Travels in Nihilon

Chapter 15

With his heavy trunks at last on deck, he leaned over the rail to catch the attention of a boatwoman below, so that the stack of impedimenta could be rowed ashore. He waved, and called, and from between the wharf and the ship a woman suddenly skiffed towards the lowered gangplank. She was young and buxom, wearing slacks and sweater, with attractive arms and long black hair falling in a loose rope behind. ‘Will you be able to handle it all?’ he asked, feeling guilty at its bulk and weight when she looked at it from the top of the steps.

Her eyes turned from it and took in his own person, as if she would sling him over her shoulder and take him down to the boat as well. ‘I can handle any weight,’ she smiled. ‘I’m a woman.’

Though he was ready to assist her by taking the other end of each trunk, she picked the first one up, slung it on her shoulder, and walked nimbly down the gangplank to her boat. So he stayed on deck smoking a cigar, then took a sheet of cartridge paper from his briefcase and made a quick panorama of the buildings and dock facilities along the waterfront. He thought of sketching the shape of the mountain range behind as well, but the afternoon air was so beautiful and soft, and the sight of an attractive woman humping his trunks and boxes down into a boat so conducive to his momentary indolence that he was unable to do anything more than enjoy the scenery.

She beckoned him, and he descended the ladder, stepping over his luggage to the middle of the boat. Facing her while she rowed, he watched her broad shoulders bend at the oars, and her full breasts dip towards him at each strong stroke. Her coal-black eyes beamed into him, and he tried to avoid their stare by aiming his own blank gaze over her shoulder or to the side of the boat, glad at last to be going ashore, and through such calm and iridescent water, the bows cutting away to the muffled sound of the city that stretched around the horse-shoe bay.

‘Do you work long hours at your job?’ he asked, thinking to deflect her stare that, in a more democratic and orderly country, would have been called brazen. She leaned forward, took the cigar from his mouth, and threw it into the water. Its hot end sizzled and floated away, and she stopped rowing — to kiss him on the lips. Her action astounded him, and without exactly wanting to, in some way fearful of offending her, he drew back slightly, though she seemed not to notice this, but resumed her rowing as vigorously as before. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ she said, in a light and musical voice, ‘I want you, that’s all.’

‘How friendly of you,’ he responded. ‘But I’m a busy man, and I’m not really available.’

She laughed again, and he was struck by the tenderness in her voice: ‘I know. But it doesn’t stop me telling you what I feel, does it?’ He wondered if she made such speeches to all her customers, in order to ply a little trade out of hours, as it were, but this thought was crushed when she added: ‘I’ll pay for it. Perhaps we can have dinner at your hotel tonight. I earn a lot of money at this work.’

Something ought to be said, but he could find no way out of his dilemma, except to sit still. ‘I saw you from the shore,’ she added, ‘through my binoculars, and I decided that I wanted you. That’s why I rowed faster than any of the others.’

‘Do you find your job very arduous?’ he asked. ‘Or monotonous?’

‘Never,’ she answered, with a gay and throaty laugh. ‘I have lots of adventures. I don’t think I would change it for another, unless one day I have to take a job in an office, or unless I get married first, though I never want to enter into such an awful state as that. I’m too fond of my work.’ She leaned forward and kissed him again, and this time, because the shock was less in that they had already become acquainted, he found it a more pleasant experience.

They were approaching the grey wall of the wharf, when a sudden deep roar sounded as if from under the old town, sending faint ripples along the surface of the water. ‘Those Cronacians must have started something again,’ she said, at the chatter of machine-gun fire that followed. ‘It’s an emergency, so we’d better disembark on the west side of the bay.’

Helicopter blades made a flower-shadow beside the boat, while sirens wailed ominously from a hill on the outskirts. Another explosion burst from the town, more threatening than the first, leaving a tree of smoke over it. Dust showered down on to their boat. Edgar noticed streaks of sweat on the boatwoman’s face, and felt his mouth going dry from what he considered to be quite natural anxiety. A breeze chopped the water and made his face cold, and the lady-rower changed course and skimmed the heavily laden craft parallel with the long wharf, heading for the dark orange sun hanging smokily above the rim of far-off mountains.

Her energetic work soon took them beyond the built-up area, and then towards an empty beach still some way off. He thought it might after all be an advantage to make this unobtrusive landing on Nihilon, since it would save trouble getting through the customs. The sort of luggage he carried was bound to look suspicious, no matter what country he landed in.

