Snail on the Slope Page 9

  Kandid had got his second wind and running was easier. They were now in the very heart of the forest, the very depths of the thickets. Kandid had been as deep as this only once, when he had attempted to straddle a deadling, so as to reach its masters on its back, the deadling had galloped along, it was as hot as a boiling kettle and Kandid had finally lost consciousness from the pain and fallen off into the mud. He had suffered for ages afterward from burns on chest and palms.

  It was getting darker and darker. The sky was no longer visible at all, the air became more and more stifling. At the same time, the stretches of open water became rarer, mighty clumps of red and white moss appeared. The moss was soft and cool, and extremely springy, it was pleasant to step on.

  "Let's... have a rest..." breathed Kandid. "No, what are you thinking of. Dummy," said Nava. "We can't possibly rest here. We have to get past this moss as quick as we can, it's dangerous moss, it's a sort of animal lying down, like a spider, you go to sleep on it and you won't wake up anymore, that's what sort of moss it is, let the robbers rest on it, but likely they know that you mustn't, otherwise that'd be good..."

  She looked at Kandid and slackened to a walk. Kandid hauled himself to the nearest tree, leaned his back on it, the back of his head, finally all his weight and closed his eyes. He very much wanted to sit down, to fall down, but he was afraid. He assured himself; they're surely lying around the moss as well. But all the same he was afraid. His heart was beating like a mad thing, his legs might not have existed at all, his lungs were bursting and expanded painfully in his chest at every breath, and everything was slippery and salty with sweat.

  "What if they catch up with us?" he heard Nava's voice as if through cotton wool. "What will we do, Dummy, when they catch us up. You're about all in, likely you couldn't fight anymore, eh?"

  He wanted to reply: I could, but only managed to move his lips. He was no longer frightened of the robbers. He wasn't frightened of anything. He was only afraid of moving and of lying down in the moss. It was the forest, after all, whatever lies they told, it was the forest, this was something he well recalled, he never forgot that ever, even when he used to forget everything else.

  "You haven't even got a stick now," Nava was saying. "Shall I look for a stick. Dummy, shall I?" "No," he mumbled. "Don't bother ... heavy..." He opened his eyes and listened intently. The robbers were near, and could be heard panting and trampling in the undergrowth, the trampling wasn't very lively either, the robbers too were having a hard time of it.

  "Let's get on," said Kandid.

  They passed through a zone of dangerous white moss, then a zone of dangerous red moss, the wet bog began again with still, thick water, on which reclined gigantic pale flowers with a repellent meaty smell, and out of each flower peered a gray, speckled animal, which followed them with eyes on stalks.

  "You, Dummy, splash along a bit faster," Nava was saying practically, "or something'll suck you in and you'll never get free afterward, don't think just because you've had an inoculation, you won't get sucked in, 'cos you just will. Then it'll conk out, of course, but that won't help you any..."

  The bog suddenly came to an end, and the terrain began to rise steeply. A tall striped grass with sharp cutting edges made its appearance. Kandid looked back and caught sight of the robbers. For some reason they had halted. For some reason they were standing up to their knees in swamp, leaning on their clubs and looking after them. Done in, thought Kandid, they're done in as well. One of the robbers raised his arm and made an inviting gesture, shouting:

  "Come on down, what do you think you're doing?"

  Kandid turned away and went after Nava. After the quagmire, walking on solid ground seemed an easy matter, even uphill. The robbers were shouting something, two and then three voices. Kandid turned for the last time. The robbers were still standing in the swamp, in the filth, full of leeches; they hadn't even come out onto dry land. Seeing him look back, they started waving their arms desperately and began shouting again discordantly; it was hard to make out.

  "Back!" they were shouting, it seemed. "Ba-a-ck! We won't to-ouch you! ... You're goners, you foo-o-ols!"

  You don't catch me, thought Kandid, with cheerful malice. Fools, yourselves, and I believed in you. I've had enough of believing... Nava had already disappeared behind the trees and he hastened after her.

  "Come ba-a-ack! We'll let you go-o-o!" roared the leader.

