Ismail Kadarе - The Palace of Dreams

“God, what can this nightmare possibly mean?” he almost cried out. “It’s enough to drive you crazy!” He crossed out what he’d written, and tossed the sheet of paper angrily onto the heap with the other uninterpretable dreams. No, he’d sooner be sacked straightaway than have to be bothered with such drivel! He propped his head in his hands and sat with his eyes half shut.

After a while he heard the reedy voice of the room supervisor:

“What’s the matter, Mark-Alem? Have you got a headache?”

“Yes, a slight one.”

“Never mind—it happens to everyone at first. Do you need anything?”

“No, thanks. But I’ll ask you to explain some things to me in a little while.”

“Oh? Good. I’ve been waiting for you to do that for the past few days.”

“I didn’t want to bother you for nothing.”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. That’s what I’m here for.”

“I’ll have something for you in an hour or so,” said Mark-Alem. “Only…”

“Only what?”

“Only I’m not quite sure… My explanations may be quite wrong, or may not make any sense at all.”

The supervisor smiled.

“I’ll be waiting for you,” he said, and moved away.

Now I’ve got no escape, thought Mark-Alem. Whether I like it or not I’ll have to get on with it the same as all the others. Well, to hell with it—here goes! And he looked for the piece of paper recording a dream in which a group of men in black crossed a ditch and disappeared into a snow-covered plain. Suddenly the meaning of the dream seemed quite clear to him: A group of officials who’d committed some fraud against the State had overcome the obstacles ranged against them and reached the safety of the white plain; this meant the fall of the government.

Mark-Alem swiftly wrote down this explanation, but hadn’t completed the last few words before he thought to himself: But this is practically tantamount to a plot against the State!

He reread his interpretation and was confirmed in the thought that the dream really did relate to some kind of conspiracy. But the file he’d been given was the one concerning law and order and corruption! He was in such despair the pen fell from his nerveless hand. For once he thought he’d managed to produce something, and it turned out to be no good again! But wait a minute, he reflected. Perhaps it isn’t quite as bad as that. After all, there’s not all that much difference between corruption and a conspiracy against the State, since officials are involved in both cases.

Then again—how stupid of him not to have thought of it before!—the classification of the files wasn’t as rigid as all that, and there was no reason why the file on law and order shouldn’t also contain dreams concerning important affairs of State. And hadn’t the staff often been told it was considered commendable for them to search for signs of special significance in places where at first sight there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary? Yes, he could remember being told that quite plainly. It was even said that many Master-Dreams had come from the most undistinguished of files.

Mark-Alem felt much better now. Before the impulse had time to weaken, he took up four dreams that he’d read several times already and added his own explanation of each of them. He was feeling quite pleased with himself, and getting ready to deal with a fifth dream, when for some unknown reason he looked at the first dream again, and reread the explanation he’d appended to it. He was immediately overcome with doubt. Could I be mistaken? Could the dream have another explanation? he thought. A moment later he was quite sure he’d got it wrong. Beads of cold perspiration broke out on his forehead; he sat staring at the lines he’d written such a short time ago with so much alacrity, which now seemed alien and hostile. What ought he to do?

Then he said to himself, Dash it all, who’s going to attach any importance to this one dream out of all the tens of thousands that are dealt with here? And he was just about to leave it as it was when at the last moment his hand dropped away again. What if someone discovered his mistake? Especially as the dream involved State officials! Government circles might get to know of it somehow, and the worst of it was that everybody might think the accusation applied to themselves or their associates. A search would be made for the person who’d supplied the explanation of the dream, and when they found out it was him they’d say: “Well, well, a fellow called Mark-Alem, a new boy who’s only just started in the Tabir Sarrail, and as soon as he starts decoding his first dream he tries to sling mud at the senior servants of the State. Better keep an eye on that snake in the grass!”

Mark-Alem hastily snatched the page up as if to prevent anyone from reading what he’d written. He absolutely must try to repair his blunder before it was too late. But how? It occurred to him that he might simply do away with the dream altogether, but then he remembered that the cover of each file indicated the number of dreams it contained. To abstract one of them would be enough to get you sent straight to prison as a common thief. Something else, something else—he must think of something else! If he hadn’t been in such a hurry, if he hadn’t dashed the words off so madly, he could now have given the dream a completely different explanation. It was some diabolical impulse that had made him hurl himself upon his own destruction. It was all up with him now. But not so fast, he thought, still gazing at his own writing; perhaps all is not lost yet.

His eyes flew over the words again, and concluded there was still a possible way out. When he’d reread the page for the third time, he was surprised he hadn’t thought of it before. An unexpected sense of relief spread from his temples to his throat and lungs. After all, it was quite usual to make corrections. He would do his in such a way that they wouldn’t call attention to themselves; they’d just look like improvements in accuracy, refinements of style. It would be enough if he merely altered one word. For the umpteenth time he reread the phrase “a group of officials who’d committed some fraud against the State.” Finally, with a shaky hand, he altered it to read “a group of officials who’d prevented some fraud against the State.” He checked it a couple of times. It seemed all right. You could scarcely see the alteration. And even if anyone did notice it they might put it down as the correction of a slip. He breathed a sigh of relief. The business was settled at last…. Mark-Alem, who’d committed a fraud against the State…

He looked about him in terror. What if someone had noticed what he was doing? Nonsense, he told himself. The clerk who was nearest to him, and worked at the same table, was too far away to be able to read the name of his file, let alone what he’d written. A good thing my writing’s so spidery, he thought. Now, after all this agitation, he could take a bit of a rest. What a beastly job!

He cast a covert glance around the rest of the room. The clerks were working peacefully away, crouching over their files. You couldn’t even hear the sound of their pens. Every so often one of them would leave his desk and slip away as quietly as possible to the door. No doubt he was going down to the Archives to consult relevant interpretations made in the past—ages ago, some of them, and by decoders eminent in their art. God! he thought, looking at those dozens of heads bent over their files.

In those files was all the sleep in the world, an ocean of terror on the vast surface of which they tried to find some tiny signs or signals. Hapless wretches that we are! thought Mark-Alem.

He made himself read some more pages, but he could feel that his brain had seized up. Even if his eyes followed the text, his mind was elsewhere. Some soldiers with their faces covered up. Thousands of shoes in a village square, with a wire fixed overhead. More snow, but this time heaped up in big chests, together with a… set of man’s clothes! My mind’s gone completely, he thought, and suddenly, with a strange, almost wistful feeling, he remembered his first dream here in this palace. Three white foxes on the minaret of the local mosque. A nice dream, that, perfectly plain and clear. Where was it now, in all this horrible sea? “Oh, well,” he sighed, and picked up another page. He’d have to decode at least another two before the break. But the bell rang early, it seemed to him, and he shut up his file.