Travels in Nihilon (15 page)

‘It's the dam, sir.'

‘Dam?'

The waiter drew up a chair and sat down, choosing a cigar and lighting it. ‘Don't you know anything about Fludd?'

‘I just stumbled on it in the dark, as it were, though I knew of its existence by the map.'

The waiter leaned towards him, a thrill of fear in his eyes, the cigar trembling in his teeth: ‘Our town is built under the great walls of an unsafe dam.'

Adam almost choked on his own smoke: ‘Really?'

‘Yes, sir. It's been completed for several months, but we've been expecting it to give way any moment ever since. Cracks were there while it was being opened by President Nil, and he and all his party couldn't get away fast enough. They ran down the hill and back to their cars, top hats flying all over the place. If there was an election in Nihilon they wouldn't be in power for long. It's not that we are worried about the dam, but we can't forgive them for running away.'

‘But why did they build a town under the dam?'

‘Most of it was here already, and they didn't want to take it away. As soon as people realized what danger they were in, they decided to leave. But the government paid them treble wages, and made everything practically free. That's why this hotel's so cheap.'

‘How can you stay here, nevertheless?' he asked, wanting to get on his bicycle and pedal out of the place at top speed.

‘Well, you see, sir, we're all in a bit of a dilemma. We're not only accustomed to the easier life, but we've got used to living in danger. If we were to leave – speaking for myself, and I know others feel the same – our lives would be empty. We wouldn't know what to do. We'd be like dead people. Our lives wouldn't be worth living. Yet at the same time we know that we'll die if we stay here, because the dam is bound to give sooner or later, and sweep us all away. So we're rather contemptuous of people who prefer to live in safety. At first, as you can imagine, it was difficult to sleep, not knowing when we'd drown. Men couldn't even make love to their wives or girlfriends. But now, we live in the present, as it were, never thinking about tomorrow. It's somehow made us all human again – you might say. I enjoy talking to you about it, sir. I feel noble at knowing that any moment the hotel walls could burst, and that would be the end of it all.' He was sweating, and poured himself more Nihilitz. ‘Imagine living in safety!' he said with great bravado and swagger, draining the liquor with trembling hands.

Adam, in despair, knocked his glass away: ‘Is it true? Or are you telling lies, you bloody old Nihilist?'

‘It's true,' the waiter said, standing up, in no way offended. ‘Come with me, and I'll show you the cracks in the dam, with water beginning to trickle through. They're lit up every night, and we Fluddites make it one of our favourite walks. We stroll there with our wives and loved ones, even children, to look at it and speculate on when it might break. There's a café there, so we can split a bottle of Nihilitz together.'

Adam began to sweat: ‘You mean the inhabitants of this town don't sleep?'

‘Not very much, sir. When they can, they do, but not often. There are thirty thousand inhabitants here, including cats and dogs.'

‘Cats and dogs?'

‘They were included in the last census, naturally.'

‘Why naturally?'

‘Because when the dam bursts the government can call it a really big disaster. We import cats and dogs, and breed them, so that the number of souls drowned will be high. They can claim a catastrophe, which will make sensational news, and say that Cronacian saboteurs blew the dam up, proclaim a national day of mourning; and declare war. We'd really like to get the hotel full of tourists, if we can, so that we can then claim an international incident and gain the sympathy of foreign governments against those Cronacian bastards.'

‘What you are saying,' Adam cried, feeling the day's exhaustion pouring back into him twentyfold, ‘is that your government deliberately built the dam with faults in it so that when it collapses they can say Cronacia did it?'

‘I suppose that's about the measure of it, sir,' said the waiter with sad resignation.

He stood up, pushing his chair back with a clatter: ‘I'm going.'

‘Wouldn't be much good, sir. The roads are closed by the militia every night. If you get out tomorrow you'll be lucky. Depends on whether any more foreigners are coming up from the frontier to take your place. You look worn out, sir. Don't you think you'd better get some sleep? I think I'll try and snatch an hour or two. It's nearly midnight.'

Adam sat for twenty minutes on his own, head bowed, and unaware of lights being put out around him. When someone tapped his shoulder he looked up and saw the attractive young girl from the reception desk. ‘Is it true about the dam?'

