The Visitor at the Zoo

VI

SPRAWLED on the couch in his room, the biped read: “The bipeds of the Great Northern Plateau, although the most interesting life-form on Brecht’s Planet, are a vanishing species. Their once numerous herds are no longer seen in the vicinity of the Earth settlements. Only scattered groups of three to five are occasionally met in the mountains and foothills to the north. These animals, prior to the development of Brecht’s Planet by man, possessed a complex herd organization and communicated by vocal signals. Their mating ceremonies, held in the spring of the year, are said to have involved barbaric cruelties to the females.”

He closed the book thoughtfully. That might account partly for Emma’s attitude, he supposed - if she had witnessed something of the kind before being captured and brought to Earth as an infant. However -

He thumbed the book open at a different place. “The knob or crest,” he read, “appearing only as a vestige in the male, is a conspicuous purplish-red ovoid in the female. The function of the crest is unknown, but it is thought to be a secondary sexual characteristic. Erhardt (6) has suggested that it functions as an organ of display in the animals’ natural state, but Zimmer (7) has pronounced it to be merely a hypertrophied pineal eye. The organ is vulnerable, as attested by the large number of older females who have lost it through accident or in conflict with other bipeds.”

The biped closed the book again and tossed it irritably onto the floor. He was reading “Brecht’s Planet: Riddle of the Universe” for the second time, out of sheet boredom, since it was the only book he had in the back room: but the parts that were full of footnote references reminded him too much of the work he copied every day for Griick and the other staff members.

In another two hours or so it would be closing time, and he could go into the living room without exposing himself to all those meaty red faces. This time he would remember to bring some reading matter into the back room, enough to last him a few days.

Actually, there was nothing to stop him from going out there now … there were some magazines in the rack, he remembered, with bright covers. He could scoop them up and come straight back in. But he hesitated to make the move.

It was extraordinary how hateful a row of human faces could be, staring in at you over an iron railing, with their great fat jaws moving as they chewed.

He stood up restlessly. Hell and damnation! There was nothing to do here except read Brecht’s Planet again, and nothing to do in the office. His work was all cleaned up, and there was no point in trying to smuggle out another letter until he found out what had happened to the first one.

Anxiety seized him again, and he began pacing back and forth.

Surely nothing could have gone wrong?

When the first batch of signed correspondence had come down from upstairs to be folded and sealed in envelopes, the biped had simply added his to the pile. Rudi, the pimply young keeper, had carried them out on his next trip. There was no reason to suppose that stamped, sealed letters were inspected by Griick or anyone. The keeper probably took them directly to the post box.

But he had been waiting for a week. If Stein had received the letter, why hadn’t something happened before now?

FROM Emma’s living room next door he heard a faint creak, a pause, another creak. Probably she had got up from her chair for something, then sat down again … all in full view of the crowd, naturally.

That decided him. He looked at the open doorway, then stiffened himself and walked through it, looking straight ahead.

The first moment was even worse than he had expected. The room was enormous and empty; the window was crowded with faces. He tried to shut them out of his awareness, looking only at the magazines, which now seemed much less attractive than he had remembered them. After a moment it began to be easier to go on than to turn back, but his mouth was still dry and his heart thumped painfully. Outside, there was a steady movement along the railing as people who had been staring at Emma came over to stare at him.

Walking stiffly, the biped reached the relaxing chair and leaned past it to get the magazines. Be natural, he ordered himself. Pick up the magazines, turn …

Outside the wall of glass, people were waving to attract his attention. There were cries of “Ah, just look!” and “Fritz, hello!” A blond child, carried on his father’s shoulder so as to see better, turned suddenly beet-red and began to cry. Several people were aiming cameras. Through the uproar, just as he turned away, the biped thought he heard his name called.

He turned incredulously.

In the front line of the crowd, wedged in between two fat matrons, was a mediumsized man in a gray surcoat with a wad of paper in his hand. His eyes, friendly and inquisitive, were looking straight into the biped’s. His mouth moved, and once more the biped thought he heard his name spoken, but the noise was so great that he could not be sure.

