The Orchids by Thomas H. Cook

research you intend to pursue in the future will almost certainly reside within the auspices of the state. I’m not suggesting that it is absolutely necessary, but those who have already made connections with the new regime will, I think it’s fair to say, be given precedence in terms of appointment. This sort of thing is unavoidable, I’m afraid. Simply one of the realities of the world, Herr Langhof. I’m merely being realistic. Do you understand my concern?”
    â€œYes, Dr. Trottman,” Langhof said, “I appreciate your concern.”
    â€œThink about it, then,” Dr. Trottman said. “I assure you that your current attitude will not affect your admission into the medical school. It’s later on, after graduation, that concerns me and, I think, should concern you.”
    â€œYes, I see. Thank you, sir.”
    Dr. Trottman offered his hand. “Well, in any case, welcome to the university community.”
    â€œThank you, Dr. Trottman.”
    Langhof walked out of Dr. Trottman’s office. Evening had fallen. The city lights were alive and winking. A small, grainy snow had begun to fall, like pellets, bluish white, into the city’s web of neon light.

I F YOU HAD BEEN there you would know the historical dimensions of the I. You would know that teleology begins with satisfaction and crumbles as it crumbles, that it is built upon the swollen hump of a full stomach and that need sucks it down like a collapsing bellows. You would know that the tailor will not forsake his shop, nor the actor his role; that the dentist will not give up his practice, nor the teacher his classes, nor the architect his plans, nor the writer his latest work of art; that the farmer will not avoid his fields, nor the painter his canvas; that the musician will not unstring his violin, the policeman forget his keys, or the shopkeeper lay waste his goods; that these and millions of others will not skip a beat in the maintenance of their quotidian affairs merely because the world is going up in smoke.
    This is the catastrophe of the I, that through it we are rooted in place, nailed to professions and careers. Imprisoned in the I, we clothe ourselves in the robes of predictability, cling to our routine like insects on a floating leaf, hold with battered claws to whatever is familiar, and, above all, refuse to see the world even for one moment through a wall of flame.
    And so it was the I, the ambitious medical student bent upon the road of science — anxious for his laboratory and his appointment, made whole by a thousand acquisitions, and immersed in the glories of hygiene — who pondered the generous words of the illustrious Dr. Trottman.
    In the world beyond his little room a million torches flickered in parade, while drums and bugles swelled in the chorus of the Coming Order. All was to be made clean. All was to be made pure. This was the voice of the future. And yet, the anxious hygienist remained curiously impervious to the rhetoric that roared around him. Having gained some sense of the bestial from his mother’s mutterings and his stepfather’s oily fingers, the fervent student held back from final commitment. Although he listened carefully to the speeches of the Minister of Light and even felt a little tingle of nationalist pride from time to time, still the raging voice and hysterical gesticulation of the Minister struck our hero as insufferably melodramatic. Even worse were the ravings of the Minister of Biology, with his ridiculous, medieval calculations of the width of vermin noses. This was not science. This was politics. And it was between these two huge stones that the ambitious student felt himself to be inescapably wedged. Without politics there could be no opportunity for science. In order to hold forth the pure light of inquiry, he would have to pass through the net of political conformity.
    And so our hero stood by the window and watched the world go by. He saw the fat