The Palace of Dreams (9 page)

That was his last thought before he dropped off.

*
Members of the procession escorting a bride.

INTERPRETATION

Muck sooner
than he expected,
even before there was any sign of spring—and he’d thought he’d spend spring at least in Selection, and possibly even summer as well—Mark-Alem was transferred to Interpretation.

One day, before the bell rang for the break, he was told the Director-General wanted to see him. “What about?” he asked the messenger—though, thinking he saw a sardonic smile on the man’s face, he immediately regretted it. Clearly you didn’t ask that kind of question in the Tabir Sarrail.

As he went along the corridor he was assailed by all sorts of doubts and surmises. Could he have made some mistake in his work? Could someone have appeared from the depths of the Empire and come knocking at every door, going from office to office and vizier to vizier, claiming that his valuable dream had been thrown in the wastepaper basket? Mark-Alem tried to remember the dreams he’d rejected recently, but couldn’t recall any of them. Perhaps that wasn’t it, though. Perhaps he’d been summoned because of something else. It was nearly always like that. When you were sent for, it was almost invariably for some reason you could never have dreamed of. Was it something to do with breaking the secrecy rule? But he hadn’t seen any of his friends since he’d started working here. As he asked his way through the corridors he felt more and more strongly that he’d been in this part of the Palace before. He thought for a while this might be because all the corridors were identical, but when he finally found himself in the room with the brazier, where the square-faced man sat with his eyes glued to the door, he realized it had been the Director-General’s office he had knocked at on his very first day in the Tabir Sarrail. He’d been so absorbed in his work since then that he’d forgotten it even existed, and even now he had no idea what the square-faced man’s job was in the Palace of Dreams. Was he one of the many assistant directors, or the Director-General himself?

Mark-Alem stood in front of him, almost petrified with apprehension, and waited for the other to speak. But the official continued to contemplate the door, at about the height of the doorknob. Although he was by now familiar with this mannerism, Mark-Alem did wonder for a moment whether the man was waiting for someone else to arrive before he explained why he’d sent for him. But finally the man did tear his eyes away from the door.

“Mark-Alem …” he said in a very low voice.

Mark-Alem broke out in a cold sweat. He didn’t know what attitude to take. Should he say, “At your service,” or use some other polite formula? Or just stand and wait for the ghastly news to be revealed to him? He was now convinced he could only have been summoned about something disagreeable.

“Mark-Alem …” reiterated the other. “As I told you on your first day here, you suit us.”

My God! thought Mark-Alem. That strange phrase … I never thought I’d hear it again… .

“You suit us,” the senior official went on, “and that’s why from today you’re being transferred to Interpretation.”

Mark-Alem felt a buzzing in his ears. His eyes shifted involuntarily toward the brazier standing in the middle of the room. The embers were almost buried in ash, and seemed to be wearing a sardonic smile—the kind that appears on some people’s faces accompanied by half-closed eyes. It was these embers that had consumed Mark-Alem’s letter of recommendation on the memorable day of his arrival. They now seemed to be assuming an air of indifference.

“You’re quite right not to show any satisfaction,” said the voice.

And Mark-Alem wondered, How
am
I reacting?

As a matter of fact he didn’t feel any pleasure, though he knew he ought to be grateful, the more so as he’d been half dead with anxiety up till a few moments ago. He opened his mouth to say something, but the official’s voice interrupted.

“I understand. If you don’t express any pleasure it’s because you’re so conscious of the responsibility attaching to your new duties. Interpretation is rightly known as the nerve center of the Tabir. The salaries there are higher, but the work is more difficult—you’ll often have to do overtime—and above all the responsibility is greater. Nevertheless, you must realize you’re being done a favor. Don’t forget that the road to the heights in the Tabir Sarrail passes through Interpretation.”

For the first time he actually looked at Mark-Alem. Not at his face, but at his midriff—where the door handle would have been if he’d been a door.

The road to the heights in the Tabir passes through Interpretation, thought Mark-Alem to himself. He was about to say he might not be up to the requirements for so difficult a task as deciphering dreams when the other, as if he’d read his thoughts, got in first.

“The interpretation of dreams as practiced in the Tabir Sarrail is difficult, very difficult. It bears no resemblance to ordinary, popular interpretation—a snake a bad omen, a crown a good one, and so on. Nor has it anything in common with all the books on the subject. Interpretation in the Tabir is on a quite different and much higher level. It uses another kind of logic, other symbols and combinations of symbols.”

“That puts it even further beyond me,” Mark-Alem was tempted to say. He’d been frightened enough at the thought of dealing with traditional symbols—it would be far worse if he had to cope with new ones! He finally opened his mouth to speak, but was again interrupted.