The man in gray smiled slightly, raised his wad of paper, then wrote something on it with careful, firm motions. He held the paper up. On it was lettered, “ARE YOU NAUMCHIK?”

The biped felt a rush of joy and gratitude that almost choked him. He fell against the glass, nodding vehemently and pointing to himself. “I am Naumchik!”! he shouted.

The man in gray nodded reassuringly, folded up his paper and tucked it away. With a wave of his hand, he turned and began to struggle out of the crowd.

“Fritz! Fritz!” yelled all the red faces.

THE BIPED waited, pacing up and down, for twenty minutes by the big office clock, and still nothing happened. He knew he should control his impatience, that the gray man might be upstairs at this moment, arguing for his release; but it was no use, he had to do something or burst.

He eyed the telephone. He had been forbidden to use it except for routine calls in connection with his work. But to the devil with that! The biped strode to the phone, swung out the listening unit. The call light began to pulse. After a moment the voice of the switchboard girl spoke faintly from the instrument: “Please?”

“This is Martin Naumchik,” said the biped, feeling as he spoke that the words sounded subtly false. “I want to speak to Dr. Griick. Please connect me with him.”

“Who did you say you are?” Martin -” the biped began, and swallowed. All right then, never mind, this is Fritz the biped. I want to speak-”

“Why didn’t you say so in the first place? Is there anything wrong with the work?”

“No, the work is finished. It’s something quite urgent, so if you will kindly-”

“Is anything wrong in the cage?”

“No, but I must speak to Griick. Look here, whatever your name is, kindly don’t argue and just let me speak to-”

“My name is Fraiilein Muller,” her voice broke in coldly, “and I have instructions not to let the animals make personal telephone calls. So if there is no emergency, and nothing wrong with your work-”

“I tell you it’s urgent!” howled the biped. With mounting fury, he went on shouting into the mouthpiece. “You idiotic woman, if you prevent me from speaking to Griick, there will be an accounting, I promise you! Make that connection at once, or - Hello? Do you hear me? Hello, Fraiilein Miiller, hello?”

The empty hum of the line answered him.

With shaking fingers, the biped closed the instrument and then yanked it open again. The call light pulsed, and went on pulsing.

The female’s greenish, widejawed head was visible beyond her doorframe as the biped turned. “Well, what are you staring at?” he shouted. The head vanished.

The biped sat down abruptly in his desk chair, kneading his threefingered hands nervously together. It was intolerable to be shut up like this now, just when his freedom was perhaps so near. If something was about to happen, the least they could do was to let him know, not leave him in the dark like this. After all, whose life was at stake? But that was always the way with these inflated bureaucrats, they couldn’t see past their own fat noses. Let the lower ranks wait and worry for nothing. What did they care?

Oh, but just let him get out, and then! What an expose he would write! What a series! Shocking Inhumanity of Zoo Keepers! His nervousness, which had abated a little, increased again and he sprang to his feet. Let him once get out, that was all - just let him get out! The rest would not matter so much, even if he were condemned …

He paused to listen. Yes, there came the sound again. The door was opening.

THE biped ran to the passage, but it was not Griick or the man in gray, only Rudi with his little cart.

“Oh, you,” said the biped, turning away dully.

“Yes, me,” Rudi answered with spirit. “Who else should it be, I’d like to know? Who does all the hard work around here, and gets no thanks for it?” He pushed his cart into the office space, grumbling all the time, without looking at the biped. “Does Herr Doktor Griick feed the rhino, or the thunderbirds? Who pokes the meat down the boa constrictor’s throat with a broomstick, Wenzl? Does Rausch swamp out the monkeys’ cages, or is it me? You bipeds are not so bad, at least you clean up after yourselves, but some of these beasts, you wouldn’t believe how filthy they are! They throw things on the floor, they let themselves go just where they feel like it … Well, that’s life. Some live on the fat of the land, and others have to work up to their elbows in monkey dirt.” With a scowl, he took a small object off his cart and threw it onto the nearest desk. “There’s some soap for you. You’re to clean yourself up and be interviewed, and the order is to hurry. So don’t be late, mind, or I’ll get the blame, not you.”

