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disconnect the timing device, and Lange will be promoted to Sturmbahnfuhrer.
You will wait a couple of minutes after he leaves and then you can leave
quietly yourselves."
I opened my mouth and closed it again. That was a conversation for a
psychiatric ward. But she continued:
"Don't be surprised. Etienne was not there at the time, but Lange
remembers everything. He went into every corner and interrogated every one
of the guests. He has an excellent memory. It took place exactly the way you
will see it."
We followed without a word, trying not to look at one another and
refusing to make sense of the events. There was no sense.
There was a card game going in the first room. The stench was of
tobacco smoke so thick you could hardly make things out. Like waves, it got
thicker and then dispersed, but even in the more translucent moments
everything looked strangely deformed, fluid, changing, as if the outlines of
this world did not obey the laws of Euclidean geometry. A long ski-like arm
would reach out, cards all extended, and hoarse voices overlapping, "five
another five,... pass... lead...". Then the whole would be blanketed out by
a tray with cognac, and on the long label somebody's face-like on TV-with
neatly trimmed mustachios, or the face would be transformed into a placard
with a mug yelling "VER-BOTEN! VERBOTEN! VERBOTEN!" Or grey heads without
faces, a voice in the smoke repeating "Thirty minutes, ... thirty minutes."
The cards rustled like leaves in the wind. The lights grew dim. Eyes smarted
from the smoke.
"Irene," I called.
She turned around.
"I'm not Irene."
"It's all the same. What is this? The mirror-laughing room?"
"What's that?"
"Don't you remember? In the park? All those distorting mirrors?"
"No," she smiled. "It's simply that nobody remembers the surroundings
exactly. The details. Etienne is trying to recall them. Lange has only
fleeting disconnected glimpses, he cannot think through to minutiae."
I was stuck again. What was all this about? I had an inkling but not
much more.
"This is a dream, sure thing," said Martin more confused than before.
"The memory cells of two persons are at work." I tried to find an
explanation of some kind. "Conceptions are materialized, and they conflict,
suppressing one another."
"Hogwash," he said.
We entered the bar. It was behind an archway separated from the hall by
a curtain hung on bamboo poles. German officers were morosely swilling
liquor at the counter. No chairs. Couples on a long couch-like affair were
kissing. I figured that Lange must have remembered this spectacle very well.
But none of the performers even looked at us. Irene whispered to the barman
and then disappeared in a hole in the wall where a stone staircase went up.
The barman put two glasses of cognac in front of us and left. Martin tried
it.
"The real thing," he said and licked his lips.
"Shh..." I hissed, "you're not an American, you're French."
"Sore throat, can't speak," he blurted out and winked slyly.
But nobody was listening to us. I looked at the clock. Lange was due in
fifteen minutes. I got an idea. If Lange, say, does not reach the upper
room, and the miner does not defuse the mine, General Baire and his bunch
will neatly go up into a million pieces. That's interesting. Lange will
arrive with a submachine-gunner and the miner. The miner most likely has no
weapon, they'll leave the armed man near the entrance to the stairway.
There's a chance.
In whispers I told Martin about my idea. He nodded. There was slight
risk of the officers in the bar getting involved-they could hardly stand on
their feet. Some were already snoring on the couch. The kissing couples had
disappeared somewhere. The situation was very favourable.
Another ten minutes passed. Another minute, two, three. There were
seconds left. That was when Lange entered. Not the Lange that we knew but
the Lange of the past, not yet a Sturmbahnfuhrer. If he recalled this
episode, we did not participate and so we were out of danger. The actions
were programmed by memory: reach the mine and prevent a catastrophe. He was
accompanied by an oldish soldier in glasses and a very young Gestapo man
with a submachine-gun. He went fast, not stopping anywhere, gave a piercing
glance at the officers sitting round their cognac and hurried upstairs with
the miner. They were in a hurry. As we guessed, the submachine-gunner
remained at the bottom of the staircase. That very second Martin stepped up
to him and, without swinging, punched straight to the nose and knocked him
off his feet. He didn't even drop his gun. Martin grabbed him in the air. I
had the Browning and raced up the stairs towards Lange who turned around.
"Drop, Yuri," Martin shouted. I did and that instant a burst of fire cut
down both of them: Lange and the miner. All this took a fraction of a
second. Nobody even looked out of the bar room.
But, from above, "Irene" looked down. A few seconds passed, then slowly
she began to descend, without asking any questions she passed the dead SS
men crouching on the steps.
"Did anyone hear the shots?" I asked looking upwards.
"Nobody except me. They are so engaged in their game that they won't
even hear the explosion." She shuddered and closed her face with her hands.
"Oh, my God, they haven't defused the mine."
"That's perfect, on the contrary," I exclaimed. "Let the whole works go
to hell. Come on, let's get out of here."
She still couldn't make things out.
"But that is not what happened then."
"That's what's going to happen now, though." I grabbed her hand. "Is
there another exit?"
"Yes."
"Then you lead the way."
She led the way as if walking in her sleep, she got us out to the dark
street below. Martin wiped out the guard below in the same fashion.
"That's four," he said, "didn't even need the grenade."
"Five," I corrected him. "Your count began in the Antarctic."
"Now they'll have to begin modelling a heaven for them."
A few more words were exchanged as we ran down the middle of the street
in an unknown direction in total darkness. Suddenly something exploded and
then a burst of fiery sparks shot skywards. For an instant, "Irene's"
enormous eyes flashed in front of me. It was only then that I noticed that
this "Irene" was not wearing glasses.
A siren wailed in the distance. Then a car motor coughed into action
Then another. The blaze of the fire had now lit up the whole street.
"How could this be?" "Irene" suddenly asked. "That means I'm alive? Is
this another life? Not that one?"
"Now it's developing independently, in accord with the laws of the
time; we've turned it," I said and malevolently added: "Now you can take
revenge on Etienne."
The siren was still screaming. Nearby, lorries were clattering down the
street. I looked around.
Martin wasn't there. "Don!" I cried, "Martin!" Nobody responded. We
bumped into the gate of a churchyard, it was open. In there it was dark,
beyond the range of the light from the fire. "Here!" "Irene" whispered to
me, taking me by the hand. I followed. Then the darkness suddenly began to
melt away, flowing down a stairway that had opened up in front of us.
Somebody was sitting on the upper step.
I took a closer look and saw that it was Zernov.
"Boris Arkadievich, is that you?"
He turned around.
"Anokhin? Where'd you come from?"
I recalled Martin's Yankee Doodle song. Yes, but where was Martin?
"He isn't here," Zernov said. "I'm alone."
"Where are we?"
He laughed.
"You don't recognize the interior? Hotel Homond, second floor. I landed
here when we were thrown out of the car. What happened afterwards?"
"Somebody threw a bomb under the wheels."
"That's luck," Zernov said, "well, I was kind of doubtful about the
strength of the Gestapo anyway. But I wouldn't want to test fate any more.
I've been sitting here from that minute and I'm afraid to move. After all,
this is an island of safety. Familiar surroundings, not spectres. So take a
seat and let's hear what it's all about." He moved making room for me too.
However, my story did not make a great impression on Zernov, despite
the gamut of unexpected events that ran through it. He listened without
uttering a word or asking any questions. I asked:
"Have you seen Fellini's picture 'Juliet and the Ghosts'?"
Zernov wasn't even surprised by the question, though it promised
agreement or perhaps argument. Zernov did not speak up and waited for my
continuation. I continued: "My idea is that they and Fellini take a similar
view of the world. A surrealistic nightmare. Everything is turned inwards,
all reality is only the projection of somebody's thoughts, somebody's
memory. If you had only seen that casino in St. Disier. The whole thing was
smeared out, broken into fragments, deformed. The elements were there but
the proportions were distorted. You recall in Fellini's world how the
disconnected world of the subconscious mixes in with the world of reality.
I'm after the logic of the matter but I'm unable to grasp it."
"Nonsense," Zernov interrupted. "You are simply not in the habit of
analysing and have not been able to connect the pieces of what you have
witnessed. Fellini is far removed from all this. What has the cinema and art
generally got to do with this? They model memory for motives that are not
aesthetic. Most likely God himself could not create a more exact model."
"Of what?" I was cautious.
"The psychic domains of certain of the visitors of the Homond Hotel."
"What visitors? There were a hundred people there. And we were tossed
into the manure heap of a Gestapo man and this doorman. Why these two? Two
standards of baseness or simply two random droplets of man's memory? And
what precisely is it that is modelled? Ecstasy over the past or pangs of
conscience? Then how does Irene's dream fit in here? And why were we allowed
to dip into someone else's recollections yet prevented from touching
another's dream? And why was Irene linked up with her mother, and why was
the connection only on one side? The modelling is done of life suggested by
someone's memory, and we are permitted to alter that life. But what kind of
a model is it that does not replicate the original? Irene's mother stays
alive, Lange is shot down by a burst of gunfire, and Etienne will probably
be finished off by his own men. Why? In the name of supreme justice attained
with our aid? I hardly think so; that would no longer be a model but
creativity. Then what is real in this model and what is simply make believe?
Whence flows the Moskva River and where does it break off? Perhaps it
doesn't flow at all. Is the entire parapet made of granite or is the inside
compressed smoke like in Sand City? Maybe the only reality in this model is
myself, standing somewhere, whereas all the rest is a mirage, the
projections of dreams and of memory. But of whose? What connection is there
between it and the memory of Lange? Why connect the unconnectable? Why, in
order to make contact with us, it is necessary to paste together the past
and the present-what is more, an alien past-and then alter it? Millions of
'whys' and 'wherefores' and not one iota of logic."
