Zero and Other Fictions (11 page)

Jin Yisheng, the dean, summoned Xi De to his office.

“Don't be too discouraged because you cannot pursue advanced studies,” said the dean, trying to comfort him. “Max Kristen said that the society of the future needs all sorts of talented people. As with a construction crane, every part, every screw must be intact—it's not just the joystick that is important.”

After saying good-bye to the dean, Xi De proceeded to Professor Kang's room and knocked on his door.

The sound of coughing came from behind the door.

“Professor, are you all right?”

“I've got a bit of a cold. It doesn't matter. Come in.”

“I came to say good-bye,” said Xi De. “I graduated.”

They sat down in the living room. Professor Kang, who was dressed in pajamas, poured tea for him as usual.

“Time flies. I remember when you were this small,” said the old man, gesturing with his hand. “It's strange. I've taught so many students, but so few ever come to say good-bye to me.”

Tears welled up in the professor's eyes as Xi De watched, astonished.

“What's the matter, Professor?”

“I'm so touched.” He raised his hand to dry his eyes. “Xi De, I think you will encounter all sorts of unexpected troubles in the future. I shouldn't have told you so many things about the ‘past.'”

“Nonsense, Professor,” said Xi De, “you have made me more ‘intelligent.'”

The word made them laugh.

“Well,” said the old man, “I have nothing to give you. These antiques of mine are of no use to you. But I have some things to say that I hope you will remember after you leave school. Don't tell anyone about the two of us. You must also be observant, but don't ask questions, and keep a distance from others. If you have the opportunity, you can come and visit me. That's enough, Xi De, you'd better get going and pack your things.”

7

The Bureau of Resource Analysis was a level-two unit attached to the Ministry of Resources.

Xi De's office faced the towering government administrative building. Whether for its imposing nature or its gorgeous exterior, the building had undoubtedly become the symbol of Central City. Xi De often stepped to the window and gazed at the enormous silver structure. On clear days, rays of sunlight would shimmer within his four walls, exuding a charismatic power. He could see nothing else from his window but the government administrative building. His was a small but fully appointed office. He also had two female office assistants. In addition, there was a neat row of stern-looking and forbidding machines, including computers for receiving, dispatching, and analysis. It was Xi De's job to collect production figures from a given region and, after compiling and organizing them, to produce analytical charts and graphs. The work required utilizing a number of different machines, which occupied most of his time. The moment he felt he could relax a little, he'd step over to the beverage machine, where he'd pour himself a cup of tea or coffee, and then step back over to the window and gaze out at the apparently unchanging scene until he experienced a slight feeling of disgust, after which he would walk over to the desks of the two female assistants and chat with them about anything and everything.

Aqing and Senni were both outstanding students from the Intermediate Academy. Both were petite and quite attractive. They loved to talk about school life as if it were the only topic worth discussing. The academy specialized in training office staff such as assistants and secretaries. Their special skills included speed reading, typing, counting, and following orders. The curriculum at the Intermediate Academy was superficial compared to that of the Superior Academy, while the discipline was much stricter (the Superior Academy took a much more relaxed attitude when it came to extracurricular activities). On this particular day, they proudly told Xi De about how the braver girls hopped the wall and left the school at night. But judging from the clever gleam in their eyes, it was apparent that they were, in fact, bragging.

“What did you do when you went out so late?” Xi De couldn't help asking. The streets were empty at night save for in the amusement districts, and students going out for a stroll on the streets was just inconceivable.

“We didn't do anything; we just wanted to get out.”

Xi De grunted, ending the conversation, and returned to his desk. He lowered his head and focused on his forms for reporting statistics. He didn't look up again until the music indicating the end of the workday sounded. He put the charts and graphs on his desk in the drawer, walked over to the receiver and switched it to automatic, turned off the data-processing computer, said good-bye to the two young ladies, and left.

In the elevator, he was accosted by another resource analyst by the name of Lin Xing.

