The Visitor at the Zoo

III

THERE in the middle of the city, the streets were as bright as if it were day. Over the tesselated pavements people were wandering. Music drifted seductively from an open doorway; all the scarlet blossoms of the Antarean air-weed, clinging to the sides of the buildings, were open and exuding a fresh pungence.

In one of the brilliant display windows, as he passed, the young man saw a row of green creatures in glass cages - sluggish globular animals about the size of a tomato, with threads of limbs and great dull green eyes. They floated on the green-scummed surface of the shallow water in the cages, or climbed feebly on bits of wet bark. Over them was a streamer: TAKE A WOG HOME TO THE CHILDREN.

He passed on. The people around him, moving in groups and couples for the most part, were a different sort than he was used to seeing at the Zoo in Hamburg. They were better dressed, better fed, their skins were clearer and redder and they laughed more. The women were confections of white-blonde hair and red cheeks, with sparkling white teeth and flashing nails, and they wore puffed, shining garments like the glittering paper around an expensive gift. The men were more austere in dark, dull reds and blues. Their feet were thinly shod in gleaming patent leather, and their hair shone with pomade. Their talk, in the unfamiliar Berlin accent, eddied around him: confident tones, good humor, barks of laughter.

Very faintly, beneath his feet, the star mosaic of the pavement shook to the passage of an express car underneath. Here in the aboveground everyone was on foot. There was no wheeled vehicle in sight, not even an aircar: only the bright thread of one of the Flugbahnen visible in the distance.

Around the corner, in a little square surrounding the heroic anodized aluminum figure of a man in spaceman’s dress, helmet off, an exultant expression on his metal face, the young man saw a tall illuminated panel on the side of a building. Luminous words were shuddering slowly down the panel, line by line. The young man moved closer, through the loose crowd of bystanders, and read:

INTERPLANET LINER CRASHES ON MARS;

ALL BELIEVED DEAD Passenger list to follow

MOVING-MACHINE THIEVES COMMIT ANOTHER

OUTRAGE IN BERLIN Will be brought to justice, vows Funk

HIGH ASSEMBLY VOTES TO ANNEX THIESSEN’s PLANT Vote is 1150 for to 139 against SPACE STOCKS CLOSE AT RECORD HIGH Society for Spaceflight, I.C.S.S.A. lead advance READ FULL DETAILS IN THE BERLINER ZEITUNG

The letters drifted down, like tongues of cold flame, and were followed by an advertisement for Heineken’s beer.

The young man turned away, having read all the headlines with appreciation but without any interest whatever; he walked further down the street and gazed in fascination at the marquee of a cinema, where through some illusion brightly-colored ten-foot figures of men and women seemed to be dancing. Even here he could not give his full attention. He was bothered, and increasingly so, by certain demands of his, body.

HE HAD an insistent urge to tear off the muffling, unfamiliar garments he was wearing, but realized it would attract attention to himself, and besides, this bald body would probably be cold. He had not realized that a simple thing like this could become so difficult. At home in the zoo he had had his own little W.C., and that was that. People must have theirs, but where? What did people do who were strangers in Berlin? He looked around. He did not see a policeman, but a woman who was passing with her escort paused, looking at him, and on an impulse he stepped forward and said politely, “Pardon me, madam, but can you direct me to the W.C.?”

Her face registered first surprise, then shock, and she turned to her companion saying angrily, “Come on, he’s drunk.” They walked rapidly away, the man’s scowling face turned over his shoulder. The word “Disgraceful!” floated back.

Surprised and hurt, the young man stood for a moment watching them out of sight; then he turned in the opposite direction.

The place he was passing now was called Konstantin’s Cafe. The sight of people sitting at table, visible through the big window, reminded him that he was hungry and thirsty. After a moment’s hesitation, he went in.

A slender red-jacketed waiter met him alertly in the foyer. “Yes, sir? A table for one?”

“Yes, if you like,” said the young man. The waiter hesitated, glancing at him oddly, then turned through the archway. “Come this way, sir.”