The leaden light of dusk spread over the water, and firing from the city, though as brisk as ever, was merely a violent backdrop to the peace around them. A few wind-battered oak-trees rose beyond the dunes, and as the bottom of the boat scraped sand, his stout but comely rower leapt out and hauled it on to dry land. When it tilted she indicated that Edgar stay in, otherwise he would get his feet wet, but he leaped out because he was afraid of being spread-eagled into the briny water, and this unexpected action upset the balance of the boat, which, being overloaded, tilted abruptly on its side, sending trunks and boxes into the sea.

‘You fool,’ she shouted angrily, hauling one of his cases deftly on to the sand. ‘That was a very undemocratic thing to do when I told you to sit still.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and he was, at the feel of cold water clinging heavily to his skin. But she bore no grudge, and was soon pulling his luggage safely ashore then wading up to her waist to recover the boat. She put an arm around his shoulder: ‘Don’t worry. You’re on Nihilon soil at last. I’ll show you the way to the customs now.’

He followed her up the steep sand-dunes, thinking it bad news that the customs was still to come. From the summit he saw two large tents standing in an area of flat land, several hundred metres away, a high flag-mast between them with a light at the top. ‘Go into one of those tents,’ she said, ‘and I’ll follow with your luggage.’

She kissed him, then ran back towards the shore, taking two pair of wheels from the locker on which he had been sitting, and clipping them to the bottom of the boat. He had never seen a woman of such strength, but she worked gracefully, and he watched with pleasure as she loaded his luggage on to what was now a trolley, put a thick rope over her shoulders, and began the fearful job of hauling it down the beach towards a gap in the dunes. He hurried on, in case she got to the customs before him.

It was almost dark, and he wondered which tent he should enter, but his doubts were soon resolved, for an illuminated notice on one tent said: BELOVED AND FORTUNATE CITIZENS OF NIHILON — THIS WAY, while at the entrance to the other was written: FOREIGN SCUM — IN HERE. The tone of this last one seemed offensive, though it did uncomfortably remind him of similar notices installed at the ports and customs posts of his home country. However, this was no time for pride or regret. He could hardly go back to the ship, for there was a guidebook to be written, so he took off his hat, and entered.

A group of customs officers stood behind a trestle table, on which Edgar saw his trunk that had been missing from the boat. At the sight of him they all walked away but one, who held a clipboard in his hand and called out: ‘Come here, you.’ He thrust the clipboard under Edgar’s nose. ‘Can you read?’

‘Of course.’

‘Read this, then, sir. And when I say read it, I mean read it aloud.’

Edgar held it, and spoke out in a clear voice:

‘Travellers to Nihilon are absolutely forbidden to bring anything at all into the country. What they do bring in is left to the discretion of the individual customs officer concerned. The traveller is respectfully reminded however that the job of customs officer is an arduous and often unappreciated one, and is hereby enjoined to comport himself with dignity and patience in his presence. Very often the customs officer with whom it is your privilege to deal is burdened by overwork. It may well be that he has a wife, and several children whom he desires to educate to the best of his humble ability. He carries an inordinate amount of worry on his honest brow, but his spirit is great, for all that. This monotonous and inhuman job calls for qualities of profound sympathy and humanity, and your customs officer aspires to live up to these lofty ideals. Behind his pale and harassed face resides an infinite capacity for kindliness, and the traveller is hereby requested to put forth all his co-operation, and assist the customs officer in his task.’

The clipboard was snatched away: ‘Do you understand that, pig?’

‘Yes,’ said Edgar. The boatwoman hauled his luggage into the tent, and her smile made him feel that he had at least one true friend in Nihilon. She moved him gently aside, and stacked his belongings on the table.

‘Let’s get down to business,’ said the customs officer, a shade more polite now that Edgar’s protectress had appeared. ‘Anything to declare?’

‘All this,’ he said. ‘I’ve nothing to hide.’

‘Don’t try to trick me, or you’ll get ten years in the army. What about your porter and her boat-trolley? That’s all counted as traveller’s luggage. You’ll have to pay for her, as well. I don’t suppose you’ve even paid her for the work she’s done yet. You’d better pay her first.’

Edgar decided to be obstinate, in spite of the matchless prose on the clipboard. ‘Not until she’s through the customs.’

‘So you don’t trust me? You’re one of those foreigners who come to Nihilon with distrust in his heart, are you? You get some notion that you’re going to be imprisoned, punched, cheated, humiliated, shot at, chased and in general hijacked, robbed, tricked and badly treated, from those squealing liars who’ve already gone back and told tales about us. They spoil everything.’

‘Not at all,’ said Edgar. ‘I’d like to know what I have to pay, so that I can go to a hotel. I’ve had a long day, and I’m tired.’

‘I’ll be frank with you,’ said the customs officer. ‘How much can you afford?’

‘Isn’t it up to you to state a price?’

