The Palace of Dreams

v. THE ARCHIVES

Directly after the morning break Mark-Alem was told the supervisor wanted to see him. Walking on tiptoe so as not to disturb anyone, he made for his superior’s desk. From a few feet away he recognized, lying on top of it, the file he’d handed in to him earlier that day.

“Mark-Alem,” said the supervisor, “I think it might be a good thing if for one of these dreams”—he flicked rapidly through the file—“here, this is the one….I think for one of these dreams, this one, to be precise”—he plucked out the relevant page—“it might be a good idea if you went down to the Archives and looked up the interpretation previously given to this kind of thing….”

For a moment Mark-Alem looked at the page, with his own explanation of the dream written at the bottom. Then he looked back at the supervisor.

“Please yourself,” said the other, “but I think you should take my advice. I have a feeling this dream is important, and in such cases it’s usually wise to refer to past experience.”

“I don’t doubt it. But…”

“Haven’t you ever been to the Archives?” the supervisor interrupted.

Mark-Alem shook his head. The supervisor smiled.

“It’s very easy,” he said. “There are people there specially to help. You have only to tell them what kind of dream you want to consult them about. This is a particularly easy example: Dreams dreamed just before deadly confrontations are all kept together. I’m sure that if you glance at a few of them it’ll help you to solve this one better”—tapping the sheet of paper he was holding.

“Of course,” said Mark-Alem, holding his hand out for it.

“The Archives are downstairs in the basement,” said the supervisor. “You’re bound to meet someone in the corridors who’ll tell you the way.”

Mark-Alem walked steadily out of the room. Out in the corridor he took a deep breath before making up his mind which way to go. Then he remembered he had to go down to the ground floor first and start inquiring there.

He did this, and it took him nearly half an hour to get to the basement. Now what? he wondered when he found himself alone in a long vaulted passage feebly lighted by lamps attached to the walls on either side. Thinking he could hear footsteps not far off, he hurried along to join the unknown person making them; but the footsteps hurried too. He stopped; the other did the same. Then he realized that the footsteps were his own. God, he thought, it’s always the same in this wretched Palace! How much would it have cost to put up a few notices showing the way to the various departments? By now he’d come to suspect that this corridor was circular. Every so often he still thought he could hear distant footsteps, but they could just as easily have been the echo of his own, or those of people on other floors. But strangely enough, he now felt quite peaceful. Whatever happened he was bound to find his way out, as he had done the other times. He was used to this kind of misadventure now. As he walked along he discovered that the circular passage was crossed by others of varying widths, but he didn’t dare go along any of them for fear of getting lost. After half an hour it seemed to him he was back where he started from. I’m just going around in a circle like a horse on a threshing floor, he thought.

He stopped for a moment, breathed deeply, then resolutely advanced again. This time he turned into the first side passage he came to. He soon had reason to congratulate himself, for after he’d gone a few steps he saw a door in one wall. There was another door farther along. This must be where the confounded Archives are, he thought with relief, though he couldn’t decide which of the two doors to knock at. He went on, and more doors appeared on either side. He went up to one of them, but still didn’t knock. I’ll try the next one, he promised himself, but once again his resolution evaporated. How could he just burst in, not even knowing where he was? Perhaps it would be better to wait until a door opened of its own accord and someone came out that he could ask. He halted, undecided. But what if someone came along, saw him standing there like a sentry, and asked him: “Hey, you—what do you think you’re doing here?…” What a bore, he thought, and started walking again. He felt as though he’d done nothing else since he came to work in the Palace but wander round the corridors without ever finding what he was looking for. Oh, to hell with hesitations! Here goes! he said to himself, and banged loudly on the next door he came to. His hand sprang back at once, and if he could he would have tried to take back his knocks, but alas, they had irrevocably thundered out inside. He waited a few seconds; no voice was to be heard from within. He made up his mind and knocked again, then turned the door handle. But the door didn’t open. It must be locked, he thought, and all my dithering was pointless. He walked on a bit and knocked at another door. This one was locked too. He tried others. They were all shut. Where am I then? he wondered. This can’t be the Archives.