The biped’s heart began pounding violently. “Did you say interviewed?” he stammered. “Who-what?”

“Interviewed, is all I know. Some newspaperman wants to write a story about you. All lies, I dare say, but that’s his lookout.” Rudi was wheeling his cart around, still without glancing at the biped.

There was a sound behind them, and the biped turned in time to see Emma come darting nervously out of her doorway.

“Rudi, she piped. Oh, Rudi-please wait!”

But the keeper had disappeared into the passage, and either did not hear or did not choose to turn back. After a moment came the sound of the outer door closing.

Emma retreated toward her room as the biped turned, her hands going to her head in the familiar gesture. But she paused when she saw him reach for the small packet on the desk.

“Is that soap?” she asked timidly. “I heard him say it was.”

The biped picked up the small paper-wrapped oblong. It had a faint aromatic scent which was oddly disturbing. “Soap, yes,” he said abstractedly. “I’ve got to get cleaned up so that I can be interviewed.”

“I had some once,” the female said, edging nearer. “It was a long time ago. They said it was bad for me.”

“I suppose so,” the biped muttered, tearing at the paper with his blunt fingers. The paper ripped open, the soap shot out between his hands and clattered across the floor almost to Emma’s feet. She bent slowly and picked it up. The fragrance had grown almost overpoweringly strong.

“Give it to me, will you?” the biped asked impatiently, walking nearer. He was at the scuffed chalk line that divided his side of the room from hers, but she took no notice. With the soap clutched in both hands, she was intently sniffing. Her mouth was half open, her eyes turned up.

The biped took a step across the line. Still she did not respond.

Alarmed, the biped halted and stared at her. “Emma!” he said.

Her head turned. “Yes?” she said in a dreamy voice. “What’s the matter with you, Emma?” “Nothing matter,” she replied, with a vacuous grin. “Well then, give me the soap if you please” “Good soap,” she said, nodding, but she did not move to hand it over, and seemed almost unaware that she was still holding it close to her face.

AT the point of crossing the line to take it from her, the biped hesitated. It suddenly struck him as rather odd that Rudi should have given him soap to wash with at all. He had not seen any in his week’s incarceration, and had not really missed it. Was soap good for this body, with its feathery spines? But if not, then why-?

Shaking his head irritably, he moved backward, away from the fascinating smell that came from the thing Emma was holding. With that insistent odor in his nostrils it was hard to think connectedly.

He concentrated. At last: “Why did they say soap was bad for you, Emma?” he demanded.

“Bad for me,” she agreed, swaying as if to inaudible music. “Soap bad for Emma. No more soap, too bad. Beautiful soap.”

As the biped stared at her silently, he heard the door opening again. His dulled brain began to work quickly once more. “Emma, listen to me,” he whispered. “Take your soap and go into your own room. Understand? Go into your own room. Don’t come out till I tell you!”

Emma not come out. With exasperating slowness, she moved toward the door as Rudi came back in, this time without his cart.

“Ready, are you?” he asked, with a glance at Emma’s disappearing figure.

The biped turned to face him, trying to look as dreamy and distant as Emma had. “All ready,” he said slowly.

“Know who you are, do you?”

“My name is Naum-”

“No, no,” Rudi interrupted, “don’t be stupid, your name is Fritz. Now say it after me. ‘My name is Fritz.’ ”

“Name is Fritz,” said the biped agreeably. He kept his eyes rolled up, and swayed on his feet. His head was buzzing with angry surmise, but he kept his voice blurred and slow.

“That’s all right, then,” Rudi said, satisfied. “How much is two and two, Fritz?”

The biped pretended to consider the question at length. “Four?” he asked hesitantly.

“Good fellow. Now how much is four and four and four and four?”

The biped blinked slowly. “Four and four,” he said.

Rudi smiled. “All right then, come along. You’re going upstairs to meet some nice gentlemen, Fritz, and if you behave yourself - mind, I said if! - I’ll give you something tasty all for yourself.” He took the biped’s arm.

