The Palace of Dreams (6 page)

In the past week, in accordance with his boss’s directive, he’d spent half a day with an elderly clerk in each of the rooms belonging to Selection, so as to familiarize himself with every aspect of the work and acquire some experience. Then, two days ago, when he’d finished his tour of all the operations, he’d come back to the desk that was allocated to him on the day he was first appointed.

His peregrinations from one room to another had given Mark-Alem a general view of the way the Selection department worked. After the first scrutiny in the Lentil Room, the dreams rejected as valueless were done up in big bundles and sent to Archives, while those that were retained were divided into groups according to the subjects they were related to. The groups were: security of the Empire and of the Sovereign (plots, acts of treachery, rebellions); domestic politics (first and foremost the unity of the Empire); foreign politics (alliances and wars); law and order (extortion, injustice, corruption); signs of a Master-Dream; and miscellaneous.

The sorting of dreams into divisions and subdivisions was no easy matter. There had been long discussions as to whether the task should be entrusted to Selection or to Interpretation. It would have gone to Interpretation if that section hadn’t been so overworked already. Finally a compromise solution was found: Selection was to classify the dreams, but only in a tentative and preliminary way. So each file was headed not “Dreams concerned with such and such a subject” but “Dreams possibly concerning such and such a subject.” Furthermore, while Selection bore the entire responsibility for dividing dreams into those that were useless and those that were of interest, it had no responsibility at all concerning any further classification. Which meant that Selection dealt essentially with basic sorting. Sorting was the
raison d’être
of Selection, and interpretation the
raison d’être
of the Tabir Sarrail as a whole.

“So now you understand that we’re the ones who control all the incoming material,” said the head of his section to Mark-Alem, the day he came back to his original desk. “At first you probably thought that because the work in Selection is primarily sorting, and because we appointed you to this section right away, it was the least important operation in the Tabir. But I imagine you see now that it’s the basis of everything that’s done here. So we never assign beginners to this section, and we only made an exception for you because you suit us.”

“You suit us …” Mark-Alem had pondered the phrase again and again to try to puzzle out what it meant. But it remained as enigmatic and impenetrable as ever, like a wall so smooth and hard you couldn’t get any purchase to climb over it.

He rubbed his eyes again and tried to get on with his reading. But he couldn’t. The characters looked all red now, as if reflecting fire or blood.

He’d put aside forty or so dreams that he judged to be devoid of interest. Most of them seemed to have their origin in everyday worries, while others looked as if they were hoaxes. But he wasn’t quite sure; he’d better read them again. As a matter of fact he’d already read each of them two or three times; but he still didn’t trust his own judgment. The head of the section had told him that when in doubt about a dream he should put a big question mark against it and pass it on to the next sorter. But he’d already done this quite often. In fact, he’d rejected hardly any dreams as useless, and if he didn’t keep back the present batch his boss might think he was afraid to take risks and unloaded everything on his colleagues. But he was supposed to be a sorter, employed to make choices, not to shift the responsibility off onto others. What would happen if all the sorters shirked like that and sent almost all the dreams on to Interpretation? Interpretation would eventually refuse to take them, and probably complain to Administration. And Administration would inquire into what had gone wrong.

“A fine mess I’m in,” sighed Mark-Alem. “But what the hell!”

And hastily, as if he were afraid he might change his mind, he scribbled “Useless,” followed by his initials, at the top of four or five pages. As he was doing the same with the pages that came after, he felt a kind of vengeful joy directed against all the unknown wretches with their stomachaches and their piles who’d been tormenting him for the whole of the past couple of days with their stupid dreams—which they probably hadn’t even dreamed at all, but only heard about from other people.

“Idiots, asses, impostors,” he muttered as he wrote the fatal formula.

But his hand moved ever more slowly, until finally it just hung poised over the paper.

Hold on a bit, he told himself. What’s the point of losing your temper?

And in less than a minute his rage had been replaced by doubt again.

