One ancient morning, we were awoken from the treetops by a great thundering sound high above us. We heard the words from the book of the magic warrior and left our places of rest. Together we sleep, together we wake. The thundering sound above our heads made the earth shudder under our feet. We took refuge from a blinding light under the leafy, green cathedrals. Those who chose not to take shelter were burned by the falling rain. The magic warrior brings us medicine; in return, we give him our faith in his words. But on that ancient morning in June, we licked his heart, and he poisoned us.
Our land was set alight with a flash from the heavenly spirits. The morning moved around us, pouring out its secrets in blue prayer. There were warriors descending from the sky everywhere. We were there, in our dreams, and the warriors were dancing to the approaching tales of the near and future worlds. A vampire danced at the masque of red death. We saw traces of sticky web and the thin fingers of the departing night.
The words of the magic warrior were carried in tremors and waves through our world. But on this day in June, the world chose to cast aside the words from the ancient books of realism. We were plunged into utter darkness and desolation. The magic warrior fell silent, and there was nothing but stillness over the land. What hand will turn the dusty pages now?
***
We remember the images of long ago. Our art houses are full of them, and to each image, there follows a succession of words which forms part of our story. There are unknown truths and lies hidden in every story.
We often come to a shrine in the centre of the city. We usually go in the evening. It is such a lovely time of the day. We have seen images of life from the caves to the office blocks. What are we to believe? Some of us sit quietly in our seats in the cinema auditorium and whisper our own truths in the security the darkness offers. The scenes flicker in front of us. We cannot help thinking of the ushers trembling from the cold and the icy shadows which creep through this old cinema building.
The Academy soldiers approach us in the streets when we have completed our work in the city and factories. They poke us with their rifles and say, ‘Come with us to our shrine in the city and we will show you the faces of your old ghosts.’ They shriek with laughter and herd us onto military trucks. ‘Come inside, children of the Academy,’ they say, ‘we can freeze your heads.’
There are some days when I go to the cinema before it fills up with people. The thick velvet curtains are drawn across the large screen and only the light from the red lamps in the ceiling illuminates the auditorium. The building is in poor condition and the wind outside causes the large chandelier to sway a little. I am free to choose the best seat in the house and sit in contentment for hours without having to face the images and sounds of old ghosts from our past. I can hear the trucks pulling up outside.
A few days ago, I sat here late in the afternoon in the same seat and thought about the things she said to me. Her words seemed out of place at the time. Odd words. We both had a restless night. I remember waking shortly after three in the morning and she was still asleep beside me. I watched her for quite some time before she woke. ‘Time,’ she said. ‘Time?’ ‘Time for what?’ ‘Time for a baby,’ she replied.
***
Something wonderful is going to happen; something so wonderful that I will not be sad in this world again. I have seen it in my mind during an intense and unnerving period of dream theory. I experienced it deep in a sleeping journey. But, this morning, when we sat and ate, I could not bring myself to tell the others as is the custom in our tribe with dream theory. The children chattered away about strange gardens and the pale-skinned people, but all the time, I remained silent, because silence was one of the most sacred gifts taught to us by the magic warrior. When it was my turn to speak, I told them I had a restless night and never dreamt at all. I saw the expressions of disbelief in the faces of the elders. It will be their horror for not pressing me to reveal my visions. I will not be made to speak of the things the magic warrior dares to speak in my dream world.
I slipped quietly away in the afternoon and made the long journey to the clearing in the forest. It was there I watched the world around me live. I cannot forget my dream theory. I returned in the evening to find the elders sitting solemnly by the log fire discussing worldly things. I will not be sad in their world. Something wonderful is going to happen. My journey is just beginning.
***
Our city is almost permanently under a covering of snow throughout the year. Our days are always cast in dusk because of how far we are north of the hemisphere. We seldom catch sight of the sun behind the thick grey clouds in the sky. The pure whiteness of the snow and the yellow street-lamps illuminate our days sufficiently. Every night, on my journey home, I pull off the motorway and stop along the bank of our great river. The city lies on one side of the river, and on the other, a series of old abandoned warehouses and factories. My father and grandfather, like many men and women of past generations, worked long hours in these grey factories operating assembly machinery. Nobody works over there now. It is one of the old ghosts of our city. All we seem to do is work on figures and reports for the Academy. I will not be sad in this world.
I commute by car to the Academy four days a week. I am classified as a clerk there, but my work entails much more than this might suggest. I record various kinds of civil information and compile historical and geographical reports for the board of directors who reside on the top floor of the Academy building. The material I deal with in my regional Academy is often edited or completely destroyed by the Academy board. This is a common practice of the Academy. No work should have greater permanence than the Academy itself. Yet, a single day does not pass without a superior reminding me about the importance of completing my reports and tasks. It seems a futile effort on every clerk’s part.
