The Palace of Dreams (16 page)

“Mark-Alem,” said the supervisor, “I think it might be a good thing if for one of these dreams”—he flicked rapidly through the file—“here, this is the one… .I think for one of these dreams, this one, to be precise”—he plucked out the relevant page—“it might be a good idea if you went down to the Archives and looked up the interpretation previously given to this kind of thing… .”

For a moment Mark-Alem looked at the page, with his own explanation of the dream written at the bottom. Then he looked back at the supervisor.

“Please yourself,” said the other, “but I think you should take my advice. I have a feeling this dream is important, and in such cases it’s usually wise to refer to past experience.”

“I don’t doubt it. But…”

“Haven’t you ever been to the Archives?” the supervisor interrupted.

Mark-Alem shook his head. The supervisor smiled.

“It’s very easy,” he said. “There are people there specially to help. You have only to tell them what kind of dream you want to consult them about. This is a particularly easy example: Dreams dreamed just before deadly confrontations are all kept together. I’m sure that if you glance at a few of them it’ll help you to solve this one better”—tapping the sheet of paper he was holding.

“Of course,” said Mark-Alem, holding his hand out for it.

“The Archives are downstairs in the basement,” said the supervisor. “You’re bound to meet someone in the corridors who’ll tell you the way.”

Mark-Alem walked steadily out of the room. Out in the corridor he took a deep breath before making up his mind which way to go. Then he remembered he had to go down to the ground floor first and start inquiring there.

He did this, and it took him nearly half an hour to get to the basement. Now what? he wondered when he found himself alone in a long vaulted passage feebly lighted by lamps attached to the walls on either side. Thinking he could hear footsteps not far off, he hurried along to join the unknown person making them; but the footsteps hurried too. He stopped; the other did the same. Then he realized that the footsteps were his own. God, he thought, it’s always the same in this wretched Palace! How much would it have cost to put up a few notices showing the way to the various departments? By now he’d come to suspect that this corridor was circular. Every so often he still thought he could hear distant footsteps, but they could just as easily have been the echo of his own, or those of people on other floors. But strangely enough, he now felt quite peaceful. Whatever happened he was bound to find his way out, as he had done the other times. He was used to this kind of misadventure now. As he walked along he discovered that the circular passage was crossed by others of varying widths, but he didn’t dare go along any of them for fear of getting lost. After half an hour it seemed to him he was back where he started from. I’m just going around in a circle like a horse on a threshing floor, he thought.

He stopped for a moment, breathed deeply, then resolutely advanced again. This time he turned into the first side passage he came to. He soon had reason to congratulate himself, for after he’d gone a few steps he saw a door in one wall. There was another door farther along. This must be where the confounded Archives are, he thought with relief, though he couldn’t decide which of the two doors to knock at. He went on, and more doors appeared on either side. He went up to one of them, but still didn’t knock. I’ll try the next one, he promised himself, but once again his resolution evaporated. How could he just burst in, not even knowing where he was? Perhaps it would be better to wait until a door opened of its own accord and someone came out that he could ask. He halted, undecided. But what if someone came along, saw him standing there like a sentry, and asked him: “Hey, you—what do you think you’re doing here? …” What a bore, he thought, and started walking again. He felt as though he’d done nothing else since he came to work in the Palace but wander round the corridors without ever finding what he was looking for. Oh, to hell with hesitations! Here goes! he said to himself, and banged loudly on the next door he came to. His hand sprang back at once, and if he could he would have tried to take back his knocks, but alas, they had irrevocably thundered out inside. He waited a few seconds; no voice was to be heard from within. He made up his mind and knocked again, then turned the door handle. But the door didn’t open. It must be locked, he thought, and all my dithering was pointless. He walked on a bit and knocked at another door. This one was locked too. He tried others. They were all shut. Where am I then? he wondered. This can’t be the Archives.