THEY rode up in the elevator, walked along the glass-walled corridor overlooking the Zoo grounds. It was a sunny late afternoon, and the gravel paths were full of strolling people. A few faces tilted to watch them, but there was not much excitement. They entered the main building, Rudi opened a door, and the biped found himself being ushered into the same oakpaneled office where he had been received on the first day. Beside the desk, Griick, Wenzl and the man in the gray surcoat were waiting.

“Ha!” said Griick jovially, here is our Fritz at last. Now we shall see, my dear Tassen, how much truth there is in this fantastic story. We could have begun sooner, but our Fritz sometimes dirties himself, not so, Wenzl? Too bad, but what can one expect? So!” He rubbed his hands together. “Fritz, you are well?”

“Very well, Herr Doktor,” said the biped.

“Excellent! And you have eaten a good supper, Fritz?”

“Yes, Herr Doktor.”

Griick frowned slightly, glancing at Rudi, but in a moment collected himself and addressed the biped again: “Very good, Fritz. Now then, this gentleman is Herr Tassen of the Freie Presse. He will ask you some questions, and you will answer correctly. Understood? Then begin, Herr Tassen!” The man in the gray surcoat looked at the biped with a faintly uncertain expression. Well then, Fritz -” he began.

The biped took a step forward, away from Rudi, and said quickly, “How long have you worked for the Freie Presse?”

Tassen’s eyebrows went up. “A little over a year, why?”

“Do you know Zellini, the rewrite man?”

“How is this?” cried Griick, coming forward, redfaced with astonishment and anger. “Fritz, your manners! Remember-” “Yes, I know Zellini,” said the newsman. He was scribbling rapidly on his wad of paper.

“A little dark man, nearly bald. I sat next to him at the last European Journalists’ Dinner. He-”

“Wenzl!” shouted Griick. The biped felt himself seized by Rudi from behind, while Wenzl, his face a white mask, came toward him around the desk.

“They are holding me against my will!” shouted the biped, struggling. “My name is Martin Naumchik! They tried to drug me before they brought me up here!”

Griick and Tassen were shouting. Wenzl had seized the biped’s arm in one hand and was gripping his muzzle in the other, holding it closed. Between them, he and Rudi raised the biped off his feet and began carrying him out the door.

“Outrageous!” Griick was trumpeting. “A trick!”

The newsman, almost as redfaced as he, was shouting, “Bring him back at once!”

The door swung closed, cutting off the din. Without bothering to set him on his feet, Wenzl and Rudi carried the now unresisting biped down the corridor toward the elevator.

EMMA, it appeared, had not only been sniffing the soap all the time the biped had been gone but had eaten some as well. She was taken to the infirmary, unconscious, and remained there two days.

Deliveries of work stopped. Rudi, the keeper, disappeared and his place was taken by a heavy slow man named Otto. No one else visited the cage.

Exhausted and triumphant, the biped spent most of his time in the front room of the cage, sometimes reading or watching television, sometimes merely watching the crowds, to which he had slowly become accustomed. He hoped to see Tassen again, but the man did not reappear. On the day after the interview, however, a man outside took a folded newspaper from his surcoat and spread it out for the biped to see.

He was just able to read the headline, REALLY HUMAN, ZOO BIPED CLAIMS. Then a guard snatched the newspaper away and led the man off, lecturing him severely.

The biped would have given a day’s meals for that newspaper, but now at least he knew that Tassen had written the story and the city editor had printed it.

Now he could wait. Once the truth was out, they would never be able to hush it up again, whatever they did. The biped schooled himself to patience. For a while he had toyed with the idea of lettering some messages on large pieces of cardboard and holding them up to the crowd. But he was afraid that if he did so he would be taken out of the front room, and then he could not watch for Tassen.

On the third day, Emma was brought in after breakfast, looking feeble and wild-eyed, her spines draggled. She gave the biped a look as she passed which he could not interpret - wistfulness, a reproach, an appeal of some kind?

