Travels in Nihilon

Chapter 21

After a reasonable night’s sleep (except for a few puzzling rifle-shots sounding through his dreams), and a good breakfast, Richard went out of the hotel and into the main square of Nihilon City. A strong breeze was blowing from the nearby Athelstan Alps, stirring the trees along the pavements. The square was about two hundred metres from north to south and east to west, and in the middle of it — towards which Richard suddenly ran through fast-moving traffic — was a concrete colossus erected to nihilism. He stood before it with open notebook, glad to be working at last. It was supported on four sides by lesser monuments portraying the virtues of Madness and Anarchy, whose great fierce heads were chasing the tails of their enemies, Order and Progress. ‘This vast, towering, sprawling conglomeration of Nihilistic culture,’ he wrote, ‘which seems to have been chipped in many places by bullets, deserves an asterisk in any guidebook. It is to be hoped, however, that a thorough renovation of it will take place before many years go by, because flocks of pigeons have painted it well, which, together with soot presumably blowing in from the industrial suburbs when the wind is in the right direction — have given it a somewhat piebald appearance.’

Much of the square was lined with shops on the lower floors of the buildings, and there were many cafés, as well as several hotels, and from his central position he was able to observe the black ink-blot emblem of Nihilon flying from the roof of the Stock Exchange, while the hammer-and-chisel banner of nihilism itself fluttered from the office of Socialist Private Enterprise.

He referred to a thirty-year-old plan of the city in order to pencil in the positions of these edifices. The old bank was still in the same place, and so was the post, telephone, and telegraph office. The House of Deputies and the Peoples Savings Box were housed in one building, but the doors were closed and they seemed little used.

Several passers-by stopped to look over his shoulder at the map, and many more were standing around. A young man in a threadbare yet fashionable suit, who seemed to have a cold, leaned over and ran his black nihilist fingernail along certain streets. ‘I’ve never seen a map of our city,’ he said with a smile. ‘I’m trying to make out where I live.’

‘Can’t you buy them at the newspaper kiosks?’ Richard said, knowing this to be difficult.

‘Yes,’ answered the young man, carressing the edge of the map as if it were an expensive piece of cloth, ‘a city plan is published monthly, but they are different every time, and don’t in any way resemble the real layout of the town.’

A middle-aged woman with a shopping basket came forward and tugged at the map, crying: ‘What beautiful colours! Is it a real one?’ A huge fellow in cap and overalls elbowed them aside and offered a thousand klipps for it, while Richard vainly tried to fold it up. More people surged towards him, and he hit at a near-by face at the sickening sound of the thick paper tearing. A huge piece of the city vanished. Cars were stopping, and a driver leaned out, shouting: ‘He’s got a coloured street-plan of the city.’

Richard’s notebook was pulled away, and he felt a sly hand draw the fountain-pen from his lapel pocket. Letting this go, he pressed a fist to his coat to hold his wallet safe. Drivers ran from their cars to get at the map, but most of it had already gone, and Richard relinquished the last piece. When the crowd drew away, he leapt clear and into the road, but a few disappointed people were so enraged that they chased him through the traffic, and he ran as if his life was in danger, regretting that he had left the Professor’s revolver in his suitcase at the hotel.

Entering a glass-fronted café, he closed the door behind, ready to defend himself should he be chased and cornered there. But he wasn’t, so sat at a table on the glassed-in terrace, which gave a good view of people in the middle of the square still fighting over what was left of his map. He asked the waiter for a cup of black coffee, as well as a glass of Nihilitz, which he hoped would stop the tremors in his limbs.

He took more sheets of paper from his wallet, and with a pencil wrote his notes again concerning the monstrous and squalid megalith to Nihilism which stood in all-revealing sunlight across the road. He followed this by the comment that: ‘It is inadvisable to open a map in Nihilon, for it immediately draws spectators who are anxious to see what a real map of their city looks like, even though it may be hopelessly out of date. The enquiries that follow upon this act are often good-natured enough, but such curiosity has been known to get out of hand, so that the unfortunate traveller has had his map pulled from him and torn into a thousand pieces. This is no doubt due to a desire for possession, and for topographical orientation, which for no reason suddenly affects the whole crowd. While this is in some way understandable, though not totally commendable, what follows is undeniably bad for the traveller in that those of the mob who are baulked of their object occasionally resort to all but tearing the clothes off his back. For this reason the traveller is advised to have a newspaper with him at all times, in which to place his map while endeavouring to consult it.’

