“Let’s suppose … Well, okay then, say you’re right. Then what comes next?”
“How funny. A perfectly childish question. Tell a child something—explain it completely, to the very end, and they will always ask, without fail: What happens next? Why?”
“Children are the only brave philosophers. And brave philosophers are, inevitably, children. And that’s just it—we must always think like children with their what-happens-nexts.”
“Nothing happens next! Period. Throughout the universe, all over, uniformly distributed …”
“Aha! Uniform, all over! That’s exactly it—entropy, psychological entropy. To you, to a mathematician, isn’t it clear that it’s the differences—the differences—between temperatures, it’s in thermal contrast that life lies. And if everywhere, throughout the whole universe, there are bodies of equal warmness or equal coldness … You have to bang them together—to create fire, explosion, inferno. And that’s what we are doing—banging things together.”
“But, I-330, come on, don’t you see? Our ancestors did exactly that at the time of the Two-Hundred-Year War …”
“Oh, and they were right—they were a thousand times right. They made only one mistake. Afterward they believed that they were the final number—which doesn’t exist in the natural world, it just doesn’t. Their mistake was the mistake of Galileo: he was right that the Earth moves around the sun, but he didn’t know that the whole solar system itself moves around some other center. He didn’t know that the real, not the relative, orbit of the Earth is not just a naïve circle …”
“And you—the MEPHI?”
“But we—we know, meanwhile, that there is no final number. Though we might forget it too. Yes—it’s highly probable that we will forget it when we grow older—and everyone inevitably grows older. And then, unavoidably, down we will go like autumn leaves from a tree … just like all of you, the day after tomorrow when … No, no, my sweet—not you yourself. You are on our side, of course, you are on our side!”
She was blazing, whirling, glittering, and I had never yet seen her like this. She hugged me with her whole self and I disappeared …
Finally, looking me solidly and firmly in the eyes: “So remember—twelve.”
And I said: “Yes, I will remember.”
She left. I was alone in the midst of the tempestuous, discordant uproar of blue, red, green, bronze-yellow, orange …
Yes, at 12:00 … Suddenly, I had a ridiculous sensation that something foreign had settled onto my face, something that I couldn’t get rid of however I tried. Suddenly it was yesterday morning again and U was screaming those words into I-330’s face … Why? What is this absurdity?
I rushed to get outside—back to my room, back as quick as I could …
Somewhere behind me I heard a piercing squeak above the Wall. And ahead, against the setting sun, everything was made of crimson, crystallized fire: the orbs of the cupolas, the enormous, blazing cube-buildings, and the spire of the Accumulator Tower, frozen lightning in the sky. And to all this—all this impeccable, geometrical beauty—I myself, with my own hands, am supposed to … Isn’t there a way out or another way?
I went past some auditorium (I don’t remember its number). Inside, benches were stacked in heaps; in the middle, there were tables covered with sheets of snow-white glass; and there was a spot of pink, sunny blood on the white. Some unknown and very terrifying tomorrow is hidden in all this. It just goes against nature for a thinking and seeing being to live among these irregularities and unknown X’s. It is as if someone blindfolds you and then makes you walk around like that and you feel your way around, stumbling, and you know that there is an edge somewhere very nearby and that it would only take one step for the only thing left of you to be a flattened, mangled piece of meat. Isn’t that just about the same thing I’m going through?
… But what if you didn’t wait for it to happen—but jumped headfirst over the edge? Wouldn’t that be the single most correct action, immediately untangling everything?
RECORD THIRTY-ONE
KEYWORDS: The Great Operation. I Forgave Everything. The Crashing of Trains.
We are saved! At the very last moment, when it seemed that there was nothing left to latch on to, when it seemed that everything was over …
Okay: it’s as if you had climbed up the steps to the terrible Machine of the Benefactor and, with a heavy clang, you were covered by the bell-glass, and for the last time in your life, as quick as you can, you swallow the blue sky with your eyes …
And suddenly: it was all only a dream. The sun is pink and happy. And the wall—what a joy to stroke the cold wall with your hand! And the pillow—you could revel endlessly in the depression that your head makes on the white pillow …
That is approximately what I experienced when I read the State Gazette this morning. It was all a bad dream and it is over now. How fainthearted I am, how inconstant, that I was already considering self-inflicted death. Now I’m embarrassed to read through the last few lines I wrote yesterday. But it doesn’t matter: just let them remain as a memory of the unbelievable, of that which could have been and that which will never be … yes, never!
On the first page of the State Gazette the words were shining:
BE JOYFUL!
