Travels In The Scriptorium Part 5

Confused by her response, the old man nevertheless struggles to stick to his train of thought. Have you ever heard of someone called Flood? James P. Flood. English fellow. Ex-policeman. Talks with a c.o.c.kney accent.

Wouldn't you rather eat your lunch now? Sophie asks. The food is getting cold.

In a minute, Mr. Blank snaps back at her, peeved that she has changed the subject. Just give me a minute. Before we talk about eating, I want you to tell me everything you know about Flood.

I don't know anything. I heard he was around here this morning, but I've never met him.

But your husband ... your first husband, I mean ... this Fanshawe ... He wrote books, didn't he? In one of them, one of them called ... d.a.m.n it ... I can't remember the t.i.tle. Never ... Never something ...

Neverland.

That's it. Neverland. He used Flood as one of the characters in that book, and in chapter ... chapter thirty I think it was, or maybe it was chapter seven, Flood has a dream.

I don't remember, Mr. Blank.

Are you saying that you didn't read your husband's novel?

No, I read it. But it was such a long time ago, and I haven't looked at it since. You probably won't understand, but for my own peace of mind I've made a conscious decision not to think about Fanshawe and his work.

What ended the marriage? Did he die? Were you divorced?

I married him when I was very young. We lived together for a few years, I got pregnant, and then he vanished.

Did something happen, or did he leave you on purpose?

On purpose.

The man must have been insane. Walking out on a beautiful young thing like you.

Fanshawe was an extremely troubled person. So many good qualities, so many fine things in him, but at bottom he wanted to destroy himself, and in the end he managed to do it. He turned against me, he turned against his work, and then he walked out of his life and disappeared.

His work. You mean he stopped writing?

Yes. He gave up everything. He had great talent, Mr. Blank, but he came to despise that part of himself, and one day he just stopped, he just quit.

It was my fault, wasn't it?

I wouldn't go that far. You played a part in it, of course, but you were only doing what you had to do.

You must hate me.

No, I don't hate you. I went through a tough period for a while, but everything worked out pretty well after that. I got married again, remember, and it's been a good marriage, a long and good marriage. And then there are my two boys, Ben and Paul. They're all grown up now. Ben is a doctor, and Paul's studying to become an anthropologist. Not too bad, if I do say so myself. I hope you get to meet them one day. I think you'll be very proud.

Now Sophie and Mr. Blank are sitting beside each other on the bed, facing the stainless steel cart with the various dishes of Mr. Blank's lunch lying on the surface, each plate hidden by a round metal cover with a hole in the center. Mr. Blank has worked up an appet.i.te and is eager to begin, but before he is allowed to touch a morsel of food, Sophie tells him, he must first take his afternoon pills. In spite of the understanding that has developed between them over the past several minutes, and in spite of the pleasure Mr. Blank feels at being so close to Sophie's warm and ample body, he balks at this demand and refuses to swallow the medication. Whereas the pills he ingested that morning were green, purple, and white, the ones now sitting on the surface of the stainless steel cart are pink, red, and orange. Sophie explains that they are indeed different pills, designed to produce different effects from the ones he took earlier, and that the treatment will fail unless he takes these in conjunction with the others. Mr. Blank follows the argument, but that in no way convinces him to change his mind, and as Sophie picks up the first pill between her thumb and middle finger and tries to give it to him, Mr. Blank stubbornly shakes his head.

Please, Sophie implores him. I know you're hungry, but one way or another these pills are going into your system before you take a bite of food.

f.u.c.k the food, Mr. Blank says, with bitterness in his voice.

Sophie sighs with exasperation. Look, old-timer, she says, I only want to help you. I'm one of the few people around here who's on your side, but if you won't cooperate, I can think of at least a dozen men who'd be happy to come in here and force these pills down your throat.

All right, Mr. Blank says, beginning to relent somewhat. But only on one condition.

Condition? What are you talking about?

I'll swallow the pills. But first you have to take off your clothes and let me run my hands over your body.

Sophie finds the proposition so ludicrous, she bursts out in a fit of laughter a little realizing that this is exactly how the other Sophie responded under similar circ.u.mstances all those many years ago at the frozen pond of Mr. Blank's boyhood. And then, to add insult to injury, she delivers the fatal words: Don't be silly.

Ah, says Mr. Blank, tipping backward as if someone has just smacked him across the face. Ah, he groans. Say anything you want, woman. But not that. Please. Not that. Say anything but that.

Within seconds, Mr. Blank's eyes have filled with tears, and before he knows what is happening, the tears are rolling down his cheeks and the old man is crying in earnest.

