The Palace of Dreams

by Ismail Kadare

  “The interpretation of dreams as practiced in the Tabir Sarrail is difficult, very difficult. It bears no resemblance to ordinary, popular interpretation—a snake a bad omen, a crown a good one, and so on. Nor has it anything in common with all the books on the subject. Interpretation in the Tabir is on a quite different and much higher level. It uses another kind of logic, other symbols and combinations of symbols.”

  “That puts it even further beyond me,” Mark-Alem was tempted to say. He’d been frightened enough at the thought of dealing with traditional symbols—it would be far worse if he had to cope with new ones! He finally opened his mouth to speak, but was again interrupted.

  “You may be wondering how you’ll ever manage to learn the techniques. Don’t worry, my boy—you will learn, and quite quickly too. Most people start off like you, hesitating and unsure of themselves, but many of them have gone on to become the pride and joy of the department. You’ll master the job in a couple of weeks, three at the most. And then—” here he beckoned, and Mark-Alem took a step forward—“that’ll be it. To try to learn more would be counterproductive; it could encourage you to work too mechanically. For the work in Interpretation is above all creative. It mustn’t carry the analysis of images and symbols too far. The main thing, as in algebra, is to arrive at certain principles. And even they mustn’t be applied too rigidly, or else the true point of the work could be missed. The higher form of interpretation begins where routine ends. What you must concentrate on are the permutations and combinations of symbols. One last tip: All the work that’s done in the Tabir is highly secret, but Interpretation is top top secret. Don’t forget it. And now off you go and start your new job. You’re expected there. Good luck!”

  The official’s eyes were already riveted on the door again as Mark-Alem, overwhelmed, went out of it. He wandered the corridors in a state of bewilderment until at last he pulled himself together and remembered he was looking for Interpretation. The corridors were all completely deserted. The morning break must have gone by while he was with the official; he could tell from the characteristic silence that always descended after the interval. He walked on for a long time, hoping to meet someone from whom he could ask the way. But there was no one in sight. Sometimes he would think he heard footsteps ahead of him, around a bend in the corridor, but as soon as he got there the sounds would seem to recede in another direction, perhaps on the floor above, perhaps on that below. What if I roam about like this the whole morning, he thought. They’ll say I turned up late on my very first day. He got more and more worried. He should have asked the way from the assistant director, or the Director-General, or whoever the hell he was!

  On he went. The passages seemed alternately familiar and strange. He couldn’t hear so much as a door being opened. He went up a broad staircase to the floor above, then came back again and soon found himself on the floor below. Everywhere he met with the same silence, the same emptiness. He felt it wouldn’t be long before he started screaming. He must now be in one of the remoter wings of the building; the pillars supporting the ceiling looked slightly shorter. Suddenly, just as he was going to turn back, he thought he saw a figure at the next bend in the corridor. He went toward it. A man was stationed in front of a door, and before Mark-Alem could come near he signed to him to stop. Mark-Alem halted.

  “What do you want?” said the stranger. “No one’s allowed here.”

  “I’m looking for Interpretation. I’ve been going round in circles for an hour.”

  The man examined him suspiciously.

  “You work in Interpretation and you don’t even know how to get there?”

  “I’ve just been transferred there, but I don’t know where it is.”

  The other went on scrutinizing him.

  “Turn back the way you came,” he finally brought out, “and follow the corridor till you get to the main stairs. Then go up to the next floor and take the passage on the right from the landing. You’ll find Interpretation straight in front of you at the end.”

  “Thank you,” said Mark-Alem, turning round.

  As he went along he kept repeating, so as not to forget: along the corridor to the main stairs, next floor, passage on the right …

  Who can he be, the man who just helped me? he wondered. He looked like a sentry, but what on earth is there to guard in this world of the deaf and dumb? This palace certainly is full of mysteries.

  As he approached the stairs he thought he could see a wan light coming down from the glass roof over the stairwell. He breathed a sigh of relief.

  He’d been working in Interpretation for nearly three weeks. For the first fortnight he’d been attached to some of the older hands, to be initiated into the secrets of the department. Then one day his boss came and said, “You’ve learned enough now. From tomorrow on you’ll be given a file of your own.”

  “So soon?” said Mark-Alem. “Am I really up to working all on my own?”

  The boss smiled.

  “Don’t worry. That’s how everyone feels at first. But the room supervisor’s over there—if you have any doubts about anything you can consult him.”

  Mark-Alem had been working on his file for four days, and his brain had never felt so confused. His work in Selection had been harassing enough, but compared with this it was child’s play. He’d never have dreamed the work in Interpretation could be so diabolical.

  He’d been given a file that was supposed to be an easy one—it was marked Law and Order: Corruption. But he sometimes thought: My God, if I lose my head with a file like this, what shall I do when I get one that deals with conspiracies against the State?

  The file was stuffed with dreams. Mark-Alem had read about sixty of them, and had set aside a score or so that at first sight he thought he might be able to decipher. But when he went back to them, instead of looking the easiest, they looked the most difficult. So then he selected a few others, but after an hour or two they also had come to seem utterly confused and impenetrable.