She smiled, showing small white teeth. ‘Yes. Is it true that you're a poet, as it says in your passport?'

‘Yes.'

‘Come up to bed, then, and we'll try and get some sleep. They'll be shutting the hotel doors now.' He insisted on wheeling his bicycle along the hall and into the lift, so as not to lose sight of it, he explained, because it was his only form of transport. He leaned it against the lift-wall as they ascended, and put his arms around her.

In the opulently furnished room, his bicycle rested against the wardrobe at the bottom of the bed. The girl undressed him, and then herself, but only after much coaxing was he able to make love. The central heating kept up a comfortable temperature in the room, and they rolled around on the covers, playing and loving for an hour, until they crawled exhausted between the sheets, and he fell asleep to the sound of heavy rain. Adam thought of Jaquiline Sulfer, whom he had promised to meet in Nihilon City, and whom he was vaguely aware of having betrayed, but his last thoughts were about the dam. He hoped it wouldn't burst during the night, or indeed split in any way at all till he had cycled far away from it. He did not know why he stayed where he was, but he felt such awful fatigue that it was utterly impossible for him to stir even one foot towards getting up.

Chapter 17

A circle of red fire-tenders poured fountains of pink foam over the airliner. Richard expected it to blow up any second, for after such a nightmare journey to this country of the damned there seemed no reason why he should be privileged to go on enjoying the good things of the earth when people had already been brutally snatched from it. Even the most balanced mind would have shunned optimism, and so did he, standing in a queue and waiting to be thrown by the air-crew and scorch-marked stewardesses out of an escape hatch.

A wall of foam met him at the open air, and he swam down through a tunnel of darkness that seemed to last almost too long for him to support, moment after moment, mounting into minutes and hours, before strong arms grabbed his shoulders and stood him on his feet, giving a violent push in his back and telling him to run.

He wept as he lunged into safety, still expecting a blinding flash behind to send out vicious tentacles of flame and extinguish him. But as he ran, following dim figures towards the perimeter track, he knew that he was out of danger. A soldier with rifle and bayonet indicated the lights of the terminal building, and then he caught up with the professor, who was staggering along under the weight of his briefcase.

Richard was despondent, then began to laugh at the great sign stretching across the glass-fronted terminus which said:

NIHILISM WORKS
!

The professor squeezed his arm to make him stop: ‘What's so amusing? You consider it a mockery? Well, that sign will come down in a few days, if you deliver the letter I gave you. Another will be put in its place saying:
HUMANITY WEEPS,
so that people will feel more reassured when they land here from abroad.'

‘That'll be just another lie,' Richard cried, ‘and you know it.'

The professor shook his head sadly. ‘You've caught our nihilism already. I've noticed before that it blights foreigners even more than us. I'm just glad to be alive, at the moment.' They stopped walking, still some way from the building. ‘Listen,' he said in a low voice, ‘there are two powerful pistols in my briefcase. We'll each have one, and when they ask if we have anything to declare at the customs we can say yes, this, and kill as many as possible.'

‘Haven't you had enough thrills for one day?'

The professor caught at his elbow. ‘All right, but let me give you one of these guns anyway. You may need it when the insurrection breaks out.'

Richard had never possessed a gun before, and was taken with the idea of having one now. ‘The customs would find it.'

‘I'll give it to you after we've been through. What hotel are you staying at?'

‘The Stigma hotel, in Ekeret Place.'

‘Good. Let's go then, my friend. The plane seems not to have blown itself up, so they'll get our luggage out soon.'

When they sat down, coffee and sandwiches were served. The waitress also brought them each a small commemorative aluminium plaque on which was engraved:

SURVIVOR OF THE DASTARDLY CRONACIAN ATTACK

ON AN UNARMED CIVILIAN AIRLINER OVER THE FREE

SKIES OF NIHILON. CONGRATULATIONS, PASSENGER,

ON YOUR ESCAPE.

This was followed by the signature of the President of the Nihilistic Capitalist Free-Enterprise Socialist Democratic Dictatorship of the Peoples' Republic of Nihilon, with the date underneath, written hastily in pencil.

‘They certainly know how to do things in this country,' said Richard, as another waitress put a bottle of Nihilitz on the table.

