Return From the Stars

by Stanisław Lem

  But things grew confused, I sank, I swam through the darkness. Right before I fell asleep it seemed to me that I was there, at my place, in my bunk, deep down, at the iron bottom, and near me lay little Arne — I awoke for a moment. No. Arne was not alive, I was on Earth. The girl breathed quietly.

  “Bless you, Eri,” I said, inhaling the fragrance of her hair, and slept.

  I opened my eyes, not knowing where or even who I was. The dark hair flowing across my arm — the arm had no feeling, as if it were a foreign thing — astonished me. This, for a fraction of a second. Then I realized everything. The sun had not yet risen; the dawn — milk-white, without a trace of pink, clean, the air sharp — stood at the windows. In this earliest light I studied her face, as if seeing it for the first time. Sound asleep, she breathed with her lips tightly closed; she must not have been very comfortable on my arm, because she had placed a hand beneath her head, and now and then, gently, her eyebrows moved, as if in continual surprise. The movement was slight, but I watched intently, as if upon that face my fate were written.

  I thought of Olaf. With extreme care I began to free my arm. The care turned out to be unnecessary. She was in a deep sleep, dreaming of something. I stopped, tried to guess, not the dream, but only whether or not it was bad. Her face was almost childlike. The dream was not bad. I disengaged myself, stood up. I was in the bathrobe I had been wearing when I lay down. Barefoot, I went out into the corridor, closed the door quietly, very slowly, and with the same caution looked into his room. The bed was untouched. He sat at the table, his head on his arms, and slept. Hadn’t undressed, as I’d thought. I don’t know what woke him up — my gaze? He started, gave me a sharp look, straightened, and began to stretch.

  “Olaf,” I said, “in a hundred years I…”

  “Shut your mouth,” he suggested kindly. “Hal, you always did have unhealthy tendencies.”

  “Are you beginning already? I only wanted to say…”

  “I know what you wanted to say. I always know what you’re going to say, a week in advance. Had there been a need for a chaplain on board the Prometheus, you would have filled the bill. A damned shame I didn’t see that before. I would have knocked it out of you. Hal! No sermons. No solemnities, swearing, oaths, and the like. How is it? Good, yes?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose. I don’t know. If you mean… well, nothing happened.”

  “No, first you should kneel,” he said. “You must speak from a kneeling position. You dunce, did I ask you about that? I am talking about your prospects and so on.”

  “I don’t know. And I don’t think she does, either. I landed on her like a ton of bricks.”

  “Yes. It’s a problem,” Olaf observed. He undressed, looked for his trunks. “What do you weigh? A hundred and ten kilos?”

  “Something like that. If you’re looking for your trunks, I have them.”

  “For all your holiness, you always liked to pinch things,” he mumbled, and when I started to pull them off, “Idiot, leave them on. I have another pair in the suitcase…”

  “How do divorces work? Do you happen to know?” I asked.

  Olaf looked at me over the open suitcase. He winked.

  “No, I do not. And how would I? I have heard that it’s as easy as sneezing. And you don’t even have to say Gesundheit. Is there a decent bathroom here, with water?”

  “I don’t know. Probably not. There’s only the kind — you know.”

  “Yes. The invigorating wind with the smell of mouthwash. An abomination. Let’s go to the pool. Without water, I don’t feel washed. She’s asleep?”

  “Asleep.”

  “Then let’s blast off.”

  The water was cold, superb. I did a half gainer with a twist: a good one. My first. I surfaced, snorting and choking, I had water in my nose.

  “Watch out,” shouted Olaf from the side of the pool, “you’ll have to be careful now. Remember Markel?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “He had gone to the four ammoniated moons of Jupiter. When he returned and set down on the training field, and got out of the rocket, laden with trophies like a Christmas tree, he tripped and broke his leg. So watch out. I’m telling you.”

  “I’ll try. Damned cold, this water. I’m coming out.”

  “Quite right. You could catch a cold. I didn’t have one for ten years. The moment I landed on Luna I started coughing.”

  “Because it was so dry there,” I said with a serious expression. Olaf laughed and splashed water in my face, jumping in a meter away.

  “Dry, exactly,” he said, surfacing. “A good way to put it. Dry, but not too cozy.”

  “Ole, I’m going.”

  “OK. We’ll see each other at breakfast? Or would you prefer not to?”

  “Of course we will.”

  I ran upstairs, drying myself on the way. At the door I held my breath. I peered in carefully. She was still sleeping. I took advantage of this and quickly changed. I had time to shave, too, in the bathroom.

  I stuck my head into the room — I thought that she had said something. When I approached the bed on tiptoe, she opened her eyes.