  It’s quite impossible! he kept telling himself. I shall go mad! Four whole days and I haven’t managed to unscramble one dream.

  Every time some elements of a dream began to make sense he would be struck by a doubt, and what had seemed intelligible a moment before became inexplicable again.

  The whole thing is pure folly! he thought, burying his face in his hands.

  He was obsessed with the fear of making a mistake. Sometimes he was convinced it was impossible to do anything else, and that if anyone got anything right it was purely by chance.

  Sometimes he would get frantic with worry. He still hadn’t submitted one decoded dream to his superiors. They probably thought him either incompetent or else excessively timid. How did the others manage? He could see them filling whole pages with their comments. How could they look so calm?

  As a matter of fact, every decoder was allowed to leave aside some dreams that he couldn’t unravel himself, and these were sent to the decoders par excellence, the real masters of Interpretation; but of course not everything could be sent to them.

  Mark-Alem rubbed at his temples to disperse the blood that seemed to have accumulated there. His head was a flurry of symbols: Hermes’s staff, smoke, the limping bride, snow … They all whirled around in a wild saraband, displacing every perception of the ordinary world. To hell with it, thought Mark-Alem, taking up pen and paper, I’ll give this dream the first explanation that comes into my head, and hope for the best!

  It had been dreamed by a pupil at a religious school in the capital. In it two men had found a fallen rainbow. With some difficulty they raised it up and dusted it off, and one of the men repainted it; but the rainbow absolutely refused to come to life again. So the men dropped it and ran away.

  Hmmm, thought Mark-Alem, fiddling with his pen. His resolution had already evaporated. But he made himself go on. Without thinking, or rather, rapidly abandoning his first explanation of the dream, he wrote underneath it: “Warning of …” Warning of …

  “God, what c
an this nightmare possibly mean?” he almost cried out. “It’s enough to drive you crazy!” He crossed out what he’d written, and tossed the sheet of paper angrily onto the heap with the other uninterpretable dreams. No, he’d sooner be sacked straightaway than have to be bothered with such drivel! He propped his head in his hands and sat with his eyes half shut.

  After a while he heard the reedy voice of the room supervisor:

  “What’s the matter, Mark-Alem? Have you got a headache?”

  “Yes, a slight one.”

  “Never mind—it happens to everyone at first. Do you need anything?”

  “No, thanks. But I’ll ask you to explain some things to me in a little while.”

  “Oh? Good. I’ve been waiting for you to do that for the past few days.”

  “I didn’t want to bother you for nothing.”

  “Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. That’s what I’m here for.”

  “I’ll have something for you in an hour or so,” said Mark-Alem. “Only …”

  “Only what?”

  “Only I’m not quite sure … My explanations may be quite wrong, or may not make any sense at all.”

  The supervisor smiled.

  “I’ll be waiting for you,” he said, and moved away.

  Now I’ve got no escape, thought Mark-Alem. Whether I like it or not I’ll have to get on with it the same as all the others. Well, to hell with it—here goes! And he looked for the piece of paper recording a dream in which a group of men in black crossed a ditch and disappeared into a snow-covered plain. Suddenly the meaning of the dream seemed quite clear to him: A group of officials who’d committed some fraud against the State had overcome the obstacles ranged against them and reached the safety of the white plain; this meant the fall of the government.

  Mark-Alem swiftly wrote down this explanation, but hadn’t completed the last few words before he thought to himself: But this is practically tantamount to a plot against the State!

  He reread his interpretation and was confirmed in the thought that the dream really did relate to some kind of conspiracy. But the file he’d been given was the one concerning law and order and corruption! He was in such despair the pen fell from his nerveless hand. For once he thought he’d managed to produce something, and it turned out to be no good again! But wait a minute, he reflected. Perhaps it isn’t quite as bad as that. After all, there’s not all that much difference between corruption and a conspiracy against the State, since officials are involved in both cases.

  Then again—how stupid of him not to have thought of it before!—the classification of the files wasn’t as rigid as all that, and there was no reason why the file on law and order shouldn’t also contain dreams concerning important affairs of State. And hadn’t the staff often been told it was considered commendable for them to search for signs of special significance in places where at first sight there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary? Yes, he could remember being told that quite plainly. It was even said that many Master-Dreams had come from the most undistinguished of files.

  Mark-Alem felt much better now. Before the impulse had time to weaken, he took up four dreams that he’d read several times already and added his own explanation of each of them. He was feeling quite pleased with himself, and getting ready to deal with a fifth dream, when for some unknown reason he looked at the first dream again, and reread the explanation he’d appended to it. He was immediately overcome with doubt. Could I be mistaken? Could the dream have another explanation? he thought. A moment later he was quite sure he’d got it wrong. Beads of cold perspiration broke out on his forehead; he sat staring at the lines he’d written such a short time ago with so much alacrity, which now seemed alien and hostile. What ought he to do?