‘That will be their undoing,' said the professor, ominously. ‘They are so much in touch with what the people think that they can no longer rely on them to react properly. In other words, the people have been nihilified, so that they are completely unknown factors. They value nothing, they hope for nothing – and yet, do you know, they are profoundly human, far more so than if they possessed all the values of Cronacian civilization. They are so human, in other words, that the time is ripe for some order and honesty to be reintroduced into their hearts and souls. Come, the green light is flashing. We must look to our luggage.'

While every suitcase of Richard's was spread along the counter under the watchful eyes of three customs men, the professor was waved through by a curt nod from the officer in charge, and no item of his luggage checked. But Richard's watch, typewriter, record-player, tape-recorder, radio, binoculars, prismatic compass, pedometer, camera, and theodolite were put to one side, as if he would have to pay an enormous amount of duty on them, in spite of the scorchmarks and bullet holes that they had suffered during the journey. Yet one lynx-eyed customs officer, who was particularly diligent, ignored them, and opened instead the small box in which was a pack of love letters that Richard never travelled without, as well as a pair of cufflinks from his girlfriend with the message: ‘I love you, darling', engraved on them.

The officer's eyes glittered, his hands shook: ‘We can't let these go through.'

‘Are you joking?' Richard demanded.

‘We never joke in Nihilon. Sentimental keepsakes, marks of love – can't let them in. Love and nihilism don't go together. Love is a threat to nihilism. It can be used by the opposition as a social force. Honesty, stability, all those terrible things stem from love. If you allow love, you get idealism, co-operation, affection. That would never do. Nihilism would rot under it. A few of our own people lapse from time to time and fall in love, but we don't worry about them because they're only a minority of psychic perverts. A foreigner, however, can't be allowed to come in with those ideas, because he often has a great deal of influence. Nihilists are all too ready to believe what foreigners say to them. So I'm afraid I shall confiscate these – for the time being – and give you a receipt so that you may collect them when you leave.'

Richard decided he could do without them for a few weeks, and so smilingly agreed to the proposal, while two other customs officers glumly repacked his cases.

A huge black taxi stood by the terminal doors. ‘Hotel Stigma,' Richard told the driver, pushing his cases in.

‘Where's that?' the driver asked.

Richard offered him a cigarette: ‘Nihilon City.'

‘People with a sense of humour should be sent back to Cronacia,' said the driver, making no attempt to start his engine, but accepting the cigarette. ‘I've been working for forty-eight hours non-stop. Where to, then?'

‘Hotel Stigma,' said Richard, reading the address carefully. ‘43 Ekeret Place, Nihilon One.'

‘I still don't know where it is.'

‘You mean you can't find your way around Nihilon City?'

‘Listen, I'm a taxi driver, not a bloody topographer.' He leaned out of his window, and signalled a man standing by the glass doors: ‘You need a guide!'

He came in beside Richard, accidentally putting his foot on the tape-recorder. ‘He'd like to get to Ekeret Square,' the driver said to him.

‘Hotel Stigma,' added Richard. ‘Do you know it?'

‘I was born there,' said the guide. ‘Room 62 – just before the last outbreak. My mother was travelling from Amrel to Shelp, hoping to get a ship out of it. She had to change trains at Nihilon City, which meant spending the night there, which meant giving birth to me. She never got out because of me, so you can imagine how I feel. She's spent her last twenty-five years working as a cook in the hotel kitchen. So if you ask me if I know the Hotel Stigma in Ekeret Square – of course I know it. It's the main square in the middle of Nihilon City, in any case. Go straight ahead, and turn left before the river,' he said to the driver, who started the engine and set off.

There were no lights on the road, so the borders of it were indistinct. The driver switched his duo-coloured headbeams full on, not thinking to dip them when traffic came from the opposite direction. In fact his tactics at such times alarmed Richard, who had so recently escaped death in the airliner, for the huge car swerved over the road, and he couldn't tell whether his driver was trying to hit the approaching car – which was certainly coming straight towards them – or to avoid being hit. With a cymbal-like clash of the front wings the other car spun off the road in a whirl of green and purple light, but Richard's driver went on his way without wondering whether anyone had been hurt or not.