In the city bars in the evening, the young dancing girls will ask, ‘What do you do, Leonardo?’ ‘I am a historian for the Academy,’ I reply, or ‘I am a geographer,’ at the very least, ‘I am a researcher.’ I have never told them that I am a clerk. It has never struck me until now that they may ask for more money from a geographer or historian. I am such a fool with money, but the services are good from these girls.
***
The top level of the Academy is known as the High Academy. This is where declarations and assignments are issued every Friday for the following week. This is also the place where our six Academy directors work tirelessly around a large finely polished table. Each director is responsible for a different section of Academy policy, Travel, Communication, Resources, Education, Finance and Regional Affairs. Each director is appointed by a ballot depending on which section he represents. Voting is restricted to senior members of the Academy, and this does not include clerks or general Academy staff. A vote takes place every seven years, and in the event of death or sickness during this period, the relevant section assistant will take up the director’s duties. Abdication or neglect of directorial duties results in penal confinement for a period decided as appropriate by the other directors. Decisions concerning each section run by a director are reached by discussion and the support of other directors and sections. Votes can be secured financially or by way of written guarantees on future voting matters. The purchase of section votes and general regional stock trading occurs on the ground floor in the Exchange. No vote is deemed by the Academy to be above purchase, and furthermore, the refusal of a ‘sale of vote’ can result in a penal action. These actions are decided by an Academy tribunal which meets at the end of each month.
The Academy operates from Monday to Thursday, with only the High Academy working on a Friday. On non-working days, the Academy is occupied by a few security personnel, and no one is permitted to enter the building. Only academics are allowed access to the thousands of secret files. A person working for the Academy can only become an academic after ten years of service, and also by nomination of a senior academic or director.
Each year, there is an election for an Academy Ambassador. Everyone working in the Academy can cast a single vote for a candidate of his or her choice. The Academy Ambassador has no vote or director’s post in the High Academy, but he is often a former director. Each Academy Ambassador represents his region internationally in the way presidents did in past ages.
***
You are driving home from the Academy in the evening along the motorway. The snow on either side of the motorway is a pale-yellow colour from the glare of the street-lamps, and the shadows cast on the road move like creatures hunting prey. You drive through the long tunnel under the city by-pass and shade your eyes with one hand from the glare of the approaching headlights on the other side of the road.
When you emerge at the other end of the long concrete tunnel, you will pull over to the banking where the snow is beginning to drift and get out of the car. You will lock the car and begin the walk to your apartment opposite the art gallery. You will go in the rotating doors with your briefcase tightly held in one hand, and then you will say good evening to the porter as pleasantly and normally as possible. He will have been reading a classical novel since late that afternoon and will hardly return your greeting. He will barely lift his head to see you, and he will certainly not notice the white plastic bag you have been carrying in your right hand.
You will enter your apartment carefully and quietly without switching on a light. In the kitchen of the apartment in the darkness, you will remove a revolver from the white plastic bag. You will go into the bedroom at the front of the apartment where your wife soundly sleeps. You will place a pillow over her face, hold it there, quite firmly, and then push the barrel of the revolver into the pillow at the place where her head is. You will apply a gradual increase in force on the trigger until the revolver fires. You will be surprised at how little she struggles and how easy it is.
You will wash and eat before leaving the apartment.
You notice how erratic your breathing is when you emerge from the other side of the concrete tunnel. It is as if all the fresh air in the car had been sucked out and a heavy pressure is being applied to your chest. You glance across at the white plastic bag resting precariously on your briefcase on the passenger seat. You can just about make out the butt of the revolver protruding from the bag in the dim light. If you do not stretch across to place the bag properly onto the seat, an uneven patch of road will knock the revolver onto the floor of the car.
You slow the car at the tunnel exit and the movement of the car on the uneven bank is enough to unsettle the bag with the revolver. It falls on the floor of the car. You stop the car and lean across to search for the revolver in the darkness. You can feel the rubber floor mat and the steel rungs of the seat. You are sure you are missing out certain areas of the floor because you are stretching so much. You step from the car and go to the passenger door. It has been stiff for at least a year, and to open the door, it has to be lifted and pulled with the right amount of force. You struggle with it for some moments before it finally opens. You can see the revolver lying against the rung of the seat. You reach down and pick it up. At that moment, the bright headlights of an oncoming car in the other lane illuminate you standing beside your car. It is as if you have been caught at the moment of committing a terrible crime. Your mind flashes back a full hour. You are there, again, in your apartment, leaning over your wife’s body. Her body is draped over the bed. The eyes of your accusers are peering out of the darkness. Your heart palpitates and spit forms on your lips.
