Darkness at Noon (14 page)

New books arrived, too; the classics of social science appeared with new footnotes and commentaries, the old histories were replaced by new histories, the old memoirs of dead revolutionary leaders were replaced by new memoirs of the same defunct. Rubashov remarked jokingly to Arlova that the only thing left to be done was to publish a new and revised edition of the back numbers of all newspapers.

In the meantime, a few weeks ago, an order had come from “above”, to appoint a librarian who would take the political responsibility for the contents of the Legation library. They had appointed Arlova to this post. At first Rubashov had mumbled something about a “kindergarten” and had held the whole thing for an imbecility, up to the evening when, at the weekly meeting of the legation Party cell, Arlova had been sharply attacked from several sides. Three or four speakers, amongst whom was the First Secretary, rose and complained that some of the most important speeches of No. 1 were not to be found in the library, that on the other hand it was still full of oppositional works, and that books by politicians who had since been unmasked as spies, traitors and agents of foreign Powers had until quite recently occupied prominent positions in the shelves; so that one could hardly avoid a suspicion of an intentional demonstration. The speakers were dispassionate and cuttingly business-like; they used carefully selected phrases. It seemed as though they were giving each other the cues for a prearranged text. All speeches ended with the conclusion that the Party’s chief duty was to be watchful, to denounce abuses mercilessly, and that whoever did not fulfil this duty made himself an accomplice of the vile
saboteurs
. Arlova, summoned to make a statement, said with her usual equanimity, that she was far from having any evil intent, and that she had followed every instruction given to her; but while she was speaking in her deep, slightly blurred voice, she let her glance rest a long time on Rubashov, which she otherwise never did in the presence of others. The meeting ended with the resolution to give Arlova a “serious warning”.

Rubashov, who knew only too well the methods lately brought into use in the Party, became uneasy. He guessed that there was something in store for Arlova and felt helpless, because there was nothing tangible to fight against.

The air in the Legation became even thinner. Rubashov stopped making personal comments while dictating, and that gave him a singular feeling of guilt. There was apparently no change in his relations with Arlova, but this curious feeling of guilt, which was solely due to the fact that he no longer felt capable of making witty remarks while dictating, prevented him stopping behind her chair and putting his hands on her shoulders, as he used to do. After a week, Arlova stayed away from his room one evening, and did not come the following evenings either. It was three days before Rubashov could bring himself to ask her the reason. She answered something about a migraine in her sleepy voice and Rubashov did not press her any further. From then on she did not come again, with one exception.

This was three weeks after the cell meeting which had pronounced the “serious warning”, and a fortnight after she had first stopped visiting him. Her behaviour was almost as usual, but the whole evening Rubashov had the feeling that she was waiting for him to say something decisive. He only said, however, that he was glad she was back again, and that he was overworked and tired—which actually was the case. In the night he noticed repeatedly that she was awake and staring into the dark. He could not get rid of this tormenting sense of guilt; also his toothache had started again. That was her last visit to him.

Next day, before Arlova had appeared in his office, the Secretary told Rubashov, in a manner which was supposed to be confidential, but with each sentence carefully formulated, that Arlova’s brother and sister-in-law had been arrested a week ago “over there”. Arlova’s brother had married a foreigner; they were both accused of having treasonable connections with her native country in the service of the opposition.

A few minutes later Arlova arrived for work. She sat, as always, on her chair in front of the desk, in her embroidered blouse, slightly bent forward. Rubashov walked up and down behind her, and all the time he had before his eyes her bent neck, with the skin slightly stretched over the neck-bones. He could not take his eyes off this piece of skin, and felt an uneasiness which amounted to physical discomfort. The thought would not leave him that “over there” the condemned were shot through the back of the neck.

At the next meeting of the Party cell Arlova was dismissed from her post as librarian because of political untrustworthiness, on the motion of the First Secretary. No comment was made and there was no discussion. Rubashov, who was suffering from almost intolerable toothache, had excused himself from attending the meeting. A few days afterwards Arlova and another member of the staff were recalled. Their names were never mentioned by their former colleagues; but, during the months he remained in the Legation before he was himself recalled, the sisterly scent of her large, lazy body clung to the walls of his room and never left them.