I said all that without stopping. A rose-coloured fog was billowing
above us, condensing and turning crimson underneath, near the staircase. One
could not distinguish things at a meter and a half distance. I counted six
steps, the seventh was enveloped in red smoke.
"Still billowing," said Zernov, catching my glance. "Let's sit quiet
until it strikes. There are some answers to our queries. You'll answer them
yourself after some thought. First of all, what is modelled? Not only the
memory. The psychic make-up of the individual as well. Thoughts, wishes,
recollections, dreams. Thoughts, as you know, are not always logical,
associations are not always comprehensible, and recollections do not always
follow events chronologically. Do not be surprised at the fragmentary nature
or chaotic arrangement of what has been seen, this is not a film. Life,
recreated by memory cannot be otherwise. Try to recall some eventful day of
the past. Keep the events properly sequenced, from morning till evening.
You'll never do it. No matter how hard you try, you will lack coherency and
sequence. Something will be forgotten, something left out, something will be
recalled more vividly, something hazily, some act will slip by nebulously
and indistinct, and you will make yourself miserable striving to catch at
the recollection that is just beyond your grasp. But still this is life. It
may be hazy and alogical, but it is real and not concocted. Then of course
there is the completely false."
I couldn't get it.
"False, why false?"
"Imagined," he explained. "Life created solely by the force of whim,
fancy or simply supposition. Say, recalling something read or seen at a
movie, and you imagine yourself the hero, offering this life concocted by
someone as the real actuality, or something you yourself create, invent,
make up. It's lucky you and I haven't as yet come across any such life, if
you can call it such. So far..." he repeated deep in thought. "The encounter
might still take place. Not excluded at all. Look how it's billowing...."
The red fluid was still flowing round the staircase. I sighed.
"Taking their time about today, it seems. And silent as hell, awful
silence, no squeaks, not a rustle."
Zernov did not reply. A few seconds passed before he said, in a worried
tone, "The curious thing is that every time we are given full freedom of
action, they do not interfere or control us. And they give us to understand
as much."
"Martin and I never realized that," I said. "I still don't understand
why we were allowed to alter the model?"
"Well, you have the stimulus of experimentation, don't you? They are
studying, trying and combining things. Say, an exposure of somebody's memory
is obtained, a picture of the past. But this is not a film, only the course
of a life. The past becomes, as it were, the present and ready to form the
future. Now, do we have a new factor in the present The future will
unavoidably change. We are the new factor, the basis of the experiment. With
our help, they get two exposures of the same picture and can compare them.
You think they understand everything we do? Most likely not. That's why they
try one experiment after the other."
"Yea, and meanwhile our hair stands on end," I said.
It seemed to be getting lighter. Zernov noticed it too.
"How many steps do you see?" he asked.
"Ten," I counted.
"There were six before, I counted them. The rest was a blur of red. I'm
fed up with this. 'isle of safety'. My back's aching. Let's risk it, what do
you say? Over to my room. We'll at least get some rest, like human beings."
"Mine's a floor above yours."
"Mine's right here," Zernov pointed to the nearest door that was still
enveloped in red smoke. "Let's try."
We dived into the flowing cloud of red, cautiously approached the door.
Zernov opened it and we went in.
But there was no room at all. No ceiling, no walls, no floor. Instead,
a broad roadway opened up before us, grey from the dust. All about was grey,
the bushes along the road, the woods beyond, all cockeyed, grotesquely
distorted like the drawings of Gustav Dore, above this dirty ragged clouds
crawled.
"We risked it," said Zernov turning round. "Where has it gotten us?"
On the right the road went down towards a river hid by a small hill, to
the left it turned round an enormous oak tree, also grey, as if freshly
powdered with lead dust. From that direction came the sounds of a shepherd's
or, more likely, child's pipe because the melody was very primitive,
monotonous with the same importunate sad refrain.
We went over to the other side of the highway and beheld the most
unlikely procession imaginable. A few dozen kids, little kids, dressed in
shirts reaching to their knees and in pants, in tiny fur-trimmed jackets and
in hoods and tassels. Heading the procession was a ragged man in the very
same absurd jacket and short pants. He had on long woollen stockings and
heavy shoes with tin buckles. He was the one who was piping the song that so
hypnotized the children. Hypnotized is the word because the kids moved as if
in a trance, speechless, never turning their heads to right or left. The
leader kept on playing and kept on plunking his heavy feet down in a
soldier's march, throwing up clouds of grey dust.
"Hey," I yelled, when the curious procession had come up to us.
"Leave'm alone," Zernov said. "That's a fairy tale "
"A fairy tale?"
"You know, the Pied Piper of Hamelin."
Off in the distance, in an opening in the curved woods, rose Gothic
spires of a medieval town. The children kept following the Pied Piper who
had hypnotized them.
I had wanted to grab the last one, barefoot in ragged pants, but I
stumbled over something and spread out there on the road. Nobody even so
much as turned his head.
"Strange dust," I said knocking it out of my clothing, "Doesn't leave
any traces."
"Maybe there isn't any dust at all. And no road either," said Zernov
with a smirk, and added, "False life, remember?"
The solution to the riddle that had plagued me for so long at last
percolated through.
"You know why it's so grey all about? It's from the line illustrations
to the fairy tale done in pencil or pen. Lines and blur, no colours at all.
An illustration from a children's book."
"We even know from which one. Remember the little girl and the cure at
the table d'hote?"
I did not answer, something changed instantaneously. The piping ceased.
A distant clack of hooves on the road took its place. The familiar red fog
enveloped the bushes. Incidentally, it vanished almost immediately and the
bushes stretched out along the roadway all green. The woods disappeared and
the road broke off into a steep rocky decline, beyond which vineyards sloped
away. Lower still, just like in the Crimea, was a blue sea. Everything about
took on its natural colours: the blue of the sky showing through breaks in
the clouds, the red spots of clayey soil between rocks and the yellow of
sun-burnt grass. Even the dust on the road was, you might say, suntan.
"There's somebody coming on horseback," said Zernov, "the show isn't
over yet."
Three horsemen emerged from a turn in the road. They were coming single
file, behind them were two horses both with saddles. The cavalcade came to
halt near where we stood. All three of them were in different cuirasses and
identical long black coats with copper buttons. Their jack boots, turned
reddish from long wear, were covered with grey mud.
"Who are these?" asked the senior horseman in broken French. Away from
his black moustache stretched a week's growth of stubble. In his
museum-piece cuirass and sheathless sword stuck into his belt, he seemed to
have stepped right out of an old novel.
"What century is it?" I asked myself mentally. "The thirty-years war or
later? The soldiers of Wallenstein or Karl the Twelfth? Or the Swiss Reiters
in France? And in what France? Before Richelieu or after?"
"Papists?" asked the horseman.
Zernov laughed. This masquerade was getting to be funny indeed.
"We have no faith," he replied in good French, "we're not even
Christians. We're atheists."
"What's that he says, Captain?" asked the junior horseman. He spoke
German.
"I do not know myself," he said switching to German. "Strange dress
too, like comedians at the fair."
"Perhaps this is a mistake, Captain. They may not be the ones."
"And where will we look for those? Let Bonnville himself Investigate.
Come along," he added in French.
"I can't," said Zernov.
"What?"
"I don't know how to ride a horse."
The horseman laughed and said something in German. Now all three
laughed. "So he can't ride horseback! A doctor, no less."
"Put him in the middle. You two on the sides, one foot apiece. And see
that he doesn't fall off. And you?" the black moustache turned to me.
"I don't intend to go anyway," I said.
"Yuri, don't argue!" Zernov yelled in Russian- he was already seated on
the horse holding onto the pommel of the saddle. "Agree to everything and
hold off as long as possible."
"What's the language he speaks?" asked the black-moustache frowning.
"Gipsy?"
"Latin," I growled. "Dominus vobiscum. Let's get going."
And I jumped into the saddle. It was not English, not modern, but of an
old unfamiliar shape with copper badges at the corners. That did not disturb
me, I had learned to ride horseback at the institute riding club that taught
most of the elements of the modern pentathlon. Back in the old days a
certain brave man volunteered to deliver an urgent message. He overcame all
obstacles in his way: he jumped, ran, swam a rushing river, used firearms,
and his sword. At the club we weren't taught that much, but we learned some
of the elements. One thing, I wasn't very good at clearing obstacles on
horseback. "If ever a fence or ditch turns up along the way, I'll never make
it," I thought to myself apprehensively. But there was no time to think. The
black moustache lashed my horse and we took off, catching up with Zernov
with his side bodyguards. His face was whiter than paper, quite naturally,
since this was his first ride in a saddle and what is more, in a furious
race!
We pounded along without a word spoken, the black moustache always
close by. I heard the thud of the hooves of my horse, the heavy panting, the
warmth of its neck, the tense resistance of the stirrups-no, this was no
illusion, no deception, this was real life, a different alien life in other
space and time, life that had sucked us under like a swamp its victims. The
closeness of the sea, the warm humidity of the air, the twisting rocky road,
vineyards on the slopes, unfamiliar trees with large broad leaves shining
brightly in the sunlight, donkeys slowly dragging squeaky two-wheeled carts,
one-storey stone houses in the villages, mica windows and garlands of drying
red pepper, crude sculptures of madonnas near wells, men with bronze-tan
torsos in ragged trousers reaching to their knees, women in homespun
dresses, and completely naked children-this was a picture of the south, the
south of France, and of no modern France either.