I'm sorry, Sophie says. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.

What's wrong with wanting to look at you? Mr. Blank asks, choking through his sobs. You have such beautiful b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I just want to see them and touch them. I want to put my hands on your skin, to run my fingers through your pubic hair. What's so terrible about that? I'm not going to hurt you. I just want a little tenderness, that's all. After everything that's been done to me in this place, is that too much to ask?

Well, Sophie says thoughtfully, doubtless feeling some compa.s.sion for Mr. Blank's plight, maybe we can come up with a compromise.

Such as? Mr. Blank asks, as he wipes away the tears with the back of his hand.

Such as ... Such as, you take the pills, and each time you swallow one, I'll let you touch my b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s?

No. I'd rather keep my blouse on.

That's not good enough.

All right. I'll take off the blouse. But the bra stays where it is. Understood?

It's not quite paradise, but I suppose I'll have to accept it.

And in that way the matter is resolved. Sophie sheds the blouse, and as she does so Mr. Blank is heartened to see that the bra she is wearing is of the flimsy, lacy variety and not some drab piece of equipment worn by elderly matrons and others who have thrown in the towel on physical love. The upper halves of Sophie's round and abundant b.r.e.a.s.t.s are uncovered, and even lower down, the material of the bra is so thin as to allow him a clear view of her nipples jutting against the fabric. Not quite paradise, Mr. Blank says to himself as he downs the first pill with a sip of water, but rather satisfying all the same. And then his hands are upon them a his left hand on the right breast, his right hand on the left breast a and as he savors the bulk and softness of Sophie's somewhat pendulous but n.o.ble mammaries, he is further gladdened to observe that she is smiling. Not from pleasure, perhaps, but at least from amus.e.m.e.nt, thereby demonstrating that she bears him no ill will and is taking the adventure in her stride.

You're a dirty old man, Mr. Blank, she says.

I know, he answers. But I was a dirty young man, too.

They work their way through the process twice more a the downing of a pill followed by another delicious encounter with the b.r.e.a.s.t.s a and then Sophie puts on her blouse again, and the moment for lunch has arrived.

Unfortunately, the repeated fondling of a desirable woman's flesh has wrought a predictable change in the flesh of the fondler himself. Mr. Blank's old friend is acting up again, and because our hero is no longer wearing the cotton trousers and underpants and is quite naked under the pajama bottoms, there is no barrier to prevent Mr. Bigshot from bounding out through the slit and poking his head into the light of day. This happens at the precise moment Sophie leans forward to begin removing the metal covers from the plates, and as she bends down to store the covers on the lower shelf of the cart, her eyes are just inches from the offending culprit.

Look at you, Sophie says, addressing her words to Mr. Blank's erect p.e.n.i.s. Your master squeezes my t.i.ts a few times, and now you're all ready for action. Forget it, pal. The fun is over.

I'm sorry, Mr. Blank says, for once truly embarra.s.sed by his behavior. It just kind of popped out on its own. I wasn't expecting it.

No apologies necessary, Sophie replies. Just stick that thing back in your pants, and we'll get down to business.

Business in this case is Mr. Blank's lunch, which consists of a small bowl of now tepid vegetable soup, a club sandwich on white toast, a tomato salad, and a cup of red Jell-o. We will not give an exhaustive account of the consumption of this meal, but one event nevertheless bears mentioning. As was the case after Mr. Blank took his pills in the morning, his hands begin to tremble uncontrollably the instant he tries to eat his food. These might be different pills, designed for different purposes and swathed in different colors, but in the matter of the trembling hands their effect is identical. Mr. Blank begins the meal by attacking the soup. As one might imagine, the inaugural journey of the spoon as it departs from the bowl toward Mr. Blank's mouth is a difficult one, and not a single drop makes it to the intended destination. Through no fault of his own, everything in the spoon comes raining down on Mr. Blank's white shirt.

Good G.o.d, he says. I've done it again.

Before the meal can continue, or, more exactly, before the meal can begin, Mr. Blank is obliged to remove the shirt, which is the last article of white clothing he has on, and replace it with the pajama top, thus reverting to the same attire he was discovered in at the beginning of this report. It is a sad moment for Mr. Blank, for now there is not a single trace left of Anna's gentle and meticulous efforts to dress him and prepare him for the day. Even worse, he has now entirely reneged on his promise to wear white.

As Anna did before her, Sophie now takes it upon herself to feed Mr. Blank. Although she is no less kind and patient with him than Anna was, Mr. Blank does not love Sophie in the way he loves Anna, and therefore he looks over her left shoulder at a spot on the far wall as she brings the various spoons and forks to his mouth, pretending it is Anna who is sitting beside him and not Sophie.

