The Inhabited Island Page 10

  Maxim listened avidly, as if it was all some terrible, impossible fable, only all the more terrible and impossible because it was real, because so very much of it was still happening, and the most terrible and impossible things in all of this could be repeated at any moment. It seemed absurd and shameful to think about his own anxieties and problems, which suddenly became tiny—petty concerns about first contact, a null-transmitter, homesickness, wringing his hands . . .

  The truck took a sharp turn onto a rather narrow street of brick buildings, and Pandi said, “We’re here.” People on the sidewalk drew back against the walls, shielding their faces from the light of the headlights. The truck halted and a long telescopic antenna extended to its full height above the driver’s cabin.

  “Disembark!” the commanders of the second and third sections barked in unison, and guardsmen scrambled over the sides of the truck.

  “First section, remain where you are!” Gai commanded.

  Pandi and Maxim, who had jumped to their feet, sat back down.

  “Divide up into groups of three!” roared the corporals on the sidewalk.

  “Second section, forward march.”

  “Third section, follow me!”

  Steel-tipped boots clattered, a woman’s voice squealed rapturously, and someone yelled from the top floor in a piercing howl, “Gentlemen! The Battle Guards!”

  “Hoorah!” shouted the pale-faced people, who were pressing themselves back hard against the wall in order not to get in the way. It was as if these passersby had been waiting here for the guardsmen and, now that they had arrived, were as glad to see them as if they were their best friends.

  Candidate Zoiza, sitting on Maxim’s right, was still a complete boy, a long, skinny beanpole with white fluff on his cheeks. He nudged Maxim in the side with his sharp elbow and joyfully winked at him. Maxim smiled back. The other sections had already disappeared into their entrances, and only the corporals were left at the doors, standing there firmly and dependably, their faces immobile under their cocked berets. The door of the driver’s cabin slammed, and Cornet Chachu’s voice croaked, “First section, disembark and fall in!”

  Maxim vaulted over the side of the truck. When the section had formed up, Cornet Chachu gestured to stop Gai, who had run up to report, then the cornet walked up close to the formation and commanded, “On helmets!”

  The active privates seemed to have been waiting for this order, but the candidates hesitated. The cornet waited, impatiently tapping his heel, until Zoiza finally mastered his chin strap. Then he gave the orders “Right turn!” and “Forward on the double!” He himself ran ahead, with an awkwardly nimble gait, strenuously waving his maimed hand in the air as he led the section through a dark archway between iron containers of rotting refuse and into an inner yard that was as narrow and dark as a well shaft, crammed with stacks of firewood, before turning under another archway, as gloomy and foul-smelling as the first one, and stopping in front of a peeling door below a dim lightbulb.

  “Attention!” he croaked. “The first group of three and Candidate Sim will go with me. The others will remain here. Corporal Gaal, at the whistle bring the second team of three upstairs to me, on the fourth floor. Do not let anyone out, take them alive, and shoot only as a last resort! First group and Candidate Sim, follow me!”

  The cornet pushed the scruffy door open and disappeared inside. Maxim overtook Pandi and followed the cornet in. Behind the door was a steep stone stairway, narrow and dirty, with clammy iron banisters; it was illuminated by a sickly, sordid kind of light. The cornet friskily ran up it, three steps at a time. Catching up with him, Maxim saw a pistol in his hand and took his own automatic from around his neck as he ran, feeling nauseous for a second at the thought that now, perhaps, he would have to shoot at people, but he drove the thought out of his head: these weren’t people, they were animals, worse than Rat Catcher with his mustache, worse than spotted monkeys—and the repulsive sludge under his feet and the walls covered with gobs of spittle confirmed and supported this feeling.

  The second floor. A suffocating reek of kitchen fumes and a frightened old woman’s face in the crack of a half-open door covered in tattered burlap. A demented cat meowed as it shot out from under their feet. The third floor. Some blockhead had left a bucket of kitchen slop in the middle of the landing. The cornet kicked over the bucket and the slop went flying into the stairwell. “Massaraksh,” Pandi growled below them. A young guy and a girl with their arms around each other had squeezed back into a dark corner with expressions of frightened delight on their faces. “Get out, down the stairs!” the cornet croaked as he ran. The fourth floor. A hideous brown door with peeling oil-based paint, a scratched tin plaque with the inscription GOBBI, DENTIST. CONSULTATIONS AT ANY TIME. On the other side of the door someone was shouting—a long, drawn-out yell.

