The Snail on the Slope

  Copyright © 1968 by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

  Afterword copyright © 2001 by Boris Strugatsky

  English language translation copyright © 2018 by Olena Bormashenko

  All rights reserved

  Published by Chicago Review Press Incorporated

  814 North Franklin Street

  Chicago, Illinois 60610

  ISBN 978-0-914091-87-5 (cloth)

  ISBN 978-1-61373-754-5 (paperback)

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Strugatskiĭ, Arkadiĭ, 1925–1991, author. | Strugatskiĭ, Boris,

  1933–2012, author. | Bormashenko, Olena, translator.

  Title: The snail on the slope / Arkady and Boris Strugatsky ; translated by

  Olena Bormashenko.

  Other titles: Ulitka na sklone. English

  Description: Chicago : Published by Chicago Review Press Incorporated,

  2018.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018008265 (print) | LCCN 2018017211 (ebook) |

  ISBN 9781613737552 (PDF edition) | ISBN 9781613737576

  (EPUB edition) | ISBN 9781613737569 (Kindle edition) | ISBN

  9780914091875 (cloth edition) | ISBN 9781613737545

  (trade pbk. edition)

  Subjects: | LCGFT: Science fiction.

  Classification: LCC PG3476.S78835 (ebook) | LCC PG3476.S78835 U413 2018

  (print) | DDC 891.73/44—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018008265

  Typesetting: Nord Compo

  Printed in the United States of America

  5 4 3 2 1

  This digital document has been produced by Nord Compo.

  Beyond the bend, inside

  The forest deep,

  My future waits,

  Its vow to keep.

  It won’t be argued, or

  Be coaxed away.

  A pine wood stark

  And clear as day.

  —Boris Pasternak

  little snail

  inch by inch, climb

  Mount Fuji!

  —Issa

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  1. PERETZ

  2. CANDIDE

  3. PERETZ

  4. CANDIDE

  5. PERETZ

  6. PERETZ

  7. CANDIDE

  8. CANDIDE

  9. PERETZ

  10. PERETZ

  11. CANDIDE

  Afterword - BY BORIS STRUGATSKY

  1.

  PERETZ

  From this height, the forest looked like dappled, fluffy foam; like a gigantic, world-encompassing porous sponge; like an animal that had once lain hidden in wait, then had dozed off, becoming overgrown with coarse moss. Like a shapeless mask, hiding a face no one had ever seen.

  Peretz threw off his sandals and sat down, dangling his bare feet into the abyss. It seemed to him that his heels immediately became damp, as if he had actually dipped them into the warm lilac fog that accumulated in the shadow beneath the cliff. He took the stones that he’d gathered out of his pocket and carefully arranged them next to him, then chose the smallest one and gently tossed it down into that living silence, to be swallowed forever by its sleeping, indifferent maw. The white spark went out, but nothing happened—nobody blinked, no one’s eyes opened to take a look. Then he threw another stone.

  If you threw a stone every minute and a half; and if the one-legged cook nicknamed Cazalunya had been telling the truth; and if Madame Bardot, the head of the Assistance to the Locals Team, had guessed right; and if truck driver Randy and L’Estrange from the Penetration Through Engineering Team, whispering together in the cafeteria, had gotten it wrong; and if human intuition was worth a damn; and if, for once in your life, wishes were granted—then on the seventh stone, the bushes behind you would rustle and part, and the Director would emerge onto the clearing: shirtless, wearing gray gabardine pants with purple piping, breathing loudly, glistening with sweat, yellowish-pink and hairy. Then, paying no attention to anything, neither the forest beneath him nor the sky above him, he would begin to bend, sinking his broad palms into the grass, and unbend, creating a breeze with each swing of those broad palms, and every single time, the mighty crease in his stomach would roll over his pants, and a stream of air, saturated with nicotine and carbon dioxide, would shoot out his mouth, hissing and gurgling. Like a submarine flushing out its air tanks. Like a sulfur geyser on Paramushir Island . . .