He found himself worrying about it and wanting to talk to her, but she did not emerge from her rooms.

A little later, the outer door opened again and Otto came in. He stood in the doorway and growled, “Wanted upstairs. An interview. Come.”

The biped got to his feet, feeling his heart begin to pound. He asked wryly, “No soap this time?” But the keeper stared at him in brute incomprehension.

This time, instead of going to Griick’s office they passed it and entered a smaller room on the opposite side ofthe corridor. The room was empty except for a table and two chairs.

Otto held the door without comment, waited until the biped was inside, then went out again, closing the door.

The biped looked around nervously, but there was nothing to see: only the three pieces of furniture, the scuffed black tiles of the floor and the mud-brown walls, which were dirty and in need of paint.

After a long time, the door opened again and a large, oliveskinned man in a red surcoat appeared. Behind him the biped glimpsed the leviathan bulk of Griick, and heard his rich, fluting voice.

“Of course, my dear Herr Opatescu, of course! We have always desired -”

“Don’t think I am taken in by these games,” said the visitor furiously, pausing in the doorway. “If I had not threatened to go to the Council-”

“You are mistaken, Herr Opatescu, I assure you! We only wished-”

“I know what you wished,” said Opatescu with heavy sarcasm. “Go on, I’ve had enough of it.”

GRIICK retired, looking chastened, and the visitor closed the door. He was carrying a pig skin briefcase, which he put down carefully on the table. Then, with a toothy smile, he advanced on the biped and shook his hand cordially.

“We newsmen have to stick together when it comes to dealing with swine like that, he said. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Opatescu. You have no idea the tricks they played to keep me out - but here I am! Now then, Herr Naumchik … one moment.” He busied himself with the briefcase, from which he produced a flat, clear crystic solid-state recorder and a microphone. “Here we are. Sit down, please - so.” He pushed the microphone toward the biped, adjusted the controls of the instrument and switched it on. The indicator began to crawl over the surface of the record block.

Opatescu sat down opposite the biped, leaning forward on his arms, without bothering to remove his bulky surcoat. “This recording is being made in the Berlin Zoo, June seventeenth, 2002. Present are Martin Naumchik, otherwise known as the biped Fritz, and the reporter Opatescu.”

He settled himself more comfortably and began again. “Now, Herr Naumchik - for I believe that you are in reality Martin Naumchik - I want you to tell me, if you will, in your own words just how your amazing experience took place. Begin then, if you please.”

The biped did as he was asked willingly enough, although Opatescu was a type he did not like - glib, assertive, the sort of reporter you expected to find working on Central European scandal sheets. But since the man was on his side, and anyhow a recording was being made -

Opatescu listened rather restlessly but without interruption until the biped had brought his story up to date. Then, with a thoroughness which made the biped wonder if his first estimate had not been mistaken, Opatescu took him over the story all over again, asking questions, eliciting more details, getting him to repeat certain points several times in different words. When he was satisfied with this, he began questioning the biped about his past life, and particularly about sources of evidence that he was actually Naumchik. They went over this ground with equal thoroughness. When Opatescu finally turned off the recorder and began to pack it away, the biped watched him with grudging respect.

“I must tell you I’m grateful to you for all this,” he said. “I suppose you’re a friend of Tassen’s, the man who broke the story?”

“Tassen, yes, I know Tassen,” said Opatescu, busily fastening his briefcase. “He’s written some follow-up yarns, good stuff, you’ll see when you get out.”

The biped moistened his stiff lips. “I don’t suppose you have any idea-”

“When that will be? Not long. You’re going to have a press conference, a big one this time - newspapers, sollies, TV. They can’t hold you after that. The public wouldn’t stand for it. Well, Naumchik, it’s been a pleasure.” He held out his meaty hand.

“For me, too, Herr Opatescu. By the way, what paper did you say you were from?”

“Pravda.” Opatescu glanced at his watch, then swung his briefcase off the table and turned to go.