  Then he said to himself, Dash it all, who’s going to attach any importance to this one dream out of all the tens of thousands that are dealt with here? And he was just about to leave it as it was when at the last moment his hand dropped away again. What if someone discovered his mistake? Especially as the dream involved State officials! Government circles might get to know of it somehow, and the worst of it was that everybody might think the accusation applied to themselves or their associates. A search would be made for the person who’d supplied the explanation of the dream, and when they found out it was him they’d say: “Well, well, a fellow called Mark-Alem, a new boy who’s only just started in the Tabir Sarrail, and as soon as he starts decoding his first dream he tries to sling mud at the senior servants of the State. Better keep an eye on that snake in the grass!”

  Mark-Alem hastily snatched the page up as if to prevent anyone from reading what he’d written. He absolutely must try to repair his blunder before it was too late. But how? It occurred to him that he might simply do away with the dream altogether, but then he remembered that the cover of each file indicated the number of dreams it contained. To abstract one of them would be enough to get you sent straight to prison as a common thief. Something else, something else—he must think of something else! If he hadn’t been in such a hurry, if he hadn’t dashed the words off so madly, he could now have given the dream a completely different explanation. It was some diabolical impulse that had made him hurl himself upon his own destruction. It was all up with him now. But not so fast, he thought, still gazing at his own writing; perhaps all is not lost yet.

  His eyes flew over the words again, and concluded there was still a possible way out. When he’d reread the page for the third time, he was surprised he hadn’t thought of it before. An unexpected sense of relief spread from his temples to his throat and lungs. After all, it was quite usual to make corrections. He would do his in such a way that they wouldn’t call attention to themselves; they’d just look like improvements in accuracy, refinements of style. It would be enough if he merely altered one word. For the umpteenth time he reread the phrase “a group of officials who’d committed some fraud against the State.” Finally, with a shaky hand, he altered it to read “a group of officials who’d prevented some fraud against the State.” He checked it a couple of times. It seemed all right. You could scarcely see the alteration. And even if anyone did notice it they might put it down as the correction of a slip. He breathed a sigh of relief. The business was settled at last… . Mark-Alem, who’d committed a fraud against the State …

  He looked about him in terror. What if someone had noticed what he was doing? Nonsense, he told himself. The clerk who was nearest to him, and worked at the same table, was too far away to be able to read the name of his file, let alone what he’d written. A good thing my writing’s so spidery, he thought. Now, after all this agitation, he could take a bit of a rest. What a beastly job!

  He cast a covert glance around the rest of the room. The clerks were working peacefully away, crouching over their files. You couldn’t even hear the sound of their pens. Every so often one of them would leave his desk and slip away as quietly as possible to the door. No doubt he was going down to the Archives to consult relevant interpretations made in the past—ages ago, some of them, and by decoders eminent in their art. God! he thought, looking at those dozens of heads bent over their files.

  In those files was all the sleep in the world, an ocean of terror on the vast surface of which they tried to find some tiny signs or signals. Hapless wretches that we are! thought Mark-Alem.

  He made himself read some more pages, but he could feel that his brain had seized up. Even if his eyes followed the text, his mind was elsewhere. Some soldiers with their faces covered up. Thousands of shoes in a village square, with a wire fixed overhead. More snow, but this time heaped up in big chests, together with a … set of man’s clothes! My mind’s gone completely, he thought, and suddenly, with a strange, almost wistful feeling, he remembered his first dream here in this palace. Three white foxes on the minaret of the local mosque. A nice dream, that, perfectly plain and clear. Where was it now, in all this horrible sea? “Oh, well,” he sighed, and picked up another page. He’d have to decode at least another two bef
ore the break. But the bell rang early, it seemed to him, and he shut up his file.

  There was the usual bustle downstairs. The basement where they had coffee or salep was the only place where you had the opportunity to exchange a few words with people you knew, or even with people you didn’t. Mark-Alem had been in Selection such a short time he’d met only a few of those who worked there, and he saw them even more rarely in the cafeteria. But even when he did see them they seemed strange and far away, as if they belonged to a distant period of his existence. He preferred to talk to strangers. He hadn’t spent a single satisfactory day in Selection, and perhaps that was why he avoided his former colleagues there.

  In Interpretation the days were just as tedious and dreary—apart from today, when at last he’d managed to get somewhere. Maybe that was why, instead of going down to the cafeteria in the usual bitter mood, he now felt comparatively cheerful.

  “Where do you work?” he said casually to the man opposite him. He’d found a place free at a table covered with empty cups and glasses.

  The other man drew himself up as if in the presence of a superior.

  “In the copying office, sir,” he said.

  Mark-Alem knew he’d been right. You could tell straightaway that the man was new to the place, as he himself had been a month ago. After taking a sip of coffee:

  “Have you been ill?” he asked, surprised at his own temerity. “You’re very pale.”

  “No, sir,” the other man answered, putting his glass of salep down for a moment. “But we’ve got a lot of work, and …”

  “Yes, of course,” Mark-Alem went on as before, not quite sure where this new nonchalance of his was coming from. “Perhaps this is the high season for dreams?”

  “Yes, yes,” said the other, nodding his head so energetically Mark-Alem thought his thin neck would snap if he went on much longer.