Hurrying on, he knocked no more, but with a spitefulness he scarcely understood himself, he twisted every doorknob as he went along. He had a wild desire to give those silent doors a good bashing. He would certainly have set about doing so if a door hadn’t suddenly opened when he least expected it. He’d given it such a shove he almost shot into the room. His hand mechanically grabbed for the knob to try to close the door again, but it was too late. The door was now wide open, and as if that weren’t enough, a pair of eyes, amazed at the sudden irruption of this wild-looking individual, were staring at him coldly.

“What’s going on?” said a voice from the other side of the room.

The cold eyes continued to scrutinize Mark-Alem.

“I’m sorry,” he stammered, recoiling. “I do apologize…” His brow was covered in perspiration. “Please forgive me!”

“What is going on, Aga Shahin?” said the voice again.

“Nothing of any importance,” the other answered. His eyes still fixed on the intruder, he asked: “What do you want?”

Half dead with embarrassment, Mark-Alem opened his mouth to speak, though he wasn’t very clear what he was going to say. Fortunately, his hand went to his pocket and encountered the piece of paper with the dream on it.

“I’ve come to consult the files… in the usual way… about a dream,” he faltered. “But I think I may have come to the wrong door. I’m sorry—it’s the first time…”

“No, you didn’t come to the wrong door.”

This was the other voice. At first it had come from behind some shelves, and now Mark-Alem located it for the first time. A familiar face, with bright, smiling eyes, now showed itself.

“You!” murmured Mark-Alem, recalling his first morning and the cafeteria where they’d met. “Do you work here?”

“Yes. So you remember me?” said the other kindly.

“Of course. But I’ve never seen you again since that first time.”

“I saw you once when everyone was going home, but you didn’t notice me.”

“Really? I must have been preoccupied—I’d have liked to…”

“You did look rather worried. How’s the work going?”

“Quite well.”

“Still in Selection?”

“No, I’ve been transferred to Interpretation.”

“Really?” said the other, surprised. “You soon got promoted. Congratulations! I’m really glad.”

“Thanks. Is this the Archives?”

“Yes. Did you come to look something up?”

Mark-Alem nodded.

“I’ll help you.”

The archivist whispered a few words to his colleague, whose hitherto cold eyes now showed a lively curiosity.

“What sector do you want to look in?” asked the archivist. Mark-Alem shrugged.

“I don’t know. This is the first time I’ve been down here.”

“I’ll give you a hand.”

“I’d be very grateful.”

The archivist led the way out of the room.

“I thought I’d meet you again one day,” he said as they went along the passage.

“I couldn’t find you in the cafeteria.”

“No wonder, in all that crowd…”

Their footsteps kept time as they walked.

“Do the Archives really take up all this room?” said Mark-Alem, nodding toward the network of passages.

“Yes. It’s a real labyrinth. You can easily get lost in it.”

“Thank goodness I met you—I don’t know what I’d have done otherwise.”

“Somebody else would have helped you,” replied the archivist.

He walked on in front, while Mark-Alem fretted at not being able to express his gratitude properly.

“Yes, there’d certainly have been somebody else who’d have helped you,” said the other. “But I’m going to show you all around the Archives.”

“Really?” said Mark-Alem, overwhelmed. “But perhaps you’ve got things to do—I don’t want to be a nuisance.”

“Not at all! I’m only too glad to be able to do a little favor for a friend.”

Mark-Alem was embarrassed, and didn’t know what to say.

“If the Tabir Sarrail is like sleep in comparison with real life,” went on the archivist, opening a door, “the Archives are like a deeper sleep still inside the sleep of the Tabir.”

Mark-Alem followed him into an oval-shaped room with walls covered with shelves up to the ceiling.

“There are dozens of rooms like this,” said the archivist, pointing to the shelves. “You see these files? There are thousands of them. Tens of thousands.”

“And are they all full?”

“Of course,” answered the other, leading the way out again. “But we’ll go to all the rooms and you can see for yourself.”

They were now walking along a narrow passage that seemed to Mark-Alem to slope slightly downward. It was faintly illumined by the light coming from other passages or from the circular corridor.

“Everything is here,” said the archivist, slowing down. “What I mean is: If the world were to end—if the earth collided with a comet, say, and were smashed to pieces; or if it evaporated, or disappeared into the abyss—if the globe just vanished leaving no trace but this cellar full of files, that would be enough to show what it used to be like.”

The archivist turned around, as if to see what effect his words had had on his companion.

