He leaned across the table, drew the file over and flipped open its blue cover.
“This is your first file. It contains a group of dreams that arrived on October nineteenth. Read them very carefully, but whatever you do don’t be too hasty. If you think there’s the slightest chance that a dream might have been fabricated, leave it where it is and don’t be in too much of a hurry to remove it. After you there’ll be another sorter, or, to give him his proper title, a second inspector, and he’ll check what you’ve done and correct any errors. Then there’s another inspector to check up on him, and so on. In fact, all the people you see in this room are doing just that. So good luck!”
He stayed there another few seconds looking at Mark-Alem, then turned around and left. Mark-Alem was momentarily rooted to the spot, then slowly, trying not to make any noise, he edged the chair back a little, slid between it and the table, and, still very cautiously, sat down.
The file now lay open in front of him. His wish, and that of his family, had been granted. He’d been given a job in the Tabir Sarrail; he was even sitting on a chair at his desk, a genuine official in the mysterious Palace.
He bent a little closer over the file, until his eyes could make out what was written in it, then calmly began to read. The stiff first page bore the name and date of the file, followed lower down by the inscription Issued to Surkurlah. Contains 63 dreams.
With an apprehensive finger Mark-Alem turned to the next page. This, unlike the first, was covered with closely written text. The first three lines were slightly separated from the rest and underlined in green ink. They read: Dream of Yussuf, clerk in the post office at Aladjehisar, subprefecture of Kerk-Kili, pashalik of Kustendil, last September 3 just before dawn.
Mark-Alem looked up from the file. September 3, he thought bemusedly. Could it all be true? Was he really now an official in the Tabir Sarrail, installed at his own desk and reading the dream of Yussuf, who worked at the post office in Aladjehisar in the subprefecture of Kerk-Kili in the pashalik of Kustendil—reading it in order to settle his fate, to decide whether his dream was to be thrown in the wastepaper basket or inserted into and analyzed by the vast machinery of the Tabir?
He felt a quiver of pleasure run up his spine. Looking down at the file again he read: Three white foxes on the minaret of the local mosque …
Suddenly he was startled by the ringing of a bell. He looked up sharply as if he’d been tapped on the shoulder. Looking first to his left and then to his right, he was amazed by what he saw. All the people who had hitherto seemed glued to their chairs and mesmerized by the files open in front of them had suddenly broken the spell. They were now standing up, chatting and scraping their chairs on the floor as the bell went on echoing through the rooms.
“What is it?” asked Mark-Alem. “What’s going on?”
“It’s the morning break,” answered his nearest neighbor. (But where had he been until now?) “The morning break,” he repeated. “Of course you’re new, so you don’t know the timetable. But you’ll soon learn.”
On all sides the occupants of the room were moving between the long tables and making for the door. Mark-Alem did his best to go on reading, but it was impossible: others kept jostling him and knocking against his chair. But despite all this he bent over the file again, attracted to it now as by a magnet. Three white foxes … Then he heard a voice speaking just by his ear:
“You can get coffee and salep downstairs. Come on, there’s bound to be something you like.”
Mark-Alem scarcely had time to see what the speaker looked like, but he got up, closed the file, and followed everyone else to the door.
Out in the corridor he had no need to ask the way. Everybody was going in the same direction. Those in the main corridor were joined by an endless stream of others from the side corridors. Mark-Alem mingled in the human tide, now advancing shoulder to shoulder. He was impressed by the number of people employed in the Tabir Sarrail. There were hundreds of them, perhaps thousands.
The sound of footsteps grew louder, especially on the stairs. After descending one flight they went down a long straight corridor, then down another lot of stairs. Mark-Alem noticed that the windows grew narrower on every landing. It seemed to him they must be heading for some kind of basement. By now all the people were crowded together in one mass. He could make out the separate scents of coffee and salep even before they got to the refreshment room. It reminded him of breakfast in their own big house. He was filled with another wave of delight. In the distance he could see long counters with dozens of assistants handing out steaming bowls of salep and cups of coffee. He let himself be swept toward the counters. Amid the general hubbub you could hear people sipping their coffee or herb tea, brief bursts of coughing, the clink of coins. A lot of these people seemed to have colds, unless after being silent for hours on end they needed to clear their throats before starting to speak.
After being pressed into a queue, Mark-Alem found himself stuck near a counter, unable to move either forward or back. He realized other people were pushing in front of him, reaching over his head to take cups or pay for them, but he was determined not to let it bother him. Anyhow, he didn’t really want anything to eat or drink. He stayed where he was, shunted back and forth by the crowd, his only concern to do the same as everyone else.
“If you don’t move yourself you won’t get anything to drink!” said a voice behind him. “You might let me through, at any rate!”
Mark-Alem made way at once. The person who’d spoken, apparently surprised by his eagerness to oblige, looked round curiously. He had a long ruddy face with nice round cheeks. He stared at Mark-Alem for a moment.
“Have you just been taken on?”
