Twinnings ordered breakfast: toast, ham and eggs, port, other things. All his life he had breakfasted heartily; often the sign of positive natures. He had suffered much less from the hardships of the times than I and many others had. Without making great compromises, people like Twinnings are useful everywhere; they make light of any government. They take things only as seriously and importantly as is necessary: a change in circumstances goes only skin-deep with them. He had been one of the judges at my trial. It was my destiny that those for whom I had taken risks passed judgment upon me.
He filled my glass with port. I washed down my resentment. “Here’s to you, old Mercurian.”
He laughed. “When you work for Zapparoni, you won’t lead a dog’s life either. We’ll call Teresa at once.”
“Very kind of you to think of it—but she went out shopping.”
Why didn’t I tell him that, together with all the rest, they had disconnected our telephone. It probably wouldn’t be news to him. He certainly knew, cunning fox that he was, that I had an empty stomach. But he had not ordered breakfast until I agreed.
After all that has been said, surely nobody has gained the impression that Twinnings went to all this trouble gratuitously. The only exception he made with former comrades was that they did not have to pay him a commission. But, of course, he compensated himself. To men like Zapparoni, a few pounds did not matter.
Twinnings was doing well in his business. The advantage of it was that it hardly looked like a business. It consisted in his knowing a lot of people and profiting thereby. I, too, knew many people, but this did not help my economics; I had even more expenses. But Twinnings knew Zapparoni and myself: it meant business for him. Moreover, it was easy work; no one else I knew had a more pleasant and regular mode of life. He did business while he was breakfasting, dining, and when he went to the theater in the evening. There are people to whom money flows easily and inconspicuously; they do not know the difficulties others have. As long as I had known Twinnings, he had been one of these, and he had not changed. Even his parents had been well-to-do.
I don’t want to put him in too unfavorable a light; everyone has his weaknesses and his strengths. Twinnings, for example, did not have to do what now occurred to him—go into the next room, and return with a fifty-pound note, which he handed to me. I needed little persuasion to accept it.
Beyond any doubt he did not want me to show up at Zapparoni’s completely broke. But yet another matter underlay this gesture—our old comradeship. It was Monteron’s training, which no one who had ever received it could belie. How often had we cursed him, lying dog-tired on our beds after a day when one drill had followed on the heels of another—on foot, on horseback, in the stables, and on the endless sandy tracks. Monteron recognized these moments of despair and took a delight in capping it all with some night drill—for instance, an alert.
I have to admit that the lazy flesh disappeared. Our muscles became hard as steel, refined on the anvil of an experienced blacksmith. Even our faces changed. Among other things, we learned to ride, to fence, to take a fall. And these we learned for life. On our characters, too, Monteron left his permanent mark. He could become especially disagreeable when he heard that one of us had left a comrade in a tight spot. If a drunken cadet had got into a scrape, Monteron’s first question was: Was anyone with him? And God have mercy on the fellow who had abandoned his comrade and who had not looked after him as though he were a small child. That you must never, under any circumstances, leave a comrade alone in danger—whether in the city or in combat—was one of the basic principles which Monteron hammered into our heads, either at the sandbox or during the field exercises or on those formidable Mondays.
Although we were a lightheaded bunch of youths, in this regard he was successful—nobody can deny that. When we were gathered around him on the evening before we joined our regiments—he became very genial and gay—our dinner was more than an ordinary farewell gathering. He would perhaps say: “There has been no shining light in this year’s class, and in other respects it has been hard work. But there is not one of you on whom the King could not rely. That is, after all, the main point.”
None of us drank too much that evening. We clearly understood that something more than the King, more than his office, stood behind the Old Man; this knowledge remained with us for life and perhaps even longer. It lasted even when no one any longer remembered who the King had been. Monteron, too, was long since forgotten—actually, ours had been the last class he had charge of. He was among the first to be killed—before Liege, I believe, at night. Of his pupils, too, only a few are alive.
But you could still recognize his stamp on all of us. Later we used to meet once or twice a year in the backroom of small eating places, in the middle of cities so strangely changed, having been twice destroyed and rebuilt in the meanwhile. On these evenings Monteron’s name inevitably came up in our talk as through curtains of flame, and the atmosphere of that farewell celebration, of that last evening, was for a moment recaptured.
Once Monteron had said: “Twinnings, you are really more ‘light’ than ‘cavalryman’”—stinging words indeed; but even on such a businessman, Monteron had left his distinctive mark. I am convinced that Twinnings acted against his true nature when, seeing me sit at his table like a poor relative, he went into the next room to fetch me some spending money. But, after having forced me to swallow a bitter pill, he could not act otherwise, for Monteron was reawakened in him. Twinnings remembered one of the basic patterns which Monteron had stamped on our minds, namely, that I stood in the front line—though it was not a respectable one—and he in the reserve.
So we were agreed, and Twinnings walked me to the door. Then something else flashed into my mind:
“And who had this job up to now?”
“Another Italian, Caretti; but he left three months ago.”
“Retired?”