“Do you see what I mean? No history book, no encyclopedia, not all the holy tomes and suchlike put together, nor any school or university or library could supply the truth about our world in so concise and complete a form as these Archives.”

“But isn’t that truth rather distorted?” Mark-Alem ventured to ask.

The archivist’s smile looked even more ironic in profile than it would have done seen full face.

“Who can say it’s not what we see with our eyes open that is distorted, and that what’s described here isn’t the true essence of things?” He slowed down outside a door. “Haven’t you ever heard old men sigh that life’s a dream?”

He opened the door, and Mark-Alem followed him in. It was an extremely long room, and as in the previous one the walls were covered from floor to ceiling with shelves full of files. One pile was stacked on the floor, apparently for lack of space. Two men were bustling around by the shelves at the far end of the room.

“What’s your dream about?” asked the archivist. Mark-Alem touched the sheet of paper folded away in his pocket.

“It predicts much loss of life in war.”

“Oh, one of those dreamed just before great slaughter. They’re kept in another section, but don’t worry—we’ll find them. These dreams”—the archivist pointed to the shelves on the left—“are those of the dark people, and the dreams opposite are those of the bright people.”

Mark-Alem would have liked to ask him what he meant, but didn’t like to. He followed him in and out of the narrow passages between the shelves. The other stopped in front of a shelf that was sagging under the weight of all the files on it.

“This is where they keep the dreams about the end of the world according to the inhabitants of places where the winters are very windy.”

He made as if to straighten up the shelf.

“Sometimes,” he said, “the people who come down here are very conceited and objectionable. But I like you—you’re nice, and it’s really a pleasure to show you round.”

“Thank you.”

A low door led off into an adjoining room. The smell of old paper grew more and more pungent, and Mark-Alem was beginning to find it rather difficult to breathe.

“The Resurrection of the Dead…” said the archivist. “Allah, the horrors there are here!… Well, let’s go on a bit. This is Chaos, on all these shelves here—Earth and Heaven all mixed up together. Life-in-death or death-in- life—take your pick. Female life projects. Male life projects… Let’s go on a bit farther. Erotic dreams—all this room and the adjoining ones are full of them. Economic crises, depreciations, income from land, banks, bankruptcies—all that kind of thing is here. And here are conspiracies, too. Coups d’état nipped in the bud. Government intrigues…”

The archivist’s voice seemed to be coming from farther and farther away. Sometimes, especially when the two men were in the corridors leading from one room to another, Mark-Alem could scarcely hear what he was saying. The vaulted ceiling sent back a quavering echo.

“And now… ow… ow… we’re going to see… ee… ee ? the dreams about imprisonment ?

Every time a door creaked, Mark-Alem shuddered. “Dreams of the first period of captivity…” said the archivist, indicating the relevant shelves, “or as they’re also called, dreams of early captivity, to distinguish them from the later ones, the dreams of deep imprisonment. The two kinds are very different. In the same way as first loves are different from later ones. And from here to the end of the room are the files containing the really wild imaginings.”

Really wild imaginings…Mark-Alem couldn’t take his eyes off the shelves. How long would he go on wandering through this inferno?

“Yesterday the Master-Dream officers were down here researching till late at night,” the archivist told him, lowering his voice. “There’s nothing surprising about that. All the great disasters are gathered together here, beginning with what some peoples have recently taken to calling ‘national renaissance.’ This refers, you understand, not to the resurrection of a dead person, but to that of a whole nation—the sort of thing one daren’t even name…. Dreams dreamed on the eve of bloodshed, you said?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Here are the files on that. Most of them are dreams dreamed on the eve of battles, some of them just before dawn.…The battle of Kerk-Kili…The battle of Bayazit Yeldrum, against Tamburlaine. The two Hungarian campaigns…”

“Is the battle of Kosovo here?” asked Mark-Alem faintly.

The archivist looked up.

“You mean the first, in 1389, against all the Balkans, if I’m not mistaken?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“It’s bound to be there. Wait a moment.”

He turned and disappeared among the groaning shelves, evidently to look for the assistant on duty in this section. He soon came back with him.

“This is where they keep the seven hundred or so dreams about it, dreams dreamed on the eve of the fateful day,” said the archivist, glancing alternately at Mark-Alem and the assistant, whose head, with its emaciated features, nodded in agreement with every word he said.