You place the revolver back in its plastic bag, pick up your briefcase, and lock the door of the car. You do not want to be spotted by anyone. You fear your car might be recognised, so you go the rest of the journey to your apartment on foot.
***
To every image placed before us, there comes to mind a series of words. Sometimes the words come to us as tales, and at other times, they are taunts from our own past. We no longer hear the dialogues of the films in the cinemas. We replace it with the words our subconscious places upon it. We have become our own scriptwriters. We have as important a part to play in these films as the actors and actresses. We create our own voiceprint. These celluloid stills are lifeless and insignificant without our own imposed prejudices and corruptions. The advertisement boards which cover the corridors and halls of our cinemas try to persuade and enforce, to control and inflict their ideas upon us. The cinemas have become the secret propaganda army of the Academy.
The soldiers who herd us onto the trucks for cinema screenings are capable of sowing the seeds of life, yet, still crushing a baby’s skull a moment later. They pull us off the back of the trucks and hurl us against the cinema doors. They are eager to get the job done so they can return to the barracks and the dancing girls from the city bars. This eagerness to get us to the cinemas and back again to our homes, places new words in their subconscious. ‘Hurry, hurry, there are more seeds to be spread and more babies’ skulls to be crushed.’
I read once that some primitive tribes of long ago placed a flame inside the hollowed skull of a stillborn baby. During the dark and stormy nights in the jungle, the lighted skulls were placed in a ring around the tribal settlement to spread a light of pure innocence and protection. This was called the Light of The Night Master’s Spirit.
My first memory of the cinemas was when I was about four or five. It was a time when the Academy took great regional pride in its inventors and explorers. We were going to see a film about a great scientist and explorer from our Academy. The film was called ‘The Leonid Kulik Expeditions’. It was an epic and factual account of this explorer’s quest to explain a massive explosion which devastated a large northern part of our region many years ago. I saw the film at a time when there were no soldiers on our streets, and we all gladly went to the cinemas without persuasion and persecution. It was a time when the newspapers provided us with the only other form of recorded picture and news story. Who could resist the digestion of these images in an otherwise dull and harsh existence?
***
In the early 1920’s, the Academy of Sciences sent the distinguished scientist, Leonid Kulik, across the region to research and investigate meteorite falls. The meteorite fall of June, 1908, in the Tunguska forest, totally consumed Kulik and his expedition for twenty years.
Kulik gathered information and eyewitness reports on the Tunguska fall for six years until he received the financial support of the Academy to carry out an intense and expansive exploration at the point at which the meteorite fell. The expedition was undertaken across vast snow covered forests by horse and sledge. Much of this part of the region was uncharted and treacherous. It became clear to Kulik after some days of severe snow and hampered travel through the difficult Taiga forests that he would need to transfer his supplies to more nimble footed transport. Reindeer would cope with the deep snow and dense undergrowth far better. The progress of his journey improved and he reached the Mekirta River by April 1927. This point of the expedition was to fuel Kulik’s six year obsession still further when he saw the extent of damage caused by the meteor fall. He climbed to the highest attainable point on the north bank of the Mekirta River to see twenty five kilometres of devastation. Even with all this devastation, Kulik knew by the direction of the flattened forests, that the centre of impact was still further ahead. He realised just how large and devastating the meteor fall had been.
Despite being so close to his expedition goal, Kulik was finally forced to give up with his team growing in weariness and despondency. He returned to Vanavara disappointed, but still delighted with his discovery.
Kulik returned to the Khladni Ridge where he made his first discovery, re-equipped and rejuvenated in spirit, in the summer of that same year. He moved slowly North West until he reached the centre of the meteor fall. The devastated forests stretched out in every direction around him in places up to sixty kilometres. Kulik returned to the Academy after a brief survey, believing he had seen enough to confirm that the Tunguska region had been struck by a massive meteorite in June 1908. He made plans for another expedition the following year.
Despite Kulik’s experience as an explorer and scientist, he made the mistake of not utilizing a guide knowledgeable of the local area on his second trip. Kulik was so consumed by his obsession with his first trip that he was destined to make many more mistakes which would undermine his great discovery. Kulik’s greatest lack of knowledge was the geology of the Tunguska.
The famous cameraman Strukov accompanied him on his second expedition. The resulting film of the expedition was shown in the cinemas in our region. This was the film known as ‘The Leonid Kulik Expeditions’. Strukov recorded the struggles and human aspect of survival under extreme and dangerous conditions. He perfectly captured the spirit of the expedition which had consumed Kulik for so many years. The second expedition set about examining the full extent of damage to the Tunguska, and the gathering of evidence which would verify Kulik’s belief that it had been caused by a large meteorite. The expedition was plagued with ill health and accidents. The survey for iron particles in the soil was unsuccessful and Kulik returned with only Strukov’s film record.