The young man gave his surcoat and camera to a girl who asked for them. Inside, waiters in red jackets were moving like ants among the snowy tabletops; the room was crowded with rich silks and velvets of all colors, flushed clean faces, smiling mouths; unfamiliar smells of food swam in the air. The thick carpet muffled all footsteps, but there was a heavy burden of voices, clattering silverware, and music from some invisible source.

A little intimidated by so much crowded luxury, the young man followed the waiter to a small table and sat down.

The waiter opened a stiff pasteboard folder with a snap and presented it; the young man took it automatically, and in a moment perceived that it was a list of foods.

“To begin with, an aperitif, sir?” asked the waiter. “Some hors-d’oeuvres? Or shall we say a salad?”

The young man blinked at the menu, then set it down. “No,” he replied, “but-”

“Just the dinner, then, sir,” said the waiter briskly. “If the gentleman will permit, I recommend the truite au beurre canopeen, with a Moselle, very good, sir.”

“All right, the young man said hesitantly, but first-”

“Ah, an aperitif, after all?” asked the waiter, smiling with annoyance. “Some hors-d’oeuvres? Or-”

“No, I don’t wish any of those, thank you,” said the young man, making a clumsy gesture and oversetting a goblet.

“But then, what is it that the gentleman wishes?” The waiter righted the goblet, brushed at the tablecloth, stood back.

The young man blinked slowly. “I wish for you to direct me to the W.C., if you would be so kind.”

HE half expected the waiter to react like the woman in the street, but the man’s keen face only closed expressionlessly, and he leaned down to murmur, “The doorway behind the curtain at the rear, sir.”

“Thank you, you are very kind.”

“Not at all, sir.” The waiter went away. The young man got up and went in the indicated direction. Although he tried to move carefully, he was still very clumsy in his body, and sometimes would forget and pause between steps to try and shake off one of his shoes. When he did this, he noticed that some of the diners looked at him strangely. He determined to break the habas soon as possible.

When he returned, after some trouble with the unfamiliar fastenings, the waiter was just removing from a little silver cart a covered platter, which he placed on the table and unveiled with a flourish. The young man sat down. The waiter took a slender bottle from the cart, uncorked it, poured a pale liquid into the goblet and stood back expectantly.

The young man looked at his plate.

The food steamed gently; there were five or six different things, each of its own color, beautifully arranged on the platter. He had never seen any of them before, except possibly in magazines, and all the smells were unfamiliar. Nevertheless, he picked up his fork and pried at the largest object, a roughly oval burnt-brown mass which came away flakily, running with juices. He put the fork in his mouth on the second try. The food was a moist, unpleasant lump on his tongue: the taste was so startling that he immediately turned his head and spat it out.

The waiter looked down at the carpet, then at the young man. Then he went away.

The young man was gingerly trying some light green strips, which he found unusual but palatable, when the waiter came back. “Sir, the manager would like to speak with you, if you please.” He gestured toward the foyer.

“Oh? With me?” The young man stood up agreeably, oversetting the goblet again. The pale liquid ran over the tablecloth and began to drip onto the carpet. “I am so sorry,” he said, and began to mop at it with his napkin.

“It’s of no consequence,” said the waiter grimly, and took the young man by the arm. “If you please, sir.”

In the foyer they met another waiter, who took his other arm. Someone handed him his surcoat and camera. Together the two waiters began to propel him toward the exit.

The young man craned his head around. “The manager?” he asked.

“The manager,” said the first waiter, “wishes you to leave quietly, without disturbance, sir.”

“But I haven’t yet paid for my food,” said the young man.

“There is no charge, sir,” said the waiter, and they were at the door. The two gave him a last push. He was in the street.

IN THE men’s room of a pfennig gallery, a little later (at least he was becoming adept at finding W.C.‘s), the young man was examining the contents of his pockets. He discovered that he was Martin Naumchik, European citizen, born Asnieres (Seine) 1976, complexion fair, eyes brown, hair brown, no arrest record, no curtailment of citizenship, no identifying marks or scars, employed by ParisSoir, 98 rue de la Victoire, Paris (9e); that he had a driver’s license, a Cordon Bleu diner’s card, a press card in five languages and a notebook full of penciled scribbling which he could not read. In his billfold were forty marks, and in the pockets of his trousers, jacket and surcoat some coins amounting to another two or three marks. That was all, except some ticket stubs, a key on a gold ring, tissues, pocket lint, a half-empty pack of cigarettes, and a crumpled envelope, addressed to Herr Martin Naumchik, 67, Gastnerstrasse, Berlin.

