“What would be the point? Think, Hal. It could be…”
“What?”
“Worse.”
“And how do you know that I’m not having a ball here?”
I heard his short laugh, really more a sigh: he laughed so quietly.
“Then what do you want with me there?”
Suddenly an idea hit me.
“Olaf. Listen. It’s a kind of summer resort here. A villa, a pool, gardens. The only problem… but you must know what things are like now, the way they live, right?”
“I have a rough idea.”
The tone said more than the words.
“There you are, then. Now pay attention! Come here. But first get hold of some… boxing gloves. Two pairs. We’ll do some sparring. You’ll see, it’ll be great!”
“Christ! Hal, Where am I going to find you boxing gloves? There probably haven’t been any made for years.”
“So have them made. Don’t tell me it’s impossible to make four stupid gloves. We’ll set up a little ring — we’ll pound each other. We two can, Olaf! You’ve heard about betrizating, I take it?”
“H’m. I’d tell you what I think of it. But not over the phone. Somebody might have delicate ears.”
“Look, come. You’ll do what I said?”
He was silent for a while.
“I don’t know if there’s any sense to it, Hal.”
“All right. Then tell me, while you’re at it, what plans you have. If you have any, then naturally I wouldn’t think of bothering you with my whims.”
“I have none,” he said. “And you?”
“I came here to rest, educate myself, read, but these aren’t plans, just… I simply couldn’t see anything else ahead for me.”
Silence.
“Olaf?”
“It appears that we have got off to an even start,” he muttered. “What the hell. After all, I can leave at any time, if it turns out that…”
“Oh, stop it!” I said impatiently. “There is nothing to discuss. Pack a bag and come. When can you be here?”
“Tomorrow morning. You really want to box?”
“And you don’t?”
He laughed.
“Hell, yes. And for the same reason you do.”
“It’s a deal, then,” I said quickly. “I’ll be expecting you. Take care.”
I went upstairs. I looked through some things I had put in a separate suitcase and found the rope. A large coil. Ropes for a ring. Four posts, some rubber or springs, and we would be set. No referee. We wouldn’t need one.
Then I sat down to the books. But it was as if my head were full of cement. When I had had that feeling in the past, I had chewed my way through the text like a bark beetle through iron-wood. But I had never had this much trouble. In two hours I skimmed through twenty books and could not keep my attention on anything for longer than five minutes. I threw aside even the fairy tales. I decided not to indulge myself. I took what seemed to me the most difficult thing, a monograph on the analysis of metagens, and threw myself at the first equations as if, head lowered, I were charging a stone wall.
Mathematics, however, had certain beneficial properties, particularly for me, because after an hour I understood suddenly, my jaw dropped, I was struck with awe — this Ferret, how had he been able to do it? Even now, going back over the trail that he had blazed, I had moments when I lost my way; step by step I could still manage, but that man must have accomplished it in one leap.
I would have given all the stars to have in my head, for a month, something resembling the contents of his.
The signal sang out dinner, and at the same time something prodded me in the gut, reminding me that I was not alone here. For a second I considered eating upstairs. But shame overcame me. I threw under the bed the awful tight shirt that made me look like an inflated monkey, put on my priceless old loose-fitting sweater, and went down to the dining room. Apart from the exchange of a few trite civilities, there was silence. No conversation. They did not require words. They communicated in glances; she spoke to him with her head, her lashes, with her faint smile. And slowly a cold weight began to grow inside me, I felt my arms hungering, how they longed to seize something, and squeeze, and crush. Why was I so savage? I wondered with despair. Why, instead of thinking about Ferret’s book, about the questions raised by Starck, instead of looking to my own affairs, why did I have to wrestle myself to keep from leering at that girl like a wolf?
But I did not become frightened until I closed behind me the door of my room upstairs. At Adapt they had told me, after the tests, that I was completely normal. Dr. Juffon had said the same thing. But could a normal person feel what I was feeling at that moment? Where did it come from? I was not a participant in it — I was a witness. Something was taking place, something irreversible, like the motion of a planet, an almost imperceptible, gradual emergence, still without form. I went to the window, looked out into the dark garden, and realized that this must have been in me ever since lunch, from the very first moment; it had just required a certain period of time. That was why I had gone to the city, why I had forgotten about the voices in the dark.
I was capable of doing anything. For that girl. I did not understand the how of it or the why. I did not know if it was love or madness. That did not matter. I only knew that everything had lost its importance for me. And I fought this — standing by the open window — as I had never fought anything before; I pressed my forehead to the cold window and feared myself.
I must do something, I mouthed. I must do something. It’s because something’s wrong with me. It will pass. She can’t mean anything to me. I don’t know her. She isn’t even especially pretty. But at least I won’t do anything. I won’t — I pleaded with myself — at least I won’t commit any… ye gods and little fishes!
I turned on the light. Olaf. Olaf would save me. I would tell him everything. He would take charge of me. We would go off somewhere. I would do what he told me, everything. He alone would understand. He would be arriving tomorrow. Good.
I paced the room. I could feel each one of my muscles, it was like being full of animals, they tensed, grappled with one another; suddenly I knelt at the bed, bit into the blanket, and made a strange sound, not like a sob, but dry, hideous; I did not want, I did not want to harm anyone, but I knew that it was useless to lie to myself, that Olaf couldn’t help, no one could.
I got up. For ten years I had learned to make decisions at a moment’s notice, decisions on which lives depended, my own and others’, and I had always gone about it in the same way. I would go cold, my brain would turn into a machine made to calculate the for and the against, to separate and solve, irrevocably. Even Gimma, who did not like me, acknowledged my impartiality. And now, even if I had wanted to, I could not have acted differently, but only as then, in extremity, because this, too, was an extremity. I found my face in the mirror, the pale, almost white irises, narrowed pupils; I looked with hatred, I turned away, I could not think of going to bed. As I was, I swung my legs out over the window ledge. It was four meters to the ground. I jumped, landing almost without a sound. I ran silently in the direction of the pool. Past it, and onto the road. The phosphorescent surface led to the hills, wound among them like a shining snake, a viper, until it disappeared, a scar of light in the shadows. I tore along, faster and faster, to tire my heart, which pounded so steadily, so strongly; I ran for about an hour, until I saw the lights of some houses ahead. I had returned to my starting point. I was weary now, but for that reason I kept up the pace, telling myself silently: There! There! There! I kept running and finally came to a double row of hedges. I was back in front of the garden of the villa.
Breathing heavily, I stopped by the pool and sat down on the concrete edge; I lowered my head and saw the stars reflected. I did not want the stars. I had no use for them. I had been crazy, deranged, when I had fought for a place in the expedition, when I had let myself be turned into a bleeding sack in the gravirotors; what reason had I had, and why, why had I not realized that a man must be ordinary, completely ordinary, that otherwise it is