The third expedition began in the summer of 1929 and lasted well into the winter of 1930. The team carrier out ground surveys on the strange potholes which covered much of the Tunguska, and a final detailed geology of the area was produced. Kulik refused to accept the devastation could have been caused by anything other than a meteorite. Krinov, the deputy leader of the expedition, grew despondent after sighting an old tree stump in one of the potholes. This alone was evidence that the devastation could not have been caused by a meteorite. Krinov withheld a photograph of the pothole, fearing that it would cause certain disruption within the team, and discord with his leader. An aerial view of the area proved to be beyond their capabilities, and the news of Stalin’s tyrant rein of horror at home ended the expedition for seven whole years.
The fourth expedition proved to be the last for Kulik and his team. The main purpose was to carry out an aerial survey of the area and also to search for fragments of the meteorite. It was almost thirty years since the great explosion in the Tunguska. The aerial survey revealed the extent of devastation across two thousand square kilometres. It also contradicted the theory that the explosion was caused by a meteorite. Some trees at the centre of the blast had been left standing, and there was no clear marking on the ground of any impact point. It became obvious, even to Kulik, that the blast probably occurred high above the forests causing a second ballistic blast and many flash fires. There were also growth mutations in the new vegetation of the area.
The fourth expedition was halted by the advent of another tyrant at home. Kulik returned to fight in the blitzkrieg of his city. He was wounded, captured, and killed with many others before the end of the war. Kulik did not survive to witness the event which would have swayed him conclusively from his meteorite theory.
In August 1945 the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were devastated by atomic explosions. These explosions resulted in frightening similarities with the devastation caused in Tunguska. From the wake of Kulik’s death, to the dust clouds of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, came the possible answers to the mystery which obsessed him for more than twenty years. Kulik was not only trapped by his obsession, but by the scientific knowledge of his own time.
On that June day the blast and following mushroom cloud were beyond meaning to the Tungus people, and the disruption and devastation of animals and forests were taken as some form of punishment from the gods above. What were the native people of Tunguska thinking when the heavens seem to open up above them?
I remember well the last minute of that vivid and enthralling black and white film. We were sitting quietly in the darkness at the back of cinema with the final image of a devastated forest fading slowly to the remains of Hiroshima city. The commentator’s lone, shaky voice fades out on the last few words of an epic voyage. What were those words?
There was another great explosion from a falling meteorite in Japan a few months after the Tunguska explosion. Perhaps it was a forewarning from the gods of the coming events thirty seven years later.
***
When I was young, my grandfather often told me about his experiences of piloting an airship during the war. I insisted on calling him Count Von Zeppelin. This amused him a great deal.
***
After the war, you cried away to the hills leaving the throng and destruction of discontented cities and crumbling factories. The machines are soundless and motionless and the assembly lines are empty. Heavy barges and tug boats are moored in the still water by the quay-side. Their owners and sea merchants have long since abandoned them. They have left for different seas and ports. Most would never dream of joining you in the hills with the cold winter winds driving across the desolate countryside. There is only the odd, lone horseman in these hills, and above him, the ever-present masque of red death. In the last of the evening light, you can hear the sound of the dancing vampire. The passing horseman never stops. On the narrow and steep road, the horseman stretches out his thin fingers in the sticky web of moonlight. He can see the haunting towers and turrets of his ancestor’s home through the high skeletal trees.
You opened your heart to the world of the demigods. There in the high mountains lay the hidden past of an ancient world. There was an old and ornate estate situated on the flat and unsheltered plains of the countryside. There were stories in the local towns that the owner of this weather worn house travelled extensively in the Far East and returned with souvenirs and tribal folklore. He spent years at a time hiding out there after the war. His writing papers and designs are locked away in a wooden chest in a room at the back of the house. Some of these are the cursed and failed projects for the majestic beasts of the skies. The key to this chest is kept behind a large grandfather clock in the main hallway of the house. It might still be there in the dust and darkness. The hands of the old grandfather still creep and the bells still chime the hours and half hours.
When you were young, you use to pretend you were Leonardo da Vinci. In those days, the world knew nothing of secret hearts, and you were simply called, Little Leonardo. You dreamt about the ocean at the bottom of the well near your house. You believed some day you would drown in it.
Alas, no more of that now.
