Travels in Nihilon (21 page)

Be that as it may, it seemed as if a giant, invisible, vicious hand tugged the bicycle from him, threw it on the ground in front, then finished its work by dropping him on top of it. The roar of an explosion shed a sudden orange light, and tried to pull the roof from his mouth. In spite of his previous constant preoccupation with the dam, it was some minutes, while he lay there half-stunned, before he realized that it must have been destroyed. He expected masses of water to churn through the groaning sky and fall directly upon him, and his one impulse was to crawl the remaining few hundred metres to the skyline and get over the crest of the hill, as if he would find safety there. The lights of Fludd in the valley behind were going out one by one. He knew at last that there was no safety in Nihilon, but wondered why he alone out of thirty thousand had survived the disaster? The noise of breaking walls reached him, as more apartment blocks gave way.

He had pains in his stomach, but was relieved to find that his bicycle had suffered no real damage. There were tears on his face, forced out by shock, and perhaps sorrow at the fate of the inhabitants of Fludd. At the summit of the hill he turned to look back in the first light of dawn, at a sluggishly turning sheet of water where the flourishing town had been. He sat on a rock and wrote a hymn to Fludd, and to his sleeping loved one lost to him forever, thinking that should he come back this way to the frontier, she would not be there to greet him.

But he recalled once more his far-off promise to meet Jaquiline Sulfer in Nihilon City, and their intention of going home together in a first-class express sleeper. Such a bright lascivious picture calmed him down, and with one last look at the grey lake of Fludd, he turned and pedalled along the road towards the capital, reflecting that travels in a foreign country put you into the way of knowing more about yourself, or clarifying what was already in your heart. Out of your own country, he had discovered, a veritable explosion of the personality takes place, even over the most minor incidents. All you had to do was stay calm in the face of the final threatened disintegration, he decided, stopping to take a bar of chocolate from one of his panniers, and noting how fresh and cool the air smelled as he stood by the roadside to eat it.

The road gradually descended through open moorland, scenery broken by small fenced-off fields of black earth in which people were already working.

At the next village was a restaurant, and he went in to get some breakfast. The dining room was full of well-dressed men and their stout wives eating heavy nihilistic meals. There were no seats left, so he sat on a high stool at the bar.

A dark-haired half-starved young man standing on a nearby chair appeared to be shouting at everyone: ‘You eat too much, I say! But the revolution will cure all that! Honesty and order and progress will make you lean, and you'll be afraid to eat for fear of choking on your own guilt.'

This sort of talk in Nihilon sounded exciting to Adam, and he looked up at the young man so as to hear his words more clearly. Several eaters took a moment from masticating to laugh at what he said.

‘You are disgusting,' he went on. ‘You are all fat maggots living off the backs of the people. You gobble such enormous meals while
they
are sweating in the fields on nothing to eat. You are a herd of rich pigs gluttonizing all day, while they starve even at night.'

A few of them clapped, but he was obviously not yet in the full stream of his wrath. ‘When the revolution comes, and make no mistake, it will come sooner than you think, you'll all be set to work, building roads, draining marshes, moving mountains, excavating canals, digging with
spades.'

Several of the eaters groaned. He was getting better. ‘But if I have my way, my own particular way, my own private personal spiteful heartfelt way, I'll have all of you stood up against a
sunlit
wall and shot.' To their cheers and applause he came down, and walked across to the bar. On his way there, some of the more appreciative and enthusiastic diners thrust money into his hands.

Adam was served with meat, bread, coffee, and Nihilitz. ‘I loathe them so much,' the firebrand said to him, ‘that I can't even eat.'

The barman put a pot of coffee before him: ‘What was that explosion at Fludd?'

‘Explosion?' said Adam.

‘We heard a bit of a bang from that direction not long ago,' said the barman.

‘The dam went,' Adam told him, his mouth full.

‘I'd better get on to the local newspaper then,' said the barman. ‘Anybody survive?'

‘Only me, as far as I know.'