“There should have been more of them, but they’ve probably been lost,” said the assistant in a piping voice. “What’s more, a lot of those that are left are very sketchy, as dreams scribbled down in the early hours may well be.”

“Really?” exclaimed Mark-Alem eagerly.

He’d often heard his family speak of the tragic battle.

“The Master-Dream itself was chosen in haste, so that it could be brought to the Sultan’s tent at daybreak.”

“Did they have time to choose a Master-Dream?” asked Mark-Alem, amazed.

“Of course. How could they do otherwise?”

“And is it here?”

“No, it’s kept with the others in the Master-Dreams office.”

“We’ll be going there too—don’t worry,” said the archivist.

“I can describe it to you more or less,” said the assistant, his voice thinner than ever. “Only if you’re interested, of course…”

“Yes, of course!”

The archivist looked at him briefly and lowered his eyes sympathetically. How could you not be interested, his expression said, seeing that you’re a Quprili.

“A soldier dreamed he saw a friend of his who’d been killed sometime before, and the friend beckoned him over behind an embankment. ‘What are you doing there all on your own?’ said the friend. ‘Aren’t you bored? Why don’t you come and join us? Most of us are over here…’” The assistant related this in a voice that really did seem to come from beyond the grave. “That meant that the battle would be particularly bloody—as indeed it was.”

“No, it was certainly no joke,” put in the archivist. “The whole Balkan army was wiped out.”

Mark-Alem looked from one of his interlocutors to the other.

“Even now, after five centuries, the Balkan peoples often dream of that battle,” said the assistant. “Or so I was told by a friend of mine who works on the ‘dark people. ’”

“It’s quite understandable,” observed the archivist, his eyes fixed on Mark-Alem.

“Do you want us to open the files?” asked the assistant.

“No, not now,” said the archivist. “We’ll come back in a little while, won’t we?” He turned to his young companion. “Let’s take a look at the Archives as a whole, and then you can come back here and stay as long as you like.”

Mark-Alem agreed.

They went back into the passage. The archivist’s voice was accompanied by an echo again.

“Now… ow… ow… we’re going to see… oo see… oo see… the Ottoman… an… an… archaeo-dreams… earns… earns.…”

“What are they?” asked Mark-Alem after they’d gone through a door and the archivist’s voice sounded normal again.

“Old Ottoman dreams,” he answered. “The earliest dreams of the founders of the Empire. Hence archaeo-dreams.”

“Have they been preserved?”

“Up to a point,” said the archivist. “To the same extent as ancient murals can be. They’re here in these files.”

Mark-Alem made a little bow to the silent clerk who had appeared from between the shelves.

“There aren’t very many of them, which makes them all the more valuable,” the archivist went on. “But as a matter of fact they’ve come down to us in such a mutilated form that it isn’t possible to learn much from them. Although there have been a number of attempts to restore them, like old frescoes, they’re still more or less what they always were— disjointed visions, without any connections between them. Nevertheless, they’re sacred, inasmuch as they served as the basis of the State. The present interpreters often come down and look at them, to get inspiration from the way they were explained. Isn’t that right, Fouzoul?” he asked the clerk.

“That’s right,” said the other. “Several of them were here till quite late last night.”

“Interpreters from our section?” inquired Mark-Alem.

“From the Master-Dream office. Is that where you work?”

Mark-Alem blushed.

“No—I’m in Interpretation.”

“The Master-Dream officers seem to have been everywhere last night,” observed the archivist—rather pointedly, Mark-Alem thought. “Thank you, Fouzoul.”

He led the way out.

“It’s hard to get any meaning out of the archaeo-dreams, even after they’ve been restored,” he said. “I’ve seen some of them, and they struck me as completely washed-out, like old tapestries where you can’t make out the picture anymore. Yet the interpreters spend hours and hours poring over them.”

The archivist laughed to himself.

“But I’d bet you anything they don’t understand a thing! They just stay there pretending to rack their brains trying to find hidden meanings, and all the time what they’re really doing is thinking about their little problems at home, the inadequacy of their salaries, and so on. Ah, here are the Master-Dreams at last!”

Mark-Alem shuddered as though his companion had shown him a nest of vipers—only these had spent their venom long ago. Even so, they still seemed fearsome.

“There are about forty thousand of them altogether,” sighed the archivist. “Allah!”

