The Violent Century (2 page)

A silence falls between them. Behind their backs the solitary men with their solitary pints sit motionless, staring into space with vacant, milky eyes. The barman polishes the pint glass, over and over. Fogg grimaces, picks up his shot, downs it, motions to the barman. The barman fills it up again then, unbidden, also fills Oblivion’s.

– You haven’t changed at all, you know, Fogg says. You don’t look a day older than you did.

– You haven’t changed either, Oblivion says. Contemplates him with that hint of a smile. Something in his eyes, something affectionate or proprietorial. Or something less well defined, some nebulous connection. Warmth, a love. But what is love. Fogg looks uncomfortable under the other man’s gaze. Shrugs. Yes, well, we don’t, do we, he says.

– No, Oblivion says. We don’t.

– Not on the outside, at any rate, Fogg says. Not quickly.

Oblivion shrugs. As if this is too metaphysical for him. Too … abstract, perhaps. He half turns again in his seat. Looks over at the silent men. Says, What’s with them?

Fogg moves his hand and the smoke, from candles and cigarettes both, seems to rise, thicken, cling to his fingers. Looks at the men. Distracted. The men stare back. Vacant, like empty lots. Like buildings with tear-down notices posted on their doors. Fogg shrugs.

– Them? he says. They’ve been dead for a long time. They just don’t know it yet.

Oblivion nods. As though he understood more than the words. Your smokescreen? he says, softly.

– It’s just habit, Fogg says.

Oblivion nods. I remember.

– Old tradecraft, Fogg says. Sounds sheepish.

Oblivion grins. Suddenly, like a grenade. Must be harder, now, he says. With all the No Smoking laws everywhere.

Fogg shrugs. Looks like he’s about to smile. Doesn’t, in the end. Says, I’m retired – as though that encapsulates everything.

Which perhaps it does. Oblivion says, Yes, well. Raises his glass.
Salut
, Fogg, he says. They touch glasses, body to body with a sound both soft and hard. Drink, in unison. Bang their glasses on the countertop. Practised. Used to each other. Used to each other’s habits.

– What are you doing here, Oblivion? Fogg says. Stares at him. Fog gathering between them like a mesh of cobwebs. What do you want?

Oblivion waits. Fogg, with a hint of anger: I told you, I’m retired. I left a long time ago.

A train goes overhead. Over the arches. It shakes the glass bottles lining the wall, and the heavy old tables. It runs and runs and runs. And disappears. The Hole in the Wall is awash in something like an expectant silence. Oblivion says, It’s not as simple as all that, though, is it, Fogg?

Fogg waits him out. One of the drinkers coughs, the sound unexpected, loud in the silence of the pub. We don’t retire, Oblivion says. Not really we don’t. We don’t have the luxury of it.

– For Queen and Country? Fogg says. It used to be for King and Country, in the old days. Stares at his empty glass. I don’t serve any more, he says, quietly.

Oblivion, a moue of distaste flickering over his face, gone quickly. As though the task is unpleasant. What he came for. What he has to do. Says, gently, The Old Man wants to have a word with you. That’s all.

Fogg says: He’s still alive?

– And still old.

– And you’re still his lapdog, Fogg says. Oblivion shakes his head, a tired gesture, not one of denial. He just wants a word, Fogg, he says. Gently, but with finality. Fogg says, No.

– No?

– No, Fogg says. I’m not interested. I’m out.

– He said you’d say that, Oblivion says. Fogg just shrugs. The same finality.

Oblivion doesn’t seem to mind. Looks at Fogg. Looks like he’s picking his words carefully. Says, He just wants to go over some details with you, that’s all. An old file.

On his barstool, Fogg becomes still. The smoke thickens around him, beside him. Becomes, almost, a physical form. A grey shape, a shadow.

– What old file, he says.

Oblivion hesitates. A fisherman, moments before hooking the fish. Aware of what he is doing. Perhaps even having second thoughts. Fogg had to gut fish before. He knows. A slimy experience. Cold intestines sliding against human fingers. Scales digging into your skin as you grip the fish. Drawing blood. The knife sliding into soft belly. And that look in the fish’s eyes. The look in Fogg’s eyes.

– Well? Fogg demands.

Oblivion says a single word.

– Sommertag.

