Ismail Kadarе - The Palace of Dreams

“That puts it even further beyond me,” Mark-Alem was tempted to say. He’d been frightened enough at the thought of dealing with traditional symbols—it would be far worse if he had to cope with new ones! He finally opened his mouth to speak, but was again interrupted.

“You may be wondering how you’ll ever manage to learn the techniques. Don’t worry, my boy—you will learn, and quite quickly too. Most people start off like you, hesitating and unsure of themselves, but many of them have gone on to become the pride and joy of the department. You’ll master the job in a couple of weeks, three at the most. And then—” here he beckoned, and Mark-Alem took a step forward—“that’ll be it. To try to learn more would be counterproductive; it could encourage you to work too mechanically. For the work in Interpretation is above all creative. It mustn’t carry the analysis of images and symbols too far. The main thing, as in algebra, is to arrive at certain principles. And even they mustn’t be applied too rigidly, or else the true point of the work could be missed. The higher form of interpretation begins where routine ends. What you must concentrate on are the permutations and combinations of symbols. One last tip: All the work that’s done in the Tabir is highly secret, but Interpretation is top top secret. Don’t forget it. And now off you go and start your new job. You’re expected there. Good luck!”

The official’s eyes were already riveted on the door again as Mark-Alem, overwhelmed, went out of it. He wandered the corridors in a state of bewilderment until at last he pulled himself together and remembered he was looking for Interpretation. The corridors were all completely deserted. The morning break must have gone by while he was with the official; he could tell from the characteristic silence that always descended after the interval. He walked on for a long time, hoping to meet someone from whom he could ask the way. But there was no one in sight. Sometimes he would think he heard footsteps ahead of him, around a bend in the corridor, but as soon as he got there the sounds would seem to recede in another direction, perhaps on the floor above, perhaps on that below. What if I roam about like this the whole morning, he thought. They’ll say I turned up late on my very first day. He got more and more worried. He should have asked the way from the assistant director, or the Director-General, or whoever the hell he was!

On he went. The passages seemed alternately familiar and strange. He couldn’t hear so much as a door being opened. He went up a broad staircase to the floor above, then came back again and soon found himself on the floor below. Everywhere he met with the same silence, the same emptiness. He felt it wouldn’t be long before he started screaming. He must now be in one of the remoter wings of the building; the pillars supporting the ceiling looked slightly shorter. Suddenly, just as he was going to turn back, he thought he saw a figure at the next bend in the corridor. He went toward it. A man was stationed in front of a door, and before Mark-Alem could come near he signed to him to stop. Mark-Alem halted.

“What do you want?” said the stranger. “No one’s allowed here.”

“I’m looking for Interpretation. I’ve been going round in circles for an hour.”

The man examined him suspiciously.

“You work in Interpretation and you don’t even know how to get there?”

“I’ve just been transferred there, but I don’t know where it is.”

The other went on scrutinizing him.

“Turn back the way you came,” he finally brought out, “and follow the corridor till you get to the main stairs. Then go up to the next floor and take the passage on the right from the landing. You’ll find Interpretation straight in front of you at the end.”

“Thank you,” said Mark-Alem, turning round.

As he went along he kept repeating, so as not to forget: along the corridor to the main stairs, next floor, passage on the right…

Who can he be, the man who just helped me? he wondered. He looked like a sentry, but what on earth is there to guard in this world of the deaf and dumb? This palace certainly is full of mysteries.

As he approached the stairs he thought he could see a wan light coming down from the glass roof over the stairwell. He breathed a sigh of relief.

He’d been working in Interpretation for nearly three weeks. For the first fortnight he’d been attached to some of the older hands, to be initiated into the secrets of the department. Then one day his boss came and said, “You’ve learned enough now. From tomorrow on you’ll be given a file of your own.”

“So soon?” said Mark-Alem. “Am I really up to working all on my own?”

The boss smiled.

“Don’t worry. That’s how everyone feels at first. But the room supervisor’s over there—if you have any doubts about anything you can consult him.”

Mark-Alem had been working on his file for four days, and his brain had never felt so confused. His work in Selection had been harassing enough, but compared with this it was child’s play. He’d never have dreamed the work in Interpretation could be so diabolical.

He’d been given a file that was supposed to be an easy one—it was marked Law and Order: Corruption. But he sometimes thought: My God, if I lose my head with a file like this, what shall I do when I get one that deals with conspiracies against the State?

The file was stuffed with dreams. Mark-Alem had read about sixty of them, and had set aside a score or so that at first sight he thought he might be able to decipher. But when he went back to them, instead of looking the easiest, they looked the most difficult. So then he selected a few others, but after an hour or two they also had come to seem utterly confused and impenetrable.

It’s quite impossible! he kept telling himself. I shall go mad! Four whole days and I haven’t managed to unscramble one dream.

Every time some elements of a dream began to make sense he would be struck by a doubt, and what had seemed intelligible a moment before became inexplicable again.

The whole thing is pure folly! he thought, burying his face in his hands.

He was obsessed with the fear of making a mistake. Sometimes he was convinced it was impossible to do anything else, and that if anyone got anything right it was purely by chance.

Sometimes he would get frantic with worry. He still hadn’t submitted one decoded dream to his superiors. They probably thought him either incompetent or else excessively timid. How did the others manage? He could see them filling whole pages with their comments. How could they look so calm?

As a matter of fact, every decoder was allowed to leave aside some dreams that he couldn’t unravel himself, and these were sent to the decoders par excellence, the real masters of Interpretation; but of course not everything could be sent to them.

Mark-Alem rubbed at his temples to disperse the blood that seemed to have accumulated there. His head was a flurry of symbols: Hermes’s staff, smoke, the limping bride, snow… They all whirled around in a wild saraband, displacing every perception of the ordinary world. To hell with it, thought Mark-Alem, taking up pen and paper, I’ll give this dream the first explanation that comes into my head, and hope for the best!

It had been dreamed by a pupil at a religious school in the capital. In it two men had found a fallen rainbow. With some difficulty they raised it up and dusted it off, and one of the men repainted it; but the rainbow absolutely refused to come to life again. So the men dropped it and ran away.

Hmmm, thought Mark-Alem, fiddling with his pen. His resolution had already evaporated. But he made himself go on. Without thinking, or rather, rapidly abandoning his first explanation of the dream, he wrote underneath it: “Warning of…” Warning of…