We galloped for about an hour. Luckily there were no major obstacles,
except huge boulders along the roadside, the remnants of landships cleared
away long ago. A white stone wall half as high again as a man brought us to
a halt. The wall surrounded a woods or park several kilometres on one side
because the end was nowhere in sight. Here, where the wall turned northwards
from the sea, was a man waiting. He was dressed in the same fancy-ball
costume of green velvet and in well-worn reddish boots like those of my
companions and in a hat without feathers but with a large brightly shined
copper buckle. His right hand was in a sling made of rags, perhaps from an
old shirt, one eye was covered with a black patch. There was something
familiar in the face, though it was not the face that interested me but the
sword at his side. Out of what century had this d'Artagnan appeared, though
this one resembled more a common scarecrow than my favourite hero of
childhood.
The horsemen dismounted and pulled down Zernov. He could not even stand
and slumped to the grass by the roadway. I wanted to help him, but the
one-eyed man was already at his side.
"Get up," he said to Zernov. "Can you stand?"
"I can't", Zernov groaned.
"What shall I do with you?" asked the one-eyed man worried, and then
turned to me. "I've seen you some place before."
I recognized him at once. This was Mongeus-seau, the interlocutor of
the Italian movie man at the restaurant, Mongeusseau, rapierist and
swordsman, Olympic champion and the first sword of France.
"Where did you pick them up?" he asked the black moustache.
"On the road. Aren't they the ones?"
"Don't you see? What am I going to do with them?" he repeated at a
loss. "I'm no longer Bonnville with them."
A red cloud boiled up on the road. Out of the foam came a head, then
black silk pajamas, I recognized the producer Carresi.
"You are Bonnville and not Mongeusseau," he said. The corners of his
lips and his sunken cheeks trembled terribly as he spoke. "You are somebody
from another age. Clear?"
"I have my memory," objected the one-eyed man.
"Then stamp it out. Switch out. Forget everything outside the film."
"Do these people have any relation to the film?" and the one-eyed
glanced in my direction. "Have you warned them?"
"No, of course not. That is the act of a different will. I am powerless
to extract them. But you, Bonnville, can."
"How?"
"Like a Balzac hero freely creating the plot. My thoughts only direct
you. You are the master of the plot. Bonnville is a mortal enemy of Savari.
That is crucial to you at the present. But remember: without the right
hand!"
"As a lefty I won't even be allowed to contest?"
"As the left-hander Mongeusseau, not even today. As a lefty, Bonnville
living in another age will fight with his left hand."
"Like a schoolboy."
"Like a tiger."
The cloud again boiled up consuming the film producer and then melted
away. Bonnville turned to the dismounted horsemen.
"Throw him over the wall." He nodded in the direction of Zernov lying
on the ground. "Let Savari nurse him himself."
"Wait a minute!" I cried.
But the point of Bonnville's sword was at my chest.
"Worry about yourself," he said imperiously.
Zernov was already on the other side of the wall, not even having had
time to cry out.
"Murderer," I exclaimed.
"Nothing's going to happen to him," Bonnville grinned. "The grass is up
to your waistline over there. He'll rest for a while and then get up.
Meanwhile let's not be wasting any time. Defend yourself!" He raised his
sword.
"Against you? That's ridiculous."
"Why?"
"Because you are Mongeusseau, Champion of France."
"You are mistaken, I am Bonnville."
"Don't try to fool me, I heard your conversation with the producer."
"With whom?" he asked, failing to grasp what I had said.
I looked him straight in the eye. He was not playing any role, he
indeed had failed to understand.
"You must have been seeing things."
It was useless to argue: here, before me, was a switch-over man devoid
of his own memory. The film producer had done the thinking for him.
"Defend yourself," he repeated severely.
I purposely turned my back to him.
"What for? I don't intend to in the least."
The point of the sword bit into my back, not deep, just through the
jacket and enough for me to feel it. The most important thing was that I did
not doubt for a moment that the sword would have pierced me through if he
had struck with more force. I don't know how someone else would have acted
in my place, but suicide does not have any attractions for me. To fight
Mongeusseau would have been tantamount to committing suicide, but it was not
Mongeusseau that had bared his sword, but lefty Bonnville. How long would I
stand up against him? One minute, two minutes? Perhaps a bit longer, who
knows.
"Are you going to defend yourself?" he repeated once again.
"I am unarmed."
"Captain, your sword, please!" he cried.
The black moustache, standing at some distance, threw me his sword. I
caught it by the handle.
"Well done," Bonnville remarked.
The sword was light and sharp as a needle. It did not have the tip
covering the point of the weapon in sporting contests that I was used to.
But the wrist was protected by the familiar spherical guard. The grip was
likewise convenient. I cut the air with it and heard the swish that recalled
the days I fought for my team.
"L'attack de droit," said Bonnville.
I translated to myself "attack from the right". Bonnville was warning
me condescendingly that he was not afraid to open up his plans to me. At
that same instant he struck.
I parried the blow.
"Parre," he said. In fencing lingo, that means to congratulate on a
successful defence.
I retreated a little, protecting myself with the sword, which was
somewhat longer than Bonn-ville's, thus giving me an advantage in defence. I
tried to recall the words of my fencing instructor in the old days: "Don't
let yourself be fooled; he will retreat and your sword will cut the air. Do
not attack too soon." I made believe I was reverting to the defence. He
jumped softly, cat-like, and dealt a blow from the left this time.
Again I parried it.
"Clever," Bonnville remarked. "You have intuition. Your luck that I
attack with my left. You would be finished if it were with the right."
His blade, went for me like a slender darting tentacle, quivering, as
if in search. He was after an opening in my defence, even the tiniest. Our
blades were holding a silent conversation. Mine said: "You won't get me, I'm
longer than you. Just turn aside and I'll get your shoulder." His said: "You
won't get away. See how I'm closing the distance? I'll get you in the arm
now." Mine replied: "You won't have time. I'm above, and I'm longer than you
are." But Bonnville got around the length of my sword, he took it aside and
then dealt a lighting blow. However, the blade only pierced my jacket and
skimmed the skin of my body. Bonnville frowned.
"Let's take off our coats," and he stepped back.
I remained where I stood. Without my jacket, in my shirt, and I felt
freer. And perhaps more defenceless. In our sport contests we usually put on
special jackets that were sewn with fine metal threads. When the sword
contacted the metal threads, the blow was recorded electrically. Here a blow
was a real one. The blade dipped into living tissue and cut blood vessels.
It could wound deeply, even kill. True, we were in the same situation, but
our skills differed. The blades of our swords struck in the same way, our
shirts both freely opened up our bodies to the opponent. But my tight short
sports shirt couldn't match his white silken shirt, like the one Paul
Scofield played Hamlet in.
We crossed swords. I recalled yet another one of my instructor's
warning: do not attack too soon, not until your opponent has just for an
instant lost his feeling of distance. Wait until he opens up. But Bonnville
did not open up. His sword buzzed around my chest like a wasp, ready to
sting. But I retreated and parried blow after blow. What luck that he fought
with his left hand, I anticipated all his movements.
Bonnville was obviously reading my thoughts.
"With my left all I can do is stitch boots," he said. "Would you like
to see my right?"
He took his arm out of the sling and tossed the sword over to his other
hand. Its blade flashed, knocked mine aside and hit me in the chest.
"That's the way it's done," he boasted, but did not have time to
continue.
Somebody, unseen, reminded him:
"Use your left, Bonnville, your left! Take away the right!"
Bonnville obediently switched hands. The red spot on my chest was
spreading.
"Bandage it," said Bonnville.
I was stripped of my shirt and my shoulder was bandaged. It was not a
deep wound but a lot of blood was flowing. I flexed and extended my right
arm: there was no pain. I could still play for time.
"Where did you study?" asked Bonnville. "In Italy?"
"Why? What makes you think so?" "Your defence is very much like the
Italian way. But that will not help you."
I laughed and almost let him pass, for he was waiting for me on the
right. I hardly had time to back down, his sword only slid along my
shoulder. I parried it upwards and, in my turn, dealt
a blow.
"Well done," he said.
"There's blood on your hand."
"Nothing to worry about."
His sword again whirled about me. I parried, retreated, and my fingers
gripping the handle felt like ice. I repeated to myself, "Don't fall, the
main thing is not to fall, don't fall!"
"Don't drag it out, Bonnville," said the invisible voice, "there are
not going to be any retakes."
"There won't be anything," Bonnville replied, retreating a bit and
giving me a breathing spell. "I can't get him with my left."
"Then he'll get you. I'll change the plot. But you are a superman,
Bonnville. That's the way I have devised you. Act! Courage, man!"
Bonnville again stepped towards me.
"So there was a conversation," I said with a snigger.
"What conversation?"
This was again a robot that forgot everything with the exception of his
ultra-task. Suddenly I felt a wall at my back. There was no room for further
retreat. "The end," I thought to myself helplessly.
His sword again caught mine, flashed back and then ran into my neck. I
did not feel any pain, but something gurgled in my throat. My knees gave
way, I fell on my sword, but it slipped from my hands. The last I heard was
an exclamation as if from another world:
"That's it."
