Radix came flying into the building, alarmed at how late he really was,
and certain someone had noticed; thinking: if his job was now in jeopardy,
he had no one else to blame but himself. The world was in upheaval; the
Soviet Union, that citadel of centuries-old orthodoxy, was crumbling; the
event was sending ripples across the globe. The first ripple had already
touched the shoreline of his work habits. Here he was back to school, start
of a new school year, first day and he was late, very late.
He tripped on the last concrete stair leading to the front door and went
tumbling forward into the surprised arms of the two security officers. They
held him up and shook with laughter, as if they’d been waiting for just that
sort of distraction.
These officers were young (and not so young) men and women, often
overzealous with male students, overfriendly with female students. For
the new semester they were wearing spiffy new outfits to go with the bulky
arrest paraphernalia around their waist.
His first stop after taking care of his time card had to be the department
office. It was empty. The hallways had a strange deserted look. Everybody
was convening somewhere – but where?
Then Mrs. Schnupp came into the office, her fist full of duplicating carbon.
She gave a chirpy hello to Radix, but there was on her face a vacant
disoriented look.
“I hope the copying machine is working. Do you know if it’s working?” she
asked offhand, not waiting for an answer.
“You’re in a hurry for classes to start.”
“I like to be ready – before the floodgates open and the flood races
through.”
As she said this, Mrs. Schnupp switched on the copying machine; it whirred
and clattered, its green copying light came on to indicate a readiness to
churn out copies. Mrs. Schnupp watched the whole start-up process with a
nervous skepticism.
“Where is everybody?” Radix asked. He’d been scanning notices on the
department board, looking for clues to the day’s agenda.
“Department meetings…discussing the bad news,” Mrs. Schnupp said, not
looking up.
“What bad news?’
“Haven’t you heard? Weren’t you at the faculty meeting?” Her face
tightened into a grimace. The copy machine needed paper, and here was
someone she barely knew talking as if he’d just come off a subway car
from Mars.
“I just got here. What’s going on?”
“Nothing’s going on. It’s the beginning of the end. The school’s been taken
over. This copy machine’s got short paper, I need long paper. Where do
they keep the long paper?
"Taken over?”
“Yes…taken over. The writing was on the wall a long time. Guess I’ll
have to use the short paper. Yes, this is what we've come to.”
And Radix, who didn’t know her very well, decided he’d had enough of her
distracted manner, and enough of her dispute with the copy machine.
“I think I’d better find the department meeting.”
“Started awhile back. Room 252,” Mrs. Schnupp said, stuffing paper in the
paper tray.
(from "Ah Mikhail,O Fidel!", a novel by N.D.Williams, 2001)
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 