Potboiler

Lunch was taken standing, at a stall in the market occupying the Square of the Location of the Conclusion of the Parade of the Commemoration of the Remembrance of the Exalted Memory of the Greatness of the Sacrifices of the Magnificent Martyrs of the Glorious Revolution of the Zlabian People of the Twenty-sixth of May. The heat was ferocious, and many of the vendors had rolled up their goods and retreated to the lobby of the nearby Ministry of Flexible Ductwork. The valiant few that had not were flogging a limited assortment of diseased-looking produce. It seemed that “knobby and covered in dirt” was in season. There was no meat save goat offal that had acquired a thick carpet of flies. While Pfefferkorn wanted to disconnect these nauseating sights from his bowl of stew, there was no denying their common pungency.

On the East Zlabian side of the square was another market, this one colorful and festive. An accordion band played covers of American Top 40. There were rides. There was Bop-a-Goat. There was a petting zoo. There was a booth where you could get dressed up as a character from Vassily Nabochka and have your picture taken. Above all there was food. Clean booths displayed a rainbow of produce, lacquered pastries, satiny chocolates, fresh fish on ice. Pfefferkorn stared at a sign in Cyrillic for a long time before deciphering it as “FUNNEL CAKE.” It was an awesome display of plenty, making it all the more baffling that the entire scene was devoid of patrons. Indeed, this seemed to be the case as far as he could see into East Zlabia: aside from the accordion band, the vendors, and roving packs of well-equipped soldiers, the place had the eerie tranquility of a film set. Here, no teeming masses filled the sidewalks. Luxury cars were parked but nobody was driving. There were cafés, teahouses, bistros, boutiques—all deserted. The picture was so bizarre that Pfefferkorn was unconsciously drawn forward.

“Turn away, please?”

Fyothor had spoken with uncharacteristic urgency and without looking up from his own bowl of stew. It was then that Pfefferkorn noticed a ragtag group of West Zlabian soldiers observing them.

“Come,” Fyothor said, discarding his half-finished stew. “We will be late.”

74.

In fact, they were nowhere near late. Fyothor’s line-jumping had given them three hours to kill before their next appointment, so he had decided to add in a few extra stops.

“You are a tourist,” he said, kneading Pfefferkorn’s shoulders tenderly. “You must tour.”

At the interactive section of the Museum of Goats, Pfefferkorn managed to eke out a half-cup of milk. He was proud of himself until he saw the bucket-plus produced by a four-year-old girl with huge, callused hands. At the Museum of Peace he read an account of the Cold War exactly the opposite of the one he knew. At the Museum of Concrete he learned about the building of the museum itself. By dinnertime, he was ready for cake.

His room had once again been tossed.

The picture of Zhulk had been straightened.

The fan was still kaput.

“Yes hello, this is Arthur Kowalczyk in room forty-four. Where’s my fan?”

“Monsieur, fan is in room.”

“The one I have is broken, so either you didn’t replace it like I asked or somebody’s been buying off the back of the truck.”

“Monsieur, I am sorry.”

“I don’t want apologies. I want a new fan.”

The pipes began to bang.

“Hello?” Pfefferkorn said. “Are you there?”

“Yes, monsieur.”

“I’m tired of calling down. Please send me a fan. A working one. Right away.”

He hung up before the clerk could reply. He moved around the room, restoring it to order, stripping off his clothes as he went. The banging was getting louder. He began to question his original hypothesis. For one thing, he was fairly certain that what made hot water pipes clank was the temperature differential between the water and the pipe. Hot water caused the cold metal to expand, which in turn caused the characteristic ticking. But it was so hot in West Zlabia that he couldn’t imagine the differential to be more than a few degrees: not enough to produce sound, and certainly not enough to produce the ear-splitting racket he was hearing. Another reason to doubt the hypothesis was that in his experience, clanking pipes tended to speed up and then taper off. The noise coming through his wall was following a different pattern. It was steady and insistent, more indicative of, say, the feral urgency of a headboard knocking against plaster. It would be just his luck, wouldn’t it, to be stuck next to a honeymooning couple.

He waited for the fan to be delivered, and when it wasn’t, he called again.

“Immediately, monsieur,” the desk clerk said.

The clanking kept on going. Zhulk’s photo was jumping all over the place. Pfefferkorn stood on the bed and took it down. Then he pounded angrily on the wall.

“It’s late,” he said.

The clanking ceased.

At midnight he gave up waiting. He threw back the duvet and lay on the sheet, basking in the silence, aware that five a.m. was just around the bend.

75.