Mark-Alem nodded.
“Yes, that’s obvious.”
He took another couple of steps toward the counter, then turned and said, “What’ll you have? Coffee or salep?”
Mark-Alem was tempted to say, “Nothing, thanks,” but that might have seemed odd. And wasn’t he supposed to be trying to be like everyone else and not draw attention to himself?
“A coffee,” he whispered, but moving his lips enough for the other to understand what he was saying.
He felt in his pocket for some change, but meanwhile his new acquaintance had turned around again and reached the counter. Mark-Alem, waiting, couldn’t help hearing snatches of the conversations going on around him. They were like fragments being ground up by some great millstone. But now and then a few audible words or even whole sentences would escape briefly, no doubt to be crushed at the next turn of the wheel. Mark-Alem strained his ears to listen and was astonished at what he heard. These people weren’t talking about the Tabir Sarrail at all, but about the most trivial and ordinary things, such as the cold weather, the quality of the coffee, the races, the national lottery, the flu epidemic in the capital. Not a single word about what went on in this building. You’d have thought they were officials in the Land Office or some ordinary ministry, not that they worked in the famous Palace of Dreams, the most mysterious institution in the whole Empire.
Mark-Alem saw his new friend emerging from the crush, a cup of coffee balanced precariously in either hand.
“This queueing—what a bore!” he said, still holding on to both cups as he tried to steer a way to a table that was free among the scores or even hundreds scattered around the room. No chairs were provided, and the tabletops were bare. They served merely as ledges to lean on, and a place to leave empty cups.
The other man finally found a free table and set down the coffees. Mark-Alem shyly offered the coins he’d been holding in his hand. The other waved them away.
“It’s nothing,” he said.
“Thank you!”
Mark-Alem picked up a cup of coffee, still clutching the money in his other hand.
“When did you start?” asked his companion.
“Today.”
“Really? Congratulations! Well, you’re right to …” He let the sentence trail off and took a
sip of coffee. “What section are you in?”
“Selection.”
“Selection?” the other exclaimed, as if surprised. He smiled. “Well, you’ve certainly made a good start. People usually begin their career in Reception, or even lower down, in the copying section.”
Mark-Alem suddenly wanted to find out more about the Tabir Sarrail. A small chink had appeared in his former reticence.
“So Selection’s an important department, is it?” he asked.
The other stared at him.
“Yes, very important. Especially for a young recruit …”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean especially for someone who’s just been appointed?
“And what about in general? Not just for someone young, but in general?”
“Yes, of course. In general it’s regarded as a crucial department. Of the utmost significance.”
Now it was Mark-Alem’s turn to stare.
“Naturally there are sections that are more important still… .”
“Interpretation, for instance?”
The other lowered his cup.
“Well, well—you’re not such a novice as you seem,” he said with a smile. “You’ve learned quite a lot already, considering it’s your first day!”
Mark-Alem was tempted to smile back, but realized it was too soon to make so bold. The icy carapace that seemed to cover his face this extraordinary morning hadn’t quite melted yet.
“Of course, Interpretation is the very essence of the Tabir Sarrail,” the other went on. “Its nerve center, its brain, so to speak, for it’s there that the preliminaries carried out in the other sections take on their real significance… .”
Mark-Alem listened feverishly.
“And the people who work there are known as the aristocrats of the Tabir?”
His companion pursed his lips and thought for a moment.
“Yes. Something like that. Although of course …”
“What?”
“Don’t go thinking there aren’t any others above them.”
“And who are they?” asked Mark-Alem, surprised at his own audacity.
The other looked back at him calmly.
“The Tabir Sarrail is always bigger than it seems,” he said.
Mark-Alem would have liked to ask him what he meant, but was afraid of presuming too far.
“In addition to the ordinary Tabir,” went on the other, “there’s the secret Tabir. The dreams that are analyzed there are not sent in by people themselves—they’re obtained by the State through methods and means of its own. You’ll appreciate that that’s a section no less important than Interpretation!”
“Of course,” replied Mark-Alem, “although …”
“Although what?”
“Don’t all the dreams, whether they’re sent in spontaneously or collected by the secret Tabir, end up in Interpretation?”
“As a matter of fact, all the sections but one are duplicated—they all have offices both in the ordinary Tabir and in the secret one. Only the Interpretation department is a single service common to both. However, that doesn’t mean it’s superior in the hierarchy to the secret Tabir as such.”
“But perhaps it’s not inferior either?”
“Perhaps. There’s a certain amount of rivalry between them.”
“In short, both those sections constitute the aristocracy of the Tabir.”
The other man smiled.
“More or less, if that’s how you like to put it.”
He took another swig at his cup, though there was no coffee left in it now.
“But you mustn’t suppose even they are at the top,” he went on. “There are others again above them.”
Mark-Alem looked at him hard to see if he was serious.
“And who are they?”
“The Master-Dream officers.”
“What?”