‘Your coffee and Nihilitz,’ said the waiter, disturbing Richard’s somewhat ravelled composition. People outside were running across the square and falling to the ground. A machine gun sent chips of pavement spurting along an arcade. ‘It’s all right,’ said the waiter, amused at Richard’s pallor. ‘The glass at this café is bullet-proof.’ The gun spattered another stretch of pavement and several people had formed a short queue by the monument to buy rifles, revolvers, and ammunition from a stall with a striped awning, before taking cover nearby and firing back with their newly acquired arms. A heavier explosion drummed along one of the side streets. ‘Why is it allowed to sell guns so openly?’

‘It’s hard to say,’ the waiter yawned. ‘Perhaps it’s the war. Cronacia is at it again. It’s all part of the system we live under. Our government, meaning President Nil, floated a commercial company to run a war against Cronacia, so that we could take over that country. That’s what all these border incidents are about, if you want to know the truth. Every citizen of Nihilon is able to buy shares in the Cronacia Reconstructs Company, in order to destroy it and then draw dividends and profits when it’s exploited — I mean occupied. I even bought a few certificates myself. It comes under the heading of Peoples Enterprise Number One, and rates very high on the Stock Exchange. Even foreign countries are beginning to invest in it, hoping to get their share of the spoils — I mean dividends — when Cronacia is finished and on the spit. Not that all is going too well at the moment. The trouble was, that just after our firm got going, the Cronacians found out about it, and so by way of revenge and self-defence, started a company in their own country — also a commercial concern with public shares — to ferment revolution in Nihilon. That may be what is happening now, sir, though it’s early days, and still hard to tell. It could be over by the afternoon, because everybody sleeps for two hours. But if by any chance it picks up again in the evening, then it’s more serious. That’s two hundred klipps, sir.’

Other people on the glassed-in terrace were reading newspapers, or talking quietly, unperturbed at what was happening outside, though to their credit, thought Richard, a few at least were discussing the terrible dam burst at Fludd which had recently taken place. But he kept his attention on the square, where several cars had been driven into the central area and left, presumably as cover for the sharpshooters. Another vehicle in the far corner began to burn. When an ambulance roared in, its siren screeching with inhuman jerks, men in red overalls ran from it to pick up casualties, while other attendants pulled long boxes from it and took them to the gun-stall, which must have been running out of weapons and ammunition. ‘I thought Nihilon was famous for its law and order,’ Richard said to the waiter, by way of a joke.

‘Oh yes, sir, it is. The law of the jungle, and the order of the slaugher-house. Nihilon is the greatest country in the world. Two hundred klipps, sir.’

‘That’s rather expensive,’ Richard said, drinking half the Nihilitz. ‘In fact it’s extortionate.’

‘Bullet-proof glass costs a great deal,’ the waiter informed him politely. ‘We had to replace it twice last week, so you’re lucky to find it here at all.’

Richard passed him two hundred and fifty klipps. ‘What happens to it?’

‘It gets shot away. Or a bomb hits it. But we do our best for our customers.’ He was called to another table, so left Richard to continue scribbling his notes. He was observed by an ageing man with short grey hair, an impeccably dressed, manicured man who was well-groomed and dignified, smooth in all his gestures, neither preoccupied with what might have been going on within himself, nor obsessed with the carnage in the square outside, from where in fact he had recently walked.

The man glanced disdainfully at a newspaper, then folded it and laid it by his Nihilitz. He gazed at a framed portrait on the wall of the café, a gold-framed picture of a bosomly woman dressed in black, with a boy of twelve by her side wearing an admiral’s uniform. Richard had already seen either that same picture or a variation of it placed in the corridor of his hotel. When the bellboy had shown him to his room he had stood looking at one above his bed. ‘Doesn’t it make you wonder where the father is?’ the bellboy had asked.

‘Not really,’ Richard said.

