Travels in Nihilon (17 page)

‘We accept no responsibility for items which are lost,' the clerk went on. ‘As a matter of fact we don't clean the clients' shoes, even though it says on the back of the door that we do. The notice is from last year and is due to be replaced.'

‘You scum,' Benjamin cried. ‘You scooped them all up, put them in a sack, and sent them to the disaster victims of Fludd, with a note attached saying: “From the grief-stricken sympathizers of the Alphabet Motel.” You've got no right to do such a thing with my shoes. Get them back, or I'll wring your neck.'

‘Perhaps one of the early motorists stole them by mistake,' the clerk suggested.

Benjamin threw down the phone, which didn't land back squarely on its base, and the voice of the clerk still came through: ‘It's no use losing your temper. And all damage will be properly paid for, don't forget. In any case you foreign bastards will get what's coming to you if you don't –.' He cut off the nagging voice, of typical Nihilon backchat, and went out to the car for his spare pair of shoes.

In comparison with last night's sumptuous meal his breakfast was plain and simple fare. Coffee and black bread, with an apple and a bottle of Nihilitz, were put before him as he sat down. When he asked for ham and boiled eggs, the waiter said that motorists must not set out on any journey in Nihilon on a full stomach. Since there was a risk of certain injury on the road, this rule was only made for their own good. However, he added, there was a provision shop next to the amusement park which sold all kinds of rich and tasty delicacies, and if he ate breakfast quickly he might find something left before the other drivers bought everything.

He decided that these bloody Nihilists weren't going to make him hurry over his breakfast, as shabby as the food was. He'd get provender along the way, by some means or other. Of that he had no doubt. But the coffee was surprisingly good, and the black bread as tasty as meat, certainly rich in vitamins. A few other people at nearby tables were talking loudly about the Lies, going from one item to another, finally speculating on the identity of the Cronacian maniac-saboteur who had blown up the petrol station.

‘Anyone who would destroy such a precious fluid as motorcar gasoline ought to be crucified in the otherwise empty fuselage of an airliner flying in circles at ten thousand metres,' said one inspired enthusiast, whose shoes had also been stolen but who was without a spare pair – though this didn't seem to bother him as he sat in his bare feet. ‘I wept when I heard the Lies. Imagine, so much petrol less for us to use. I suppose he's crossed the frontier by now.' He picked up a huge glass of Nihilitz and drank half of it.

‘After committing such an awful crime,' said his friend, ‘I'd keep away from the frontier. All the guards would be waiting for me there – if I'd done it, which I haven't,' he added quickly, shying away from the other man, who lifted a hand as if to flatten him. ‘No, I'd get to Nihilon City and lie low till I saw an opportunity of escaping.'

‘Maybe he came through here, then,' said the tall man, looking around.

‘Unless he took to the mountains,' said his friend. ‘North or south, there are tracks. He could have reached the railway and jumped on to the Trans-Nihilon Express. It only goes at twenty kilometres an hour.'

The big man finished his Nihilitz: ‘Perhaps he spent the night in this motel.'

‘He wouldn't have the nerve,' said his friend.

Benjamin poured half of his Nihilitz into the mug, and swallowed some. When the other men finished their discussion, and staggered blind drunk to their cars, he opened his linen-backed map which had been compiled forty years ago and was known to be hopelessly out of date. It had been with him during his travels and military operations of the civil war, and faint pencil lines, indicating the various attacks and retreats in which he and his small force had been involved, were still visible. He marked the position of the Alphabet Motel, and noticed that the road would now descend towards Amrel, the last town whose defence he had been charged with so many years ago.

It would be strange seeing that fortressed and buttressed place again, set high over the bridge that he had neglected to destroy for the mere price of a bus to get his men (and himself) to safety. But his return to Damascony – now Nihilon – was no sentimental journey. During the last twenty-five years he had wondered about the fate of that noble and gentle legislator President Took after the armies of his benign republic had been defeated. Rumour said he had shot himself in his office. Hearsay made up a story of him being killed by one of his supporters. It was alleged that he had starved himself to death. But no proof had been put forward, no corpse ever found. The Nihilists simply did not mention him. His books were forgotten, his works destroyed, his statues smashed, his laws revoked and laughed at. President Took had lived in a plain and simple way, even denying himself friends so that they would not suffer after the catastrophic end which he must clearly have foreseen.