FOR HENCEFORTH YOU ARE PERFECT! UNTIL THIS DAY, YOUR OWN OFFSPRING—MECHANISMS—WERE MORE PERFECT THAN YOURSELVES.
IN WHAT WAY?
EVERY SPARK IN A DYNAMO IS THE SPARK OF THE PUREST REASON; EVERY MOTION OF THE PISTON IS AN IMMACULATE SYLLOGISM. BUT DOES THAT SAME INFALLIBLE REASON NOT EXIST IN YOU?
THE PHILOSOPHY OF CRANES, PRESSES, AND PUMPS IS COMPLETE AND CLEAR, LIKE A COMPASS-DRAWN CIRCLE. BUT ISN’T YOUR PHILOSOPHY UP TO THE STANDARD OF A COMPASS?
THE BEAUTY OF A MECHANISM IS IN ITS STEADFAST, PRECISE, AND PENDULUM-LIKE RHYTHM. BUT THEN YOU, WHO HAVE BEEN NUR- TURED BY TAYLORIST SYSTEMS FROM CHILDHOOD, HAVEN’T YOU GROWN UP TO BE PENDULUM-PRECISE?
WITH ONE EXCEPTION: MECHANISMS DON’T HAVE IMAGINATIONS.
HAVE YOU EVER SEEN AN INANELY DREAMING AND DISTANT SMILE BREAK ACROSS THE PHYSIOGNOMY OF A PUMP CYLINDER WHILE IT WAS AT WORK? HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF A CRANE, IN THE NIGHTTIME, IN THE HOURS ALLOCATED FOR REPOSE, TURNING OVER IN AGITATION AND SIGHING?
NO!
BUT YOU—BLUSH AS YOU WILL!—THE GUARDIANS SEE YOU AND YOUR SMILES AND SIGHS WITH INCREASING FREQUENCY. AND— LOWER YOUR EYES!—THE HISTORIANS OF THE ONE STATE HAVE TENDERED THEIR RESIGNATIONS IN ORDER NOT TO HAVE TO RECORD SUCH SHAMEFUL EVENTS.
BUT IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT: YOU ARE SICK. THE NAME OF THIS SICKNESS:
IMAGINATION.
THIS IS THE WORM THAT GNAWS BLACK WRINKLES ONTO YOUR FOREHEAD. THIS IS THE FEVER THAT CHASES YOU, AND YOU RUN OFF INTO THE DISTANCE EVEN THOUGH THIS “DISTANCE” BEGINS WHERE HAPPINESS ENDS. IT IS THE LAST BARRICADE ON THE PATH TO HAPPINESS.
BUT BE GLAD: IT HAS BEEN DETONATED ALREADY.
THE PATH IS CLEAR.
THE MOST RECENT DISCOVERY OF STATE SCIENCE IS THE LOCATION OF THE IMAGINATION: THE PATHETIC CEREBRAL NODULE IN THE REGION OF THE PONS VAROLII. CAUTERIZE THIS NODULE WITH X-RAYS THREE TIMES AND YOU ARE HEALED OF YOUR IMAGINATION.
FOREVER.
YOU WILL BE PERFECT, YOU WILL BE MACHINE-EQUAL. THE PATH TO ONE-HUNDRED-PERCENT HAPPINESS IS CLEAR. HURRY, ALL OF YOU— YOUNG AND OLD—HURRY TO UNDERGO THE GREAT OPERATION. HURRY TO THE AUDITORIUMS, WHERE THEY ARE PERFORMING THE GREAT OPERATION. ALL HAIL THE GREAT OPERATION! ALL HAIL THE ONE STATE! ALL HAIL THE BENEFACTOR!
… You, if you could have read this for yourself, not here in my records, which seem like an ancient, whimsical novel … If you could have held in your hands, like I held in mine, this shaking newspaper page still smelling of ink … If you could have known, like I did, that all this is a very real actuality, if not today’s then tomorrow’s … Wouldn’t you be feeling the exact same thing as I am now? Wouldn’t your head be spinning like mine is now? Wouldn’t these same terrifying, sweet, icy needles be running through your spine and arms?
Wouldn’t you feel like a giant, like Atlas—and that if you straightened yourself up you would hit your head on the glass ceiling?
I grabbed the telephone receiver: “I-330 … Yes, that’s right: I-330,” and then, chokingly, I yelled: “You’re at home, right? Have you read … you’re reading it now? Now, this really is, this really is … This is astounding!”