“Do you happen to know Kyrill Reshevsky, the-”

“Yes, yes, but let’s reminisce some other time, shall we?” He smiled, showing large gleaming teeth. “I’ve got a deadline. You understand. Goodbye, Herr Naumchik-patience.” Still smiling, he backed out and closed the door.

The keeper Otto appeared almost at once to take the biped back. Though usually laconic, he spoke lip on the way down to the cages. “So now they are going to let you out, are they?”

“So it seems,” said the biped happily.

“Well, well,” said Otto, shaking I his head. “What next?”

FOR the next two days the biped could not read or sit still for more than a few minutes at a time. He kept the television turned on, and watched every hourly news broadcast. Once, early on the first day, a commentator mentioned his story, and a brief glimpse of him on film - evidently taken on the day of his arrival at the Zoo - was flashed on the screen. After that, there was nothing.

In between news broadcasts, he spent most of his time pacing up and down the office space, imprisoning poor Emma, who no sooner put her head out of her room than the biped, by some gesture or exclamation, frightened her back in again. He gave the switchboard girl no rest, ringing , her up all day long and demanding to speak to Griick, to Prinzmetal, to anyone. On the afternoon of the second day the phone went dead. The line had been disconnected.

Shortly afterward, Otto entered. He had a bundle of newspapers and magazines on his cart. “They send you these,” he said, dumping the bundle onto a vacant desk. Read, and don’t bother Fraiilein Muller. He turned and left.

The biped forgot him at once.

He snatched up the topmost paper - it was the Frankfurter Morgenblatt-and leafed through it with trembling fingers until he found a column headed, STRANGE STATEMENTS OF ZOO BIPED.

He read the story avidly, although it was evidently nothing more than a rehash of his interview with Tassen. Then, curbing his impatience, he began sorting out the papers in the stack by date and piling them on the floor. When he got to the bottom of the stack, to his delight, he found a scrapbook and a pair of shears.

Squatting on the floor - his old legs had never been so limber - he began carefully cutting out the stories about himself and pressing them onto the adhesive pages of the scrapbook. The culled papers he put aside for later reading.

As he worked, he discovered that the biped stories fell into three classes. First, straight and rather unimaginative reporting, like that of the Frankfurter Morgenblatt; second, sympathetic pieces, appearing usually in the Sunday feature sections and with feminine by-lines (an item headlined TRAPPED IN AN ANIMAL’s BODY!, by Carla Ernsting, was typical of these); and finally, a trickle of heavily slanted stories and editorials, turning up in the later issues and in the newsmagazines. These he read with surprise and a growing fear. “Neurotic pseudohumanitarians,” said Heute in a boxed editorial, “seek to degrade humanity to the level of animals, and in so doing, strike at the very root of our civilization. Make no mistake: these sick minds would have us recognize as human every slimy polyp, every acid-breathing toad that can parrot a few phrases in German or walk through a simple maze. The self-styled Martin Naumchik, an upstart member of a vicious, degraded species …”

The biped crumpled the paper in a burst of anger. Rising, he circled the piles of newspaper, glaring at them. Then he squatted again, smoothed out the offending page and read the editorial to the end.

But he was too agitated to go on working. He closed the scrapbook and went into his front room to stare out at the gray autumn day. The sky had turned cold and rainy, and few people were on the paths.

He could no longer ignore the fact that people did not want to believe a biped’s body could be inhabited by a human mind and soul. In a general way he could even sympathize with it. But surely they must see that this was a special, different case!

He pressed his muzzle against the cold glass, down which scattered raindrops were slowly creeping.

But what if they would not?

He tried to imagine himself set free, recognized as Martin Naumchik, his rights as a citizen restored … What then? A grotesque vision of himself, a naked biped, in the city room of ParisSoir, talking to Ehrichs … then himself at a party, among fully dressed men and women with glasses in their hands.

It was absurd, impossible. Where could he go? Who would accept him? Where could he get work, or even lodgings?

The biped set his jaw stubbornly, gripping his threefingered hands together. “I am Martin Naumchik!” he muttered. But even in his own ears, the words sounded false.