Authors: Stanislaw Lem
Some children were playing hide-and-seek near the iron grating, popping out from behind the cagelike structure, which enclosed a statue of someone in a bishop’s miter, to throw pieces of wood at his Buick.
“That’s enough fooling around, you hear me!” he shouted, emerging from the shadows. The children scattered noisily, more exuberant than frightened. He got in and started the motor. Cut off from his surroundings by the car windows, he had a premonition that he was about to unleash something he’d be sorry for later on. The premonition urged him not to go ahead with whatever it was he had just started. He hesitated for a second, but his fingers tightened automatically on the gearshift, and the car began coasting down the slope. Reducing speed gradually, he turned into a broad avenue, passing a street sign but not managing to read it.
The dashboard clock radiated a pinkish color; its hands stood at seven o’clock. Time was really flying today. Various events connected with the case came to mind, but Gregory rejected them—he wanted to push them out of his consciousness, trying hard not to think about the case, as if it was important not to think about it, as if everything would turn out all right if he left it alone; somehow, he felt, all the details would fall into place when he came back to them later on.
He was leaving the East End when the flashing directional signal of a dark car in front of him caught his eye. Recognizing the dented rear bumper, he slowed down and stayed at a safe distance behind the car. He managed without any trouble.
The dark gray sedan turned again into a deserted tree-lined street. Gregory allowed it to get a few more yards ahead; then, to keep from attracting attention, he turned off his lights, following the other car like this for a long time. Once or twice, at intersections, he had to speed up to make sure he wouldn’t lose it but he preferred not to get too close. There weren’t many other cars on the street though, and Sciss was a careful driver, who used his directional signals often. The orange flashes were a big help, but Gregory was a little annoyed because he didn’t always know where he was. Suddenly he recognized the bluish letters of an advertising sign and immediately everything fell into place. There was a branch of the City Bank, next door to it a small cafe he had frequented in his youth. The dark sedan pulled up to the curb. Gregory made a quick decision: at the risk of losing Sciss, who was already getting out of his car, Gregory drove up to the next block. He stopped in front of a big chestnut tree which protected the Buick from the light of the street lamps, slammed the doors, and hurried back, but Sciss was nowhere to be seen. Gregory stopped in front of the cafe and tried to peek through the windows. Some posters pasted on the glass blocked his view, so he raised his collar and went inside, unable to resist the unpleasant feeling that he was doing something ridiculous.
The cafe had several rooms; three or four, he’d never known quite how many. They were spacious, furnished with marble-topped tables; each room was separated from the others by a partition padded with worn-out red velvet, the kind of material used to upholster settees.
Gregory spotted Sciss’s reflection in a narrow mirror on the wall of the passageway between the first and second rooms. He was seated at a table, saying something to a waiter. Gregory backed up, looking for a comer from which he could watch Sciss without being seen. It wasn’t easy. When he finally selected a spot and sat down, he discovered that the partitions blocked his view of Sciss’s table, but he couldn’t move because the waiter was already headed toward him. Ordering a hot toddy, Gregory spread out the
Sunday Times
, annoyed that he couldn’t see Sciss and that he was sitting like a dog outside a fox’s lair. He forced himself to work on the crossword puzzle, watching the empty space between the partitions and the opposite wall. About ten minutes later, while he was still sipping the sickeningly sweet drink, Sciss suddenly stood up and walked quickly from room to room as if looking for someone. Gregory barely managed to hide himself behind the outspread
Times
, but Sciss didn’t notice the lieutenant and returned to his “box,” now sitting in such a way that Gregory could see his long legs and his bluish yellow shoes. Another ten minutes went by. In the back, near the billiard table, some students were arguing noisily with each other. Sciss leaned out of his hiding place every time the door creaked. Finally, he stood up, smiling heartily at a girl standing in the doorway. She hesitated, then walked toward him, her flat handbag, hanging on a strap from her shoulder, bouncing against her hips. She was wearing a purple coat, with a hood that covered all but a few wisps of her light-colored hair. Gregory couldn’t see her face. The girl stood in front of Sciss, who began talking very rapidly. He touched