ARIE, YE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH.

Since the morning of the tenth day after Rubashov’s arrest, his new neighbour to the left, the occupant of No. 406, tapped out the same line at regular intervals, always with the same spelling mistake: “ARIE” Instead of “ARISE”. Rubashov had tried to start a conversation with him several times. As long as Rubashov was tapping, his new neighbour listened in silence; but the only answer he ever received was a row of disconnected letters and to conclude always the same crippled verse:

ARIE, YE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH.

The new neighbour had been put in there the night before. Rubashov had woken, but had only heard muffled sounds and the locking of cell No. 406. In the morning after the first bugle-blast, No. 406 had at once started to tap: ARIE, YE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH. He tapped quickly and deftly, with the technique of a virtuoso, so that his spelling mistake and the senselessness of his other messages must have had not technical but mental causes. Probably the new neighbour’s mind was deranged. After breakfast, the young officer in No. 402 gave the sign that he wanted conversation. Between Rubashov and No. 402 a sort of friendship had developed. The officer with the eye-glass and the turned-up moustache must have been living in a state of chronic boredom, for he was always grateful to Rubashov for the smallest crumbs of conversation. Five or six times during the day he would humbly beg Rubashov:

DO TALK TO ME. ...

Rubashov was rarely in the mood for it; neither did he know quite what to talk about to No. 402. Usually No. 402 tapped out classical anecdotes of the officer’s mess. When the point had been reached, there would be a painful silence. They were dusty old anecdotes, of a patriarchal obscenity; one imagined how, having tapped them to a conclusion, No. 402 would wait for roars of laughter and stare despairingly at the dumb, whitewashed wall. Out of sympathy and politeness, Rubashov occasionally tapped out a loud HA-HA! with his pince-nez as a laughter-substitute. Then there would be no holding No. 402; he imitated an outburst of merriment, by drumming against the wall with fists and boots: HA-HA! HA-HA! and making occasional pauses, to make sure Rubashov was joining in. If Rubashov remained silent, he was reproachful: YOU DIDN’T LAUGH. ... If, in order to be left in peace, Rubashov gave one or two HA-HA’s, No. 402 informed him afterwards: WE HAD JOLLY GOOD FUN.

Sometimes he reviled Rubashov. Occasionally, if he got no answer, he would tap out the whole of a military song with an endless number of verses. It sometimes happened, when Rubashov was walking to and fro, sunk in a day-dream or in meditation, that he started humming the refrain of an old march, the sign for which his ear had unconsciously registered.

And yet No. 402 was useful. He had been there for more than two years already; he knew the ropes, he was in communication with several neighbours and heard all the gossip; he seemed informed of everything which happened in the building.

On the morning after the arrival of No. 406, when the officer opened the usual conversation, Rubashov asked him whether he knew who was his new neighbour. To which 402 replied:

RIP VAN WINKLE.

No. 402 was fond of speaking in riddles, in order to bring an element of excitement into the conversation. Rubashov searched his memory. He remembered the story of the man who had slept for twenty-five years and found an unrecognizable world on his awakening.

HAS HE LOST HIS MEMORY? asked Rubashov. No. 402, satisfied by his effect, told Rubashov what he knew. No. 406 had once been a teacher of sociology in a small state in the south-east of Europe. At the end of the last War he took part in the revolution which had broken out in his country, as in most countries of Europe at that time. A “Commune” was created, which led a romantic existence for a few weeks, and met the usual bloody end. The leaders of the revolution had been amateurs, but the repression which followed was carried out with professional thoroughness; No. 406, to whom the Commune had given the sonorous title of “State Secretary for the Enlightenment of the People”, was condemned to death by hanging. He waited a year for his execution, then the sentence was commuted to lifelong imprisonment. He served twenty years of it.