Do you know Anna well? he asks.

I met her only a few days ago, Sophie replies, but we've already had three or four long talks. We're very different in all sorts of ways, but we see eye to eye on the stuff that really counts.

Like what?

You, for one thing, Mr. Blank.

Is that why she asked you to fill in for her this afternoon?

I think so.

I've had a pretty awful day so far, but finding her again has done me a lot of good. I don't know what I'd do without her.

She feels the same way about you.

Anna ... But Anna what? I've spent hours trying to remember her last name. I think it begins with a B, but I can't get any further than that.

Blume. Her name is Anna Blume.

Of course! shouts Mr. Blank, striking his forehead with the palm of his left hand. What the h.e.l.l is wrong with me? I've known that name all my life. Anna Blume. Anna Blume. Anna Blume ...

Now Sophie is gone. The stainless steel cart is gone, the soup-splattered white shirt is gone, the wet and dirty clothes from the tub are gone, and once again, having taken a proper, uneventful pee in the bathroom with Sophie's help, Mr. Blank is alone, sitting on the edge of the narrow bed, palms spread out on his knees, head down, staring at the floor. He ponders the details of Sophie's recent visit, chastising himself for not having asked her any questions about the things that concern him most. Where he is, for example. Whether he is allowed to walk in the park without supervision. Where the closet is, if indeed there is a closet, and why he hasn't been able to find it. Not to mention the eternal enigma of the door a and whether it is locked from the outside or not. Why did he hesitate to bare his soul to her, he wonders, she who is nothing if not a sympathetic person who holds no grudge against him? Is it simply a question of fear, he asks himself, or does it have something to do with the treatment, the noxious, debilitating treatment that has slowly robbed him of the power to stand up for himself and fight his own battles?

Not knowing what to think, Mr. Blank shrugs, slaps his hands on his knees, and rises from the bed. Several seconds later, he is sitting at the desk, the ballpoint pen in his right hand, the little pad in front of him, opened to the first page. He searches the list for Anna's name, discovers it on the second line directly below James P. Flood, and prints out the letters B-l-u-m-e, thus changing the entry from Anna to Anna Blume. Then, because all the lines on the first page have been filled, he turns to the second page and adds two more entries to the list: John Trause Sophie As he closes the pad, Mr. Blank is dumbfounded to realize that Trause's name returned to him with no effort at all. After so many struggles, so many failures to remember names and faces and events, he considers this to be a triumph of the first magnitude. He rocks back and forth in the chair to celebrate his accomplishment, wondering if the afternoon pills aren't responsible in some way for counteracting his memory loss of the previous hours, or if it isn't just a lucky fluke, one of those unexpected things that happen to us for no apparent reason. Whatever the cause, he decides to go on thinking about the story now, in antic.i.p.ation of a visit from the doctor that evening, since Farr told him he would do everything possible to allow him to go on telling the story to the end a not tomorrow, when Mr. Blank will no doubt have forgotten the bulk of what he has recounted so far, but today. As the old man goes on tipping back and forth in the chair, however, his eyes fall upon the strip of white tape affixed to the surface of the desk. He has looked at that piece of tape no fewer than fifty or a hundred times during the course of the day, and each time he did so the white strip was clearly marked with the word DESK. Now, to his astonishment, Mr. Blank sees that it is marked with the word LAMP. His initial response is to think that his eyes have fooled him in some way, so he stops rocking back and forth in order to take a closer look. He leans forward, lowers his head until his nose is nearly touching the tape, and carefully studies the word. To his immense chagrin, he discovers that it still reads LAMP.

With a growing sense of alarm, Mr. Blank clambers out of the chair and begins shuffling around the room, stopping at each strip of white tape attached to an object in order to find out if any other words have been altered. After a thorough investigation, he is horrified to discover that not a single label occupies its former spot. The wall now reads CHAIR. The lamp now reads BATHROOM. The chair now reads DESK. Several possible explanations flare up in Mr. Blank's mind at once. He has suffered a stroke or brain injury of some kind; he has lost the ability to read; someone has played a nasty trick on him. But if he is the victim of a prank, he asks himself, who can be responsible for it? Several people have visited his room in the past few hours: Anna, Flood, Farr, and Sophie. He finds it inconceivable that either one of the women would have done such a thing to him. It's true, however, that his mind was elsewhere when Flood came in, and it's also true that he was in the bathroom flushing the toilet when Farr entered, but he can't imagine how either one of those men could have pulled off such an elaborate switching operation in the short period of time they were not in his field of vision a several seconds at most, scarcely any time at all. Mr. Blank knows that he is not in top form, that his mind is not working as well as it ought to, but he also knows that he is no worse now than he was when the day began, which would dispense with the stroke theory, and if he has lost the ability to read, how could he have made the two recent additions to his list of names? He sits down on the edge of the narrow bed and wonders if he didn't doze off for a few minutes after Sophie left the room. He doesn't remember having fallen asleep, but in the end that is the only explanation that makes sense. A fifth person entered the room, a person who was not Anna or Flood or Farr or Sophie, and switched the labels during Mr. Blank's brief, now-forgotten plunge into oblivion.