***
There is a large photograph of a Zeppelin airship hanging in one of the corridors of our cinema. It shows the interior cockpit of the airship. A stout, bald man dressed in blue overalls is seated at a control column. His gaze is fixed ahead and his unemotional expression seems to indicate that the ship is in flight. The small cockpit windows offer an indistinct view outside the ship. The focal point of the cockpit is the tall pillar-box shaped cabinet which houses various levers and dials. The pilot is seated in a stiff high chair and is grasping hold of long levers in each hand. These levers are like the familiar points levers in a railway junction box. The position and symmetry of these two levers suggest that they are used to steer the ship by way of mechanised rudders.
There are other photographs of airships on the same wall, but none of them capture the true flying experience. The photographs concentrate on close-ups of various exterior and interior mechanisms. I am forced to use my imagination, and the accounts of those who have witnessed the airships in flight, to from a visual picture of these majestic beasts.
The factory complexes across the river were used to assemble the airships many years ago. Then, the airship was the most common form of travel over land and sea. When the airship industry flourished, there were more workers on the assembly lines. These factories supplied airships for all our neighbouring regions.
***
Count Von Zeppelin dreams of ships and the days he spent in the open countryside. Earlier, Maria came into the drawing room and opened the two bay windows to the garden. She moved Count Von Zeppelin’s wheelchair from the desk to the open windows. He could smell the scent of the flowers drifting on the warm air currents of the morning. From the great bay windows, he can see the road which winds all the way to the city in the distance. All this serenity cannot disguise the fact that there are empires crumbling and disintegrating far across the countryside.
This morning, he had a revelation. The world unraveled its fragile threads and revealed its meaninglessness to him. For all these years, he had managed to nurture his dreams and aspirations throughout his life. Some of these dreams and aspirations are no longer his own. He seldom gets to his workshop. His designs and inventions have ceased to be his. They stopped being his once they became more than ideas in his mind, more than just lines on a page. The shapes and inventions he created have been re-shaped and re-invented by others. What evils would they carry out if they could captivate and harness the flight of the birds on the tall steeples of our cities?
He remembers fondly walking along the banks of Lake Constance with Herr Gottlieb Daimler, and how they marvelled at the flight of birds over the great expanse of water. He vowed to Herr Daimler one spring day, long ago, that his airships would cross an expanse of water a hundred thousand times the breath of Lake Constance. Herr Daimler could never have imagined his little Daimler engines powering the great ships of the future around the world. The Kaiser approved of their life-long collaboration. Count Von Zeppelin and Herr Daimler often watched the birds dive for fish at the very place his hangar would float in the centre of the lake.
There are two photographs which hang on the wall behind Count Von Zeppelin’s desk. One is of Herr Daimler in his workshop standing proudly beside the first working prototype of his engines. The other photograph is the Zeppelin II in May of 1909 over Bitterfield. The photograph was taken from the town while Von Zeppelin was high up in the sky piloting the airship. On his return to Friedrichshafen a few days later, he was given the photograph. It was the first time he had seen one of his airships wonderfully captured in flight. The photograph was taken from a mountainside near to the town. The body of the ship blended spectacularly with the light mist over the countryside. It was in Bitterfield that he learned about the magic and adventure of flight from his grandfather. His grandfather lived in a stone tower at the foot of the mountains. It was a beautiful tower with brilliant white walls and red shuttered windows. During Von Zeppelin’s childhood, he would spend some weeks of the summer with his grandfather flying small test balloons at the edge of the Black Forest. Von Zeppelin’s grandfather used to talk incessantly during those summer days of the flying experiments of the watchmaker Jullien, and the great pioneering ascents of Bixio and Barral in Paris.
So many of those early flying days are far behind him, and the world which lies outside Von Zeppelin’s great open windows is a much changed place. It is almost two years since he was well enough to set foot in his workshops in Friedrichshafen and share his wonder of the skies with the new apprentices. The stillness of the waters of Lake Constance is being shattered every day by the sound and motion of tool and machine. He can only wonder if the young apprentice hits his anvil with the vigour of hope and discovery, or the anguish of war and oppression. Oh, Herr Daimler, where is the chatter of your engines being heard now? He remembers a day he spent with Herr Daimler at his workshop in Stuttgart. He can still see him dancing around a workbench with the sound of a little Daimler rattling the corrugated, tin roof above them. What would the Kaiser have thought of his two leading inventors at that very moment? Von Zeppelin spent much of that morning bent over the little Daimler bolted to the heavy wooden workbench. Herr Daimler panted and puffed with excitement at the back of the workshop. The Kaiser’s work in those days was not meant for those men of weak hearts and dreams.
What does an old man do once his king and country seem to have left him behind? Von Zeppelin is almost motionless in his wheelchair. Autumn, as ever outside, is withering and falling. It would cause him great anguish to see a single speck or tear of rain in the air above. He remembers when nothing was more important than the sight of cloud cover below him. The only affect the flight of life has on him is the flight of the falling leaf from the cedar tree in the garden outside.
