The Palace of Dreams Read Online Free PDF Page A

advancing shoulder to shoulder. He was impressed by the number of people employed in the Tabir Sarrail. There were hundreds of them, perhaps thousands.
    The sound of footsteps grew louder, especially on the stairs. After descending one flight they went down a long straight corridor, then down another lot of stairs. Mark-Alem noticed that the windows grew narrower on every landing. It seemed to him they must be heading for some kind of basement. By now all the people were crowded together in one mass. He could make out the separate scents of coffee and salep even before they got to the refreshment room. It reminded him of breakfast in their own big house. He was filled with another wave of delight. In the distance he could see long counters with dozens of assistants handing out steaming bowls of salep and cups of coffee. He let himself be swept toward the counters. Amid the general hubbub you could hear people sipping their coffee or herb tea, brief bursts of coughing, the clink of coins. A lot of these people seemed to have colds, unless after being silent for hours on end they needed to clear their throats before starting to speak.
    After being pressed into a queue, Mark-Alem found himself stuck near a counter, unable to move either forward or back. He realized other people were pushing in front of him, reaching over his head to take cups or pay for them, but he was determined not to let it bother him. Anyhow, he didn’t really want anything to eat or drink. He stayed where he was, shunted back and forth by the crowd, his only concern to do the same as everyone else.
    “If you don’t move yourself you won’t get anything to drink!” said a voice behind him. “You might let me through, at any rate!”
    Mark-Alem made way at once. The person who’d spoken, apparently surprised by his eagerness to oblige, looked round curiously. He had a long ruddy face with nice round cheeks. He stared at Mark-Alem for a moment.
    “Have you just been taken on?”
    Mark-Alem nodded.
    “Yes, that’s obvious.”
    He took another couple of steps toward the counter, then turned and said, “What’ll you have? Coffee or salep?”
    Mark-Alem was tempted to say, “Nothing, thanks,” but that might have seemed odd. And wasn’t he supposed to be trying to be like everyone else and not draw attention to himself?
    “A coffee,” he whispered, but moving his lips enough for the other to understand what he was saying.
    He felt in his pocket for some change, but meanwhile his new acquaintance had turned around again and reached the counter. Mark-Alem, waiting, couldn’t help hearing snatches of the conversations going on around him. They were like fragments being ground up by some great millstone. But now and then a few audible words or even whole sentences would escape briefly, no doubt to be crushed at the next turn of the wheel. Mark-Alem strained his ears to listen and was astonished at what he heard. These people weren’t talking about the Tabir Sarrail at all, but about the most trivial and ordinary things, such as the cold weather, the quality of the coffee, the races, the national lottery, the flu epidemic in the capital. Not a single word about what went on in this building. You’d have thought they were officials in the Land Office or some ordinary ministry, not that they worked in the famous Palace of Dreams, the most mysterious institution in the whole Empire.
    Mark-Alem saw his new friend emerging from the crush, a cup of coffee balanced precariously in either hand.
    “This queueing—what a bore!” he said, still holding on to both cups as he tried to steer a way to a table that was free among the scores or even hundreds scattered around the room. No chairs were provided, and the tabletops were bare. They served merely as ledges to lean on, and a place to leave empty cups.
    The other man finally found a free table and set down the coffees. Mark-Alem shyly offered the coins he’d been holding in his hand. The other waved them