A nod back at the monitor, on which I now see only my own strained face.
“I’m not psychotic,” I say, trying to stop my voice from cracking as I speak.
“Of course not. You’re a visitor to our country. Due to a series of unfortunate mistakes you have been drawn into events you don’t understand.”
Suddenly there’s the bloody face on the monitor again. Of course I know that face. It’s Ilse. Poor ugly Ilse, who gave me the English translation of Vicino’s book. She’s ugly no more. The ugliness has been torn off her, and all that is left is the suffering.
“Now, however,” says Magdalena, “it is time for you to understand.”
From her folder she takes out several sheets of paper closely covered in type. I feel a sick sensation in my stomach. It’s Marker’s list.
“You have seen this before?”
For a fraction of a second I consider denying it. But by now I’m getting a picture of just how much they know about me and my activities since entering the country, and it adds up to roughly everything.
“Yes. I’ve seen it.”
“Do you know how it came to be in the possession of the police?”
“Yes. I know.”
“How?”
She says it like she doesn’t know, and would like to know.
“Petra arranged for it to be handed over.”
“Petra?” Magdalena wrinkles her brow and returns to her notes. “There is no Petra. Ah, yes. I understand. She gives herself this new name, Petra. Her real name is Edith.”
The camera catches the effect of this information on me. I show nothing. What do I care? Though of course little by little the image of Petra I have retained in my mind is crumbling. The actress mother. The rich father. The tennis prodigy. The time spent as a model. The betrayal of Marker’s list. The contempt for Vicino. The burning stair rod. All this, and her real name is Edith.
“Why did she arrange for the list to be handed over?”
What can I say other than the truth? I’m not Petra’s protector.
“To radicalise the followers of Leon Vicino.”
“To do what? What is that?”
Not the brightest candle on the tree, our Magdalena.
“The police would arrest the people on the list. That would make their friends realise they must take action.”
“I see.” She ponders. “If I understand you correctly, the intention behind this action was that all these people would disappear, leading to a violent reaction by thousands more, who would then themselves, in committing acts of violence, force the authorities to be violent in their turn. This would generate a rising cycle of violence, until our society falls apart, destroyed by hatred and suffering.”
She ends with her weird bright smile. Not such a dumb speech. Maybe I’m wrong about Magdalena. Maybe I’m wrong about everything.
“I guess so.”
“How did she get the list?”
“She got it from me.”
“Did you know what was on the list?”
“No.”
“Did you know it had some importance, and must not fall into the wrong hands?”
“I guess I did.”
“Do you feel in any way responsible for the list falling into the hands of the terrorists?”
“Yes.”
“Would you like to put the situation right again?”
“How?”
“This list gives the names and addresses of all the key people in what was once a political party. The members of this organisation see themselves as occupying the middle ground between two extremes. We believe that view is dangerously mistaken. There is no middle ground between terrorism and order. Our job is to persuade them to understand where their interests lie, and to join us in the task of identifying and eliminating the terrorists.”
This all comes out with practised fluency. It’s evidently a speech she’s given many times before. But I’m not entirely stupid. There’s a missing link in her story. The guys in black bomber jackets don’t behave like your friendly neighbourhood watch officer.
“Like with pliers?”
She takes it in her stride.
“Unfortunate incidents sometimes happen. Violence breeds violence. We too have elements that get out of control.”
“What are you talking about, out of control?” I gesture at the floor monitor. “I saw that guy being tortured. That wasn’t out of control.”
She looks puzzled.
“What guy being tortured?”
“The guy in the video clip. With the electrodes on his tongue.”
“You believe you’ve seen a video clip of a man being tortured?”
“I don’t believe I saw it. I saw it.”
“You must realise that’s impossible. Why would you be shown any such clip, even supposing it existed?”
“To scare the shit out of me.”
“Why should we want to scare you? We want you to help us.” Even as she speaks, there it is on the monitor again: the rictus grin on the tortured face, the twitching wires.
“There! There!”
But of course it’s gone by the time she looks. If she doesn’t know what’s going on, she’s putting on a good act. I don’t know what to think any more. To be honest, I’m terrified.
“There’s nothing there, you know?”
“Okay. Forget it.”
So here it comes, the deal: some of it in words, some of it in pictures only I get to see. I play the game or I get the tongue-clips. Or at the very least, an unspecified number of years in jail waiting for a rigged trial.
“All we ask is that you tell the truth. You, as a foreigner, as an Englishman, will be believed.”
“Which truth am I to tell?”
I mean this in a spirit of cynicism.
“The truth about the list. How the terrorists gave it to the police. How the terrorists want more violence, not less.”
Now I find myself in quite a dilemma. I have no respect for Petra’s betrayal. I reject her movement’s methods and goals. And anyway, judging from Ilse’s condition, Petra is most likely already dead. On the other hand, I have no wish to be an agent of the equally violent authorities. On the other hand again, I want to get out of this fucked-up country as fast as I reasonably can.
This reminds me of my nemesis. I look up at the control-room window. He’s still there, watching me.
