Lanark: a life in 4 books (13 page)

“How do I reach the staff club?”

“Go to the nearest hall and enter any lift. If you ask it nicely it will bring you direct. Mention my name.”

Lanark put on the shoes, took the books under his arm and passed through the curtain into the noise of the exit corridors. This time he ignored the voices and studied how to move as swiftly as those around him. The usual laws governing the motion of bodies seemed not to apply here. If you leaned backward against the force of the current you were certain to fall, but the farther you bowed before it the faster it carried you with no danger of falling whatsoever. Most people were content to move rapidly at an angle of forty-five degrees, but one or two flashed past Lanark’s knees like rockets, and these were bent so far forward that they appeared to be crawling. The great hall was less crowded than last time. Lanark entered a lift which seemed waiting to be filled before ascending. Two men carrying a surveyor’s pole and tripod were chatting in a corner.

“It’s a big job, the biggest we’ve handled.”

“The Noble Lord wants it ready in twelve days.”

“He’s off his rocker.”

“The creature is sending tungtanium suction delvers through the Algolagnics group.”

“Where will we get power to drive those?”

“From Ozenfant. Ozenfant and his tiny catalyst.”

“Has he said he’ll give it?”

“No, but he can’t oppose the president of the council.”

“I doubt if the president of the council could oppose Ozenfant.” The lift filled and the door closed. Voices said: “The drawing rooms.” “Leech-dormitory Q.” “The sponge-sump club.”

Lanark said, “The staff club.”

The lift said, “Whose staff club?”

“Professor Ozenfant’s.”

The lift hummed. The people near Lanark were silent but the farthest away whispered and glanced at him. The door opened and sounds of Viennese dance music floated in. The lift said,“Here you are, Dr. Lanark.”

He entered a softly lit restaurant with a low blue ceiling and thick blue carpet. The tables were empty with their cloths removed, except for one on the far side where Ozenfant sat. He wore a light grey suit with yellow waistcoat and tie; the corner of a white napkin was tucked between two buttons of the waistcoat. He was cutting a small morsel on his plate with obvious pleasure, but he looked up and beckoned Lanark over. The light came from two candles on his table and from low arches in the walls, arches of a moorish pattern which seemed to open into bright rooms at a lower level. Through the nearest, Lanark saw a section of dance floor with black trouser legs and long skirts waltzing over it. Ozenfant said, “Come, join me. The others have long finished, but I am somewhat addicted to the joys of the feeding trough.”

A waitress came from among the shadowy tables, pulled out a chair and handed Lanark a menu. The dishes were named in a language he didn’t understand. He returned the menu and said to Ozenfant, “Could you order for me?”

“Certainly. Try Enigma de Filets Congalés. After the slops of the invalid ward you will appreciate stronger meat.” Ozenfant gulped from a tulip-shaped glass and pulled his mouth down at the corners.

“Unluckily I cannot recommend the wine. Synthetic chemistry has much to learn in that direction.”

The waitress placed before Lanark a plate with a cube of grey jelly on it. He cut a thin slice from a surface and found it tasted like elastic ice. He swallowed quickly and the back of his nose was filled by a smell of burning rubber, but he was surprised by a sense of friendly warmth. He felt relaxed, yet capable of powerful action. He ate another slice and the smell was worse. He laid down the knife and fork and said, “I can’t eat more than that.”

Ozenfant dabbed his lips with the napkin. “No matter. A mouthful gives all the nourishment one needs. As you learn to like the flavour you will come to take more, and in a few years you will be overeating like the rest of us.”

“I won’t be here in a few years.”

“Oh?”

“I’m leaving when I find a suitable companion.”

“Why?”

“I want the sun.”

Ozenfant began laughing heartily then said, “I beg your pardon, but to hear such a sober fellow declare such a strange passion was a little unexpected. Why the
sun?
”

Lanark was irritated beyond normal reticence. He said, “I want to love, and meet friends, and work in it.”