What followed I saw as fragments, a disconnected sequence of nebulous
white patterns. The white spot of the ceiling above me, white curtains at
the windows that did not darken the room, and white sheets at my chin. In
this whiteness I suddenly recognized some sort of nickel-plated cylindrical
surfaces, long tubes that coiled like snakes, and some faces bent over me.
"He's conscious," I heard.
"I see. Anesthesia."
"Everything's ready, Professor."
All this conversation was in French, fast French that penetrated to my
consciousness or skimmed across a chaos of obscure coded terms. Then
everything was blanked out-light, thoughts, everything-then again a fresh
awakening in white. Again unfamiliar faces bent over me, polished surfaces
of scissors or a spoon, a wrist-watch or a needle. At times the nickel gave
way to the transparent yellow of rubber gloves or the rosy sterility of
hands with close-cut nails. All of this lasted only a short time, then again
dropped into darkness where there was no space, no time, only the black
vacuum of sleep.
Then the pictures gradually straightened out as if someone at controls
were bringing them into focus. The peaked strict face of the professor in
white cap faded into a still more drawn face of the nurse in white headgear.
I was fed broth and juices, my throat was swathed and I was told not to
talk.
Somehow, however, I got out the words:
"Where am I?"
Rough hands of the nurse clamped down on my lips.
"Silence. You are in the clinic of Professor Peletier. Take care of
your throat. Do not talk."
Once, a very familiar face bent down towards me with tinted glasses in
gold frames on.
"You?" I exclaimed and did not recognize my own voice, neither hoarse
nor the scream of a bird.
"Tss.. .." And she too covered my mouth, but so carefully, so lightly.
"Everything's all right, my love. You are getting well but you must not
speak yet. Be silent and wait. I will return soon, very soon. Now go to
sleep."
I slept, and woke up again, and I felt my throat become freer, I could
taste the broth they gave me; then again the jab of a needle, again the dark
emptiness until finally I woke up for good. I could speak, yell, sing-and I
knew it, there wasn't even any bandage.
"What is your name?" I asked my usually stern-faced guest in the white
cap.
"Sister Therese."
"Are you a nun?"
"We are all nuns in this clinic."
She did not stop me from yelling "hurrah", and I asked her without
hidden guile, "So the Professor is catholic, isn't he?"
"The Professor will burn in hell," she replied without a smile, "but he
knows that we are the most skilled nurses. That is our vow."
"I'll probably burn in hell too," I thought and so changed the subject.
"How long have I been in the clinic?"
"This is the second week after the operation."
"So he's an atheist?" I sniggered.
She sighed, "These are all the affairs of God."
"And the rose clouds too?"
"In the Encyclical of His Holiness they are proclaimed to be made by
human hands. The creation of our brethren of the Universe created in the
image of God."
I saw that His Holiness had given way to the lesser evil, casting his
lot with the anthropocentric hypothesis. That was the only way out for the
Christian world. But for science? What hypothesis did the Congress uphold?
And why is it that I still don't know anything about this matter?
"Is this a hospital or a jail?" I raged. "And why am I being starved
with sleep?"
"Not starved but treated. This is sleep therapy."
"Aren't there any newspapers around here? Why can't I have something to
read?"
"Complete cut-off from the outside world is also part of the treatment.
When the course of treatment is over, you'll have all the papers you want."
"And when will that be?"
"As soon as you are well."
"And when.. .."
"Ask the Professor."
In a way, this was funny, but I wasn't getting anywhere so I decided an
attack from the flank.
"Well, I certainly am much better, don't you think so?"
"Yes, definitely."
"Then, why am I not allowed visitors? Or have I been forgotten?'
You have to be a nun to stand up to a patient like that. Sister Therese
withstood it all, except once. Something like a smile even ran across her
imperturbable lips.
"Today is visitor's day. It begins in. .." and she looked at her watch,
whose reflections I had seen so many times during my awakenings, "in ten
minutes."
I got through those ten minutes as submissive as a lamb. I was even
allowed to sit up in bed and talk without looking at the clock, my vocal
chords had healed completely. But Irene said:
"I'll do the talking, you ask questions."
But I didn't want to ask anything, I just wanted to repeat "dearest,
dearest, dearest" .... It was funny how it all happened: no explanations, no
sighing, no hints, no play. The whole preparatory work was carried out by my
opponent Bonnville-Mongeusseau. I wonder whether Irene knew about that. Yes,
it turned out, she did. She got it all from Zernov. She herself during all
this time was in a kind of trance, a dream yet not a dream, a complete
blot-out of all memory. She woke up, it was morning, drowsiness. She was
drowsy, didn't want to get up.
"And you meanwhile were bleeding to death in Zernov's room at the
hotel. Luckily he got here in time, you were still breathing."
"Where did he come from?"
"From below, from the hall. He himself had been knocked almost
unconscious, his whole body was beaten up. Miracles! Almost as if you had
come back from the crusades."
"Must have been somewhat later. The sixteenth century, I believe.
Swords without sheaths, and slender blades fast as lightning!"
"Why? Did you fight? You're some musketeer! You have to know how!"
"We were taught a bit in the institute, movie people have to know
everything. That's when it came in handy."
"Very helpful on the operating table."
"But I was ambushed. Behind was a wall, a ditch on one side. And he was
good!"
"Who was this?"
"Mongeusseau. Try standing up to an Olympic champion. Remember the guy
with the eye patch at the table d'hote?"
Irene was not surprised.
"He's here in the hotel right now too. And he's together with Carresi.
Incidentally, I took him for a movie actor, for some reason. With the
exception of us, these two are the only guests that did not leave the hotel
after that night. Boy, that was some panic! And the doorman even committed
suicide, he hanged himself."
"Which one?" I exclaimed.
"That one, the baldheaded one."
"Etienne?" I asked to make sure. "Why?"
"Nobody knows. He didn't even leave a note. But I think Zernov has some
suspicions."
"Marvellous," I exclaimed, "A dog's death for a dog."
"You have suspicions too?"
"I don't suppose anything, I know!"
"What?"
"It'd take a long time to tell. Not now."
"Why are you hiding things from me?"
"Certain things need not be revealed now. You'll learn about them
later. Don't be offended, it's for the best. Now tell me what happened to
Lange. Where is he?"
"He's left. It seems he's left Paris for good. He got into some kind of
a fix too." She laughed. "Martin for some reason put him through a
meat-grinder, you wouldn't recognize him now. At least not during the first
few days. There was talk it'd develop into a diplomatic scandal, but nothing
happened. The West Germans were quiet as mice. Martin's an American and the
right hand of Thompson. Local Ribbentropites find that too hard a nut to
crack. Then Lange himself all of a sudden relinquished all claims. He said
you couldn't deal with a madman. Newsmen attacked Martin for an explanation
and he served up whiskey and reported that Lange wanted to get the Russian
girl away from him. He meant me. A lot of fun and laughter but there's
something mysterious behind it all. Martin has now left together with
Thompson. Don't look so surprised. That's a long story to tell too. I've
collected all the paper clippings, you can read them. There's also a note
for you from Martin, but not a word about the fight. But I think that Zernov
knows something on that score. Yes, tomorrow he's speaking at the plenary
session. All the reporters are waiting like sharks, and he keeps putting it
off. All because of you, incidentally. He wants to have a talk with you
first. Right now. Surprised again? Really, I mean it, right now."
Zernov appeared as fast as they do in movies. He wasn't alone. He was
accompanied by Carresi and Mongeusseau. He couldn't have produced a greater
effect. I opened my mouth as I recognized Mongeusseau and did not even
respond to their greetings.
"He recognizes you," said Zernov to his companions in English. "And you
wouldn't believe it."
Then I went off the handle; luckily it was easier to go off the handle
in any other language except Russian.
"I have not gone mad nor have I lost any of my memory. It would be hard
to forget the sword that cut my throat."
"And you remember the sword?" asked Carresi, for some reason overjoyed.
"It's the last thing I'll forget."
"And your own?" Carresi even rose to his feet, he was so excited. "From
Milan, a steel snake at the guard coiled round the handle, remember?"
"Let him remember," I said maliciously, nodding in the direction of
Mongeusseau.
The latter did not seem offended, nor was he embarrassed in the least.
"I've had it since 1960. The prize of Toulouse," he replied
phlegmatically.
"That's where I remember it from. Both the blade and the snake," put in
Carresi again.
But Mongeusseau was not listening.
"How long did you last?" he asked, looking at me with interest for the
first time. "One minute, two minutes?"
"More," I said. "You were fighting with your left hand."
"Makes no difference. My left is much weaker, hasn't the lightness that
is needed. But in training...." For some reason, he did not finish the
sentence and changed his tone of voice: "I know your swordsmen, I've
encountered them in contests, but I don't remember you. You weren't taken
off the team, were you?"
"I gave up fencing," I said; I didn't want to let him know too much. "I
gave it up a long time ago."
"Too bad," he said slowly and looked at Carresi.
I never found out what he was sorry about: about my losing interest in
swordplay or that his fight with me took him more than two precious minutes
of the champion's time. Carresi noticed my perplexed look and laughed:
"Gaston wasn't present at the fight."
"What do you mean, wasn't there?" I asked in astonishment. "Who was
then?"
I cautiously ran my fingers over the slanting healed slit across my
throat.
"Blame me," said Carresi in confusion. "I thought the whole thing up at
home lying on my couch. Gaston, who was synthesized and given an identically
synthesized sword, is the fruit of my imagination. How it was done, I
You will wait a couple of minutes after he leaves and then you can leave
quietly yourselves."