  They can't be as done in as all that if they can bawl like that, thought Kandid fleetingly and at once began to reflect that a little farther on and he would sit down and rest, and search out any leeches and ticks he had picked up.

  Chapter Five

  Pepper presented himself in the director's anteroom at exactly ten. There was a line there already, about twenty people. Pepper was put in fourth place. He took an armchair between Beatrice Vakh of the Aid to Native Populations Group and a morose member of the Engineering Penetration Group. The morose member, judging by the identification button on his chest and the legend on his white mask, bore the name Brandskugel. The anteroom was decorated in pale pink, on one wall hung a board, "No smoking, no litter, no noise," on the other a large picture of pathfinder Selivan's exploit: Selivan with arms upraised, was turning into a jumping tree before the eyes of his stunned comrades. The pink blinds on the windows were tightly down, an enormous chandelier blazed from the ceiling. Apart from the entrance door on which was written "Exit," the room possessed one other door, vast and covered in yellow leather, with the sign "No Exit." This notice was done in fluorescent colors and had the effect of a lugubrious warning. Under it the secretary's desk stood with its four different-colored telephones and electric typewriter. The secretary herself, a plump middle-aged lady in pince-nez, was haughtily perusing the Textbook of Atomic Physics. The visitors talked among themselves in restrained voices. Many were plainly nervous and were compulsively leafing through old illustrated magazines.

  It was all extraordinarily like a dentist's waiting room and Pepper again experienced an unpleasant chill, a quiver in the jaw, and a desire to go somewhere else quickly.

  "They're not lazy even," said Beatrice Vakh, turning her beautiful red head slightly toward Pepper. "But they can't tolerate systematic work. How, for instance, can you explain the extraordinary ease with which they abandon their living places?"

  "Are you addressing me?" asked Pepper timidly. He hadn't the faintest idea how to explain the extraordinary ease.

  "No, I was talking to Monsher Brandskugel." Monsher Brandskugel adjusted his left moustache, which had come unstuck, and gave a muffled mumble. "I don't know!"

  "Nor do we," said Beatrice bitterly. "As soon as our groups get near a village, they leave their houses and possessions and go. You get the impression they're absolutely uninterested in us. We've got nothing for them. Do you see it that way?"

  Monsher Brandskugel was silent for a while as if pondering and looked at Beatrice through the strange cross-shaped embrasures of his mask. At length he brought out in his previous intonation, "I don't know."

  "It's a great pity," Beatrice continued, "that our group is made up exclusively of women. I realize that • there is an underlying reason for it, but we often lack masculine toughness and endurance, I'd call it pur-posefulness. Women unfortunately tend to dissipate their energies, no doubt you've noticed that?"

  "I don't know," said Brandskugel, at which his moustaches came off and floated softly to the floor. He picked them up, inspected them carefully, lifting the edge of his mask and, applying spit matter-of-factly, replaced them.

  A bell rang sweetly on the secretary's desk. She put aside her book, glanced through her list, holding on her pince-nez with an elegant gesture, and announced:

  "Professor Cockatoo, please go in." Professor Cockatoo dropped his picture magazine, jumped to his feet, sat down again, glanced around, grew perceptibly pale and then, biting his lip and with a violently distorted face, pushed off from his chair and disappeared behind the door marked "No Exit." A painful silenc
e reigned in the anteroom for several seconds. Then voices resumed humming and pages rustling.

  "We simply cannot find any way of engaging their interest, of absorbing them. We built them convenient day houses on piles. They fill them up with peat and colonize it with insects of some kind. We tried to offer them tasty food in place of the sour filth they eat. Useless. We tried to dress them like human beings. One died, two fell ill. Well, we're pushing on with our experiments. Yesterday we scattered a truckload of mirrors and gilt buttons in the forest... The cinema doesn't interest them, neither does music. Immortal works are just received with giggles... No, we'll have to start with the children. For instance, I suggest catching the children, and organizing special schools. Unfortunately that's linked with technical difficulties; human hands can't touch them, special machines are needed... Anyway, you know that as well as I dp."

  "I don't know," said Brandskugel miserably.

