Pages 971–972
An unspecified room, an unspecified day very near the ones you've been reading: Orin wakes drugged, with a possibly broken foot, inside a huge inverted bathroom tumbler of green glass — a gargling-glass scaled to cage size, watery deep-ocean light, his own breath fogging the sides. Outside the glass: his latest Subject, the "dexterous and adoring Swiss hand-model" you met on pp. 565–67, and the shy wheelchaired "fan" who shares her accent. Third person, close on Orin, until the final paragraph steps outside him. It's barely two pages, and it ends in deliberate phobic cruelty — roaches, a lot of them — rendered fast and cold.
Terms, in order of appearance
- the Subject (p. 971) — Orin's standing word for the women he pursues; in his vocabulary since the Phoenix pages (pp. 42–49).
- louvered (p. 971) — slatted; the vent's angled strips.
- #71 (p. 972) — Orin's pro jersey number, attached to him since pp. 42–49.
- technical interview (p. 972) — separatist jargon: interrogation; the phrase from the 19-November plans (p. 845).
- Luria P——— (p. 972) — a name threaded through the separatist side since the DuPlessis pages (pp. 87–95); the dash is the book's own redaction.
After you read: three things
1. You have seen this apparatus before — from above. In Phoenix, Orin trapped the sewer roaches that horrified him under inverted glass tumblers and left them to suffocate (pp. 42–49). Now he's inside one, "the sort of thing that would have to be made special" (p. 971), CO2 steaming the glass — and then the vent opens and the roaches pour "blackly and shinily" in. The scene never points at the symmetry; it was built for a reader who was in that Phoenix kitchen.
2. The unmasking happens in a preposition. The adoring Subject meets his eye steadily but acknowledges nothing, and Orin registers that she is now "looking at his eyes rather than into them as previously" (p. 971) — months of apparent adoration revealed as technical observation, one word deep. Watch his defense, too: he classifies the whole experience as a bad dream, and the amplified demand is so surreal it makes him grateful — nightmares don't have to be survived.
3. The question through the vent, and what he shouts back. "Where Is The Master Buried" (p. 972) — the hunt you've tracked since the mountainside conversations, put as one amplified demand; you heard Joelle hand the other side a partial answer on p. 941. Orin's response when the roaches come is "Do it to her! Do it to her!" — "her" never identified; if it rings a literary bell, Orwell's Room 101 breaks its prisoner at "Do it to Julia!" And notice the final paragraph's quiet switch: the narration starts calling Orin "the Subject."
Written only from this scene and earlier pages. Safe to read before you start.