The barman whistled through his teeth and went to the telephone.

‘The government's been waiting to make an example of Fludd for a long time,' said the firebrand. ‘Those who can live like the people of Fludd are dangerous, unpredictable, proud, sleepy, independent – in a word, revolutionary. But that barman's wasting his time phoning the local paper. The news is known already. The dam was blown up deliberately.'

‘It must have been,' said Adam. ‘I saw it. There was a great explosion.'

‘You saw it, did you?' said Firebrand, ‘and you're the only survivor?'

‘That's right.'

‘Well, your life isn't worth that empty plate you haven't eaten. They'll kill you. They must have banked on having no witnesses so that they could blame it on Cronacia. You're a hunted man from now on. You'd better throw in your lot with me.'

This was bad news, but Adam ordered another breakfast. ‘You see,' Firebrand explained, ‘I'm the resident agitator at this popular and expensive restaurant. The manager hired me six months ago to make speeches so that the customers, thinking the revolution was coming, would eat more to make up for the hard times that the revolution would bring, if it did actually come. So because people are superstitious his business increased twenty times. Restaurants for fifty kilometres around had to close down. He pays me almost nothing, as you can imagine, but that's all right, because while I'm shouting about a mock revolution, I'm meanwhile planning and working for the
real
revolution. No one suspects this – how could they? – but my first blow is due to be struck today, and since you are on the government's death-list you'd better join me. We aren't the only two, because there's street fighting already in Shelp and Nihilon City. The whole country is rising.'

‘What did you do before you took this job?' Adam asked out of genuine curiosity.

‘I was a writer working for the National Magazine, and I did very well at that sort of work. The best thing I wrote was a series of articles in praise of nihilistic capitalism. I was made a Hero of the Evolution by President Nil, being the youngest man ever to get that award, so you can imagine how I felt. The only trouble about doing something like that, though, is that you get disillusioned straight away with what you've just written. So of course I lost my job because I began to see that nihilism was not the right thing for Nihilon. I became a revolutionary, met other people who had actually formed dissident groups, and for a time I travelled around getting familiar with the country and its terrain. The only maps we had were those in school atlases on a small scale, a rudimentary motoring-map, and a few wild productions from those cartographic maniacs patronized by President Nil.'

Adam felt in his pocket and, wanting to be liked, even by a mock revolutionary, gave him the map he had taken from the butt of the soldier's rifle at the frontier. Firebrand grabbed it and put it into his pocket: ‘For that, my friend, you'll be made Commander of the Second Column in the march on Nihilon. As I was saying, the government is trying to build up a tourist industry here, but we revolutionaries are not going to allow it. We want real factories instead of paper ones. Out with all tourists! Say no to paper factories! Death to cardboard schools! Down with plastic sports-palaces!'

He grabbed Adam by the shirt front: ‘Listen, in this country a hundred writers have formed an association called the Company of Novelists (CON) and every year they are ordered by the Ministry of War to write a pornographic novel. These are so filthy that they go into a great number of editions. They are translated into all languages, and earn huge amounts of foreign currency, so that the Ministry of War can buy guns and ammunition. Such vile works swamp the home market and keep the people complacent. There are other things I could tell you, so many things. In Nihilon a writer or a filmstar is liable to receive a telegram from President Nil ordering him or her to commit a sexual outrage so that the newspapers can have something to write about. For when the culprits are caught and tried, the case is salaciously reported, though all that happens to the accused is that they are committed to “special exile” for a few months, to some coastal or mountain resort, where they can go on having a good time. Believe me, dear fellow-insurrectionary, this is a terrible country, and I am determined to purify it.'

‘But if something's wrong with it,' Adam argued, ‘and it certainly seems that something is, then can't the people alter it without revolution? Aren't there free elections every five years at which people can vote in a new government if they wish?'

