The 2084 Precept (55 page)

More trouble in the Middle East, I noted,
and (great news!) more peace talks planned. Most people alive have
been inundated with news items on the Middle East conflicts and
their thousands of accompanying peace conferences since the day
they were born, and that is no exaggeration—O.K., not since they
were born, an unworkable expression; but since they reached the
stage of being able to absorb world news. Unfortunately most of the
countries involved in this mess operate on belief-based systems, so
there won't be any peace for centuries to come or, more
realistically, ever. They all hate each other too much.

Of mild interest was another article on
government corruption. Nothing new about that either, corruption
being as much a part of the human character as the killing skills
are. But I was amused by one of the examples used to demonstrate
how corruption can be practiced (and also tolerated—and therefore
approved—and sometimes participated in—by the boss birdbrains).

There are 30,000 civil servants working for
the European Commission. Last year, 22,329 of these people were
ill. At least once. That was an increase of 0.6% over the prior
year. They were ill for a total of 433,808 working days, which
means an
average
of nearly 3 weeks for each one, an increase
of 2.5% over the prior year. This article pointed out that not all
of the illness was fraudulent but that an awful lot of it was. No
normal private organization could survive with those kinds of
numbers. And normal organizations would almost certainly do
something about it. But these chronically sick people are their own
bosses, they do nothing to change things, the abuse increases each
year, and then they are allowed to retire in their mid-fifties and
take home a pension of between €4,300 and €10,000 per month (all
decided and approved by themselves, needless to say). Not bad,
eh?

And what exactly do these people do or
achieve anyway, when not ill or on vacation or whatever? What is
the difference between them being ill and them being
not
ill? And if some of them occasionally die, how can you tell they’re
dead? Don't ask me folks, just keep on voting.

I switched to the Sudoko, more interesting.
Then I gave Mr. Brown his evening meal and, replete with college
sausages and beer, prepared myself for a long, long sleep.

Mr. Brown woke me up. It was time for his
morning constitutional and I took him down to the river for an
hour. When we returned I wrote '
For a very special friend
'
in Monika's birthday card and took it together with the gift
voucher down to her apartment.

She was still wearing one of the long
T-shirts she used for sleeping, and she had no make-up on—on my
account, probably, despite her explanation of a long Sunday and a
birthday lie-in. She knew I generally disliked the taste of
lipstick and the chemical smells of powders and other female
painting products. Not of course, that we men don't regularly
sacrifice ourselves in this regard in the name of luuuuv. Or
sex.

When she opened up the card and the present,
she burst into tears. And then she hugged me and gave me a long
kiss, for the first time ever on the lips.

Erotic was not the word for it, her body
caused my neurons to disintegrate into a morass of raving lust and
when she felt my reaction, she pressed herself up against me even
harder. But, cynic though I may be, I am not a bastard. My entire
nervous system, except for that section responsible for moral
control, erupted into volcanic rage as I separated myself from her
embrace. I mean, this was a woman who would be reaching retirement
age before I was fifty; that would never work, not with me, and not
with many others either. And no way was I going to cause her the
programmed heartbreak. I liked her too much for that.

She became her cheerful self again before
long and my neurons also took a grip on themselves. The electrical
impulses resumed their normal traffic flow, and other parts of
myself, aching a bit though they may have been, started on their
dejected and unwilling return to standby mode. She made me some
poached eggs, we talked about my upcoming trip to Spain, and I
invited her to dinner that night in her favorite restaurant in
Wiesbaden.

Delsey, that indefatigable weekend worker,
called me during the afternoon. The meeting was confirmed for
Wednesday at 5 p.m., on the condition that tomorrow's forecast
event did indeed occur. Mr. Parker and myself should please be at
10, Downing Street at around 4.45 p.m. The Downing Street venue was
preferable for security reasons, already in place you understand,
no need for additional measures, ha, ha. If the event did not
occur, however, the meeting would not be taking place and I should
present myself instead at nine o'clock on Tuesday morning at New
Scotland Yard and ask for him. Without fail, please, to preempt any
need for otherwise unavoidable steps and inconveniences, you
understand.

