Level 7

SEPTEMBER 28

There is some mutual entertainment on the air. We and our ex-enemy are exchanging slogans which express ideals supposedly justifying the war. The entertainment value lies in the fact that we both look on the funny side of it. The ironical exchanges carry on in this fashion:

“Cave-men of the world, unite!”
        “Freedom and democracy for all cave-men!”
True people’s democracy for all cave-men!”
        “Let’s make the world safe for the cave-men!”
“Equality for cave-men!”
        “Freedom of speech for cave-men!”
“A classless society of cave-men!”
        “A real democracy of cave-men!”

And so on. The more high-sounding the slogan, the hollower it rings—and the more people laugh at it. Our ex-enemy seems to enjoy the game as much as we do. We have been invited by the general loudspeaker to send in slogans of our own to be broadcast. I have submitted mine: “At last the world is united.”

SEPTEMBER 29

My slogan went out this morning.

Their reply was rather slow in coming, and when it arrived I was not at all sure whether they intended it to be funny: “But it lives in separate shelters.”

I was asked whether I wanted to answer this one, and after thinking about it for a while I submitted my answer: “But it dies the one death.”

This time their reply came back in a flash: “Divided we live, united we die!”

SEPTEMBER 30

I spent this afternoon writing a short story for a possible broadcast. Here it is.

Once upon a time there were two friends called A and B. They had known each other for years and used to spend a great deal of time together. Even when A had found himself a girl friend, and B had found himself a girl friend, the two of them still enjoyed each other’s company so much that they used to go out with their girl friends together. But they were not at all alike to look at. A wore his hair smooth and sleekly shining, and his girl said she liked it that way; while B’s hair stuck up like the spines of a porcupine, which was the style his girl favoured.

Each of them preferred his own hair-cut and did not approve of the style which seemed to please the other one’s girl friend, but for a long time both were reluctant to say so. Then one day A said to B, in the friendliest way: “Look here, my friend, I do think it would be so much better if you cut your hair my way.” And B replied: “Since you mention it, I’ve often thought your hair would look much better cut like mine.”

To begin with they discussed the relative merits and demerits of the two styles most amicably. But when each saw that the other had no intention of changing his mind, the argument began to grow heated.

When A got back home one day, he looked for the largest pair of scissors he could find and laid them ready for the morrow.

And when B got home, he too set aside the biggest pair of scissors he possessed.

Next day, when the two friends met, they brandished their scissors and flew at each other’s heads, paying no attention to their girl friends’ protesting cries. Before you could say snip, there they were, standing horrified at the sight of each other’s bald head, and gingerly feeling the place where their own hair had been.

While the two girl friends said: “I could never love a man with a bald head”—and ran off down the road as fast as they could go.

OCTOBER 1

My story was broadcast this morning. People liked it. It went down well with the other side too, and they broadcast a humorous retort: “Buy yourself a wig, bald fellow!”

My reply was: “There are no wigs to be had underground. We shall have to stay bald.”

No, not everything that is gone can be replaced. A bald head is bald—even with a wig. A destroyed world is destroyed.

OCTOBER 2

Now our ex-enemy’s broadcasts have stopped. Maybe it is just a technical hitch. But maybe—no, it is better not to think about it. Let us wait and see.

X-107m and P seem to get along well. I do not see P often, as I prefer not to go to the lounge, while she seldom visits her husband in our room. But X-107m appears very satisfied with his lot.

He does not keep me company in quite the way he did before. I listen to music more now, even though the tape has repeated itself many times since our arrival here. The same thing every twelve days. But, even so, there is something about a piece of quality which enables you to listen to it again and again.

OCTOBER 3

They are silent. They must have died. Suddenly, like Level 6. Perhaps from the same cause—the unknown one. We shall never know it, unless we perish the same way. And if we do, we shall not know it for long.