“But you are no Athenian, no Florentine, you are a modern man! In modern civilizations those who work in the sunlight are a despised and dwindling minority. Even farmers are moving indoors. As for lovemaking and friendship, humanity has always preferred to enjoy these at night. If you wanted the moon I could sympathize, but Apollo is quite discredited.”

“You talk like Sludden.”

“Who is he?”

“A man who lives in the city I came from. The sun shines there for two or three minutes a day and he thinks it doesn’t matter.”

Ozenfant covered his eyes with a hand and said dreamily, “A city on the banks of a shrunk river. A city with a nineteenth-century square full of ugly statues. Am I right?”

“Yes.”

“Excuse me but the temptation is too great.”

Ozenfant reached for Lanark’s plate, placed it on his own empty plate and ate slowly, talking as he did so.

“That city is called Unthank. The calendar in Unthank is based on sunlight, but only administrators use it. The majority have forgotten the sun; moreover, they have rejected the clock. They do not measure or plan, their lives are regulated by simple appetite varied by the occasional impulse. Not surprisingly nobody is well there. Politically, too, they are corrupt and would collapse without subsidies from healthier continents. But do not blame its condition upon lack of sunlight. The institute has none, yet it supports itself and supplies the staff with plenty of healthy food and exercise. The clock keeps us regular.”

“Have you a library?”

“We have two: one for film and one for music. I am in charge of the latter.”

“What about books?”

“Books?”

“I want to read to my patient and I have only these three.”

“Read! How Victorian. Let me see them. Hm. That seems a well-balanced selection. I don’t know how you could add to it unless you borrowed from poor Monsignor Noakes. He always has a fat little book with him. It might be a Bible. Bibles are full of funny stories.”

Lanark said, “Where could I find him?”

“Don’t be in such a hurry—I want to dissuade you from leaving us. Think of the time you could lose by it.”

“What do you mean?”

“In this universe every continent measures time by different calendars, so there is no means of measuring the time between them. A traveller going from the institute to a neighbouring continent—Unthank, perhaps, or Provan—must cross a zone where time is a purely subjective experience. Some make the transition and hardly notice it, but how many years did you lose when you came here?”

Lanark was troubled by a feeling of dread which he hid by standing up and saying abruptly, “Thank you for the warning, but a patient is expecting me. Where is Monsignor Noakes?” “At this hour he is usually in the smoking room watching the bathers. Go through the arches behind me and walk straight ahead. Turn left when you enter the third room, he will be behind the arch facing you.”

Lanark walked from the restaurant into a brilliant room where older people were playing bridge. The room beyond was dim and full of billiard tables with low lights over them. The next room contained a swimming bath. Amid raucous echoes some men and women with the even brown tan that comes from exposure to ultraviolet light were diving or racing or chatting on the edge. Lanark turned left along the tiled slippery platform until he reached a wall pierced by the usual arches. He climbed a few steps into a softly lit, thick-carpeted room full of leather armchairs. Noakes sat near the steps smoking a slim cigar and glancing furtively at the brown bodies refracted by the blue-green water. Lanark sat opposite him and said, “I am Dr. Lanark.”

“Oh yes.”

“A patient of mine needs reading material and I’m collecting books. Professor Ozenfant suggested you could lend me one.” Noakes gave no sign of noticing Lanark was there. He glanced from the bathers to his cigar and spoke quietly and listlessly. “Professor Ozenfant is a noted humorist. He knows I have only my breviary. If your patient had been interested in prayer she would have been my patient.”

“He thought you had a bible.”

“Another joke. I have a Greek testament, and I suppose your patient understands Greek as little as you do. What have you gathered so far?”

He looked at the books Lanark held out and waved wearily toward
The Holy War
.

“The other two are trash, but that one is good in parts. The main message, I mean, is true. I knew the author slightly. He wrote me as a character into one of his books—not that book, another. His description was malicious but insignificant. He described Ozenfant too, but more truthfully and at greater length. Ignore what I say. Ozenfant has warned you against me.”

“Ozenfant has said nothing against you.”

Noakes stared at the floor and whispered, “Then he has come to despise me as much as that.”

He raised his chin and spoke almost loudly.