the sleeve of her coat. She shook her head as if saying no, then slid in between the partition and the table. Both disappeared from view. Taking advantage of a temporary commotion among the students in the back room, Gregory reluctantly circled the inside of the cafe, and headed back to his table from the other direction, attempting all the while to watch Sciss and the girl through a mirror hanging high on the wall. Pretending to be looking for a particular newspaper, he moved from table to table until he found a good vantage point, then fell into a red settee with protruding springs. It was hard to see the mirror, but at least the dim lighting and the location gave some assurance that Sciss wouldn’t be able to spot him. The mirror enabled Gregory to see Sciss slightly from above. Sciss had moved from his chair to the sofa next to the girl; talking rapidly, without even looking at her, he almost seemed to be directing his words at the table, an impression heightened by Gregory’s foreshortened view of the scene. The girl, full-lipped with a childlike face, was no more than seventeen years old. She still had her coat on, but she had opened it and pushed the hood back, letting her hair spill out over her shoulders. Sitting straight up with her shoulders pressed against the red upholstery, and staring frontward instead of at Sciss, she looked unnaturally stiff and still, conveying the unmistakable impression that she was uncomfortable and perhaps a little tired. Sciss kept talking and talking; at one point he leaned toward the girl, reluctantly pulled back as if his advance had been rejected, then brought his restless thin lips close to her face without looking at her. At the same time, his bony hand moved up and down on the table top in rhythm with what he was saying; clenching and unclenching his fingers, he almost furtively caressed the table. The whole scene was so stupid, so pathetic that Gregory wanted to turn away, but he kept watching. The girl smiled once, but only with her lips, not with her eyes, then continued sitting as before, her head bowed, listening but not saying anything. Gregory could see her in the mirror; her cheeks were cast in shadow by her hair, she had a small, snub nose. For an instant, but only that once, Gregory noticed a sparkle in her eyes. Sciss finally became silent. With his shoulders hunched over and a strained expression on his face, he seemed to be alone even though the girl was still sitting at his side. Staring at the marble table top, he reached for a paper napkin, quickly jotted a few words on it, folded the paper in four parts, and slid it across the table. The girl didn’t want to take it. Sciss quite visibly begged and pestered her. She finally picked it up, then put it down again, unopened, touching him with her fingertips. Sciss grabbed her by the hand. She stiffened, glancing at him with wide-open eyes. It seemed to Gregory that her face had darkened. Sciss listened to whatever she was saying, nodded his head, then leaned toward her and began talking slowly, emphatically, underlining words with gestures of his hand, pressing strongly, urgently on the table as if trying to smash something into the slab of marble with his palm. When he finished, he took hold of the edge of the table with both hands as if he wanted to push it away. The girl’s lips moved. Gregory read them: “No.” Sciss swung around in his chair, turning his face toward the room. Gregory tried to see what had happened to the napkin; it was under the table next to the girl’s foot. Meanwhile, Sciss got up. He put a few coins on the table and slowly made his way to the door. He stopped there. The girl followed, pulling the hood over her head without bothering to arrange her hair. She was slender, in a childlike way, with a teenager’s long legs. The door hadn’t even closed behind them when Gregory was up on his feet; he moved quickly to their table, bent down to pick up the napkin, shoved it into his pocket, and rushed out into the street. The sedan was just beginning to pull away from the curb. The girl was sitting next to Sciss. Without trying to hide, Gregory hurried up the block to his Buick. While struggling with the door lock, he turned around and saw the bright wink of the Chrysler’s directional signals disappearing around a corner—Sciss had made a turn. Gregory jumped into his car, stepped on the gas, and pulled away in pursuit—for a while it looked as if he had lost the Chrysler, and he was beginning to feel a sense of relief and satisfaction, but suddenly he caught sight of the gray sedan in the heavy traffic in front of him. Sciss drove onto the upper level of the northbound highway, but at the third exit turned off onto a winding overpass. Gregory followed close behind—the traffic was so heavy that he could allow himself this luxury without being noticed. He attempted to see through the sedan’s rear window but couldn’t make out much more than two human figures. Before long they