“Yes …” A long, dark silence. The receiver was just audibly humming, thinking about something … “I must see you today without fail. Yes, at my place after 16:00. Without fail.”
Sweet! What a dear sweetheart! “Without fail.” I could feel: I was smiling and there was no way to stop myself, and I would carry this smile through the streets like a streetlamp, high overhead …
There, from outside, the wind blew at me. It twisted, whistled, lashed. But it only increased my joy. Wail and howl away—it doesn’t matter. You cannot bring down these walls now. And so what if cast-iron, flying clouds are coming down overhead—let them! You won’t darken the sun. We, Joshuas, sons of Nun, have affixed its chain to the zenith forever.
A dense bunch of Joshuas stood on the corner, their foreheads adhered to the glass of a wall. Inside there was a person lying on a blinding-white table. Under a white sheet, two bare soles set up a visible yellow angle. White medics bent over toward his head and a white arm extended a syringe full of something.
“And you—why don’t you go in?” I asked of no one in particular or, perhaps, of everyone.
“Well, what about you?” Someone’s sphere turned to me.
“I will … later. First I have to …”
I walked off, somewhat embarrassed. I actually needed to see her, I-330. But I couldn’t answer why it had to be “first.”
The hangar. The Integral glimmered, sparkled with pale-bluish iciness. In the engine room, the dynamo was buzzing affectionately, repeating one and the same word, over and over endlessly—a familiar sort of word, a word I probably use. I bent over and stroked the long, cold pipe of the engine. Sweet … what a darling sweetheart. Tomorrow you will come alive, tomorrow, for the first time in your life, you will shake with the fiery, burning eruption in your womb …
How would I have looked at this powerful glass monster if everything had stayed like it was yesterday? If I had thought that tomorrow at 12:00 I would betray it … yes, betray it …
A cautious tap on my elbow, from behind. I turned around: it was the flat platter face of the Second Builder.
“You already know,” he said.
“What? The Operation? Yes, it’s something, isn’t it? How— everything, everything is suddenly …”
“No, no, not that. The test flight has been changed to the day after tomorrow. All because of this Operation … We rushed and strived, all for nothing …”
“All because of the Operation …” Funny, limited person. He can’t see anything past his own plate. If only he knew that if it wasn’t for the Operation, then tomorrow, at 12:00, he would be stuck in the frame of the glass cage, thrashing around and climbing the walls …
My room. 15:30. I walk in and see U. She is sitting at my desk— bony, straight, and hard—having established her right cheek in her palm. She must have been waiting for a long time because when she jumped up to greet me, there were five little dents on her cheek from her fingers and thumb.
For a second, that unfortunate morning reappeared to me: just there, next to the table, she stood behind I-330, infuriated … But the second passed and was now clouded by today’s sun. The same thing happens sometimes when, on a bright day, you walk into your room and absentmindedly flick the light switch. The light comes on but it’s as if it wasn’t even there—so silly, pathetic, redundant …
Extending my hand to her without thinking, I forgave everything. She grabbed both my hands, squeezing them tightly, prickling them, and, quivering anxiously, with cheeks hanging like ancient jewelry, she said: “I’ve been waiting … I only need a minute … I just wanted to say how happy I am, how glad I am for you! You see, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, you will be totally healthy, you will be born again …”
I saw some paper on the table: the last two pages of yesterday’s records. They lay where I had left them that evening. If she had seen what I had written there … But, it doesn’t matter anyway. No, it is all history, now so distant that it’s funny, like looking through binoculars backwards …
“Yes,” I said, “and you know, as I walked along the avenue just now, there was a person in front of me, and he was casting a shadow onto the street. And, you see, the shadow was gleaming. And, I think, well actually, I’m sure, that tomorrow there will be absolutely no shadows, not one person will have one, not one thing will have one, and the sun will go through everything …”
She, tenderly and sternly: “What an imagination! I wouldn’t even let the schoolchildren talk like that …”
And she went on about the children and how she drove them to the Operation immediately, in a herd, and about how they had had to bind them up, and about the fact that “you have to be cruel, yes, cruel, to be kind,” and that she, it seems, is finally deciding whether to …
She arranged the gray-light-blue fabric between her knees and stopped talking, then quickly smothered me all over with her smile and left.
And, thankfully, the sun had not yet stopped today. The sun was still running, and it was already 16:00. I knock on her door—and my heart knocks …
“Enter!”