  The cornet stopped, with sweat coursing down his dark face, and wheezed, “The lock!” Maxim didn’t understand. Pandi ran up, pushed him aside, set the muzzle of his automatic to the door just below the handle, and fired a rapid burst. There was a shower of sparks, chunks of wood went flying into the air, and immediately, on the other side of the door, the protracted yell was punctuated by the popping sound of shots, splinters of wood went flying into the air again, and something hot and dense went hurtling just over Maxim’s head with an atrocious screech. The cornet threw the door open; it was dark inside and the yellow flashes of shots lit up eddying billows of smoke.

  “Follow me!” the cornet wheezed, and charged in headlong, straight toward the flashes. Maxim and Pandi dashed in after him; the door was too narrow, Pandi was squeezed, and he gave a brief moan. A corridor, fuggy air, powder fumes. Danger on the left. Maxim flung out his hand, grabbed a hot gun barrel, and jerked the weapon upward and away from himself. Someone’s wrenched joints cracked with a quiet but appallingly distinct sound, and a large, soft body froze and limply fell. Up ahead in the smoke, the cornet croaked, “Don’t shoot! Take them alive!”

  Maxim dropped his automatic and burst into a large, well-lit room containing a lot of books and pictures, but there was nobody there to shoot at. Two men were writhing around on the floor. One of them kept shouting; he had already gone hoarse, but he kept on shouting. Lying in a faint in an armchair with her head thrown back was a woman, so white that she was almost transparent. The room was full of pain. The cornet stood over the shouting man and looked around, thrusting his pistol into its holster. Pandi shoved Maxim hard in the back as he burst into the room and was followed in by the other guards, dragging the corpulent body of the man who had been shooting. Candidate Zoiza, soaking wet and agitated, handed Maxim the automatic that he had abandoned.

  The cornet turned his terrible, dark face toward him. “But where’s the other one?” he croaked, and at that very moment a blue curtain dropped to the floor and a long, thin man in a soiled white doctor’s coat clumsily jumped down off the windowsill. He walked toward the cornet like a blind man, slowly raising two huge pistols to the level of his eyes, which were glazed with pain. “Aiee!” Zoiza screamed.

  Maxim was standing sideways and he had no time to turn. He jumped with all the strength in his body, but the man still managed to pull the triggers once. Maxim’s face was scorched and powder fumes filled his mouth, but his fingers had already closed on the wrists in the white coat, and the pistols clattered to the floor. The man went down on his knees and lowered his head, and when Maxim let go of him, he gently tumbled forward onto his face.

  “Well, well, well,” the cornet said in an unfathomable tone of voice. “Put that one here too,” he ordered Pandi. “And you,” he said to soaking-wet, pale-faced Zoiza. “Run downstairs and tell the section commanders where I am. Tell them to report on how they’re doing.” Zoiza clicked his heels and dashed toward the door. “Oh yes! Tell Gaal to come up here . . . Stop yelling, you bastard!” he shouted at the groaning man, and prodded him in the side with the toe of his boot. “Ah, a waste of time. Flimsy garbage, trash . . . Search him!” he o
rdered Pandi. “And put them all in a row. Right here, on the floor. And the woman too, she’s sprawled out in the only chair.”

  Maxim walked over to the woman, cautiously lifted her up, and moved her onto the bed. He had an uneasy feeling. This wasn’t what he had expected. But now he didn’t even know what he had expected—yellow fangs bared in a snarl of hatred, baleful howling, a ferocious skirmish to the death? He had nothing he could compare his feelings with, but for some reason he recalled how he once shot a tahorg, and the immense beast, so fearsome to look at and reputedly absolutely merciless, tumbled into an immense pit with its spinal column broken, and wept quietly and mournfully, muttering almost articulately to itself in its dying despair . . .

  “Candidate Sim!” the cornet croaked. “I said on the floor!”