Benjamin remembered how the Nihilists came to power after gaining a small majority in a general election, a victory not accepted, in all his wisdom, by President Took, but one which, as was to be expected, led directly to civil war. The first consideration of the Nihilists, when they had won the election, deposed President Took and renamed the country Nihilon, was to stay in power. They then called themselves the Conservative Nihilists, so that they would never be confused with that left-wing nihilism which would only destroy everything and have done with it. They wanted, said the Conservative Nihilists, to
preserve
nihilism, to put it into a shrine as it were, and make it last for centuries. So they went on to call it Benevolent Nihilism. Under it, all men and women were equal before the law, though until they were brought before the law they were treated with total nihilistic inequality.

Benjamin also recalled the spectacular election campaign which brought the Nihilists to power. By prearrangement, by advanced publicity and television advertisements, the whole population was invited to witness the destruction of ten bridges, three power stations, twenty banks, and a dozen railway stations. Because no private houses were harmed it was a great success. Countless cars had been driven from cliff tops, with fervent fanatical party supporters in black track-suits at the wheels shouting ‘Long Live Nihilism!' as they vanished into space. By these activities and various accidents, thousands of ardent Nihilists had lost their lives. Without such losses they would never have won the election, though it also weakened them in the civil war that was to come, which unfortunately did not stop them winning in the end.

Benjamin still heard their election cries over every medium of show and noise. ‘Vote Nihilist! Positive Nihilism is the answer to all our troubles!' Out of boredom and indecision the people had believed them, and had invited a disaster from which even now, to judge by all he had seen, they had not yet recovered, whatever was said about a space programme.

During his long absence it often seemed that he loved Nihilon more than his own country, even perhaps because of the wild path it had taken. He loved the landscape, and the people who, after all, had invited nihilism into their hearts. If you love someone, he told himself, then it must be that you also love their faults, though he could hardly suppose that a desire for nihilism was one of his.

He had bought a large bag of provisions from the fairground shop, but had been forced to take four bottles of Nihilitz with it as liquid refreshment. There were clouds behind, but blue sky in front, though as if to deny a good day's trip the road to Amrel quickly deteriorated on its descent and became a rough track marked by the occasional wrecked car or lorry, heaps of rusty petrol cans, old tyres, inner tubes, and, in one case, a complete but dilapidated engine. The land was bare and rocky, except for a few cork or oak trees, and on higher ground to left and right solitary houses could be seen in the distance, wood smoke curling from their chimneys.

His route was no more than a dotted line on the map, and if the chassis of the car hadn't been strong it would have shaken to bits in the first few kilometres. He passed two cars lying upside down quite close to each other. Their two drivers sat on a nearby flat-topped rock, drinking from a bottle of Nihilitz. The noise of his engine drowned their singing. In subsequent fair and free elections, Benjamin ruminated, they had gladly voted Nihilism again. Such a system took intolerable loads off their minds, though it made him sad to know that people were incapable of facing up to the responsibility of their own possible happiness.

The land was flat, a plateau across which the road could hardly be made out, so he kept his direction by a compass fastened to the dashboard, aiming its needle towards a large group of rocks several kilometres ahead. For the first time since his present entry into Nihilon he felt a sense of wellbeing and freedom, able at last to enjoy the wide landscape spreading on every side.

Clumps of stunted trees were scattered among the rocks and boulders, and a heap of stones was placed across the road itself as a sort of barricade, so that when he got close enough he simply turned to the left on equally flat ground to go around it.

From behind the rocks and trees appeared six men dressed in overalls, each bearing a sub-machine-gun and pointing it at his car. They leapt at all four doors, and forced him to stop. The tall thin man who seemed to be their leader had a shaved head, as well as a scar on his mouth, and a glitter of illness in his eyes, as he shouted at Benjamin that he should get out of the car. ‘We belong to the Revolutionary Army,' he told him, ‘members of the Benjamin Smith Brigade, so called after a gallant group-leader who fought for President Took's cause twenty-five years ago. No one knows what happened to him, but we think he must have perished after we lost the war.'