‘He’s been shot,’ the bellboy ventured. ‘That’s what we always say.’ And now in the café Richard suspected that, because of the unnatural glitter in the eyes of the child, there was an observer behind the picture, if not a microphone as well. He recalled that a printed notice on the back of the door at his hotel room exhorted guests to respect these portraits and pictures, because the management and staff, not to mention the Nihilonian public at large, held them in high repute.

The man’s uneasy glances were divided between this typical portrait of Nihilon, and the pigeons flying outside the glassed-in front of the café. ‘They’re waiting to take over our jobs,’ he called.

‘Who?’ Richard smiled, glad to make another contact with someone in Nihilon.

‘The pigeons,’ said the man. ‘The black pigeons from the mountains and the white pigeons from the sea. They’re all over the place. Will you join me in a Nihilitz?’ He came over to Richard’s table. ‘My name’s Telmah, Orcam Telmah.’

‘Yes, I’ll have another,’ said Richard, shaking his hand.

‘A large Nihilitz,’ said Orcam, in so soft a voice that Richard didn’t see how he could be heard, but the waiter came along with two formidable tumblers and set them down. ‘They’ll take our houses and jobs,’ said Orcam, with a new eagerness in his eye, nodding across at the portrait of the boy and his mother — ‘and they won’t stop them doing it. They won’t even try. After suitable training and deployment the pigeons will sweep in on us and help themselves to all we’ve built up over thousands of years. So let’s drink to our defeat, my friend.’

Richard lifted his glass. ‘I don’t really think they’ll do such a thing,’ he said, sipping the fiery liquid.

Orcam drained his, and pulled his bow-tie undone. ‘They will. I know they will. We have to protect ourselves against the birds. They fly around all day and every day, observing our organization, or lack of it, and discovering the dispositions of our weaknesses. They watch us through windows, follow us in trains and motorcars, exchanging secret warbling signals between themselves. We can’t understand a word of it, but nothing we do is not watched by those cool intelligent eyes. They’re cruel, too. They’ll blind us at first, before helping themselves to our accomplishments. It’s all so easy and obvious, but nobody ever reads my letters. I spend hours every afternoon writing letters to President Nil and newspapers, but they’re always ignored.’ His hair was ruffled, and he became distraught, knocking over both glasses, and staring at the picture on the wall. ‘It’s their fault. They connive with the birds. They use the birds to keep us subdued. And how can you be subdued if you’re supposed to be a Nihilist? Ah! They never explain that. Crafty! Very crafty!’

Richard watched his hypnotizing balletic motions as he took a hammer and knife from his pocket and waved them at the portrait: ‘There’s a man behind those eyes recording every word I say. But I don’t care, I tell you. I’ll be crafty too, by doing what I like!’

With vindictive strength and impetuosity, and before anyone could stop him, for all were equally entranced, he charged screaming across the room. Reaching the portrait, he ripped and hammered at it with the weapons in his hands.

There were howls of rage and pain from behind the panel, and tables were knocked over as people rushed forward at last to try and reason with him, though not before he had acted out their deepest wish and mutilated the picture.

When the door opened, three policemen came in and grabbed him firmly. He was wild-eyed, foam boiling from his mouth as they walked him to a car waiting by the kerb outside, in which they drove off slowly under a hail of machine-gun fire. Exploding grenades seemed to be smothering the whole square with the noise and smoke of serious combat.

Two waiters went to the assistance of the police agent behind the picture. When they brought him out of the movable, panel he was bleeding from one eye and had several bruises and cuts about the face. ‘I’m giving up my job,’ he cried to everyone, as they led him into the manager’s office for first-aid and Nihilitz.

Richard, though he had sat by and done nothing because he had considered it to be no concern of his, was so shaken by the incident that he called for more coffee, as well as another bottle. ‘That was very unfortunate,’ said the waiter when he set it down, holding his hand out for the money. ‘We’ve had our eyes on that old man for some time. In fact he’s been coming here for years. He used to work for the government radio, reading the Lies — before he went mad. He broadcast a speech about the birds wanting to take over everything. In our country lie-readers are very famous and popular, even more than filmstars. When one of them died a few years ago, many people committed suicide at his funeral. The whole nation was grief-stricken. You can’t imagine how famous they are. The worse the lies are the more people adore them, because then the lie-announcers can really use their acting talent.’

