Ismail Kadarе - The Palace of Dreams

There was the usual bustle downstairs. The basement where they had coffee or salep was the only place where you had the opportunity to exchange a few words with people you knew, or even with people you didn’t. Mark-Alem had been in Selection such a short time he’d met only a few of those who worked there, and he saw them even more rarely in the cafeteria. But even when he did see them they seemed strange and far away, as if they belonged to a distant period of his existence. He preferred to talk to strangers. He hadn’t spent a single satisfactory day in Selection, and perhaps that was why he avoided his former colleagues there.

In Interpretation the days were just as tedious and dreary—apart from today, when at last he’d managed to get somewhere. Maybe that was why, instead of going down to the cafeteria in the usual bitter mood, he now felt comparatively cheerful.

“Where do you work?” he said casually to the man opposite him. He’d found a place free at a table covered with empty cups and glasses.

The other man drew himself up as if in the presence of a superior.

“In the copying office, sir,” he said.

Mark-Alem knew he’d been right. You could tell straightaway that the man was new to the place, as he himself had been a month ago. After taking a sip of coffee:

“Have you been ill?” he asked, surprised at his own temerity. “You’re very pale.”

“No, sir,” the other man answered, putting his glass of salep down for a moment. “But we’ve got a lot of work, and…”

“Yes, of course,” Mark-Alem went on as before, not quite sure where this new nonchalance of his was coming from. “Perhaps this is the high season for dreams?”

“Yes, yes,” said the other, nodding his head so energetically Mark-Alem thought his thin neck would snap if he went on much longer.

“What about you?” said the other man timidly.

“I’m in Interpretation.”

The eyes of his interlocutor widened, and he smiled as if to say, “I thought as much.”

“Drink up—it’ll get cold!” said Mark-Alem, noticing that the other man was too impressed to pick up his glass.

“It’s the first time I’ve met a gentleman from Interpretation,” he said reverently. “What a treat!”

He took up his glass of salep several times, but then put it down again, unable to bring himself to raise it to his lips.

“Have you been working in the Palace long?”

“Two months, sir.”

And after only two months you’re all skin and bones, thought Mark-Alem. Heaven knew what he himself would look like soon….

“We’ve had a terrible lot of work lately,” said the other, finally drinking his salep. “We’ve been having to do several hours’ overtime every day.”

“That’s obvious,” said Mark-Alem.

The other smiled as if to say, “What can I do?”

“It so happens that the solitary rooms are near our offices,” he went on, “so when they need copyists during an interrogation they send for us.”

“Solitary rooms?” said Mark-Alem. “What are they?”

“Don’t you know?” said his companion. Mark-Alem immediately regretted asking the question.

“I’ve never had anything to do with them,” he muttered, “but of course I’ve heard of them.”

“They’re more or less adjacent to our office,” said the copyist.

“Are they in the part of the Palace guarded by sentries?”

“That’s right,” said the other cheerfully. “The guard stands just outside the door. Have you been there, then?”

“Yes, but on other business.”

“Our offices are just nearby. That’s why the people who work there apply to us when they need copyists. Yes, the work is really diabolical. There’s someone there at the moment that they’ve been questioning for forty days on end.”

“What did he do?” asked Mark-Alem, yawning as he spoke so as to make the question seem more casual.

“What do you mean—what did he do? Everyone knows that,” said the other, looking Mark-Alem deep in the eye. “He’s a dreamer.”

“A dreamer? What of it?”

“As you probably know, those are the rooms where dreamers are held whom the Tabir Sarrail has sent for to ask them for further explanations about the dreams they’ve sent in.”

“Oh, yes, I’ve heard about it,” said Mark-Alem. He was on the point of yawning again, but at that moment, for the first time, he noticed the light fade out of the other man’s eyes.

“Perhaps I oughtn’t to have mentioned it, because it’s secret, like everything else here. But seeing you said you worked in Interpretation, I thought you’d know all about it.”

Mark-Alem started to laugh.

“Are you sorry you spoke? Don’t worry. I really do work in Interpretation, and I know much more important secrets than the one you’ve told me about.”

“Of course, of course,” said the other, pulling himself together.

“What’s more,” added Mark-Alem, lowering his voice, “I’m a member of the Quprili family. So you haven’t got anything to worry about….”

“Goodness me,” said the copyist, “I had a presentiment!… Aren’t I lucky you were good enough to talk to me!…”

“And how are things with the dreamer in the solitary room?” interrupted Mark-Alem. “Is there any progress? You’re a copyist, you say?”

“Yes, sir, and I’ve been working there lately. That’s where I’ve just come from. How are things going with him? Well, how can I put it…? So far we’ve filled hundreds of pages with his depositions. Of course he’s completely at sea, but that’s not his fault. He’s only an ordinary sort of chap from a dead-and-alive province on the eastern borders. It can never have entered his mind, when he sent in his dream, that he’d wind up in the Tabir Sarrail.”

“And what’s so important about his dream?”

The other man shrugged.

“I don’t know, myself. At first glance it seems ordinary enough, but there must be something there since they’re making such a fuss about it. It seems Interpretation sent it back for further explanations. But even though they’re taking all this trouble, it isn’t getting any clearer—in fact, it’s only getting more confused.”

“I don’t see what they can expect to get from the dreamer himself.”

“I can’t really explain. I don’t understand it very well myself. They ask him for further details about a few points that seem strange or unusual. Naturally he can’t supply them. It’s such a long time ago since he had the dream…. And anyway, after being shut up here so long, he doesn’t know where he is. He can’t even remember the dream anymore.”

“Does this sort of thing happen often?”

“I don’t think so. Twice or three times a year—not more. Otherwise people would get frightened and think twice about sending in their dreams.”

“Of course. And what are they going to do with him now?”

“They’ll go on questioning him until…” The copyist threw up his hands. “I don’t really know.”

“All very odd,” said Mark-Alem. “So you can’t send your dreams to the Tabir Sarrail with impunity. One fine day you might get a letter telling you to present yourself here.”

The other might have been going to answer, but at this point the bell rang for the end of the break. They said good-bye and went their separate ways.

As he made his way upstairs Mark-Alem couldn’t shake off the thought of what he’d just heard. What were those solitary rooms the copyist had been talking about? At first blush it all seemed absurd and inexplicable, but there must be more to it than that. What was involved was undoubtedly some kind of imprisonment. But for what purpose? The copyist had said it was obvious the prisoner couldn’t remember anything about his dream. That must be the real object of his incarceration: to make him forget it. That wearing interrogation night and day, that interminable report, the pretense of seeking precise details about something that by its very nature cannot be definite—all this, continued until the dream begins to disintegrate and finally disappears completely from the dreamer’s memory, could only be called brainwashing, thought Mark-Alem. Or an undream, in the same way as unreason is the opposite of reason.