“You may be wondering how you’ll ever manage to learn the techniques. Don’t worry, my boy—you
will
learn, and quite quickly too. Most people start off like you, hesitating and unsure of themselves, but many of them have gone on to become the pride and joy of the department. You’ll master the job in a couple of weeks, three at the most. And then—” here he beckoned, and Mark-Alem took a step forward—“that’ll be it. To try to learn more would be counterproductive; it could encourage you to work too mechanically. For the work in Interpretation is above all creative. It mustn’t carry the analysis of images and symbols too far. The main thing, as in algebra, is to arrive at certain principles. And even they mustn’t be applied too rigidly, or else the true point of the work could be missed. The higher form of interpretation begins where routine ends. What you must concentrate on are the permutations and combinations of symbols. One last tip: All the work that’s done in the Tabir is highly secret, but Interpretation is top top secret. Don’t forget it. And now off you go and start your new job. You’re expected there. Good luck!”

The official’s eyes were already riveted on the door again as Mark-Alem, overwhelmed, went out of it. He wandered the corridors in a state of bewilderment until at last he pulled himself together and remembered he was looking for Interpretation. The corridors were all completely deserted. The morning break must have gone by while he was with the official; he could tell from the characteristic silence that always descended after the interval. He walked on for a long time, hoping to meet someone from whom he could ask the way. But there was no one in sight. Sometimes he would think he heard footsteps ahead of him, around a bend in the corridor, but as soon as he got there the sounds would seem to recede in another direction, perhaps on the floor above, perhaps on that below. What if I roam about like this the whole morning, he thought. They’ll say I turned up late on my very first day. He got more and more worried. He should have asked the way from the assistant director, or the Director-General, or whoever the hell he was!

On he went. The passages seemed alternately familiar and strange. He couldn’t hear so much as a door being opened. He went up a broad staircase to the floor above, then came back again and soon found himself on the floor below. Everywhere he met with the same silence, the same emptiness. He felt it wouldn’t be long before he started screaming. He must now be in one of the remoter wings of the building; the pillars supporting the ceiling looked slightly shorter. Suddenly, just as he was going to turn back, he thought he saw a figure at the next bend in the corridor. He went toward it. A man was stationed in front of a door, and before Mark-Alem could come near he signed to him to stop. Mark-Alem halted.

“What do you want?” said the stranger. “No one’s allowed here.”

“I’m looking for Interpretation. I’ve been going round in circles for an hour.”

The man examined him suspiciously.

“You work in Interpretation and you don’t even know how to get there?”

“I’ve just been transferred there, but I don’t know where it is.”

The other went on scrutinizing him.

“Turn back the way you came,” he finally brought out, “and follow the corridor till you get to the main stairs. Then go up to the next floor and take the passage on the right from the landing. You’ll find Interpretation straight in front of you at the end.”

“Thank you,” said Mark-Alem, turning round.

As he went along he kept repeating, so as not to forget: along the corridor to the main stairs, next floor, passage on the right …

Who can he be, the man who just helped me? he wondered. He looked like a sentry, but what on earth is there to guard in this world of the deaf and dumb? This palace certainly is full of mysteries.

As he approached the stairs he thought he could see a wan light coming down from the glass roof over the stairwell. He breathed a sigh of relief.

He’d been working
in Interpretation for nearly three weeks. For the first fortnight he’d been attached to some of the older hands, to be initiated into the secrets of the department. Then one day his boss came and said, “You’ve learned enough now. From tomorrow on you’ll be given a file of your own.”

“So soon?” said Mark-Alem. “Am I really up to working all on my own?”

The boss smiled.

“Don’t worry. That’s how everyone feels at first. But the room supervisor’s over there—if you have any doubts about anything you can consult him.”

Mark-Alem had been working on his file for four days, and his brain had never felt so confused. His work in Selection had been harassing enough, but compared with this it was child’s play. He’d never have dreamed the work in Interpretation could be so diabolical.

He’d been given a file that was supposed to be an easy one—it was marked
Law and Order: Corruption.
But he sometimes thought: My God, if I lose my head with a file like this, what shall I do when I get one that deals with conspiracies against the State?

The file was stuffed with dreams. Mark-Alem had read about sixty of them, and had set aside a score or so that at first sight he thought he might be able to decipher. But when he went back to them, instead of looking the easiest, they looked the most difficult. So then he selected a few others, but after an hour or two they also had come to seem utterly confused and impenetrable.

It’s quite impossible! he kept telling himself. I shall go mad! Four whole days and I haven’t managed to unscramble one dream.

Every time some elements of a dream began to make sense he would be struck by a doubt, and what had seemed intelligible a moment before became inexplicable again.

The whole thing is pure folly! he thought, burying his face in his hands.