  The bell tinkled again and the secretary said, "Beatrice, you now. Go through, please."

  Beatrice started fussing about. She was about to rush toward the door, stopped, however, looking about her in dismay. She came back, glanced under the chair, whispering: "Where on earth is it? Where?" sweeping the room with her enormous eyes; pulling at her hair, she exclaimed loudly, "Where is it?" and suddenly seized Pepper by the jacket and rolled him out of his chair onto the floor. A brown briefcase was discovered where he had been. Beatrice seized it and stood for some seconds with eyes closed and an expression of immense happiness, pressing the case to her chest; she then moved slowly toward the door of yellow leather and disappeared behind it. Amid a deathly hush, Pepper got up and, trying not to look at anyone, brushed his trousers. Nobody was paying him attention in any case: everyone was looking at the yellow door.

  What on earth am I going to say to him? thought Pepper. I'll say I'm an arts graduate, can't be of any use to the Directorate, let me go, I'll leave and never come back, I give my word. And why on earth did you come here? I'd always been interested in the forest, but well, nobody lets me get into the forest. And anyway I got here purely by chance, I'm an arts man. Arts people, writers, philosophers are out of place in the Directorate. They do right to keep me out, I accept this... I can't possibly be in a Directorate where they excrete onto the forest, or in a forest where they catch children with machines. I should leave and occupy myself with something simpler. I know I'm popular here, but they like me the way a child is fond of a toy. I'm here for amusement, I can't teach anybody here what I know... No, I can't say that. I have to cry a bit, how can I do that? I'll blow up in there, just let him try and keep me here. I'll blow my top and leave on foot. Pepper pictured himself walking the dusty road mile after mile under the blazing sun, with his case, getting more and more empty-headed. And every step carrying him farther and farther from the forest, his dream, his anxiety, that which had long ago become the meaning of his existence...

  They haven't called anybody in for a long time, he thought. The director's probably vastly taken by the children-trapping plan. And why didn't anyone come out of the study? Doubtless, another exit.

  "Excuse me," he said, addressing Monsher Brandskugel, "what time is it?"

  Monsher Brandskugel looked at his wristwatch and thought for a moment:

  "I don't know," he said.

  At this, Pepper bent over and whispered in his ear, "I shan't tell anybody. An-y-body."

  Monsher Brandskugel hesitated. He fingered his plastic button in indecision, stole a look around, yawned nervously, took another look around, and fixing his mask more firmly, answered in a whisper:

  "I don't know."

  After which he rose and hurriedly betook himself to the other corner of the anteroom.

  The secretary spoke:

  "Pepper, your turn."

  "How's that," Pepper said, surprised. "I'm fourth."

  "Temporary staff Pepper," the secretary raised her voice, "your turn."

  "Arguing," grumbled somebody.

  "Should get rid of the likes of him," someone on the left said loudly, "with a red-hot broom!"

  Pepper got to his feet. His legs were like cotton wool. He was scraping his palms senselessly along his sides. The secretary was looking intently at him.

  "The cat knows when he's in for it..."

  "However much you twist..."

  "We've put up with the likes of him!"

  "Pardon me, you may have. I've never seen him before."

  "Well, I don't see him every day."

  "Quiet!" said the secretary, raising her voice. "Observe silence! And don't drop litter on the floor - you there ... yes, yes, you I'm speaking to. Now then, Pepper, will you go through? Or shall I call the guard?"

  "Yes," said Pepper, "I'm going."

  The last person he saw in the anteroom was Monsher Brandskugel, barricaded behind an armchair in the corner, teeth bared, on his haunches with his hand in his rear trouser pocket. Then his eye fell on the director.

  The director turned out to be a slender well-proportioned man of about thirty-five, in an expensive superbly-cut suit. He was standing by the open window scattering crumbs for the pigeons clustered on the windowsill. The study was completely empty, there wasn't a single chair, not even a table, on the wall opposite the window hung a small copy of "Pathfinder Selivan's Exploit."

  "Temporary employee Pepper?" the director said in a clear ringing bass, turning toward Pepper the fresh face of a sportsman.