An enemy is stalking the premises, Mr. Blank says to himself, perhaps several or many of them working in league with one another, and their only intention is to frighten him, to disorient him, to make him think he is losing his mind, as if they were trying to persuade him that the shadow-beings lodged in his head had transformed themselves into living phantoms, bodiless souls conscripted to invade his little room and cause as much havoc as possible. But Mr. Blank is a man of order, and he is offended by the childish mischief-making of his captors. From long experience, he has come to appreciate the importance of precision and clarity in all things, and during the years when he was sending out his charges on their various missions around the world, he always took great pains to write up his reports on their activities in a language that would not betray the truth of what they saw and thought and felt at each step along the way. It will not do, then, to call a chair a desk or a desk a lamp. To indulge in such infantile whimsy is to throw the world into chaos, to make life intolerable for all but the mad. Mr. Blank has not reached the point where he cannot identify objects that do not have their names affixed to them, but there is no question that he is in decline, and he understands that a day might come, perhaps soon, perhaps even tomorrow, when his brain will erode still further and it will become necessary for him to have the name of the thing on the thing in order for him to recognize it. He therefore decides to reverse the damage created by his unseen enemy and return each one of the scrambled labels to its proper spot.

The job takes longer to complete than he thinks it will, for Mr. Blank soon learns that the strips of tape on which the words have been written are endowed with almost supernatural powers of adhesion, and to peel one of them off the surface to which it is attached requires unstinting concentration and effort. Mr. Blank begins by using his left thumbnail to pry the first strip loose (the word WALL, which has landed on the oak board at the foot of the bed), but no sooner does he manage to slide his nail under the lower right-hand corner of the tape than the tip of the nail snaps. He tries again with the nail of his middle finger, which is somewhat shorter and therefore less frangible, and diligently hacks away at the stubborn right-hand corner until enough tape has detached itself from the bed for Mr. Blank to put a small section between his thumb and middle finger and, tugging gently so as not to cause a tear, pull the whole strip from the oak board. A satisfying moment, yes, but one that has required a good two minutes of laborious preparation. Considering that there are twelve strips of tape to be removed in all, and considering that Mr. Blank breaks three more fingernails in the process (thus diminishing the number of usable fingers to six), the reader will understand why it takes him more than half an hour to finish the job.

These strenuous activities have worn out Mr. Blank, and instead of pausing to look around the room and admire his work (which, however small and insignificant it might appear to be, is for him nothing short of a symbolic undertaking to restore harmony to a broken universe), he shuffles off into the bathroom to rinse the sweat from his face. The old dizziness has returned, and he clutches the sink with his left hand as he splashes water onto himself with his right. By the time he turns off the spigot and begins to reach for a towel, he is suddenly feeling worse, worse than he has felt at any moment of the day so far. The trouble seems to be located somewhere in his stomach, but before he can p.r.o.nounce the word stomach to himself, it is traveling up his windpipe, accompanied by an unpleasant tingling in his jaws. He instinctively clutches the sink with both hands and lowers his head, bracing himself against the attack of nausea that has inexplicably overcome him. He fights against it for a second or two, praying that he can ward off the coming explosion, but it is a hopeless cause, and an instant later he is vomiting into the sink. They've poisoned me! Mr. Blank shouts, once the onslaught is over. The monsters have poisoned me!

When the action resumes, Mr. Blank is stretched out on the bed, looking up at the white, freshly painted ceiling. Now that the murderous toxins have been flushed from his system, he feels drained of energy, half-dead from the savage bout of puking, retching, and weeping that took place in the bathroom just minutes ago. And yet, if such a thing is possible, he also feels better, more tranquil in the core of his debilitated self, more prepared to face the trials that no doubt lie ahead.