Hurrying on, he knocked no more, but with a spitefulness he scarcely understood himself, he twisted every doorknob as he went along. He had a wild desire to give those silent doors a good bashing. He would certainly have set about doing so if a door hadn’t suddenly opened when he least expected it. He’d given it such a shove he almost shot into the room. His hand mechanically grabbed for the knob to try to close the door again, but it was too late. The door was now wide open, and as if that weren’t enough, a pair of eyes, amazed at the sudden irruption of this wild-looking individual, were staring at him coldly.

“What’s going on?” said a voice from the other side of the room.

The cold eyes continued to scrutinize Mark-Alem.

“I’m sorry,” he stammered, recoiling. “I do apologize …” His brow was covered in perspiration. “Please forgive me!”

“What
is
going on, Aga Shahin?” said the voice again.

“Nothing of any importance,” the other answered. His eyes still fixed on the intruder, he asked: “What do you want?”

Half dead with embarrassment, Mark-Alem opened his mouth to speak, though he wasn’t very clear what he was going to say. Fortunately, his hand went to his pocket and encountered the piece of paper with the dream on it.

“I’ve come to consult the files … in the usual way … about a dream,” he faltered. “But I think I may have come to the wrong door. I’m sorry—it’s the first time …”

“No, you didn’t come to the wrong door.”

This was the other voice. At first it had come from behind some shelves, and now Mark-Alem located it for the first time. A familiar face, with bright, smiling eyes, now showed itself.

“You!” murmured Mark-Alem, recalling his first morning and the cafeteria where they’d met. “Do you work here?”

“Yes. So you remember me?” said the other kindly.

“Of course. But I’ve never seen you again since that first time.”

“I saw
you
once when everyone was going home, but you didn’t notice me.”

“Really? I must have been preoccupied—I’d have liked to …”

“You did look rather worried. How’s the work going?”

“Quite well.”

“Still in Selection?”

“No, I’ve been transferred to Interpretation.”

“Really?” said the other, surprised. “You soon got promoted. Congratulations! I’m really glad.”

“Thanks. Is this the Archives?”

“Yes. Did you come to look something up?”

Mark-Alem nodded.

“I’ll help you.”

The archivist whispered a few words to his colleague, whose hitherto cold eyes now showed a lively curiosity.

“What sector do you want to look in?” asked the archivist. Mark-Alem shrugged.

“I don’t know. This is the first time I’ve been down here.”

“I’ll give you a hand.”

“I’d be very grateful.”

The archivist led the way out of the room.

“I thought I’d meet you again one day,” he said as they went along the passage.

“I couldn’t find you in the cafeteria.”

“No wonder, in all that crowd …”

Their footsteps kept time as they walked.

“Do the Archives really take up all this room?” said Mark-Alem, nodding toward the network of passages.

“Yes. It’s a real labyrinth. You can easily get lost in it.”

“Thank goodness I met you—I don’t know what I’d have done otherwise.”

“Somebody else would have helped you,” replied the archivist.

He walked on in front, while Mark-Alem fretted at not being able to express his gratitude properly.

“Yes, there’d certainly have been somebody else who’d have helped you,” said the other. “But I’m going to show you all around the Archives.”

“Really?” said Mark-Alem, overwhelmed. “But perhaps you’ve got things to do—I don’t want to be a nuisance.”

“Not at all! I’m only too glad to be able to do a little favor for a friend.”

Mark-Alem was embarrassed, and didn’t know what to say.

“If the Tabir Sarrail is like sleep in comparison with real life,” went on the archivist, opening a door, “the Archives are like a deeper sleep still inside the sleep of the Tabir.”

Mark-Alem followed him into an oval-shaped room with walls covered with shelves up to the ceiling.

“There are dozens of rooms like this,” said the archivist, pointing to the shelves. “You see these files? There are thousands of them. Tens of thousands.”

“And are they all full?”

“Of course,” answered the other, leading the way out again. “But we’ll go to all the rooms and you can see for yourself.”

They were now walking along a narrow passage that seemed to Mark-Alem to slope slightly downward. It was faintly illumined by the light coming from other passages or from the circular corridor.

