Here I learned from personal experience that laughter is the most terrible of weapons; you can kill anything with laughter, even murder. I sat at my table and laughed desperately; I saw no way out of that absurd situation. I don’t know what would have been the end if things had run their natural course, for suddenly a new factor in the arithmetical chain: the telephone rang.
I hurried, grasped the receiver. Perhaps she … I heard an unfamiliar voice:
“Wait a minute.”
Annoying, infinite buzzing. Heavy steps from afar, nearer and louder like cast-iron, and. …
“ D-503 ? The Well-Doer speaking. Come at once to me.”
Ding! He hung up the receiver. Ding! like a key in a keyhole.
U- was still in bed, eyes closed, gills apart in the form of a smile. I picked up her clothes, threw them on her and said through clenched teeth:
“Well. Quick! Quick!”
She raised her body on her elbow, her breasts hanging down to one side, eyes round. She became a figure of wax.
“What?”
“Get dressed, that is what!”
Face distorted, she firmly snatched her clothes and said in a flat voice, “Turn away. …”
I turned away, pressed my forehead against the glass. Light, figures, sparks, were trembling in the black, wet mirror. … No, all this was I, myself—within me. … What did he call me for? Is it possible that he knows already about her, about me, about everything?