“Hey, let's go have a drink.” Lin was tall and thin and had been at the bureau for five years.

They entered the bar on the ground floor of the building together. At that time, the bar was crowded with employees wearing Ministry of Resources insignias on their lapels. Xi De made his way through the crowd to the bar, where he ordered two glasses of green wine, a pungent, fiery liquor. As the bartender handed him the glasses, he also pushed a small metal box toward him. Xi De touched it with the back of his hand, paying for the drinks.

“I prefer money, especially those old copper coins,” said Lin Xing. “When you drop a handful of coppers on the bar and hear them ring, now that's music to the ears.”

“Abolishing the currency system was progress,” replied Xi De casually. “The age of opinion is a thing of the past; talking about such things is a waste of time.”

They fell silent. Xi De looked around at the noisy crowd. There were several tables of men and women that seemed to form a loud group. A fat guy with a red face was mouthing a popular song.

 

There is no past, there is no future,
There is nothing but the present for us.
There is no sadness, there is no happiness,
There is nothing but indifference for us.
There is no argument, there is no splitting,
There is nothing but work for us.

 

The song faded amid a burst of raucous laughter. Xi De looked away and clinked glasses with Lin Xing.

“What do you think?” asked Lin. “You've been here almost six months. What do you think?”

“It's all right. I don't have anything to worry about.”

“Of course you don't have anything to worry about.” Lin laughed grimly. “There'll come a day when they'll replace you with a machine.”

“Lin, you're drunk.”

“I'm not drunk, but I can't go to bed,” he said draining his glass. “See that guy over there? He's drinking because he is unhappy.”

“That's not good,” said Xi De, shaking his head. “It'll have an impact on his efficiency.”

“Old chap,” said Lin, pressing closer, “efficiency exists only in the high-level departments. You must know that.”

It's classic job fatigue,
thought Xi De. Perhaps Lin Xing needed a vacation. Of course, as the books said, in a highly specialized society, people must have the appropriate occupation or the slightest change would create waste. Fatigue and exhaustion are normal physiological phenomena, but how to solve the resultant loss of efficiency and how to restore one's original work ethic had become the focus of the Bureau of Character Readjustment within the Ministry of Education.

“How long has it been since your last vacation?”

“Old chap,” said Lin Xing, looking at him strangely, “I know what you are thinking, so I won't talk about it anymore with you.”

8

Xi De returned to the singles dorm of the Resource Analysis Bureau, which consisted of perfect apartments like a honeycomb occupying the top floors of the building. They contained all sorts of automatic conveniences to the extent that if you needed some article of daily use, all you had to do was touch the computer keyboard. In a matter of minutes the article would be delivered directly to you via a conduit door in the wall. This way of life was superior to the farm life of Xi De's parents. He once brought his parents to the dormitory and was deeply moved by the expressions of pride they felt for their son. Such affection was rarely encountered. In a fixed job, people moved at a fixed pace and rarely had time for others.

Still dressed, Xi De fell on his bed. The effect of the wine seemed to have increased. With his hands clasped behind his head, he began to give free rein to his thoughts. Lin Xing's words made him a little uncomfortable. Over the last few months, he had grown accustomed to the regular order of everything. When something out of the ordinary occurred, it left him feeling alarmed. He would recall the elderly professor at school and how he could actually conjure up the past. But of what use was it? According to the laws of nature, it served only to obstruct the flow of progress. The entire new society was in the process of moving forward, just as Max Kristen said: “Rapid progress will soon leave all problems behind. To pause is to perish.”

According to the standard education he had received, less the influence of the old professor, he was but one force in the forward progress of society as a whole. Therefore, the individual will could not be suffered to exist; one had to sacrifice oneself for the greater good. Only if every element advanced uniformly in the same direction would it do any good. If one element deviated, the damage caused …

I can't think this way again
, thought Xi De vaguely.