The fug of smoke crescendoes around Fogg, a beekeeper’s protective mask. That single word, like a bullet with a name engraved on its side. Ricocheting from the walls. Another train rumbles overhead, its wheels chugging, multiplying that word, that name. Sommertag. Sommertag. Sommerta—

– Why? Fogg says. Why bring up the past?

– It’s just routine, Oblivion says. Convincingly or not, we can’t tell. Something’s come up.

Doesn’t say what sort of something. Fogg doesn’t ask. Oblivion says, apologetically, The Old Man just wants to confirm some details with you.

Fogg stares at his empty shot glass. Better than a reply. Intensely fascinating, the glass. Its purity. Its imperfections. The way light travels through it.

Snatches it up. Whips around. Hurls it at Oblivion—

Who raises his hand. Calmly. We watch in slow motion – the glass airborne, travelling through space, through time, speeding up, like a bullet. Oblivion spreads his fingers, like
so
—

Something agitates the molecules of air and glass. Silica breaking into its atomic components, air separating into nitrogen and hydrogen. A strange smell, for just a moment, a hint of ozone, perhaps. We watch the glass. Avidly. With a certain fascination, if truth be told. Though we have seen this before, have studied—

It seems to melt. The glass. To separate into liquid strands, an object becoming a non-object, torn apart by an invisible force. The strands of milky liquid glass pass through Oblivion’s fingers. Disperse further. Blink out. Just like that. Oblivion rubs the tips of his fingers together. Like a magician making a coin disappear. Scattering magic dust. The glass is gone. Vanished. The blank-eyed men at the back of the pub oblivious.

– Come on, Fogg.

– Damn it, Oblivion!

Oblivion doesn’t reply. Stands up. He’s tall, he almost has to stoop under the ceiling. But not quite. Pulls on his gloves. Says, Come on, Fogg. It’s just routine.

Fogg says, Sommertag.

The name, if that’s what it is, lights up the room. Fogg says, She was beautiful, wasn’t she, Oblivion?

Oblivion says, Yes. She was.

As though something has been decided. As though there never was a question about it.

Fogg stands up. The silent men move their heads as one, watching him with their blank milky eyes. Oblivion picks up his cane. Twirls it, distracted.

– Let’s go, Fogg says.

Oblivion nods. Is Fogg resigned? Defeated? We don’t know. Something in his eyes. A light that shouldn’t be there. The Hole in the Wall is grey, smoke stands motionless in the air. The barman still cleans the same pint glass with the same dirty rag. An automaton, like the smoking men. Fogg and Oblivion, Oblivion and Fogg. They walk to the door together. Their feet make no sound on the hardwood floor.

4.
PALL MALL, LONDON
the present

Night. It seems to Fogg it is always night, these days. London is his city, a city of fog. Sunlight hidden behind clouds even at midday. They cross the bridge, the Thames down below, the water eddies cold, treacherous. A Rolls-Royce Phantom II. Remembers this car, from long ago. Oblivion driving. That, in itself, is inconceivable. Remembers the car’s driver. Samuel. Memory like a chalkboard, but you can never quite remove the images there, only smudge them. Sometimes beyond recognition.

– Did you steal it? he says.

Oblivion laughs. Not much humour. Inside the smell of old cigars and old polished leather. Fogg winds down the window. Looks down at the water. The Thames, brown murky water, fog gathering in clumps over the surface, as if the river is haunted by ghosts.

Quiet. A plane overhead, coming low, following the contours of the river. Heading to Heathrow. Passengers aboard, like so many sardines in a rations tin. Packed tight. Peering out of lit windows on a city burning with lights.

It’s a short drive to Pall Mall. The tall buildings are dark. They have wide stone façades. Gentlemen’s clubs. The Athenaeum. The Travellers. The Army and Navy Club.

St James’s Palace. Fogg had met the King there, once, and the Simpson woman. Before the war. The Old Man had taken him to the palace. Secret meetings in secret rooms.

There is a shadow on the roof opposite the Bureau. Or does he just imagine it? The car comes to a stop. Oblivion stills the engine. They just sit there, the two of them. Like old times. Old men no less old for looking young.

– Have there been any new ones, Oblivion?

– You know the answer to that.

– Then no, Fogg says.

– No.

Just sitting there. Reluctant to get out. An old bond holding them together close as lovers.

5.
PALL MALL
the present

Fogg hadn’t imagined the shadow, though. It’s there, perched on the rooftop. Watching.

A young woman with old eyes. Dark hair. Dark clothes. Watching the car. Watching the two men. Angry, now. Hawks up phlegm and spits.

