Work Text:
Мои окна заклеены скотчем,
Никому не видать тех проблем,
Что я прятал в своём доме ночью,
Улыбаясь, я ждал в нём рассвет
(My windows are covered with tape,
No one can see the problems
That I hid in my house at night,
Smiling, I awaited the dawn in there)
Stop, face towards the monument, raise your arms up making a Y-shape; not too low, because that would be disrespectful, but not too high either, so that you don’t look like a bandit surrendering to the police. Remember you are trying to fit among people who are taught to perform all this as soon as they can move their limbs consciously. What a bedlam. In Valverde, nobody puts on such a show in front of any image of any leader.
Albert Meineke follows the sequence, hoping it looks proper enough, and carries on across the park. It would be better if he could practice the salute in his apartment, unseen by anyone — but alas, he suspects there is a camera hidden in the smoke detector, and if it’s true, its field definitely reaches the mirror. Apparently, the Wise Leader is so afraid of his own citizens that he orders his emissaries to spy on them as much as possible. People often come up with the best ideas while showering or sitting on the toilet — why not watch them even then? There are few places where you can hide from the dead yet always vigilant eyes of the cameras. Communal apartments are not one of them.
And then there are those weird, mushroom-like towers soaring into the gray sky above the city. Albert doesn’t know their intended use. He’s never heard anyone talking about them. He suspects it must be a device of control or surveillance of the citizens… just like everything else in this country. A large part of the population is barely making ends meet, inhabiting houses that haven’t been renovated since the beginning of the war — and those weasels still have enough money to not only continue the bloodbath, but also build these unsightly structures for the glory of their leader.
As soon as Albert turns into Krushvice street, he notices a police van parked on the sidewalk. This sight makes his heart skip a beat. When he realizes it’s standing right in front of building No. 6, he slows down. He should have gone for a longer walk. Now it’s too late.
The door of the building is open wide. He walks in, looks around and listens. The noises seem to be coming from the floor above. Two uniform-clad, broad-shouldered men drag a helpless elderly lady out of her apartment. Albert remembers her name instantly: Margaret Zauer. He freezes in place and turns his eyes away as they pass him on the stairs and go down — in other words, he’s doing what a good citizen of the so-called Great State would do. An especially decent one would’ve added a few insults directed at the arrestee. Albert is glad nobody can demand it from him.
Sometimes he wants to burn this entire country down to the ground. Only compassion towards its people, unable to comprehend a world different from the one they live in, makes him push this thought away.
He glances at his neighbor, Mrs. Petracke, sweeping the floor in front of her apartment door as if nothing happened. He gets her attention, points in the direction where Zauer was taken, and makes an ostentatiously questioning face. He’s aware he makes himself look like a silly kid, but there is no other way he can get to know more about the incident.
“Ah, her?” Petracke raises an eyebrow. “They saw her reading a book.”
No explanation follows. Isn’t— wasn’t she a librarian?, Albert would like to ask, but even if he could, maybe it’s better to keep silent.
Maybe it isn’t actually a coincidence that the salute looks a bit like a gesture of surrender.
The landlord, Carl Stein, despite having a wife, two kids and a whole apartment building to take care of, clearly has way too much free time in his life. Albert cannot find any other explanation for his behavior.
“Shall we play Words?”
“Mmmmm-mmm-mm,” he grunts, annoyed, hoping Carl will leave him alone soon. He’s had enough awkward interactions with this man since he moved to Krushvice 6.
“Ah, ‘M’? OK… Miasm! ‘M’ for you!”
“Mmmmm-mm.”
“‘M’ again? Let me think… Militarism!”
This one is dangerously close to war talk. Albert looks around to make sure nobody is overhearing their conversation. “Mmmmmm-mmmm-mmm-mm!”
“‘M’ again? You’re a pro!” Carl exclaims with a mischievous smile that doesn’t fit his usually serious appearance. “OK. Mezim.”
Albert raises an eyebrow. There is no such word, is there?
“Mmmmm-mmm-mm…”
Carl chuckles. “I give up. You’re unbeatable!”
Having improved his mood in this unsophisticated way, he walks away, turning the key ring on his finger. Albert retreats to his apartment. He gasps as he looks at the clock. The conversation almost made him miss the scheduled time.
He picks up the receiver of the phone, leans against the wall in the very corner of the room and calls a number that cannot be found in any phone book in the Great State.
“No.” He clears his throat, long disaccustomed to speaking. “Not yet. Give me a few more days.”
“You’re not mute!” Carl Stein barks as soon as the door of Meineke’s apartment shuts behind him. “I can prove it!”
The phone. It must have been the phone. Albert refrains from reflexively looking up at the “enhanced” smoke detector. He was sure that the field of the camera did not reach the corner of the room.