Richard didn’t feel like going beyond the bullet-proof glass while the gunfight was still on. In any case, he was gathering material faster than he could write it down, so there was a good excuse for staying where he was. A fieldpiece must have been wheeled from one of the side streets, because the head of Anarchy on the great statue was suddenly blown off, and the arm of the hunted and despised Progress was shattered from the elbow down.

A few minutes later the secret-police agent, his face lapped in bandages, stood by Richard’s table, ruefully observing the scene in the square, as if wondering whether it would be worthwhile venturing into it at such a time. ‘I’m broken-hearted,’ he said to Richard. ‘Absolutely dispirited. If you buy me a Nihilitz I’ll sit down and tell you why.’

‘You’re the first person I’ve met in such a frame of mind,’ said Richard, calling the order.

‘I know, but I’ve given the best years of my life to that portrait, sitting behind it and looking at all sorts of people from every walk of life, and not harming anyone. I just recorded what they said so as to keep myself amused and happy, and then along comes this old lunatic who spoils my reason for being on earth. It’s absolutely disgusting, such a mean trick. Can you imagine that anyone could be so thoughtless and spiteful as to throw me out of a job like that?’

‘I expect you’ll have to get another,’ said Richard, lifting his glass to drink, feeling slightly unreal from what he had so far poured into himself, though it seemed the only thing to do in such a country.

The secret agent cheered up under the impact of his glass. ‘I might register with the Outlaws,’ he said. ‘It’s the only thing to do.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you see, when someone is at the end of his tether in Nihilon he can go to the office of the Ministry of the Interior and register himself as an Outlaw. He is given a gun, ammunition and supplies, and taken by lorry to a remote part of the country, where he is left to fend for himself.’

‘That doesn’t seem too bad,’ Richard commented.

‘Oh no, it isn’t,’ said the security agent, smiling between his bandages. ‘But on the other hand, I might be so depressed that I’ll go and join the security forces. In which case I apply to the same building, but a different department. They give me a gun, uniform, ammunition and supplies, and take me to a remote part of the country where I am left on my own to hunt the Outlaws. The trouble is, I’m so downhearted at the moment that I don’t know which to choose.’

‘I can’t say I envy you,’ said Richard.

Looking furtively around, the security agent took a heavy revolver from his pocket and made for the door. Pushing it open, he ran across the road towards the middle of the square, firing as he went, advancing in a quick zig-zag to avoid — or at least delay — getting picked off. So much fire was directed at him that certain people seemed bent on his extermination, and must have been waiting for him to emerge from the café.

Richard caught sight of a familiar figure coming down the steps of the Hotel Stigma, a tall bespectacled man wearing a long overcoat and carrying a briefcase. He walked quickly across to the ruins of the great statue, and when it seemed that the secret agent had reached the safety of its cover, the professor took a gun from his pocket, knelt on the ground between two cars, and shot him down, just as the secret agent had lifted his gun for retaliation against the upper windows of the Ministry of Social Security. A white and blue flag was unfurled from one of its windows, followed by a sound of cheering. Then a tank rumbled into the square bearing the emblem of Nihilon on its turret, and opened fire at the flag. The professor fled into the café where Richard was sitting.

‘Ah, my friend,’ the professor said to him, drinking what remained of his Nihilitz. ‘I hereby appoint you Grand Insurrectionary General for the Southern Sector of the Athelstan Alps.’

Richard, taken from his placid enjoyment of the outside scene, which hadn’t appeared in any way to concern him up to now, drew back in alarm. ‘What are you talking about?’

The professor put his briefcase on the table: ‘I leave you in charge, general. I have to go and organize the Northern Sector. I’m a very busy man in these great and stirring times.’

Richard objected to his appointment, but the professor, with a ludicrous and comic smile, rushed outside into the crossfire and smoke.

The waiter stood respectfully beside him. ‘Do you require anything else, general?’

‘No, no,’ he said, waving him away.

The waiter, in spite of the fact that they were both in civilian clothes, gave a smart military salute, and walked off.