Numbers in the Dark and Other Stories - Italo Calvino [33]
Paolino had immediately run to Signora Dirce. ‘Do you know what those machines make?’ he had asked her, hoping to catch her out; the man in the white coat had just explained that the machines didn't produce anything, but managed all the company's business, they looked after the accounts, they knew everything that happened and that was going to happen.
‘Those?’ Signora Dirce had said, ‘you can't even catch mice with those, I'm telling you. You want to know something? The company that markets those machines is owned by the brother-in-law of Dr Pistagna, so he got SBAV to buy them. That's what happened.’
Paolino had shrugged his shoulders: once again it was clear that Signora Dirce didn't understand anything: she didn't even realize that those machines knew the past and the future, that they would operate offices on their own one day, and the offices would be deserted and empty like now at night. Dragging the bag with the wastepaper after him, Paolino tries to imagine how it will be then, to concentrate on that idea, as far as possible from his mother and Signora Dirce, but there is always something that prevents him, a sort of jarring presence. What is it?
He is going into an office to get the wastebin when someone shouts ‘Oh!’ in fright. A man and a woman staying late for overtime have seen a shock of hair bristling like a porcupine peep round the door, then the litde boy with his green and red striped jersey coming in dragging a big bag behind him. Unhappily Paolino realizes that that intruding presence is no other than his own.
The office workers on the other hand seem to be in tune with the room. She is a redhead, with glasses, while the man's hair is shiny with brilliantine. He is dictating numbers to her and she is typing them out. Paolino stops to watch them. The man dictating feels the need to walk about, but the way he moves amongst the tables, always turning at right-angles, it's as if he were in a maze. He approaches the girl again, then goes away again; the numbers pour down like dry hail, the keys raise and lower the typewriter's little hammers, the man's nervous hands touch the desk calendar, the papertrays, the backs of the seats, and everything they meet is metal. At one point the girl makes a mistake, stops to rub it out against the drum, and for a moment everything takes on a softer almost caressing feel; the man repeats the number in a quieter voice, places his hand on the back of her seat, and she arches her back so it just brushes his hand, and their eyes lose that fixed glaze of concentration as they meet for a moment. But the rubbing out is over now; she begins to drum on the keys again, he to fire off the figures; they separate, all is as before.
Paolino has to go and get the wastebin; to strike an attitude he starts whistling. The two stop, raise their eyes. Paolino points at the bin. ‘Go ahead, please.’ Paolino goes over to it, his lips pursed as though to whistle, but without making any sound. As he goes towards the bin the two take a moment's involuntary break, and during this break they come together again, their hands brush against each other, and their eyes stop darting about and turn to meet each other. Slowly Paolino opens the mouth of his bag, lifts the bin; the young man and the girl are about to smile at each other. With a brusque twist of the hand, Paolino turns the bin upside down, then bangs on the bottom to have the paper fall in the sack; the office worker and the typist are already furiously at work again, he dictating numbers one right after the other, she bent over her typewriter, her red hair covering her face.
‘Paolino! Paolino! Come and hold the steps for me!’
Paolino's mother is cleaning windows on a step-ladder. Paolino goes to hold it for her. Pushing her mop back and forth across the floor, Signora Dirce has words to say about the lack of doormats: What would it cost a company like this to buy a few doormats, so they don't tread mud into the offices … But no, who cares when it's always us