The Final Circle of Paradise

"Pity them?" said Len. "But they don't pity anybody. They do whatever they like. It's all the same to them, don't you see? It they are bored, then they don't care whose head they saw apart. Idiots… Maybe in the daytime they are idiots, but you don't seem to understand that at night they are not idiots, they are all accursed."

"How can that be?"

"They are cursed by the whole world They can have no peace, and they won't ever have it. You don't know anything.

What's it to you? As you arrived, so you will leave… but they are alive at night, and in the daytime they are dead, corpselike."

I went to the living room and brought him some water. He drank down the glass and said, "Will you leave soon?"

"Of course not, how can you think that? I just got here,"

I said, patting him on the shoulder.

"Could I sleep with you?"

"Of course."

"At first I had a padlock, but she took it away for some reason. But why she took it she won't say."

"OK," I said. "You will sleep in my living room. Do you want to?"

"Yes."

"Go ahead and lock yourself in and sleep to your heart's content. And I will climb into the bedroom through the window."

He raised his head and gazed at me intently.

"You think your doors lock? I know all about this place.

Yours don't lock either."

"It's for you they don't lock," I said as negligently as possible. "But for me they'll lock. It's only a half-hour's work."

He laughed unpleasantly, like an adult.

"You are afraid, too. All right, I was only joking. Don't be afraid, your locks do work"

"You dope," I said. "Didn't I tell you I wasn't afraid of anything of that sort?" He looked at me questioningly. "I wanted to make the lock work for you in the living room, so you could sleep in peace, as long as you are so afraid. As for me, I always sleep with the window open."

"I told you, I was joking."

We were silent for a bit.

"Len," I said, "what will you be when you grow up?" "What do you mean?" he said. He was quite astonished. "What do I care?"

"Now, now – what do you care. It's all the same to you whether you will be a chemist or a bartender?"

"I told you – we are all under a curse. You can't get away from it, why can't you understand that? When everybody knows it?"

"So what?" I said. "There were accursed peoples before.

And then children were born who grew up and removed the curse."

"How?"

"That would take a long time to explain, old friend." I got up. "I'll be sure to tell you all about it. For now, go on out and play. You do play in the daytime? Okay then, run along. When the sun sets, come on over, I'll make your bed."

He stuck his hands in his pockets and went to the door.

There he stopped and said aver his shoulder, "That gadget you'd better take it out of the radio. What do you think it is?"

"A local oscillator-mixer," I said.

"It's not a mixer at all. Take it out or it will be bad for you." "Why will it be bad for me?" I said.

"Take it out," be said. "You'll hate everybody. Right now you are not cursed, blat you will become cursed. Who gave it to you? Vousi?"

"No."

He looked at me imploringly.

"Ivan, take it out!"

"So be it," I said. "I'll take it out. Run along and play. And never be afraid of me. Do you hear?"