14

22:59

Melquiades wasn't even angry. It was difficult to overcome the state of shock that was created in his mind when he got to know the truth. The system was to him clear as never before. All the fields within the borders of K. were able to keep alive approximately 200 hundred million people. Any surplus meant hunger and malnutrition of others, by cutting all the rations, and the peaceful nature of K.'s citizens would in this way be violated. Thus, they kept the records particularly precise. They didn't allow citizens to build new houses since the fields for fruit and vegetable production were necessary. They cramped all of them in the remaining houses and inhibited other industrial developments. There was no mining, no schools, no construction, no sciences, and humanities. One set of clothes obtained as a token of adulthood was more than enough since you were never entirely sure whether you will live till the ripe old age. Those lucky few who did had their old houses which in the past were yet another acquisition but now proved to be of gold value. Even when Melquiades was growing up, his peers were certain that they would inherit their parents' houses and the fear of homelessness had been rather scarce. The elderly were too old to be eaten so once you crossed a certain date in your life's calendar, you could consider yourself lucky. The only area of people's activity was food production, food preservation, and food preparation. K. citizens were designed to be the masses concentrated on agriculture, while N., covering just up to seven per cent of K.'s grounds, was being constantly developed, improved, modernized. In N. they had the greatest facilities and the greatest developments of human thought. They had a technology, even surpassing the one Melquiades was exposed to while being away. The only problem with N. was that each year to its borders thousands, hundred thousand, possibly even millions of citizens were transferred, cleaned, killed and eaten. And Jacob was the supervisor of all that madness.

Melquiades thought about it for some time now. At first, he felt the responsibility towards K. and felt remorse that he was the one to abandon it in times of the greatest political upheaval. Then, he felt the responsibility that those years of him being healthy, wealthy and content now required work on his part. Some kind of debt he had to pay back. He tried, he tried hard as he might, but while numbers, in theory, were to be managed easily, having acquired a certain amount of knowledge, people proved to be stubborn, difficult and stuck in their old ways. Melquiades lacked the charisma necessary to lead the crowds and he felt that influencing the decisions of the few elderly, with whom he met so regularly over the past years, was too much for his weakening body. And, according to what Gemma told him over the past few months, N. has been running like clockwork. Jacob seemed to deal with this definitely better. His reign lasted decades and not even a single person could do something about it. People were eaten with their full consent. Yes, in return they had almost limitless access to food. Yes, there was some sort of shelter provided for them all. And yes, K. was as peaceful and havoc-free as a village disconnected from any kind of tribal animosities. But was this an enough price to live until there was one single order to instantly arrive at a train station and to be in a silent way taken to some distant plant and turned into a chop?

Melquiades knew people had tendencies to be mad, but what kind of madness was that?

He was thinking about it really hard. He got obsessed with the idea. He knew he couldn't crash the system. He couldn't face two hundred million people and all of a sudden become their leader. Yet, he knew that he could do something, which others didn't even seem to take into account. There was in him one very pristine strength. Something more important than all the knowledge of the world he gained over the years, all the experiences he had, all the people he had ever encountered. In his blood, there was the blood of his father who, by means of natural cataclysm, obtained the land of this country, and the blood of his brother, who was its irreplaceable leader. And as the owner of the same exact blood, he was able to do what had to be done. He was going to kill Jacob.

It was brilliant. Not even the plan but the initial idea. Implementing the plan, however, proved to be even more difficult than he would have imagined. While Gemma, due to her exceptional physique, was welcomed in N. as one of its people, she was being cared for and protected as all of them were and would be until some unspecific future event, it was quite impossible to get to N. otherwise. Melquiades was old and not particularly attractive. He couldn't do anything about it and even though he wanted and had all the necessary qualifications, such as education and literacy, some gates were to him closed for ever. There were only a few categories of people who could enter N. without being killed instantly. One of them were those lucky few who thanks to their physical features could fit in the strict pattern of N. citizens. In the past, it was apparently frequent and people put a lot of effort in educating their children and allowing them a better future in N. Such practices started to be less common, as people stopped taking care of their children. Taking into account the fleeting possibility of actually living longer than your progeny in that roller-coaster lottery of life and death, Melquiades wasn't particularly surprised that all family bonds weakened and the parent-child relationship was biological, animalistic and short. He even suspected that if it wasn't for him, Gemma might have been killed or mutilated as any N. citizen within the borders of K. The distant N. rose fear, but any genuine N.-like person when in K. must have risen only hostility.

As far as crossing the border was concerned, there were no planes, no cars and no roads leading to N. The only trains available were allowed only to those able to legitimize with N. passes. Every few years a group of N. engineers entered K. in search of exceptionally talented youngsters who could build dames from wooden sticks, bridges from pavement plates or simple huts somewhere high on tree branches. N. couldn't live without K. as looks weren't enough to keep N. alive. Melquiades saw flaws in Jacob's system, as he had often seen mistakes in his school homework. Jacob wasn't paying attention. Melquiades hoped that there lied his advantage. Jacob could have always been proven wrong.

The key was numbers. There was no official registration of K. people. For years they didn't conduct surveys concerning the name, age, place of birth or habitation. They didn't see any point in such actions as everything was temporary and the population was growing so fast. They didn't keep the record of every citizen but somehow they knew when the population changed and those changes were leading to the final means. The elderly didn't know anything. They didn't know how people were counted and how N. knew that K. was growing in strength. And that it had to be deprived of that strength by reminding its people where their ultimate place was, that is on N.'s plates.

Melquiades needed connections. He needed a very fluent passage between the two areas. A lasting and uninhibited web. He had already one person in N. Gemma was wasting her days, bored and isolated, and now she might come of use. But Melquiades needed one more person to keep an eye on everything. To be sure that his expectations were right. He needed one person from N. But how could he do that? They were eating thousands of K. people while not a single person from N. had been seen by Melquiades over the years he spent in his old house.
How could he get anyone from there to his place? Suddenly he laughed at himself. And then he laughed at his own ignorance.
Only then these silly letters that he had been getting from one curious boy finally put a piece to his puzzle.

He opened his drawer and once again opened the envelope. This time he read the content carefully. He took a piece of paper and a pen and wrote as nicely as he could.

Dear John,

I am most privileged to welcome you at my place and be your host for as long as it is necessary for you to know the habits, customs, languages and cultural differences that shape our country. I can offer you a peaceful room with all the necessary facilities and answers to your questions. I hope that our cooperation will have a positive influence on your scientific career. You have to prepare all the necessary documents as the administration is not yet established in our land. In return, I only ask for the same favor. I would like to spend a couple of weeks in N. just to learn the habits and customs of your people. I hope it won't pose a serious problem for you.

Best wishes,

Melquiades

He sealed the envelope and put it in the drawer for things he stored for Gemma. It looked particularly important among the set of uneven crayons that she had been using as a child, and now badly wanted to use again to cover the walls in her white block of flats.