The Final Circle of Paradise

I went out on the plaza following an Italian pair with four kids and two robot redcaps.

The sun stood high over mauve mountains. Everything in the plaza was bright and shiny and colorful. A bit too bright and colorful, as it usually is in resort towns. Gleaming orange-and-red buses surrounded by tourist crowds, shiny and polished green of the vegetation in the squares with white, blue, yellow, and gold pavilions, kiosks, and tents. Mirrorlike surfaces, vertical, horizontal, and inclined, which flared with sunbursts. Smooth matte hexagons underfoot and under the wheels – red, black, and gray, just slightly springy and smothering the sound of footsteps. I put down the suitcase and donned sunglasses.

Out of all the sunny towns it has been my luck to visit, this was without a doubt the sunniest. And that was all wrong.

It would have been much easier if the day had been gray, if there had been dirt and mud, if the pavilion had also been gray with concrete walls, and if on that wet concrete was scratched something obscene, tired, and pointless, born of boredom. Then I would probably feel like working at once. I am positive of this because such things are irritating and demand action. It's still hard to get used to the idea that poverty can be wealthy.

And so the urge is lacking and there is no desire to begin immediately, but rather to take one of these buses, like the red-and-blue one, and take off to the beach, do a little scuba diving, get a tan, play some ball, or find Peck, stretch out on the floor in some cool room and reminisce on all the good stuff so that he could ask about Bykov, about the Trans-Pluto expedition, about the new ships on which I too am behind the times, but still know better than he, and so that he could recollect the uprising and boast of his scars and his high social position… It would be most convenient if Peck did have a high social position. It would be well if he were, for example, a mayor…

A small darkish rotund individual in a white suit and a round white hat set at a rakish angle approached deliberately, wiping his lips with a dainty handkerchief. The hat was equipped with a transparent green shade and a green ribbon on which was stamped "Welcome." On his right earlobe glistened a pendant radio.

"Welcome aboard," said the man.

"Hello," said I.

"A pleasure to have you with us. My name is Ahmad."

"And my name is Ivan," said I. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."

We nodded to each other and regarded the tourists entering the buses. They were happily noisy and the warm wind rolled their discarded butts and crumpled candy wrappers along the square. Ahmad's face bore a green tint from the light filtering through his cap visor.

"Vacationers," he said. "Carefree and loud. Now they will be taken to their hotels and will immediately rush off to the beaches."

"I wouldn't mind a run on water skis," I observed.

"Really? I never would have guessed. There's nothing you look less like than a vacationer."

"So be it," I said. "In fact I did come to work"

"To work? Well, that happens too, some do come to work here. Two years back Jonathan Kreis came here to paint a picture." He laughed. "Later there was an assault-and-battery case in Rome, some papal nuncio was involved, can't remember his name."

"Because of the picture?"

"No, hardly. He didn't paint a thing here. The casino was where you could find him day or night. Shall we go have a drink?"

"Let's. You can give me a few pointers."

"It's my pleasurable duty – to give advice," said Ahmad.

We bent down simultaneously and both of us took hold of the suitcase handle.

"It's okay – I'll manage."

"No," countered Ahmad, "you are the guest and I the host. Let's go to yonder bar. It's quiet there at this time."

We went in under a blue awning. Ahmad seated me at a table, put my suitcase on a vacant chair, and went to the counter. It was cool and an air conditioner sighed in the background. Ahmad returned with a tray. There were tall glasses and flat plates with butter-gold tidbits.

"Not very strong," said Ahmad, "but really cold to make up for that."

"I don't like it strong in the morning either," I said.

I quaffed the glass. The stuff was good.

"A swallow – a bite," counseled Ahmad, "Like this: a swallow, a bite."

The tidbits crunched and melted in the mouth. In my view, they were unnecessary. We were silent for some time, watching the square from under the marquee. Gently purring, the buses pulled out one after another into their respective tree-lined avenues. They looked ponderous yet strangely elegant in their clumsiness.

"It would be too noisy there," said Ahmad. "Fine cottages, lots of women – to suit any taste – and right on the water, but no privacy. I don't think it's for you."

"Yes," I agreed. "The noise would bother me. Anyway, I don't like vacationers, Ahmad. Can't stand it when people work at having fun."