Mark-Alem sighed too.

“And now,” said the other, “let’s go and see the Sovereign’s dreams.”

Mark-Alem expected to find a room that was particularly impressive, but it was just the same as the rest. There was nothing special about the shelves and so on; the only difference was that the files had the Emperor’s seal on the cover. Above the seal was written the name of each Sovereign: Dreams of Sultan Murat I; Dreams oj Sultan Bajazet; Dreams of Sultan Mehmet II; Dreams oj Sultan Solyman the Magnificent…

“These files can be opened only on the Sovereign’s orders,” said the archivist. “Anyone breaking the rule has his head cut off.”

He drew the edge of his hand across his throat.

They went on and visited rooms containing dreams of the giaours and of profound captivity. Also others devoted to anxieties (there were three big rooms full of those) and to hallucinations (there had been long debates about whether or not they really ought to be examined in the Tabir Sarrail at all). In the last room were the dreams of the insane.

“Well, I think you’ve got some idea of the Archives now,” said the archivist as they left.

Mark-Alem looked at him with eyes that seemed to implore pity.

Then he and his companion went back to the shelves where the file on the battle of Kosovo was kept. And there they parted.

“When you’ve finished,” said the archivist, “go along this corridor until you reach the circular one. There you can turn either way—you’ll come to a staircase whichever direction you take.”

The assistant on duty offered Mark-Alem a small table and put the file he wanted in front of him. With trembling fingers Mark-Alem started turning the ancient pages; they were made of a heavy kind of paper that had long ago fallen into disuse. Most had stains all over them, and the ink was so faded that many words were almost illegible. Mark-Alem felt a sudden pain in the head, as if someone had hit him with an ax. He had spots before his eyes. He shut them for a moment to rest them, then opened them again. Then he started to read, but very slowly, unable to concentrate. Something seemed to be keeping the meaning of the text at a distance from his brain, making it vibrate like the echo of the archivist’s voice in the vaulted corridors. But he forced himself to persevere. The language was ancient, and many of the words were incomprehensible. Above all, the order of the words in the sentences seemed very unnatural—a real jumble. But he had to make do with what he’d got. This was the first time he’d ever consulted texts as old as this, dating from some five centuries ago. Gradually, encouraged by deciphering a bit of meaning here and there, he found himself progressing more easily. Most of the dreams were described very briefly, in two or three lines, some in just one, and this made the going less difficult than he’d thought it would be at first. If it hadn’t been for the interpretations underneath the texts, he could have read the whole file in a few hours.

Mark-Alem felt his fatigue disappear. His eyes were gradually getting used to the outmoded characters, and he was beginning to find the strange syntax amusing. Little by little the skimpy, mutilated lines drew him into their own universe. His imagination was filled with a vision of the plain of Kosovo in northern Albania, where he had never set foot: a dreamlike and confused vision, the combined product of several hundred drowsy brains. And as if this weren’t enough, these vague and meaningless visions were accompanied by interpretations which made them even more difficult to grasp. Yet, perhaps because of the common anxiety felt by all the dreamers on the brink of that fatal day, and perhaps because this anguish was shared by those appointed to scribble them down, the motley collection of individual dreams possessed a curious unity. Before dawn, when the plain was still wet only with dew, in the minds of the sleeping soldiers it had filled with pools of blood which grew thicker and darker as night fell. Into the earlier pools flowed new streams of blood, soon to grow gradually darker, but never dark enough to be indistinguishable from the old. Then, at dusk, the end of the fighting, with the defeat of the Balkan allies and the murder of the Sultan just as he was rejoicing in victory. Then came the Sultan’s tent, where his body was taken, his death kept hidden from the army; the secret meeting of the Viziers; the dispatch of a messenger to fetch Jakub Tchelebi, one of the Sultan’s two sons. “Come, your glorious father has sent for you.…” The prince entering the tent, thinking his father had really summoned him, and then his own murder, hacked to death in cold blood by the Viziers to avoid a power struggle between the two brothers…

