"You're back, eh? How was it?" The director was buttoning his open collar with his right hand.
"Yes, I returned last night, thank you. Here are the reports. Once I fix up the specimens I gathered, I'll make up an index and bring it in."
"Okay. There's no need to rush it." All buttoned up, he looked quite presentable.
I thanked him and left the room. I spent the rest of the day organizing the desktops full of documents that had been crammed into the luggage I brought with me. The evening arrived before I realized. I left the office after all the others, had dinner at the cafeteria as usual, and returned to the racetrack. I realized then how tired I was, and decided to sit down for a little, and I dozed off before I knew it. In my sentimental evening dream, I was rowing a small boat between the reefs of Iyatovo, on which smooth, brown seaweed was being dried. Suddenly the boat began to shake wildly, and a terrifying dragon of the ancient sort appeared, and I was thrown out of the boat and onto the rocks. I opened my eyes. Someone had been shaking me.
I rubbed my sleep-filled eyes till I saw a face. It was Fazelo.
"Hey, what's up? Have you been here long?" I asked in surprise?
"I came back on August 10th. You've been away till now, haven't you?"
"I have. I was sent to the seacoast."
"Can you come see our plant tonight?"
"Your plant? What are you talking about? Where did you go, anyway?"
"Me, I went to a leather dyeing plant in Cendad."
"Cendad! Why did you go off there? And are you telling me to go back to Cendad tonight?"
"Not at all."
"What, then? But first, why did you go off so far?"
"I couldn't get into my place. So I kept on walking right past it. Finally morning came. I sitting, wondering what to do when a hide buyer came by-- he gave me a ride and something to eat. I started helping him out, and eventually we got to Cendad."
"I see. That really worked out well. I was wondering if you'd been tossed in the cauldron and boiled down at the vinegar works."
"I assisted an engineer there. He taught me all sorts of things. He taught me all about the chemicals. If it's a matter of leather, I know how to tan it, how to color it, or anything else."
"So why did you come back?"
"The police were looking for me. They didn't scold me, though."
"What did your employer say?"
"That I could go anywhere I wanted, he didn't care."
"So what will you do?"
"The old people, you know, abandoned the plant in Mur„d forest and said I could use it for leather work."
"Can you do that?"
"I can. Besides that, Milo is curing hams. Everyone is working there."
"Your sister?"
"She comes to the plant too."
"Really."
"So let's go. She may be there tonight."
I immediately forgot my weariness and stood up. "Let's go-- is it far?"
"A little beyond that Polano Square."
"That's pretty far. Let's go, though."
I quickly got into the clothes I had worn on my journey and we left the house. Fazelo started running.
The clouds had turned yellow and gave off a fierce light as they flew from south to north. On the plain, however, there was no wind at all. There were just stalks of various grasses jutting up with their heavy ears. The summer pearlwort flowers had dried to a dark brown color, and even their trifoil leaves seemed to have shrunken greatly.
We ran steadily along.
"Look. There's a light over there."
Fazelo stopped and pointed a finger toward the grass on the right. Shaded by a stalk of grass, a tiny pearlwort flower was blooming alone, pale and lonely looking.
Then the wind began blowing toward us, surrounding us with dark waves of grass, and my whole body was chilled by the cold breeze that filtered through any small openings in my clothing.
"Autumn really is here," I said with a loud sigh.
Fazelo removed his jacket and held it under his arm. "All the lights along the way have gone out, except..."
Finally one of us spoke or else there was a rustling of wind, and we started off again.
Two farmers carrying huge scythes crossed our path. They seemed to glare at us, then stopped and waited silently for us to reach them. We hurried to get there.
"Well, I see you've returned," one said to me. "I hope everything went smoothly."
It seemed to be one of the men from Polano Square who had fled when Destupago asked him to be his second.
"Yes, thank you. Fazelo is also back and as good as ever."
"Dr. Wildcat isn't around, though?"
"Dr. Wildcat? Destupago? I met Destupago in Cendad. He looked pretty bad-- down on his luck."
"Destupago down on his luck? No, the general owns a lot of property in Cendad."