  "Y-yes. I..." mumbled Pepper. "Glad, very glad to make your acquaintance at last. How d'you do. My name's Alas. I've heard a lot about you. Shake hands."

  Pepper stooping timidly pressed the proffered hand. The hand was dry and firm.

  "As you see, I'm feeding the pigeons. Curious bird. One senses enormous potential there. How do you see the pigeon, Pepper?"

  Pepper faltered. He couldn't stand pigeons. The director's face, however, was radiating such joy and weird interest, such impatient expectation that Pepper took a grip on himself and lied:

  "I like them very much, Monsieur Alas." "You like them roasted? Or stewed? I like them in a pie, myself. Pigeon pie with a glass of good wine - demi-sec - what could be nicer? What's your opinion!"

  Once more Monsieur Alas' face expressed the most lively interest and impatient expectation.

  "Terrific," said Pepper. He had decided to give up guessing and agree with everything.

  "What about Picasso's 'Dove'?" said Monsieur Alas. "I call to mind at once: 'Nor eat, nor drink, nor kiss, the moments fly unchecked...' How exactly that catches the idea of our incapacity to catch and materialize the beautiful!"

  "Splendid verses," said Pepper stupidly. "What I first saw the 'Dove,' I, like many another I expect, thought the drawing a poor likeness, or at any rate unnatural. Later, however, in the course of service, I had occasion to observe pigeons closely and I suddenly realized that Picasso, that magician, had seized on that moment when the bird folds its wings prior to landing. Its feet are already touching the ground while the bird itself is still in the air, in flight. The moment when movement turns into immobility, flight into rest."

  "Picasso has strange paintings, which I don't understand," said Pepper, demonstrating his independent judgment.

  "Ah, you've simply not looked at them long enough.

  To understand real art, it's not enough to go through a museum two or three times a year. You should look at a picture for hours on end. As often as possible. And only originals. No reproductions. No copies... Take a look at that picture there. I can see by your face what you think of it. And you're right: it's a bad copy. If you'd ever familiarized yourself with the original, you would understand the artist's idea." "What exactly is it?"

  "I'll try to explain it to you," said the director readily. "What do you see in that picture? Formally - half man, half tree. The picture is static. What can't be seen, isn't caught, is the transition from one essence into the other. The most important element is missing from the picture - the direction of time. Now if you had the opportunity of s
tudying the original you would realize that the artist had succeeded in introducing into the image a most profound symbolic meaning, that he had depicted, not a man-tree, not even a man turning into a tree, but a tree turning into a man and that only. The artist made use of the old legend in order to depict the emergence of a new personality. New from old. Life from death. Intelligence from inert matter. The copy is absolutely static and everything pictured in it exists outside the stream of time. The original contains that time-flow! Vector! The arrow of time as Eddington would have said..."

  "Where exactly is the original?" asked Pepper politely.

  The director smiled.

  "The original, naturally, has been destroyed as a work of art, not permitting ambiguous interpretation. The first and second copies were also destroyed as a precautionary measure."

  Monsieur Alas returned to the window and elbowed the pigeons off the sill.

  "Well. We've talked of pigeons," said he in a new, somehow official voice. "Your name?"

  "Pardon?"

  "Name. Your name."

  "Pe - Pepper."

  "Year of birth." "Thirty."

  "More precisely!" "Nineteen thirty. Fifth of March." "What are you doing here?"

  "Temporary employee. Seconded to Science security."

  "I'm asking you: what are you doing here?" said the director, turning his distant eyes on Pepper. "I ... don't know. I wish to leave." "Your opinion of the forest. Briefly." "The forest ... is... I always... I... fear it. And love it."

  "Your opinion of the Directorate." "There are lots of good people here, but ..." "That's enough."

  The director came up to Pepper, clasped him by the shoulders and, looking him in the eyes, said:

  "Listen, friend! Drop it! Let's make a threesome? Let's call the secretary in, did you see the dragon? She's no dragon, she's a box of delights! 'Come lads, let's open the long-cherished wine,' " he sang through his nose. "Well? Shall we open it? Drop that, I don't like it. Understand? How does it grab you?"