  The bushes behind him rustled and parted. Peretz glanced cautiously over his shoulder, but it wasn’t the Director, it was his acquaintance Claudius Octavian Bootlicherson from the Eradication Team. He approached slowly and stopped two paces away, staring down at Peretz with his dark eyes. He knew or suspected something, something very important, and this knowledge or suspicion immobilized his long face, the transfixed face of a man who had brought here, to this precipice, strange, disquieting news; no one had heard this news yet—but it was already clear that everything had changed, that the past had ceased to matter, and that everyone would finally be asked to contribute according to his or her abilities.

  “Whose shoes are these?” he asked, and looked around.

  “These are not shoes,” Peretz said. “They are sandals.”

  “Oh yes?” Bootlicherson smiled sardonically and pulled a large notebook out of his pocket. “Sandals? Excellent. But whose sandals are they?” He approached the precipice, cautiously looked down, and immediately stepped back. “A man sits by a precipice,” he said, “a pair of sandals by his side. The question inevitably arises: Whose sandals are they, and where is their owner?”

  “These are my sandals,” Peretz said.

  “Yours?” Bootlicherson looked at his large notebook with uncertainty. “So you’re sitting barefoot? Why?” He decisively put the large notebook away and extracted a small notebook from a back pocket.

  “It’s the only way,” explained Peretz. “Yesterday, my right shoe fell in, and I decided that from now on I will always sit barefoot.” He bent over and looked between his parted knees. “There it is. Let me just take aim . . .”

  “Wait a minute!” Bootlicherson nimbly caught his arm and took the stone away. “I concede, it’s just a stone,” he said. “But for now, that makes no difference. I don’t understand why you’d lie to me, Peretz. After all, you can’t see the shoe from here—that is, if it actually is down there, and we’ll have to come back to that, that’s a separate discussion—and since you can’t see the shoe, you therefore can’t expect to hit it with the stone, even if your aim were sufficiently good and your one and only goal were to hit it . . . But we’re about to sort this all out.” He stuffed the small notebook into his breast pocket and took the large notebook out again. Then he hitched up his pants and crouched down. “So we conclude that you also came here yesterday,” he said. “What for? Why have you repeatedly come to a precipice that the other employees of the Administration, not to mention the visiting experts, never come to except maybe to relieve themselves?”

  Peretz shrank back. This is just ignorance, he thought. No, no, he isn’t trying to provoke me, he isn’t being malicious, and I shouldn’t take it seriously. It’s nothing but ignorance. There’s no reason to take ignorance seriously; no one ever takes ignorance seriously. Ignorance defecates on the forest. Ignorance always defecates on something or another, and as a rule, it’s not taken seriously. Ignorance never takes ignorance seriously . . .

  “You probably like to sit here,” Bootlicherson continued silkily. “You probably really love the forest. Do you love it? Answer me!”

  “What about you?” Peretz asked.

  Bootlicherson sniffed. “That’s not called for,” he said huffily, and
opened his notebook. “You know very well whom I work for. I work for the Eradication Team, and therefore your question, or rather your counterquestion, is absolutely meaningless. You are well aware that my attitude toward the forest is determined by my official duty, whereas I’m not at all sure what determines your attitude. This is not right, Peretz. Give it some serious thought—this advice is for your benefit, not my own. It’s wrong to be so mysterious. Sitting by a precipice, barefoot, throwing stones . . . Why, I ask? If I were you, I’d tell me everything. To set the record straight. You never know, there may be mitigating factors and you may ultimately have nothing to fear. Well, Peretz? After all, you’re a grown man, and you must appreciate that ambiguity is unacceptable.” He closed the notebook and thought for a bit. “For example, consider a stone. Lying still, it’s simplicity itself; it inspires no doubts. But now a hand picks it up and throws it. You see?”

  “No,” Peretz replied. “I mean, yes, of course.”

  “There you go. It’s no longer the least bit simple. ‘Whose hand was it?’ we ask. ‘Where did it throw it? Did it throw it to someone? Did it throw it at someone? And why?’ . . . And how can you bear sitting so close to the edge? Did it come naturally, or did you have to practice? Personally, I can’t bear sitting so close to the edge. And I shudder to think what could make me practice. I get dizzy. And that’s as it should be. There’s no reason for a man to sit close to the edge, anyway. Especially a man without a forest pass. Please show me your pass, Peretz.”