I opened my mouth and closed it again. That was a conversation for a
psychiatric ward. But she continued:
"Don't be surprised. Etienne was not there at the time, but Lange
remembers everything. He went into every corner and interrogated every one
of the guests. He has an excellent memory. It took place exactly the way you
will see it."
We followed without a word, trying not to look at one another and
refusing to make sense of the events. There was no sense.
There was a card game going in the first room. The stench was of
tobacco smoke so thick you could hardly make things out. Like waves, it got
thicker and then dispersed, but even in the more translucent moments
everything looked strangely deformed, fluid, changing, as if the outlines of
this world did not obey the laws of Euclidean geometry. A long ski-like arm
would reach out, cards all extended, and hoarse voices overlapping, "five
another five,... pass... lead...". Then the whole would be blanketed out by
a tray with cognac, and on the long label somebody's face-like on TV-with
neatly trimmed mustachios, or the face would be transformed into a placard
with a mug yelling "VER-BOTEN! VERBOTEN! VERBOTEN!" Or grey heads without
faces, a voice in the smoke repeating "Thirty minutes, ... thirty minutes."
The cards rustled like leaves in the wind. The lights grew dim. Eyes smarted
from the smoke.
"Irene," I called.
She turned around.
"I'm not Irene."
"It's all the same. What is this? The mirror-laughing room?"
"What's that?"
"Don't you remember? In the park? All those distorting mirrors?"
"No," she smiled. "It's simply that nobody remembers the surroundings
exactly. The details. Etienne is trying to recall them. Lange has only
fleeting disconnected glimpses, he cannot think through to minutiae."
I was stuck again. What was all this about? I had an inkling but not
much more.
"This is a dream, sure thing," said Martin more confused than before.
"The memory cells of two persons are at work." I tried to find an
explanation of some kind. "Conceptions are materialized, and they conflict,
suppressing one another."
"Hogwash," he said.
We entered the bar. It was behind an archway separated from the hall by
a curtain hung on bamboo poles. German officers were morosely swilling
liquor at the counter. No chairs. Couples on a long couch-like affair were
kissing. I figured that Lange must have remembered this spectacle very well.
But none of the performers even looked at us. Irene whispered to the barman
and then disappeared in a hole in the wall where a stone staircase went up.
The barman put two glasses of cognac in front of us and left. Martin tried
it.
"The real thing," he said and licked his lips.
"Shh..." I hissed, "you're not an American, you're French."
"Sore throat, can't speak," he blurted out and winked slyly.
But nobody was listening to us. I looked at the clock. Lange was due in
fifteen minutes. I got an idea. If Lange, say, does not reach the upper
room, and the miner does not defuse the mine, General Baire and his bunch
will neatly go up into a million pieces. That's interesting. Lange will
arrive with a submachine-gunner and the miner. The miner most likely has no
weapon, they'll leave the armed man near the entrance to the stairway.
There's a chance.
In whispers I told Martin about my idea. He nodded. There was slight
risk of the officers in the bar getting involved-they could hardly stand on
their feet. Some were already snoring on the couch. The kissing couples had
disappeared somewhere. The situation was very favourable.
Another ten minutes passed. Another minute, two, three. There were
seconds left. That was when Lange entered. Not the Lange that we knew but
the Lange of the past, not yet a Sturmbahnfuhrer. If he recalled this
episode, we did not participate and so we were out of danger. The actions
were programmed by memory: reach the mine and prevent a catastrophe. He was
accompanied by an oldish soldier in glasses and a very young Gestapo man
with a submachine-gun. He went fast, not stopping anywhere, gave a piercing
glance at the officers sitting round their cognac and hurried upstairs with
the miner. They were in a hurry. As we guessed, the submachine-gunner
remained at the bottom of the staircase. That very second Martin stepped up
to him and, without swinging, punched straight to the nose and knocked him
off his feet. He didn't even drop his gun. Martin grabbed him in the air. I
had the Browning and raced up the stairs towards Lange who turned around.
"Drop, Yuri," Martin shouted. I did and that instant a burst of fire cut
down both of them: Lange and the miner. All this took a fraction of a
second. Nobody even looked out of the bar room.
But, from above, "Irene" looked down. A few seconds passed, then slowly
she began to descend, without asking any questions she passed the dead SS
men crouching on the steps.
"Did anyone hear the shots?" I asked looking upwards.
"Nobody except me. They are so engaged in their game that they won't
even hear the explosion." She shuddered and closed her face with her hands.
"Oh, my God, they haven't defused the mine."
"That's perfect, on the contrary," I exclaimed. "Let the whole works go
to hell. Come on, let's get out of here."
She still couldn't make things out.
"But that is not what happened then."
"That's what's going to happen now, though." I grabbed her hand. "Is
there another exit?"
"Yes."
"Then you lead the way."
She led the way as if walking in her sleep, she got us out to the dark
street below. Martin wiped out the guard below in the same fashion.
"That's four," he said, "didn't even need the grenade."
"Five," I corrected him. "Your count began in the Antarctic."
"Now they'll have to begin modelling a heaven for them."
A few more words were exchanged as we ran down the middle of the street
in an unknown direction in total darkness. Suddenly something exploded and
then a burst of fiery sparks shot skywards. For an instant, "Irene's"
enormous eyes flashed in front of me. It was only then that I noticed that
this "Irene" was not wearing glasses.
A siren wailed in the distance. Then a car motor coughed into action
Then another. The blaze of the fire had now lit up the whole street.
"How could this be?" "Irene" suddenly asked. "That means I'm alive? Is
this another life? Not that one?"
"Now it's developing independently, in accord with the laws of the
time; we've turned it," I said and malevolently added: "Now you can take
revenge on Etienne."
The siren was still screaming. Nearby, lorries were clattering down the
street. I looked around.
Martin wasn't there. "Don!" I cried, "Martin!" Nobody responded. We
bumped into the gate of a churchyard, it was open. In there it was dark,
beyond the range of the light from the fire. "Here!" "Irene" whispered to
me, taking me by the hand. I followed. Then the darkness suddenly began to
melt away, flowing down a stairway that had opened up in front of us.
Somebody was sitting on the upper step.
I took a closer look and saw that it was Zernov.
"Boris Arkadievich, is that you?"
He turned around.
"Anokhin? Where'd you come from?"
I recalled Martin's Yankee Doodle song. Yes, but where was Martin?
"He isn't here," Zernov said. "I'm alone."
"Where are we?"
He laughed.
"You don't recognize the interior? Hotel Homond, second floor. I landed
here when we were thrown out of the car. What happened afterwards?"
"Somebody threw a bomb under the wheels."
"That's luck," Zernov said, "well, I was kind of doubtful about the
strength of the Gestapo anyway. But I wouldn't want to test fate any more.
I've been sitting here from that minute and I'm afraid to move. After all,
this is an island of safety. Familiar surroundings, not spectres. So take a
seat and let's hear what it's all about." He moved making room for me too.
However, my story did not make a great impression on Zernov, despite
the gamut of unexpected events that ran through it. He listened without
uttering a word or asking any questions. I asked:
"Have you seen Fellini's picture 'Juliet and the Ghosts'?"
Zernov wasn't even surprised by the question, though it promised
agreement or perhaps argument. Zernov did not speak up and waited for my
continuation. I continued: "My idea is that they and Fellini take a similar
view of the world. A surrealistic nightmare. Everything is turned inwards,
all reality is only the projection of somebody's thoughts, somebody's
memory. If you had only seen that casino in St. Disier. The whole thing was
smeared out, broken into fragments, deformed. The elements were there but
the proportions were distorted. You recall in Fellini's world how the
disconnected world of the subconscious mixes in with the world of reality.
I'm after the logic of the matter but I'm unable to grasp it."
"Nonsense," Zernov interrupted. "You are simply not in the habit of
analysing and have not been able to connect the pieces of what you have
witnessed. Fellini is far removed from all this. What has the cinema and art
generally got to do with this? They model memory for motives that are not
aesthetic. Most likely God himself could not create a more exact model."
"Of what?" I was cautious.
"The psychic domains of certain of the visitors of the Homond Hotel."
"What visitors? There were a hundred people there. And we were tossed
into the manure heap of a Gestapo man and this doorman. Why these two? Two
standards of baseness or simply two random droplets of man's memory? And
what precisely is it that is modelled? Ecstasy over the past or pangs of
conscience? Then how does Irene's dream fit in here? And why were we allowed
to dip into someone else's recollections yet prevented from touching
another's dream? And why was Irene linked up with her mother, and why was
the connection only on one side? The modelling is done of life suggested by
someone's memory, and we are permitted to alter that life. But what kind of
a model is it that does not replicate the original? Irene's mother stays
alive, Lange is shot down by a burst of gunfire, and Etienne will probably
be finished off by his own men. Why? In the name of supreme justice attained
with our aid? I hardly think so; that would no longer be a model but
creativity. Then what is real in this model and what is simply make believe?
Whence flows the Moskva River and where does it break off? Perhaps it
doesn't flow at all. Is the entire parapet made of granite or is the inside
compressed smoke like in Sand City? Maybe the only reality in this model is
myself, standing somewhere, whereas all the rest is a mirage, the
projections of dreams and of memory. But of whose? What connection is there
between it and the memory of Lange? Why connect the unconnectable? Why, in
order to make contact with us, it is necessary to paste together the past
and the present-what is more, an alien past-and then alter it? Millions of
'whys' and 'wherefores' and not one iota of logic."