  He looked at Maxim with his terrifying, transparent eyes, his lips twisted as if in a cramp, and Maxim realized it was not for him, Maxim, to judge or determine what was right here. He was still an outsider; he didn’t know their hates and their loves . . . He picked up the woman again and put her down beside the corpulent man who had been shooting in the corridor. Pandi and the second guardsman puffed and panted as they painstakingly turned out the arrested group’s pockets. But the prisoners were unconscious. All five of them.

  The cornet sat down in the armchair, tossed his peaked cap onto the table, lit up a cigarette, and beckoned Maxim over to him with his finger. Maxim walked across and gallantly clicked his heels.

  “Why did you drop your automatic?” the cornet asked in a low voice.

  “You ordered us not to shoot.”

  “Mr. Cornet.”

  “Yes, sir. You ordered us not to shoot, Mr. Cornet.”

  Narrowing his eyes, the cornet released a stream of smoke up toward the ceiling. “So if I’d ordered you not to talk, you would have bitten off your own tongue?”

  Maxim didn’t say anything. He didn’t like this conversation, but he remembered Gai’s admonitions very clearly.

  “What does your father do?” the cornet asked.

  “He’s a nuclear physicist, Mr. Cornet.”

  “Alive?”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Cornet.”

  The cornet took the cigarette out of his mouth and looked at Maxim. “Where is he?”

  Maxim realized that he’d put his foot in it. He had to extricate himself from this situation somehow. “I don’t know, Mr. Cornet. That is, I don’t remember.”

  “But you do remember that he’s a nuclear expert . . . And what else do you remember?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Cornet. I remember a lot of things, but Corporal Gaal thinks they’re all false memories.”

  There was the sound of hurrying footsteps in the corridor, and Gai entered the room and snapped to attention in front of the cornet.

  “Take care of these half corpses, Corporal,” said the cornet. “Do you have enough handcuffs?”

  Gai glanced over his shoulder at the prisoners. “With your permission, Mr. Cornet, I’ll have to get one pair from the second section.”

  “Go ahead.”

  Gai ran out. There was the sound of boots tramping in the corridor again, and the other section commanders appeared and reported that the operation was proceeding successfully: two suspicious individuals had already been detained, and as usual the residents were rendering active assistance. The cornet ordered them to finish up as soon as possible and to relay the password “Pedestal” to headquarters when they were finished. After the section commanders went out, he lit up another cigarette and said nothing for a while, watching the guardsmen take books down off the shelves, leaf through them, and throw them onto the bed.

  “Pandi,” he said in a quiet voice, “you deal with the pictures. Only be careful with that one, don’t damage it—I’ll take it for myself.” Then he turned back to Maxim. “How do you like it?” he asked.

  Maxim looked at the picture. It showed the seashore at twilight, a high expanse of water with no horizon, and a woman emerging from the sea. It was fresh and windy. The woman was feeling cold.

  “A good picture, Mr. Cornet,” said Maxim.

  “Do you recognize the place?”

  “Negative. I have never seen that sea.”

  “Then what sea have you seen?”

  “A quite different one, Mr. Cornet. But that’s a false memory.”

  “Rubbish. It’s the same one. Only you were looking at it not from the shore but from a bridge deck, and the deck below you was white, and behind you on the stern there was another bridge, only a bit lower. And it wasn’t this woman on the shore but a tank, and you were directing its aim at the base of a tower . . . Do you know, you young whelp, what it’s like when a solid shot hits the base of a tower? Massaraksh . . .” He hissed and crushed out his cigarette end on the table.

  “I don’t understand,” Maxim said in a cool voice. “I have never directed any fire at anything.”

  “But how can you know that? You don’t remember anything, Candidate Sim!”

  “I remember that I have never directed anybody’s fire, Mr. Cornet. And I don’t understand what you are talking about.”

  Gai walked in, accompanied by the other two candidates. They started putting heavy handcuffs on the prisoners.

  “They’re people too,” the cornet suddenly said. “They have wives, they have children. They loved someone, someone loved them . . .”

  He said it in a way that was clearly mocking, but Maxim said what he really thought. “Yes, sir, Mr. Cornet. It turns out that they are people too.”

  “You didn’t expect that?”

  “No, Mr. Cornet. I was expecting something different.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gai looking at him in fright. But he was already sick to death of lying, and he added, “I thought that they really were degenerates. Like naked, spotted . . . animals.”