“If you do this for us,” says Magdalena, “you will demonstrate your concern for our country. Then we will know that you have been misguided, rather than criminal.”
“And you’ll let me go home?”
“Naturally.”
It’s all very well to say I just have to tell the truth. I’d still be doing it to save my own skin. Actually I’m super-eager to save my own skin, but that just makes it harder still.
“I wouldn’t begin to know how to tell them. I mean, where are they? They’re all over the place.”
“Every year, the members of the society gather in a secret meeting. This meeting is due to take place on Sunday, this very week. Not so far away.”
“And you know all about this meeting? Even though it’s so secret?”
“Of course.”
I start to consider ways of working this. If I agree to the plan, I get to leave the studio without getting the tongue-clip treatment. After I’ve left, I’ll still have time to think. The show’s not over till the thin guy sings. And anyway, it’s perfectly true about the list. And what good do I do to anybody by staying here and screaming? It’s not like they’ll hear. So I look up at the softly lit sound-proof window of the control room and see him standing there in the shadows and I say,
“Okay. I’ll do it.”
I see the watching man give a little nod. So he’s happy, which is something. Maybe now he’ll stop staring at me from the backs of cars.
“Oh, that is so wonderful! I am so happy!”
Magdalena is mostly plain relieved. She needed to get this agreement and now she’s got it. I find myself wond
ering again if she’s one of the manipulators or one of the victims. In her relief she has her hands on my knees and she’s stroking me.
“It was a good interview? My questions, they were good?”
“Yes. Sure.”
“My show, you think it will be a success?”
“Why not?”
“You have a fiancée?”
Where did that come from? I look up towards the control-room and see that the lights have gone out. The floor monitors too have gone dark. The remote-operated cameras are no longer moving. We seem to be done.
“What?”
“You have a girlfriend, who you will marry?”
“Marry? No.”
“Then you are free.”
Only the free can love. Here in the country of the happy hosts. She raises her hand and strokes my face.
“Such an English face! When my show is a success I will be famous.”
All at once, the studio lights go out. I’m trapped in a darkened studio with a wannabe television star. This is not a situation for which I’m equipped.
Her voice comes out of the dark.
“May I tell you my secret dream?”
I think I can guess. I get up out of my chair, and hear her rising also. I’m wondering which way is out, and whether the goons are still on duty.
“It is to make love in front of television cameras.”
Somehow she’s found my body and is pressing her body against it.
“You’re crazy! Back off!”
“I will take off my panties?”
“No! You’re nuts!”
I step backwards in the dark, and fall off the edge of the little stage. Magdalena follows. So now we’re on the floor, locked in what a casual observer might call a passionate embrace.
“Please, English! Please!” Magdalena whispers urgently in my ear, and then starts to lick it. A certain amount of wriggling takes place, caused by my attempts to get up off the floor and Magdalena’s attempts to undo my belt. In the end I win.
She lies there on the floor illuminated by the faint light from the EXIT sign: an international word, and my guide out of here. Her skirt has ridden up to reveal the pale glow of her unstockinged thighs, and the white triangle of her crotch. Undignified but erotic.
“Please, English!” she whispers, making no effort to stand.
I pass on the offer. As I negotiate the camera cables on the way to the exit I hear her plaintive voice calling after me.
“I will be famous!”
The passage is empty. I go down it to the far end, walking fast. The door opens into an entrance lobby, where a receptionist sits at a desk, talking on the phone in a way that sounds like gossip with a girlfriend. She looks up as I cross the lobby and waves at me, without breaking off her phone conversation. I stop, unsure what she wants. She holds out an envelope. I go to her and she gives it to me. She chatters on.
I leave the building with the envelope in my hand, and make my way out into a snowy city street. Have I escaped, or merely been released to carry out my side of the bargain? Am I being followed? I look round, but see no signs of surveillance. So I stand at a tram stop and open the envelope.
Inside there is a printed invitation: a date and a time, and lines that look like an address. I take it this gives me access to the secret meeting that takes place on Sunday. But I have no idea how far away it is, or how long it will take me to get there. Nor do I have the faintest idea what day it is today.
THIRTEEN
The more I think about it all the angrier I get. The mock television interview, the waiting envelope. Either arrest me or let me go. Why the big mystery? If they want me to go somewhere, lay on a car and driver. If this is some kind of test, I’m not taking it. So fail me. I don’t do tests. I’m on a journey without a destination. This is the pigeon’s lesson. This is why I’m here. If they want me to do this thing for them they’re going to have to make it happen, because me, I’m just rolling along.
Roll like a pebble, fall like a leaf, sail like a cloud.
This thought, once brought to the forefront of my mind, has a radical effect on my mood. I stop hurrying. Why walk fast? I’m going nowhere. Enjoy this sharp white winter day. Be kind to old ladies. Smile at policemen. I’m living under the protection of their purpose for me. They can do the heavy lifting.