As Mr. Blank continues to study the ceiling, its whiteness gradually conjures up an image to him, and instead of looking at a ceiling he fancies that he is staring at a sheet of blank paper. Why this should be so he cannot say, but perhaps it has something to do with the dimensions of the ceiling, which is rectilinear and not square, meaning that the room is rectilinear and not square as well, and although the ceiling is much larger than a sheet of paper, its proportions are roughly similar to those of the standard eight-and-a-half-by-eleven-inch page. As Mr. Blank pursues this thought, something stirs inside him, some distant memory he cannot fix in his mind, that keeps breaking apart the closer he gets to it, but through the murk that is blocking him from seeing the thing clearly in his head, he can dimly make out the contours of a man, a man who is undoubtedly himself, sitting at a desk and rolling a sheet of paper into an old manual typewriter. It's probably one of the reports, he says out loud, speaking in a soft voice, and then Mr. Blank wonders how many times he must have repeated that gesture, how many times over the years, understanding now that it was no fewer than thousands of times, thousands upon thousands of times, more sheets of paper than a man could possibly count in a day or a week or a month.

Thinking about the typewriter recalls the typescript he read earlier in the day, and now that he has more or less recovered from the exasperating job of peeling off the strips of white tape and returning them to their correct spots in the room, and now that the battle that flared up so violently in his stomach has been quelled, Mr. Blank remembers that he was planning to go on with the story, to map out the tale to its conclusion in order to prepare himself for the supplementary visit from the doctor that evening. Still stretched out on the bed with his eyes open, he considers for a moment whether to carry on in silence, that is, to tell the story to himself in his mind, or else to continue improvising the events out loud, even if there is no one in the room to follow what he is saying. Because he is feeling particularly alone just now, fairly crushed by the weight of his enforced solitude, he decides to pretend that the doctor is in the room with him and to proceed as before, that is, to tell the story with his voice rather than merely think it in his head.

Let's get on with it, shall we? he says. The Confederation. Sigmund Graf. The Alien Territories. Ernesto Land. What year is it in this imaginary place? About eighteen-thirty, I'd guess. No trains, no telegraph. You travel by horse, and you can wait as long as three weeks for a letter to arrive. Much like America, but not identical. No black slaves, for one thing, at least none mentioned in the text. But more ethnic variety than here for that moment in history. German names, French names, English names, Spanish names. All right, where were we? Graf is in the Alien Territories, looking for Land, who might or might not be a double agent, who might or might not have absconded with Graf's wife and daughter. Let's back up a little bit. I think I went too fast before, jumped to too many hasty conclusions. According to Joubert, Land is a traitor to the Confederation who's formed his own private army to help lead the Primitives in an invasion of the western provinces. I detest that word, by the way. Primitives. It's too flat, too blunt, has no flair. Let's try to think of something more colorful. Hmmm ... I don't know ... Maybe something like ... the Spirit People. No. No good. The Dolmen. The Olmen. The Tolmen. Awful. What's wrong with me? The Djiin. That's it. The Djiin. Sounds a little like Injun, but with other connotations mixed in as well. All right, the Djiin. Joubert thinks Land is in the Alien Territories to lead the Djiin in an attack on the western provinces. But Graf thinks it's more complicated than that. Why? For one thing, he believes Land is loyal to the Confederation. For another, how could Land have crossed the border accompanied by a hundred men without Colonel De Vega's knowledge? De Vega claims to know nothing about it, but Carlotta has told Graf that Land entered the Territories more than a year ago, and unless she's lying, De Vega is in on the plot. Or else a and this is something I didn't think of before a Land bribed De Vega with a large sum of money, and the Colonel isn't involved at all. But that has nothing to do with Graf, who never suspects the possibility of a bribe. According to his reasoning, Land, De Vega, and the entire military are planning to hatch a phony war with the Djiin in order to hold the Confederation together. Maybe they intend to wipe out the Djiin in the process, maybe not. For the moment, there are only two possibilities: Joubert's position and Graf's position. If this story is going to add up to anything, though, there has to be a third explanation, something no one ever would have expected. Otherwise, it's just too d.a.m.ned predictable.