  “You naked, spotted fool,” the cornet emphatically exclaimed. “You bumpkin. You’re not in the South now . . . here they’re like people—dear, kind people who get bad headaches when they’re really anxious. God marks the scoundrel. Do you get a pain in your head when you’re anxious?” he unexpectedly asked.

  “I never get a pain anywhere, Mr. Cornet,” Maxim replied, “How about you?”

  “Whaaat?”

  “Your voice sounds irritated,” said Maxim, “and so I thought—”

  “Mr. Cornet!” Gai called out in a strange, trembling voice. “Permission to report . . . The prisoners have come around.”

  The cornet looked at him and chuckled. “Don’t worry, Corporal. Your little friend has shown himself to be a true guardsman. If not for him, Cornet Chachu would be lying here with a bullet in his head.” He lit up a third cigarette, raised his eyes to the ceiling, and let out a thick stream of smoke. “You have sound instincts, Corporal. I’d promote this fine young man to active private right here and now . . . Massaraksh, why, I’d promote him to officer’s rank! He has the manners of a brigadier, he simply adores asking officers questions . . . But I understand you very well now, Corporal. That report of yours had every justification. So . . . we’ll wait for a while before we make him an officer.” The cornet got up, clumsily stomped around the table, and stopped in front of Maxim. “We won’t even promote him to active private yet. He’s a good soldier, but he’s still wet behind the ears, a bumpkin. We’ll take his education in hand . . . Attention!” he suddenly bellowed. “Corporal Gaal, lead out the prisoners! Private Pandi and Candidate Sim, collect my picture and everything here that’s made of paper! Bring them to me in the truck!”

  He turned around and walked out of the room. Gai gave Maxim a reproachful look, but he didn’t say anything. The guardsmen got the prisoners up, setting them on their feet with kicks and jabs, and led them to the door. The prisoners didn’t resist, their legs were rubbery, and they swayed on their feet. The corpulent man who had fired in the corridor kept loudly groaning and swearing in a whisper. The woman soundlessly moved her lips. Her eyes had a strange glimmer in them.

  “Hey
, Mak,” said Pandi, “take that blanket off the bed and wrap the books in it, and if it’s not big enough, take the sheet too. When you’ve got everything, lug it all downstairs, and I’ll take the picture . . . And don’t forget your rifle, dimwit! You can’t just go dumping your gun! And in action too . . . Eh, you bumpkin . . .”

  “Cut the talk, Pandi,” Gai said angrily. “Take the picture and go.”

  In the doorway he turned back toward Maxim, tapped his finger on his forehead, and disappeared. Maxim could hear Pandi singing “Cool It, Mama” at the top of his voice as he walked down the stairs. Maxim sighed, put his automatic on the table, and walked over to the heaps of books dumped on the bed and the floor. It suddenly struck him that he had never seen such a large number of books anywhere here, except perhaps in the library. The bookshops also had more books, of course. But only by the number of items, not by titles.

  The books were old, with yellowed pages. Some of them were scorched, and some, to Maxim’s surprise, were palpably radioactive. There was no time to examine them properly, so Maxim hurriedly stacked the neat piles on the spread-out blanket, reading only the titles. Yes, the book Kolitsu Felsha, or The Insanely Brave Brigadier Who Performed Daring Exploits in the Enemy’s Rear wasn’t here; the novel A Sorcerer’s Love and Devotion wasn’t here; the thick narrative poem A Woman’s Ardent Heart wasn’t here; and the popular leaflet The Tasks of Social Hygiene wasn’t here. But Maxim did see the thick volumes of the serious works The Theory of Evolution, Problems of the Workers’ Movement, Financial Politics and the Economically Sound State, Famine: Stimulus or Obstacle?, and various kinds of “Critiques,” “Courses,” and “Fundamentals,” accompanied by terms that Maxim didn’t know. There were collections of medieval Hontian poetry, the folktales and ballads of peoples unknown to Maxim, a four-volume collection of the works of a certain T. Kuur, and a lot of fiction: The Tempest and the Grass, The Man Who Was the World Light, Islands Without Azure, and many more books in unfamiliar languages, then once again books on math, physics, biology, and then more fiction . . .