Memoirs Found In a Bathtub (10 page)

There wasn’t a soul in the large, gloomy office, only cabinets and catalogs of all sizes and descriptions, huge ledgers, piles of papers tied with string, jars of glue, scissors, blotters, rubber stamps and all sorts of office debris all over the big desks along the walls. I heard feet shuffling; in a doorway off to the side there appeared an old, disheveled man in a uniform full of ink spots.

“You came to see us?” he croaked. “A rare guest indeed! Welcome, welcome! What can we do for you? Something to be checked out, no doubt?”

But before I could say a word, the old man rattled on, vigorously sniffing as he talked, trying to sniff back the disgusting drop that hung at the tip of his nose.

“Civilian clothes, you’re in civilian clothes, that means you want something from the catalog … just a minute, it’s all right here…”

He hobbled over to a huge card file and began to pull out one drawer after another. I looked around the room again. There were piles of junk all over the floor, in the corners, under the chairs; the air was thick with dust and the smell of molding paper. The old geezer rasped in explanation:

“Chief Archive Custodian Glouble ain’t here. He’s at a meeting, don’t you know. The Underclerk ain’t here either, he didn’t give a reason, he just left. So you see, sir, here I am all by my lonesome to watch the store. It’s Antheus Kappril at your service, sir, Custodian Ninth Degree, ready for retirement after forty-eight years of faithful service, believe it or not. Oh yes, it’s the life of leisure for me all right, that’s what they tell me! But on the other hand, sir, as you can see for yourself, I’m indispensable here! Indispensable! But here I am talking away and you’re in a frightful hurry, I bet. Business, business. You place your call slips in this little old box here and lean on the buzzer when you’re ready; I come in a jiffy, find what you need even quicker, and if you want to read it here, no problem, and if you don’t, then put your serial number here, under the fifth column, IV-B, and that’s all there is to it.”

He concluded this gravelly monologue with an odd little dance intended as a bow—or else his legs were giving way—and he pointed invitingly at the card file, gave an ingratiating smile, then began to back away.

“Kappril,” I suddenly asked, afraid to look him in the eye, “is—is the Department of Investigation on this floor?”

“Come again?” He cupped his ear with his hand. “Department of what? Didn’t hear you, didn’t hear you.”

“Or the Prosecution Bureau?” I went on, ignoring the possible consequences of such open inquiry.

“Prosecution Bureau?…” He seemed genuinely perplexed. “Never heard of it, sir, we’re the only department here, I never heard of that other…”

“These are the Archives?”

“That’s us. The Archives, Records, the Library… Anything else we can do for you?”

“Not right now, thank you.”

“No need to thank me, it’s my job, it’s my job. Here’s the buzzer, don’t forget to buzz.”

He shuffled out, then I heard a fit of violent coughing from the next room. Or was someone trying to strangle him? But the sound faded, and I was alone with endless rows of drawers, their labels framed in brass.

What did this mean? Were they trying to learn my interests? What could they possibly gain from that? My eyes wandered over the labels. The catalog was arranged by subject, not alphabetically—ESCHATOSCOPY, THEOLOGY, PONTIFICES AND ARTIFICES, APPLIED CADAVEROLOGY. I tried THEOLOGY. The cards were in no apparent order:

ANGELS
—see
Communicants, Communiqués. Air power.
Also see
Daily orders (Give us this day our—).

LOVE
—see
Diversion.
Also see
Treason (But hate the traitor).

RESURRECTION
—see
Cadaverology. Corpse Corps.

COMMUNION WITH THE SAINTS—
see
Contact.

What could I lose? I filled out a call slip for one of the daily orders under ANGELS. But then there were so many headings which made little or no sense: INFERNALISTICS, SCUTTLENAUTICS, DECEREBRATION, BODY-AND-SOULGUARDS, RETROCARNATION. I couldn’t bother with them all; the card file was much too big, its wooden pillars reached the ceiling. Even the most superficial survey would take weeks, months. By now I had removed quite a pile of green, pink and white cards from the drawers; some had fallen to the floor. I started to put them back, one at a time. It seemed to take forever. With a glance over my shoulder to see if anyone was watching, I began to stuff the cards in any which way.

