Freedom Island (13 page)

❊

Budapest was celebrating the Foundation of the Union. I strode out, the Senator’s badge of twelve 24-carat gold stars draped about my neck on a blue ribbon. I rounded the corner into Barroso Square, then walked slowly along before the crowd, held back by a cordon of civil police in blue berets. There were hundreds of schoolchildren waving little Union flags, chanting enthusiastically:
             
Union is Love!
              Union is Strength!
              Union is Progress!
             
As I passed the Guard of Honour and climbed the stairs to Canterbury Cathedral, the people cheered. They viewed me as they were supposed to; as intelligent, charming, wise and compassionate—but I was none of these things. I was a thief, a scoundrel and above all a traitor: a man who’d sold his own people. But six months of publicity was all it had taken: the people had chosen me.
              My line-up of hand-picked secretaries had already lost their appeal. Daily, I just gazed at my office wallpaper, sometimes seeing it in 3D: facing thousands of hours to come with my make-believe wife, sat in restaurants, hotels, crawling through elaborate menus in piano music-framed silences, or else entertaining guests with finger snacks and attending church. Tennis, maybe a spot of golf. Occasionally, my secretaries led in citizens (i.e. Uppers) with dramatic problems, for me to magnanimously assist with: photos would be taken and the stories rushed to press by an army of Press Officers. Or I would instruct public servants on which companies to use, and invent major projects designed never to reach completion—syphoning off money according to Haussmann’s well-proven model: wind-farms; IT software; new hospitals; a maglev railway link. What choice did I have?
              After the public ceremony, I wandered the nearby streets with a furrowed brow, followed and preceded by eight nervous bodyguards, aggressively shoving and scowling at passers-by regardless of whether or not they took an interest. I was thinking deep and hard, walking in circles, then back and forth kicking dog shit, in front of cars then staring into windows, any window, through my own reflection but seeing nothing.
              A Union-blue car pulled-up unannounced—as they sometimes would—and ferried me to the airport. I was led through unpleasantly quickly. The journey that followed seemed uncomfortable and I arrived in Brussels dishevelled, to find Haussmann waiting with a fatherly smile and a warm handshake. We went straight to his headquarters.
              It was an enormous place: the employees worked there, ate there, slept there. Reproduced there. They never left, nor would their children; their lives entirely within the complex, just below the ground, and Haussmann proudly demonstrated it all. There was a central park within a lantern-shaped structure, nicknamed “the Egg”, surrounded by a glass atrium, with a lake and replica natural light, and dogs; there was food and filtration machinery capable of sustaining the inhabitants without outside help for 50 years; there was a huge library of carefully selected tomes; a hospital as good as any on the outside; a shopping mall; a cemetery; a museum and art gallery; tennis courts; botanical gardens and a school—from which their offspring could grow into their respective professions and be optimally matched up to one-another. Then wrapped around all of that were four equal segments, each a quarter circle; —one of vines, one of sunflowers turning by the hour, one of pines in sand and one of grassland, with wild horses. All this was there for its beautiful people, each of whom had been selected for their symmetry, their IQ and their speciality: amongst them were chemists, engineers, composers. Mathematicians, botanists, architects and surgeons. This was Haussmann’s little gene pool for the future; the ultra elite-in-progress. Haussmann himself looked out of place, and I wondered how he imagined he qualified for entry.
              ‘It’s about mankind, Ollie. There are too many people in the world and they reduce progress to a snail’s pace. We have studies that show the optimal world population for human progress is only seven per cent of what we have today. It is vital that resources are focussed on those most able to move us forward, as you well know. In a thousand years the world will look back on this project as the embryo of a second renaissance. The first one, by the way, can be traced to the Black Death, which killed a hundred million. You see, God employs a little culling here and there. Progress requires abundance—who can deny that? War, earthquakes, disease . . . People say “It must never happen again!”, but the unfortunate truth is that the species is refined by such crises. And from here, from this extraordinary epicentre of talent, we can give nature a little nudge. You have to admit, in the modern world, Lowers have become almost entirely defunct. But they make up 70% of the Union’s population, and they seem incapable of using contraception. We can’t just leave it alone.’
              ‘My mother was a Lower.’
              ‘And my grandmother, too,’ said Haussmann. ‘I told you we are alike. But we are also intelligent men who must make brave decisions, for the future, for our species.’
              I was led to dinner in one of the centre’s fine restaurants, together with ten of Haussmann’s senior staff. I sat there feeling inferior. They were friendly—but empty, I liked to think, like ghosts. To begin with, the conversation trotted along familiar polite topics, then, like children, they began excitedly discussing their own technical brilliance and the enduring obstacles to their genocidal schemes, occasionally being told to shut up by Haussmann, whilst I tried my best to return appropriately supportive responses to their glances.
              Afterwards I made it to my room. It overlooked the inside park, the replica natural light at dusk-level now, and I put my hand against the inside window. There was no temperature difference; the glass was neither hot nor cold.
By the time my flight touched down in London I’d got it all pretty clear. That evening, after the formalities with my appointed wife, I sat on the edge of the bed, for hours, scribbling everything down in as much detail as I could manage. Thrusting the folded papers into my jacket pocket, I slipped out the back and over the wall where I’d noticed a blind spot and made my way through the streets, half in a dream, emboldened by action and my return to honour, and by the blinding adrenaline rush from staring death in the face at every instant: at the press of a distant button.
              The eighth district was where the rebels hid out. It was a dirty, chaotic district—more so than the others—and as I walked whores beckoned me from the dark entrances, their purposeless guys staring, looking for opportunity. I hurried on, my scarf wrapped up to my nose, my cap pulled down. I heard hushed voices as I went, and was unsure if they had recognised me. With no idea of what I would do once I got there, I was heading for a cellar the rebels had used long ago back when I was in charge: I was hoping to find someone who would listen. Then I realised I’d turned-in a street too early, and quickly doubled-back. I brushed shoulders with a man, absently taking a second glance—it was
Max!
An extraordinary moment, my isolation abruptly interrupted . . .
              The smile spreading across my face ebbed as the knife slid into my belly, the blood felt cold, staining my clothes as I stared down, confused, and then back up into his eyes,
              ‘You killed my father, Ollie. Your very first victim, if you can still remember him? This is long overdue . . .’
              I tried to say something but it was barely a whimper. I collapsed to the ground.