The young man had partially satisfied his hunger with two sausages on rolls, bought at a stall near the gallery, but he was tired, lonely and bewildered. At that moment he would have been glad to go back to the Zoo, but he had lost his directions and did not know where it was. He left the gallery and moved on down the street.

The cinema beckoned to him with the open wings of its lobby and the gigantic displays on either side: figures of men and women, glossy leaves, planets floating in a violet-gray sky. Illuminated signs announced:

Experience new sensations!

Unprecedented excitement!

UNDER SEVEN MOONS Stella Pain - Willem DeGroot

“Indescribable!” - Tageblatt.

The price was two marks ten. The young man paid, took his ticket and went in. A few people were standing about in the anteroom, talking and smoking. There were exotic fruits and confections for sale at a long counter, and rows of automatic machines for drinks, candy, tissues. The young man gave his ticket to the turnstile machine at the door, got a stub back and found himself in a huge well of darkened seats, lit only by faint glimmers from the distant walls. Here and there around the vast bowl, clumps of people were sitting. Three-quarters of the seats were empty. There was very little noise, no one was talking or moving, evidently the show had not yet begun. The young man groped his way down the aisle, chose a seat and unfolded it. The instant he settled down and put his hands on the armrests, sound and motion exploded around him.

HE sprang up convulsively, into darkness and silence. The huge almost empty bowl of the theater was just as it had been before: the flashing phantom shapes he had seen were nowhere.

After a moment, cautiously, he touched one of the armrests again. Nothing happened. The other armrest. Still nothing. Gingerly and with trepidation, he unfolded the seat and lowered himself into it.

Again the sudden blast of light and sound. This time he glimpsed figures, heard words spoken before he leaped upright again.

All around him, the people were sitting in eerie, intent silence. Then this must be how one saw a movie - not projected on a wall, as he had always imagined, but somehow mysteriously existing when one sat in the chair. Shaking with nervousness, but determined not to be a coward, he sat down one more and gripped the armrests hard.

Light and sensation surrounded him. He was seeing the upper portions of two gigantic humans, a female and a male, against a violet sky in which two moons shone dimly. Simultaneously there was a grinding, insistent roar of wind and the man’s stentorian voice bellowed out, “Gerda, you are mine!” His face stared into hers, his strong brown hands gripped her bare arms while she replied, “I know it, Friedrich.” The words crashed into the young man’s eardrums like bombs. The two immense bodies were not far away, at the end of the theater, but loomed before him almost close enough to touch. They glowed with color, not a natural color but something altogether different and arresting, luminous pastel tones overlying shadows of glowing darkness, with a rather disturbing suggestion of dead black in all the outlines, almost like a colored engraving. They had depth but not reality, and yet they were incredibly more than mere pictures. The young man realized, with a shock of surprise, that he could smell the cold salt air, and that without knowing in the least how, he was aware of the very texture of the giant woman’s skin - smooth and waxy, like a soft artificial fruit - and of the cat-smelling tawny softness of her long blonde . hair whipping in the wind, and the hard-edged glossy stiffness of the green leaves in the near background.

“Gerda!” roared the man.

“Friedrich!” she trumpeted sadly

Then without moving a muscle the two of them vertiginously receded, as if an invisible car were drawing them rapidly away, and as they dwindled, standing and staring at one another, greenleaved shrubs gathered in to fill the space, and the sky somehow grew bigger - there were three moons drifting with a perceptible motion through the violet sky - and at that moment with a thunderous rushing sound, the rain began. Dry as he sat there, the young man could feel the streaming wetness pelting the leaves; it was lukewarm. Music skirled up in wild dissonances, lightning cracked the sky apart and thunder boomed.

It was too much.