Then he fell asleep. A peculiar picture, gray and static, appeared out of the haze before his eyes. It looked coldly at Xi De as he dreamed. The picture was of an abandoned field (owing to superfluous production one year), stripped tree trunks, cracked mud, and a dry well.

The picture accompanied him throughout the long night. The next morning, Xi De blinked forcefully, dispelling the illusion and, without giving it much thought beyond feeling a little strange, resumed his tranquil, unvarying daily life.

There were no changes worth mentioning in his office; order was strictly controlled, which is to say there had been no technical problems. Analysis of the output of Number Three Industrial City: Normal. Number Four Industrial City: Normal. Number Five.… The two female assistants were discussing the big story in the morning's news. The Supreme Committee had announced an accomplishment worth celebrating: a bio lab had managed to successfully develop a means of reproducing life from a human cell without the need for sexual reproduction. It was predicted that this experiment would ultimately lead to the elimination of the old-style and moribund family system. In the foreseeable future, the father and mother of humanity would be the new society, and each person would no longer be anyone's emotional burden. He could loudly proclaim without any emotional conflict: “I love my organization; I love my society.”

Thus these assistants, this generation of young people would never be troubled by the moral difficulties of marriage. Xi De himself was no exception. Although he understood the lifestyle of the previous generation better than most, still, he basically believed that a perfect society was an absolutely rational society and that love and marriage were replete with irrationality. (His sixteen years of intellectual training had not been a waste.) Passionate and childish relations between the sexes and emotional imbalance would be excised forever from the human character in the new society.

After a day in the office, Xi De returned directly to the dorm, turned on the television, and watched an entertainment show. It had been two weeks since he had gone out. Anyway, there wasn't anything to do except go someplace for entertainment—a bar, theater, or pool hall. Therefore you never saw anyone out for a spin. In fact, when it came to all the former establishments for life's needs—small, privately run shops and restaurants and simple services—if they hadn't died out, they had merged into huge and uniform centers. Your office was in the floor above or below you; likewise, the amusement parlors, bars, and restaurants were all in the same building. In some places, the Resource Building for example, you never had to set foot outside the door your entire life if you didn't want to. Naturally, if you wanted to smooth out the emotional imbalance created by a boring, monotonous life (and this had already been thoroughly considered), the new society allowed you to take a vacation or travel for a while. A proper itinerary would be arranged for you and there would be no unnecessary waste—getting lost, delays in obtaining accommodations, lost time, and other evils.

At nine o'clock, Xi De received a phone call from his father to say that his mother had been ill but had already seen a doctor and was taking medication. Xi De told his father that he would be home on Sunday, then hung up and continued watching television.

There was a historical drama on. The characters consisted of a group of people from the old world who were scrambling for wealth and power. Bloody coups, bloodless coups, revolutions, protests, rebellion, elections through bribery, corruption, think tanks run by business, mass media at the service of tyrants working to oppress the masses. So-called democracies were nothing but a bunch of political schemers; communist countries did nothing but play with complicated class conflicts. The result would clearly be a pestilent war. The drama was a farce from start to finish, including its hackneyed and solemn theme. Fortunately, at the last minute a great epoch-making individual appeared (of course, the viewers all knew who this great individual was) to put an end to the chaos. As the sound of laughter rose from the screen, Xi De switched off the television. He sat comfortably on the sofa and poured himself a cup of tea. He took an old copy of
Resource Newsletter
out of a drawer and flipped through it absentmindedly. When he turned to the last page, where outstanding workers were introduced, he was surprised to find Lin Xing listed there. The article cited Lin's efficient performance over the years and with some humor announced his year-end efficiency award. In addition to a trip to the North Pole, he also received a special prize—an android beauty. Reading this, Xi De couldn't help but laugh—this sort of man-made sexual companion was extremely expensive, not something everyone could afford. But many people would rather have one of them than get married. It appeared Lin Xing had everything, but then why was he so unhappy?