Макс Фрай - The Stranger

I introduced myself, and they led me off to be served breakfast.

“You’re so skinny, Sir Max! They really work you hard in the Secret Investigative Force. I know all about it! You need to eat more!” Sir Marunarx exclaimed, refilling my plate over and over again. “Never mind. You’ll fill out here with us, I promise you that!”

The sumptuous breakfast was suspiciously reminiscent of a formal banquet. The commander fussed over me like a doting uncle. I thought I was going to prison, but it looked like I had ended up in a resort. And so, it turned out, I had.

“Whew, I’ve already filled out! By about ten pounds,” I said an hour later. “Thank you, Sir Marunarx. I should go to the cell now, I suppose. That’s why I came, after all.”

“I’m so sorry, Sir Max! I’m afraid it will be uncomfortable for you there! But Sir Hully requested that I put you not in the guest quarter, but in a prison cell. What do you think—could it have been a joke?”

“You never know with him,” I laughed. “No, Sir Marunarx, I’m really supposed to go to the cell. No one has died in your guest quarters, I hope?”

“I understand,” the old man said with a sigh. “Well, let’s go then. By the way, Sir Max, you know that when you’re in the cell you can’t use Silent Speech? I can’t change that for you, I’m afraid. The prison is built that way. You know yourself, Xolomi is a magical place. It’s not for us, the employees, to decide what is permitted here and what isn’t.”

“Yes, that’s what I’ve been told.”

“So if you need to get in touch with Sir Hully or anyone else, tell the guards that you wish to take a walk, and they’ll bring you to me, at any time of day or night. Here you can do anything your heart desires. My people have already been informed about you, of course.”

“Excellent!” I nodded. “And now, arrest me, please!”

Cell No. 5-Ow-Nox seemed to be quite a cozy little place. And, by the way, in my homeland you’d have to plunk down several suitcases of greenbacks for a pad like this! But for a native of Echo, it would probably be difficult to reconcile oneself to such cramped quarters—only three “small” (by local standards, miniscule; by ours, enormous) rooms, all on one floor. And also a bathroom with a toilet one floor below, as is the custom here. In the bathroom there were only three tubs, the same number I had at home. Now I began to understand why my landlord had been unable to find a tenant for so long. When I got home, I’d have him put in a fourth tub. I can’t live like I’m in prison!

But praise be the Magicians I had still not completely adapted to local customs, so the modest prison cell seemed to me to be the height of luxury. A half-hour later I realized I had already gotten used to being there.

Actually, I get used to things very quickly. If I move my belongings to a new home in the morning, by evening I feel I have lived there my whole life. It even occurred to me that in a few days I’d grow so used to Xolomi that I’d “remember” why they had thrown me in prison. And then I’d repent, and try to reform with all my might!

And so I sat in my cell and gazed at the ceiling. The marvelous Lonli-Lokli lived some sort of ineffable life between my thumb and the index finger of my left hand. I was terribly curious—what was he feeling about all of this? In any case, the fellow had taken his “work diary” with him. How he could comfortably pass the time away with that notebook is as much a mystery to me as it is to you.

Finally, I decided it was time to go to sleep. I’d have to rest, since the most interesting things would happen at night, I assumed, if they were to happen at all.

I was still afraid that nothing untoward would happen. I wondered how much time I would have to spend in Xolomi before I realized that seven deaths in the space of three years was very sad and awkward, if not idiotic—but finally, that it was just a coincidence after all. Would I be here a year? Two? More? Well, never mind. The gentlemen Secret Investigators would be able to survive for about twelve days without us, after which they’d be the ones raising hue and cry to get us released themselves. Sir Juffin would no doubt be the first to decide that our business trip had dragged on too long.

I slept remarkably well. When I woke up, it was already dark. I received a prisoner’s meal, which tasted curiously like the recent festive breakfast. Why do Juffin and I always eat at the Glutton Bunba ? The food is great there, of course, but prison fare seemed to be more refined. We’d have to introduce the tradition of carousing at Xolomi: purely out of professional considerations, of course. Or perhaps we could spend Days of Freedom from Care on the premises—it’s quiet, cozy, and there’s nobody to bother you.

Night was coming on. So as not to waste precious time, I tried to do what I truly know how to do well (and it wasn’t much): to chat with the objects around me, and to see that part of the past that they “remembered.”

It was hopeless. All the prison flotsam and jetsam that surrounded me answered my appeals with surging waves of fear. We had seen that before!—in Makluk’s bedchamber, where the little balsam box had sent out the same currents of terror. There was no doubt about it. I had stumbled upon a real story, not a chain of awkward coincidences.

Just then a guard appeared to “convoy” me to a business meeting. One of my guards, by the name of Xaned Janira, had been dying to meet me since morning, but the good commander had tried to preserve my peace and quiet, and ordered him to wait until I woke up.

Mr. Janira bears the title of Master Comforter of Sufferers. As I came to understand it, he was a sort of psychotherapist. He visits the prisoners regularly, asks them how they slept, what they are anxious or worried about, and what messages they want to send home. In Echo, prisoners are treated very humanely. It is thought that if a person has landed in Xolomi, he has no farther to fall, and to subject a prisoner to further discomfort and inconvenience is senseless and cruel. The psychological and emotional comfort of a prisoner is a matter of great concern, and this is, of course, only proper.

“I thought you’d be interested, Sir Max, in some information I possess,” Xaned Janira said, after the ritual greeting was over.

He turned out to be an exceedingly youthful fellow, with a round face and a melodic voice, and narrow green eyes that settled on me with a penetrating gaze.

“Strange things have been happening here recently,” he said. “I suppose this is the reason for your stay. It seemed only right that before investigations get underway you should hear me out. I’ve been waiting all day for you to call me, but I finally could wait no longer. At the risk of being importunate, I decided to take the initiative.”

“I ate too much for breakfast, Sir Janira! So much that I just couldn’t think straight,” I said, trying to excuse my behavior. “I should have turned to you as soon as I crossed the threshold, but I didn’t sleep very well last night, and I just collapsed in my cell right after breakfast. Forgive me. Thank you for inviting me to talk with you.”

From the expression on Xaned Janira’s face, I understood that at that moment he was prepared to go through hell and high water for me.

I don’t know what it was in me that won him over—the respectful “sir,” a form of address not warranted by the station of junior psychotherapist, or my willingness to admit my mistakes. Somehow or other, though, I had traversed the path to his heart without much trouble.

“Not at all, Sir Max! You had every right to rest before getting down to work. I just wanted to explain to you the reasons for my own persistence—I thought I might be able to assist you. Maybe my information will prove useless, but . . . well, just listen to what I have to say, and then you decide. Two days ago the prisoners from cells 5-Soya-Ra, 5-Tot-Xun, and 5-Sha-Pui, which are adjacent to cell 5-Ow-Nox, complained to me about bad dreams. Strangely enough, the content of all their dreams was very similar.”