We. Yevgeny Zamyatin

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      ‘Listen, you clearly want to be original, but don’t you—’

      ‘Clearly,’ she interrupted, ‘being original means standing out. Thus, being original would disrupt equality . . . And what the Ancients, in their idiot language, called “being banal” for us means: doing your duty. Therefore . . .’

      ‘Yes, yes, yes! Exactly,’ I couldn’t hold back. ‘And there’s no reason, absolutely no reason, for you to—’

      She went up to the figurine of the snub-nosed poet and, lowering the blinds over the wildfire in her eyes, in there, behind her windows, she said, this time, I believe, with complete sincerity (maybe to soften me up) – something actually reasonable:

      ‘Don’t you find it incredible that there was a time when people tolerated people like him? And not only tolerated, but even bowed down to them. How slavish of them! Don’t you think?’

      ‘Clearly . . . I mean I wanted to . . .’ (that damned ‘clearly’!)

      ‘Well, yes, I know. But the truth is that these were masters even more powerful than those whom they crowned. Why didn’t they extirpate them from society and kill them off? We . . .’

      ‘Yes, we . . .’ I began. And suddenly, she burst out laughing. It was as if I could see her laughter erupt through the air: the resonant, steep, supple but strong – like a whip – curve of that laughter. I remember – I shook with anger. I wanted – to grab her and – I don’t remember what . . . I had to do something – anything. I mechanically opened my golden badge and looked at the time. Ten to 17.

      ‘Isn’t it time to go?’ I asked as politely as I could manage.

      ‘And what if I asked you to stay here with me?’

      ‘Listen: do you . . . do you understand what you’re saying? Ten minutes from now, I must report to the auditorium—’

      ‘All numbers are obligated to attend the standard course in arts and sciences,’ she continued, using my voice.

      Then, she tore back the blinds, raising her eyes: through the dark windows, I saw the flames in her fireplace.

      ‘I know this doctor at the Medical Bureau, he’s registered to me. If I ask him to, he can give you a pass that will say you were sick. What do you think?’

      I understood. I finally understood where this whole game had been leading.

      ‘So that’s what you’re up to! You must know perfectly well that like any honest number, it is now essentially my duty to immediately go to the Guardians’ Bureau and . . .’

      ‘But what about unessentially?’ (her sharp, biting smile). ‘I’m awfully curious: will you actually go to the Bureau or not?’

      ‘Are you staying here?’ I reached for the doorknob. It was made of bronze and I could hear: my voice sounded just as metallic.

      ‘Will you give me a moment?’

      She went up to the telephone and said a number into it. I was so upset, I didn’t take note of it, and then she shouted, ‘I’ll see you at the House of Antiquity. Yes, yes, alone.’

      I turned the cold, bronze knob.

      ‘Would you mind if I took the aero?’

      ‘Oh yes, of course! Please, go ahead . . .’

      Out there, by the exit, the old woman sat in the sun, daydreaming, like a plant. It was again surprising when she opened her mute, overgrown mouth and asked, ‘And your . . . did you leave her alone in there?’

      ‘Yes, she’s alone.’

      The old woman’s mouth grew over again. She shook her head. Apparently, even her weakened mind comprehended the brazen recklessness and stupidity of that woman’s behaviour.

      At exactly 17, I was at the lecture. Suddenly, I realised that I hadn’t told the old woman the truth: I-330 wasn’t alone. Perhaps it was the fact that I’d inadvertently lied to the old woman that tormented me and kept me from paying attention. Yes, she wasn’t alone: that was the issue.

      After 21:30, I had a Personal Hour. I could have gone to the Bureau of Guardians right then and there and filed a report, but I was so exhausted after that stupid incident. Plus, technically, I have two days to file it. I’ll do it tomorrow: theres’s a whole twenty-four hours.

      _____________

      3 Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837), considered the greatest Russian poet of all time. Pushkin was of African ancestry. This allusion to him emphasises his relationship to One State poet R-13, with whom he shares ‘African’ characteristics. Their relationship is the origin of WE’s racism. – B.S.

      LOG 7

      BRIEF:

      An Eyelash. Taylor. Henbane and Lilies of the Valley.

      Night. Green, orange, blue; a crimson ‘grand’ instrument; a dress, as yellow as an orange. Then the bronze Buddha suddenly raised its bronze eyelids and juice started pouring: out of the Buddha. And out of the yellow dress – juice, dripping out of the mirror, and the large bed began to soak through, and the children’s beds, and now me – a deathly sweet horror . . .

      I woke up: even, bluish light; the glass of the walls, the glass chairs, the table all shining. That calmed me down. My heart stopped pounding. Juice, Buddha . . . what is this nonsense? Clearly: I’m sick. I never dreamed before. They say that this was a completely normal and everyday occurrence for the Ancients: dreaming. It makes sense: their whole lives were like a nightmarish carousel: green – orange – Buddha – juice. But we now know that dreams are a serious psychic illness. And I know: my mind has always been a chronometrically regulated, sparkling mechanism without a single bug, but now . . . Now: it’s like there is some kind of foreign object stuck in my brain, like when you get even the thinnest eyelash stuck in your eye: you’re fine, but that one eye with a lash in it doesn’t let you forget about it for a second . . .

      The cheerful, crystal bell in the headboard: 7, time to get up. When I look left and right, it’s like I’m seeing myself, my room, my unif, my movements repeated one thousand times over through the glass walls. It’s invigorating: seeing yourself as part of an enormous, powerful whole. And such precise beauty: not a single extraneous gesture, bend or turn.

      Yes, that Taylor was, indubitably, a genius among the Ancients. Although he didn’t reach the conclusion of applying his method to all of life, every step, day and night – he didn’t think to integrate his system from hour zero to twenty-four. But still, how did they manage to write entire libraries about some Kant while barely noticing Taylor, the visionary who managed to see ten centuries ahead of his time.

      Breakfast is over. The Anthem of the One State sung in a uniform fashion. Uniformly, in fours, to the elevators. The barely perceptible hum of the motors – and rapidly, down, down, down – my heart sank a little . . . then, suddenly, I recalled my weird dream or maybe, some kind of vague, implicit function of it. Oh yes, on the aero yesterday – the descent. But all that is over now: period. And it’s very good I was so decisive and curt with her.

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