  “Did I sleep here?”

  “Yes. Yes, Eri.”

  “I had the feeling that someone…”

  “Yes, Eri, I was here.”

  She stared at me, as though gradually it was all coming back to her. First, her eyes widened a little — with surprise? — then she closed them, opened them again, then furtively, very quickly, though even so I noticed, she looked under the blanket — and her face turned pink.

  I cleared my throat.

  “You probably want to go to your own room, right? Perhaps I should leave, or…”

  “No,” she said. “I have my robe.”

  She pulled it tightly around herself, sat up on the bed.

  “So… it’s real, then?” she said quietly, as if parting with something.

  I was silent.

  She got up, walked across the room, came back.

  She lifted her eyes to my face; in them was a question, uncertainty, and something else that I could not define.

  “Mr. Bregg…”

  “My name is Hal. My first name.”

  “Mr… Hal, I…”

  “Yes?”

  “I really don’t know… I would like… Seon…”

  “What?”

  “Well… he…”

  She could not or did not wish to say “my husband.” Which?

  “He will be back the day after tomorrow.”

  “And?”

  “What is going to happen?”

  I swallowed.

  “Should I have a talk with him?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  Now it was my turn to look at her with surprise, not understanding.

  “Yesterday you said…”

  I waited.

  “That you… would take me away.”

  “Yes “

  “And he?”

  “Then I shouldn’t talk to him?” I asked, feeling stupid.

  “Talk? You want to do it yourself?”

  “Who else?”

  “It has to be… the end?”

  Something was choking me; I cleared my throat.

  “Really, there’s no other way.”

  “I thought it would be… a mesk.”

  “A what?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I understand nothing. No. I don’t know. What is that?” I said, feeling an ominous chill. Again I had hit upon one of those sudden blanks, a mire of misunderstanding.

  “It is like this. A man… a woman… if someone meets a person… if he wants, for a certain period of time… You really know nothing about this?”

  “Wait, Eri. I don’t know, but I think I’m beginning to. Is it something provisional, a kind of temporary suspension, an episode?”

  “No,” she said, and her eyes grew round. “You don’t know what it is… I don’t exactly know how it works myself,” she admitted. “I’ve onl
y heard about it. I thought that that was why you…”

  “Eri, I’m completely in the dark. Damned if I understand any of this. Does it have… ? In any case, it is connected in some way with marriage, right?”

  “Well, yes. You go to an office, and there, I’m not exactly sure, but anyway, after that it’s… it’s…”

  “It’s what?”

  “Independent. So that nothing can be said. No one. Including him…”

  “So it is, after all… it is a kind of legalization — well, hell! — a legalization of infidelity?”

  “No. Yes. That is, it is not infidelity then — no one speaks of it like that. I know what that means; I learned about it. There is no infidelity because, well, because after all Seon and I are only for a year.”

  “Wha-a-at?” I said, because I thought that I was not hearing correctly. “And what does that mean, for a year? Marriage for a year? For one year? Why?”

  “It is a trial.”

  “Ye gods and little fishes! A trial. And what is a mesk? A notification for the following year?”

  “I don’t know what you mean. It is… it means that if the couple separates after a year, well, then the other arrangement becomes binding. Like a wedding.”

  “The mesk?”

  “Yes.”

  “And if not, then what?”

  “Then nothing. It has no significance.”

  “Aha, I think I see now. No. No mesk. Till death do us part. You know what that means?”

  “I do. Mr. Bregg?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m completing my graduate studies in archeology this year…”

  “I understand. You’re letting me know that by taking you for an idiot I’m only making an idiot of myself.”

  She smiled.

  “You put it too strongly.”

  “Yes. I’m sorry. Well, Eri, may I talk to him?”

  “About what?”

  My jaw fell. Here we go again, I thought.

  “Well, what do you, for Christ’s…” I bit my tongue. “About us.”

  “But that just isn’t done.”

  “It isn’t? Ah. Well, all right. And what is done?”

  “One goes through the separation procedure. But, Mr. Bregg, really… I… can’t do it this way.”

  “And in what way can you?”

  She gave a helpless shrug.

  “Does this mean we are back where we began yesterday evening?” I asked. “Don’t be angry with me, Eri, for speaking like this, I am doubly handicapped, you see. I’m not familiar with all the formalities, customs, with what should be done and what shouldn’t, even on a daily basis, so when it comes to things like…”

  “No, I know. I know. But he and I… I… Seon…”

  “I understand,” I said. “Look here. Let’s sit down.”

  “I think better when I stand.”