All right, Mr. Blank continues, after a short pause to focus his thoughts. Graf has come to two Gangi villages, and the inhabitants of both have been ma.s.sacred. He's buried the raving white soldier, and now he doesn't know what to think. For the time being, as he slowly wends his way toward Land, let's separate the two main questions he's confronted with. The professional question and the private question. What is Land doing in the Territories, and where are his wife and daughter? To be perfectly honest, this domestic issue bores me. It can be resolved in any one of several ways, but each solution is an embarra.s.sment: too trite, too hackneyed, not worth thinking about. One: Beatrice and Marta have run away with Land. If Graf finds them together, he's vowed to kill Land. Either he'll succeed or he won't, but at that point the story devolves into a simple melodrama of a cuckold trying to defend his honor. Two: Beatrice and Marta have run away with Land, but Beatrice has died a either from the effects of the cholera epidemic or from the hardships of living in the Territories. a.s.sume that Marta, now sixteen, has grown into a woman and is traveling with Land as his lover. What does Graf do then? Does he still try to kill Land, murdering his old friend while his only daughter begs him to spare the life of the man she loves? Oh Daddy, please, Daddy, don't do it! Or does Graf let bygones be bygones and forget the whole thing? One way or the other, it won't wash. Three: Beatrice and Marta have run away with Land, but both of them have died. Land won't mention their names to Graf, and that element of the story turns into a defunct red herring. Trause was apparently quite young when he wrote this piece, and it doesn't surprise me that he never published it. He worked himself into a corner with the two women. I don't know what solution he came up with, but I'd bet good money that it was the second one a which is just as bad as the first and the third. As far as I'm concerned, I'd just as soon forget about Beatrice and Marta. Let's say they died in the cholera epidemic and leave it at that. Poor Graf, of course, but if you want to tell a good story, you can't show any pity.

Okay, Mr. Blank says, clearing his throat as he tries to pick up the thread of the narrative, where were we? Graf. Graf alone. Graf wandering around the desert on his horse, the good steed Whitey, searching for the elusive Ernesto Land ...

Mr. Blank stops. A new idea has entered his head, a fiendish, devastating illumination that sends a wave of pleasure shuddering through his body, from the very toes on his feet to the nerve cells in his brain. In a single instant, the whole business has been made clear to him, and as the old man contemplates the shattering consequences of what he now knows is the inevitable choice, the only choice available to him from a horde of contending possibilities, he begins to pound his chest and kick his feet and shake his shoulders as he lets out a whoop of wild, convulsive laughter.

Hold on, Mr. Blank says, raising a hand to his imaginary interlocutor. Scratch everything. I've got it now. Back to the beginning. Part two, that is. Back to the beginning of part two, when Graf slips across the border and enters the Alien Territories. Forget the ma.s.sacre of the Gangi. Forget the second ma.s.sacre of the Gangi. Graf steers clear of all Djiin villages and settlements. The No-Entrance Decrees have been in force for ten years, and he knows the Djiin will not take kindly to his presence. A white man traveling alone in the Territories? Impossible. If they find him, he's as good as dead. So he keeps a wide berth, confining himself to the vast wilderness areas that separate the different nations from one another, looking for Land and his men, yes, encountering the raving soldier, yes, but once he finds what he's looking for, it's altogether the opposite of what he was expecting. On a barren plain in the north central region of the Territories, a stretch of country similar to the salt flats in Utah, he chances upon a mound of a hundred and fifteen corpses, some of them mutilated, some of them intact, all of them rotting and decomposing in the sun. Not Gangi bodies, not the bodies of any members of the Djiin nations, but white men, white men in soldiers' uniforms, at least those who weren't stripped naked and hacked to pieces, and as Graf stumbles around this putrid, nauseating ma.s.s of the slaughtered dead, he discovers that one of the victims is his old friend Ernesto Land a lying on his back with a bullet hole in his forehead and a swarm of flies and maggots crawling over his half-eaten face. We won't dwell on Graf's response to this horror: the puking and weeping, the howling, the rending of his garments. What matters is this. Because his encounter with the raving soldier took place only two weeks earlier, Graf knows the ma.s.sacre must be fairly recent. But most of all, what matters is this: he has no doubt that Land and his men were murdered by the Djiin.

Mr. Blank pauses to emit another laugh, more restrained than the last one, perhaps, but nevertheless a laugh that manages to express both joy and bitterness at the same time, for even if Mr. Blank is happy to have reshaped the story according to his own design, he knows that it is a gruesome story for all that, and a part of him recoils in terror from what he has yet to tell.