I understood alright, some kind of charge
for infiltrating and willfully obstructing government functionality
or whatever. I told him O.K., but that I might not be present, Mr.
Parker would be deciding on the need for that. He asked what my
movements were going to be in the coming week and I told him I
didn't know.

I called Jeremy and let him know about the
meeting. No, it would not be necessary for me to be there, he said.
He could handle the meeting himself, he would let me know how it
went. I sent a text message to Delsey confirming that Mr. Parker
would be there on Wednesday, and that I would not be there. He
shouldn’t worry however; I would fly over tomorrow night to comply
with his alternative meeting requirement in the case of a
non-occurrence of the forecast event.

I called the restaurant and reserved a
window table for two and ordered a small birthday cake with just
one candle, gave them my credit card details. I went out for a
long, fast bike ride with Mr. Brown. We exhausted ourselves nicely,
and then I gave him his dinner, smoked a cigarette on the balcony,
had a shower, put on some fresh clothes, and went downstairs to
collect Monika for dinner. She was wearing a simple black dress and
a small necklace and she looked, yes it is the correct word for it,
fantastic. She had done something to her hair and she looked very
young.

It took us about half an hour to get to the
restaurant which is on the town end of Wiesbaden's main park, in
one of those fine buildings housing the city's main theater and the
casino. As we walked away from the car park, Monika took my hand.
She had never done that before, but it felt O.K., it felt good. It
wasn't of course, it was as wrong as sleeping together would be.
And maybe she was thinking the same thing because she let go again
before we went inside.

The dining area was fairly large and fairly
full. It was all dark paneling and the walls were hung with
photographs and sketches from a fun-loving but bygone era. The
lighting was low and relaxed, there were candles on the tables, and
there was a piano player and a guitarist. We ordered some red wine.
Monika liked Rioja and so I ordered a 2005 Murillo while we looked
over the menu.

"Oh, Peter," she said.

"Happy birthday," I said.

"Too many of them," she said with a
smile.

"Not the way you look."

"I'm sorry about this morning," she
said.

"Don't worry, Monika," I said. "There's
nothing to worry about. Just relax."

"I know, but I shouldn't have…"

"Perhaps not," I said with a smile. "But
living dangerously is not without its benefits."

She reached across the table and took hold
of my hand again. "I've been having bad thoughts about you all
afternoon," she said.

"Bad thoughts?"

"Yes. Very selfish thoughts. I have been
hoping that you will never, ever, find the right woman. And then
you will have to stay with me."

"Now that's not what I call a bad thought,
Monika," I said. "But even if I find what you call the right woman,
you and I will always be very special friends. And the right woman
would have to agree to that in advance."

She started dabbing at her eyes again but
she was very happy, you could tell, she was enjoying her birthday.
And so was I, just watching this woman, her deep brown eyes, her
soft brown hair, her slightly crooked nose and, yes, her nice round
breasts, neatly tucked away and nestling in that little black dress
of hers. And after dessert, the restaurant manager and two of his
waiters brought the birthday cake and she blew out the candle and
the waiters and the tables around us applauded and I asked for her
favorite piece of music,
San Salvador
, and while it was
being played she burst into tears again. And then we drank a lot
more red wine, and a coffee, and a cognac, and I asked for some
more old pieces of music, including ones that I like, such as
Walkin' in Memphis
and
Streets of London
, and we were
one of the last ones to leave.

We went into the casino where we ordered
more cognac, and I gave her €100 and I told her to double it or
lose it and of course she lost it all, and of course I lost my €100
as well. Monika was drunk and I was also fairly sozzled, but I
still drive well—and slowly—when under the influence, not that the
police would see it that way of course. Nor should they, don't get
me wrong. But life is a risk, and it was a Sunday night and there
were no police around and we drove happily back to Okriftel, luck
favors the brave. Sometimes.