The customs officer thought for a moment. ‘How about two thousand klipps?’

This was the cost of several nights at a luxury hotel, as far as he understood the crazy scale of values in Nihilon. ‘I imagined that a thousand would cover everything.’

The customs officer clapped a hand to his brow. ‘Is that all?’ he wailed. ‘That’s no use to me. I can’t live like this I’ll lose my reason. It’s impossible.’

The boatwoman took a small bulging purse from the locker of the trolley, shouting: ‘Here’s five hundred,’ and threw a screwed-up note across the table so that it rolled on to the floor. ‘Now let him go. Can’t you see he’s tired?’ She turned to Edgar: ‘Come on, my dear,’ and under the sullen eyes of the customs officer loaded his goods back on to her trolley.

‘But I haven’t had my passport stamped,’ Edgar said, holding it up.

She thrust it out to the customs officer: ‘Stamp it!’

‘No,’ he sulked.

‘I’ll do it then.’

He went back a pace: ‘No, you won’t.’

She ran around the table, grasped him by the hand, and twisted his arm halfway up his back: ‘Tell me where the stamp is.’

‘In the box under the table!’

‘If it isn’t,’ she said, ‘I’ll screw your arm off.’

He turned pale, as she increased the pressure: ‘All right. It’s in the bottom left pocket of my tunic. Now-let-me-go!’ She pulled out the rubber stamp with her free hand, then released him, a smile on her face as she admired Edgar’s passport photograph, before pressing the official entry sign on to a clean and empty page.

‘You’ll lose your licence for this,’ the customs officer shouted vindictively.

‘I never had one,’ she answered, as they went out of the tent.

It was dark. ‘Where can I get a taxi?’

‘There aren’t any,’ she told him. ‘They’ve gone to see the fighting. But I’ll take you to a hotel. There’s a good one on the edge of the city, where we won’t be disturbed by the insurrection.’

The sharp crack of small-arms fire came through the night, interspersed by the crump of bombs and shells. He wondered how she had the strength to drag such a massive load over wet and sandy earth, amazed that she even asked him to ride on top instead of walking. They came to a paved road, with lights in the distance. An ambulance drove by from the town: ‘There’s certainly a battle going on,’ he observed, walking by her side while she strained at the load.

‘It’s supposed to be trouble with Cronacia,’ she said, ‘but I’m not so sure. I can’t believe everything that’s said about them. Our countries are such enemies that I sometimes suspect we’re friends.’ She had paused under a blue street-lamp. The one beyond was orange, and the one after that was green, and she told him that all street-lamps in Nihilon were of different colours. He thought this must make it rather perilous for night drivers, though startlingly attractive to pedestrians, as it now was to him.

They came to an enormous hotel. It had only been open a fortnight, she said, which was why the surrounding area was not yet paved. To reach the front entrance they had to cross a hundred metres of thick mud, and though she had great difficulty in hauling his luggage through it, she still would not let him help. He tried to insist, and take the rope from her by force, but she pushed him away haughtily, saying she could manage quite well on her own.

Weary and mudstained, they walked at last between the opened glass doors and across the immaculate grey carpet. The manager was fixing a light bulb into a socket above the reception counter, and Edgar’s companion pulled at his coat-tails to let him know that he had customers.

He got down. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I’d like a single room, with bath,’ said Edgar, ‘in a quiet situation and facing south.’

‘We’d like a double room, with bath, on as high a floor as possible,’ said his female porter, ‘so that we can have a good view of the fighting in the morning.’

‘We’re hoping it will be over by then,’ the manager smiled.

‘I’d like a single room,’ Edgar insisted. ‘I’m very tired.’

‘Sign here,’ said the manager.

His companion wrote her name in the book, and the manager told two young men to bring their luggage in. Another young man motioned them into a lift, and pressed a button: ‘We’re going to room 404. It’s a suite really, but we don’t have such distinguished guests as you every day.’

Edgar, trying to avoid the open and all-devouring gaze of his companion, wanted to know the price of it, having forgotten to ask the manager.

‘404,’ said the young man, grinning at the amorous boat-lady as she fondled her lover.

‘Not the number of the room,’ he said irritably, trying to push her away. ‘The price.’

‘404,’ the young man repeated. ‘In this hotel the number of the room is also the price. The higher you go, the better the room, the bigger the price. It avoids misunderstanding. How many weeks will you be staying?’

‘Overnight,’ he said, ‘or perhaps two’ — feeling his hand squeezed, and appalled at the expense of the accommodation.

‘Is that all?’ said the youth in a hostile manner. He thrust the key into Edgar’s hand when the lift stopped, and pointed up the corridor: ‘You can find your own room, if that’s the case.’