Travels in Nihilon

Chapter 11

One must always expect the unexpected in a country such as Nihilon, thought Adam, yet the unexpected could not be called the unexpected if one expected it. Be prepared for all surprises, but being prepared cut out the risk of being surprised, and so whatever happened that shocked you was always an unexpected surprise. There seemed no way around the problem.

The road changed from a broad, beckoning, tarmacadamized highway to a narrow, twisting, hilly, potholed, semi-bridlepath, so that it was often necessary to get off and push his bicycle under a rain of his own sweat.

Holes were more numerous on level or downhill stretches of the road, when he might otherwise have made good speed, but almost non-existent on uphill climbs when he had to get off and walk anyway, so that soon he was caked in dust, and feeling hungry again. A hundred-ton lorry came toiling up the hill, grinding slowly by, and the driver cheerfully indicated that he should throw his bicycle in the back for a lift to Nihilon City, but Adam refused with a comradely wave, for his instructions were to cycle the whole way, though later as he sat down to rest by the roadside he wondered why he bothered to obey such an order.

Before him was a great slogan-noticeboard which said:

He opened the dead soldier’s map, extracted from the hollow butt of the rifle, and saw that the next sizeable town was a place called Fludd, which he hoped to reach by nightfall. According to preliminary notes given out at the office before leaving, there was no hotel between where he was now and the seaport of Shelp, though this information was based on hearsay and rumour, or taken from pre-civil war guidebooks. He certainly wanted to avoid nine hours under the stars in this desolate country.

At the summit of the next hill the sun spread an orange glare across dark-green flowing hills, reflecting light back into his eyes. The region now seemed more populated, for several localities lay ahead, one of which he thought might be the town of Fludd where he hoped to find a hotel.

The road surface improved, before reaching a restaurant called Rover’s Roadhouse. He leaned his bicycle against its balustrade, and watched a group of youths and girls, reeking of alcohol, come laughing and staggering down the steps. They pushed each other into a black, sleek, high-powered car called a Nil, and after a short struggle as to who would drive, the vehicle moved erratically away in the direction of Nihilon City. He wiped his brow, glad that they would be well ahead of him on the road, for then there would be no danger of them coming on him suddenly from behind.

Prominently displayed in the vestibule was a huge notice in lurid crimson letters saying:

The legend frightened him, and he began to envy the safety of his colleagues who were travelling by train, car, ship, and plane. He and his bicycle seemed so vulnerable and fragile on such perilous highways that he wondered whether he’d get to the end of his assignment. Before leaving home he’d expected an idyllic cycling tour in the smiling countryside of Nihilon, and saw himself writing poem after poem inspired by the sense of liberation that this journey would give him, but so far not a single line had entered his head. In this respect the land was disappointingly barren, for it seemed that all his intellect and imagination would be needed simply in order to survive.

‘No food tonight,’ a waiter called out brusquely. Adam did not intend to eat a meal, only to order the smallest thing, so as to find out what sort of prices were charged: ‘A small cup of black coffee.’

‘Coffee?’ sneered the waiter. ‘Have a bottle of Nihilitz. Make you feel better.’ A bottle with a gaudy red-blue-and-gold label was set on the counter: ‘It’s against the law to drive on coffee.’

‘I’m not driving,’ said Adam. ‘I’m riding a bicycle.’

‘What do you want to drink then?’

‘A small black coffee.’

The waiter moved the bottle away. ‘Have a large one.’

‘Small,’ said Adam.

The waiter glared savagely. ‘Listen, I receive a commission on all I sell, so what do you think I’ll earn on a small cup of black coffee? In any case, it won’t be enough for you. There’s another ten kilometres before you get to Fludd, and it’ll be dark soon. Go on, have a large black coffee. It’ll only cost a hundred pecks.’

‘Pecks?’ Adam cried in astonishment. ‘I thought it was klipps.’

‘That was in the Frontier Zone,’ the waiter informed him. ‘You’re in the Fludd Area now, and all money is in pecks. You should have changed your klipps at the provincial border.’

‘But I didn’t see a bank there,’ Adam said.

‘You should have looked,’ said the waiter smugly.

‘There wasn’t one,’ he cried. ‘You know there wasn’t.’

‘That was a pity, then, for you. All you’ve got to do is pay me fifty pecks for your coffee.’

Adam made an effort to stay clam. ‘Fifty pecks is too much. Anyway, can’t I even have a small cup of black coffee?’

‘You’re wasting my time. Unless you allow me to change it for you. Fifty pecks to a travellers unit.’

‘Fifty?’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘It should be a hundred,’ he ventured.

‘I know, but what about my commission? Do you want my children to starve?’

‘How many do you have?’

‘None. But I have to think about the future.’

He handed over a travellers unit. ‘All right, a large cup of black coffee.’

‘And a glass of Nihilitz?’ said the bartender, happily. ‘Go on, have a drop. Then your breath will smell of it.’

‘I’d rather not,’ said Adam.

‘Well, if the police stop you on the road and see that you haven’t been drinking, and you get ten years in prison, don’t blame me. It’s the most serious crime in Nihilon. We’ve got to keep death on the roads. It’s our only way of holding the population down.’

‘I don’t want any Nihilitz,’ Adam persisted.

The waiter pushed his coffee over so angrily that nearly half of it splashed into the saucer. ‘Fifty pecks.’

‘I could get a night’s lodging at a good hotel for that. It’s extortion.’

‘Oh, is it?’ the waiter jeered. ‘You’d better drink your coffee, before it goes cold, then get back on the road, or I’ll call the police in. You’re creating a disturbance.’

‘Give me your complaints book,’ shouted Adam.

‘The dog ate it.’