I said all that without stopping. A rose-coloured fog was billowing
above us, condensing and turning crimson underneath, near the staircase. One
could not distinguish things at a meter and a half distance. I counted six
steps, the seventh was enveloped in red smoke.
"Still billowing," said Zernov, catching my glance. "Let's sit quiet
until it strikes. There are some answers to our queries. You'll answer them
yourself after some thought. First of all, what is modelled? Not only the
memory. The psychic make-up of the individual as well. Thoughts, wishes,
recollections, dreams. Thoughts, as you know, are not always logical,
associations are not always comprehensible, and recollections do not always
follow events chronologically. Do not be surprised at the fragmentary nature
or chaotic arrangement of what has been seen, this is not a film. Life,
recreated by memory cannot be otherwise. Try to recall some eventful day of
the past. Keep the events properly sequenced, from morning till evening.
You'll never do it. No matter how hard you try, you will lack coherency and
sequence. Something will be forgotten, something left out, something will be
recalled more vividly, something hazily, some act will slip by nebulously
and indistinct, and you will make yourself miserable striving to catch at
the recollection that is just beyond your grasp. But still this is life. It
may be hazy and alogical, but it is real and not concocted. Then of course
there is the completely false."
I couldn't get it.
"False, why false?"
"Imagined," he explained. "Life created solely by the force of whim,
fancy or simply supposition. Say, recalling something read or seen at a
movie, and you imagine yourself the hero, offering this life concocted by
someone as the real actuality, or something you yourself create, invent,
make up. It's lucky you and I haven't as yet come across any such life, if
you can call it such. So far..." he repeated deep in thought. "The encounter
might still take place. Not excluded at all. Look how it's billowing...."
The red fluid was still flowing round the staircase. I sighed.
"Taking their time about today, it seems. And silent as hell, awful
silence, no squeaks, not a rustle."
Zernov did not reply. A few seconds passed before he said, in a worried
tone, "The curious thing is that every time we are given full freedom of
action, they do not interfere or control us. And they give us to understand
as much."
"Martin and I never realized that," I said. "I still don't understand
why we were allowed to alter the model?"
"Well, you have the stimulus of experimentation, don't you? They are
studying, trying and combining things. Say, an exposure of somebody's memory
is obtained, a picture of the past. But this is not a film, only the course
of a life. The past becomes, as it were, the present and ready to form the
future. Now, do we have a new factor in the present The future will
unavoidably change. We are the new factor, the basis of the experiment. With
our help, they get two exposures of the same picture and can compare them.
You think they understand everything we do? Most likely not. That's why they
try one experiment after the other."
"Yea, and meanwhile our hair stands on end," I said.
It seemed to be getting lighter. Zernov noticed it too.
"How many steps do you see?" he asked.
"Ten," I counted.
"There were six before, I counted them. The rest was a blur of red. I'm
fed up with this. 'isle of safety'. My back's aching. Let's risk it, what do
you say? Over to my room. We'll at least get some rest, like human beings."
"Mine's a floor above yours."
"Mine's right here," Zernov pointed to the nearest door that was still
enveloped in red smoke. "Let's try."
We dived into the flowing cloud of red, cautiously approached the door.
Zernov opened it and we went in.
But there was no room at all. No ceiling, no walls, no floor. Instead,
a broad roadway opened up before us, grey from the dust. All about was grey,
the bushes along the road, the woods beyond, all cockeyed, grotesquely
distorted like the drawings of Gustav Dore, above this dirty ragged clouds
crawled.
"We risked it," said Zernov turning round. "Where has it gotten us?"
On the right the road went down towards a river hid by a small hill, to
the left it turned round an enormous oak tree, also grey, as if freshly
powdered with lead dust. From that direction came the sounds of a shepherd's
or, more likely, child's pipe because the melody was very primitive,
monotonous with the same importunate sad refrain.
We went over to the other side of the highway and beheld the most
unlikely procession imaginable. A few dozen kids, little kids, dressed in
shirts reaching to their knees and in pants, in tiny fur-trimmed jackets and
in hoods and tassels. Heading the procession was a ragged man in the very
same absurd jacket and short pants. He had on long woollen stockings and
heavy shoes with tin buckles. He was the one who was piping the song that so
hypnotized the children. Hypnotized is the word because the kids moved as if
in a trance, speechless, never turning their heads to right or left. The
leader kept on playing and kept on plunking his heavy feet down in a
soldier's march, throwing up clouds of grey dust.
"Hey," I yelled, when the curious procession had come up to us.
"Leave'm alone," Zernov said. "That's a fairy tale "
"A fairy tale?"
"You know, the Pied Piper of Hamelin."
Off in the distance, in an opening in the curved woods, rose Gothic
spires of a medieval town. The children kept following the Pied Piper who
had hypnotized them.
I had wanted to grab the last one, barefoot in ragged pants, but I
stumbled over something and spread out there on the road. Nobody even so
much as turned his head.
"Strange dust," I said knocking it out of my clothing, "Doesn't leave
any traces."
"Maybe there isn't any dust at all. And no road either," said Zernov
with a smirk, and added, "False life, remember?"
The solution to the riddle that had plagued me for so long at last
percolated through.
"You know why it's so grey all about? It's from the line illustrations
to the fairy tale done in pencil or pen. Lines and blur, no colours at all.
An illustration from a children's book."
"We even know from which one. Remember the little girl and the cure at
the table d'hote?"
I did not answer, something changed instantaneously. The piping ceased.
A distant clack of hooves on the road took its place. The familiar red fog
enveloped the bushes. Incidentally, it vanished almost immediately and the
bushes stretched out along the roadway all green. The woods disappeared and
the road broke off into a steep rocky decline, beyond which vineyards sloped
away. Lower still, just like in the Crimea, was a blue sea. Everything about
took on its natural colours: the blue of the sky showing through breaks in
the clouds, the red spots of clayey soil between rocks and the yellow of
sun-burnt grass. Even the dust on the road was, you might say, suntan.
"There's somebody coming on horseback," said Zernov, "the show isn't
over yet."
Three horsemen emerged from a turn in the road. They were coming single
file, behind them were two horses both with saddles. The cavalcade came to
halt near where we stood. All three of them were in different cuirasses and
identical long black coats with copper buttons. Their jack boots, turned
reddish from long wear, were covered with grey mud.
"Who are these?" asked the senior horseman in broken French. Away from
his black moustache stretched a week's growth of stubble. In his
museum-piece cuirass and sheathless sword stuck into his belt, he seemed to
have stepped right out of an old novel.
"What century is it?" I asked myself mentally. "The thirty-years war or
later? The soldiers of Wallenstein or Karl the Twelfth? Or the Swiss Reiters
in France? And in what France? Before Richelieu or after?"
"Papists?" asked the horseman.
Zernov laughed. This masquerade was getting to be funny indeed.
"We have no faith," he replied in good French, "we're not even
Christians. We're atheists."
"What's that he says, Captain?" asked the junior horseman. He spoke
German.
"I do not know myself," he said switching to German. "Strange dress
too, like comedians at the fair."
"Perhaps this is a mistake, Captain. They may not be the ones."
"And where will we look for those? Let Bonnville himself Investigate.
Come along," he added in French.
"I can't," said Zernov.
"What?"
"I don't know how to ride a horse."
The horseman laughed and said something in German. Now all three
laughed. "So he can't ride horseback! A doctor, no less."
"Put him in the middle. You two on the sides, one foot apiece. And see
that he doesn't fall off. And you?" the black moustache turned to me.
"I don't intend to go anyway," I said.
"Yuri, don't argue!" Zernov yelled in Russian- he was already seated on
the horse holding onto the pommel of the saddle. "Agree to everything and
hold off as long as possible."
"What's the language he speaks?" asked the black-moustache frowning.
"Gipsy?"
"Latin," I growled. "Dominus vobiscum. Let's get going."
And I jumped into the saddle. It was not English, not modern, but of an
old unfamiliar shape with copper badges at the corners. That did not disturb
me, I had learned to ride horseback at the institute riding club that taught
most of the elements of the modern pentathlon. Back in the old days a
certain brave man volunteered to deliver an urgent message. He overcame all
obstacles in his way: he jumped, ran, swam a rushing river, used firearms,
and his sword. At the club we weren't taught that much, but we learned some
of the elements. One thing, I wasn't very good at clearing obstacles on
horseback. "If ever a fence or ditch turns up along the way, I'll never make
it," I thought to myself apprehensively. But there was no time to think. The
black moustache lashed my horse and we took off, catching up with Zernov
with his side bodyguards. His face was whiter than paper, quite naturally,
since this was his first ride in a saddle and what is more, in a furious
race!
We pounded along without a word spoken, the black moustache always
close by. I heard the thud of the hooves of my horse, the heavy panting, the
warmth of its neck, the tense resistance of the stirrups-no, this was no
illusion, no deception, this was real life, a different alien life in other
space and time, life that had sucked us under like a swamp its victims. The
closeness of the sea, the warm humidity of the air, the twisting rocky road,
vineyards on the slopes, unfamiliar trees with large broad leaves shining
brightly in the sunlight, donkeys slowly dragging squeaky two-wheeled carts,
one-storey stone houses in the villages, mica windows and garlands of drying
red pepper, crude sculptures of madonnas near wells, men with bronze-tan
torsos in ragged trousers reaching to their knees, women in homespun
dresses, and completely naked children-this was a picture of the south, the
south of France, and of no modern France either.
