Level 7

I was taking a shower when 7 p.m. came round, but the noise of the water did not prevent my hearing the loudspeaker in the bathroom. Sharp at the appointed hour, it announced: “Attention, please, attention! Here is an event which makes history: the first marriage on Level 7. Everybody on Level 7 is privileged to share in this historic experience.”

This announcement struck me as unusually pompous; in the normal way the loudspeaker’s tone is laconic and dry. What followed, however, was as simple a marriage ceremony as could be imagined.

A woman’s voice sounded: “Do you, AS-167, want to marry TN-237 and to maintain this status as long as it is mutually agreeable?”

A man’s voice replied: “Yes, I do.”

Then the mistress-of-ceremonies asked TN-237 a similar question, and on getting the same answer announced: “AS-167 and TN-237 are now a married couple. The names of both will from now on carry the suffix small ‘m’. Congratulations!”

The whole business could not have lasted a minute, and I was still towelling myself in the bathroom when the loudspeaker announced that the ceremony was over, and for some reason congratulated TN-237m and AS-167m again—stressing the ‘m’. Perhaps these extra congratulations were due to their being the first couple to marry on Level 7. I believe the loudspeaker did mention the fact.

I put on some clothes, switched on the classical music tape and lay down on my bed. The concluding chords of Chopin’s ‘Funeral March’ died away in the small room.

‘Well,’ I thought, ‘if I had been the planner of Level 7 I would have arranged for Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” or some other suitable tune to be played at that juncture. If most marriages were to be performed at 7 p.m., this could easily have been co-ordinated with the twelve-day tape.

‘So the arrangements on Level 7 are not perfect, after all!’ flashed through my mind, and the notion rather pleased me.

APRIL 20

At lunch today TN-237m—the additional symbol was attached to her identity badge—told us some details about the marriage ceremony.

It was performed (to the visible disappointment of some of the people, mostly women, who were listening to her) in the little room where we take our laundry, a tiny closet like place about five feet square. Only she and AS-167 were present, but evidently they must have been on the screen of the mistress-of-ceremonies, for they were told over a loudspeaker not to face each other, as they initially did, but to face the wall opposite the door. Presumably this enabled the loudspeaker-lady to see them better.

Then they were asked the questions and gave the answers which we all heard over the general loudspeaker system, and as the mistress-of-ceremonies was congratulating them two little letters ‘m’ rattled down the chute which returns the bundles of clean laundry. On the back each read: “Fix this to your identity badge.” (TN-237m turned hers round, and we all read the instruction on the back.)

“And that was all,” she concluded, looking as disappointed as any of us.

Somebody murmured that this all sounded very interesting, but he said it in such a way that it was clear he did not believe his own words. Then someone else remarked that the marriage ceremony was only a symbol: the essence of marriage, he said, lay in its essence.

Nobody contradicted this statement and the topic was dropped as the band on the table started moving and our meal glided to a stop before us. We ate without saying much until, just as we were on the point of concluding our lunch with three pills and a drink, somebody had the good or the bad idea of taking one of the pills between his thumb and forefinger and lifting it the way a glass of wine is lifted for a toast. “To TN-237m,” he proposed, bowing slightly to her, “and may she enjoy many happy years with AS-167m.”

“TN-237m,” we all mumbled, solemnly raising our pills before popping them into our mouths; and she, deciding that our gesture was well-meaning, looked a little bashful and replied: “Thank you.”

APRIL 21

A few more marriage announcements were made today. One of the wastage officers, W-297, has married a female administrator, Ad-327. R-287, male, has married a loud-speaker officer, L-267. M-227, a medical doctor, is now the wife of one of the screen-watchers, Sc-167.

Today in the lounge I tried to chat with the nurse I met on my first visit to that room, N-527. I have had little chance to speak to her since that occasion, because E-647, the electrical engineer, has always been around her, while P-867 is always around me. Today, by a happy coincidence, E-647 was missing as well as P-867, who has not shown up in the lounge for the last three days.

N-527 is rather nice. If I marry down here at all, I should like to marry her.

I asked her how her job differed from that of TN-237m, Level 7’s first bride. She said that she was trained to nurse adults, while ‘TN’ indicated a person qualified as kindergarten teacher and nurse for babies and young children.