When you came right down to it, this job was by no means easy, and these unknown wretches could even get you into trouble. The staff of every department trembled at the mere thought of Investigation being called in. Mark-Alem had been told about one occasion when some out-of-the-way event had occurred and a dreamer wrote in to the Tabir Sarrail to claim he’d foreseen it in a dream. In such cases a dream was traced by means of the registration number that had been assigned to it in Reception, then taken out of the Archives and checked, and if the complaint was well-founded, a search was instituted to find the people responsible for overlooking or disregarding the warning. The guilty parties might be interpreters, but they might equally well be sorters who’d rejected the dream as useless—an even more heinous fault, since there was more excuse for an interpreter who misread a sign than for a sorter who missed it altogether.

To hell with all of it! thought Mark-Alem, surprising himself with this spark of rebelliousness. What does it matter, anyway!

He wrote “Useless” on another page, then hesitated again over the next. Automatically, not knowing what to do with the piece of paper still in front of him, he began to reread it: A piece of wasteland by a bridge; the sort of vacant lot where people throw rubbish. Among all the trash and dust and bits of broken lavatory, a curious musical instrument playing all by itself, except for a bull that seems to be maddened by the sound and is standing by the bridge and bellowing …

Must be an artist, thought Mark-Alem. Some embittered out-of-work musician.

And he started to write “Useless” on the page. But hardly had he begun when his eye was caught by some earlier lines which he’d skipped before, and which recorded the name of the dreamer, his profession, and the date when he’d had the dream. Strangely enough he wasn’t a musician—he was a street trader who had a market stall in the capital. Lord! said Mark-Alem to himself, unable to take his eyes off this information. A beastly greengrocer, crawling out of his hovel just to make life difficult for you! … What’s more, he lived in the capital, so it would be easier for him to make a complaint if the situation arose. Mark-Alem carefully erased what he’d just written and put the page among the dreams that he’d classified as of possible interest. “Think yourself lucky, idiot!” he murmured, casting a last glance at the page as at someone he’d done an undeserved favor. He dipped his pen in the ink, and without even rereading them, marked a few more pages as “Useless.” His anger had now evaporated and he went on more calmly. He still had eight dreams to deal with out of those he’d at first sight dismissed as worthless. He studied them soberly one after the other and, with the exception of one that he put among the “Of interest” pile, left all the rest where they were. You didn’t need to be an expert to guess that they all originated in family squabbles, constipation, or enforced chastity.

Would these office hours never end? His eyes were beginning to smart again, but he got out a few more as-yet- unexamined pages from the file and spread them in front of him. Pretending to read them, he thought, was even more tiring than really doing so. He selected the pages with the least writing on them, and read one of them without bothering to look at the name of the dreamer:
A black cat with a moon in its teeth was running along pursued by a mob of people, leaving a trail of blood from the wounded moon in its wake… .

Yes, this dream was worth looking into. Mark-Alem read it again before including it among the dreams that were of interest. This really was a serious dream which it would be a pleasure to analyze. It made him think that the work of the interpreters, difficult though it might be, must be very interesting, especially when they had to deal with such examples as this. Even he, despite his weariness, felt the beginnings of an inclination to interpret it. Not that it was very difficult. Given that the moon was a symbol of the State and of religion, the black cat must represent some force that was hostile to them. A dream like this, thought Mark-Alem, might easily be proclaimed a Master-Dream. He looked at the dreamer’s address. He lived in a town on the European borders of the Empire. That was where all the best dreams came from, he noticed. When he’d reread it a third time, it struck him as even more attractive and meaningful than before. Of particular interest was the crowd, which would no doubt catch the black cat and get the moon out of its clutches. Yes, this dream would certainly be recognized one day as a Master-Dream, he thought. As he contemplated the sheet of ordinary paper it was written on, he smiled as someone might smile on an unassuming young girl he knew was destined to become a princess.

Mark-Alem now felt strangely relieved. He thought for a moment of reading another two or three pages, then decided not to. He didn’t want to blunt the edge of his satisfaction. He turned and looked at the great windows, beyond which dusk was now falling. He wouldn’t examine any more dreams today. He’d just wait for the bell to ring, announcing the end of the working day. Although the daylight was now fading fast, the heads of all the other clerks were still bent over their files. It was clear they’d never look up before the bell rang even if the room was swallowed up in eternal night.