There was a time when he was not so negative about the war. That was a time when the spirit of man and his machines was much in need by king and country. He remembers the day the Empress of all Germany came to greet him when the Zeppelin III landed at Tegel, and all he could hear was the roar of the nation around him. The Crown Prince stepped off the ship with him as if they were both stepping off the moon. He felt everything would change for good on that day, and everyone would share his dream. Had he pushed his way through the crowds, looked back at them from a kilometre away, he would have seen the pity of it all. What did he do instead? Oh, sweet Herr Daimler, how much we long for all those lost dreams of innocence and the strength and beauty of mountains and lakes. Lake Constance was witness to an Empress’ dream during those days in ‘90. It was just another step and tear on the nation’s shiny boots of leather.
The Kaiser believes the chances of victory in the war will be greatly helped with the addition of more airships to the navy and army. There are already massive new factories operating day and night across the countryside to replace the ships which are being rapidly destroyed over enemy regions. The Kaiser recently came to Von Zeppelin’s house and sat with him by the open bay windows. He was eager to tell him how efficient the airship had become as a tool of propaganda against the enemy. The Kaiser only stayed a short while before returning to his duties in Berlin.
There is a small chequered blanket covering Count Von Zeppelin’s knees. If Maria does not return shortly he might be tempted to steal a few solitary moments on his pipe. He wonders now if it is a Daimler engine which powers the Kaiser’s car.
***
There is an old elevator in the Academy. It is in a serious state of disrepair, and most of the academics choose to use the stairs instead. It regularly stops in between floors, or else operates as if it had a mind of its own. I often need to move a lot of box-files between floors, and I use the elevator more than most of the other clerks and academics. The elevator is about twice the size of a telephone box, and access is gained by pulling open two heavy and awkward folding gates. Apart from passenger transport, the elevators are also used for other purposes, including deviant sexual practices, and also as a den for the sale of narcotics. It is widely believed that the elevator is used as a secluded place for the trading of secrets between sections of the Academy. There is a single large lamp in the elevator, but at no stage in my memory has it ever worked for more than a day or two at a time. Water from several leaks on the roof makes its way into the elevator shaft and shorts out the electric circuit at the junction box. Once the two heavy folding gates are shut, selecting the appropriate button is achieved by a combination of feel and experience in the darkness.
The elevator malfunctioned while I was in it with some box-files a week ago. I was taking the files to the exchange on the ground floor, where they were needed. The exchange is reached by pressing the button marked ‘G’ on the control console of the elevator. This is the easiest button to find on the console. I am sure I pressed the correct button, but the elevator shuddered and jolted, and then seemed to drop suddenly down the shaft out of control. At first, I thought the cables might have broken. The elevator finally stopped with a grinding sound against the outer wall of the shaft. I was in utter darkness. The papers from the files I was carrying were left scattered on the floor of the elevator. The whole elevator felt as if it was askew to the right in the shaft. I picked myself up off the floor and pulled the two stiff gates open. I could only pull them apart enough for me to squeeze out. The jagged edge of the gates tore my waistcoat and my shirt. I tripped and stumbled out onto the floor. The elevator had stopped about a half foot below the floor level. A small red light illuminated a sign above the elevator entrance. BASEMENT. I had not known of the existence of a basement in the Academy. Nobody had ever spoken about one, not even the security officers.
The air in the basement was dusty and stuffy and there was a strong smell of decaying wood or carpet. The floor was made of concrete, and in the distance, I could hear the sound of splashing water. I could also hear rats scurrying about on the floor. The only source of light in the basement came from several small red emergency lights high up on the walls. The light was only strong enough to see objects in my immediate path. I moved slowly forward, hoping somehow to find a way back upstairs. Once I got back upstairs, I could return with a torch and retrieve my files which had been scattered on the floor of the elevator. I heard the rats screeching as they scattered away from me towards the edges of the walls. After some investigation, I discovered the basement was L-shaped. I could see light from the far back wall of the basement. It came from a desk-lamp where I could see the figure of a man, dressed in blue overalls, sitting at a table. This area of the basement was far brighter than the other side, and I could make out shelves of books lining the walls as I made my way towards the man. The light was still too dim for the purpose of reading any of the books on the shelves.
I approached the desk and greeted the man. He was busy writing, and he did not look up or acknowledge my greeting. He was at least sixty, with a thin and bony body. All that remained of his hair was two grey clumps above each ear. He wore an editor’s cap that cast a long shadow over his face. He could only be in the position of a clerk or porter if he worked in the basement. It stood to reason. I called to him again, and I told him there was something wrong with the elevator. After a few moments, he stopped writing, and leaned back in his chair.