Firebrand laughed bitterly. ‘Elections? Not any more, my friend. There were, at first, very early on, but the people were in such a euphoric mood of don't-care and don't-know, that vast deputations went to the government building and said: “We don't want any more voting. We're happy. So after all, what does it matter?” And the government said: “It
does
matter. It's democracy. It's your right to vote. It's your duty. So if you won't do it, we'll vote for you.” And that's how it's been ever since. At every general election the people get into great moods of excitement, wondering which way the voting will go, staying up all through the night to hear the results. And then at six in the morning the government breaks the tension by announcing that it has got in once more, after which it declares a public holiday, so that the grateful people, secure in their very own and latest victory, can either go to sleep or continue their celebrations.'

He jumped up on to his seat again to address everyone in the dining hall: ‘You'll all hear this. Listen to this, you trough-scum, you bilge-Nihilists, you riddle-headed soulmongers, the country has to wind down and stop. I'm putting the brakes on. The food will choke you when you hear what I've got to say.

‘In Nihilon a man who has his passport stolen gets thrown into prison. Anyone whose car is rifled is arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. If you were alive after being murdered you'd be accused of negligence. Crime is encouraged in order to facilitate a more equitable distribution of wealth. A criminal is honoured for his attempts to assist in this. I have nightmares about dishonour and chaos, but the revolution will triumph!'

He was now raving, and intermittent applause swept around the restaurant. ‘Nihilism is all for all and one for one, which makes a nation of fatsters out on the grab, and a country of thin men trying to stop them with all the black cunning born out of a congenital yearning for catastrophe. Nihilism is when a good system can't get the upper hand over the bad, and when the bad won't totally destroy the good in case something viable should be built out of the ruins. President Nil and human nature hold a perfect balance of chaos, which you all prefer because you can't bear the thought of honesty and order and goodness in the world.

‘Even sabbaths do not exist,' he shouted. ‘They used to come every seven days, the sabbaths, but now by government decree they come less and less, so that at the present moment they're running at the rate of about forty a year. Thus are the people cheated of their leisure. But the revolution will change all that. There'll be a compulsory day of rest every seven days, except for you pigs eating your swinish food, who will have to put up with only one sabbath a year! The revolution will declare war on the gluttons. You'll regret every centimetre of your fat cheeks when the revolution comes. So prepare for the worst, you pigs. Death to the gluttons! Down with all those who weigh more than eighty kilos!'

A huge man with a napkin over his chest, and food spilling out of his mouth, came from a table with tears in his eyes. He patted Firebrand on the back when he got down, pinched his left cheek affectionately, and pushed a large banknote into his top pocket. He then shambled back to his table to carry on eating, still weeping.

‘You'll be the first to go,' Firebrand shouted to him. ‘I'll remember you, especially. Now, come with me,' he said in a low voice to Adam. ‘Your life is worthless, but the revolution will save you yet.'

At the door of the restaurant Firebrand took a hand-grenade from his pocket, and pulled out the pin. ‘This is my starting signal,' he called in a loud voice so that everyone could hear, and holding it high so that they could see: ‘Long live the revolution!'

He threw the sizzling grenade with all his force. It spun through the air, every eater and even the waiters looking at it with muted, terrified, half-thrilled eyes. It landed in an immense bowl of fruit salad. It didn't explode.

The applause was prolonged and rapturous. There was shouting, laughing, banging of cutlery, clapping, stamping of feet, whistling, and shouts of ‘Encore! Encore!', but Adam and Firebrand were already riding towards Shelp, on the bicycle.

Chapter 23

On the outskirts of Shelp the road widened into a dual carriageway. On one side refugees were streaming away from the town towards Nihilon City. On the other they were pouring back again. The great blow against nihilism in Shelp by the Law and Order Insurrectionists appeared to have been successful, for the town seemed to be either in flames or in ruins. A Cronacian battleship was standing offshore.

Tentacles of smoke were boiling into the sky as Mella hauled her landboat through groups of refugees. There was a great amount of luggage on board, with Edgar perched comfortably in a lounge-chair looted from the hotel only minutes before the arrival of law and order.