He takes a step back and glares at the landlord. Then, he finally speaks. “I’m sick and tired of you, Carl.”
Carl holds his stare.
“I’m not mute,” Albert confirms, as if it wasn’t already obvious. “But I have reasons to hide this fact.”
“Tell your story— and tell the truth!”
“I am… hm, not sure I can trust you. But I guess I have no choice,” he sighs. “My real name is, indeed, Albert Meineke. And I’m here on assignment from the state.”
“What state?” Carl cuts in. What an impatient man, give him a finger and he’ll try to grab your entire arm at once. Seems like the Ministry of Housing prefers to employ such people specifically.
“Valverde.”
Carl’s face goes pale. Then red. “What?! We’ve been at war with Valverde for forty years!”
“I’m here to stop that war, Carl.”
“And how is you pretending to be mute going to help?”
Not only impatient, he is also asking all the wrong questions.
“You see, Carl, both sides in this war are supporting the conflict in an effort to grow richer…”
“But—”
“Don’t interrupt! No one can even remember anymore what started the war!” Albert tries hard not to raise his voice. He’s heard about the most recent directive, he knows it’s better not to even mention the W-word and its synonyms aloud. He has no other way, though. What else should he call it, the operation? The argument? “But it creates factory and mine jobs, and allows for oppositionists to be sent to the battlefield and buried there.”
Carl’s face expression softens a bit and his gaze becomes uncertain. Of course; he has a teenage son, after all.
“The only way to end it is to gain the ultimate advantage. I’m talking A-bomb here, Carl.”
“What bomb?”
Albert laughs, although he’s far from being amused. “See, you don’t even know what I’m talking about. And your country has it. But instead of threatening to use it and thus ending the war, your government prefers to keep quiet and continue sending people to die.” He looks out of the window onto the street. For a moment he wonders if stopping the conflict could make this poor, loathsome city any prettier. “But… if we get it, we’ll end this senseless violence in a day!”
“By dropping that bomb on us?!”
“Using it is out of the question, Carl. It would leave nothing standing. That’s not what we need.” Albert takes a deep breath before moving on to explaining the main part of the plan. “Engineer Bastian Wallner is looking for an apartment in your district. He has access to the blueprints. That’s why I’m here, Carl. Move him into your building… and get me the blueprints,” he concludes with the most winning smile he can present.
The landlord is not impressed.
“Have you lost your mind?! My duty is to report you immediately!”
Albert’s smile fades.
“This will stop the war! Do you think that massacre will end on its own?”
Carl doesn’t reply. Albert starts walking around the room.
“Forty years!” he exclaims, wringing his hands. “They’ve been grinding our children into pulp for forty years!” He turns around to Carl again and looks him straight in the eye. “Wouldn’t it have been better to manufacture pots and clothes instead of gunpowder, bullets, and coffins?”
“I don’t even know what to say…” Carl scratches the back of his neck nervously.
“Will you help me?”
“O-okay. But promise me the bomb won’t be used!”
“I swear on my life!”
A handshake — cordial from Albert’s side, seemingly unsure from Carl’s — seals their agreement. Now all that remains is hope that the landlord is a man of his word, too, and the first thing he does after leaving the apartment won’t be calling the state security. Albert warily watches him walk away.
“I know you’re going to do something amazing,” he says instead of a goodbye, like a good charm to conjure reality.
The next time their paths cross happens in the shared laundry room. The room is otherwise empty, it’s late evening, and Carl is kneeling hunched on the floor, his back towards the entrance. Looks like he’s tinkering — probably fixing some appliance. In absolute silence, Albert can hear his uneven, labored breathing. Intrigued, he approaches the landlord noiselessly, trying to look over his shoulder. Something glints in Carl’s hand. Clippers. A snap of a wire being cut is heard. In the same moment, Carl turns around. He gasps, startled; he calms down a bit as his eyes meet Albert’s. Then, there’s more silence.
Albert, his face pale as if all the horror has passed onto him, stares at Carl, then at the now disarmed device. He understands. They both understand.
Dissidents trying to eliminate a loyal servant of the regime? The state itself, “subtly” reminding its citizen in whose hands his fate is? Only Carl knows.
Albert was going to ask him about Wallner’s blueprints again, but instead he nods his head and turns on his heel, leaving the landlord alone in the room again. Only on the stairs he suddenly remembers that he was supposed to take the dry laundry from the basement.
Two days later, at three o’clock in the morning, Albert is woken up by someone persistently knocking on the door of his apartment. It sounds like some established code to reassure him it’s not public servants coming to arrest him.
