My Little Armalite (30 page)

—Then let us go, I drawled. —Until later, merciful ladies, I nodded to them all at once, barely suppressing the insane desire to click my heels. Then I turned smoothly away from them all, leaving the quite unmistakable eddy of social triumph in my wake, and strode into the waiting hall.

The tall young man introduced me as the highly distinguished academic scholar and old friend of Herr Panke,
Herr Universitätsprofessor Dr John Goode, London, En-gel-lant
! I stepped up to the podium, smiling.

I let them wait. What did I fear? I who could hit a target with ten out of ten rounds from an Armalite!

I looked slowly around. Ranks of plastic seating had been pulled out from the walls along both sides of the hall and across one end. My platform was slightly thrust away from the remaining end wall, so that the last three or four seats of every row on each side were actually behind me. The hall was packed, and smelled like all modern sports halls: concrete dust, disinfectant and tired air, but this time mixed with cheap perfume and warm leather.

I had, of course, been intending to say merely a few words about Panke. But it felt so damn
good
up there on the platform. And there was something deep and mysterious in the air, something that tickled my antennae. A strong, subterranean current. Insufficiently washed almost-central Europeans, yes, and that cheap perfume and that leather, but more even than that. What was it? I sniffed mentally, and caught it.

The sour radiation of resentment.

The lurking wish to be told what you want to hear: that it is all
not fair
. That you have been cheated.

And, by God, you know, they
had
been cheated, these good people! Just as I had been! They had been led to expect so much, only to be cheated by reunification
and globalisation. They had made a deal in 1989, just as I had made a deal in 1984. They had been openly promised the good life by the West, just as I been implicitly promised the life of a seventies don. And what had I got? SEbloody11! And what had they got? Thirty per cent unemployment, second-class status, total insecurity!

Oh, I knew exactly what they wanted, these modest and good Germans who believed in honest work and quiet lives. I never even had to wonder how I should start my speech. I simply opened my mouth and out it came ready-made, in a quiet, fireside tone that made all the shuffling stop as the audience were forced to strain and listen.

—A decent normal house, a good school, a safe park, quiet nights, a proper free kindergarten and a real job that will be there next year. All anyone sane wants. That and a bit of respect and just enough well-earned money to not be worried about money every day of our lives. Well? Was that so much to ask from the twenty-first century?

I looked up, questioning with my eyes. A ripple of attention was spreading through the audience, a subtle mass movement of people shifting their bodyweight and their expectations slightly upwards. I spoke the same words over again, softly still, still softly enough so that they would have to listen to catch every word, but this time with hints of power coming on. Yes, this was better than lecturing!

—Was that so much to ask? I demanded again. —Well? Was that so much to ask?

—No! cried a few voices, as if positively forced to call out by the silence I had left hanging. Murmurs of support, sighs of expectation rustled around the hall. I thought I saw Panke's face in the corner of my eye, peering through
the wired glass of the big double doors through which he was waiting to make his late, grand entrance. Annoyed? But I had no time for any individual now. Not even Panke. I was here in the hall and I was them.

And I liked it.

Dear God, what a relief to be
us
again, not just me! This was the feeling I had loved on demonstrations and marches and in the Irish pub, the heady joy of oneness, of unity, of circulation sweetly rolling through veins conjoined beyond the lonely little world of I!

I looked at them. At
us
. My heart filled. I smiled sadly at
our
troubles. I nodded solemnly, making my gaze float slowly around the room, as though looking each person in the eye while in fact avoiding any eye contact at all. An old lecturer‘s trick, of course, but this time, for once, it felt genuine. Why look at any one meaningless person when we were, all of us,
us
? Finally, I looked behind me to my left and then to my right, and opened my arms a little, as though these were not the latecomers who had got the crap seats, but particular comrades of mine, people who did not require much more in the way of enlightenment.

—Do you hear me? I asked quietly, in a flawless Dresden accent. I felt again that breezy rush of unreality that comes from speaking easily in a language that is not your own. It could hardly fail. —Do you hear me? I asked again, more loudly.

Talk about theatre, this was giving it to them all right! They nodded happily, hearing themselves enacted in the mouth of this important foreign visitor, this intimate of their leader. Then I surprised them, made them sit up, made their heart rates rise suddenly with a snappy, almost snarling, hint of what might come later. —Because it is time we were heard! Yes!

Then I immediately held up my palms to halt any
applause. To dam back the tension. God, I was good at this. But where on earth had I got this shtick from? Oh yes, of course. Who says German studies is a waste of time nowadays, eh? This was the reward for my having sat through
Triumph of the
bloody
Will
every term for twenty years (it's always a good standby if you need to kill two hours of contact time and get student bums on seats). How ironic! To be using that fascist bastard's very weaponry against him!

—I met Heiner Panke here in this city twenty years ago. Twenty years. The bad old days. So our decent liberal politicians say. The bad old days when you had to listen to Party bullshit. When you had to nod to Party slogans. When you had to smile when the Party said smile. And of course they are right, our decent liberal politicians. Oh yes. You did have to listen to Party bullshit. You did have to nod to Party slogans. You did have to smile when the Party said smile. Yes, yes. That was the price. The price we paid for jobs that lasted, for colleges that taught everyone and hospitals that treated everyone, for streets that were safe, for rents we could afford, for neighbourhoods where good, ordinary, normal people lived. Terrible, say our decent liberal politicians. What a price to pay. Imagine! To have to listen to the odd bit of Party bullshit. To have to nod to Party slogans now and then. To smile a couple of times a year when the Party said smile. Unbearable. Horrible. Look at yourselves now and be thankful, say our decent liberal politicians: you lucky, free people! Yes. We are free now, my friends. All we have to do now is listen to bullshit, nod to slogans, smile when we are told to smile. Oh yes, my friends. We have to listen to bullshit about
free trade
. We have to nod to slogans about
competing in the world market
. We have to smile when they tell us that our jobs are being
restructured
,
that we must be more
flexible
, that we must
be realistic
in this lucky new world. Well, that is the new price, my friends. The price we pay for all this
joy
. For living in permanent fear of the sack. For colleges and hospitals that take only the rich. For streets we hardly dare walk after dark, for rents and mortgages that suck the life from our veins, for neighbourhoods where no decent normal person would choose to live. Oh lucky people. Oh free people, say our good, decent liberal politicians.

