A Tranquil Star (15 page)

At the end of autumn, everything freezes: the sea with all its salts, the grass trapped in the rain and the dew, as well as everyone who remains outside. Winter is pleasant: our caves are well heated, we eat canned food, we get inseminated three or four times by various males, to set ourselves apart a little, but also because it's fashionable; we make music with our stridulating organs, watch all the TV in the universe, and organize literary prizes. Three years ago I even won a prize. It was for a very sexy short story, about a girl who had bought a male with her first paycheck and then she fell for him and didn't want to exchange him or have him pulped. I wrote it in 2 and 36 hundredths seconds. We do everything pretty quickly.

Your TV show is one of the most popular, especially because of the purees, which are of great interest to us. If you are able to submit your one-time payment and respond in a reasonable time, please send me the formula for your most important: (a) anti-fermentatives; (b) anti-parasitics; (c) anti-conceptions;
*
(d) anti-aesthetics; (e) anti-Semitics; (f) antipyretics; (g) antiquarians; (h) antihelminthics; (i) antiphons; (j) antitheses; (k) antelopes.

As a matter of fact, we of the eighth planet of Delta Cepheid are also exposed to many dangers and threats from which we need to protect ourselves. In particular, regarding points c and h there was much discussion in my den last winter, because the TV commercials weren't clear. At any rate, my friends and I would like to get the local chemical industry to produce them so we can try them—we had the impression that they could provide relief for some of our ills.

Cordially yours,… [
signature illegible
] and friends
Delta Cep./8, d.3° a.3,576.10–
¹¹
Translated by Primo Levi
.

I've had it,” he said to me. “I need a change. I'll quit, find some ordinary job, maybe unloading stuff at the wholesale market. Or I'll leave, go away—on the road, you spend less than you do at home, and you can always find some way of earning money. But I am not ever going to the factory again.”

I told Rinaldo to think it over, that it's never a good idea to make a decision in the heat of the moment, that a factory job isn't something to throw away, and that in any case it would be better if he told me the story from the beginning. He is enrolled in the university, but he does shifts at the factory. Shift work is unpleasant—every week your schedule changes, and the rhythm of your life, too, so you have to get used to not getting used to things. In general, middle-aged people manage this better than the young.

“No, it's not a question of shifts. It's that a batch spoiled on me. Eight tons to throw away.”

A batch that spoils is one that solidifies halfway through the preparation: the liquid becomes gelatinous, or even hard, like horn. It's a phenomenon that is called by fancy names like gelatinization or premature polymerization, but it's a traumatic event, an ugly sight, not to mention the money that's lost. It shouldn't happen, but sometimes it does happen, even if you're paying attention, and when it happens it leaves its mark. I told Rinaldo that it's useless to cry over spilled milk, and immediately I regretted it—it wasn't the right thing to say. But what can you say to a decent person who has made a mistake, who doesn't know how he did it, and who carries his guilt like a load of lead? The only thing to do is offer him a cognac and invite him to talk.

“It's not because of the boss, you see, or even the owner. It's the thing in itself, and the way it happened. It was a simple procedure, I had already done it at least thirty times, so that I knew the formula by heart and didn't even have to look at it…”

I, too, have had batches spoil in the course of my career, so I know very well what it's like. I asked him, “Isn't it possible that's the problem, the cause of the trouble? You thought you knew it all by heart, but you forgot some detail, or made a mistake in a temperature, or added something you weren't supposed to?”

“No. I checked afterward, and everything was normal. Now the lab is working on it, trying to figure it out. I'm the
accused, but still if I made a mistake I'd like to find out. I really would. I'd prefer if someone said to me, ‘You idiot, you did this and that which you shouldn't have done,' rather than sit here asking myself questions. And then it's lucky that no one died—no one was even hurt—and the reactor shaft didn't get bent. There's only the financial damage, and if I had the money, I swear, I would happily pay.

“So. I had the morning shift. I had come on duty at six, and everything was in order. Before going off, Morra left me the instructions. Morra is an old guy, who worked his way up; he left me the production note with all the materials checked off at the right times, the cards for the automatic scale, so there was nothing out of the ordinary—he is certainly not the type to leave a mess, and he had no reason to, because everything was going well. Day was just breaking: you could see the mountains, almost close enough to touch. I glanced at the thermograph, which was functioning properly; there was even a bump on the curve at four in the morning, registering fifteen degrees higher. It's a bump that appears every day, always at the same time, and neither the engineer nor the electrician has ever understood why—as if it had taken up the habit of telling a lie every day, and, just as with liars, after a while no one pays attention anymore. I also glanced inside the reactor through the spy hole: there was no smoke, there was no foam, the mixture was beautifully transparent and circulating as smoothly as water. It wasn't water; it was a synthetic resin, of the type that is formulated to harden, but only later, in the molds.

“Anyway, I was feeling calm, there was no reason to worry. I still had two hours to wait before starting the tests, and I confess that I had other things on my mind. I was thinking… well, yes, I was thinking about the chaos of atoms and molecules inside that reactor, as if every molecule were standing there with its hands outstretched, ready to grasp the hand of the molecule passing by to form a chain. There came to mind those great men who had guessed the existence of atoms from common sense, reasoning on matter and void, two thousand years before we appeared with our equipment to prove them right. And—because when we were camping this summer my girl made me read Lucretius—I also remembered
Corpora constabunt ex partibus infinitis
,
*
and the guy who said ‘Everything flows.' From time to time, I looked through the spy hole, and it seemed to me that I could see them, all those molecules buzzing like bees around a hive.