I put Monika to bed, no undressing her, I
won the battle again with my neurons on that one, and I gave Mr.
Brown five minutes around the block and then I put myself to bed as
well.

The pain caused by Céline was slowly
becoming a dull ache. An ache which still produced pangs of grief
whenever she surfaced in my thoughts, but time's scabs were
gradually forming over the wound, the healing process was under
way. So it was Jeremy Parker who dominated my thoughts while I was
shaving, and he continued to dominate them while I drank my coffee
and smoked my cigarette. How on earth could he cause an asteroid to
make an unforeseen and unplanned crash-landing onto one of our
planets?

I finally concluded that there were two
possibilities, and only two. Number one: O.K., so he had chosen our
largest planet, Jupiter, a gas giant with over sixty moons and
which has over three hundred times the mass of the Earth and is
four times bigger than that in terms of volume. And as such it has
a massive gravitational pull and regularly drags comets and
asteroids towards the inner part of our solar system, some of which
end up from time to time crashing into its surface. What is left of
them anyway, the gravitational forces tear them to pieces while
they're on their way in.

So he was not talking about an unusual
event. Maybe, deranged though he is, he has—in addition to his
astonishing and prodigious mind-bending abilities—outstanding
talents as an amateur physicist and astronomer. Look at the
skepticism with which Galileo was treated by the other scientists
of his time, some of whom actually categorized him as insane.
Perhaps Jeremy simply has
knowledge
of the fact that another
asteroid is finally due to lose its orbital battle and perish in
that gaseous spider's deadly embrace. Far-stretched, no doubt about
it. But it couldn't be his computer-hacking; he had said so
himself, he can't move physical objects.

The second possibility was that no asteroid
at all would crash into Jupiter today. This could therefore be the
day when Jeremy's fantasy world would finally manifest itself to be
exactly what it was, a fantasy, the proof of the pudding so to
speak, the end of the line, a lunatic having to confront himself
with the evidence of his own lunacy, and with whatever consequences
that might turn out to have.

And of course there would be the
consequences for myself. I wouldn't think they could put me into
jail, they had no real justification for that. And even if they did
invent some nebulous reason for doing so, it wouldn't be for long.
It would simply be another of life's experiences, like being washed
gently onto some smooth rocks by a small ocean wave. So it would
mean some embarrassment and it would mean some hassle, but who
knows, maybe Jeremy would still transfer the remaining money from
our interview agreement. He might be hopelessly deranged, but he
had proven himself to be a person of high integrity so far. And
even if he didn't, the €300,000 I had already received compensated
more than satisfactorily for the time and trouble of my involvement
in this weird affair.

Mr. Brown had—quite justifiably—begun to
intensify his harassing strategy, and so off we went, down to the
river, back to the petrol station for the newspaper, and back to
base. Only 30 conflict deaths today, a nice round number. Are we
pleased? Are we disappointed? Are 30 deaths enough to trigger our
abhorrence and disgust? Or are 30 deaths too few, a miserable
number, disdainful, not worth a moment’s thought? Or doesn’t it
matter, do we not really care
what
the number is, or how
many were women and children? Has it all been going on for too
long, have we become totally
blasé
? To each his own. My own
personal reaction, as you would naturally expect of a cynic, was a
cynical one and it hasn't changed from day to day and it hasn't
changed from year to year. Our small lump of rock continues to
orbit its star, the human species continues to pursue its various
activities—revolting, pathetic or otherwise, define them as you see
fit—on its small lump of rock, and there is nothing I can do about
it and there is nothing you can do about it (if you think you can,
then your attempts and those of your predecessors have been
extraordinarily ineffectual), and there is nothing anyone else can
do about it either. So I personally am only mildly interested at
best. And even then, only from a mathematical and statistical point
of view.