GLUMOV: Where’s the chief gone to? I’ve been trying to reach him all day, to no avail.
I: The chief’s away on business. He won’t be back for a while.
GLUMOV: That’s too bad. I need him desperately. I’d really like to talk to him.
I: Send a letter. They’ll forward it.
GLUMOV: (after some thought) It’s a long story. (I remember that phrase exactly.)
I: Then tell me what to tell him. Or how to reach you. I’ll write it down.
GLUMOV: No. It is personal.
Nothing else substantial was said. Rather, I don’t remember anything.
I want to stress that at the time all I knew about T. Glumov was that he had quit for personal reasons and had gone to join his wife on Pandora. That was why it did not occur to me to do the most elementary things such as recording the conversation, determining the call line, letting the President know, and so on. I can only add that I had the impression that T. Glumov was in a room lit with natural sunlight. Apparently, at the time he was on Earth in the Eastern Hemisphere.
Sandro Mtbevari
[End of Document 25.]
TO THE PRESIDENT OF SECTOR URALS-NORTH OF CC-2
Date: 23 January 101
FROM: M. Kammerer, head of UE Department
THEME: 060 T. Glumov, metagom
President!
I have nothing to report. The meeting did not take place. I waited for him at Red Beach until dark He did not show up.
Of course, it would not have been difficult to go to his house and wait for him there, but I feel that would have been a tactical error. His aim is not to harass us. He simply forgets. Let’s wait some more.
M. Kammerer
[End of Document 26]
DOCUMENT 27: A Letter from the Elusive Glumov
LAST: Glumov as an “historical fact”
COMCON-I
TO THE CHAIRMAN OF THE METAGOM COMMISSION KOMOV, G. YU.
My Captain!
I’m sending over two curious texts that have a direct bearing on the subject of your new passion.
TEXT I. (A note from T. Glumov to M. Kammerer)
Dear Big Bug!
It’s all my fault. But I’m prepared to make amends. The day after tomorrow, the second, exactly at 20:00 I will definitely be home. Waiting. I guarantee good food and promise to explain everything. Even though, as I see it, there is no great urgency for that now.
TEXT II. (Letter from A. Glumova, addressed to M. Kammerer along with T. Glumov’s note)
Dear Maxim!
He asked me to send this note to you. Why didn’t he send it himself? Why didn’t he just call you to make a date? I don’t understand a thing. Lately, I don’t understand him at all, even when we’re talking about seemingly simple things. But I do know that he is unhappy. Like all of them. When he is with me, he’s terribly bored. When he’s back home, he misses me, or he wouldn’t come back. He can’t go on living this way, and he’ll have to make a choice. I know what he will choose. lately he’s been coming back less and less. I know some of his brothers who have stopped coming back completely. There’s nothing more for them on Earth.
As for his invitation, naturally I will be happy to see you, but don’t count on his being there. I don’t.
Yours, A. Glumova
Naturally, Kammerer went to the meeting, and naturally, T. Glumov did not show up.
They are leaving, my captain. They are leaving, the miserable ones, and leaving miserable ones behind them. Humaneness. This is serious.
This is all so different from the apocalyptic pictures we painted for each other four years ago! Remember how old Gorbovsky, smiling cleverly, groaned: “The waves extinguish the wind…” We all nodded as if understanding, and you even continued the quote with a look so significant it bordered on criticism. But did we understand him then? None of us did.
Your Athos 13/11/102
[End of Document 27.]
Maxim!
I can’t do anything. They bow and scrape apologetically before me, they assure me of total respect and sympathy, but nothing changes. They’ve turned Toivo into a “historical fact.”
I know why Toivo is silent — he doesn’t care about all this, and then where is he, in which worlds? I can guess why Asya is silent — it’s horrible to say, but I think they’ convinced her.
But why are you silent? You loved him, I know that, and he loved you!
M. Glumova
30 June 126
Ust-Narva
As you see, I am no longer silent, Maya Toivovna. I have spoken. Everything that I could any and everything that I knew how to say.