And who asked for
this
kind of freedom? Well? Who here in this hall asked for so-called
free trade
? Who asked to
compete
with countries where children slave for a dollar a day? Who asked to be restructured, to be flexible, to be realistic? You, sir? No, sir. You, madam? No, madam. And not I, my friends. Not I! And you?

—
Nein!

—
Nein
, my friends,
nein
! But please, my friends, hear me, thank you. Thank you. There may be those who ask: what is this Englishman doing, speaking like this of German troubles? A fair question, my friends. For these are indeed the troubles of Germany, as anyone except our decent liberal politicians can see. But they are also the troubles of England, for they are the troubles of Europe! Ask any decent Englishman, any decent Dutchman, any decent Frenchman: did you ask to ‘compete' with countries where children slave for a dollar a day? You know the answer, my friends. What is the answer?

—
Nein!

—
Nein!
We did not ask for this. We did not ask for this so-called ‘freedom'. And what
do
we ask for, my friends?

I looked around my people. I had them right in my sights. For twenty-five years I had been dealing in
academic crap, buttressing every suggestion with footnotes and references, framing every argument as careful debate, not because that was honest and true, but because that is how you win the day there. Cunning sap, not hearty storm. Here, I was pure at last. Letting it bloody well rip at last, laying into the globalising bastards and exploiters and ruiners of ordinary, decent lives like mine. The bastards who had broken the deal and robbed me of my nice normal north-London semi with the sash windows; and had broken countless other families as well, raped whole countries, impoverished entire continents in the name of profit! Well, I was our spokesman now and my heart opened wide. From my earliest childhood memories half-remembered words arose and united with stuff I had been reading only a few days ago. The timeless chants of righteousness united and entwined within me. My voice dropped deep even as my chest swelled.

Speak? No. Now was the time to sing!

—When the architects of Europe wrote the confident words of the Union and the Declaration of Human Rights, they were signing a promissory note to which every European was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all Europeans would be guaranteed a decent and secure future. Now is the time to cash that cheque. Now is the time for what is ours by rights. It would be fatal for the rulers of Europe to overlook the urgency of the moment and to underestimate the determination of the European people. This winter of discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating spring of hope. Those who hope that we the people needed only to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if Europe returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquillity in Europe until the people of Europe are granted their rights. The
whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of this continent until the bright day of justice emerges!

I paused. I looked at them all.

Chthonk!
The magazine slammed home.

Ca-chunk!
I cocked her. The French Revolution did not happen because the poor were starving. The poor had always been starving. The French Revolution happened when someone told the poor that they
shouldn't be
starving. Discuss.

—Sixty years ago, the nations of Europe joined hands together. Their union came as a great beacon of hope to millions who had been seared in the flames of war. It promised a better future to end the long night. But sixty years later, we must face the tragic fact that the future is not growing better. Sixty years later, we find ourselves crippled by the struggle to survive. Sixty years later, we find ourselves a mere island in the midst of a vast ocean of capital. Sixty years later, we find ourselves exiles in our own land. Everything has been globalised except our consent. A handful of the richest men in the richest nations – Who are they? Where are they? Why should they rule our lives? – use the global powers they have assumed to tell the rest of the world how to live. And when these new rulers of the world cloister themselves behind the fences of Seattle or Genoa or Berlin, or ascend into some other inaccessible eyrie, they leave the rest of the word shut out of their deliberations. When, like the cardinals who have elected a new pope, they emerge, clothed in the serenity of power, to announce that it is done, our howls of execration serve only to enhance the graciousness of their detachment. They are the actors, we are the audience, and for all our catcalls we can no more change the script to which they play than the patrons of a cinema can change the course
of the film they watch. They are the tiniest of the world's minorities, and their rule, unauthorised and untested, is sovereign.

Who are they? The global locusts!

These global locusts, without homeland or people, dare to tell us that modernisation is necessary. Well, we do not find it necessary! They dare to tell us that globalisation is inevitable. Well, we do not find it inevitable! They dare to tell us that the future is mapped out for us. Well, we do not want their road maps! They dare to tell us that nothing and nobody can resist their idol, the Market. Well, my friends, I say unto them: we had a deal.

We had a deal that Europe was to be the oasis of freedom and justice. We had a deal where our children would all be happy, prosperous Europeans.

We had a deal.

I say to you, my friends, we have come here today to demand that our deal be honoured.

So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of Bavaria, from the mighty mountains of the Alps. Let freedom ring from the warm shores of the Mediterranean to the bracing coasts of the North Sea and the Atlantic's wild cliffs!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous hills of France!

Let freedom ring from the mythic banks of the Rhine and the Elbe!

Let freedom ring from every molehill of Holland, and from every mountainside of Austria, let freedom ring.

Because we had a deal. And when this deal is honoured all of Europe's children will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old song, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!'

I stepped blindly from the stage on wings of applause, plucking and draining another glass of beer from another delighted Heidi without so much as pausing, strode manfully up to the double doors and walked straight through them and into the corridor, where I knew Panke was waiting.