Level 7

I am glad he approves, because of course we shall remain room-mates and I shall still spend many more hours with him than with my future wife—a consoling thought, somehow.

MAY 8

Yesterday evening I met P-867 at the appointed time and place, and a couple of minutes later we were out, duly married and with the letters ‘m’ fixed to our identity badges.

We smiled when we saw how our names had grown, and decided on the spot that between ourselves we would forget the ponderous P-867m and X-127m and call each other P and X for short.

Then P suggested that we should follow up the official ceremony with an unofficial celebration. We were right in the dining-room, where the second shift was in the middle of its meal and I could not think what P had in mind. She drew me mysteriously into a corner where we would not disturb the diners, fished in her pocket, said: “Here’s how we’ll celebrate,” and produced—a small bar of chocolate.

It seems that she happened to have this chocolate on her when she was ordered down to Level 7. She had kept it all this time for some special occasion, and now the occasion had arrived. She broke the bar in two and gave me the bigger piece.

I raised it as if it were a glass and proposed the toast: “To you and me!”

“To X and P!” she rhymed. Then we ate the chocolate, nibbling bits off and chewing them slowly as if we were sipping at a wine of old and rare vintage.

This is rather what the experience was like, in fact. We had been down here long enough to forget completely what ordinary food tasted like. The stuff we had grown used to had hardly any flavour, and we ate it automatically and without interest—feeding had become a sort of reflex action at certain hours of the day.

As a result, the chocolate P produced was like some rich, exotic delicacy to our bored palates, and we both prolonged the eating as long as we could. The chocolate lasted ten minutes; and then we had to part, as the second shift had finished at the table and we were getting in people’s way.

We do not know our hours of privacy yet, but the loudspeaker will tell us in due course, so there is no need to worry about making dates. The Marriage Service will work out the best time, taking into account our working hours and the requirements of the other married couples.

I am sure our next meeting will be planned in the best possible way.

MAY 10

My honeymoon has had to be postponed. Instead of meeting P, I have just spent forty-eight hours in hospital. It really is funny. I think it is the first amusing thing that has happened since I came down to Level 7.

My case history is quite simple. After writing that last entry in my diary I went on duty in the Operations Room. I had not been there long before my stomach started to feel bad. Soon the unpleasant sensations became quite a fierce pain, and I decided I should have to do something about it. Such a thing had never happened to me before.

I pushed the red button and asked for help and instructions. They worked fast. Five minutes later X-117 came into take my place and the loudspeaker told me to go to my room until they came to escort me to the hospital. I hardly had time to stretch out on my bed before two nurses arrived (despite my pains I noticed that one of them wore an ‘m’ and the other did not) and helped me across to the ward. Within a quarter of an hour of having sent my S.O.S., I was tucked up in a hospital bed.

There was nothing unusual about the ward. It was small, of course, like most of the rooms here, with only five beds beside mine, all of them empty. So I had the lady doctor, M-227m, all to myself. She took my temperature, looked at my tongue, poked me, asked me a couple of questions, and finally told me I had upset my stomach by eating something unsuitable.

I might have guessed: the chocolate. When I told her I had eaten some she laughed and said: “That’s it. I’m glad there’s nothing wrong with the food you ought to have been eating.” It was not that the chocolate was bad, she explained; but my stomach had grown unused to tackling that sort of food. “You’re already a Level 7 man,” she said. “You can’t digest that kind of thing any more.” Then she added: “By the way, where did you get your chocolate? I wouldn’t mind a piece myself—a very small piece, of course.”

When I told her that it had been my wedding feast and that it was all gone, she had a good laugh and said: “So you’re suffering from marriage pains! Serves you right! I suppose your bride will be arriving any moment now—she ate some too, didn’t she?”

But P did not appear. Her digestion must be better than mine. What’s more, she gave me the bigger piece of chocolate.

The doctor found me some pills which purged my stomach and after that the pains soon wore off. I felt a bit weak and dizzy, though, and still do.