The Star Diaries Page 12

  One day our supervisors began to show signs of unusual excitement, and at lunch we learned that the Big Fish Himself, the Mighty Hydrant Hermezinius, would be sailing past our workshops that very day, issuing forth to further the cause of gwatish barbelment. All that afternoon we swam at attention, awaiting the exalted arrival. The rain fell, and it was so beastly cold, we all started shivering. The softspeakers—attached to buoys—told us we were trembling with enthusiasm. It was nearly twilight when the retinue of the Mighty Fish-face, seven hundred boats in all, floated by. I happened to be close enough to get a good look at His Fishiness, who to my great surprise did not in the least resemble a fish. This was, to all appearances, a perfectly ordinary Pintan, except that he was very old and his limbs were terribly twisted. Eight magnates dressed in gold and crimson scales supported the ruler’s noble shoulders as he came up for air; in the process he sputtered dreadfully, till I began to feel sorry for him. In honor of this event we hewed eight hundred statues of carp over the quota.

  About a week later I got awful stabbing pains in my arms for the first time; my comrades explained that this was simply the beginnings of rheumatism, the greatest plague on Pinta. Of course one was not allowed to call it an illness, but only the symptoms of the organism’s ideological resistance to fishification. Now I understood the contorted appearance of the Pintanese.

  Every week we were taken to see pageants that presented glorious perspectives of underwater life. I kept my eyes shut, for the very mention of water made me queasy.

  And so it went, for five months. Towards the end of this period I became friends with a certain elderly Pintan, a university professor, who was sculpting voluntarily because in one of his classes he had maintained that water was indeed indispensable for life, but in a different sense than was generally practiced. In our conversations, conducted mostly at night, the professor told me the ancient history of Pinta. The planet had once been beset by burning winds, which—the scientists said—threatened to turn it into one enormous desert. Therefore a great irrigational plan was adopted. To implement which, appropriate institutions and top-priority bureaus were set up; but then, after the network of canals and reservoirs had been completed, the bureaus refused to disband themselves and continued to operate, irrigating Pinta more and more. The upshot was—as the professor put it—that what was to have been controlled, controlled us. No one, however, would admit this, and of course the next, logical step was the declaration that things were exactly the way they ought to be.

  One day rumors began to circulate among us, tremendously exciting rumors. It was said that some extraordinary change was about to take place, a few even dared claim that the Mighty Hydrant Himself would very shortly decree private dryness, and possibly public. Our supervisors immediately proceeded to combat this defeatism, announcing new fish-statue projects. In spite of this, the rumor persisted, and in ever more fantastic versions; with my own two ears I heard someone say that the Mighty Fish-head Hermezinius had been seen holding a towel.

  Then, one night, sounds of riotous laughter reached us from the supervisors’ building. Swimming outside, I saw the commandant and the lecturer tossing water out the windows in great bucketfuls, singing loudly all the while. At the break of day the lecturer came; he sat in a caulked-up boat and told us that everything till now had been a misunderstanding; that new, genuinely free ways of living—not like the previous ways—were being worked out, and in the meantime gurgling was repealed, as fatiguing, injurious to health and totally unnecessary. During this speech he put his foot in the water and pulled it out again, shuddering with disgust. In conclusion he added that he had always been against water and knew all along that nothing good would ever come of it. For the next two days we didn’t go to work. Then they sent us to the statues that had already been completed; we chipped off the fins and attached legs in their place. The lecturer began to teach us a new song, “Our spirits are high when it’s dry,” and everyone was saying that any day now pumps would be brought in and the water removed.

  However after the second verse our lecturer was recalled to the capital and never came back. The following morning the commandant sailed over to us, barely showing his head above the waves, and handed out waterproof newspapers. These announced that gurgling, injurious to health and not furthering siluriation, was hereby once and for all rescinded, which however in no way signified a return to pernicious aridity. Quite on the contrary. To enacclimate the gwats and spurge on the sunkers, underwater breathing would be instituted throughout the planet, and exclusively underwater, as being fishlike in the highest degree; at the same time—out of consideration for the public welfare—this would be introduced in stages, that is, each day all citizens were required to remain beneath the water just a little longer than on the preceding day. In order to assist them in this, the general level of water would be raised to eleven bathyms (a unit of length).

  That evening the water level was in fact raised, and to such a height that we had to sleep standing up. Since the softspeakers were now covered, they were fastened a trifle higher, and our new lecturer had us do underwater breathing exercises. A few days later Hermezinius, at the request of the entire population, generously consented to raise the water level half a bathym more. We all began to walk around on tiptoe. Persons who were shorter quickly dropped out of sight. Since no one quite got the hang of underwater breathing, the practice of inconspicuously jumping up for air developed. After about a month, considerable proficiency was achieved in this, while everyone pretended not to notice others doing it, nor indeed that they were doing it themselves. The press reported that great strides were being made throughout the land in underwater breathing, and meanwhile a sizable number of new sculpting volunteers arrived, persons who continued to gurgle in the old way.