We galloped for about an hour. Luckily there were no major obstacles,
except huge boulders along the roadside, the remnants of landships cleared
away long ago. A white stone wall half as high again as a man brought us to
a halt. The wall surrounded a woods or park several kilometres on one side
because the end was nowhere in sight. Here, where the wall turned northwards
from the sea, was a man waiting. He was dressed in the same fancy-ball
costume of green velvet and in well-worn reddish boots like those of my
companions and in a hat without feathers but with a large brightly shined
copper buckle. His right hand was in a sling made of rags, perhaps from an
old shirt, one eye was covered with a black patch. There was something
familiar in the face, though it was not the face that interested me but the
sword at his side. Out of what century had this d'Artagnan appeared, though
this one resembled more a common scarecrow than my favourite hero of
childhood.
The horsemen dismounted and pulled down Zernov. He could not even stand
and slumped to the grass by the roadway. I wanted to help him, but the
one-eyed man was already at his side.
"Get up," he said to Zernov. "Can you stand?"
"I can't", Zernov groaned.
"What shall I do with you?" asked the one-eyed man worried, and then
turned to me. "I've seen you some place before."
I recognized him at once. This was Mongeus-seau, the interlocutor of
the Italian movie man at the restaurant, Mongeusseau, rapierist and
swordsman, Olympic champion and the first sword of France.
"Where did you pick them up?" he asked the black moustache.
"On the road. Aren't they the ones?"
"Don't you see? What am I going to do with them?" he repeated at a
loss. "I'm no longer Bonnville with them."
A red cloud boiled up on the road. Out of the foam came a head, then
black silk pajamas, I recognized the producer Carresi.
"You are Bonnville and not Mongeusseau," he said. The corners of his
lips and his sunken cheeks trembled terribly as he spoke. "You are somebody
from another age. Clear?"
"I have my memory," objected the one-eyed man.
"Then stamp it out. Switch out. Forget everything outside the film."
"Do these people have any relation to the film?" and the one-eyed
glanced in my direction. "Have you warned them?"
"No, of course not. That is the act of a different will. I am powerless
to extract them. But you, Bonnville, can."
"How?"
"Like a Balzac hero freely creating the plot. My thoughts only direct
you. You are the master of the plot. Bonnville is a mortal enemy of Savari.
That is crucial to you at the present. But remember: without the right
hand!"
"As a lefty I won't even be allowed to contest?"
"As the left-hander Mongeusseau, not even today. As a lefty, Bonnville
living in another age will fight with his left hand."
"Like a schoolboy."
"Like a tiger."
The cloud again boiled up consuming the film producer and then melted
away. Bonnville turned to the dismounted horsemen.
"Throw him over the wall." He nodded in the direction of Zernov lying
on the ground. "Let Savari nurse him himself."
"Wait a minute!" I cried.
But the point of Bonnville's sword was at my chest.
"Worry about yourself," he said imperiously.
Zernov was already on the other side of the wall, not even having had
time to cry out.
"Murderer," I exclaimed.
"Nothing's going to happen to him," Bonnville grinned. "The grass is up
to your waistline over there. He'll rest for a while and then get up.
Meanwhile let's not be wasting any time. Defend yourself!" He raised his
sword.
"Against you? That's ridiculous."
"Why?"
"Because you are Mongeusseau, Champion of France."
"You are mistaken, I am Bonnville."
"Don't try to fool me, I heard your conversation with the producer."
"With whom?" he asked, failing to grasp what I had said.
I looked him straight in the eye. He was not playing any role, he
indeed had failed to understand.
"You must have been seeing things."
It was useless to argue: here, before me, was a switch-over man devoid
of his own memory. The film producer had done the thinking for him.
"Defend yourself," he repeated severely.
I purposely turned my back to him.
"What for? I don't intend to in the least."
The point of the sword bit into my back, not deep, just through the
jacket and enough for me to feel it. The most important thing was that I did
not doubt for a moment that the sword would have pierced me through if he
had struck with more force. I don't know how someone else would have acted
in my place, but suicide does not have any attractions for me. To fight
Mongeusseau would have been tantamount to committing suicide, but it was not
Mongeusseau that had bared his sword, but lefty Bonnville. How long would I
stand up against him? One minute, two minutes? Perhaps a bit longer, who
knows.
"Are you going to defend yourself?" he repeated once again.
"I am unarmed."
"Captain, your sword, please!" he cried.
The black moustache, standing at some distance, threw me his sword. I
caught it by the handle.
"Well done," Bonnville remarked.
The sword was light and sharp as a needle. It did not have the tip
covering the point of the weapon in sporting contests that I was used to.
But the wrist was protected by the familiar spherical guard. The grip was
likewise convenient. I cut the air with it and heard the swish that recalled
the days I fought for my team.
"L'attack de droit," said Bonnville.
I translated to myself "attack from the right". Bonnville was warning
me condescendingly that he was not afraid to open up his plans to me. At
that same instant he struck.
I parried the blow.
"Parre," he said. In fencing lingo, that means to congratulate on a
successful defence.
I retreated a little, protecting myself with the sword, which was
somewhat longer than Bonn-ville's, thus giving me an advantage in defence. I
tried to recall the words of my fencing instructor in the old days: "Don't
let yourself be fooled; he will retreat and your sword will cut the air. Do
not attack too soon." I made believe I was reverting to the defence. He
jumped softly, cat-like, and dealt a blow from the left this time.
Again I parried it.
"Clever," Bonnville remarked. "You have intuition. Your luck that I
attack with my left. You would be finished if it were with the right."
His blade, went for me like a slender darting tentacle, quivering, as
if in search. He was after an opening in my defence, even the tiniest. Our
blades were holding a silent conversation. Mine said: "You won't get me, I'm
longer than you. Just turn aside and I'll get your shoulder." His said: "You
won't get away. See how I'm closing the distance? I'll get you in the arm
now." Mine replied: "You won't have time. I'm above, and I'm longer than you
are." But Bonnville got around the length of my sword, he took it aside and
then dealt a lighting blow. However, the blade only pierced my jacket and
skimmed the skin of my body. Bonnville frowned.
"Let's take off our coats," and he stepped back.
I remained where I stood. Without my jacket, in my shirt, and I felt
freer. And perhaps more defenceless. In our sport contests we usually put on
special jackets that were sewn with fine metal threads. When the sword
contacted the metal threads, the blow was recorded electrically. Here a blow
was a real one. The blade dipped into living tissue and cut blood vessels.
It could wound deeply, even kill. True, we were in the same situation, but
our skills differed. The blades of our swords struck in the same way, our
shirts both freely opened up our bodies to the opponent. But my tight short
sports shirt couldn't match his white silken shirt, like the one Paul
Scofield played Hamlet in.
We crossed swords. I recalled yet another one of my instructor's
warning: do not attack too soon, not until your opponent has just for an
instant lost his feeling of distance. Wait until he opens up. But Bonnville
did not open up. His sword buzzed around my chest like a wasp, ready to
sting. But I retreated and parried blow after blow. What luck that he fought
with his left hand, I anticipated all his movements.
Bonnville was obviously reading my thoughts.
"With my left all I can do is stitch boots," he said. "Would you like
to see my right?"
He took his arm out of the sling and tossed the sword over to his other
hand. Its blade flashed, knocked mine aside and hit me in the chest.
"That's the way it's done," he boasted, but did not have time to
continue.
Somebody, unseen, reminded him:
"Use your left, Bonnville, your left! Take away the right!"
Bonnville obediently switched hands. The red spot on my chest was
spreading.
"Bandage it," said Bonnville.
I was stripped of my shirt and my shoulder was bandaged. It was not a
deep wound but a lot of blood was flowing. I flexed and extended my right
arm: there was no pain. I could still play for time.
"Where did you study?" asked Bonnville. "In Italy?"
"Why? What makes you think so?" "Your defence is very much like the
Italian way. But that will not help you."
I laughed and almost let him pass, for he was waiting for me on the
right. I hardly had time to back down, his sword only slid along my
shoulder. I parried it upwards and, in my turn, dealt
a blow.
"Well done," he said.
"There's blood on your hand."
"Nothing to worry about."
His sword again whirled about me. I parried, retreated, and my fingers
gripping the handle felt like ice. I repeated to myself, "Don't fall, the
main thing is not to fall, don't fall!"
"Don't drag it out, Bonnville," said the invisible voice, "there are
not going to be any retakes."
"There won't be anything," Bonnville replied, retreating a bit and
giving me a breathing spell. "I can't get him with my left."
"Then he'll get you. I'll change the plot. But you are a superman,
Bonnville. That's the way I have devised you. Act! Courage, man!"
Bonnville again stepped towards me.
"So there was a conversation," I said with a snigger.
"What conversation?"
This was again a robot that forgot everything with the exception of his
ultra-task. Suddenly I felt a wall at my back. There was no room for further
retreat. "The end," I thought to myself helplessly.
His sword again caught mine, flashed back and then ran into my neck. I
did not feel any pain, but something gurgled in my throat. My knees gave
way, I fell on my sword, but it slipped from my hands. The last I heard was
an exclamation as if from another world:
"That's it."