"He told me he had staked all his assets on that carbonization company."
"What a story! Would that wildcat do such a thing? When the company stock was next to worthless, the general escaped."
"No, he told me he took the responsibility for a procedural error when some director wanted to make it into a brewery."
"Where does he get that? Any ideas about a brewery all came from the general himself."
"But it's true that they only brewed a small amount on an experimental basis, isn't it?"
"I'm afraid you've been fooled good. All those barrels that were shipped as acetone were full of fancy blended whisky. The bad thing is that it was blended with wood alcohol. They were smuggling it out for two years."
"Well then, is that what they used at Polano Square?"
"I'm afraid so. But you've got to admit the general is a sharp one. Everyone has some weak point, so he can cry himself to sleep. But now that plant is getting used by everyone for all sorts of things, to supply each other with their needs as much as possible, I hear."
"So they say."
"Doesn't Fazelo do something there?"
"Yes, but it doesn't really take much new capital. They're trying things like tanning leather, and curing hams, and steaming chestnuts and drying them."
"Well, we'd better be off." Fazelo nudged me.
"See you later."
"Good evening."
We started walking. I was wondering whether I should believe Destupago, or what everyone was saying about him.
"It's just ahead-- just ahead. I've been here a number of times now, so I know." I was walking close to Fazelo, and spoke so that he could hear me over the wind. Fazelo gave a slight nod, and started running. In the dark of evening, all I could see was the sway of his white shirt as he ran.
A moment later I saw five pale lights on the far edge of the plain, and those five alder trees looking vaguely like a green umbrella above them. As I got closer, it looked as though the leaves were being tossed wildly about by the wind, and the branches striking against each other so as to give off the pale light. Beneath them were the shadows of five people with acetylene lamps of the sort used when taking fish. This time there were no tables or chairs or boxes in the square. There was just one empty crate. In the midst I saw a big hat and round shoulders I remembered-- Milo was coming toward us.
"So you've finally come! Tonight is a good night." Milo greeted me as though everyone had been waiting for me for some time. Together we hurried through what had been Polano Square.
The grass of the plain had grown coarse, and reeds whistled in the wind here and there. Occasionally an oak or birch stood out black against the sky, swaying back and forth. Before I knew it we were walking single file along a narrow path.
"Pretty soon now," called out Fazelo, who led the way.
There were thick woods on either side of the road by then. After we walked another 30 minutes in silence, there was the smell of something like wood shavings, and then a long, grey roof appeared before our eyes.
"Someone's coming," Fazelo called out.
Lights slanted sown from the windows of the large, black building.
"Hey, Mr. Kust is here," Milo called in a loud voice.
"Hey!" someone replied from inside.
We entered the building. A huge iron boiler faced us like a sphinx, and there were numerous large unglazed ceramic pots lined up on the earthen floor.
"Well, good evening." I was greeted by an older, barefoot man from the earthen floor.
"That's the carbonization kettle," Fazelo said.
"How many people were working here?" I asked.
"Let me see, there were 30 or more when it was flourishing," Milo replied.
"What went wrong?"
Everyone looked at each other. Then the older man said, "The price of medicine dropped."
"I suppose so. But it's too late for that. But listen-- Fazelo, I think this kettle would be best for making acetic acid. Back then I think the company was hurt because too many people were involved, but if we do it ourselves, it will be a lot of work but the town pharmacy will accept small lots of 10 or 20 bottles."
"That's right," Fazelo said.
"And we could cure hams over there by running the smoke from under here through the cellar where they made the liquor."
"Sarto said the same thing. And if we put it in the boiler, we can get charcoal, since we won't sell the ham at first; we'll share it among ourselves."
"Good, let's do that. Will you come take a look from time to time, Mr. Kust?"
"Oh, I have friends that know about livestock and others that know about forest products. I'll tell them about Polano Square, and invite them to come here."
"That's right-- we all put a lot of energy into searching for Polano Square. When we finally found it, it was just a drinking bout in an election campaign, but I can't help feeling that the real Polano Square from old times is around somewhere."