“So, everything was flowing and I had every reason to be calm, although I hadn't forgotten what they teach you when you're entrusted with a reactor. And that is, that everything is fine as long as one molecule connects to another as if each had only two hands: they're not supposed to make more than a chain, or a rosary of molecules—it can be long, but only a chain. And you have to keep in mind that, among the many molecules, some have three hands, and there's the rub. In fact, they are inserted on purpose: the third hand is the one that is supposed to catch hold later—when
we
decide, not when
they do. If the third hands grip too soon, every rosary joins with two or three other rosaries, and in the end they've formed a single molecule, a monster molecule as big as the whole reactor, and then you're in a fix. Goodbye to ‘Everything flows'—nothing flows, everything is blocked and there is nothing to be done about it.”

I was observing him as he talked, and I refrained from interrupting him, although he was telling me things I already know. Talking was doing him good: his eyes shone, perhaps partly because of the cognac, but he was calming down. Talking is the best medicine.

“Well, as I was saying, every so often I glanced at the mixture, and I was thinking about the things I was telling you, and also about others that had nothing to do with this. The motors were humming calmly, the cam was rotating slowly, and the needle of the thermograph was drawing on its face an outline that corresponded to the movement of the cam. Inside the reactor the agitator was turning regularly and you could see that the resin was slowly becoming thicker. Already around seven it was beginning to stick to the walls and make little bubbles: this is a sign that I discovered, and I also taught it to Morra and the guy on the third shift—it's always someone different, so I don't even know his name. Anyway, it's a sign that the heating is almost done, and that it's time to take the first sample and test the viscosity.

“I went down to the floor below, because an eightthousand-liter reactor isn't a toy, and it sits a good two meters below the floor; and while I was there, fooling with the discharge
valve, I heard the motor of the agitator change tone. It changed just a little, maybe not even by a sharp, but this is a sign, too, and not a good one. I threw away the sample and everything, and in an instant I was upstairs with my eye glued to the spy hole, and it was a really hideous sight. The whole scene had changed: the blades of the agitator were slicing a mass that looked like polenta, and was rising right before my eyes. I stopped the agitator, since by now it was useless, and stood there as if spellbound, with my knees shaking. What to do? It was too late to unload the mixture, or to call the doctor, who at that hour was still in bed: and besides, when a batch spoils it's as if somebody had died: the best remedies come to mind afterward.

“A mass of foam was rising, slowly but relentlessly. Coming to the surface were bubbles as big as a man's head but not round: deformed, in all shapes, with the walls striped as if with nerves and veins; they burst and immediately others appeared, but it wasn't like beer, where the foam subsides, and rarely overflows the glass. This mass kept rising. I called, and several people came, including the head of the department, and they all said what they thought but no one knew what to do, and meanwhile the foam was only half a meter below the spy hole. Every time a bubble burst, bits of spit flew out and stuck under the glass of the spy hole and smeared it; soon you wouldn't be able to see anything. By now it was clear that the foam wasn't going to subside: it would keep rising until it clogged all the cooling pipes, and then goodbye.

“With the agitator off, it was quiet, and you could hear a
growing noise, as in science-fiction films when something horrible is about to happen: a murmur and a rumbling that kept getting louder, like an upset stomach. It was my eight-cubic-meter molecule, with the gas trapped inside it, all the gas that couldn't get out, that wanted to emerge, give birth to itself. I could neither run away nor stand there and wait: I was terrified, but I also felt responsible, the mixture was mine. By now the spy hole was blocked, all you could see was a reddish glow. I don't know if what I did was right or wrong: I was afraid that the reactor would burst, and so I took the wrench and removed all the bolts on the hatch.

“The hatch rose by itself, not suddenly but gently, solemnly, as when tombs open and the dead arise. A slow thick stream came out, disgusting, a yellow mass full of lumps and nodules. We all jumped back, but it cooled right away on the floor, as if it had sat down, and you could see that the volume wasn't so great after all. Inside the reactor the foam subsided about half a meter, then stopped and gradually hardened. So the show is over; we looked at each other and our faces were not a pretty sight. Mine must have been the ugliest of all, but there were no mirrors.”

I tried to calm Rinaldo, or at least distract him, but I'm afraid I didn't succeed, and for a good reason. Among all my experiences of work, none is so alien and inimical as that of a batch that spoils, whatever the cause, whether the damage is serious or slight, if you're guilty or not. A fire or an explosion can be a much more destructive accident, even tragic, but it's not disgraceful, like a gelatinization. The spoiled batch
contains a mocking quality: a gesture of scorn, the derisiveness of soul-less things that ought to obey you and instead rise up, defying your prudence and foresight. The unique “molecule,” deformed but gigantic, that is born and dies in your hands is an obscene message and symbol: a symbol of other ugly things without reversal or remedy that obscure our future, of the prevalence of confusion over order, and of unseemly death over life.