The Peace Machine

by Oezguer Mumcu

  As Celal, Jean and Céline approached the power plant in a horse-drawn rubbish cart, they knew that they were about to see turbines creating an electromagnetic field the likes of which the world had never seen before. The plant sat on the banks of the Seine, whose muddy waters sloshed noisily against the shore. The building gave off a whirring sound, as if it were about to burrow into the earth. Cautiously, the trio made their way along the back of the long building, until they came to a low door set in the wall. While the rest of the building appeared to be as heavily fortified as a castle, the door swung open as soon as they turned the handle. Jean knew that the power plant’s guard was unfaithful to his wife once a month, at a particularly unsavoury bordello in Place de Clichy, so to convince the philanderer to leave the door open had been a matter of little difficulty.

  Silently they unloaded the cart in front of the door. Jean examined a map of the plant by the light of a gas lamp, and guided them along its corridors to their destination. In a few trips they managed to carry all the parts of the peace machine to the main turbine hall.

  Jean said, “The most important part is in the third sack. The envelope that arrived on Céline’s birthday included the key to a storeroom, where we discovered the best samples Pierre had gathered from magnetic mountains all around the world. Thankfully, there are enough left to replace those we lost in Belgrade.”

  “When I was rescuing Dragan from the circus, I saw some long glass tubes that were broken.”

  “They were surrounding the magnetic stones in the heart of the machine. The electricity passing through them started a vibration in the magnets. But their effect was weak, and I doubt that they would have been strong enough to handle the current produced here. We need a lot of power, but not so much that we burn out the machine. Those tubes wouldn’t have worked. We’ll be using vacuum tubes no larger than your finger. They’re in the first sack over there.”

  Jean worked for an hour setting up the machine, occasionally asking for Céline and Celal’s help.

  When it was finished, the machine was unlike anything they had seen before. Arcs of electricity flashed between forty-eight vacuum tubes, above which hovered a row of magnetic stones of various sizes connected to the tubes by cables, and the whole apparatus was enclosed in a glass bell. As electricity flowed through them, the tubes started to glow a faint red.

  “The tubes are warming up. In about half an hour the peace machine will start emitting the first vibrations. We’re lucky. They decided to redo the roof last week and took off all the copper sheeting, which means that the waves will radiate all the better.”

  Jean paused and looked around.

  “Actually, we’re not going about this the right way at all. We’re about to change the course of world history, but none of us thought to bring a bottle of champagne! I refuse to allow the history books to record that peace was finally brought to the world by a bunch of bores who didn’t know how to celebrate it properly.”

  “But, my dear Jean, you should know that I would never agree to go down in history like that.” Reaching into a bag slung over her shoulder, Céline pulled out a bottle and started slowly undoing the wire over the cork. She paused.

  Handing the bottle to Celal, she said, “Of course, I wouldn’t want to sabotage world peace with an ill-aimed champagne cork. Would you care to do the honours without causing any damage to the machinery?”

  “We’ve survived an exploding Swedish dervish and a burning circus tent collapsing around our ears—I don’t think we need to worry too much about an errant champagne cork.” He took the champagne bottle from her hands, finished unwinding the wire, pointed it towards the door through which they had come, and popped the cork. After gurgling up a few spurts of white foam, the bottle seemed to relax.

  “I do believe,” Jean said with a smile, “that you forgot to bring glasses.”

  Laughing, Céline took the bottle and raised it to her lips.

  At that moment they all froze as they heard the sound of approaching footsteps.

  Jean placed himself between the machine and the door, arms spread wide.

  Celal took a step back.

  The footsteps were heading straight for the turbine hall.

  Before they could see who was speaking, they heard a man’s voice: “Unfortunately, I forgot to bring glasses, too… When children are playing and there is a sudden silence, it means that something is amiss. The length of the silence is commensurate with the extent of the trouble. I must admit, the circus really was not a good idea. So, there you are, my dear Celal Bey, and Jean, you’re here, too. All this time I worked so hard for that damn circus, all for nothing. If I’d put you all in the ring as a clown act, I would’ve made more money.”

  It was Sahir. He held out his hands, palms up. “Don’t worry. I’m alone and I’m unarmed.”

  He motioned towards the bottle of champagne. “After travelling all this way at this time of night, don’t I deserve a sip, too?”

  Taking the bottle from Céline, Celal handed it to Sahir. With a sigh, Sahir rested his chin on the mouth of the bottle and looked at Jean. “That wig isn’t really your style, and that floppy moustache of yours does nothing to hide your identity. Did you really think that your life was in danger, just because you took Pierre’s letter and worked out how to build the peace machine? Don’t you think that if perchance it was possible, I would’ve done it myself? You thought that I didn’t know about the plans in the letter, or the drawings. I was with Pierre before he went on his last trip and wrote that letter. I was the one who put it in an envelope and took it to the notary. Céline, at the very least he wanted to make sure that you knew what he had dedicated his life to, just in case anything happened to me. And Jean, you were always a foolish child but this time your foolishness is almost genius.”

  Jean adjusted his wig.

  “Sahir, you sell guns. Of course you’d be opposed to the peace machine.”

  “I’ve known you since you were a child, Jean. If only you’d stopped to listen, none of this would have been necessary. There is no peace machine and there never will be. I tried for years to make one. But that’s beside the point. Pierre spent years testing the machine on me.”

  The vacuum tubes were growing a deeper shade of red and started humming. After leaning down to tighten a few of them, Jean said, “It didn’t work because we didn’t have enough electricity. Sahir, you don’t understand. The calculations are all there. It’s our last chance of salvation before we destroy ourselves. You’ve seen the Zeppelin. How long will it be until they start bombing cities? Sahir, the solution lies in the problem. You know that. Pierre wrote it in his letter, and Arif said it too: ‘The cure for every woe is hidden in the problem itself.’ The cure for this new world run by engines and electricity is that very same technology. If we don’t do something, we’ll destroy each other. The peace machine was designed so that machines won’t kill us all.”