  “I don’t have a pass.”

  “Ah. You don’t have one. And why not?”

  “I don’t know . . . They won’t give me one.”

  “That’s right, they won’t give you one. We know this. But why won’t they give you one? I got one, she got one, he and his grandmother got one, but for some reason, they won’t give you one.”

  Peretz glanced at him cautiously. Bootlicherson’s long, thin nose was twitching; his eyes were blinking rapidly. “It’s probably because I’m an outsider,” Peretz suggested. “That’s probably why.”

  “And I’m not the only one taking an interest in you,” Bootlicherson confided. “If only it were just me! Higher-ups are taking an interest, too . . . Listen, Peretz, could you move farther away from the edge so we can continue? I get dizzy looking at you.”

  Peretz got up. “That’s because you’re neurotic,” he said. “Let’s not continue. We should get to the cafeteria or we’ll be late.”

  Bootlicherson looked at his watch. “You’re right, we should,” he said. “I got carried away today. There’s something about you, Peretz, that always makes me . . . I don’t even know how to put it.”

  Peretz began to hop on one foot, pulling on his sandal.

  “Oh, do get away from the edge!” Bootlicherson shrieked in anguish, waving his notebook at Peretz. “One of these days, your shenanigans will give me a heart attack!”

  “I’m all done,” Peretz said, stamping his foot. “I won’t do it again. Shall we?”

  “Let’s go,” Bootlicherson said. “But I must observe that you haven’t answered a single one of my questions. I’m very disappointed in you, Peretz. Is that any way to act?” He took a look at his large notebook and, shrugging, tucked it under his arm. “It’s almost strange. Not a single impression, never mind any information. A complete lack of clarity.”

  “What’s there to say?” said Peretz. “I just came here to talk to the Director.”

  Bootlicherson froze, as if he had gotten caught in the bushes. “Oh, so that’s how you do it,” he said in a new voice.

  “Do what? I don’t do anything.”

  “No, no,” Bootlicherson whispered, glancing around. “Hold your tongue. No need for words. I understand. You were right.”

  “What do you mean, you understand? What am I right about?”

  “No, no, I don’t understand anything. I don’t understand, and that’s the end of it. You may rest assured. I don’t understand, that’s final. And anyway, I wasn’t here and didn’t see you. If you really want to know, I spent the whole morning sitting on this bench. Lots of people will confirm it. I’ll talk to them, I’ll ask them.”

  They passed the bench, climbed the weathered stairs, turned into a tree-lined walk strewn with fine red sand, and entered the gates leading to the territory of the Administration.

  “Complete clarity can only exist on a certain level,” Bootlicherson was saying. “And everyone should be aware of what they can pretend to. I pretended to clarity on my level—that was my right—and I have exhausted it. And where rights end, responsibilities begin, and let me assure you that I know my responsibilities just as well my rights.”

  They walked past the two-story villas with tulle curtains in the windows, each one subdivided into ten apartments, passed the garage with its corrugated iron roof, and crossed the athletic field, where a torn volleyball net hung abandoned between the poles. They continued past the warehouses, where the riggers were dragging a huge red container from a truck, and past the hotel, whose manager—pasty, with staring, bulging eyes—was standing in the doorway and holding a briefcase. Then they walked along a long fence, hearing the metallic grinding sounds of the machines on the other side; they walked faster and faster, because there wasn’t much time left, and Bootlicherson wasn’t talking anymore but only wheezing and gasping, and then they began to run. And despite all that, when they burst into the cafeteria, it was already late and all the seats were taken, and the only table that wasn’t full was the attendant’s table at the back, which had two empty seats. The third seat was occupied by truck driver Randy, and Randy, noticing them hovering indecisively by the door, waved them over with a fork.