‘The elevator is broken. I need to get out of this place.’
He leaned forward and uncovered an old black telephone from under a bundle of crumpled papers. He did not reply to me, but spoke in whispered tones to somebody on the telephone.
‘They’re doing all they can upstairs. You’ll have to wait a while.’
I noticed the entrance to the stairway was heavily boarded up and it seemed it had not been used for years.
I spent some hours in the basement waiting for the elevator to be repaired. I learned that the man was called Portman, and he was the storage clerk. He had worked for the Academy in the basement for most of his life and he busied himself sifting through the thousands of out-dated and duplicated files completed for the Academy over the years. He also looked after the indexing of the old books removed from the library upstairs, and he stored them on the shelves which lined all the walls in the basement. He seemed completely unaware and unconcerned about the daily happenings in the Academy and the region. It was some time before he became talkative, but once he removed a wine bottle from his desk drawer, he seemed to look on me as less of an intrusion. He was eager for me to examine the books and the curious array of objects in the basement.
‘These books date back two hundred years and many of them are badly decayed, almost unreadable. Others simply crumble into dust when I pick them off the shelves. It’s such a shame.’
He walked over and picked one book from a shelf deliberately crushing it into dust under the strength of his fingers.
I thought their poor condition was due to a combination of age and lack of use while they were in the Academy’s library. There were visible streams of water dripping down onto the shelves, and many of them had been gnawed away by the rats. It was obvious that the books had simply been discarded here with no attention given to their preservation.
There were many rows of jars filled with what I first thought was ordinary soil. The simple yellow labels on the jars described them as human ashes. Each included a surname and occupation. Portman showed me the jars containing the ashes of several of the region’s great writers and leaders of the past. It was the intention of the Academy to spread these ashes on any new soil claimed by the region on behalf of its new generation. It is widely believed that the Academy deliberately had great men and women of the region put to death for the purpose of obtaining their ashes while they were still living at the height of their ability. On every shelf, and in every corner, I saw rats moving around.
There was a large glass jar filled with water on top of an old wooden beer barrel. I could see what seemed like a goldfish moving in the jar, and tiny groups of air bubbles rose to the surface of the water. When I looked at the jar more closely, I realised it was a human foetus floating in the water. I could make out all the features of the body while it floated in its foetal position below the surface of the water. At all times, the foetus kept its tiny hands clenched and its eyes firmly shut.
The clerk got up from his desk and walked over to me with his wine glass in one hand. He removed a small colourful container from his waistcoat pocket and handed it to me. I read the ornately printed label on the container. NUTRITIOUS FISH FOOD: SUITABLE FOR GOLDFISH, GUPPIES AND OTHER SMALL SEA FISH. ADVISED AMOUNT SHOULD NEVER EXCEED ONE QUARTER OF A TEASPOON.
I opened the container and sprinkled a small amount of the orange powder on the surface of the water in the large jar. Immediately the foetus rose to the surface and fed on the powdered particles of food. After feeding, the foetus returned to its resting position in the jar. The clerk plucked a pencil from his pocket and began stirring the water in the jar. The foetus spun fiercely around in the swirling water. The clerk took delight from the frantic movements of the foetus as it tried to grab hold of the end of the pencil. The jar rocked about on the barrel before crashing to the concrete floor. The jar shattered into dozens of glass shards. The water splashed our feet and we both jumped back from the pool of water. The fall had clearly injured the foetus badly. It had several deep cuts on its back, and it was slumped face down in the pool of water. Blood mixed slowly with the water before we noticed a few twitches from the tiny body. I bent down to look at it closely. It gasped deeply for air before finally lying in silence. The clerk picked the body up off the floor and placed it on an empty space on the shelf. I was fixed rigid to the spot by the spectacle I had witnessed.
‘You must take it away with you when the security men arrive to get you out of here.’
He picked the foetus up off the shelf and pushed it towards my chest. I could feel its cold and wet body penetrating through my chest, and my eyes fixed on the hands of the clerk holding the lifeless body. Portman laughed and returned to his desk with the foetus.
It was several hours before the Academy security managed to repair the elevator. It was dark and peaceful outside, but I could still feel the oppression and coldness of the Academy long after I returned home to my apartment. I experienced a restless night, and my brief periods of sleep were troubled by visions of that foetus in its last throes of death. The Academy security has subsequently denied any knowledge of the existence of a clerk working for them in the basement. I have been down there on more than one occasion, but, as yet, I have been greeted by nothing more than the rats. There is no trace of the clerk’s desk or the wooden beer barrel. The only things which remain in the basement are the shelves of books and the jars of human ashes. I have checked the Academy employment files and found that there was nobody listed by the name Portman. I am quite sure my experiences in the basement were not simply a vivid dream of some kind.