But Graf is wrong, he says. Graf knows nothing about the sinister scheme he's been drawn into. He's the fall guy, as they say in the movies, the patsy who's been set up by the government to put the machinery in motion. They're all in on it a Joubert, the Ministry of War, De Vega, the whole lot of them. Yes, Land was sent into the Territories as a double agent, with instructions to stir up the Djiin into invading the western provinces, which would unleash the war the government so desperately wants. But Land fails in his mission. A year goes by, and when nothing happens after all that time, the men in power conclude that Land has betrayed them, that for one reason or another his conscience has gotten the better of him and he's made peace with the Djiin. So they cook up a new plan and send a second army into the Territories. Not from Ultima, but from another garrison several hundred miles to the north, and this contingent is much larger than the first, at least ten times larger, and with a thousand troops against a hundred, Land and his ragtag bunch of idealists don't have a chance. Yes, you heard me correctly. The Confederation sends in a second army to wipe out the first army. All in secret, of course, and if a man such as Graf should be sent out to look for Land, he would naturally conclude that the Djiin are responsible for that pile of stinking, mutilated corpses. At this point, Graf becomes the key figure in the operation. Without knowing it, he's the person who's going to get the war started. How? By being allowed to write his story in that crummy little cell in Ultima. De Vega works him over in the beginning, beats him constantly for a whole week, but that's only to put the fear of G.o.d into him and convince him that he's about to be executed. And when a man thinks he's about to die, he's going to spill his guts on paper the moment he's allowed to write. So Graf does what they want him to do. He tells about his mission to track down Land, and when he comes to the ma.s.sacre he discovered in the salt flats, he omits nothing, describes the whole abomination down to the last gory detail. That's the crucial point: a vivid, eyewitness account of what happened, with all the blame put on the Djiin. When Graf finishes his story, De Vega takes possession of the ma.n.u.script and releases him from prison. Graf is stunned. He was expecting to be shot, and here he is being paid a large bonus for his work and given a free ride back to the capital in a first-cla.s.s carriage. By the time he makes it home, the ma.n.u.script has been skillfully edited and released to every newspaper in the country. CONFEDERATION SOLDIERS Ma.s.sACRED BY DJIIN. A Firsthand Report by Sigmund Graf, Deputy a.s.sistant Director of the Bureau of Internal Affairs.

Graf returns to find the entire population of the capital up in arms, clamoring for an invasion of the Alien Territories.He understands now how cruelly he's been tricked. War on this scale could potentially destroy the Confederation, and it turns out that he, and he alone, was the match that ignited this deadly fire. He goes to Joubert and demands an explanation. Now that things have worked out so well, Joubert is all too happy to give it to him. Then he offers Graf a promotion with a large increase in salary, but Graf counters with an offer of his own: I resign, he says, and then he marches out of the room, slamming the door behind him. That evening, in the darkness of his empty house, he picks up a loaded revolver and fires a bullet through his skull. And that's it. End of story. Finita, la commedia.

Mr. Blank has been talking steadily for nearly twenty minutes, and he is tired now, and not only from the exertions of his vocal cords, for his throat was irritated to begin with (brought on by the upchuck binge in the bathroom just minutes before), and he delivers the final sentences of his tale with a noticeable rasp in his voice. He closes his eyes, forgetting that such an action is likely to bring back the procession of figment beings blundering through the wilderness, the mob of the d.a.m.ned, the faceless ones who will eventually surround him and tear his body apart, but this time luck spares Mr. Blank from the demons, and when he closes his eyes he is once again in the past, sitting in a wooden chair of some kind a an Adirondack chair he believes it is called a on a lawn somewhere in the country, some remote and rustic spot he cannot identify, with green gra.s.s all around him and bluish mountains in the distance, and the weather is warm, warm in the way summer is warm, with a cloudless sky above and the sun pouring down on his skin, and there is Mr. Blank, many years ago now it would seem, back in the days of his early manhood, sitting in the Adirondack chair and holding a small child in his arms, a one-year-old girl child dressed in a white T-shirt and a white diaper, and Mr. Blank is looking into the eyes of the little girl and talking to her, what words he cannot say, for this excursion into the past is unfolding in silence, and as Mr. Blank talks to the little girl, she is looking back at him with an intent and serious expression in her eyes, and he wonders now, lying on the bed with his eyes closed, if this small person isn't Anna Blume at the beginning of her life, his beloved Anna Blume, and if it isn't Anna, whether the child might not be his daughter, but what daughter, he asks himself, what daughter and what is her name, and if he is the father of a child, where is the mother and what is her name, he asks himself, and then he makes a mental note to inquire about these matters the next time a person enters the room, to find out if he has a home somewhere with a wife and children, or once had a wife, or once had a home, or if this room is not the place where he has always lived, but Mr. Blank is about to forget this mental note and therefore will forget to ask these questions, for he is extremely tired now, and the image of himself in the Adirondack chair with the young child in his arms has just vanished, and Mr. Blank has fallen asleep.

Because of the camera, which has gone on taking one picture per second throughout this report, we know for certain that Mr. Blank's nap lasts for exactly twenty-seven minutes and twelve seconds. He might have gone on sleeping much longer than that, but a man has now entered the room, and he is tapping Mr. Blank on the shoulder in an effort to wake him. When the old man opens his eyes, he feels entirely refreshed by his brief sojourn in the Land of Nod, and he sits up immediately, alert and ready for the encounter, with no trace of grogginess clouding his mind.

