes muster as human… And then the shivers would go out of style and the people would be presented with the super-shivers, while in lieu of the extirpated slug a super-slug would surface. Everything would be for the good of the people. Have fun, Boobland, and don’t think about a thing!

Two men in cloaks sat down at the next table with their trays. One of them seemed to me in some way familiar. He had a haughty thoroughbred face, and were it not for a thick white bandage on the left side of his jaw, I was sure I would recognize him. The other was a ruddy man with a bald pate and fussy movements. They were speaking quietly, but not so as to be inaudible, and I could hear them quite well where I was sitting.

“Understand me correctly,” the ruddy one said with conviction while hurriedly consuming his schnitzel, “I am not at all against theaters and museums. But the allocation for the municipal theater for the past year has not been expended fully, while only tourists visit the museums.”

“Also picture thieves,” inserted the man with the bandage.

“Drop that, please, we don’t have pictures that are worth the theft. Thank God, they have learned how to synthesize Sistine Madonnas out of sawdust. I wish to call your attention to the point that dissemination of culture in our time must occur in an entirely different manner. Culture must not be inculcated into the people, rather it must emanate from the people. Public chorister, do-it-yourself groups, mass games — that is what our public needs.”

“What our public needs is a good army of occupation,” said the man with the bandage.

“Please stop talking that way, when you actually don’t believe what you are saying. Our coverage by the various associations is really at an unacceptably poor level. For instance, Boella complained to me last night that only one man attends her readings, and he apparently only does so out of matrimonial intentions. But we need to distract the people from the shivers, from alcohol, from sexual pastimes. We need to raise the tone -”

The other interrupted, “What do you want from me? That I should defend your project against that ass, our honorable mayor, today? Be my guest! It is absolutely all the same to me. But if you would like to hear my opinion about tone and spirit, let me tell you it does not exist, my dear Senator; it is long dead! It has been smothered in belly fat! And if I were in your place I would take that into account and only that!”

The ruddy man seemed to be crushed. He was silent for a while and then groaned suddenly, “Dear God, dear God, to think of what we have been driven to concern ourselves with! But I ask you — is not someone flying to the stars? Somewhere meson reactors are being built, new learning systems are being devised! Dear God, I just recently grasped that we are not even a backwater, we are a preserve! In the eyes of the whole world we are a sanctuary of stupidity, ignorance, and pornocracy. Imagine, Professor Rubenstein has a chair in our city for the second year. A sociopsychologist of world renown. He is studying us like animals. Instinctive Sociology of Decaying Economic Structures — that’s the name of his work. He is interested in people as bearers of primeval instincts, and he complained to me that it was very difficult for him to gather data in countries where instinctive activity is distorted and suppressed by pedagogical systems! But with us he is in seventh heaven! In his own words, we don’t have any activity other than instinctive! I was insulted, I was ashamed, but, good Lord, what could I say to contradict him? You must understand me! You are an intelligent man, my friend, I know you are a cold man, but I can’t really believe that you are indifferent to such a degree.”

The man with the bandage looked at him haughtily and then, abruptly, his cheek twitched. I recognized him at once: he was the character with the monocle who had thrown the luminous slop all over me so deftly yesterday at the Art Patrons’ hall.

Why, you vulture, thought I. You thief. So you need an army of occupation! Spirit smothered in lard indeed!

“Forgive me, Senator,” he said. “I do understand it all, and that’s precisely why it is perfectly clear to me that everything surrounding you is in a state of dementia. The final spasm! Euphoria!”

I got up and approached their table.

“May I join you?” I asked.

He stared at me in astonishment. I sat down.

“Please excuse me,” I said. “I am, to be specific, a tourist and just a short time here; while you seem to be natives and even to have some connection with the municipal government. So I decided to inflict myself on you. I keep hearing about Art Patrons, Art Patrons. But what it’s all about no one seems to know.”

The man with the bandage experienced another tie in his cheek. His eyes grew wide — he too recognized me.

“Art Patrons?” said the ruddy one. “Yes, there is such a barbarous organization with us here. It is very sad that such is the case, but it’s so.”

I nodded, studying the bandage. My acquaintance had already regained his composure and was eating his jelly with his accustomed haughty look.

“In essence they are simply modern-age vandals. I simply couldn’t find a more appropriate word. They pool their resources and buy up stolen paintings, statues, manuscripts, unpublished literary works, patents, and destroy them. Can you imagine how revolting that is? They find some pathological delight in the destruction of examples of world culture. They gather in a large, well-dressed crowd and slowly, deliberately, orgiastically destroy them!”

“Oh my, my, my!” I said, not taking my eyes off the bandage. “Such people should be hung by their legs.”

“And we are after them,” said the ruddy one. “We are in pursuit of them on the legal level. We are unfortunately unable to get after the Artiques and the Perchers, who are not breaking any laws, but as far as the Art Patrons are concerned -”

“Are you finished yet, Senator?” inquired the bandaged one, ignoring me.

The ruddy one caught himself.

“Yes, yes. It’s time for us to go. You will excuse us, please,” he said, turning to me. “We have a meeting of the municipal council.”

“Bartender!” called the bandaged one in a metallic voice.

“Would you call us a taxi.”

“Have you been here long?” asked the ruddy man.

“Second day,” I replied.

“Do you like it?”

“A beautiful city.”

“Mm — yes,” he mumbled.

We were silent. The man with the bandage impudently inserted his monocle and pulled out a cigar.

“Does it hurt?” I asked sympathetically.

“What, exactly?”

“The jaw,” I said. “And the liver should hurt, too.”

“Nothing ever hurts me,” he replied, monocle glinting. “Are you two acquainted?” the ruddy one asked in astonishment.

“Slightly,” I said. “We had an argument about art.”

The bartender called out that the taxi had arrived. The man with the bandage immediately got up.

“Let’s go, Senator,” he said.

The ruddy one smiled at me abstractedly and also got up.

They set off for the exit. I followed them with my eyes and went to the bar.

“Brandy?” asked the bartender.

“Quite,” I said. I shuddered with rage. “Who are those people I just spoke to?”

“The baldy is a municipal counselor, his field are cultural affairs. The one with the monocle is the city comptroller.”

“Comptroller,” I said. “A scoundrel is what he is.”

“Really?” said the barman with interest.

“That’s right, really,” I said. “Is Buba here?”

“Not yet. And how about the comptroller, what is he up to?”

“A scoundrel, an embezzler, that’s what he is,” I said.

The bartender thought awhile.

“It could well be,” he said. “In fact he’s a baron — that is, he used to be, of course. His ways, sure enough, are unsavory. Too bad I didn’t go vote or I would have voted against him. What’s he done to you?”

“It’s you he’s done. And I’ve given him some back. And I’ll give him some more in due time. Such is the situation.”

The bartender, not understanding anything, nodded and said, “Hit it again?”

“Do,” I said.

He poured me more brandy and said, “And here is Buba, coming in.”

I turned around and barely managed to keep the glass in my grip. I recognized Buba.