Darkness at Noon (22 page)

He paused again, as his throat was dry and his voice had become husky. He heard the scratching of the secretary's pencil in the silence; he raised his head a little, with eyes shut, and went on:

“In this sense, and in this sense only, can you call me a counter-revolutionary. With the absurd criminal charges made in the accusation, I have nothing to do.”

“Have you finished?” asked Gletkin.

His voice sounded so brutal that Rubashov looked at him in surprise. Gletkin's brightly-lit silhouette showed behind the desk in his usual correct position. Rubashov had long sought for a simple characterization of Gletkin: “correct brutality”—that was it.

“Your statement is not new,” Gletkin went on in his dry, rasping voice. “In both your preceding confessions,
the first one two years ago, the second time twelve months ago, you have already publicly confessed that your attitude had been ‘objectively counter-revolutionary and opposed to the interests of the people.' Both times you humbly asked the forgiveness of the Party, and vowed loyalty to the policy of the leadership. Now you expect to play the same game a third time. The statement you have just made is mere eye-wash. You admit your ‘oppositional attitude', but deny the acts which are the logical consequence of it. I have already told you that this time you will not get off so easily.”

Gletkin broke off as suddenly as he began. In the ensuing silence Rubashov heard the faint buzzing of the current in the lamp behind the desk. At the same time the light became another grade stronger.

“The declarations I made at that time,” Rubashov said in a low voice, “were made for tactical purposes. You certainly know that a whole row of oppositional politicians were obliged to pay with such declarations for the privilege of remaining in the Party. But this time I mean it differently….”

“That is to say, this time you are sincere?” asked Gletkin. He asked the question quickly, and his correct voice held no irony.

“Yes,” said Rubashov quietly.

“And, before, you lied?”

“Call it that,” said Rubashov.

“To save your neck?”

“To be able to go on working.”

“Without a neck one cannot work. Hence, to save your neck?”

“Call it that.”

In the short intervals between the questions shot out by Gletkin and his own answers, Rubashov heard only the scratching of the secretary's pencil and the buzzing of the lamp. The lamp gave off cascades of white light, and radiated a steady heat which forced Rubashov to wipe the sweat from his forehead. He strained to keep his smarting eyes open, but the intervals at which he opened them became longer and longer; he felt a growing sleepiness, and when Gletkin, after his last series of rapid questions, let several moments go by in silence, Rubashov, with a kind of distant interest, felt his chin sinking on to his chest. When Gletkin's next question jerked him up again, he had the impression of having slept for an indeterminable time.

“I repeat,” Gletkin's voice said. “Your former declarations of repentance had the object of deceiving the Party as to your true opinions, and of saving your neck.”

“I have already admitted that,” said Rubashov.

“And your public disavowal of your secretary Arlova, had that the same object?”

Rubashov nodded dumbly. The pressure in his eye-sockets radiated over all the nerves in the right side of his face. He noticed that his tooth had started to throb again.

“You know that Citizen Arlova had constantly called on you as the chief witness for her defence?”

“I was informed of it,” said Rubashov. The throbbing in his tooth became stronger.

“You doubtless also know that the declaration you made at that time, which you have just described as a lie, was decisive for the passing of the death sentence on Arlova?”

“I was informed of it.”

Rubashov had the feeling that the whole right side of his face was drawn into a cramp. His head became duller and heavier; it was with difficulty that he prevented it sinking on his breast. Gletkin's voice bored into his ear:

“So it is possible that Citizen Arlova was innocent?”

“It is possible,” said Rubashov, with a last remainder of irony, which lay on his tongue like a taste of blood and gall.

“… And was executed as a consequence of the lying declaration you made, with the object of saving your head?”

“That is about it,” said Rubashov. You scoundrel, he thought with a slack, impotent rage. Of course what you say is the naked truth. One would like to know which of us two is the greater scoundrel. But he has me by the throat and I cannot defend myself, because it is not allowed to throw oneself out of the swing. If only he would let me sleep. If he goes on tormenting me for long, I'll take everything back and refuse to speak—and then I will be done for, and he too.