“Everything is here,” said the archivist, slowing down. “What I mean is: If the world were to end—if the earth collided with a comet, say, and were smashed to pieces; or if it evaporated, or disappeared into the abyss—if the globe just vanished leaving no trace but this cellar full of files, that would be enough to show what it used to be like.”

The archivist turned around, as if to see what effect his words had had on his companion.

“Do you see what I mean? No history book, no encyclopedia, not all the holy tomes and suchlike put together, nor any school or university or library could supply the truth about our world in so concise and complete a form as these Archives.”

“But isn’t that truth rather distorted?” Mark-Alem ventured to ask.

The archivist’s smile looked even more ironic in profile than it would have done seen full face.

“Who can say it’s not what we see with our eyes open that is distorted, and that what’s described here isn’t the true essence of things?” He slowed down outside a door. “Haven’t you ever heard old men sigh that life’s a dream?”

He opened the door, and Mark-Alem followed him in. It was an extremely long room, and as in the previous one the walls were covered from floor to ceiling with shelves full of files. One pile was stacked on the floor, apparently for lack of space. Two men were bustling around by the shelves at the far end of the room.

“What’s your dream about?” asked the archivist. Mark-Alem touched the sheet of paper folded away in his pocket.

“It predicts much loss of life in war.”

“Oh, one of those dreamed just before great slaughter. They’re kept in another section, but don’t worry—we’ll find them. These dreams”—the archivist pointed to the shelves on the left—“are those of the
dark people,
and the dreams opposite are those of the
bright people
.”

Mark-Alem would have liked to ask him what he meant, but didn’t like to. He followed him in and out of the narrow passages between the shelves. The other stopped in front of a shelf that was sagging under the weight of all the files on it.

“This is where they keep the dreams about the end of the world according to the inhabitants of places where the winters are very windy.”

He made as if to straighten up the shelf.

“Sometimes,” he said, “the people who come down here are very conceited and objectionable. But I like you—you’re nice, and it’s really a pleasure to show you round.”

“Thank you.”

A low door led off into an adjoining room. The smell of old paper grew more and more pungent, and Mark-Alem was beginning to find it rather difficult to breathe.

“The Resurrection of the Dead …” said the archivist. “Allah, the horrors there are here! … Well, let’s go on a bit. This is Chaos, on all these shelves here—Earth and Heaven all mixed up together. Life-in-death or death-in- life—take your pick. Female life projects. Male life projects … Let’s go on a bit farther. Erotic dreams—all this room and the adjoining ones are full of them. Economic crises, depreciations, income from land, banks, bankruptcies—all that kind of thing is here. And here are conspiracies, too. Coups d’état nipped in the bud. Government intrigues …”

The archivist’s voice seemed to be coming from farther and farther away. Sometimes, especially when the two men were in the corridors leading from one room to another, Mark-Alem could scarcely hear what he was saying. The vaulted ceiling sent back a quavering echo.

“And now … ow … ow … we’re going to see … ee … ee ? the dreams about imprisonment ?

Every time a door creaked, Mark-Alem shuddered. “Dreams of the first period of captivity …” said the archivist, indicating the relevant shelves, “or as they’re also called, dreams of early captivity, to distinguish them from the later ones, the dreams of deep imprisonment. The two kinds are very different. In the same way as first loves are different from later ones. And from here to the end of the room are the files containing the really wild imaginings.”

Really wild imaginings…Mark-Alem couldn’t take his eyes off the shelves. How long would he go on wandering through this inferno?

“Yesterday the Master-Dream officers were down here researching till late at night,” the archivist told him, lowering his voice. “There’s nothing surprising about that. All the great disasters are gathered together here, beginning with what some peoples have recently taken to calling ‘national renaissance.’ This refers, you understand, not to the resurrection of a dead person, but to that of a whole nation—the sort of thing one daren’t even name… . Dreams dreamed on the eve of bloodshed, you said?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Here are the files on that. Most of them are dreams dreamed on the eve of battles, some of them just before dawn.…The battle of Kerk-Kili…The battle of Bayazit Yeldrum, against Tamburlaine. The two Hungarian campaigns …”

“Is the battle of Kosovo here?” asked Mark-Alem faintly.