❊

Dalma and the Governor climbed into the back of a vintage van driven by Didikai Tom, a towering man topped with long blond hair that he never washed, who spent the entire journey swearing and philosophising as he tried to educate other drivers and bewildered pedestrians with the aid of popular hand gestures. Regardless, the couple slept. On waking, the van was shaking its way up a dirt lane until there emerged ahead a huge marquee.
              ‘This is where I leave you,’ said Tom.
              ‘Thank you,
’
they replied.
              They climbed out and continued the approach on foot, Dalma dragging the Governor along behind her. They crossed a mossy medieval bridge above a frothy stream—an ancient route laid waste. They trailed locals on the same pilgrimage past craggy rocks and perplexed sheep, a disused mill, then a tiny grey chapel beside a silent hamlet consumed by mud, and finally to the copse occupied by the fair. The grey-green of the landscape gave over to the yellow and blue of the marquee. Dalma entered into the festive crowd alone, people were buying cakes, having fortunes told, hurling balls at coconuts and singing unintelligible drunken songs. She came upon a fat man with a red face sat drawing caricatures of ugly village faces—the locals roared with laughter. Then there were dancing identical twins, and moving backwards, a fire-juggler, speaking backwards too, looking forwards as he gave Dalma a wink, and she laughed.
              Children were hurling wet sponges at siblings in stocks, and having their faces painted. Teenage girls were giggling at wooden fertility idols carved by old ladies. Virile young men were testing their strength, mostly with disappointment. Dramatic elders were telling groups of petrified children tales of flying snakes and horned men, or of sharp-toothed werewolves and triple-eyed tentacled beasts who stole children. She weaved on past tinkling wind chimes, temporary tattoos, tarot readings and donkey rides, painted shells and fresh doughnuts.
              At the marquee, she entered the darkness: a crowd, slipping through them she looked up and saw the trapeze and tightrope. An extravagant showman in purple morning dress and a towering top hat stepped into the ring, introducing with relish ‘Queen Sissy’—and like a true royal a plump woman strode into the circle, her nose in the air and on around the circumference she strode, as worshipful musicians formed their rehearsed positions at the centre. The crowd applauded eagerly as her voice rose, powerfully demonic, so very naughty, and still so soft that even the hardest of faces were entranced: she had them weeping, clapping, dancing and cheering.
              As dusk fell Dalma came upon the Governor again, chatting to the showman.
              ‘Sissy is a fine woman, saved my life!’ the other man was saying.
              ‘Dalma, this is the circus master, Dante!’ said the Governor.
              ‘I am “Dante The Hunchback!”’—a deformity revered by the gypsies. Hunchbacks are—have always been—attributed certain mystic capabilities: Dante was the leader of the troupe not in spite of his physical affliction, but because of it. His intrinsic spiritual gifts enabled him to foresee the future, to read minds, to heal the sick, to live twice the years of a normal man—and to be uncommonly wise, and he took his responsibilities seriously. But Dante remained suspicious of the Governor. The circus itself was no secret, of course—it was just one facet of society the Union tolerated beyond its immediate control—the circus served a purpose: harmless entertainment, distraction; keeping people’s minds busy. But the gypsies feared spies, particularly when confronted by non-gypsies—‘gajas’—hoping to join their ranks. Dalma handed him the elders’ note.
              After some crawling minutes, having slowly re-read the note a number of times as though ensuring it were not a forgery, Dante looked up to the Governor with his wise grey eyes, and spoke in the measured way befitting his position:
              ‘It says you are a friend of the gypsies. And you will join us, of course. But if you also want to eat you must work. What can you do?’
              ‘I am a magician!’ the Governor held his chin high and puffed his chest out as though it were a military rank. Dante then turned his gaze to Dalma