"And so, couldn't we create it with our own hands?"
"That's right-- instead of a cowardly, disreputable, self-deceiving Polano Square, we can build an interesting Polano Square where you can go in the evening to sing a song, or breathe the fresh air, and have a good time and still have energy to work hard the next day."
"I think we really can do it. That's because we're thinking it out now."
"If we're going to do anything, we'll have to study it carefully. Our luck will be good if we do that, but we still don't even know how we should start. There are lots of schools in town, with lots of students. They spend the whole day studying, and good teachers teach them so that they want to learn. We don't have even three hours a day to study. That's because we're generally tired and want to sleep. We don't even have lecture notes, much less teachers. When we realize what we don't know and ask questions, there aren't any answers. But we will have to study for all we're worth. We should all try to come up with ways that will let us study more."
The boy sat down. I spoke up immediately.
"Listen, everyone. Study is definitely possible for all of you. The students in town study full time, but they've forgotten why they're studying. The teachers want to teach them as much as possible, but they weary the students' heads and leave them exhausted. And so they say they have to take up tennis, or jogging. They don't play tennis or baseball as a matter of competition, but they play it more than their bodies need. But who gets ahead? They do, no matter how you look at it; we're stuck with the really terrible jobs, and how can we ever catch up? It's like you just said-- they specialize in something for a few years, and then they take it easy, drinking wine, owning homes, and never studying again. But we work all our lives doing the same old thing.
"Listen, if we don't drink we're 10 percent better stronger than if we do. If we don't smoke we're 20 percent stronger. If we make up our minds which way to go, and then put our mental powers in order, we're 20 percent stronger than if our minds are a mess. All the energy that they spend thinking of women and arguing with each other, we can spend on gaining true happiness. Look, pretty soon you'll have twice the strength that they do. But it won't do to have work forced on you by others, as in the past. Those people were born at a time when they have to drink like that to continue their cold, lonely lives.
"Let's go on in silence. You will draw new strength from the wind and the shining clouds. And before long, you will have a new Polano Square on this plain that is even more splendid than the old fairy tales!"
There were happy shouts from everyone. Then Fazelo said, "We can study during the winter. We can teach ourselves by all reading the same book, then gathering at the plant one evening every five days to ask each other questions. You'll teach us something, won't you, Mr. Kust?"
"Oh, me? I used to be a botany teacher, so I can teach you the physiology of plants and two or three other things. But you know, you don't have to learn by the old method of studying useless things just to become knowledgeable. It's enough to get the really basic things and the things you really need. Your work will teach you other things one at a time, and soon you'll be able to do things by reading about them yourselves."
"I think we should get together at plant in the winter and do various things. Fazelo can tan leather, and I can make vests, even if their not the greatest. Milo has always made very good hats, and we'll get better when it's our job."
"That's right-- the things we make in the winter we can exchange among ourselves. I can make things by carving them out of wood."
"Let's do it! In the summer we can feed ourselves by working in the fields and meadows, and in the winter we can make necessities for each other..."
Milo sat down, his eyes narrowed against the fierce wind. The alder trees bent over like bows. I stood up despite the wind.
"That's right, everyone. A new day has dawned for you. The thousand geniuses that will soon occupy this plain should show one another respect, and do all the necessary little jobs. I wish I could join you!"
"It would be nice if you'd take sister Rozalo," someone shouted.
I was startled by the unexpected remark.
"No, I still have much to study. It wouldn't be good for me to come here to stay. I can't join you. That's because I've gotten to be someone who can't do anything. I was born a poor schoolteacher's son, and was raised just reading books. I wasn't raised in the rain and the wind like you. My thoughts are just like your thoughts, but I can't say that for my body. There are jobs I can do, though. Long ago I thought of a way to triple the abundance of the plain. I'll do that."
(About one page of manuscript blank)
And so we arose. The wind was blowing hard, and everyone automatically turned his back to it. I had shouted too much earlier, and the wind choked me. The tops of the alder trees were bent nearly to the ground.