The visitor appears to be in his late fifties or early sixties, and like Farr before him, he is dressed in a pair of blue jeans, but whereas Farr was wearing a red shirt, this man's shirt is black, and while Farr came into the room empty-handed, the man in the black shirt is carrying a thick bundle of files and folders in his arms. His face is deeply familiar to Mr. Blank, but as with so many of the faces he has seen today, whether in photographs or in the flesh, he is at a loss to attach a name to it.

Are you Fogg? he asks. Marco Fogg?

The visitor smiles and shakes his head. No, he says, I'm afraid not. Why would you think I'm Fogg?

I don't know, but when I woke up just now I suddenly remembered that Fogg stopped by around this time yesterday. A minor miracle, actually, now that I think about it. Remembering, I mean. But Fogg came in. I'm certain of that. For afternoon tea. We played cards for a while. We talked. And he told me a number of funny jokes.

Jokes? the visitor asks, walking over to the desk, swiveling the chair by a hundred and eighty degrees, and sitting down with the pile of dossiers on his lap. As he does so, Mr. Blank stands up, shuffles forward for several feet, and then sits down on the bottom edge of the mattress, settling into roughly the same spot that Flood occupied earlier in the day.

Yes, jokes, Mr. Blank continues. I can't remember them all, but there was one that struck me as especially good.

You wouldn't mind telling it to me, would you? the visitor asks. I'm always on the lookout for good jokes.

I can try, Mr. Blank answers, and then he pauses for a few moments to collect his thoughts. Let's see, he says. Hmmm. Let me see. I think it begins like this. A man walks into a bar in Chicago at five o'clock in the afternoon and orders three scotches. Not one after the other, but all three at once. The bartender is a little puzzled by this unusual request, but he doesn't say anything and gives the man what he wants a three scotches, lined up on the bar in a row. The man drinks them down one by one, pays the bill, and leaves. The next day, he comes back at five o'clock and orders the same thing. Three scotches all at once. And the day after that, and every day after that for two weeks. Finally, curiosity gets the better of the barman. I don't mean to be nosy, he says, but you've been in here every day for the past two weeks ordering your three scotches, and I'd just like to know why. Most people take them one at a time. Ah, the man says, the answer is very simple. I have two brothers. One of them lives in New York, one lives in San Francisco, and the three of us are very close. As a way of honoring our friendship, we all go into a bar at five in the afternoon and order three scotches, silently toasting one another's health, pretending that we're all together in the same place. The barman nods, finally understanding the reason for this strange ritual, and thinks no more about it. The business goes on for another four months. The man comes in every day at five o'clock, and the bartender serves him the three drinks. Then something happens. The man shows up at his regular hour one afternoon, but this time he orders only two scotches. The bartender is worried, and after a while he plucks up his courage and says: I don't mean to be nosy, but every day for the past four and a half months you've come in here and ordered three scotches. Now you order two. I know it's none of my business, but I just hope nothing's gone wrong with your family. Nothing's wrong, the man says, as bright and chipper as ever. What is it, then? the bartender asks. The answer is very simple, the man says. I've stopped drinking.

The visitor erupts in a prolonged fit of laughter, and while Mr. Blank does not join in, since he already knew the punch line, he nevertheless smiles at the man in the black shirt, pleased with himself for having pulled off the joke so well. When the hilarity at last dies down, the visitor looks at Mr. Blank and says: Do you know who I am?

I'm not sure, the old man replies. Not Fogg, in any case. But there's no question that I've met you before a many times, I think.

I'm your lawyer.

My lawyer. That's good ... very good. I was hoping I'd see you today. We have a lot to talk about.

Yes, says the man in the black shirt, patting the bundle of files and folders on his lap. A great deal to talk about. But before we get down to that, I want you to take a good look at me and try to remember my name.

Mr. Blank looks carefully at the man's thin, angular face, peers into his large gray eyes, studies his jaw and forehead and mouth, but in the end he can do no more than let out a sigh and shake his head in defeat.

I'm Quinn, Mr. Blank, the man says. Daniel Quinn. Your first operative.

Mr. Blank groans. He is mortified with shame, embarra.s.sed to such a point that a part of him, the innermost part of him, wants to crawl into a hole and die. Please forgive me, he says. My dear Quinn a my brother, my comrade, my loyal friend. It's these rotten pills I've been swallowing. They've screwed up my head, and I can't tell if I'm coming or going anymore.