The Fourth Circle Read online

  Though the pose does suit him—especially since the long, orange robe emphasizes his height and slim build. Now he annoyed me even more with the persistent slapping of his bare feet in the puddles on the dusty temple floor, puddles that formed wherever the rain had penetrated the stone roof and the thick mass of vegetation growing on it. I told him umpteen times while the weather was dry that it should be fixed, but no, his lordship always had something better to do, and I don't have ten pairs of hands, after all.

  He sloshed around quite unconsciously, leaving muddy footprints and not caring at all that the hem of his robe was getting dirty. This carelessness was in complete contrast to his usual perverse fastidiousness, which also really gets on my nerves.

  Something was obviously wrong. I began to panic. I started to cry again, but some time elapsed before he realized this. At last he accorded me a glance, probably blank, but in it I read the materialization of all my dark forebodings.

  "What's wrong with the baby?" I tried to scream, but my voice stuck in my throat and only a croaking sob came out.

  "Oh, don't start that again," said Sri, sensing that I was going to throw another fit of hysterics. "This is no time for your playacting."

  Heartless beast! How could he? A mother, driven totally out of her mind by uncertainty about her baby, which she hasn't even seen yet, and to him it's

  "playacting." I didn't know what answer to make to such cruelty, so I just kept sobbing.

  That seemed to touch him. I don't think Sri is cruel by nature, he just enjoys pretending to be—and some other things as well. Most men, in fact, never grow up. The look he gave me now was undoubtedly pitying, but I didn't take any comfort from it.

  "Everything is OK with the...uh...baby." He got the word out unwillingly, obviously using it just to satisfy me. "Probably."

  I wouldn't have believed him even if he hadn't added that. The only thing I could still trust were my own eyes. There was nothing for it: I had to see the ba-by—then and there. I was just about to say so, intending to put all my rapidly mounting hysteria into my voice, but Sri got there first.

  "Anyway, why not see for yourself? Maybe you'll be able as an...er...mother"—again that reluctance in his voice—"to judge better. I can't."

  He spoke these last two words in a tone of defeat, a tone I had heard from him on only one previous occasion: when we were setting off to come here, and he took those idiotic turtles to a pet shop in the nearby town. I remember making some cynical crack about respectable Buddhists getting attached to two moronic brutes, which really seemed to get to him, so that later I refrained from similar barbed comments. But now there was no time to go over all that; I just felt a momentary icy shiver.

  Sri went over to the keyboard and typed a brief command connecting me to the auxiliary system. Instantly it dawned on me: how could I have been so stupid!

  No, it was not my stupidity, but rather the particular state in which I found myself, blinded by an overpowering maternal instinct. Of course! That was why he was spending so much time in front of the small programming screen. That was where he'd placed the crib. That was where my baby was.

  Sri would probably describe it as an ordinary flow of countless bytes of information from one computer system into another via a two-way interface, but to me these were arms reaching out in an embrace, the most intimate bond in the whole world, the first contact of a mother with her newborn.

  An instant before this miraculous relationship was established, a moment so short that there is no word encoding it in Sri's slow biochemical world, I noticed something that had completely eluded me until then, though I must have been aware of it, another failure that can be ascribed to my bewildered and frantic state of mind. On a low chair before the auxiliary screen, tail dangling to the floor with the tip in one of the puddles Sri kept splashing through, sat the Little One, grinning cretinously at me.

  11. A DREAM ASTONISHING

  ALONE I WAS, in the deep gloom.

  Although ghostly after-images of the light that had been no longer misled my old eyes with their sparkling, dreamlike dancing, in my confused spirit the hot blaze burned on, filling my fragile being with a twofold sensation that tore me apart: the shades of entrancing delight, which had faded even in my ancient memories—that they might not stir up old guilt and woe and utter shame that I had surrendered to such an indecent, unseemly impulse, in a place where I had not even been invited.