The young man stood up, trembling all over. Sight, touch and sound vanished instantly. He was alone in the vast theater with the silent, motionless people who sat in darkness.

He moved shakily to the aisle and went out, grateful for the quiet and the sense of being alone in his skin again. He was sorry to have given up so quickly, but consoled himself with the thought that it was his first time. Later, perhaps, he would grow used to it.

AT A kiosk in the middle of the street, newspapers and magazines were on sale in metal dispensers. Beside this stood a dirty small boy and an old gray woman, with a portable teleset tuned to a popular singer. The little boy was singing harmony with him, badly, in a strained soprano. There were coins scattered on the little folding table in front of the teleset. Further along, two drunken and disheveled men were scuffing ineffectually, grabbing at each other’s surcoats for balance. A brightly painted woman giggled, but most people paid no attention. Three dark young men walked by abreast, scowling, with identical dark long surcoats and oiled forelocks. Tall cold-light signs over the buildings blinked, MOBIL. TELEFUNKEN, KRUPP-FARBEN. The young man moved through the crowd, listening to the voices and the snatches of music from open doorways, looking at faces, pausing to stare at the glittering merchandise in shop windows.

When he had been walking in the same direction for some time, he came upon a store which seemed to fill an entire square of its own, with many busy entrances and rows of brilliantly lighted display windows. The name, in tall cold-light letters over each entrance, was ELEKTRA. For want of any other direction, the young man drifted in with the crowd.

Inside, the store appeared to be one gigantic room, high-ceilinged, echoing, glittering everywhere with reflected lights. Banks of brightly illuminated display cases were ranged in parallel lines, leaving aisles between. In open spaces were statues, great flowering plants, constructions of golden and white metal. The murmuring of the crowd washed back from the distant ceiling: up there, the young man noticed, were fiery trails of light, red, green, blue, amber, that pulsed and seemed to travel along the ceiling like the exhausts of rockets. The air was heavy with women’s mingled scents and with other, unidentifiable odors; there was quiet music in the background, and a faint, multiple clicking or clattering sound.

The young man went in tentatively, listening and watching. A woman and an older man were standing by the entrance to one of the aisles, arguing vehemently in low, crisp voices; the young man caught the words, Twenty millions at the minimum. A child in a red coat was crying, being dragged along by an angry woman. A man in dark-blue uniform went hurrying by, the trousers snapping about his ankles.

There were signs in colored lights on the ceiling; one red one said “MEN’s WEAR” and a red trail went pulsing off from it; another, blue, said “WATCHES AND JEWELRY”; another, green, “CAMERAS.”

The young man followed the green trail, fascinated. Lines of people, most of them women, were moving slowly along the row of showcases. Here and there, the young man saw someone put money into one of the cases, open the glass front and take out a blouse or an undergarment, a pair of stockings, a scarf.

The young man had never seen so many beautiful things in one place. Here he was now in a whole corridor lined with nothing but cameras, hundreds of cameras, all achingly polished and bright; the winking reflections from their round eyes of metal and glass followed him as he walked. He actually saw a man buy one: a huge thing, big as the man’s head, with pale leather sides and a complexity of lens tubes, dials, meters. The man held-it reverently in his hands, staring at it as if at a loved one’s face. As the glass door closed, a mechanism slowly revolved and another camera, just like the first, descended to fill the empty case. As the customer walked away, the young man looked at the price on the chrome rim of the showcase: it was 700 marks. He looked again at the beautiful camera behind the glass door, then at the one which hung around his neck. It was smaller and the metal was not so bright; the black sides were worn in places, and it did not look so beautiful as it had before. The young man walked on, looking down at himself, and was aware that his dark surcoat was worn thin at the cuffs, his shoes needed polishing, there was lint and dust on his trousers.

So, then, it was not enough to be a human being! One must also have money. The young man vaguely supposed that if he had 700 marks, his head would not ache so, he would not have the uncomfortable feeling in his insides that was bothering him more and more, he would not be tired and irritable.

But he had not the least idea how people got money.