Rubbing his tired face, Albert opens the door. He is not surprised when he sees Carl Stein waiting on the threshold; that’s probably the only person in the building to be awake at this time. In this bizarre country, it’s a perfectly normal procedure to shoot up landlords and doorkeepers with a drug that suppresses their need for sleep, basically turning them into living cameras.
Something seems different, though, and Albert needs a moment to realize why it is so.
Carl is holding an inconspicuous cardboard folder under his armpit. He raises his eyebrows meaningfully.
“I brought the blueprints.”
“I knew I could count on you!” Albert gasps. Suddenly wide awake, he runs to his writing desk. He has long ago decided how he will repay Carl for the cooperation. “Here are clean papers for everyone in your family… in case you decide to emigrate. Simply glue your pictures to the empty squares.” He pats Carl’s shoulder. “Good luck! Remember: once you’re at the border, don’t run. If you do, the guards will set their dogs on you.”
Carl doesn’t respond, only nods. His eyes, usually either wary or indifferent, radiate with gratefulness. He takes the passports and carefully hides them in his pocket.
“Valverde owes you,” Albert adds.
This time, the word “Valverde” doesn’t sound so scary to Carl. He shakes Albert’s hand with a decisive firmness.
They bid each other goodbye, the door closes, and the landlord unhurriedly goes back to his regular nighttime duties.
Albert approaches the window and pulls the curtains aside to illuminate the room a bit. He looks at the quiet, lethargic city; the empty Krushvice Street, massive apartment buildings, dark shapes of mysterious towers visible against the light-polluted sky. Helmer is asleep, unaware that its fate might be at stake right now. Albert raises his head to glance at the smoke detector — straight into the eye of the camera. He sits down on his bed and opens the folder just for a stealthy peek, to make sure Carl didn’t deceive him. He didn’t. He really stole this folder somehow — or maybe Wallner himself trusted the landlord with the fruits of his labor to keep them safe? The blueprints are all dark magic for Albert, he’s not a nuclear scientist, after all. He contemplates the intricate, hand-drawn schemes, admiring their complexity and Wallner’s skills, then closes the folder. He doesn’t hide it anywhere. Instead, he leaves it in a visible place on the tabletop, completely unsuspicious. Carl won’t care anymore anyway. Whether he realizes it or not, he’s a double agent now, and it’s likely too late to turn back.
Maybe the world really is ruled by chance, and everything is much less complicated than it seems? Albert goes back to bed with a smile on his face and falls asleep almost instantly, soothed by a sense of accomplishment. He feels a bit sorry for Carl who can’t leave his post and do the same.
Endless burnt fields and trampled wastelands slowly move outside the grid-sealed window of a military van like a monotonous photographic film. Albert fondly remembers his train journey from Helmer to Redding. Now, cold, exhausted and alone in his containment, he wraps himself more tightly in his coat and hums a long-unheard song to cheer himself up a bit.
He is brought back to his country guarded like a national treasure, although he’s not the main point of interest — the blueprints he has acquired are. The chain of the handcuffs clinks against the suitcase as the van goes over rough terrain of a forgotten dirt road; he has his wrist bound to his precious burden.
He knows this is most likely the last time he’s crossing this border, and he is absolutely certain he will not see the Steins, as well as the rest of his former neighbors, ever again. His work is done. He’s met all the right people. He was lucky enough not to end up on the gallows, surrounded by a crowd raising their hands, surrendering to the will of their deranged leader.
His mission in Helmer turns out to be the last such task of his life, though. He soon finishes his career as an undercover operative and becomes an instructor in the intelligence agency of Valverde.
The next few months turn him into a silent hero: dignitaries shaking his hand behind the scenes, an order of merit hidden modestly in the drawer of his desk — but he has to wait much, much longer for the effects of his endeavors to become visible. The day the two long-quarreling states sign a peace treaty, he is forty-five and already retired, coming out of the shadows under an appealing pseudonym and writing pop-culturally embellished spy novels. He wishes a day will come when people will be able to read them freely not only in his homeland, but also in Helmer, Redding or Agloe.
His newfound fame has another unexpected effect: a message from South Borea. Despite the passage of time, Carl Stein did not forget about him. Albert rereads it again and again; there’s only as many words one can put into a telegram, so he has to guess most of the context himself. Carl’s son didn’t have to go to a mindless war and kill other innocent boys for the glory of any leader. Hopefully he graduated from some prestigious university and found a job. Maybe he has a family on his own already. Carl’s little daughter — well, not so little, she must be an adolescent missy now — is safe and healthy, finally living in a country where parents don’t go to jail for trying to help their child. They are free.
Albert lets out a shaky sigh. He carefully folds the paper in half and puts it into the drawer — next to the box with the order.
Есть дорога от жизни до гроба,
Но я выбрал другие пути
(There is a road from life to the grave,
But I’ve chosen other paths)