“Something like that. Never heard of again, vanished into space, and nobody knows where he is now.”
III
This conversation took place on a Saturday. On Monday morning I took a taxi out to the plant. On Saturday evening Twinnings had given me an affirmative answer. At Zapparoni’s they worked, of course, on Sundays.
Teresa had put my things in order. She was overjoyed by the news and immediately saw me in a high position; she had made up a fantasy for herself. She had much too high an opinion of me; she probably needed it. Timid about herself, she was convinced that she was a drag on me, a burden damaging to my career. The opposite was true. If, in this increasingly dismal world, I still had something like a home, it was with her.
When we were in trouble—and this was the rule recently—I often felt at night, beside me, that almost imperceptible trembling of a woman who wants to conceal her weeping. When I urged her to tell me the reason, she always told the same story: first, that it would have been much better had she never been born and that she and I had never met; then, that she had spoiled my career and ruined me. It did no good to tell her that I had always been man enough to ruin myself without help; in fact, that my greatest success came in just this—but I could not talk her out of her absurd ideas.
We derive, it’s true, a certain moral support from being overrated. It stimulates the good in us. As I’ve said before, I was used to this sort of thing from my mother, whose image, incidentally, as I held it in my memory, had fused imperceptibly with that of Teresa. How often, during the frequent stormy scenes at home, had my mother sided with me against my father. She would say: “But our boy is not a bad boy,” to which my father retorted: “He is and always will be a good-for-nothing.” Then mother would say again: “But bad he definitely is not,”—because a woman must always have the last word.
The Zapparoni plant was some distance outside the city. In almost every town there were large and small affiliated establishments—branches and licensed firms, warehouses, replacement and repair shops—but this plant was the head, the master workshop for the models, from whic
h year by year novel and miraculous surprises flooded the world as if poured from a cornucopia. Here Zapparoni himself lived when he was not traveling.
Twinnings’ telegram had arrived on Saturday: I was to come for an interview. On Sunday since I was haunted by what Twinnings had told me before I had left, I succeeded in running to earth Caretti’s family doctor. The consultation had set me at ease. The doctor did not think he was betraying a confidence when he told me what had been the matter with Caretti; in any case it was generally known. Like so many overscrupulous people at Zapparoni’s, Caretti had gradually become peculiar, eventually beyond the admissible limit. A manic disturbance, diagnosed by the doctors as a compulsion neurosis coupled with a persecution mania, was nourished by hallucinations about automatons. In such cases the patients believe themselves threatened by cunningly devised machinery, and their world slowly transforms itself into a phantasmagoria, similar to the imaginings of medieval painters. Caretti had suffered from the delusion of being encircled by minute, evilly-intentioned airplanes.
It is not unusual that such disturbed people disappear and never turn up again. The doctor, a slightly built, nervous psychiatrist, remembered a patient whose remains had been found after some years in a badger’s burrow: he had crawled into it and killed himself. The doctor was very voluble, describing the symptoms pedantically but with such relish that on my way home I almost reached the point of imagining myself threatened by similar phantoms. Actually, I was much relieved.
The plant now appeared in the distance: low white towers and flat-roofed ateliers in great numbers, all without antennas or chimneys. The buildings were surrounded by bright colors, since the all-encircling wall was covered with innumerable posters. A side line of the business, cultivated by Zapparoni with special devotion, was the cinema, which he had brought to an almost fabulous perfection with his robots and automatons.
Prognoses which have been made contend that our technology will terminate in pure necromancy. If so, everything we now experience would be only a departure and mechanics would become refined to a degree that would no longer require any crude embodiment. Lights, words, yes even thoughts, would be sufficient. Clearly, the Zapparoni films had very nearly realized such a future. The dreams of old Utopians were coarse-grained in comparison. With the freedom and elegance of dancers, the automatons had opened up a world of their own. Here a principle operative only in dreams—namely, that matter thinks—seemed to be realized, Naturally, these movies had a strong attraction, Children, in particular, were held spellbound. Zapparoni had dethroned the old stock figures of the fairy tales. Like one of the storytellers who sits down on a carpet in an Arabian coffeehouse and transforms the room, he spun out his fables. He created novels which could not only be read, heard, and seen but could be entered as one enter a garden. In his opinion, nature was inadequate, both in its beauty and logic, and should be surpassed. He created, in fact, a style which became a model for the actors who adapted themselves to it. Among his creations were the most charming puppets—truly enchanting visions.
These movies had contributed to Zapparoni’s popularity in a very special way. He had become the kind grandfather who tells stories. One thought of him as having a long white beard like an old-fashioned Santa Claus. Parents even complained that their children were too preoccupied with him. They could not fall asleep, were overexcited, had nightmares. But after all, life was a strain everywhere. Pressure molded the race, and one had to put up with it.
Advertisements for such movies completely covered the wall which enclosed the plant on all four sides. And a street, so wide that it resembled the approach to a fortification, ran around its whole length. Without the colorful posters, the wall would, undoubtedly have looked too sober, too much like a fortress, chiefly because of the pale towers which rose above it at intervals. Over the whole complex of buildings a yellow balloon floated.