What followed I saw as fragments, a disconnected sequence of nebulous
white patterns. The white spot of the ceiling above me, white curtains at
the windows that did not darken the room, and white sheets at my chin. In
this whiteness I suddenly recognized some sort of nickel-plated cylindrical
surfaces, long tubes that coiled like snakes, and some faces bent over me.
"He's conscious," I heard.
"I see. Anesthesia."
"Everything's ready, Professor."
All this conversation was in French, fast French that penetrated to my
consciousness or skimmed across a chaos of obscure coded terms. Then
everything was blanked out-light, thoughts, everything-then again a fresh
awakening in white. Again unfamiliar faces bent over me, polished surfaces
of scissors or a spoon, a wrist-watch or a needle. At times the nickel gave
way to the transparent yellow of rubber gloves or the rosy sterility of
hands with close-cut nails. All of this lasted only a short time, then again
dropped into darkness where there was no space, no time, only the black
vacuum of sleep.
Then the pictures gradually straightened out as if someone at controls
were bringing them into focus. The peaked strict face of the professor in
white cap faded into a still more drawn face of the nurse in white headgear.
I was fed broth and juices, my throat was swathed and I was told not to
talk.
Somehow, however, I got out the words:
"Where am I?"
Rough hands of the nurse clamped down on my lips.
"Silence. You are in the clinic of Professor Peletier. Take care of
your throat. Do not talk."
Once, a very familiar face bent down towards me with tinted glasses in
gold frames on.
"You?" I exclaimed and did not recognize my own voice, neither hoarse
nor the scream of a bird.
"Tss.. .." And she too covered my mouth, but so carefully, so lightly.
"Everything's all right, my love. You are getting well but you must not
speak yet. Be silent and wait. I will return soon, very soon. Now go to
sleep."
I slept, and woke up again, and I felt my throat become freer, I could
taste the broth they gave me; then again the jab of a needle, again the dark
emptiness until finally I woke up for good. I could speak, yell, sing-and I
knew it, there wasn't even any bandage.
"What is your name?" I asked my usually stern-faced guest in the white
cap.
"Sister Therese."
"Are you a nun?"
"We are all nuns in this clinic."
She did not stop me from yelling "hurrah", and I asked her without
hidden guile, "So the Professor is catholic, isn't he?"
"The Professor will burn in hell," she replied without a smile, "but he
knows that we are the most skilled nurses. That is our vow."
"I'll probably burn in hell too," I thought and so changed the subject.
"How long have I been in the clinic?"
"This is the second week after the operation."
"So he's an atheist?" I sniggered.
She sighed, "These are all the affairs of God."
"And the rose clouds too?"
"In the Encyclical of His Holiness they are proclaimed to be made by
human hands. The creation of our brethren of the Universe created in the
image of God."
I saw that His Holiness had given way to the lesser evil, casting his
lot with the anthropocentric hypothesis. That was the only way out for the
Christian world. But for science? What hypothesis did the Congress uphold?
And why is it that I still don't know anything about this matter?
"Is this a hospital or a jail?" I raged. "And why am I being starved
with sleep?"
"Not starved but treated. This is sleep therapy."
"Aren't there any newspapers around here? Why can't I have something to
read?"
"Complete cut-off from the outside world is also part of the treatment.
When the course of treatment is over, you'll have all the papers you want."
"And when will that be?"
"As soon as you are well."
"And when.. .."
"Ask the Professor."
In a way, this was funny, but I wasn't getting anywhere so I decided an
attack from the flank.
"Well, I certainly am much better, don't you think so?"
"Yes, definitely."
"Then, why am I not allowed visitors? Or have I been forgotten?'
You have to be a nun to stand up to a patient like that. Sister Therese
withstood it all, except once. Something like a smile even ran across her
imperturbable lips.
"Today is visitor's day. It begins in. .." and she looked at her watch,
whose reflections I had seen so many times during my awakenings, "in ten
minutes."
I got through those ten minutes as submissive as a lamb. I was even
allowed to sit up in bed and talk without looking at the clock, my vocal
chords had healed completely. But Irene said:
"I'll do the talking, you ask questions."
But I didn't want to ask anything, I just wanted to repeat "dearest,
dearest, dearest" .... It was funny how it all happened: no explanations, no
sighing, no hints, no play. The whole preparatory work was carried out by my
opponent Bonnville-Mongeusseau. I wonder whether Irene knew about that. Yes,
it turned out, she did. She got it all from Zernov. She herself during all
this time was in a kind of trance, a dream yet not a dream, a complete
blot-out of all memory. She woke up, it was morning, drowsiness. She was
drowsy, didn't want to get up.
"And you meanwhile were bleeding to death in Zernov's room at the
hotel. Luckily he got here in time, you were still breathing."
"Where did he come from?"
"From below, from the hall. He himself had been knocked almost
unconscious, his whole body was beaten up. Miracles! Almost as if you had
come back from the crusades."
"Must have been somewhat later. The sixteenth century, I believe.
Swords without sheaths, and slender blades fast as lightning!"
"Why? Did you fight? You're some musketeer! You have to know how!"
"We were taught a bit in the institute, movie people have to know
everything. That's when it came in handy."
"Very helpful on the operating table."
"But I was ambushed. Behind was a wall, a ditch on one side. And he was
good!"
"Who was this?"
"Mongeusseau. Try standing up to an Olympic champion. Remember the guy
with the eye patch at the table d'hote?"
Irene was not surprised.
"He's here in the hotel right now too. And he's together with Carresi.
Incidentally, I took him for a movie actor, for some reason. With the
exception of us, these two are the only guests that did not leave the hotel
after that night. Boy, that was some panic! And the doorman even committed
suicide, he hanged himself."
"Which one?" I exclaimed.
"That one, the baldheaded one."
"Etienne?" I asked to make sure. "Why?"
"Nobody knows. He didn't even leave a note. But I think Zernov has some
suspicions."
"Marvellous," I exclaimed, "A dog's death for a dog."
"You have suspicions too?"
"I don't suppose anything, I know!"
"What?"
"It'd take a long time to tell. Not now."
"Why are you hiding things from me?"
"Certain things need not be revealed now. You'll learn about them
later. Don't be offended, it's for the best. Now tell me what happened to
Lange. Where is he?"
"He's left. It seems he's left Paris for good. He got into some kind of
a fix too." She laughed. "Martin for some reason put him through a
meat-grinder, you wouldn't recognize him now. At least not during the first
few days. There was talk it'd develop into a diplomatic scandal, but nothing
happened. The West Germans were quiet as mice. Martin's an American and the
right hand of Thompson. Local Ribbentropites find that too hard a nut to
crack. Then Lange himself all of a sudden relinquished all claims. He said
you couldn't deal with a madman. Newsmen attacked Martin for an explanation
and he served up whiskey and reported that Lange wanted to get the Russian
girl away from him. He meant me. A lot of fun and laughter but there's
something mysterious behind it all. Martin has now left together with
Thompson. Don't look so surprised. That's a long story to tell too. I've
collected all the paper clippings, you can read them. There's also a note
for you from Martin, but not a word about the fight. But I think that Zernov
knows something on that score. Yes, tomorrow he's speaking at the plenary
session. All the reporters are waiting like sharks, and he keeps putting it
off. All because of you, incidentally. He wants to have a talk with you
first. Right now. Surprised again? Really, I mean it, right now."
Zernov appeared as fast as they do in movies. He wasn't alone. He was
accompanied by Carresi and Mongeusseau. He couldn't have produced a greater
effect. I opened my mouth as I recognized Mongeusseau and did not even
respond to their greetings.
"He recognizes you," said Zernov to his companions in English. "And you
wouldn't believe it."
Then I went off the handle; luckily it was easier to go off the handle
in any other language except Russian.
"I have not gone mad nor have I lost any of my memory. It would be hard
to forget the sword that cut my throat."
"And you remember the sword?" asked Carresi, for some reason overjoyed.
"It's the last thing I'll forget."
"And your own?" Carresi even rose to his feet, he was so excited. "From
Milan, a steel snake at the guard coiled round the handle, remember?"
"Let him remember," I said maliciously, nodding in the direction of
Mongeusseau.
The latter did not seem offended, nor was he embarrassed in the least.
"I've had it since 1960. The prize of Toulouse," he replied
phlegmatically.
"That's where I remember it from. Both the blade and the snake," put in
Carresi again.
But Mongeusseau was not listening.
"How long did you last?" he asked, looking at me with interest for the
first time. "One minute, two minutes?"
"More," I said. "You were fighting with your left hand."
"Makes no difference. My left is much weaker, hasn't the lightness that
is needed. But in training...." For some reason, he did not finish the
sentence and changed his tone of voice: "I know your swordsmen, I've
encountered them in contests, but I don't remember you. You weren't taken
off the team, were you?"
"I gave up fencing," I said; I didn't want to let him know too much. "I
gave it up a long time ago."
"Too bad," he said slowly and looked at Carresi.
I never found out what he was sorry about: about my losing interest in
swordplay or that his fight with me took him more than two precious minutes
of the champion's time. Carresi noticed my perplexed look and laughed:
"Gaston wasn't present at the fight."
"What do you mean, wasn't there?" I asked in astonishment. "Who was
then?"
I cautiously ran my fingers over the slanting healed slit across my
throat.
"Blame me," said Carresi in confusion. "I thought the whole thing up at
home lying on my couch. Gaston, who was synthesized and given an identically
synthesized sword, is the fruit of my imagination. How it was done, I