TO make himself feel better, he stopped in the next section and bought a wristwatch with an expanding platinum band. He put a ten-mark bill into the slot. The mechanism hummed and gripped the ten marks, pulling it gradually inside until it was all gone; then there was a clatter in the receptacle underneath, and the glass door swung open. The young man took out his watch and admired it. The marvelous thing was already running, the second hand sweeping silently around the black dial. He put it on his wrist, first the wrong way around, then the right way. In the receptacle were twenty-seven pfennigs in silver and copper. He scooped them up. Above, the mechanism was revolving and another wristwatch came into view. The young man found that he could not resist it. He put another ten marks into the machine, receiving another wristwatch and another twenty-seven pfennigs in change. He put the second watch on his other wrist. Now he felt rich and handsome. He held out his arms stiffly, to make the cuffs of his sleeves slide back so that he could admire his watches. Both showed the identical time: 20 hours 13 minutes. Now he would always be sure what time it was, because if the two watches showed different times he would know one was wrong, but if the same time, then they must be right.

Feeling pleased to have worked this out for himself, and to have made so sound a purchase, he went on. In an open space at the end of the aisle, he saw curved escalators rising in spirals past the ceiling, and beyond them, banks of elevators with doors that constantly opened and shut: click, a door was open, someone stepped in, click, the door closed, and in an instant it had whisked its passenger off and was open again.

Diagonally across the open space, he caught sight of another group of illuminated trails on the ceiling, and it seemed to him that one of them was labeled Foods. He went that way eagerly, and nearly knocked down a hatless man in blue uniform, who frowned at him and said, “I beg your pardon, sir.”

“No, I beg your pardon.”

“Not at all, sir.”

“It’s very kind of you.”

“An honor, sir.”

They both bowed and went on their way. The young man found that the sign did say Foods. He followed its pink trail until he came to a sunken area full of people with metal carts, and the carts loaded with packages. He went down the five or six steps, sniffing the air, and found a new set of lighted trails that pointed to “Canned Goods, Perishables, Meats” and so on. Passing through “Canned Goods,” he came upon a stout man in a plaid surcoat who was lifting a can out of an open case and putting it on top of three others just like it in a cart.

The young man paused to watch.

The mechanism inside the case slowly revolved; another large, odd-shaped can came down into view, and now the young man could see that it was labeled COPENHAGEN SMOKED HAM, with a picture of a slab of pink meat. The cover of the display case was still open. As soon as the mechanism stopped, the stout man reached in, took out the canned ham, and put it in his cart along with the other four. The mechanism began to revolve again. The stout buyer glanced over his shoulder at the young man, hesitated, then took out a sixth ham and put it with the other five. The mechanism revolved again. As far as the young man could make out, the stout man had not put in any money. Each time he removed a ham, the door swung down but did not latch. Then the stout man lifted it up again and reached for the next ham.

THE buyer looked around again, glanced from side to side, and muttered, “Go on, get away, can’t you see I’m busy?”

“I’m sorry,” said the young man politely, “but I only wanted to be next for the hams.”

The stout customer growled something, trying to look at the next ham and at the young man simultaneously.

“Pardon?” “I said devil’s dirt,” the stout man growled more distinctly. The mechanism stopped; he reached in and took the seventh ham.

At that moment one of the blue-uniformed men appeared at the end of the aisle. The stout customer was holding the ham close to his chest. The blue-uniformed man turned toward them.

The stout customer wheeled abruptly, thrust the ham into the young man’s arms, said petulantly, “Here, then,” and walked rapidly away.

“One moment, please!” called the approaching blue-uniformed map.

Still moving rapidly away, and without turning his head, the stout man said something that sounded like, “Run, you fool!”

The man in the blue uniform took something out of his pocket. It was an electric bell, which began to ring insistently and loudly. Inside the display case, the mechanism was revolving, presenting another canned ham. The young man looked at it, then at the one he held, and felt a vague alarm. The stout man was moving faster; the one in blue uniform was waving and shouting. The young man turned and began to run, although he did not know why.

At the front of the food section, another blue-uniformed man was coming toward him from the left. The young man scrambled up the five steps, holding the canned ham awkwardly to his chest. The stout man was nowhere in sight.

