Clerks are, as a rule, quite savvy types. Their sense of smell, at least for certain things, is quite impressive. It was perfectly obvious that he had guessed who I was. And maybe even where I came from. He called a porter, whispered something to him, and we went up to the ninth floor.
“What currency did he pay in?” I asked.
“Who? Pebblebridge?”
“Yes.”
“I think… ah yes, marks, German marks.”
“And when did he arrive here?”
“One minute… it will come to me… sixteen marks … precisely four days ago.”
“Did he know that Rimeyer stayed with you?”
“Excuse me, but I can’t say. But the day before yesterday, they had dinner together. And yesterday, they had a long talk in the foyer. Early in the morning while everybody was still up.”
It was unusually clean and tidy in Rimeyer’s room. I walked about looking over the place. Suitcases stood in the closet. The bed was rumpled, but I could see no signs of struggle. The bathroom also was clean and tidy. Boxes of Devon were stacked on the shelf.
“What do you think — should I call the police?” asked the clerk.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Check with your administration.”
“You understand that I am in doubt again. True, he didn’t say goodbye. But it all looked completely innocent. He could have given me a sign, and I would have understood him — we have known each other a long time. He was pleading Mr. Pebblebridge: ‘The radio, please don’t forget the radio.’”
The radio lay under the mirror, hidden by a negligently thrown towel.
“Yes?” I said. “And what did Mr. Pebblebridge say to that?”
Mr. Pebblebridge was soothing him, saying, “Of course, of course, don’t worry…”
I took the radio, and leaving the bathroom, sat down at the desk. The clerk looked back and forth from the radio to me.
So, I thought, now he knows why I came here. I turned it an. It moaned and howled. They all know about slug. No need for Eli, nor Rimeyer; you can take anyone at random. This clerk, for instance. Right now, for instance. I turned it off and said, “Please be good enough to turn on the combo.”
He ran over to it with mincing steps, turned it on, and eyed me questioningly.
“Leave it on that station. A little softer. Thank you.”
“So you don’t advise me to call the police?”
“As you wish.”
“It seemed you had something quite definite in mind when you questioned me.”
“It only seemed so,” I said coldly. “It’s just that I dislike Mr. Pebblebridge. But that does not concern you.”
The clerk bowed.
“I’ll stay here for a while, Val,” I said. “I have a notion that this Mr. Pebblebridge will be back. It won’t be necessary to announce that I am here. In the meantime, you are free to go.”
“Yes, sir,” he said.
When he left, I rang up the service bureau and dictated a telegram; “Have found the meaning of life but am lonely brother departed unexpectedly come at once Ivan.” Then I turned on the radio again, and again it howled and screeched. I took off the back and pulled out the local oscillator-mixer. It was no mixer. It was a slug. A beautiful precision subassembly, of obviously mass-produced derivation, and the more I looked at it, the more it seemed that somewhere, sometime, long before my arrival here, and more than once, I had already seen these components in some very familiar device. I attempted to recollect where I had seen them, but instead, I remembered the room clerk and his face with a weak smile and his understanding, commiserating eyes. They are all infected. No, they hadn’t tried slug — heaven forbid! They hadn’t even seen one! It is so indecent! It is the worst of the worst! Not so loud, my dear, how can you say that in front of the boy… but I’ve been told it’s something out of this world…. Me?… How can you think that, you must have a low opinion of me after all…. I don’t know, they say over at the Oasis, Buba has it, but as for myself — I don’t know…. And why not? I am a moderate man — if I feel something is not right, I’ll stop…. Let me have five packets of Devon, we have made up a fishing party (hee, hee!). Fifty thousand people. And their friends in other towns. And a hundred thousand tourists every year. The problem is not with the gang. That’s the least of our worries, for what does it take to scatter them? The problem is that they are all ready, all eager, and there is not the slightest prospect of the possibility to prove to them that it is terribly frightening, that it is the end, that it is the last debasement.
I clasped the slug in my fist, propped up my head on it, and stared at Rimeyer’s dress jacket with the ribbon bar on it, hanging on the back of the chair. Just like me, he must have sat in this chair a few months ago, and also held the slug and radio for the second time, and the same warm flick of desire wandered through the depths of his consciousness: there is nothing to worry about, because now there is light in any darkness, sweetness in any grief, joy in any pain….
…There, there, said Rimeyer. Now you have got it. You just have to be honest with yourself. It is a little shameful at first, and then you begin to understand how much time you have lost for nothing…. …Rimeyer, I said, I wasted time not for myself. This cannot be done, it simply cannot, it is destruction for everyone, you can’t replace life with dreams…. …Zhilin, said Rimeyer, when man does something, it is always for himself. There may be absolute egotists in this world, but perfect altruists are just impossible. If you are thinking of death in a bathtub, then, in the first place, we are all mortal, and in the second place, if science gave us slug, it will see to it that it will be rendered harmless. And in the meantime, all that is required is moderation. And don’t talk to me of the substitution of reality with dreams. You are no novice, you know perfectly well that these dreams are also part of reality. They constitute an entire world. Why do you then call this acquisition ruin?… …Rimeyer, I said, because this world is still illusory, it’s all within you, not outside of you, and everything you do in it remains in yourself. It is the opposite of the real world, it is antagonistic to it. People who escape into this illusory world cease to exist in the real world. They become as dead. And when everyone enters the illusory world — and you know it could end thus — the history of man will terminate…. …Zhilin, said Rimeyer, history is the history of people. Every man wants to live a life which has not been in vain, and slug gives you such a life…. Yes, I know that you consider your life as not having been in vain without slug, but, admit it, you have never lived so luminously, so fully as you have today in the tub. You are a bit ashamed to recollect it, and you wouldn’t risk recounting it to others. Don’t. They have their life, you have yours…. …Rimeyer, I said, all that is true. But the past! Space, schools, the struggle with fascists, gangsters — is all that for naught? Forty years for nothing? And the others — they did it all for nothing, too?… …Zhilin, said Rimeyer, nothing is for nothing in history. Some fought and did not live long enough to have slug. You fought and lived long enough…. …Rimeyer, I said, I fear for mankind. This is really the end. It’s the end of man interacting with nature, the end of the interplay of man with society, the end of liaisons among individuals, the end of progress, Rimeyer. AU these billions of people submerged in. hot water and in themselves… only in themselves…. … Zhilin, said Rimeyer, it’s frightening because it’s unfamiliar. And as for progress — it will come to an end only for the real society, only for the real progress. But each separate man will lose nothing, he will only gain, since his world will become infinitely brighter, his ties with nature, illusory though they may be, will become more multifaceted; and ties with society, also illusory but not so known to him, will become more powerful and fruitful. And you don’t have to mourn the end of progress. You do know that everything comes to an end. So now comes the end of progress in the objective world. Heretofore, we didn’t know how if, would end, But we know now. We hadn’t had time to realize all the potential intensity of objective existence, it could be that we would have reached such knowledge in a few hundred years, but now it has been put in our grasp. Slug brings a gift of understanding of our remotest ancestors which you cannot ever have in real life. You are simply the prisoner of an obsolete ideal, but be logical, the ideal which slug offers you is just as beautiful. Hadn’t you always dreamed of man with the greatest scope of fantasy and gigantic imagination…. …Rimeyer, I replied, if you only knew how tired I am of arguing. All my life I have argued with myself and with others. I have always loved to argue, because otherwise life is not worth living. But I am tired right now and don’t wish to argue over slug, of all things…. …Then go on, Ivan, said Rimeyer….