In the end the bell did ring. Mark-Alem hastily collected his papers. There was a din as every drawer in the room was opened and every file stowed away. Mark-Alem locked the drawer in his own desk. Although he was among the first to leave the room, it took him a good quarter of an hour to get right out of the building.

It was cold out in the street. The staff poured out of the doorways in groups, then dispersed in different directions. As they did every evening, a crowd of onlookers watched from the pavement opposite as the people who worked in the Palace of Dreams emerged. Out of all the great State institutions, not excluding the Palace of the Sheikh-ul-Islam and the offices of the Grand Vizier, the Tabir Sarrail was the only one that aroused public curiosity. So much so that almost no day went by without hundreds of people gathering to stand and wait for the staff to go home. Silently, with their collars turned up against the cold, they observed the mysterious officials who were entrusted with the State’s most mysterious work. They gazed at them intently, as if trying to read in their faces the dreams it was their task to decipher. The crowd didn’t go away until the heavy doors of the great Palace had creaked shut.

Mark-Alem began to hurry. The streetlamps weren’t lighted yet, but they would be by the time he reached the street where he lived. Ever since he’d started working in the Tabir Sarrail, darkness had made him feel apprehensive.

The streets were full of pedestrians, and every so often carriages dashed by with drawn curtains. Mark-Alem thought they must be taking beautiful courtesans to secret rendezvous, and heaved a sigh.

When he got to his own street the lamps had indeed been lighted. It was a quiet residential street; half of the houses were surrounded by heavy wrought-iron railings. The chestnut sellers were getting ready to go home. Some had already packed away their chestnuts, paper cones, and coal, and looked as though they were waiting for their braziers and the wire sieves on top to cool down. The policeman on duty saluted Mark-Alem respectfully. A neighbor, Betch Bey, a former army officer, came out of the corner café, dead drunk, with a couple of friends. He whispered something to the others when he saw Mark-Alem, who as he passed them sensed their eyes resting on him with a mixture of curiosity and fear. He walked on faster. He could see from a distance that the lights were on in the ground floor and second floor of the house. There must be visitors, he thought, but couldn’t repress a shudder. As he got nearer he could see a carriage drawn up outside the gate with the letter Q for Quprili carved on both doors. But instead of reassuring him, this only added to his uneasiness.

Loke, the old servant, came and opened the gate for him.

“What’s going on?” he said, nodding toward the lighted windows upstairs.

“Your uncles have come to see you.”

“Has anything happened?”

“No. They’re just visiting.”

Mark-Alem sighed with relief.

What’s the matter with me? he wondered as he went through the courtyard to the front door. Often, coming home very late, he’d felt worried when he saw lights in the windows, but he’d never been as troubled as this evening. It must be my new job, he thought.

“Two friends of yours came and asked for you this afternoon,” said Loke, who was following behind. “They said to tell you to meet them tomorrow or the day after at the klab or klob or whatever you call it—”

“Club.”

“That’s it! The club!”

“If they come back, tell them I’m busy and can’t go.”

“All right,” said Loke.

There was a pleasant smell of cooking in the hall. Mark-Alem paused for a moment outside the drawing room, without quite knowing why. Finally he opened the door and went in. The great room, with its floor covered with rugs, was full of the familiar scents of a wood fire. Two of his three maternal uncles were there—the eldest, who had his wife with him, and the youngest—also two of his cousins, both deputy ministers. Mark-Alem greeted them all in turn.

“You look tired,” said the older of the two uncles.

Mark-Alem shrugged, as if to say: “I can’t help it—it’s the work. …” He guessed at once that they’d come to talk about him and his new job. He looked at his mother, who was sitting with her legs drawn up beside her near one of the big copper braziers. She gave him a faint smile, and at once his anxiety vanished. He sat down at one end of a divan and hoped he’d soon stop being the center of attention. He didn’t have to wait very long.