***
There is a cinema in the city, not far from the Academy, where I always went as a child. All cinemas in our region are owned and run by the Academy. In the old days, the cinemas were privately owned, and the choice of films screened adhered to the personal tastes of the owner. The best years of the cinema occurred when I was a young child, and there was no one to force us to go. Since the Academy took over the running of the cinemas, we sometimes have to sit through multiple screenings of a single film. We have come to know the images on the big screen as if they were as real and true as the snow which covers our streets outside.
I have only once seen a film repeatedly by choice. My mother took me to see an animated film about a giant, blue whale six times. Each Friday evening, after our meal, I would pester her to breaking point to take me the following day to the cinema. She used to take a book into the cinemas with her and read it under the strong light of the cinema foyer. I would sit on my own in one of the front seats, absorbed by the flickering images, as if it was my very first time to see the film. I grew to understand the way the camera moved around its actors, and how the light would illuminate their faces.
It was the wild sea and the great sweeping tail of the giant, blue whale that provided my first cinematic fascination. These early adventures developed within me a keen interest in adventure documentaries. The first documentary had been the ‘Kulik’ film which was shown in our cinema under the strict control of the Academy. It was one of a small handful I went to see eagerly without the needlessly prodding of a soldier’s rifle.
A few years ago, I began thinking seriously about my mother’s career in the cinema. It had not been very long after her death. She had given up her acting career before I was born, and my recollections of her experiences and memories which she recounted to me in the cinema have been coloured by the passing of years. I never thought of her as an actress when I was a child. It was following her death that I realised her experiences were not the same as the mothers of my young friends.
Her flirtation with the film industry began at the age of seven and lasted through to her early thirties. Her first screen roles were in a series of French black and white films made at a small studio in Charolles. She spent most of her teenage years acting in this studio for an Italian director until it closed after the last war. She quickly tired of the conventional European films, and she began acting in art house films in France and Russia. Some of these experimental art house films have only just become available in the Underground network below the city. The French films were considered at the time to be pornographic, and only one of them has been screened in our region to date. Some months ago, some scenes cut from these films surfaced in the Underground cinemas that have been outlawed for years by the Academy. The Academy has now officially criminalised the production and screening of unauthorised films in the region. Nevertheless, illegal screening has become popular in the Underground, despite many arrests and convictions.
My mother never enjoyed much popularity, but she did remain a highly respected actress within the experimental field of the cinematic industry. The re-surfacing of the experimental French films in the Underground cinemas has greatly changed the widespread opinion of her. I dare not utter her name to my superiors in the Academy, and I have only discussed her film career with my wife.
Her career ended after the suicide of a close friend and confidant. By the time I became fully aware of my mother’s film career, the Academy had suppressed most of them, along with many other films of an artistic and experimental nature. I have seen two of the early French black and white films she made when she was young, and a few scenes cut from the experimental films screened in the Underground cinemas. It is always a risk going to the Underground cinemas because of the many raids and arrests recently. If the Academy ever finds out about the true identity of my mother, I will probably face immediate expulsion from my post there.
The city dates back to the middle ages when it was a northern fortified settlement located on the banks of the river Vltava. It is a city of high pointed spires and narrow streets which hide craft workshops and lined foreheads of many weary alchemists. It is a city with a buried culture to hide. There were many underground tunnels and chambers channelled deep under the city during the middle ages when it was first built. They were used by the early settlers as shelters from the severe snow storms which were common during that time. They were also used during the last two wars by the occupying armies as a safe command centre from heavy aerial bombing. The Underground network is now used by the criminal and cultural underworld, and it forms the nerve centre for the black market.
The first of the Underground cinemas began about five years ago and it still remains the largest and most successful of all the cinemas. There are generally about six at any one time operating frequently during the milder months of the year. The screenings range from art house films to hardcore pornography and notice of screenings is usually advertised with handout flyers in the local city bars and restaurants. Admittance is restricted to a recognised clientele. The cinema viewing areas comprise simply of a reel projector beamed on to a white wall of a chamber. The cinemas are capable of moving quickly from one area to another to avoid detection and infiltration by Academy military personnel. Several cinema operators and film directors have recently been arrested and screenings are becoming more secretive and less frequent. Only those visitors to the Underground recognised as regular clientele, bearing an identity card, are admitted into the cinema chambers. The Underground has become such a haven for drug trafficking and prostitution that few outsiders unfamiliar with the day to day life of the Underground will risk going down there.