"All right, we'll do it. I've already got 11 hides steeping for tomorrow morning, and one kettle's worth of firewood is ready to go. Tonight will be the opening ceremony for the new Polano Square!"
"Does that mean we're going to drink water instead of wine?" That was the older, barefoot worker. General laughter broke out.
"Let's do it. Everyone out in front! I'll ladle out the water, Milo-- you get some glasses from the shelf."
Fazelo grabbed a bucket and went out. The rest took acetylene lamps and went out to the grass in front of the plant.
We sat in a circle on the grass. Milo passed glasses around, and Fazelo came back with the heavy looking bucket. "Wash your glasses, he said, and put a dipper of water in each.
I thought I would soon be shivering from the coldness of the water. Everyone was scrubbing his glass with his fingers.
"Rinse them now," Fazelo said as he ladled out more water. We dumped our water on the grass and took more.
"We need to wash them well," Fazelo said as he poured out more water. "They still have the smell of that wine."
"Fazelo, is tonight the first time the glasses have been washed?" Again, the words of the old acetic acid maker drew laughter.
"This time we'll drink. It's cold." Fazelo poured everyone another glass. The harsh wind made waves flicker white on the surface of the frigid water.
"Well, let's drink! One, two, three!" Everyone drank up. I also drank, and shivered from the cold.
"On the night when the last
of the pearlwort shines fair,
There's an autumn festival
At Polano Square.
But if guys who won't touch water
And just drink wine weren't gone,
Then we wouldn't get to see
Polano Square's new dawn."
Everyone laughed and applauded. Their voices were caught up by the wind and blown off in the direction of the old Polano Square.
Milo stood up. "I'll sing one too."
"When the pearlwort rattles dry
In a rush of autumn air,
There's an autumn festival
At Polano Square.
The drunken, yellow-shirted
Wildcat fled away
And nighttime at Polano Square
Is changing into day."
"Well, I'd like to sing too."
(Several lines of manuscript blank)
"Let's cheer, then. For the new Polano Square. Hurrah!" I cheered and threw my hat high in the air.
"Hurrah!"
We then started through the black woods. We passed the cluster of oaks and came to the old Polano Square. The alders flickered blue each time they were jostled by the wind. The acetylene lamps stretched our shadows long and black across the waves of grass, so that each of us looked like a steamboat on a gigantic river.
We reached the usual spot, and separated. One small pearlwort flower was still glowing there. I picked it, and stuck it in my lapel.
"It's time to say goodbye. I'll go for you again." As Fazelo spoke, everyone waved his cap. They all called out something to me, but the words were carried away by the wind; I couldn't hear them. I walked in my direction, they went in theirs, and the blue light and black shadows of the acetylene lamps grew smaller and smaller.
Seven years have passed since then. Fazelo's group had quite a hard time at first, but somehow they managed to remain interested just the same.
On a number of occasions after that I went to chat with them, or took along a friend for them to consult with. After three years had passed, Fazelo's group had established an impressive industrial cooperative, and their hams and leather goods and acetic acid and oatmeal were widely available, in Morio, Cendad and the surrounding countryside.
In the third year, the circumstances of my job took me away from Morio. I became an assistant at the college and a technician at the Agriculture Experimental Station. As I sat in a room filled with the harsh sound of a neighboring rotary press, in the busy but wild city of Tokio where I lived without my friends of the past, looking through half-closed eyes at some rare instance of natural history in a 50-line ledger in my charge, I received a letter.
It was a sheet of music, printed on thick paper to be passed around and sung by everyone. This was the song:
The Song of Polano Square
We took turns singing an ancient largo
On the square at night, lit by pearlwort lamps.
We brush the clouds away and forget the night wind,
But when the harvest is at hand, the year has gotten old.
If I were to receive my one true desire,
We would laugh together across the Milky Way.
We would burn all our cares on the bonfire,
And create a glorious new world.
I was sure the music had been written by Fazelo. My reason for saying that is that
it just fit a melody Fazelo would whistle out on the plain. I could not tell, however, if the
song was written by Milo, or Rozalo, perhaps someone else.
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