  Everyone was drinking buttermilk, and Peretz also got some, so there was now a row of six bottles on the worn-out tablecloth; and when Peretz wiggled his feet under the table, trying to get comfortable on his chair, which was missing its seat, there was a sound of clinking glass, and an empty brandy bottle rolled out into the space between the tables. Truck driver Randy promptly grabbed it and stuffed it back under the table, and there was again a sound of clinking glass.

  “Watch your feet,” he said.

  “It was an accident,” Peretz said. “I didn’t know.”

  “Think I did?” Randy retorted. “There are four of ’em down there—good luck proving later they aren’t yours. They can prove that two plus two makes five if they’ve got a mind to.”

  “Well, I, for one, don’t drink,” Bootlicherson said with dignity. “So this doesn’t apply to me.”

  “Don’t drink, huh?” said Randy. “Guess I don’t drink myself, then.”

  “But I have liver disease!” Bootlicherson started to sound worried. “How could you? Here’s a doctor’s note, take a look . . .”

  He conjured up a wrinkled piece of paper with a triangular seal and waved it in Peretz’s face. This really was an official note, written in a doctor’s illegible handwriting. Peretz could only make out a single word, “Disulfiram,” and when he became interested and tried to take the paper, Bootlicherson didn’t let him have it and waved it in Randy’s face.

  “That’s the most recent note,” he said. “I also have notes for last year and the year before, except they are in my safe.”

  Truck driver Randy didn’t look at the note. He said “Cheers,” slowly drained a full glass of buttermilk, and belched. Then, tearing up, he said in a hoarser voice, “Say, know what else is in the forest? Trees.” He wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “But they don’t stay put, they jump, OK?”

  “Yeah?” Peretz said eagerly. “How do they jump?”

  “Like this. It starts off standing still. Like a normal tree. Then it wriggles, it squirms, and BOOOOM! Crash, bang, everything’s topsy-turvy. Jumps about thirty feet. Bangs up my cab. And it’s standing still again.”

  “Why?” Peretz asked. He could imagine this very clearly. But of course, it didn’t wriggle or squirm; it trembled when approached and tried to get away. Maybe it was squeamish. May
be it was scared. “Why does it jump?” he asked.

  “That’s what it’s called, a jumping tree,” Randy explained, pouring himself some buttermilk.

  “We got a new shipment of power saws yesterday,” Bootlicherson informed them, licking his lips. “They are phenomenally effective. I would venture to say that these are not merely saws but sawing engines. Our sawing engines of eradication.”

  Meanwhile, everyone around them was drinking buttermilk—out of glasses, out of tin mugs, out of coffee cups, out of rolled-up paper bags, and straight from the bottle. Everyone had their feet tucked under their chairs. And everyone could probably show doctor’s notes about diseases of the liver, stomach, or duodenum. Notes for this year, and for previous years, too.

  “And then the garage foreman sends for me,” Randy continued in a loud voice, “and asks why my cab is dented. ‘You bastard, have you been smuggling things again?’ he says. Now you, Signor Peretz, you play chess with him—put in a good word for me. He respects you, he talks about you all the time . . . Peretz, he says, is a real man! ‘I won’t let Peretz use a car,’ he says, ‘don’t even ask. Can’t let a man like that go. You gotta understand, morons,’ he says, ‘we’ll miss him.’ So put in a good word for me, huh?”

  “A-All right,” Peretz said dejectedly. “I’ll try. But what’s this about a car?”

  “I can talk to the garage foreman,” said Bootlicherson. “We were in the military together: I was a captain, and he was my lieutenant. To this day, he greets me with a military salute.”

  “There are also mermaids,” Randy said, his glass of buttermilk in midair. “In big clear lakes. They lie there, OK? Naked.”

  “That’s all the buttermilk making you see things, Randall,” said Bootlicherson.

  “Never saw ’em myself,” Randy objected, bringing the glass to his lips. “But water in these lakes isn’t good to drink.”

  “You haven’t seen them because they don’t exist,” Bootlicherson said. “Mermaids are a myth.”

  “Your mom’s a myth,” Randy said, wiping his eyes with his sleeve.