‘It’s a lie. I know you’ve got one. All establishments in Nihilon have.’

‘We’re waiting for a new one from the Ministry of Tourism,’ said the waiter, suddenly dispirited at the way things were going.

‘Then I’ll write it on a piece of paper and post it to the Ministry myself. I refuse to be robbed at every place I stop at.’

The waiter began to weep: ‘We shall starve, I know we shall. Nihilon is an underdeveloped country, and we need all the foreign exchange we can get.’

Adam gulped some of his coffee. ‘This country is one of the richest in the world. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.’ This wasn’t exactly true, but as if to prove his point, a score of people crowded into the bar, and waiters appeared from the kitchen to serve them. Steaming plates of food, platters of salad, and baskets of cut bread were carried around. Women fed their children, and men were laughing as they poured out wine and small glasses of Nihilitz.

‘We’re by no means rich,’ said the waiter, ‘so I shan’t give you back your twenty-five pecks.’

‘That’s robbery, then,’ said Adam, almost resigned to it.

‘It looks like it,’ said the waiter jovially. ‘In any case, you’re keeping me from my work. All you have to do is spend a thousand pecks, then you can eat like the rest of these honest Nihilists.’

‘That’s too much. I can’t afford it.’

‘Look at this specimen, ladies and gentlemen,’ the waiter shouted, losing his temper, leaping up on to the counter, though no one took much notice of him. ‘He comes into our country and spends only fifty pecks on a cup of coffee for his dinner. How can we prosper with such tourists? It’s a national disgrace that these vagabonds are allowed over the frontier. I expect he has only a few travellers units in his pocket, maybe even less if we hold him upside down and shake him. They should make sure at the frontier that no one enters our great country with less then ten thousand units in his wallet. How else can our national economy survive? It shows how careless our customs officials are these days, not to mention our lazy police.’

A policeman came from one of the far tables, and told him to shut up.

‘Why should I?’ screamed the waiter. ‘The police are even worse than foreigners. You expect to be fed free, otherwise you make all sorts of trouble, and alter the laws to suit yourselves.’

The policeman took out his gun, and when the waiter went back to washing glasses, he asked Adam for his passport, and in an inspired mood of desperation Adam said: ‘I haven’t got one.’

‘I know you haven’t,’ said the policeman, handing it to him. ‘Your pocket was picked while you were arguing with the waiter. I’m giving it back to you.’

Adam blushed, and trembled, thinking that he must be more careful. ‘Thank you.’

‘Not at all,’ said the policeman. ‘It’s just one of our courtesy services for distressed travellers. There’s a reward of three hundred pecks for returned passports.’

‘I haven’t got three hundred,’ he said, choking with irritation.

‘Then I shall have to arrest you,’ said the policeman.

‘Whatever for?’

‘For losing your passport.’

‘But I didn’t lose it. My pocket was picked.’

‘That’s your story. Try telling it to the police.’

‘So you aren’t a policeman?’

‘Yes, I am, but not when I’m claiming my reward. Police regulations state that during the few seconds when a reward is handed over you cease to be a policeman. That time, of course, is when many of my dear brethren are killed, and the reward turns out to be one of a fatal kind. Anyway, I’ll trouble you for three hundred pecks.’

‘I refuse. Let me see a copy of your regulations.’

‘He’s a very hard man, sir,’ said the waiter to the policeman.

‘I’m still writing my regulations,’ said the policeman. ‘They won’t be ready till tomorrow night. I’m very slow at it because I have to think about them carefully. Every regulation can be taken two ways, so that when I arrest people like you, as I do now, you don’t have any chance of getting away with it.’

It was obvious to Adam that he couldn’t win, and that the only chance of keeping sane was to submit to every injustice that came along. He held out his hands, inviting the policeman to handcuff him.

‘Don’t be impatient,’ said the policeman with a smile. ‘There’s no hurry. I’ve got years yet, before I bring my career to a successful conclusion. You can cash some travellers units at the bar, then pay me the three hundred pecks. Waiter!’

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Our friend would like to change some money.’

Adam was shocked into silence, merely nodded when the waiter looked unbelievingly at him and enquired: ‘How many, sir?’

The transaction was quick, the cheques by-passing Adam and going straight into the policeman’s pocket.

‘You ought to buy me a drink now,’ the policeman said. ‘It’s not every day that I recover somebody’s passport for them.’

‘It’s not, sir, is it?’ said the waiter respectfully. Adam put a twenty-peck note back on the counter and asked for Nihilitz. Four large bottles of urine-coloured liquid were set before them. ‘I can’t pay for all that,’ he said, shocked at such a quantity, and not wanting to be caught out again.

‘You already have,’ said the waiter. ‘It’s only five pecks a bottle.’ The policeman drank a tumblerful straight off, and the waiter did likewise, after pouring a little into Adam’s glass and saying: ‘I wouldn’t drink much if I were you. You’re not used to it.’ But it melted into Adam’s mouth like snow on a hot day, and he immediately felt better, whatever the after-effects might be. His anxious state of mind drifted away.

‘He drinks like a true native of the country,’ the waiter said to the policeman, both of whom had already started on the second bottle.

‘Not too much, though,’ the policeman cautioned Adam, clinking glasses with him nevertheless. This was obviously what he had needed ever since firing his fateful shot at the frontier, he thought, reaching out to pour another quarter-litre. The policeman glanced disapprovingly, fearing that he might drink it all and leave none for them. Most of the diners had now left, and those few who remained looked at the policeman and the waiter drinking with such outrageous greed at the bar. It passed through Adam’s mind that he should not drink on an empty stomach, but the ambrosial liquid tempted him, and dulled him with such calm solicitude that he could not resist finishing his large glass as if its contents were water.