“… And after all that, you demand to be treated with consideration?” Gletkin's voice went on, with the same brutal correctness. “You still dare to deny criminal activities? After all that, you demand that we should believe you?”

Rubashov gave up the efforts to keep his head straight. Of course Gletkin was right not to believe him. Even he himself was beginning to get lost in the labyrinth of calculated lies and dialectic pretences, in the twilight between truth and illusion. The ultimate truth always receded a step; visible remained only the penultimate lie
with which one had to serve it. And what pathetic contortions and St. Vitus's dances did it compel one to! How could he convince Gletkin that this time he was really sincere, that he had arrived at the last station? Always one had to convince someone, talk, argue—while one's only wish was to sleep and to fade out….

“I demand nothing,” said Rubashov, and turned his head painfully in the direction whence had come Gletkin's voice, “except to prove once more my devotion to the Party.”

“There is only one proof you can give,” came Gletkin's voice, “a complete confession. We have heard enough of your ‘oppositional attitude' and your lofty motives. What we need is a complete, public confession of your criminal activities, which were the necessary outcome of that attitude. The only way in which you can still serve the Party is as a warning example—by demonstrating to the masses, in your own person, the consequences to which opposition to the Party policy inevitably leads.”

Rubashov thought of No. 1's cold snack. His inflamed facial nerves throbbed at full pressure, but the pain was no longer acute and burning; it now came in dull, numbing blows. He thought of No. 1's cold snack, and the muscles of his face distorted themselves into a grimace.

“I can't confess to crimes I have not committed,” he said flatly.

“No,” sounded Gletkin's voice. “No, that you certainly can't”—and it seemed to Rubashov that for the first time he heard something like mockery in that voice.

From that moment onwards Rubashov's recollection of the hearing was rather hazy. After the sentence “that you certainly can't,” which had remained in his ear
because of its peculiar intonation, there was a gap of uncertain length in his memory. Later on it seemed to him that he had fallen asleep and he even remembered a strangely pleasant dream. It must have lasted only a few seconds—a loose, timeless sequence of luminous landscapes, with the familiar poplars which had lined the drive of his father's estate, and a special kind of white cloud which as a boy he had once seen above them.

The next thing he remembered was the presence of a third person in the room, and Gletkin's voice booming over him—Gletkin must have stood up and bent forward over his desk:

“I beg you to attend the proceedings…. Do you recognize this person?”

Rubashov nodded. He had at once recognized Hare-lip, although he was not wearing the waterproof in which he used to wrap himself, with freezingly hunched shoulders, during his walks in the yard. A familiar row of figures flashed into Rubashov's mind: 2-3; 1-1; 4-3; 1-5; 3-2; 2-4 … “Hare-lip sends you his greetings.” On what occasion had No. 402 given him this message?

“When and where have you known him?”

It cost Rubashov a certain effort to speak; the bitter taste had remained on his parched tongue:

“I have seen him repeatedly from my window, walking in the yard.”

“And you have not known him before?”

Hare-lip stood at the door, at a distance of a few steps behind Rubashov's chair; the light of the reflector fell full on him. His face, usually yellow, was chalky white, his nose pointed, the split upper-lip with the weal of flesh trembled over the naked gum. His hands hung
slackly to his knees; Rubashov, who now had his back turned to the lamp, saw him like an apparition in the footlights of a stage. A new row of figures went through Rubashov's memory: “4-5; 3-5; 4-3 …”—“was tortured yesterday”. Almost simultaneously, the shadow of a memory which he could not seize passed through his mind—the memory of having once seen the living original of this human wreck, long before he had entered cell No. 404.

“I don't know exactly,” he answered hesitantly to Gletkin's question. “Now that I see him close to, it seems to me that I have met him somewhere already.”

Even before he had finished the phrase, Rubashov felt it would have been better not to have spoken it. He wished intensely that Gletkin would let him have a few minutes to pull himself together. Gletkin's way of rapping out his questions in a rapid, pauseless sequence called to his mind the image of a bird of prey hacking at its victim with its beak.