Mark-Alem rubbed his eyes as if there were a mist veiling his sight. What was the truth, then? Could it ever be found when its very roots were in dream? What’s more, there was no clear frontier between the dream and the reality. Everything to do with the battle on the plain—the lie of the land, the bad weather, the different incidents, the eyewitness accounts—all was confused and tangled. The white souls of three hundred thousand Balkan soldiers in their last agonies formed a vast blizzard swirling over the earth. Why was the Great Sultan running wildly through the flying snowflakes as if to flee with them? “Where are you going, Padishah? Pull yourself together!” Selim the janissary had cried out in his sleep, and on waking had hastened to tell of his dream. Further on, Prince Jakub Tchelebi, drenched in blood, ran across the plain in the form of a maneless horse. And here again were pools of blood, summer, winter, the seasons intermingled, with the plain covered simultaneously with rain and sunshine, snow and greenery, flowers and icy desolation. It would have to rain for weeks, months, to wash away all that blood. And the snow would have to come and turn everything white for all that suffering to seem to be covered over. But next spring, when little streams began to trickle through the spotless drifts, they would carry little clots of blood along with them, as if the snow itself had been wounded. And that is why, O Allah, in any kind of weather, winter or summer, in wind or silent rain, that plain there in northern Albania…

Mark-Alem suddenly remembered that he and his mother were invited to the Vizier’s house that evening. It was the night of the traditional dinner party when they listened to the Balkan bards. This time, as well as the Bosnians, there’d undoubtedly be the Albanese rhapsodists Kurt had invited.

Mark-Alem shut the files and stood up. His head ached from reading too much, or perhaps because of the coal fumes, which were worse in the basement than on the higher floors. He nodded at the assistants on duty and left. His footsteps echoed along the corridor. What time could it be? He had no idea. At ground level it could easily be lunchtime, or the middle of the afternoon, or perhaps evening. For a moment he felt quite anxious: What if he was late for dinner? But he soon stopped worrying. The time couldn’t have gone by as fast as that. The dinner seemed to belong to a different universe somewhere up above, almost in the clouds, while down here, to right and left of him, behind the blank walls of the corridors, in thousands upon thousand of files, lay the sleep of the whole world. He could feel his eyelids drooping. What’s happening? he thought. What was this somnolence that was creeping over him? For a moment he was terrified, but then he told himself it must be the effect of the coal fumes…. “What are you doing here all on your own? Why don’t you come and join us? Most of us are over here….”

Mark-Alem mended his pace so as to get to the circular corridor as fast as possible, but it still didn’t appear. The farther he went the more lost he felt. What if he collapsed and lost consciousness in these empty corridors? Again he felt his eyelids growing heavy. Why on earth did I ever come down here? he asked himself. He began to walk so fast he was almost running. The sound of his own footsteps, multiplied by the echo, increased his terror. I will not go to sleep! he told himself. No, I won’t fall into your trap!

Heaven knows how long he would have rushed along like that if a man hadn’t suddenly appeared in front of him at an intersection.

“What’s the matter?” asked the stranger anxiously.

“Nothing,” said Mark-Alem. “Where’s the way out?”

“But you look so pale—have you heard what happened?”

“What? I’m just looking for the way out….”

“I wondered if you’d heard anything. You’re as white as a sheet….”

“Perhaps it’s the fumes….”

“I just thought….”

“How can I get out of here?”

“This way,” said the other.

Mark-Alem was tempted to say, “But you look pale too—why are you so upset about me?” But he didn’t want to lingèr even for a moment. Let me get out of this hole as soon as possible, he groaned inwardly.

At last he spied the stairs, and sped up them three if not four at a time. As he paused on the ground floor, out of breath, he thought he heard a sound. When he turned around he was astonished to see a group of men in long capes vanishing in the distance down the corridor.

On the second floor he passed another group, a bunch of gloomy-looking individuals. The sound of footsteps came from the other corridors. What were all these comings and goings? he wondered, and he thought again of the man he’d met in the corridor down by the Archives. Something must be going on in the Palace. He hurried on, eager to get back to Interpretation. From the dreariness beyond the window-panes he could tell that daylight was fading.

“Where’ve you been all day?” asked his neighbor, back in the office.

“I was down in the Archives.”

The other stared. It was only a week since he’d been put to work next to Mark-Alem, but that was long enough to show him that the newcomer was addicted to gossip, especially whispered political gossip, clandestine and dangerous—the more dangerous the better. It was strange he hadn’t yet found out that Mark-Alem was a Quprili.