  “Please. Listen, Eri. I know what I should do. I should take you, as I said, and go away somewhere — and I don’t know how I have this certainty. Perhaps it only comes from my boundless stupidity. But it seems to me that eventually you could be happy with me. Yes. At the same time I — observe — am the type who… well, in a word, I don’t want to do that. To force you. Thus the whole responsibility for my decision — let’s call it that — falls on you. In other words, to make me be a swine not from the right side, but only from the left. Yes. I see that clearly. Very clearly. So now tell me just one thing — what do you prefer?”

  “The right.”

  “What?”

  “The right side of the swine.”

  I began to laugh. Perhaps a little hysterically.

  “My God. Yes. Good. Then I can talk to him? Afterward. That is, I would come back here alone…”

  “No.”

  “It isn’t done like that? Perhaps not, but I feel I ought to, Eri.”

  “No. I… please, please. Really. No!”

  Suddenly tears fell from her eyes. I put my arms around her.

  “Eri! No. It’s no, then. I’ll do whatever you want, but don’t cry. I beg you. Because… don’t cry. Stop, all right? But then… cry if you… I don’t…”

  “I didn’t know that it could be… so…” she sobbed.

  I carried her around the room.

  “Don’t cry, Eri… You know what? We will go away for… a month. How about that? Then later, if you want, you can return.”

  “Please,” she said, “please.”

  I put her down.

  “Not like that? I don’t know anything. I thought…”

  “Oh, the way you are! Should do, shouldn’t do. I don’t want this! I don’t!”

  “The right side grows larger all the time,” I said with an unexpected coldness. “Very well, then, Eri. I won’t consult you any more. Get dressed. We’ll eat breakfast and go.”

  She looked at me with her tear-streaked face. Was strangely intent. Frowned. I had the impression that she wanted to say something and that it would not be flattering to me. But she only sighed and went out without a word. I sat at the table. This sudden decision of mine — like something out of a romance about pirates — had been a thing of the moment. In fact I was as resolute as a weather vane. I felt like a heel. How could I? How could I? I asked myself. Oh, what a mess!

  In the half-open doorway stood Olaf.

  “Old man,” he said, “I am very sorry. It is the height of indiscretion, but I heard. Couldn’t help hearing. You should close your door, and besides, you have such a healthy voice. Hal — you surpass yourself. What do you want from the girl, that she should throw herself into your arms because once you went down into that hole on… ?”

  “Olaf!” I snarled.

  “Only calm can save us. So the archeologist has found a nice site. A hundred and sixty years, that’s already antiquity, isn’t it?”

  “Your sense of humor…”

  “Doesn’t appeal to you. I know. Nor does it to me. But where would I be, old man, if I couldn’t see through you? At your funeral, that’s where. Hal, Hal…”

  “I know my name.”

  “What is it you want? Come, Chaplain, fall in. Let’s eat and take off.”

  “I don’t even know where to go.”

  “By chance, I do. Along the shore there are still some small cabins to rent. You two take the car…”

  “What do you mean — you take the car… ?”

  “What else? You prefer the Holy Trinity? Chaplain…”

  “Olaf, if you don’t stop it…”

  “All right. I know. You’d like to make everybody happy: me, her, that Seol or Seon — no, it won’t work. Hal, we’ll leave together. You can drop me off at Houl. I’ll take an ulder from there.”

  “Well,” I said, “a nice vacation I’m giving you!”

  “I’m not complaining, so don’t you. Perhaps something will come of it. But enough for now. Come on.”

  Breakfast took place in a strange atmosphere. Olaf spoke more than usual, but into the air. Eri and I hardly said a word. Afterward, the white robot brought the gleeder, and Olaf took it to Clavestra to get the car. The idea came to him at the last minute. An hour later the car was in the garden, I loaded it with my belongings, Eri also brought her things — not all her things, it seemed to me, but I didn’t ask; we did not, in fact, converse at all. And so, on a sunny day that grew very hot, we drove first to Houl — a little out of our way — and Olaf got out there; it was only in the car that he told me he had rented a cottage for us.

  There was no farewell as such.

  “Listen,” I said, “if I let you know… you’ll come?”

  “Sure. I’ll send you my address.”

  “Write to the post office at Houl,” I said.

  He gave me his firm hand. How many hands like that were left on Earth? I held it so hard that my fingers cracked, then, not looking back, I got behind the wheel. We drove for less than an hour. Olaf had told me where to find the little house. It was small — four rooms, no pool — but at the beach, right on the sea. Passing ro
ws of brightly colored cottages scattered across the hills, we saw the ocean from the road. Even before it appeared, we heard its muffled, distant thunder.