  Talons of devastating regret clawed at my trembling entrails in a manner all too familiar to me. I knew well that no other retreat was possible than to give my cowardly soul up to the merciless, stinging lash of conscience. My miserable fate was made even worse, now that I was alone with my wounded mind: in the thick blackness and deathly silence of the night, there was nothing to divert my attention from my tormenting thoughts, not even for a moment.

  And when the chasms of hopelessness had already begun to open all around me, tempting me with gentle, deceptive invitations to step over their nearby edges and give myself up to eternal, insane oblivion that is the last resort of those who suffer most, another kind of oblivion came to my rescue, only moments before it would have been too late: an oblivion that was nothing compared to eternity—for such oblivion often lasts less than a single night—but with sufficient curative power to help a soul yearning for relief, be it never so fleeting.

  Unseemly, bodily exhaustion and the burden of recent events fraught with immeasurable marvels finally bore down in their full weight on my fragile, rheumatic shoulders; my shrunken, feeble limbs gave way under this immense fatigue, and I sank to the cold floor of the iguman's dark cellar, for it seemed to me most unfitting that I should lay me down on the wooden pallet in the damp corner, until recently the deathbed of my Master. As soon as my body—clothed once more in its linen robe to hide my impious and shameful nakedness—found a pauper's bed on the bare earth, my heavy eyelids closed, thus opening the gates to blessed sleep—though I could have slept with my eyes open, such was the darkness that now reigned in the cellar. Deep sleep deprived of dreams would have been most pleasing to my suffering spirit then, but for such mercy I could not hope—and truly, a dream soon came. An awesome dream, but not one of those that makes a man wake in sweat and trembling, full of the horrors of the underworld, when horrid goblins are released from their rusty chains, things the existence of which in the waking, daytime world you do not even guess at, but that dwell buried somewhere in your sinful mind; no, a different dream this was, filled also with horror, although no servant of Sotona in monstrous, awful form rushed out at my poor self from its bottomless pit.

  Unlearned as I am, I know not whence came this unexpected rescue from the pestilent, hellish ghouls, because in my dream it was in Hades that I found myself. It was not difficult to recognize: I had seen it that very day, on the cursed vault in the monastery, depicted faithfully in secret, by the demonic hand of that sinner above all sinners, my Master.

  Perplexed, I began to walk through that endlessly barren landscape, leaving no imprint of my bare feet on the dusty ground. The total darkness of that day in Hades was relieved only by those three sightless eyes, shedding their grimy, va-ri-colored light from the low sky to illuminate my way to some unknown destination. Soon the biggest of them sank below the near horizon, and I was gripped by icy foreboding, for what else could this be but the herald of some terrible doom?

  So I walked on, wrestling with an increasingly tormented anxiety, alone as no other creature has been since the Creation: no living soul around me, no green blade of grass, no beast wild or tame, not even birdsong, which consoles the greatest pain. So oppressed was I by this terrible loneliness that I longed to see any creature at all, be it the worst spawn of the Unclean One, that this curse be undone; but nobody joined me in my monotonous, dreary walk, to share my suffering and apprehension.

  And when, after countless paces, I felt hopelessly crushed, believing that my ultimate destiny—to trudge forever round in this hellish circle without an ex-it—had fina
lly caught up with me, hope germinated a strange faith, as happens in dreams for no reason, that I would be able to leave the circle when I had reached a certain place. I could not for the life of me, though, say where that was because wherever I looked, naught but the same waste lay before me: naked, barren, such as probably existed only before the first word of God, before light shone forth over the darkness.

  Still, this new faith that I would find a way out of the circle did not diminish in the gloom, and I walked on more resolutely, like a man earnestly bent on some fruitful task, albeit no goal stood before me yet. But now I knew, in a vague, misty way, that the goal would reveal itself as soon as I reached the rugged horizon, just where that great sun of Hades had set a few moments before (or was it long ago?) to point out the hidden way.