“Stop!” called one of the blue-uniformed men. But the young man’s heart was beating in unreasonable panic. He ran across the open space, dodging back and forth between shoppers’ carts, pursued by shouts and the ringing of the bell. Another bell began to ring, somewhere off to his right, then a third. Utterly terrified, unaware of what he was doing, the young man dropped the ham on the floor and ran at a woman with a full cart, who shrieked and pushed it into another cart, oversetting both and spilling oranges like quicksilver on the floor. The young man ran past her, nearly falling, and found himself between two advancing men in blue, while before him was only a decorative grille of arabesques in gold-plated metal, which reached all the way to ‘a balcony on the second level. With a gasp of fright, the young man flung himself at this grille and began to limb it. In spite of the clumsiness of his feet, which would not grip and could not even feel the metal, he was above the men’s heads in a moment, and they shook their fists at him, shouting, “Despicable ruffian, come down here!”

The young man kept on climbing. Shortly, the people on the floor below were colorful dolls, many with faces turned to look up at him. One of the blue-uniformed men had begun to climb the grille, but now the young man was almost at the top.

He arrived at the top of the grille, and reaching up, found that he could grasp the railing of the balcony and swing himself up and over. Panting with exertion, he found himself in a narrow corridor, lined on the wall side with open doorways from which came the sounds of voices and the clicking of machines. A man stepped out of a doorway some distance down the corridor and craned his neck to listen to the sound of the bells. He turned, saw the young man. “Hi!” he called, starting forward.

THE young man ran again.

Faces turned, startled, inside the rooms as he passed; he caught glimpses of men and women in their blouse sleeves, of desks and office equipment. The next door was closed and was marked Stair. The young man opened it, hesitated briefly between two narrow flights, then chose the up flight and went bounding up, three steps at a time, swinging around at each tiny landing until he grew dizzy. Below, voices echoed. He kept on going up past other landings and closed, dark doors, narrower and dingier, until he reached the top. The stairs ended at one last door, lit only by a grimy skylight through which filtered a dim violet glow.

The young man paused to listen. Deep down, there were tiny voices, like the chirping of insects under layer after layer of earth.

He opened the door and went in. He was on a floor of empty rooms, dark and gray with dust. Everything was much older and shabbier-looking than the glittering aisles downstairs. In the weak light from small pebble-glass windows, he saw goods piled in the corners of one room, a neglected huddle of filing cabinets in another. There was no one here. No one had come here for a long time.

At the end of the hall, half hidden by an ancient wardrobe, was another door, another stair, the narrowest and darkest of all - plain bare wood, that creaked under his steps as he went up. It was only one short flight, and at the top he found himself in a tiny room with slanting walls.

Bundles of papers lay piled on the floor, yellow and brittle under their coating of dust. There was a length of rope, an old light bulb or two, some shredded bits of paper that might have been gnawed by small animals. All this he saw in the dim, cool light from a triangular window under the peak of the roof. It was a wide window, framed in old ornate moulding that filled almost the entire wall, and from it, when he had rubbed a clear space with his hand, he could see the city spread out below him.

Silent and empty it lay under the violet sky, all the buildings peacefully ranked one beyond another out to the misty horizon. Some of the building faces were illuminated by the glow of the avenues, but no sound came up from those lower levels. It was like a deserted city, whose inhabitants had gone away leaving all the lights on. The luminous strand of a Flugbahn hung empty against the sky. In the twilight the letters of sky-signs stared coldly: MOBIL, URANIA, IBM, ALT WIEN.

The young man looked around him with calm satisfaction.

He was still hungry and in bodily distress, but here he was safe and sheltered. With those papers he could make a bed, here by the window. He would look out at the world all day, as long as he wished, and no one would know he was here at all.

He sat down and let his muscles relax. After all, to be free and to have a place of one’s own were what mattered most. He had been terribly frightened, but now he could see that it was all coming right in the end.

With a contented glance around at the dim, slanting walls, which already had the comforting familiarity of home, he lay down on the floor and let the slow waves of silence muffle him to sleep.