“He owes his position to me, you know. It was I who cured him. Ozenfant was a very difficult case, half leech, half dragon. (Nowadays he pretends he was pure dragon. I know otherwise.) I believed that the Mass had cured him, and my prayers and sermons, but it was the music. Ah, what music we had in those days! When I discovered that he had no sense of holiness apart from music I made him our organist. He has risen since then, and I—I have declined. You notice, I suppose, a fretful querulous note in my voice?”

“Yes.”

“Then try to understand why. All these professors and artists and heads of department have become powerful by tearing tiny bits off the religion which cured them and developing these bits into religions of their own. No God unites them now, only mutual assistance pacts based upon greed. Where we had Christ’s vicar upon earth we have now”—he spat the words at Lanark accusingly—“Lord Monboddo, president of the council!”

Lanark said defensively, “I’m new here. I don’t understand you.”

Noakes bowed his head and murmured, “You like your work?”

“No.”

“Then you will come to like it.”

“No. When I’ve cured this patient I’m going to leave with her, if she wants me.”

Noakes jerked upright and shouted, “What nonsense!” then leaned forward and grabbed Lanark’s hands, speaking in a low quick gabble of words. “No, no, no, no, my child, forgive me, forgive me, it is
not
nonsense! You
must
cure your patient, you
must
leave with her, and if—forgive me, I mean
when
—you leave, you will do something for me, will you not? You promise to do this one thing?”

Lanark pulled his hands free and asked irritably, “What thing?” “Tell people not to come here. Tell them they must not enter this institute. A little more faith, and hope, and charity, and they can cure their own diseases. Charity alone will save them, if it is possible without the others.”

“Why should I warn folk against coming here when coming here cured me?”

“Then tell them to come willingly, in thousands! Let them enter like an army of men, not wait to be swallowed like a herd of victims. Think of the institute with twenty staff to every patient! We will have no excuse for not curing people then! We will be like”—his voice grew wistful—“a cathedral with a congregation of priests. It would burst the institute open to the heavens.”

Lanark said, “I don’t think telling people things helps them much. And if you are still working here after so many years, you can’t think it much worse than it was.”

“You are wrong. In all the corridors there are sounds of increased urgency and potency, and behind it all a sound like the breathing of a hungry beast. I assure you, the institute is preparing to swallow a world. I am not trying to frighten you.” Lanark was more embarrassed than frightened. He stood up and said, “Is there a lift near here?”

“I see you will not try to save others. Pray God you can save yourself. There is one in the far corner.”

Lanark passed between the chairs and found an open lift in a wall between two arches. He entered and said, “Ignition chamber one.”

“Whose department?”

“Professor Ozenfant’s.”

The door opened on a familiar surface of brown cloth. He thrust it aside and stepped into the high-ceilinged tapestry-hung studio, almost expecting to find it in darkness. It was lit as before, and in the middle Lanark saw from behind a familiar figure in black trousers and waistcoat leaning over the carpenter’s bench. Lanark tiptoed uneasily round the walls looking for the figure of
Correctio Conversio
and sometimes glancing sideways at Ozenfant. The Professor was fixing the bridge on his guitar with a delicacy and concentration it would have been wrong to disturb. Lanark was relieved to lift the tapestry and, stooping, enter the low tunnel.

He sat in the tiny chamber pressing his back against the warm curve of the wall. The only movement was the silver creature’s clenching and unclenching hand, the only sound the remote and regular thumping. Lanark cleared his throat and said, “I’m sorry I’m late, but I have a book here which someone who knew the author tells me is very good.” There was no answer so he began reading.

“
A RELATION OF THE HOLY WAR
. In my travels, as I walked
through many regions and countries, it was my chance
to happen into that famous continent of Universe. A very
large and spacious continent it is; it lieth between the heavens. It is a place well watered, and richly adorned with
hills and valleys, bravely situate, and for the most part,
at least where I was, very fruitful, also well peopled, and
a very sweet air.”

“I refuse to listen to lies!” cried the voice, making a ringing echo. “Do you think
I
don’t live in the universe? Do you think I don’t know what a stinking trap it is?”