Untitled, p.9
Untitled, page 9
While I was drying myself, the boy came in with a nylon robe. Although I had never worn anything like it before, and felt self-conscious in it, I put it on in preference to most of the stained and tattered rags I had taken off.
Acting on sudden curiosity, I went to the tall drapes and pulled them apart. There was the sea. There, to the left, was Justine’s balcony. She had come out on to it and stood looking down, but really not looking at all, in ah attitude that suggested extreme sorrow. In that moment, I decided I must win her support: it also came to me that I loved her.
As I went back into the other room, she came from the balcony to me.
“I saw from the bathroom window that you looked very sad out there.”
“Not at all. I suffer from a fear of heights.”
“Then why do you stand out there?”
“I always try to conquer my fears. Don’t you?”
That silenced me for a minute, then I plunged in again. “Justine,” I said, “you must believe that I have arrived here in all innocence, and entirely by accident. I know nothing of what goes on here, nor of this von Vanderhoot - was that his name? - of whom you speak. Please believe me.”
She looked me up and down with her long eyelashes lying almost against her cheeks.
“You pleb!” she said, “you are so obviously mixed up in this intrigue, how can you hope to lie your way out of it?”
Angrily, I stepped forward and seized her wrists. Though she struggled, I clutched her tightly.
“I tell you I know nothing about anything. Who is this von Vanderhoot of whom you speak, and why should I know him?”
“He is a spy in the pay of the New Angolese, as you are. He is an old man with a bad heart condition that makes it necessary for him to go about in one of these new gravity harness things. Israt was out in the desert searching for von Vanderhoot when he caught you.”
A little light began to dawn. Von Vanderhoot must have been the dead man whose body, still supported in its anti-gravity harness, had fetched up against the Trieste Star - the man from whom I had rescued Justine’s letters!
“Von Vanderhoot is dead!” I exclaimed, releasing her.
“So you admit you know him, then -”
“No, I don’t - I mean, I knew nothing about him, or who he was. If I was an enemy of yours, would I have run so willingly to your friend Israt to give myself up? “
That seemed to make her hesitate. I plunged on.
“Listen to me, Justine! This man was dead when I found him. He died and his anti-grav unit carried him out to sea. I took the letters out of his pocket and read them. I am able to read well. You wrote them, didn’t you? Well, I loved those letters. They were strange and exciting. I have had too little love in my life. I fell in love with them. Now that I have you, their writer, here, I transfer that love to you. I would die for you, Justine.”
“Ah, would you?” she said, that cruel smile moving her lips again. I expelled to the back of my mind, where it habitually lived, the thought that I had been unable to die for Jess or March Jordill. Fervently, I said: “Yes, Justine, I would die for you if circumstances demanded it. But you know that at present I am helpless. Help me first to get free, and then I will be your rejoicing slave for life.”
She stood back and laughed. It was a small cold sound.
“I am now convinced of your innocence! If you were not innocent, you would not misread the situation so badly. How can I help you to get free? I am as much a prisoner as you are.”
While I digested this news, Israt entered and bowed to Justine.
“Madam, I have spoken with Mr. Mercator about our new arrivals. He wishes to see them and you at his hotel. At once.”
“Very well. Where is the other prisoner?”
“I have him outside.”
She gestured to me. I followed as she walked proudly to the door. We went downstairs, through the foyer, and into the street, where the sunlight lay in breathless pools. An aroma of cooking drifted to me, and I realized how hungry I was.
Two large cars of an old-fashioned non-automatic kind were drawn up outside the hotel. I saw Thunderpeck was sitting in the rear one, and managed to wave to him before I was pushed into the first. I sat in the back with Justine, while Israt sat in the front with the driver.
“Who is this man Mercator we are going to see?” I asked.
“You do not imagine the proper way to court me is to ask for a boring stream of information, do you?”
“Justine, don’t play with me. If my life is at stake, I must know whom I am going to be confronted by.”
She made a moue of disgust, as if she found dramatics distasteful.
“Peter Mercator is the man to whom I wrote those letters you seem so over-heated about.”
“I’ve never heard of him.”
“That tells me more about you than about him. He is one of the most powerful men in the English State of United Europe.”
“I know nothing about politics, nothing at all.”
“Pooh, you seem to know nothing about anything. You’d better be a bit sharper in front of Mercator.”
“Listen - I can read, Justine! I told you. Can an ignorant man read? Why do you hold so low an opinion of me?”
She turned and stared at me as if seeing me for the first time. Her haughty and lovely lips pouted. “You pleb!” she said. “I have a low opinion of all men.”
In a fury, I said: “Listen, I’m not going to the slaughter like a lamb. I’ve no wish to meet Mercator unprepared like this. If you care for anything, if you have a heart, prepare me, so that I can fight for both of us, if fighting is needed.”