Could it be that the catalog was in such disorder precisely because others had wandered in here, just as I did? On one desk nearby stood a row of bulky black volumes, apparently an encyclopedia of some kind. I opened the volume marked
S
to look up SCUTTLENAUTICS. “SCRAMBLED EGGS—the best breakfast against interception.” No, that wasn’t it. “SCUTTLENAUTICS—the science of nonnavigation.
See also
Abortive Sailing, Mock Docking.” I tried volume
A.
Under AGENT (SUB, SUPER, PROVOCATEUR) was a long paragraph and underneath that, an article entitled “AGENTS AND THEIR AGENCIES FROM EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY.”

Another volume lay open on the desk, and I read: “ORIGINAL SIN—the division of the world into Information and Misinformation.” I skipped from page to page, volume to volume, reading wherever my eye fell on an interesting definition. “RETROCARNATION—1) a Red that goes back on his word; 2) disembodiment, dematerialization
—see
THIN AIR, POWDER, LAMB.” Then there was a whole list of odd items under DECEREBRATION: persuasion by quartering, screws for screws, breaking codes without bones, fundamental flaying, and so forth. But I was tired of leafing through these dusty tomes; I wanted to see Major Erms. Yes, Erms would help me, I’d tell him everything! Suddenly there was a shuffling—the old man had returned. He eyed me sharply from the doorway, smiled and raised his spectacles to the top of his bald head. It was only now that I noticed he was cross-eyed. That is, one eye watched me while the other wandered up, as if seeking inspiration from above.

“Find what you wanted?”

He squinted, whistled under his breath. (A signal?) Then he saw a card on the floor, one I’d missed, looked at it and said:

“Ah … that too?” He clucked appreciatively as he picked it up with grimy fingers. “In that case, won’t you come this way, sir? It’s hard for an old codger like me to carry out such heavy volumes. Of course, they’re not all heavy, but … you’ve been cleared, haven’t you? You look like one of General Mlassgrack’s men, you do. Professional secrecy, confidential, top security, don’t I know, heh-heh! Follow me, follow me, watch yourself, don’t get dirty … the dust, you know!”

Rambling on in this way, he led me down a narrow, winding passage into the stacks. I kept bumping into atlases and folios as we went deeper into that murky labyrinth.

“Here!” my guide exclaimed at last in triumph. A bright, naked bulb lit up a fairly roomy alcove. We were surrounded by shelves that sagged beneath the weight of gray, crumbling books.

“Cake!” he snorted, waving the card in front of my nose. That was indeed the word on the card. “Cake, sir, help yourself to a slice … heh-heh! It’s all here—there’s your Splanchnology, Innardry, Disemboweling and Reembowelment, Viscerators and Eviscerators. An original edition over here,
De crucificatione modo primario divino
, second-century, the only copy in existence, wonderfully preserved, and with illustrations. Look at those shackles, will you, and here’s flaying alive, there’s playing dead, hamstringing, stringing up, tests of personal endurance… Now, on the next shelf—no, that’s Physical Tortures. I’m sorry, we’re in this section here—Bruises on the left, and on the right, Juices.”

“Juices?” I couldn’t help asking.

“Juices, juices. For example, a spit, an open fire, and you have juices, don’t you? Yes, and on the next shelf—Empaling. Mahagony, birch, oak, ash. And Bruises, they’re easy—but you must know all about it! Ah, nobody ever drops in any more, one gets so lonely… It’s so nice to have a little company, sir, if you know what I mean… They say this is all old-fashioned, obsolete.”

“Obsolete?”

“Oh, yes. Leave it to the butchers, they say. Top secret sirloin, tenderized—Lieutenant Pirpitschek likes to joke. But things are picking up again, it seems, in our department… The dust here, the dust is just awful!”

He beat the dust off his sleeves and went on:

“Allusions to cake, revolutions for cake—let them eat cake, wasn’t it? Ninety entries, all in all, a regular bakery, like our General says—oh, there’s a real man, the head of something terribly important, don’t you know! ‘Custodian Kappril, at your service, sir!’ I say. But he, does he give me the book number right off? Not on your life! He hums a little tune—hum hum, hum hum—and I know exactly what he wants. Every time!… Dr. Mrayznorl is in charge here—what’s this?
De strangulatione systematica occulta
. Somebody must have put it here by mistake, that’s physical—and Mummification too, tsk-tsk. Excuse me, that’s Cryptanalysis over there, you don’t want that—or do you? Take a look if you like, by all means… We have some very interesting books. That one you’re holding, allow me, I’ll wipe it off for you—it’s wipe off or be wiped out, like our General says. Heh-heh! He’s wonderful with words, oh yes… What’s that you’re holding—ah,
The Universe in a Drawer
—what’s his name again? Hyde, yes. A bit old-fashioned, but not bad. The Subcustodian of Archives spoke highly of it, and he’s an expert in the field.
Life in a Lavatory?
Why would you want
that?
”

I put the book back hastily and pulled out another. My head was beginning to spin; an unbearable smell, overwhelming but unidentifiable, perhaps a little like mildew, or even sandpaper—this heavy, nauseating breath of the moldering centuries seemed to pervade everything.

