Self-discovery

I'm going, Life! Thank you, fate, or whoever you are, for everything that's happened to me so far. It's scary to think that I could have stopped and ended up as a petty coupon — clipping mediocrity! Let the rest of my life be difficult, frightening, confusing, and tormenting — but don't let it be petty. Don't ever let me sink to struggling for security, success, and for worrying about my hide when things get serious!

It's almost night, but I'm not sleepy. What a waste, sleeping. We could probably do away with it, too. They say there's an eccentric in Yugoslavia who hasn't slept in thirty years — and he feels fine.

“Midnight in Madrid. Sleep soundly! Respect the king and queen! And may the devil never cross your path!” In those days they would have burned me at the stake.

Don't sleep soundly, people! Don't respect the king or the queen! And let the devil cross your path; there's nothing too terrible about that.

As a youth I dreamed (about so many things) that when the time would come to undertake something frightening and serious, I would first have a talk with my father. But I didn't have anything serious to talk about and my father couldn't wait forever. Well, I'll give it a try now.

“Well, father, tomorrow I stand on the parapet. Were you scared?”

“What can I say? It was scary, of course. It was only four hundred yards to the German trenches, and I'm highly visible. Fraternization hadn't come into full force; they were still shooting. And they shot at me a couple of times — the Germans had all kinds, too. Maybe they were only trying to scare me.”

“But why that kind of punishment — standing on the parapet?”

“The temporary government had introduced it specially for those who were agitating for an end to the imperialist war. 'Oh, so they're your brother workers and brother peasants? Let's see how they'll shoot at you! And you stood there for two hours. And some for four.”

“Clever — you can't say anything about it. (Father, did you know that… I didn't believe you?)”

“I knew, son. It's all right. It was the times. I didn't always believe myself. What are you planning to do?”

“An experiment in controlling information in my own organism. Eventually I should develop a method of analyzing and synthesizing one's own body, soul, and memory. Understand?”

“You always spoke like a book, Val. I don't know all this science stuff. Once I was able to take apart and reassemble a machine gun blindfolded. But this I don't follow… what will it give you?”

“Well, you fought for equality, right? The first stage of this idea is coming true: the inequality between the rich and the poor, between the strong and the weak, is disappearing. Society offers equal opportunity for everyone. But besides the inequality built into society, there is the inequality built into people. A stupid person is no equal to a smart one, an ugly one to a handsome one, a sick or crippled one to a healthy one. But this method will let everyone make himself just the way he wants to be: smart, handsome, young, honest — “

“Young, smart and handsome — that's for sure. Everyone will want that. But as for honest — I don't know. That's harder than anything else, being honest.”

“But if a man definitely knows that this information will make him viler and sneakier and this will make him honest and direct, he wouldn't vacillate over which to pick, would he?”

“What can I say? There are people for whom it is important to appear honest in front of others, but they would steal or do anything else as long as they're not caught. And those would pick cleverness and sneakiness.”

“I know. Don't talk about them now. The experiment is tomorrow, father.”

“And you must go? Watch out for yourself, son.”

“Who else, if not for me? Listen, you could have jumped down from the parapet into the trench?”

“There were two officers guarding me. They would have shot me.”

“Couldn't you have gotten out of it?”

“Sure! I could have told them that I wouldn't agitate any more, that I was leaving the Bolsheviks — and they would have let me go at once.”

“Why didn't you tell them that?”

“I should tell them that? I never even thought about it. I was thinking that if I was killed, it would be the end of fraternization in our unit.”

“Why were you thinking that? You loved people so much, is that it? But you had killed people before — both before and after that.”

“I killed and they tried to kill me — it was the times.”

“Then why?”

“I was proud, I guess that's why. I was very proud in those days. I thought I was fighting the whole war.”

“And father, that's how proud I am now.”

“Of course, if you go on the parapet you have to stand proud. That's true. But don't you equate your work with the parapet, son. I didn't stand the whole two hours. The soldiers' committee raised the battalion; they bumped off the officers, and that was it. Do you have anyone to raise an alarm over you?”

I had no answer for that question — and the imagined conversation ended.

Well, enough of this — bedtime! Cuckoo, cuckoo, how long will I live?

Chapter 24