              ‘I can cook, sew and clean,’ she added, just as proudly.
              ‘Very well,’ and Dante turned back to the Governor: ‘Tonight you can show us some of your tricks!’
After the evening’s show, at the centre of the accumulated vehicles, carts, and caravans, was a huge fire. Thirty or forty people lay on the grass or sat cross-legged, laughing and telling stories, drinking or playing cards. In sequence they bid the newcomers welcome, one-by-one, and the very first of them—the strong man—loudly christened the Governor ‘The Great Gajo
’
with a mighty slap on the back, a choice the others endorsed.
              The Governor stood amongst them with his shirt undone to the belly, his cuffs unbuttoned and his sleeves rolled-up, thrilled at the chance to become a gypsy illusionist! He’d lain his hands on an almost complete pack of playing cards, a few tarnished coins, his faithful rubber bands, and an egg. With an infectious enthusiasm he made them all gasp, leaning forward with their glazed eyes as one playing card melted through another, and whilst they were still analysing that
. . 
. he made the card disappear completely! His clumsy demonstrations of schoolboy magic continued one after the other, becoming steadily worse but regardless he won them over with his taste for spectacle and his innocent enthusiasm. ‘Gajo! Gajo!’ they all chanted, in humorous mockery.
By the time of the fair the following day the Governor was already exhausted: he’d had only two hours sleep. There’d been his endless demonstrations and then, too thrilled to stop, his obsessive solitary practice. Finally, he’d lain wide awake in bed flooded with excitement. He stepped out of his tent disheveled and into the path of a passing one-man-band: Gerome—surely over eighty—weighed down with cymbals and drums, harmonica and guitar, tambourines and bells. It was a noise rather than music—the circus alarm clock, and gypsy kids followed him improvising their own words to the irregular beat.
              ‘Gajo!’ It was Alfred, the strong man, but known to everyone as ‘Tolstoy’. Seven feet tall and 310 pounds, he had the brow and build of a Neanderthal, and read literature fanatically—particularly the Russians: the more eloquent words of others reducing this grizzle of a man to tears, as the plight of others would soak to the surface. He already saw the Governor as his new intellectual companion.
              Tolstoy rumbled over with a knowing look as though they had been friends for years. The Governor, for his part, already imagined Tolstoy as a younger version of himself, revelling in the fantasy that his own fat had once been muscle.
              ‘The only real men in the troupe!’ and Tolstoy slapped his own chest and then gestured toward the Governor.
              ‘Me and you?’
              ‘Why not?
. . 
. I prefer men without women, but your’s is a beauty.’
              ‘You don’t have a girl?’
              ‘I have
girls,
my friend! One in every place. Well, they wait for us. Why on earth would I limit myself to one?! and the two men stood side-by-side, each waiting for the next witticism.
              ‘You like boxing?’
              ‘I used to,’ the Governor lied.
              ‘Me too,’ and Tolstoy observed the Governor with romantic bonhomie. ‘But I am too big now, not fast enough,’ he said, as though sharing a secret.
              ‘And I am too fat!’
              ‘It will do you no harm. The women here already love you for your vitality
. . 
. and for your comfort!’ and with that he patted the Governor’s belly and laughed.
              ‘Gajo!’ he continued, ‘meet my sister, Anna!’ and he gestured to a tiny lady running up to them. ‘She is the finest clairvoyant west of the Germans!’
              ‘A pleasure to meet you,’ she squeaked. She was very pretty.
              ‘And you too,’ replied the Governor. And after a pause: ‘you don’t look like a fortune teller.’
              ‘The real ones don’t,’ and she gave a knowing wink.
              ‘No, probably not. Would you like to see a trick?’
              Tolstoy rolled his eyes, ‘but of course!’ and the Governor invited Anna to pick a card—any card, and replace it. He then passed the pack to Tolstoy to shuffle, before picking-out the correct card.
              ‘Very good, Gajo,’ Tolstoy concluded encouragingly. ‘Though we must still add theatrics; I will help you with that.’