Arkady Strugatsky: The Final Circle of Paradise

The car rushed through a park and sped along a shaded, straight thoroughfare. I kept looking around with great interest but couldn’t recognize a thing. It was stupid to expect to. We had been landed at night, in a torrential rain; seven thousand exhausted tourists stood on the pier looking at the burning liner. We hadn’t seen the city — in its place was a black, wet emptiness dotted with red flashes. It had rattled, boomed, and screeched as though being rent asunder. “We’ll be slaughtered in the dark, like rabbits,” Robert had said, and I immediately had sent him back to the barge to unload the armored car. The gangway had collapsed and the car had fallen into the water, and when Peck had pulled Robert out, all blue from the cold, he had come over to me and said through chattering teeth, “Didn’t I tell you it was dark?”

Ahmad said suddenly, “When I was a boy, we lived near the port and we used to come out here to beat up the factory kids. Many of them had brass knuckles, and that got me a broken nose.

Half of my life I put up with a crooked nose until I had it fixed last year. I sure loved to scrap when I was young. I used to have a hunk of lead pipe, and once I had to sit in jail for six months, but that didn’t help.”

He stopped, grinning. I waited awhile, then said, “You can’t find a good lead pipe these days. Now rubber truncheons are in fashion: you buy them used from the police.”

“Exactly,” said Ahmad. “Or else you buy a dumbbell, cut off one ball and there you are, ready to go. But the guys are not what they used to be. Now you get deported for such stuff.”

“Yes. And what else did you occupy yourself with in your youth?”

“And you?”

“I planned on joining the interplanetary force and trained to withstand overstress. We also played at who could dive the deepest.”

“We too,” said Ahmad. “We went down ten meters for automatics and whiskey. Over by the piers they lay on the seabed by the case. I used to get nosebleeds. But when the fire fights started, we began to find corpses with weights around their necks, so we quit that game.”

“It’s a very unpleasant sight, a corpse under water — especially if there is a current,” said I.

Ahmad chuckled “I’ve seen worse. I had occasion to work with the police.”

“This was after the fracas?”

“Much later. When the anti-gangster laws were passed.”

“They were called gangsters here too?”

“What else would you call them? Not brigands, certainly. ‘A group of brigands, armed with flame throwers and gas bombs, have laid siege to the municipal buildings,’” he pronounced expressively. “It doesn’t sound right, you can feel that. A brigand is an ax, a bludgeon, a mustache up to the ears, a cleaver—”

“A lead pipe,” I offered.

Ahmad gurgled.

“What are you doing tonight?” he asked.

“Going for a walk.”

“You have friends here?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Well… then it’s different.”

“How come?”

“Well, I was going to suggest something to you, but since you have friends…”

“By the way, “ I said, “who is your mayor?”

“Mayor? The devil knows, I don’t remember. Somebody was elected.”

“Not Peck Xenai, by any chance?”

“I don’t know.” He sounded regretful. “I wouldn’t want to mislead you.”

“Would you know the man anyway?”

“Xenai… Peck Xenai… No, I don’t knew him; haven’t heard of him. What is he to you — a friend?”

“Yes, an old friend. I have some others here, but they are all visitors.”

“Well,” said Ahmad, “if you should get bored and all kinds of thoughts begin to enter your head, come on over for a visit. Every single day from seven o’clock on I am at the Chez Gourmet. Do you like good eating?”

“Quite,” said I.

“Stomach in good shape?”

“Like an ostrich’s.”

“Well, then, why don’t you come by? We’ll have a fine time, and it won’t be necessary to think about a thing.”

Ahmad braked and turned cautiously into a driveway with an iron gate, which silently swung open before us. The car rolled into the yard.

“We have arrived,” announced Ahmad. “Here is your home.”

The house was two-storied, white with blue trim. The windows were draped on the inside. A clean, deserted patio with multi-colored flagstones was surrounded by a fruit-tree garden, with apple branches touching the walls.

“And where is the widow?” I said.

“Let’s go inside,” said Ahmad.

He went up the steps, leafing through his notebook I was following him while looking around. I liked the mini-orchard.

Ahmad found the right page and set up the combination on the small disc by the doorbell. The door opened. Cool, fresh air flowed out of the house. It was dark inside, but as soon as we stepped into the hall, it lit up with concealed illumination.

Putting away his notebook, Ahmad said, “To the right is the landlord’s half, to the left is yours. Please come in. Here is the living room, and there is the bar. In a minute we’ll have a drink. And now here is your study. Do you have a phonor?”

“No.”

“It’s just as well. You have everything you need right here. Come on over here. This is the bedroom. There is the control board for acoustic defense. You know how to use it?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“Good. The defense is triple, you can have it quiet as a tomb or turn the place into a bordello, whatever you like… Here’s the air-conditioning control, which, incidentally, is not too convenient, as you can only operate it from the bedroom.”

“I’ll manage,” I said.

“What? Well, okay. Here is the bathroom and powder room.”

“I am interested in the widow,” I said, “and the daughter.”

“All in good time. Shall I open the drapes?”

“What for?”

“Right you are, for no reason. Let’s go have a drink.”

We returned to the living room and Ahmad disappeared up to his waist in the bar.

“You want it on the strong side?” he asked.

“You have it backwards.”

“Would you like an omelette? Sandwiches?”

“How about nothing?”

“No,” said Ahmad, “an omelette it shall be — with tomatoes.” He rummaged in the bar. “I don’t know what does it, but this autocooker makes an altogether astonishingly good omelette with tomatoes. While we are at it, I will also have a bite.”

He extracted a tray from the bar and placed it on a low table by a semicircular couch. We sat down.

“Now about the widow,” I reminded him. “I would like to… present myself.”

“You like the rooms?”

“They’ll do.”

“Well, the widow is quite all right, too. And the daughter is not bad either.”

He extracted a flat case from an inside pocket. Like a cartridge clip it was stacked with a row of ampoules filled with colored liquids. Ahmad ran his index finger over them, smelled the omelette, hesitated, and finally selected one with a green fluid, broke it carefully, and dripped a few drops on the tomatoes. An aroma pervaded the room. The smell was not unpleasant, but, to my taste, bore no particular relation to the food.

“Right now,” continued Ahmad, “they are still asleep.” His gaze turned abstracted. “They sleep and see dreams.”

I looked at my watch.

“Well, well!”

Ahmad was enjoying his food.

“Ten-thirty!” I said.

Ahmad was enjoying his food. His cap was pushed back on his head, and the green visor stuck up vertically like the crest of an aroused mimicrodon. His eyes were half-closed. I regarded him with interest.

Having swallowed the last bit of tomato, he broke off a piece of the crust of white bread and carefully wiped the pan with it. His gaze cleared.