I go straight to the floor, by her chair, hugging her knees, my head thrown back, looking into her eyes—alternately, at one and then at the other—and seeing myself in each of them, in miraculous captivity …
On the other side of the wall, there was a storm, there were clouds hardening into cast-iron: let them! Crowded, tempestuous words were brimming over the edges of my head and I was flying out loud together with the sun, off somewhere … Well, now we know where I’d be flying. And there are planets following me: flame-spurting planets, densely populated with fiery singing flowers; and mute, blue planets, where rational rocks are united into organized societies—they are planets like our Earth that have reached the summit of absolute, one-hundred-percent happiness …
And suddenly, from above me: “You don’t think that this summit of happiness is really just that—the uniting of rocks into an organized society?”
And a triangle, sharper and sharper, darker and darker: “… And as for happiness … Really? After all, desire is torturous, isn’t it? And so it’s clear that happiness happens when there are no more desires, not one … What a mistake, what ridiculous prejudice, that until now, we have been putting a plus sign in front of absolute happiness. It is, of course, a minus sign—a divine minus.”
I remember muttering, distractedly: “Absolute minus. 273 degrees …”
“Minus 273—exactly. Rather cool, but doesn’t this prove that we are indeed at the summit?”
Like before, long ago, she was somehow speaking for me, using me, developing my thoughts to their full extent. But there was something terrible in this—I couldn’t stand it—and with strain, I dragged a “no” out of myself.
“No,” I said. “You … are joking …”
She burst out laughing, loudly—too loudly. Quickly, in a second, she laughed herself up to some sort of edge—and stepped back, stepped down. A pause.
She stood up. Put her hand on my shoulder. Looked slowly at me for a long time. Then drew me to herself and then there was nothing left at all: only her sharp, hot lips.
“Good-bye!”
This was from far away, from above, and it reached me slowly, maybe, one or two minutes later.
“What do you mean, ‘Good-bye’?”
“Well, you’re sick, you committed crimes because of me—and it was torturous for you, wasn’t it? And now you can have the Operation—and you can cure yourself of me. So this—this is good-bye.”
“No,” I cried.
A mercilessly sharp black triangle on the white: “What? You don’t want h
appiness?”
My head broke apart; two logical trains had collided, piling on top of each other, crushing, splitting …
“Well, what then? I’m waiting. Choose: the Operation and its hundred-percent happiness or …”
“I can’t go on without you, I can’t, I must not be without you,” I said, or only thought it—I don’t know which—but I-330 heard it.
“Yes, I know,” she answered. And then, her hands still holding me by the shoulders, and her eyes not letting mine go: “In that case— until tomorrow. Tomorrow at twelve. Remember?”
“No. It’s put off for one more day … The day after tomorrow …”
“Even better for us. At twelve. The day after tomorrow …”
I walked alone along the dusky street. The wind twirled, carrying and chasing me like a piece of paper. Fragments of cast-iron sky were flying down, flying down through infinity—but they have a day or two to go … Oncoming unifs grazed against me but I walked alone. It was clear to me: everyone was saved, but there was to be no saving me, I don’t want saving …
RECORD THIRTY-TWO
KEYWORDS: I Don’t Believe. Tractors. A Human Sliver.
Do you believe that you will die? Yes, people are mortal and if I am a person, then, of course … But that’s not what I mean. I know that you know this. I am asking: has it ever happened that you have believed in your death, believed in it totally, believed in it, not with your mind, but with your body, feeling that one day the fingers that are holding this very page will be yellow, icy … ?
No: of course, you don’t believe in it—and that is why, up to now, you haven’t jumped from the tenth floor into the street, that is why up to now you have been eating, turning pages, shaving, smiling, writing …
That’s just what—yes, that is just exactly what I am going through today. I know that the small, black arrow down there on my timepiece is crawling toward midnight and that it will rise upwards again to cross some final line and then that improbable day will begin. I know this, but I still somehow don’t believe it—or, maybe it’s just that these twenty-four hours are passing like twenty-four years. And that is why I can still do things, rush to things, answer questions, and climb up the gangway to the Integral. I can still feel it rock slightly on the water, and I can understand that you have to hold on to the handrail (the glass is cold under your hand). I see the transparent, living cranes bending their swanlike necks, stretching out their beaks, thoughtfully and tenderly feeding the Integral with scary explosive food for its engine. And I can see clearly the blue, wind-swollen water veins and knots in the river below. But meanwhile: all this was very separate from me—it was foreign and flat, like a diagram on a leaf of paper. And strangely, the flat diagram of the face of the Second Builder suddenly speaks to me: “So tell me: how much fuel will the engine need? If you count three … well, three and a half hours …”