So I saunter down the broad tree-lined boulevard. The buildings on either side are faded-grand, which is the best kind of grand, with long unbroken facades. I seem to be in a capital city. The street is striped by passing cars. The snow on the pavements is well trodden. I’m passing the front of an ocean liner of a hotel called the Bristol. This name I can read. There are luxury hotels called the Bristol all over the place, which is a joke, because Bristol is this city built on the slave trade that got bombed flat in World War Two and isn’t in any way luxurious. It occurs to me that inside there will be hotel bathrooms. I would really like a hotel bath.
When my father first got rich, and before he left home, he took us on holidays where we stayed in luxury hotels. I don’t think he enjoyed them much, but me, I really appreciated the bathrooms. I love all that chrome, all that mirror, all that white ceramic. It makes me feel like everything that doesn’t work in my life can be washed away and I can start again. I’m not too interested in all the little bottles of free stuff beside the basins. It’s the big towels, the big tub, and the general feeling that I’m going in used and coming out new. Whenever I hear that religious imagery about washing away sin I’m right there, only my version isn’t so much to open my heart to Jesus as to go and have a bath.
Everything about me is currently soiled. My money is gone with my coat. The receptionist at the Hotel Bristol is not about to offer me the presidential suite. So I walk on by.
There’s a policeman ahead acting like he’d direct the traffic if only there was any to direct. There are some cars hissing by but they don’t go fast and they stop at the lights the way they should. The pedestrians are a law-abiding crowd too, bunching up by the crossings and only stepping out onto the street when the little green man appears. Then I see another policeman, and another. None of the policemen give me a second glance.
Now I’m passing a men’s clothing shop. To my surprise there’s some decent stuff in the window. If I ever had the urge to look like a millionaire playboy which I don’t this is the kind of stuff I’d go for. Very casual but very expensive. How is it that in these very poor countries they have these very rich shops? I guess it’s tough work running a police state. The elite need their little perks of office.
There’s a suede blouson jacket that would look acceptable on me. It’s a honey-gold, you can tell even through the window that it’s supersoft silky suede. You wouldn’t want to wear it anywhere it might get damaged, like out of doors or in the rain. But in a club or a bar, maybe. And not with jeans. My father wears jeans for Christ’s sake. I’d go with khaki work pants, high-ankle boots, Timberland or Caterpillar. Not that I do all that label crap in everyday life, but here I am far from home and I can play around just for a laugh. Except I have no money.
They should have thought of this. How am I supposed to live while getting myself to the address on the envelope? What do they care?
This is when it strikes me that not only do they care, but they must be watching me right now. I look up and down the avenue. Quite a few people coming and going. No one who looks like an agent of the interior ministry. But they have to be there. That studio stunt took some setting up. They need me alright. So they’re out there, minding the baby.
I decide to test the system. It comes to me in a flash of brilliance. The upside of being in a police state is there’s always a policeman handy when you want one.
I go into the luxury men’s clothes shop, take the gold suede jacket out of the window, nod to the sad old fruit at the back, and walk out again. I don’t do it fast, I take my time. I make no attempt to hide the jacket once I’ve got it. I start to stroll away down the avenue.
There’s so
me yelling behind me. A policeman comes running. I turn, very relaxed. He cracks me on the side of my head with his stick, which is not part of my plan. My ear bleeds onto the stolen suede jacket as I fall to the pavement. The policeman is waving to a black van that’s charging down the street towards us. I’m an undesirable element about to be purged.
Then my angels show up. They’re a little late. My ear hurts like fury. Two guys in civilian clothes and dark glasses. I can hardly believe the dark glasses. I mean, it’s winter in Eastern Europe or Central Asia or wherever the fuck we are. Maybe they’re planning on going skiing. Meantime why not just wear a flashing lapel badge that says SECRET POLICE? However they do the necessary. The street cops back off ultra fast and the sad old fruit from the clothes shop, who’s out in the cold to see me get my ribs kicked in, is displaying the body language of a property owner with no intention whatsoever of pressing charges.
By the time I’m on my feet they’ve all gone. So this is just great. I’ve got a bust ear and an ache in my head and every passer-by is looking through me like I don’t exist and I still don’t have any money. So fuck you all.
I go back into the luxury clothes shop. The sad old fruit starts out with a smile because he imagines the suede jacket is coming home to daddy. Think again, pal. I move round his emporium bleeding on the cashmere and picking myself out some gear. I’ve been a peasant long enough. I pick out a deep-grey linen shirt and a loose cotton-knit navy pullover and a pair of khaki pants and some socks and some underpants and a pair of boots. I try them all on except the socks and the underpants and he just watches with a kind of mournful gaze. Then I take my pile to him and mime putting them in a bag, and he does all this neat folding and puts them all in crisp carrier bags and never once suggests I go and fuck myself.
All this is quite exhilarating. For the first time in my life I am the beneficiary of a totally unfair system. You don’t read much about the young Hitler or the young Stalin dreaming of going into a clothes shop and picking out all the gear they want and not even looking at the prices, but it is definitely a motivator for the wannabe dictator. Actually those guys went several steps further and invented their own uniforms and had them made for them by top tailors. Seize power, look cool. Fun with nation states.