  Even when I realized that hasten as I might, the edge of this nether world grew no closer, but remained always near but unreachable, as if I were walking on a sphere that had no end and no beginning, and not on a flat underground plain that must needs end somewhere, I did not lose my new supple stride.

  Moreover, I acquired in the next few strides first the sinewy persistence of middle age, and then the physical attributes of an even younger age, viz., the strength and delight of a youth brimful of sap. My dreamlike return to a past long since left behind continued on its marvelous course unchecked: I sank down into the well-spring of youth, filled now with a boy's unrestrained delight that impelled my ever-quickening step into a wild run toward the goal, the firm outlines of which were now beginning to take shape.

  As I thus raced over the landscape of Hades, no longer fearful about being dead, my gaze fell for a moment on my hands. And lo, instead of dried veins and wrinkled, scaly skin, I beheld the sturdy hands of a little child that as yet knew no sin, the fingernails bitten to the quick as mine used to be when I was quite small (or so my mother once told me).

  The memory of my mother put a sudden halt to my frenzied running, and I stood dumbfounded amid the dusty wastes of Hades, which had not changed a jot. Yet I perceived that I had finally reached the unknown goal, come full circle, back to the beginning of all beginnings, alone no more. On all fours I wriggled out of the now enormous robe, emitting cooing, wordless sounds, innocent and naked as we are only at our birth. Then from my still quite toothless mouth the first cry rose, announcing the painful entrance of yet another servant of God into the Vale of Tears, in a hillside cabin, next to the hearth fire, amid blood and slime and the tired sobbing of a woman, rising straight from her torn womb.

  But my pain as well as my mother's faded quickly when our trembling hands rose to meet in that blessed touch that is the only consolation under the whole vault of heaven.

  12. CASABLANCA

  SARAH'S ON DUTY again tonight.

  I don't know how she managed to change her shift again. She was supposed to be on duty three evenings from now. Probably Brenda and Mary are not vying for the privilege of attending me at night. Both are married and Brenda has children; very likely they prefer being with their families at that hour rather than keeping watch over a paralyzed patient, although we recently doubled the fee for night duty. Money is not the only incentive for Sarah, who is actually free of any family ties, to take care of me at a time when everyone in the household is asleep and no one enters my room until morning. She has additional reasons, but no one knows of them except the two of us, and I couldn't reveal them even if I wanted to.

  This cursed disease, thanks to which I can't move a finger any more! Until a few months ago, I was able to move two fingers on my left hand— the middle and fourth—enough for me to press the keys of my computer and communicate with my environment by synthetic voice; now I can't do even that. The doctors say the illness can only get worse. They no longer hide it from me. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. But how? What more can go wrong with my sensorimotor system if I haven't a single muscle left capable of movement?

  The worst thing about paralysis is that it damages you only on the outside: putting a sound mind in a sick body. Inside, you remain totally intact. Moreover, my brain has never worked so clearly as it does now that I'm quite incapable of movement. My head swarms with the most marvelous models of the Cosmos; I'm advancing toward the Grand Synthesis, but what's the use when I can't communicate any of it? I'm a sort of vegetable genius. And, oh, I have so much to say! I have finally grasped where old Albert went wrong; I know what misled Feyn-man; I have removed Penrose's main misconception. I'm at the very edge of the Unified Theory. A few more nights, perhaps, if Sarah doesn't start again, though I suspect she will....

  Penrose came for a brief visit several weeks ago, and I only then saw from his expression that I must be in pretty bad shape. I tried my hardest to convey to him what I had finally cleared up about the closed strings, to tell him that the first vibrations of their harmony are finally reaching me, the rondo played by the very building blocks of the Universe. I also wanted to ask him to calculate something for me on the big computer at the University; I'm wasting endless hours fiddling with tensors in my head, denied even the use of pencil and paper, when the work could be done in fifteen minutes on the latest wonder from Silicon Valley. If they don't have physicists like the British, the Americans at least know their way around technology.