“The Master-Dream officers. The section that deals with the Arch-Dream, as they’ve taken to calling it lately.”
“And what’s that?”
The other lowered his voice.
“We probably oughtn’t to be talking about that sort of thing,” he said. “But after all, you have just become a member of staff. And these are really only organizational matters—I don’t suppose there’s anything secret about them.”
“Probably not,” said Mark-Alem.
He couldn’t wait to find out more.
“Do go on,” he said encouragingly. “I do belong here, in a way. My mother belongs to the Quprili family.”
“The Quprili family!”
Mark-Alem wasn’t surprised by his interlocutor’s astonishment. He was used to meeting with this reaction whenever anyone found out about his origins.
“As soon as you said you’d gone straight into Selection, I guessed you must belong to a family close to the State. But I must admit I didn’t imagine those dizzy heights.”
“Quprili was my mother’s maiden name,” said Mark-Alem. “My own name’s different.”
“That makes no odds. It’s the same thing for all intents and purposes.”
Mark-Alem looked at him.
“Tell me some more about the Master-Dream.”
His companion drew a deep breath. Then, as if sensing his voice wasn’t going to be loud enough to need all that air, he exhaled some of it again before he spoke.
“As perhaps you know, every Friday a traditional ceremony is held, ancient but discreet, in which one dream, selected as the most important of all the thousands we’ve received and analyzed during the previous week, is presented to the Sultan. That’s the Master-or Arch-Dream.”
“I have heard of it, but only vaguely, as a kind of legend. ”
“Well, it’s not a legend—it’s a fact. And it gives work to hundreds of people in the Master-Dream department.”
He looked at Mark-Alem for some time before going on.
“And—-would you believe it?—a dream like that, with its significant omens, is sometimes more useful to the Sovereign than a whole army of soldiers or all his diplomats put together.”
Mark-Alem listened openmouthed.
“So now do you see why the position of the Master-Dream officers is so superior to ours?”
What a gigantic mechanism, thought Mark-Alem. Yes, the Tabir Sarrail really was unimaginably vast.
“You never see any of them about,” the other went on. “They even have their coffee and salep in a place of their own.
“A place of their own …” Mark-Alem echoed.
His new friend had just opened his mouth to supply more information when the sound of a bell, the same one as had announced the coffee break, put a sudden stop to everything that was going on around them.
Mark-Alem had neither time nor need to ask what it meant. Even before the ringing had stopped, everyone started to rush for the exits. Those who hadn’t finished the drinks in front of them emptied their cups and glasses in one gulp. Others, who’d only just been served with beverages still too hot to drink, just abandoned them and made off like the rest. Mark-Alem’s companion had fallen silent just as suddenly, then nodded curtly and turned away. Mark-Alem would have tried to detain him and ask him one last question, but as he was about to do so he was jostled first to the left and then to the right, and so lost sight of him.
As he let himself be swept out along with the crowd, he realized he’d forgotten to ask his new acquaintance his name. If only I knew what section he works in, he sighed. Then he consoled himself with the thought that they might meet again at the next day’s coffee break and be able to have another chat.
The crowd was thinning by now, and Mark-Alem tried to find one of the faces he’d seen before in the Selection department. In vain. He had to ask the way back there twice. When he arrived he crept in quietly, trying not to be noticed. The last chairs were still being scraped into place. Nearly all the clerks were ensconced at their long tables again. Mark-Alem tiptoed to his desk, drew out his chair, and sat down. He did nothing for a few m
oments, then bent over his file and started to read: Three white foxes on the minaret of the local mosque … then suddenly he looked up. He felt as if someone were hailing him from a long way away, sending out some strange, faint, doleful signal like a call for help or a sob. What is it? he wondered. The question soon absorbed him absolutely. Without knowing why, he looked at the high windows. It was the first time he’d done so. Beyond the windowpanes the rain, so familiar but now so distant, mingled as it fell with delicate flakes of snow. The flakes eddied wildly in the morning light, now distant too—so far away it seemed to belong to another life, another world from which perhaps that ultimate signal had been sent out to him.
With a vague sense of guilt he looked away and bent over his file. But before he started reading again he heaved a deep sigh: Oh, God!
SELECTION
ii
It was a Tuesday afternoon.
The offices would be stopping work in an hour. Mark-Alem looked up from his papers and rubbed his eyes. He’d started this job a week ago, but he still hadn’t got used to so much reading. His right-hand neighbor fidgeted about on his chair, but went on reading. From the whole length of the long table came the regular rustle of turned pages. All the clerks had their eyes glued to their files.
It was November. The files were getting thicker and thicker. The flow of dreams tended to increase at this time of year. That was one of the main things Mark-Alem had noticed during his first week. People would go on having dreams and sending them in for ever and ever, but they varied in number from season to season. And this was one of the busy periods. Tens of thousands of dreams were arriving from all over the Empire, and would go on doing so at the same rate until the end of the year. The files would swell as the weather grew colder. Then, after the New Year, things would slacken off until spring.