‘What can I do for you, then?' said Benjamin, a sudden swing of elation and nostalgia drawing him back into their cause.

‘We want you to drive us to Amrel, so that we can join up with our main party and capture the place.'

When he agreed so readily to join them they shook his hand, and Benjamin, with tears in his eyes, supervised their places in the car. When the man in charge saw the four bottles of Nihilitz on the seat, he threw them outside so that they smashed on the rocks.

‘That's good,' said Benjamin, feeling twenty-five years younger. He let off the handbrake, and the car rumbled forward, towards Amrel. Soon, he would tell them who he was, and take his rightful place once more in their fight for order and honesty, dignity and peace.

Chapter 19

Hairpins chafed at his naked body. He stirred in the wide, opulent bed, and wondered where his loving boatwoman Mella had gone. He closed his eyes, bringing his knees up to his chest. No guidebook could ever have been written in a pleasanter manner. Even so, he was hungry. But he wanted to go back to sleep.

An occasional explosion rattled the windows, and when at one earthy grunt his bed vibrated, he wished they'd stop trying to kill each other and return to their coffee. Sunlight pushed at the glass, promising a fine day. Shelp was renowned for its climate, a fact which he'd already put into his guidebook notes. But ought he not also to mention the gunfire, and the tractable boatwoman? While reflecting pleasurably on Mella, he discussed with himself the hedonistic notion of breaking his contract and never going back home, as if one night of unmitigated pleasure had melted his spine. Maybe the day would return it to him.

After making love he liked to talk to his beloved, but where was she? Perhaps it was her absence that had wakened him while he was still tired. Then the door opened, and he sat up as Mella came into the room. She carried an immense sack over her shoulder, and another heavy bag in her hand. ‘What's that?'

She put it on the bed, almost crushing his foot. He pulled it free, and she mistook the purple gloss of pain on his face for an expression of concern at the weight she carried. ‘It's our food.'

‘What do we need it for?'

‘To eat, my love.'

‘But we're in a hotel. I've already rung for breakfast. Have you never been in a hotel before?'

‘I fought for this food at the markets.' She sat by the sack, and he kissed her in order to forestall those strong arms around him, but they held him nevertheless. ‘I love you,' she said, drawing his face into her breasts. ‘It was such a struggle to get this food.'

‘Why was it?' he asked in a muffled voice.

She released him. ‘Because there's none left. All food has been commandeered for Fludd, where the dam has burst. As soon as I heard it on the Lies I ran to my boat-trolley, and went from shop to shop. We're safe now, my love, with so much to eat.'

‘Where did you get the money? You're only a poor boatwoman.'

‘Don't be angry,' she said in a stern though democratic voice. ‘I took a thousand-klipp note from your wallet, and I spent the same amount from mine.'

‘Who are you?' he demanded, suddenly suspicious. ‘I know you're not a boatwoman. You can't be.'

A sharp crack against the window caused a musical sound of shattering glass, and Mella sheltered him against her. Machine-gun fire drilled along the street below. ‘We have to get out of Shelp.'

He was ashamed of his vibrating limbs, as if a wave of freezing water had passed over them. ‘What is it? What's going on?'

‘We don't know for sure,' she told him. ‘It said on the Lies that the Cronacian fishermen had been defeated, but the government must be telling the truth again, which means real lies. Or maybe there is an insurrection. People have been talking about it for days. Or it's a revolution, a mutiny, a rebellion, a coup d'état, a riot, or even an unofficial unlicensed public holiday. It could be any of those things.'

‘I want to start for Nihilon City today,' he said, stepping out of bed to dress, as another explosion shook the whole building. She looked at him, and regretfully watched his naked body being slowly clothed. ‘There are no trains to the capital. The railway is closed for passengers. Only goods trains can get through, with relief supplies for Fludd.'