  All of this, taken together, gave me such a headache, that at last I decided to quit the voluntary sculpting grounds for good. After work I hid behind the underpinning of a new monument (I forgot to mention we had chipped off the attached legs of the fish and put back fins), and when everyone was gone, I swam to the city. In this respect I had a considerable advantage over the Pintanese, who, contrary to what one might have expected, were quite unable to swim.

  I exhausted myself completely, but made it at last to the airport. Four Aquaticans were guarding my rocket. Fortunately someone nearby started gurgling and the Aquaticans hurled themselves in that direction. So I broke the seals, jumped inside and took off with the greatest possible speed. After a quarter of an hour the planet glimmered in the distance, now a tiny star, on which it had been my lot to endure so much. I stretched out on the bed, reveling in its dryness; but alas, this pleasant respite was short-lived. Suddenly I was wakened by an energetic knocking at the hatch. Still half-asleep, I shouted: “Long live Free Pinta!” This cry was to cost me dearly, for into the rocket burst a patrol of Angelicans from Panta. In vain did I attempt to explain that they had heard me wrong, that I had shouted not “Free Pinta,” but “Free Panta.” The rocket was sealed and taken in tow. And as if this wasn’t bad enough, there was a second can of sardines in the larder, and I had opened it before my nap. Spotting the open can, the Angelicans gasped, then with a cry of triumph proceeded to write out a summons. Before long we had landed on the planet. Placed inside a waiting vehicle, I sighed with relief, for the planet, as far as the eye could see, was free of water. When my escort removed their spacesuits I observed that these beings with whom I had to deal bore a remarkable likeness to people, except that their faces were identical, as if they had all been twins, and smiling besides.

  Though night had fallen, the city lamps made it bright as day. I noticed that whenever a pedestrian looked at me he would shake his head, either with pity or dismay, and one female Pantan actually fainted, which was curious, considering that even then she continued to smile.

  After a time I got the impression that all the inhabitants of the planet were wearing some sort of mask, but couldn’t tell for sure. The trip ended in front of a building
that carried the inscription: FREE ANGELICA OF PANTA. I spent the night alone in a small cell, listening to the sounds of the metropolis that reached my window. The next day, around noon, I was read the charges against me in the office of the examiner. I was accused of committing angelophagy at the instigation of the Pintanese, and also of the crime of personal differentiation. The material evidence of my guilt consisted of two items: one was the open can of sardines, the other—a mirror, held up to my face by the examiner.

  This was an Angelican 4th Class in a uniform as white as snow, with diamond thunderbolts across his chest; he explained that for the above offenses I could face life identification, then added that the court was giving me four days in which to prepare my defense. I might consult with an officially appointed counselor-at-law at any time.

  Having already had some experience with legal procedures in this part of the Galaxy, I wished above all to learn the nature of the punishment involved. In answer to my request I was led to a modest room of amber color, where my lawyer, an Angelican 2nd Class, was already waiting. He turned out to be most obliging and was only too happy to explain.

  “Know, O uninvited alien,” he said, “that ours is the knowledge of the ultimate source of all the cares, sufferings and misfortunes to which beings, gathered together in societies, are prone. This source lies in the individual, in his private identity. Society, the collective, is eternal, obeying steadfast and immutable laws, as do the mighty suns and stars. The individual, on the other hand, is characterized by uncertainty, indecision, inconsistency of action, and above all—by impermanence. Therefore we have completely eliminated individuality on behalf of the society. On our planet there are no entities—only the collective.”

  “But really,” I said, astonished, “what you’re saying must be merely a figure of speech, for after all, you yourself are an individual, an entity…”

  “Not at all,” he replied with an imperturbable smile, “You have noticed, surely, that there is no difference among us in our faces. In the same way we have achieved the highest degree of social interchangeability.”

  “I don’t understand. What does that mean?”

  “At any given moment there exists in a society a certain number of functions or, as we say, roles. One has the occupational roles, namely those of rulers, gardeners, mechanics, physicians; there are also family roles—fathers, brothers, sisters, and so on. Now in each such role a Pantan serves for twenty-four hours only. At midnight there occurs throughout our land a single movement, it is as if—speaking metaphorically—everyone takes a single step, and in this fashion a person who yesterday was a gardener, today becomes an engineer, yesterday’s mason is now a judge, a ruler—a teacher, and so on. The same holds with families. Each is composed of relatives—there’s a father, mother, children. Only the functions remain constant; the ones who perform them are changed every day. And so you see it is the collective, and only the collective, which remains intact. There are still the same number of parents and children, doctors and nurses, and similarly in all walks of life. The powerful organism of our state endures through the centuries, unmoved and unchanging, more durable than rock, and it owes its durability to the fact that we have done away, once and for all, with the ephemeral nature of individual existence. That is why I say we have achieved the ultimate in interchangeability. You will see this for yourself when, after midnight, you call for me, and I appear in a new form…”

  “But what is the purpose of all this?” I asked. “And how do each of you possibly manage to practice all professions? Can you really be not only a gardener, judge or lawyer, but also a father or mother at will?”