Not quite in the way we would.

Normally a water-based gel. But this one’s tougher. Her body’s composition demands to be studied.
Has
been studied. Glycoproteins and water undergoing metamorphosis, becoming something hard and strong, like iron or lead. The globule of spit flies through the air, the shape elongating, hardening. Its speed reaches terminal velocity. It is aimed at the car. Like a bullet. Sometimes, everything is like a bullet.

It hits the back window of the Rolls-Royce.

Which shatters.

An explosion of glass and spit.

6.
PALL MALL
the present

The two men drop low in their seats. Cold air bursts in through the broken window.

Fogg: What the—

Oblivion: Stay down!

A second explosion. The passenger-seat window shatters inwards. Glass showers the two men. Oblivion kicks his door open. Slides out. Fogg follows. Crouching. Looking up, shadow on the rooftop. Something familiar about her. Fog starts to rise around the car. Tendrils of it. Obscuring.

The woman spits a third time. Phlegm like a bullet going straight at Fogg. Oblivion raises his hand. Something invisible emanating from him. The spit loses definition. Hesitates. As if confused. Caught between two states. Loses momentum. By the time it reaches them it has no power left. Flops, wetly, on the pavement.

– Spit.

She looks down at them. We can’t read her face, from that distance. She raises her hand, a salute, a wave. Turns and disappears into the night.

– Get up, Oblivion says. And get rid of the damned fog, will you?

Fogg does as he’s told. Stands up. Stretches. The fog dissipates, slowly. He says, What the hell was that?

– That was Spit, Oblivion says.

Fogg says, What’s her damned problem?

Oblivion twists his lips into something resembling a smile.

– I suppose she doesn’t like you very much, he says.

Looks sadly at the car. Air gusting in through broken windows.

Turns away.

– Come on, he says.

Walks away, towards the building. Fogg follows. Nondescript building. Can’t really tell what, if anything, is inside. Could be a bank. Could be a warehouse. Could be anything.

They go around to the side of the building. A narrow alleyway. A door set in the wall. No handle. They stop in front of it. Stare.

– It’s a damn shame about the car, Oblivion says.

Fogg, face suddenly animated: Too bad you can’t fix things, isn’t it, Oblivion. Only rub them away, like they never existed.

Oblivion turns his head. Too bad you … he says, but doesn’t complete the sentence.

The door swings open. An absence of sound. Darkness beyond. Oblivion expels air. Never mind, he says. Walks through the door instead. Swallowed by the dark. Fogg, after a moment’s hesitation, follows.

7.
THE BUREAU
the present

A dusty corridor. Bare. No windows. Never been cleaned, by all accounts. The door shuts noiselessly behind them. It’s dark inside. There’s a small wooden table in the entrance, with a potted plant sitting on top of it. The plant’s leaves are drooping. It seems half dead. Fogg touches it. Marvels at the feel of soft plant matter, the texture of the leaves. Says, Has no one watered this thing since the war?

Oblivion oblivious. Walks down the corridor. Fogg abandons the plant to its half-life. Follows. Says, What about the car?

– The car will be taken care of.

Fogg remembers this corridor. Remembers that same plant, decades before. Like them, it is one of the changed. Who knows where the Old Man found it. Fogg feels a strange sort of kinship with it. None of us choose what we become. Notices no dust on the floor, scuffed by the passage of too many feet over too many years – a clue that this place is not as abandoned as it appears. At the end of the corridor, a lift. No buttons to press.

– Hasn’t changed much around here, Fogg says.

Oblivion says, The Old Man doesn’t like change.

Which is ironic, Fogg thinks, but doesn’t say. Doesn’t plan on saying anything much at all. Plans on saying, in fact, as little as possible. Afraid, however, that they already know.

The only real question, then, simply, is how much.

The lift pings. The doors slide open. Nobody likes change, Oblivion says. They get in the lift. The doors close, sealing them inside.

8.
THE BUREAU
the present

Blinking lights. The first thing Fogg notices is that the technology has been updated. An open-plan space, deep under Pall Mall. Maybe below the level of the Thames, even. The Bureau. London has always been a warren underground, and Pall Mall is no exception: secret passageways, Tube tunnels, sewers, cellars, more of London under- than above-ground. The Bureau didn’t build this space, merely colonised it. Ants in a warren. Or mushrooms, sporing. Take your pick.