Roadside Picnic

He had never experienced anything like this before outside the Zone. And it had happened in the Zone only two or three times. It was as though he were in a different world. A million odors cascaded in on him at once—sharp, sweet, metallic, gentle, dangerous ones, as crude as cobblestones, as delicate and complex as watch mechanisms, as huge as a house and as tiny as a dust particle. The air became hard, it developed edges, surfaces, and corners, like space was filled with huge, stiff balloons, slippery pyramids, gigantic prickly crystals, and he had to push his way through it all, making his way in a dream through a junk store stuffed with ancient ugly furniture … It lasted a second. He opened his eyes, and everything was gone. It hadn't been a different world—it was this world turning a new, unknown side to him. This side was revealed to him for a second and then disappeared, before he had time to figure it out.

An angry horn beeped, and Redrick walked faster, faster, and then ran all the way to the wall of the Métropole. His heart was beating wildly. He put the briefcase on the pavement and impatiently tore open the pack of cigarettes. He lit one, inhaled deeply, and rested, as if after a fight. A cop stopped near him and asked:

"Need help, mister?"

"N-no,” Redrick squeezed the word out and coughed. “It's stuffy."

"Can I take you where you're going?"

Redrick picked up his briefcase.

"Everything, everything is fine, pal. Thanks."

He walked quickly toward the entrance, walked up the steps and went into the lobby. It was cool, dusky, and echoey. He should have sat for a while in one of those voluminous leather chairs and caught his breath, but he was late already. He allowed himself time to finish the cigarette, checking out the crowd through half-shut eyes. Bones was there, irritatedly riffling through the magazines at the newsstand. Redrick threw the butt into the ashtray and went into the elevator. He didn't manage to close the door in time and others crowded in: a fat man breathing asthmatically, a heavily perfumed lady with a grumpy little boy eating chocolate, and a heavyset old woman with a poorly shaved chin. Redrick was pushed into the corner. He closed his eyes, trying to shut out the boy with chocolate saliva dripping down his chin, whose face was fresh and pure, without a single hair. And to shut out his mother, whose scrawny bosom was embellished with a necklace made of large black sprays set in silver. And to shut out the bulging sclerotic whites of the eyes of the fat man, and the hideous warts on the swollen face of the old woman. The fat man tried to light a cigarette, but the old woman attacked him and kept after him until she got out on five. As soon as she did, the fat man lit up with a look that proclaimed that he was defending his civil rights, and broke out coughing and hacking as soon as he inhaled, sticking out his lips like a camel and jabbing Redrick in the ribs with his elbow.

Redrick got out on the eighth floor and walked down the thick carpet on the corridor, cozily illuminated by hidden lamps. It smelled of expensive tobacco, French perfumes, the soft natural leather of stuffed wallets, expensive ladies of the night, and solid gold cigarette cases. It reeked of everything, of the lousy fungus that was growing on the Zone, drinking on the Zone, eating, exploiting, and growing fat on the Zone and that didn't give a damn about any of it, especially about what would happen later, when it had eaten its full and gotten power, and when everything that was once in the Zone was outside the Zone. Redrick pushed open the door to 874 without knocking.

Throaty, sitting on a table by the window, was performing a ritual over a cigar. He was still in his pajamas and his thinning hair, though wet, was carefully parted. His unhealthy puffy face was smoothly shaved.

"Aha,” he said without looking up. “Punctuality is the politeness of kings. Good day, young man!"

He finished clipping the end of the cigar, took it in both hands, brought it up to his nose, and passed it back and forth under it.

"Where is good old Burbridge?” he asked and looked up. His eyes were clear, blue, angelic.

Redrick put the briefcase on the sofa, sat down, and took out his cigarettes.

"Burbridge isn't coming."

"Good old Burbridge,” Throaty repeated. He took the cigar between two fingers and carefully brought it to his mouth. “Old Burbridge's nerves are acting up."

He kept looking at Redrick with his clear blue eyes, never blinking. He never blinked. The door opened slightly and Bones slipped into the room.

"Who were you talking to?” he asked from the doorway.

"Ah, hello,” Redrick said cheerily, flipping ashes on the floor.

Bones shoved his hands in his pockets and came closer, taking broad steps with his huge pigeon-toed feet. He stopped in front of Redrick.

"We've told you a hundred times,” he reproached him. “No contacts before a meeting. And what do you do?"

"I say hello,” Redrick replied. “And you?"

Throaty laughed. Bones was irritated.