“There’s something going on,” said this fellow, leaning over close to Mark-Alem. “Can’t you feel it?”

Mark-Alem shrugged.

“I noticed some stir in the corridors. But that’s all I know,” he answered shortly.

“The head of the section was sent for three times, and each time he came back looking terrified. They’ve just sent for him again, but he isn’t back yet.”

“What can it be about?”

“Who can say? It might be anything.”

Mark-Alem almost told him about the frightened-looking man he’d seen in the basement, but that would only have unleashed a flood of whispering. He remembered what the archivist had said about the Master-Dream officers working all night in the Archives. Yes, there was definitely something going on.

“It might be anything,” whispered his neighbor. To avoid attracting attention he kept his head still and spoke out of the comer of his mouth. “Anything, from the sacking of some officials to the closing down of the Palace itself.”

“The closing down of the Tabir Sarrail?”

“Why not? With all this upset… these strange comings and goings in the corridors… I’ve worked here for years; I know the ways of the place by now. And I don’t like the look of what’s been going on today. After that, anything can happen….”

“Has the Tabir ever been closed?” quavered Mark-Alem.

“What a question!” muttered the other. “Woe betide us if that happens!… As a matter of fact, I have known certain dark periods when the Sovereign issued a special decree suspending the analysis of dreams. But that happens only rarely, very rarely, you know. When it does, the only dreams that are studied are those of the Sovereign. Then it’s as if the Tabir Sarrail had gone into mourning. You’d think it was some sort of ruin, with the staff roaming round the corridors like souls in torment. Everything seems on the point of giving up the ghost. Everyone just waits, chilled to the bone, for the day to end. And from that state of affairs to the closing down of the Tabir, it’s only a stone’s throw….”

Mark-Alem could feel a lump creeping up from his stomach to his throat. He vaguely remembered what the Vizier had said. Wasn’t this the eventuality he’d hinted at, without wanting to put it into words? His neighbor droned on, but Mark-Alem had stopped listening. His head was thudding fit to burst, his thoughts were inextricably confused…. In the course of his endless conversations with the Vizier, not to mention their last interview, he’d got the idea that the worse things were for the Palace of Dreams, the better they would be for the Quprilis. So the unluckier today proved to be for the Tabir, the more reason he himself ought to have to rejoice. But it wasn’t like that at all. The uncertainty all around him, far from giving him pleasure, only made him more afraid.

He listened to his neighbor’s mumblings, but could scarcely make out a word. The other man seemed to be talking to himself. Mark-Alem remembered asking his grandmother one day: “Grandma, why do you talk to yourself?” And she answered: “To pretend there’s two of us, dear. So as not to feel lonely….” Mark-Alem felt like heaving a sigh, as his grandmother had done then. They were all so lonely, sitting totally cut off from one another at cold desks strewn with crazy visions conjured up by the minds of strangers….

“But why?” said Mark-Alem faintly, interrupting the other’s babble. “Why is it happening?”

“Why is it happening?” The twisted lips of his neighbor seemed to aim at Mark-Alem not words but an icy grin. “My God, how can anyone ever ask ‘Why?’ in this place? Can you ever find out the reason for anything here?”

Mark-Alem sighed. The windowpanes were quite dark now. Night had fallen. The light from the lamps cast a feeble glow on the brows bent over their desks.

“Hey, here comes the boss,” said his neighbor. “Back at last.”

Mark-Alem glanced where the other was pointing.

“He doesn’t look as upset as all that to me,” he whispered.

“Doesn’t he?” Then, after a pause: “No, you’re right. He looks better to me too. Let’s hope there’s good news.”

Mark-Alem felt a pang of anxiety.

“He looks quite pleased, actually.”

“I wouldn’t go as far as that. But he doesn’t look as worried as he did.”

“Roll on the end of the day!” said Mark-Alem, gazing at his boss. He thought he saw a feverish gleam in his eye. “God help us!”

“The day will end all right,” said his neighbor. “But shall we be able to go home?”

“What do you mean?”

“On a day like this we might well have to stay here all night.”

Mark-Alem remembered he was supposed to be going to the Vizier’s that evening, and was about to mention the fact to his neighbor. Anyhow, he thought, I can ask permission to go. Surely they wouldn’t dare prevent him from going to dinner with his influential uncle? He rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand. What if all this were just imagination? After all, they were only talking about suppositions with no foundation yet in fact. The people in the corridor, the changing expressions of the head of the section—that wasn’t much to go on! That neighbor of his was crazy. Mark-Alem didn’t know how he could have let himself get carried away by his maunderings.

