Numbers in the Dark and Other Stories - Italo Calvino [66]
In every local organization and at every level of the movement, a group of activists, distinct from the leaders and whose members were constandy being changed, took charge of the amputations; they established the frequency and the parts of the body, they arranged for the purchase of disinfectants, and, availing themselves of the advice of an expert or two, they themselves handled the instruments. It was a sort of committee of wise men, but with no influence over political decisions which remained stricdy in the hands of the Executive Committee.
When the leaders began to run short of fingers, they looked into the possibility of one or two anatomical variations. The first thing to attract their attention was the tongue: not only did it lend itself to further resections of slivers or fibrils, but in symbolic and mnemonic terms it was exacdy what they were after: every little cut directly affected vocal and oratorical ability. But the technical difficulties inherent in the delicacy of the organ were greater than was at first thought. After an early series of operations, tongues were discarded, and the committee fell back on more obvious but less taxing mutilations: ears, noses, a tooth or two. (As far as amputation of the testicles was concerned, though not absolutely ruled out, it was almost always avoided, since it could lend itself to sexual innuendo.)
There's a long way to go. The hour of revolution has yet to strike. The leaders of the movement continue to subject themselves to the scalpel. When will they take power? However late it is, they will be the first leaders not to disappoint the hopes others have placed in them. Already we see them parading through flag-draped streets the day of their investiture: lurching on wooden legs if they still have one of their own intact; pushing walking frames with one arm if they still have an arm to push with, faces hidden in feathered masks to hide the more repugnant mutilations, some holding aloft their own scalps as trophies. At that point it will be clear that it's only in what little flesh is left them that power can be incarnated, if any power there is still to be.
The Burning of the Abominable House
In a few hours' time S killer, the insurance agent, will be coming to ask me for the computer results, and I still haven't keyed in the orders to the electronic circuits which will have to grind to a fine dust of bits both Widow Roessler's secrets and her hardly to be recommended boarding house. Where the house once stood, between railway lines and iron stockyards, on one of those humps of wasteland our city's suburbs leave behind like heaps of dirt that have escaped the broom, nothing is left but charred rubble now. It could have been a smart villa originally, or it may have looked no better than a ghostly hovel: insurance company reports have nothing to say on the matter; and now it has burnt down, from eaves to cellar, and the incinerated corpses of its four inhabitants have left no clue that might serve to reconstruct the events that led up to this secluded slaughter.
Rather than the bodies, what does offer a clue is a copybook found in the ruins, entirely burnt except for its cover which was protected by a plastic folder. On the front it says: An Account of the Abominable Deeds Committed in this House and on the back there is an index with twelve entries in alphabetical order: Blackmail, Drugging, Incitement to Suicide, Knifing, Prostitution, Threatening with a Gun, Tying and Gagging, Rape, Seduction, Slander, Snooping, Strangling.
It isn't known which of the house's inhabitants penned this sinister summary,