He served twenty years, most of the time in solitary confinement, without communication with the outside world, and without newspapers. He was to all intents and purposes forgotten; the administration of justice in that south-eastern country still was of a rather patriarchal character. A month ago he was suddenly released by an amnesty—Rip Van Winkle, who, after more than twenty years of sleep and darkness, finds himself on earth again.

He took the first train hither, to the land of his dreams. Fourteen days after his arrival he was arrested. Perhaps, after twenty years of solitary confinement, he had become too talkative. Perhaps he had told people what he had imagined the life would be like over here—during the days and nights in his cell. Perhaps he had asked for the addresses of old friends, the heroes of the Revolution, without knowing that they were nothing but traitors and spies. Perhaps he had laid a wreath on the wrong grave, or had wished to pay a call on his illustrious neighbour, Comrade Rubashov.

Now he could ask himself which was better two decades of dreams on a palliasse in a dark cell or two weeks’ reality in the light of day. Perhaps he was no longer quite sane. That was the story of Rip Van Winkle. ...

Some time after No. 402 had tapped out his long report, Rip Van Winkle again started; five or six times he repeated his mutilated verse, ARIE, YE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH, and then fell silent.

Rubashov lay on his bunk, with eyes shut. The “grammatical fiction” was again making itself felt; it did not express itself in words, only in a vague uneasiness which meant:

“For that too you must pay, for that too you are responsible; for you acted while he dreamed.”

In the same afternoon Rubashov was taken to be shaved.

This time the procession consisted only of the old warder and one uniformed guard; the old man shuffled along two steps ahead, the soldier marched along two steps behind Rubashov. They passed No. 406; but there was still no name-card on the door. In the barber’s shop there was only one of the two prisoners who ran it; it was obviously being seen to that Rubashov did not make too many contacts.

He sat down in the armchair. The establishment was comparatively clean; there was even a mirror. He took off his pince-nez and glanced at his face in the glass; he saw no change, except for the stubble on his cheeks.

The barber worked in silence, rapidly and carefully. The door of the room remained open; the warder had shuffled off; the uniformed guard stood leaning against the door-post and watched the procedure. The tepid lather on his face made Rubashov feel happy; he felt a slight temptation to yearn after the little pleasures of life. He would have liked to chat to the barber, but he knew it was forbidden, and he did not want to make trouble for the barber, whose broad, open face he liked. By his physiognomy, Rubashov would have taken him more for a locksmith or a mechanic. When the soaping was over, after the first stroke of the razor, the barber asked whether the blade did not scratch, addressing him as “Citizen Rubashov”.

It was the first sentence spoken since Rubashov had entered the room, and in spite of the barber’s matter-of-fact tone, it acquired a special significance. Then there was silence again; the guard in the doorway lit a cigarette; the barber trimmed Rubashov’s goatee and head with quick, precise movements. While he stood bent over Rubashov, the latter caught his eye for a moment; in the same instant the barber pushed two fingers under Rubashov’s collar, as if to reach the hair on his neck more easily; as he drew out his fingers, Rubashov felt the scratching of a little ball of paper under his collar. A few minutes later the operation was over and Rubashov was conducted back to his cell. He sat down on the bed, with his eye on the spy hole to make sure he was not observed, extracted the bit of paper, flattened it and read it. It consisted of only three words, apparently scribbled in a great hurry:

“Die in silence.”

Rubashov threw the scrap of paper into the bucket and started again on his wanderings. It was the first message which had reached him from outside. In the enemy country he had often had messages smuggled to him in prison; they had summoned him to raise his voice in protest, to hurl the accusation back at his accusers. Were there also moments in history, in which the revolutionary had to keep silent? Were there turning points in history, where only one thing was required of him, only one thing was right: to die in silence?

Rubashov’s thoughts were interrupted by No. 402, who had started tapping immediately on his return; he was bursting with curiosity and wanted to find out where Rubashov had been taken.

TO BE SHAVED, explained Rubashov.

I FEARED THE WORST ALREADY, tapped No. 402 feelingly.

AFTER YOU, tapped back Rubashov.