The bell for the end of work made him start. Mark-Alem’s eyes met those of his neighbor, and he almost shouted, “You see, you idiot—you got me all worked up for nothing! It’s just a day like any other—there’s the bell ringing at the usual time. What did you want to go and frighten me like that for?”

The other was the first to close his file; then he hurried out with a glance at Mark-Alem that seemed to say, “You get off too while you’ve got the chance!”

Mark-Alem followed. The corridors and stairs were swarming with people, and the thud of anonymous footsteps seemed to shake the building to its foundations. He added his own to the rest, with the relief of a frightened man hiding himself in a crowd. Two or three times he got the feeling that it was just an ordinary end to a day, but immediately afterward he felt the opposite. He looked at the other people out of the corner of his eye, and thought he could see a flush on their cheeks reflecting some deep inner fever. Not just ordinary excitement, but a seething impatience at the prospect of the unknown. Rubbish, he told himself. There’s nothing of the kind in those faces drawn with fatigue and worn out by the ravings of dreams. It’s my own nerves that are to blame….

When he got outside the building he extricated himself from the crowd, and the farther away he got from them, the more absurd his apprehensions seemed. It’s that madman that got me down, he thought. The scene between the two of them was really comical.

He looked for a cab, to get home more quickly. He didn’t want to be late for that dinner. He put his hand up two or three times, but either because they didn’t notice him or because they were engaged, the drivers didn’t stop. Mark- Alem wasn’t the sort of person to stand on the curb and shout, “Hey, cabby!” He preferred to walk, even if it was raining or snowing, rather than call attention to himself. Luckily there weren’t as many pedestrians as usual, so he got along quite fast. If it was like this all the way home he’d have time to change and perhaps have a bath before dinner.

Lost in thought, he had almost forgotten his recent fears when something—he didn’t realize exactly what it was at first—a gasp of surprise, a rapid footfall, a whisper?—made him look up and glance toward the crossroads. Two patrols were stationed in the middle, looking at the passersby suspiciously. What was going on? Before he had time to hazard a guess, he caught sight of another patrol a little farther on, and then another. There were soldiers everywhere. The anguish he thought he’d left behind at the door of the Palace of Dreams now swept over him again. The other people in the streets were also peering unobtrusively at the patrols. Some turned around for a last look as they walked away.

After he’d gone on for a while without seeing any more uniforms, Mark-Alem thought, Perhaps it’s only a coincidence? People were going in and out of the little taverns scattered along the street, and there didn’t seem to be any sign of alarm anywhere. And there was the cafe called The Nights of Ramadan, with music coming out of it as usual. Yes, he said to himself for the umpteenth time, it must be a coincidence. Anyhow, hadn’t he seen patrols there before? He could even remember they’d been there then to check people’s identity. Yes, obviously a coincidence. The Central Bank was close by; who knows, perhaps they were expecting an attempt at armed robbery and were taking precautions.

It seemed to Mark-Alem there were more sentries than usual outside the Ministry of Finance, but he didn’t have the heart to look and make sure. The streetlamps shed a sinister light. He mumbled, “To the devil with all of them!”—not sure whom he meant. The trembling he’d tried to repress had returned. By the time he reached the Palace of the Sheikh-ul-Islam he was sure this unusual activity owed nothing to chance, and something really was going on. A large group of soldiers and policemen, almost half a battalion, was massed outside the wrought-iron railings. “There’s something going on,” he muttered. Something… But what? A plot? An attempted coup d’état? A siege? He wanted to hasten on, but couldn’t. His legs felt like cotton. Hurry up, he told himself, but he knew all effort was useless. He thought of the dinner, and of the old custom, which was even mentioned in the epic, that decreed that a Quprili never canceled a dinner party.

On the Crescent Bridge he saw more helmeted soldiers, but he was now in such a state that nothing could affect him either way. At last he reached his own street with its somber chestnut trees, and saw lights on the second floor of his house. He could make out the shape of a vehicle outside the gate and, as he drew near, saw the letter Q carved on the carriage door. He heaved a sigh of relief and went in.