Along the road, bright signs indicated that we were entering a restricted area. The driver dutifully called my attention to them. We had to drive slowly and were not permitted to carry either weapons, or Geiger counters, or cameras, binoculars, etc. Protective suits and sunglasses were also prohibited. There was a lively traffic both on the road and around the wall; the byways, on the other hand, were completely empty.
Gradually the posters became more distinct. They depicted the visit of Heinz-Otto to the Queen of the Termites: Tannhäuser in Venusberg, adapted to a child’s mind. Here Zapparoni’s robots appeared as rich and powerful gnomes: the splendor and the marvels of her subterranean palace no longer showed the slightest trace of artificiality. This type of movie ran in twelve chapters through the whole calendar year and children were consumed with curiosity about each episode. This serial influenced their way of dressing and their tastes. You could see them in the playgrounds—now as space travelers, now as speleologists, another time as sailors in submarines or as cowboys. With these technically-tinged fairy tales and adventure stories, Zapparoni aroused strong and lasting enthusiasm. The children lived in his world. Parents and teachers were of two minds: some felt that children learned easily from them, while others were afraid that they might become too excited. And it is true that strange and alarming effects were often observed. But you cannot stop the trend of the times. In any case, is the real world any less fantastic? What doesn’t overstimulate children?
We turned into the employees’ parking lot. Compared to their limousines, my hired cab looked like a crow that had strayed among pheasants. I paid the driver and set off for the reception desk. Although it was midmorning, the traffic was lively at the main entrance. The best proof that Zapparoni’s workers were actually masters was the fact that they kept no hours. They came and went as they pleased, provided they were not working on a team—which was exceptional in the workshop for models. As a matter of fact, this regulation or rather non-regulation had advantages for Zapparoni. His personnel policies left nothing to be desired; work was done after the fashion of artists who are obsessed with their creation. No time limit existed—so work went on almost continuously. The workmen dreamed of their works of art. That they were their own bosses was evident from the fact that they had time of their own. But this did not mean that they wasted it. They possessed time in the way rich men possess money. The rich man’s wealth is founded on his purse, and not on his manner of spending money. You sense his wealth by the way he carries himself.
Those who entered and left the plant wore white or colored laboratory coats and passed through the gate without any ceremony. One could conclude from this that they were well known, for the gate, which was also the entry to the reception office, was closely guarded by small groups which stood around as if receiving passengers on an ocean liner. As these newcomers cross the gangplank, they are faced by sailors, stewards, and other ship’s personnel, who watch them closely and discreetly. The entrance in this case was wide and low. On either side of the corridor were doors—I read “Reception,” “Caretaker,” “Guard,” and other signs.
At the reception desk they seemed to expect me. As soon as I mentioned my name, a page boy stepped forward. He had been waiting for me.
To my surprise, instead of leading me into the factory he led me back through the gate to a small underground station which opened off the parking lot. After descending into it, we stepped into a very small car, which stood on rails and was operated like a self-service elevator. In two minutes we had reached our goal. We stopped in front of an old-fashioned building within a walled park. I was standing before Zapparoni’s private residence.
The most I had expected was to be taken to the employment office and from there—should my application, thanks to Twinnings’ recommendation, be well received—perhaps to the chief of personnel himself. It took my breath away, therefore, when, emerging from the earth, I suddenly found myself before the Holy of Holies, in the sphere of a man who—some people contended—did not exist at all but was perhaps the most cunning invention of the Zapparoni Works. A servant came down the stairs and took me ove
r from the page boy. “Mr. Zapparoni is expecting you,” he said.
There was no possible doubt; I was in the residence of Zapparoni. Formerly his principal factory had been situated elsewhere, until, tired of the constant need to alter and add to the buildings, he had decided to bring the plant, newly designed, to that degree of perfection which distinguished all his creations, whether large or small. When they inspected the new building site, they discovered a Cistercian abbey in the vicinity. For many years now it had been public property, but was rarely used. The church and the main building had fallen victims to time, but the monastery wall and the refectory were intact. Apart from the monks’ large dining hall, the refectory building contained still other rooms which had once served as kitchens, store- and guestrooms. This building Zapparoni had taken over and made his home. The house had imposing proportions. Now and then, I had seen reproductions of it in illustrated magazines.
The large gate in the monastery wall was always locked; the people who lived in the house and any guests came and went by the little underground train. It had struck me that I had not boarded the train at a terminal. Most likely, it ran not only to the parking lot, but also into the plant.
Thus Zapparoni didn’t need to leave his own grounds, and a strict control of all visitors was possible. In this way the master of the house was protected against the impudence of reporters and particularly of photographers. His person and his habits he carefully kept in semi-obscurity, since he was aware of the wearing and consuming force of publicity. He wanted to be talked about a great deal, but only vaguely and allusively. (In the same way, his contraptions were meant to give the impression that their visible parts were by far the least important.) The selection of published pictures and reports was made by himself and his experts.