I should have settled for anything, taken the first book that came to hand and left. But I kept browsing, as if I were really looking for something. It certainly wasn’t
The Deontology of Treason
, nor the small, dog-eared
In Imitation of Nothing
, nor the black handbook
Updating the Transcendental
, which for some reason was shelved in the Espionage section. Around a comer was a row of thick tomes, their bindings brittle with age and the paper spotted and yellow. The illustrations were woodcuts, as was the frontispiece of
The Compleat Spye, or, Everyman’s Handbooke of Espyonage yn Three Partes, Prolegomena & Paralipomena by the Author-Nugator Jonahberry O. Paupus
. Between these bulky works were several incunabula, their covers tom and barely legible:
Cloak-and-Dagger without Guesswork, Anarchy by Remote Control, The Bribe—a Spy’s Best Friend, Snooping in Theory and Practice
. There was a bibliography of scopological and scopognostic literature, including scoposcopy.
Machina Speculatrix, or, The Tactics of Counterespionage. Cohabitation and Collaboration. The Fine Art of Treachery
and
The Constant Traitor. Do-it-yourself Denunciation. Favorite Blunders and Slip-ups
with full diagrams.
Traps and Taps.
There were even artistic items—a musical score with the title carefully written in violet,
The Walls Have Ears, a Divertimento for Four Trombones and Hidden Mike,
and a collection of sonnets entitled
Microdots.

Someone groaned. It was a terrible, heartrending groan that came from behind a partition. I grabbed the old man’s sleeve and asked:

“What was that?”

“Ah yes, the recruits are listening to records. It’s a seminar on Applied Agony, Simulthanasia, or something like that. Tombsters, we call them,” he muttered.

And indeed, that same groan was being played over and over again. I was ready to leave. But the old geezer fell into a fever of activity; he bustled about the shelves, jumped up on tiptoe, moved the rusty ladders here and there, darted up the rungs, threw books down, and in general raised a thick cloud of dust—all this to regale me with yet another exhibit, some decrepit rarity or other. And he never ceased his ranting and raving, almost to the rhythm of the howling behind the partition. The glistening drop at the tip of his nose swung wildly but never fell. Somehow, his cross-eyed gaze never left me, so I had to be very careful—he might discover I was here under false pretenses, an impostor. But no, he continued his frantic inspection, eager to show me still another dusty volume.
Basic Cryptology
was pressed into my hands and fell open to these words: “The human body consists of the following places of concealment…”

“Ah, here is
Homo Sapiens As a Corpus Delicti
, a splendid work, splendid … and this is
Incendiaries Then and Now
, and here’s a list of the experts in the field—listen: Meern, Birdhoove, Fishmi, Cantovo, Karck, and we’re in it too of course, there’s our Professor Barbeliese, Klauderlaut, Grumpf—imagine that, Grumpf! This?
The Morbitron
by Glauble. Yes, he’s an author as well … heh-heh! Now this pamphlet—”

He pulled out a stack of disintegrating cards.

“Umbilicomurology and, yes, the breeding and care of coypus—there isn’t anything we don’t have here… What you’re holding there, that’s Fashion. You know, the cut of the straitjacket, things like that… Here are some other items:
The ABC’s of Self-surveillance, Automated Self-immolation
…”

I backed away, trying to defend myself against this flood of talk and dust and decay, this barrage of strange terminology—triple tails, coded leaks, spotted caches, exposed plants, strategic lays, integrated risks, sensitive channels, high-grade rendezvous entrapment…

Unable to take any more, I told the old man I had to leave. He glanced at his watch, a large silver onion.

“Is that a secret watch?” I asked.

“Of course it’s a secret watch, what do you think?”

He put it back in his pocket and frowned as I mumbled some excuse about dropping in another time to pick out what I needed… He didn’t seem to hear, he kept wanting to take me to other sections. Naked bulbs lit up the crowded shelves and cabinets like low-hung stars. Even at the exit he tried to show me another book, pointing out special pages, praising the work as if I were a potential buyer and he a half-mad bibliopole or bibliophile.