Chapter 16 Chapter Four (1)

A man sat at a desk in my office in the back of the courtroom.I'd never seen him before, but from the badge on his purple-blue jacket, he was with the Third Bureau of the Ministry of Defense.A stack of brown leather volumes with pink bands rested at his elbow, one of which was open toward him.I recognized the dossiers: they were filled with records of taxes, conscription, and the like, dating back fifty years.Is he reviewing the documents?What are you looking for?I said, "Is there anything I can do for you?" He ignored me, and two serious soldiers, like two wooden figures like the officer, cast a wary look at me.I don't want to complain at all.After weeks of trekking in the desert, being left alone was no big deal.In addition, in a trance, I was not without joy to catch some signs that the inexplicable friendly relationship between myself and the third game was coming to an end.

"Can I speak to Colonel Joel?" I asked.Unexpectedly, he was surprised again: Who said Joel came back here? He still ignored it and continued to pretend to be looking at the documents.He was a handsome man with white teeth and beautiful blue eyes.But nothing.I think.I imagined him sitting next to the girl on the bed, letting his body be at the mercy of her obsessions.In my imagination, the body movements of this kind of man are like machines, and they don't know that the body has its own rhythm. When he looked at me—he always glanced at me—through that handsome unmoving face, through those clear eyes, like an actor looking at me from behind a mask Come.

He looked up from the pile of papers.Just as I imagined. "Where have you been?" he asked. "I have traveled a long way from here. So I was not here to greet you when you arrived. But now that I am back, I will do my best to obey your orders." His insignia indicated that he was a warrant officer, a warrant officer attached to the Third Bureau: what did that mean?It is said that they have been in the business of beating and kicking repairmen for the last five years;But maybe I'm reading him wrong - I've been away from the capital for years. "You have committed treason and collusion," he said.

This is the answer. "Collaboration with the enemy and treason": This is what the books say. "We are at peace here," I said, "we have no enemies." There was a silence. "Either I'm mistaken," I said, "or we're enemies." I don't know if he understood what I meant. "The local people are fighting with us," he said.I really doubt he ever saw a savage in his life. "Why did you join them? Who allowed you to leave your post?" I can only shrug my shoulders at the provocation. "Personal matter," I said, "you must want my statement, don't you? But I have no intention of discussing it. Unless it's about not being able to look at a district magistrate's job like a doorman's job."

As I walked between two guards towards the brig, I walked with uncommon ease. "I want to clean up." But they ignored me.Went to his. I know where my pleasure comes from: my alliance with these defenders of the Empire is at an end, I have set myself against them, the bond is broken, I am a free man.Who could not smile at that?But what a dangerous pleasure it is!I won't be freed so easily.Are there any questions of principle behind this confrontation between me and them?Was it merely to be stared at by one of the new savages, to have the table taken over by him, and the papers to be fiddled with by his paws?As for the relief this time, where is the step in the process of being abandoned?What does it mean to me?The previous work is already a part of my life, more myself than myself, do I really enjoy the freedom without restraint?Speaking of this period of time this year is the moment in my life where I can control my life the most.Let's say there's a girl I like and can take her as a wife or concubine or daughter or slave or whatever or nothing on a whim, because I don't take any responsibility for her, no matter what happens It's none of my business, unless I have a second thought: Is this freedom from repression?Don't you want to be freed from that confinement?There is nothing heroic or sublime in my confrontational stance—I must always remember this.

It's the same room they used as an interrogation room last year.I stood aside and waited for the soldiers who had slept here to remove their bedding.The three people I brought, still in shabby clothes, looked at me from the kitchen. "What are you eating?" I yelled at them, "Give me something to eat before they lock me up!" One of them kicked over with a big bowl of hot porridge. "Next." He greeted.The guards pushed me into the house. "Wait a minute," I said, "let him bring my bedroll, and I won't trouble you any more." They waited, and I stood in a little patch of sunlight, drinking my porridge by the spoonful, like a a hungry ghost.The boy with the broken foot brought me a bowl of tea with a grin on his face. "Thank you!" I said, "Take it easy, they're not going to do anything to you, you're just doing what you're told." I entered the cell with my bedroll and an old bearskin under my arm. The traces of soot were still on the wall where the charcoal basin had been. The door was shut and darkness fell.

I slept for a day and a night, but I just felt that the noise in this place was a bit noisy. There was a rattling sound from the place where my head was facing behind the wall, and the wheelbarrow wheel and the shouts of workers could be heard in the distance.In the dream I was back in the desert again, trekking across the empty fields toward an obscure goal.I moistened my lips and sighed. "What's that loud?" I asked the guard as he brought the food.He told me that they were tearing down the houses that adjoined the south wall of the barracks: they were going to expand the barracks and build some suitable cells. "Oh, yes," I said, "it's time for the dark flowers of civilization to bloom." He didn't understand me.

The house had no windows, but a chimney-hole high up in the wall.After a day, maybe two, though, my eyes got used to the gloom.I also blocked my eyes when the morning sun and evening lights streamed in, and when the door was opened to let me eat.The best time is early in the morning - when I wake up and lie there listening to the birds singing outside and looking at the sky over the chimney hole, the night fades away and the first gray light of dawn breaks in. Every day, a few soldiers brought me a limited amount of food, and the next day they closed the gate of the barracks yard for an hour, allowing me to come out to let the wind and exercise my body.At this time, there will always be people looking in on the bars of the iron gate to see the fall of the former ruler.Many people know me, but no one greets me.

At night, everything is quiet, and the cockroaches come out to look for food.I listened, or perhaps imagined, the little carapaces pecking at their wings and scurrying across the floor.They were attracted by the smell of the vat in the corner, the small piles of food on the floor, and of course the mountain of flesh that smelled of freshness and decay. One night I was woken up by a feathery softness brushing against my neck.Since then, I have often woken up at night, twitching desperately, and brushing myself, always feeling like some ghost or ghost is brushing my lips and eyes with its tentacles.Then I became restless: I became alert.

I stared at the empty walls all day long, not believing that all the pain and groaning they had imprisoned in would leave no noticeable trace; How faint the sound was, the cries of all those who suffered here must still be pounding in the room, from wall to wall.I pray that one day these walls will be knocked down and those uneven echoes will finally go away; but the bricks are so tightly packed that it is very difficult to ignore these sounds at this moment. I yearn for the opportunity to exercise my body. I yearn for outdoor activities in the wind and rain, with my feet on the ground; I can see other people's faces and hear people's voices.After two days of solitary confinement, my lips have become loose and uncontrollable, and my own voice has become unfamiliar.Seriously, people aren't made to be alone!In a ignorant way, I just circled around the time when I was fed three meals a day, and then I devoured like a dog.Living like an animal has turned me into a beast.

However, it is only in these completely blank days that I can fully contemplate the fate of those men and women who have fallen into this wall and no longer want to eat and can no longer walk freely.