But she made a dismissive gesture with her hand.
“Why should you not die? Why should I not die? Is the world not too full of beastly people already - twenty-two thousand million of them, or whatever the disgusting figure is? Do you think I care what Peter does with either of us? “
“I care if you don’t! I’ve had to spend most of my life fighting to live - and I’ll fight to make you live! Help me now, Justine, and I swear I’ll help you, and give you something to live for.”
“I’ve told you, I cannot help you.”
“Yes, you can! I am going to open the car door and jump. Knock down Israt’s gun when he fires at me, and let me escape down one of these side alleys.”
“I warn you, I am a crack shot myself.”
“You would not fire at me, Justine. Remember, I have read your heart, I know you are too gentle. Knock down his arm when I jump.”
“Oh, stop these melodramatics and come sensibly to Peter.”
“Where does this man live, where?”
“He is at the South Atlantic Hotel, and we shall -”
“See you there sometime, Justine, my sweet!”
I flung open the car door and jumped.
It was not too perilous. The driver was having to move slowly, picking his way through a bazaar; and the narrowness of the way was impeded by builder’s lorries.
A dark shop with brass objects piled into its window stood to one side. Using my momentum, I dashed through its open doorway into the interior. An incendiary bullet followed me in, wanged sharply over my shoulder, buried itself in the far wall, and burst into flame. I had heard of this weapon, but never seen it in action. Its light was so bright, I was blinded. Gobbets of flaring lead spewed out of the wall at me. So Justine had not knocked Israt’s arm aside!
In the shop was an old woman, bent double with disease. She gave a shriek and bolted for a rear door when I came rushing in. The brilliance had blinded me too much to see properly, but I was able to follow her. Behind was a narrow cluttered yard, bathed in vertical sunlight. There I could see enough to dive over the wall at the far end.
I landed almost on top of a gaunt Arab, knocked him sprawling as I sprawled, picked myself up, and doubled fast between two windowless houses still in the last stages of building. I passed a man in a fez. As he stood back, I snatched the hat from his head and rammed it on to my own; any sort of partial disguise might help against my enemies.
Rounding two more corners, I had to drop panting into a slower pace. No sounds of pursuit came from behind, but I did not allow that to reassure me.
I was in a strange area, a nondescript dumping-ground, covered with all sorts of scaffolds and building materials, paint, mortar, wood, plastic, brick, and clay. The area was bounded by what I took for a moment to be a sort of variegated wall; then I realized what it was: it was a line of false buildings and shops, and I was sandwiched between the two lines of their facades. An unease filled me - I mean an unease over and above the natural high state of apprehension into which the chase had thrown me.
Once again I was made conscious of the thinness of reality. Life, in that moment, seemed to me something wafer thin, like a gaudy poster one might tear from a wall to reveal the true solid substance beneath. I paused, swaying, so that I had to put my hands out to prevent myself falling.
A sweet and strange smell assailed my nostrils - was it violets or wallflowers, or was it onions cooking? I say strange, and strange it seemed, yet I knew I had smelt it before, without being able to recall where. Almost, I fell, but someone touched my fingertips. I turned and it was Justine.
“This way, Knowle, let me show you,” she said.
“I thought-”
“There’s no time to waste!”
She ran forward. She opened one of the false doors, and we ran through into a false corridor. It looked like a corridor, but had no ceiling, and was open to the sky. Because it sloped at a strange angle, I could see the ocean. Underfoot was the beach. We ran down it to another building. At first I thought it was a cathedral, but it proved to be a sort of hotel. Inside, it was filled with unshaped chunks of plastics. Justine seemed tireless, running up flight after flight of stairs. At last she stopped before a door, and I caught up with her, gasping until I feared my lungs might burst out of my mouth.
“Go in,” she said, opening the door.
It was a sort of living-room, and crowded with plants and ornamental trees, some of which grew out of the floor.
There were also machines, thin and spiky like old sculpture, with tiny vanes that rotated and bubbled, that moved behind perspex; these machines grew as certainly as did the plants. I was frightened, for the foliage obscured the farther wall, and I felt exposed to danger. When I turned to look at Justine, I saw how thin and pale she was; instinctively I move to her to take her into my arms. The Figure was there before me! He must have been hiding behind one of the trees, giving his ancient black gaunt look.
Angrily, I seized him by the collar. I was aware of his blazing my breath on my cheek, then he was gone again.
“Who was that?” I demanded of Justine, secretly testing to see if she had noticed him.
“He only comes to see you when you are near death,” she told me.
“Then why should he touch you?”
Again that cruel smile that I knew by heart.
“I am always near to death. I hate all human life, and death is my ally.”