  But all that emerged was a series of awful rattles, with a lot of slobbering and ugly grimacing—the usual, in fact. Most of the time this doesn't make me despair: I'm used to it by now. But when Penrose stood up to go, without having understood anything whatsoever and, visibly embarrassed, patted me on the head, as he might have a mentally retarded child or an intelligent dog, I actually felt for the first time like a helpless cretin.

  The members of my family whom I see every day try not to talk too much in order to spare me similar embarrassment. They come to my room, report to me briefly on current events, but expect no response. Generally speaking, the children's behavior comes closest to normal, thereby confirming my own normality.

  It's different with the nurses. They are more in my company, and it's difficult to spend hours with someone in complete silence, even someone in my position.

  Their endless chatter doesn't bother me, especially Brenda's, full of commonplace rubbish, because it does not require my attention; I even find I can think better when they're here. It's the tone they use when addressing me that gets on my nerves, patronizing for some reason, as if they were dealing with a baby or a mental deficient. Well, maybe that's how they see me. Poor Sir Isaac, he must be turning in his grave. What a humiliating blow to the long and glorious tradition of Cambridge physics!

  From the outset, Sarah was different. Not only was she far more reticent than Brenda or Mary, she admitted quite frankly that she had accepted the arduous task of being my nurse primarily because I used to be a famous physicist. (I still am actually, but perhaps that isn't quite so obvious.) This flattered me, of course, especially because Sarah's predecessors were largely indifferent to this fact but also because she is a rather pretty girl with a wonderful smile and lush, seductive curves that are very noticeable in her tight nurse's uniform. It may seem that these qualities are rather beside the point in my case, but there are some habits and desires that a man is reluctant to relinquish.

  In the beginning it seemed that Sarah was about to introduce some changes in the night nurses' usual treatment of me. Their main preoccupation was to create the illusion that I was asleep so that they themselves could secretly take a nap. In the morning they would, without batting an eyelid, claim that they remained awake by my side the whole night, looking me brazenly in the eye as if I could confirm or deny their claim. Even had I been able to do so, I would hardly have bothered debunking their little tricks. It actually suited me to have the nurses sleep; I could then concentrate on thinking, spared their constant fidgeting and fussing about me—except when they snore, which happens from time to time.

  There is nothing so fatal to the music of the spheres now being conceived in my head as the gentle buzz of female snoring.
r />   At first I thought that Sarah suffered from insomnia, since I never saw her fall asleep before me although I could stay awake for a long time. Once she put me to bed, she would not bother me at all but devote herself to reading, not raising her eyes for hours from the cheap sentimental novels she devoured. I discovered the type of reading matter it was because she frequently, before going home, left the books on my night table. Who could have thought then that this was not all just coincidence?

  It seemed a little odd that a girl of her looks should content herself with these banal surrogates for love, but since I had no opportunity to talk to her about it, the motives that lay behind this inclination remained a mystery to me, like almost everything else related to Sarah. In contrast to most other nurses, who, if they stayed with us for any length of time, would relate their entire life's story without the slightest encouragement, convinced that in me they had a listener full of curiosity and understanding, Sarah did not seem to exist outside the walls of my room, so little did I know about her private life or her past.

  In certain moments, as I was drifting off to sleep or waiting in that limbo that always precedes the solution of some difficult and important equation, I had the impression that Sarah in fact did not exist at all, that she was only the product of my overburdened imagination.

  The conversion from books to television seemed perfectly natural, and I could not see in this, either, any part of a well thought-out plan. Tear-jerking serials were on the air from time to time, and Sarah seemed very happy when she discerned on my distorted face permission to occasionally turn on the TV, although normally I watched it only very rarely and then almost exclusively cricket matches, having played cricket in my youth in time-honored Cambridge tradition, before this damned illness caught up with me.