“Where have you met this man last? The exactness of your memory was once proverbial in the Party.”

Rubashov was silent. He racked his memory, but could not place anywhere this apparition in the glaring light, with the trembling lips. Hare-lip did not move. He passed his tongue over the red weal on his upper-lip; his gaze wandered from Rubashov to Gletkin and back.

The secretary had stopped writing; one heard only the even buzzing of the lamp and the crackling of Gletkin's cuffs; he had leaned forward and propped his elbows on the arms of the chair to put his next question:

“So you refuse to answer?”

“I do not remember,” said Rubashov.

“Good,” said Gletkin. He leaned further forward, turning towards Hare-lip with the whole weight of his body, as it were:

“Will you help Citizen Rubashov's memory a little? Where did you last meet him?”

Hare-lip's face became, if possible, even whiter. His eyes lingered for a few seconds on the secretary, whose presence he had apparently only just discovered, but wandered on immediately, as though fleeing and seeking a place of rest. He again passed his tongue over his lips and said hurriedly, in one breath:

“I was instigated by Citizen Rubashov to destroy the leader of the Party by poison.”

In the first moment Rubashov was only surprised by the deep, melodious voice which sounded unexpectedly from this human wreck. His voice seemed to be the only thing in him which had remained whole; it stood in uncanny contrast to his appearance. What he actually said, Rubashov seized only a few seconds later. Since Hare-lip's arrival he had expected something of the sort and scented the danger; but now he was conscious above all of the grotesqueness of the charge. A moment later he heard Gletkin again—this time behind his back, as Rubashov had turned towards Hare-lip. Gletkin's voice sounded irritated:

“I have not yet asked you that. I asked you, where you had met Citizen Rubashov last.”

Wrong, thought Rubashov. He should not have emphasized that it was the wrong answer. I would not have noticed it. It seemed to him that his head was now quite clear, with a feverish wakefulness. He sought for a comparison. This witness is an automatic barrel-organ, he
thought; and just now it played the wrong tune. Hare-lip's next answer came even more melodiously:

“I met Citizen Rubashov after a reception at the Trade Delegation in B. There he incited me to my terroristic plot against the life of the leader of the Party.”

While he was speaking, his haunted gaze touched on Rubashov and rested there. Rubashov put on his pince-nez and answered his gaze with sharp curiosity. But in the eyes of the young man he read no prayer for forgiveness, rather fraternal trust and the dumb reproach of the helplessly tormented. It was Rubashov who first averted his gaze.

Behind his back sounded Gletkin's voice, again self-confident and brutal:

“Can you remember the date of the meeting?”

“I remember it distinctly,” said Hare-lip in his unnaturally pleasant voice. “It was after the reception given on the twentieth anniversary of the Revolution.”

His gaze still rested nakedly on Rubashov's eyes, as though there lay a last desperate hope of rescue. A memory rose in Rubashov's mind, hazily at first, then more clearly. Now at last he knew who Hare-lip was. But this discovery caused him almost no other sensation than an aching wonder. He turned his head to Gletkin and said quietly, blinking in the light of the lamp:

“The date is correct. I did not at first recognize Professor Kieffer's son, as I had only seen him once—before he had passed through your hands. You may be congratulated on the result of your work.”

“So you admit that you know him, and that you met him on the day and occasion aforementioned?”

“I have just told you that,” said Rubashov tiredly. The
feverish wakefulness had vanished, and the dull hammering in his head started again. “If you had told me at once that he was the son of my unfortunate friend Kieffer, I would have identified him sooner.”

“In the accusation his full name is stated,” said Gletkin.

“I knew Professor Kieffer, like everybody did, only by his
nom de plume.
”

“That is an unimportant detail,” said Gletkin. He again bent his whole body towards Hare-lip, as though he wanted to crush him with his weight across the space between them. “Continue your report. Tell us how this meeting came about.”