There was a couch among the trees, with a dim light burning over it. I suggested to her that she lie down and rest on it. She agreed, but said that first she must water her plants. She took up a can with a long spout, bright red in colour; she walked among the trees and machines with this, watering them at their roots. I lay down on another couch and watched her.
When Justine had finished her task, she returned to her bed, placing the red can beside it. She lay down. I wished to go to her, but found myself unable to. It was as if the can prevented me; she had the can, I had not.
Now I saw that something was happening to the trees. They were writhing in a disturbing fashion. I was frightened until I realized that they were dying, shivering as they did so in a vegetable death agony. In the air was the odour of Oxbenzide; I remembered it clearly from my years on the land. Justine had poisoned the plants, though whether by accident or intent I did not know. The leaves were turning brown, branches and stalks drooping and growing sickly.
In despair, I went over to Justine. I could hardly see her. She looked very small and white and insignificant. I called her name, but she never moved. Her lips were slightly open. Sobbing, I threw myself on to the couch beside her.
The couch immediately changed into a rough white surface, as if it had died. Slowly, feebly, I looked up.
I lay inside a concrete pipe of sufficient bore to allow me to turn my head and peer over my shoulder. In me grew that weary sense of lack of identify that was itself an identification. Non sum ergo sum. I lay inside a concrete pipe. By being nothing, I am in everything. Even concrete pipes. I could squirt through the sewers of the world unseen.
Although the aim of this narrative is to preserve a picture of my times rather than myself, how could I present myself except as the scenes in which I was temporarily lodged? Perhaps my skeleton inside me lives a vivid life, seeing the universe in his terms. It gives a man little sense of responsibility to imagine his skeleton may enjoy, in its absurdity, grand thoughts of cosmology and first causes.
So I lay inside my concrete pipe, gradually returning to within the confines of normality. Craning my neck over my shoulder, I saw outside the rear of the shop facades and the builders’ materials among which I had walked only a brief while ago. One more hallucination to the bad, I thought; how many to go before I fell completely into a world of unreality, as the doctors had warned me I might? Moreover, this latest dream left me with a disgust which I could not entirely explain, not even by the death of Justine.
Shaking myself out of a fit of introspection, I realized that Israt and probably other pursuers were doubtless searching the area for me. It behoved me to get away as fast as I could.
Courage had left me. To face going out into the open and possibly getting an incendiary bullet in the face was beyond me. After all, I had my skeleton to consider. Taking the line of least resistance, I crawled on down the pipe.
It grew dark as I progressed, and the circle of light behind me dwindled. Faint intimations of claustrophobia came to me and grew stronger. Still I forced myself on, until I came to something solid. My exploring fingers found metal. I pushed, and a flap opened. Light poured in on me. Without taking any precautions to conceal myself, I climbed out.
I was in a large and bare room, at the other end of which stood a telephone switchboard. It stood away from the wall and was not connected. Large drums of cable lay everywhere, and a clutter of line instruments. I assumed that I had come through a pipe that would eventually contain some of the cable.
Nobody was about. I guessed that as it was midday everyone was resting until the heat grew less. A door was open on the other side of the room; I walked out of it and down a corridor. I passed a black woman in a white skirt who looked surprised to see me. “Good morning,” I said, and passed on. Unmolested, I walked out of a swing door into the street.
As I went, looking for somewhere that offered something better than a temporary refuge, I discovered what an outlandish place Walvis Bay was.
The city had been planned on the most grandiose scale, and executed on a meagre one. Masses of narrow streets, which were often cul-de-sacs looking rather like mews, clustered together, and then gave out on to a couple of squares with shops and cafes and places of entertainment. These units seemed part of larger units, with main avenues cutting them and a stretch of park and a pool with giant white buildings facing it. But so much was unfinished, the houses with no more than their foundations laid, the shops empty even of fittings, the pools innocent of water, the young trees dying as surely as the trees in my dream. Some buildings - the large ones in particular - seemed to have been built some while past, and these showed cracks across their surface or were actually falling down. In some places, chunks of their façades lay in the street. The shadows lay heavy and black at the feet of these structures, and nobody moved in them.
To me, a hunted man, it seemed like a citadel of death. I wished only to escape from it, and wondered how that could be done. Perhaps I might hire or steal a boat and sail down the coast. With this in mind, I tried to find my way back towards the sea-front. I had lost my direction, but since Walvis Bay was built on a symmetrical pattern, it was not long before I saw the ocean gleaming down the far end of an avenue.
I made towards it, only to find that before I could reach it
I would have to cross what was obviously a main square, a vast and potentially fine place with many grand buildings and, in the middle, a formal garden which had still to be laid out; huge marble plinths stood empty in it, waiting for statues yet to arrive. I saw that the name of this square was President’s Square. One of the flanking buildings was evidently a temple. It was finished, at least on the outside. Easily dominating the other buildings, it sent a tall spire up into the blazing sky.