arrived in a neighborhood occupied almost entirely by brand-new multistoried housing projects. Sciss came to a sudden stop without pulling over to the curb. Gregory, not wanting to lose him, drove slowly past, then turned around in his seat to watch through his rear window. Sciss unexpectedly accelerated, overtook and passed Gregory’s car, made a U-turn, and drove back in the direction he’d come from, leaving Gregory behind. The street ran alongside the project, following a line of six-story buildings and smaller houses set in a sprawling grassy area surrounded by hedges and wire fences. With Gregory some distance behind him again, Sciss drove into a broad parking lot and got out of the car after the girl. Gregory followed them with his eyes until they disappeared in the semidarkness, trying unsuccessfully to locate them in the faint light of the whitish globes over the building entrances. Meanwhile, a passing constable, noticing that its parking lights were on, stopped next to Sciss’s car, looked it over carefully with a disapproving expression, then continued on his rounds. Although more than five minutes had gone by, Gregory waited patiently, feeling sure, without knowing why, that Sciss would be back soon enough after failing to achieve his purpose. He got out of the car and strolled along the sidewalk at a leisurely pace until he heard footsteps approaching. It was Sciss coming back: his coat was unbuttoned and he was bareheaded; his hair, standing up around his ears in the strong wind, looked like a pair of bat’s wings. Gregory got back into the car, leaving the door slightly open because he didn’t want to attract Sciss’s attention by slamming it. Overwhelmed by an urgent desire to smoke, he watched Sciss while searching in his pockets for a package of cigarettes. Sciss stood next to his car for a long time, his arms dangling limply at his sides, then traced a pattern on the hood with his fingers as if checking to see if it was dusty. He finally got in and turned off the lights. Gregory immediately started his motor and waited. Sciss didn’t move, Gregory put the car in neutral; suddenly reminded of the napkin, he pulled it out of his pocket, unfolded it, and, not wanting to turn his lights on, held it close to the dashboard, barely able to make the words out in the soft glow of the dials and gauges. It was Sciss’s address, phone number, and name. It occurred to Gregory that Sciss might be waiting while the girl changed her clothes, but he rejected the thought at once: he was quite certain that Sciss wasn’t waiting for anything and didn’t expect anything. The dashboard clock showed nine. They’d been sitting this way for a half hour already. Gregory smoked two cigarettes, throwing the butts out the window. He fiddled around with the radio for a while, then, his patience exhausted, got out, slammed the door ostentatiously, and walked over to Sciss’s car. Just before reaching it, however, he hesitated, and walked on past.
Sciss was slumped against the steering wheel with his face cradled in his arms. A beam of light from a street lamp, partly cut off by the roof of the car, shined on his silvery hair, making a bat’s wing pattern on his temple. Gregory stood watching him, not certain what to do. Suddenly he backed away, returned to the Buick as quietly as possible, and, taking a careful look to make sure nothing was moving in Sciss’s car, got in and quickly drove away. He made a left turn, went around in a wide circle, and headed back to the same place at high speed. The dark mass of the Chrysler suddenly loomed before him; just as a collision seemed unavoidable he stepped hard on the brake and squealed to a short jerky stop, ramming solidly into Sciss’s rear bumper with a metallic grating sound. He jumped out and ran over to the Chrysler.
“I’m terribly sorry,” he called out. “My brakes didn’t hold. I hope I didn’t do too much damage. Oh, it’s you,” he said quietly.
Sciss, who had been thrown forward by the impact, opened his door, extended one leg as if about to get out but didn’t, and instead stared at Gregory, who was affecting a stupid expression.
“You? How did you… Gregory, huh? What is this—the police making trouble for law-abiding citizens?” he said.
They walked around to inspect the rear of the car; it was undamaged; as Gregory had planned, the impact had been absorbed by the bumpers.
“Exactly how did you manage to do this?” Sciss asked, straightening himself up.
“I’m driving a rented car and I’m not used to the brakes,” Gregory explained. “To tell the truth, I always drive that way—it’s a weakness of mine, probably because I’m unfulfilled in some way. You see, I don’t have a car of my own.”
Deciding that he was probably talking too much, Gregory abruptly became silent.
“You don’t have a car?” Sciss repeated. He spoke mechanically, his mind on something else. He pulled on his right glove, buttoned it, and slowly rolled up his left glove. The two men stood side by side next to the cars.