  “Many professions,” replied my smiling interlocutor, “I do not perform well. Consider however that one’s practice of a profession lasts but a single day. And besides, in any society of the old type the overwhelming majority of people carry out their professional duties indifferently at best, yet the social mechanism does not thereby cease to function. A second-rate gardener will ruin your garden, a second-rate ruler will bring disaster upon an entire nation, since both have time enough to do this, but here they do not. Moreover in an ordinary society, in addition to occupational incompetence, one can sense the negative if not destructive influence of the private ambitions of individuals. Envy, pride, egoism, vanity, the thirst for power—these have a corrosive effect on the life of the community. Here that evil influence does not exist. Indeed, here the ambition to have a career does not exist, nor is anyone motivated by personal gain, for here there is no such thing as personal gain. I cannot take some step in my role of today in the hopes that it will profit me tomorrow, for by tomorrow I shall be someone else, and who I shall be tomorrow I do not know today.

  “The exchange of roles takes place at midnight on the basis of a general lottery, over which none of us has any control. Now do you begin to understand the great wisdom of our system?”

  “And feelings?” I asked. “Can one really love a different person every day? And what happens to fatherhood and motherhood?”

  “One problem we did have, formerly,” he replied, “was the circumstance in which a person in the role of a father gave birth to a child, for it is possible that the role of father be occupied by a woman on the very day of her delivery. However that difficulty disappeared the moment it was written into law that a father could give birth. As far as feelings are concerned, we have satisfied two needs, needs that would appear to be mutually exclusive, yet they dwell within the breast of every intelligent creature: the need for permanence and the need for change. Affection, respect, love were at one time gnawed by constant anxiety, by the fear of losing the person held dear. This dread we have conquered. For in point of fact whatever upheavals, diseases or calamities may be visited upon us, we shall always have a father, a mother, a spouse, and children. But this is not all. That which does not change will soon begin to pall, regardless of whether it brings us happiness or sorrow. Yet we also crave stability, we wish deliverance from vicissitudes and tragedy. We wish to live, but not to be fleeting, to change, yet remain, to experience all—and risk nothing. These contradictions, unreconcilable it would seem, are with us a reality. We have even erased the antagonism between the upper and lower strata of society, for each of us—each day—can be a king, as there is no walk of life, no sphere of activity closed to any man.

  “And now I can reveal to you the full significance and magnitude of the punishment that hangs above your head. It signifies the greatest misfortune that ever can befall a Pantan: expulsion from the general lottery and abandonment to the solitary fate of an individual. Identification—this is the act of crushing a person by setting upon him the cruel and merciless burden of perpetual selfhood. You must hurry if you have any further questions to put to me, for midnight approaches; I will have to leave you shortly.”

  “What do you do about death?” I asked.

  With his wrinkled brow and smiling face my defender looked at me closely, as if attempting to understand that word. Finally he said:

  “Death? It is an obsolete idea. There can be no death where there are no individuals. We do not die.”

  “But that’s absurd, you don’t believe in it yourself!” I exclaimed. “All living things must die, and so must you!”

  “I, and who is that?” he interrupted with a smile.

  There was a moment of silence.

  “You, you yourself!”

  “And who am I, I myself, beyond this present role? A name? I have no name. A face? Thanks to the biological measures carried out among us centuries ago my face is the same as everyone else’s. A role? But that changes at midnight. What then is left? Nothing. Consider for a moment, what means death? A loss, tragic since irrevocable. The one who dies, whom does he lose? Himself? No, for once dead, he has ceased to exist, and one who exists not, there is nothing he can lose. Death is the province of the living—it is the loss of someone near.

  “But we never lose those who are near to us. I have already explained that, I think. Every fam
ily here is eternal. Death for us—this would be the constriction of a role. The law forbids that. But I must go now. Farewell, O uninvited alien!”

  “Wait!” I cried, seeing my defender rise. “Surely there exist—there must exist differences among you, even assuming you all are alike as twins. You must have old people, who…”

  “No. We do not keep track of the number of roles which one has held. Neither do we keep a record of the astronomical years. None of us knows how long he lives. The roles are ageless. My time is up.”

  With these words he departed. I was alone. A moment later the door opened and my defender reappeared. He had on the same sky-blue uniform with the golden thunderbolts of an Angelican 2nd Class, and the very same smile.

  “I am at your service, O alien defendant from another star,” he said, and it seemed to me that this was a new voice, one I had not heard before.

  “Ah, then you do have something constant here: the role of defendant!” I cried.

  “You are mistaken. That is only for foreigners. We cannot allow someone to hide himself behind a role and attempt to sabotage our system from within.”

  “Are you familiar with the law?” I asked.

  “The lawbooks are. Besides, your trial will not be held until the day after tomorrow. The role of defender will defend you…”

  “I waive defense.”

  “You wish to defend yourself?”

  “No. I wish to be found guilty.”

  “You are rash,” said the lawyer with a smile. “Keep in mind that you will be not an individual among individuals, but in a waste more desolate than the interplanetary void…”