"Potential, now, that's a murky business. I'm not arguing, maybe everybody's a potential genius, only what's to be done if it can only be applied, say, in the distant past or future, and it isn't regarded as genius now whether you've got it or not? Very good if you're a cooking genius. But how's it going to be discovered that you're a cab-driver of genius, or Pepper's a genius at chipping arrow heads, or I'm a genius at finding an X-field about which nobody knows yet and which won't be discovered for ten years? ... Well then, as the poet said, leisure's black face will turn our way..."
"Boys," said someone, "we've brought no grub with us. While we're traveling and till they pay us..."
"Stoyan'll see us all right."
"Like heck he will. They're on rations there."
"Never mind, we'll last out. There's the checkpoint already."
Pepper extended his neck. In front, the forest stood, a yellow-green wall and the road ran straight into it, like a thread going into a multi-colored carpet. The truck passed by a plywood sign:
ATTENTION! REDUCE SPEED! PREPARE TO SHOW DOCUMENTS!
The striped bar was already visible; it was lowered and had to the left of it a sentry-box, on the right, barbed wire, white insulators, lattice towers with searchlights. The truck came to a halt. Everybody looked at the guard who was dozing with his carbine under his arm, as he stood cross-legged in his box. An extinguished cigarette hung on his lip and the concrete around the box was littered with ends. Next to the box stood a pole with various admonishments nailed to it:
ATTENTION! FOREST! DISPLAY PERMITS! DON'T SPREAD INFECTION! The driver hooted tactfully. The guard opened his eyes and stared muz-zily before him, he then detached himself from the box and walked around the lorry.
"There's plenty of you," said he. "Money, is it?"
"Right first time," said the former presider.
"That's fine, good," said the guard. He circled the vehicle, hoisted himself up onto the step and glanced inside. "Gee, there's a lot of you," he said reproachfully. "What about hands? Hands clean?"
"Yes!" chorused everyone.
"Everybody?"
"Everybody."
"All righty," said the guard, thrusting the top half of his body into the cab. From the cab: "Who's in charge? You? How many you got? Aha ... you telling the truth? Name? Kim? Well now Kirn, I'm writing your surname down... Great, Voldemar! Drive all the time do you? I'm on guard all the time. Show us your pass... Now, now, no snarling, just show us it... Pass in order, otherwise I'd... Why d'you write telephone numbers on your pass? Wait a minute ... what Charlotte is this? Ah yes, I remember. Give it here, I'll write it down as well... Okay, thanks. Drive on. Permission to pass."
He jumped down from the step, raising the dust as he did so, went over to the barrier, and dropped on the counterweight. The barrier slowly rose, and the long underpants strung along it dropped into the dust. The truck started up.
There was a hubbub of conversation in the back, but Pepper heard nothing. He was going into the forest. The forest was getting closer, nearing and massing higher and higher, like an ocean wave and suddenly, it swallowed him. There was no more sun and sky, space or time, the forest had taken their place. All there was, was a flickering of murky tints, thick moist air, incredible smells, fumes rather, and an acrid taste in his mouth. Only sound was untouched by the forest: the noises of the forest were overpowered by the roar of the engine and the chatter of the passengers. So here's the forest, Pepper kept repeating, here I am in the forest, he repeated meaninglessly. Not from up above, but inside, not an observer, a participant. Here I am in the forest. Something cool and moist touched his face, ticklish, detached itself and slowly descended to his knees. He looked down: a long, thin, filament of some plant or other, or maybe some animal, or maybe just the contact of the forest, a friendly greeting or a wary feeling out; he did not touch the filament.
Meanwhile the truck roared along the road of glorious advance; yellow, green and brown meekly sank away behind, while along the verges streamed the untidy, forgotten columns of the veterans of the invading army, black bulldozers upended with shields furiously ripped, tractors buried in the earth as far as the driving-cab, their caterpillar tracks squashed flat and trailing behind them, lorries lacking wheels or glass - everything dead, deserted forever, but maintaining their former fearless gaze ahead, into the depths of the forest with their wrenched radiators and shattered headlights. And all around, the forest stirred, palpitated, and contorted, changing its hues, blurring and flaring up, flowing forward and retreating, deceiving the sight, the forest terrified and mocked and gloated, and it was all strange and it was impossible to describe, and it was nauseating.