  Sahir took a sip from the bottle. “Jean, this machine isn’t going to bring peace to the world. But we can have faith in the human race and, if we can take control of the government, if every country in the world becomes a democracy, we can stop the slaughter—people won’t let their countries to go to war, especially if every country is armed as much as the next. The human mind is capable of striking a balance, and arms are a part of that balance. This machine adds nothing to the power of thought. And without the power of thought, what is left of humanity?”

  The vacuum tubes surrounding the machine and leading towards the centre of the power station started glowing more brightly, like lava expelled from a volcano.

  Celal asked, “Why did you bring me all this way out here? I found out who Karachiyano is. I know the whole story.”

  Sahir shot a concerned glance at the glowing vacuum tubes. “I left it up to you to come or not. Celal, people have to believe that they have free will. They have to decide if they want peace or not, just as you decided to come to Paris. You could have decided to stay in Istanbul. After talking to t
he Commissioner in Marseille, you could’ve decided to take the first ship home, or gone elsewhere.”

  Turning towards Sahir, Céline asked, “Don’t you remember the story of King Midas and the donkey ears? Those recordings you made when you acquired your first Edison phonograph… you put your mouth next to the phonograph’s horn and spoke your deepest secrets. You said that one day you’d go to Kudretköy and get your revenge. The recordings are in a locked drawer, and you were sure that no one would understand them because they’re in Turkish. But you’re not the only Turk in Paris, Sahir. After my father’s letter came, I searched your place. When I found the recordings, I had one of Jean’s regulars translate them for me. Didn’t you obsess over the fact that Arif hadn’t adopted you, but took Celal into his heart? And didn’t you then try to take revenge by killing my father’s and Arif’s dreams? That’s why you deal in arms—to take your revenge on the idea of peace.”

  Tears welled up in Celal’s eyes. He took Sahir by the shoulders.

  “Couldn’t you just accept that you were a bastard, like me?”

  “Celal, you’re not a bastard. You’re a child of the mountains, just as I am. Pierre wasn’t wrong about everything. There is something about those magnetic mountains. I’ll admit that I became almost obsessed with you, Celal. I wanted to know more about you. But not because, as Céline said, I was jealous of the attention that Arif lavished on you. It was out of sheer curiosity. I found out who you are and where you’re from. You may even remember. Celal, you were born in Visoko, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, on the slope of a mountain. Céline, where were you born?”

  Céline glared at Sahir. “You know the answer to that, so why are you asking me?”

  “You were born in a house your family inherited from Pierre’s grandfather on a slope of the hills of the Loire Valley. The name of the village is Les Noës. The road that runs past the village leads to the Madeleine Pass. The villagers there don’t complain of the cold or hunger, but of the fact that their axes stick to certain stones when they go out to gather wood. Arif and I are from Mount Sipylus. None of us are bastards. Our parents are the magnetic mountains. The same is true for you as well, Jean. Where were you born? Where did you live until your father lost his dairy farm in which he’d invested his very last penny? In Quebec. The name of the town is Chartierville. When you were a mere child, Pierre visited your mother in the hope that he could convince her to return, and that’s when he discovered the magnetic hill. Go to Côte Magnétique. It’s just three quarters of an hour away. Pierre was right. People who were born exposed to a similar electromagnetic field are drawn to each other. They don’t say ‘Birds of a feather flock together’ for nothing. But you can’t use electromagnetic waves to affect people’s minds. It goes against nature and the laws of science.”

  Celal snarled, “But that’s not what you were saying before.”

  “I wasn’t the one who drew you to Paris. You came for Céline. Now listen to me, what you have done here goes against both science and nature. For the sake of argument, let’s imagine that the peace machine works and that humanity never again goes to war. We would have lost the free will that nature gave us. We would be nothing but lost, wandering souls. The human mind—and the soul—aren’t so simple that they can be changed just by electrically charging some magnets. When we were in Vienna, we had long discussions with a doctor who is carrying out rather novel experiments in psychiatry. He helped me to comprehend what my soul already knew. From now on, illnesses of the soul will be treated by ‘talking cures’. And this new theory doesn’t only apply to individual treatment—what if we could ‘talk’ to everyone through newspapers, novels, even moving pictures? It might take longer, but we could achieve peace through free will.”

  The last few words that Sahir spoke seemed to be swept into a circle by the humming magnets, which suddenly established their own order, spinning on their own axes as they whirled around each other. As the spinning grew faster, the hum became louder.

  Sahir pleaded, “I’m telling you, don’t do this. The peace machine won’t work. It will not bring peace. Pierre was right. The machine can affect the human mind but it won’t bring peace, it will do nothing but drive you mad. The machine affects people who were born on magnetic mountains more than anyone else. Why did Dragan suddenly vanish? I’m telling you, nothing is a coincidence. Dragan was born in one of the villages on Mount Radan. You were all brought together by this magnetism. When the machine was turned on in Belgrade, it drove Dragan insane. Listen to me, you’re not going to bring peace to the world, you’re just going to unleash madness on it.”

  The magnets spun ever more quickly. The lights on the ceiling flickered on and off, and during the moments of darkness, the light of the sparks flashing between the magnets illuminated their faces. Celal grabbed Sahir’s arms, twisting them behind his back. Sahir struggled, panting for breath, but he was unable to break free of Celal’s grip. The hum of the machine had become a roar, drowning out the sound of the turbines. They all turned to look at the machine. The massive brass pipe suddenly spewed forth a shower of sparks, then started undulating like water rushing down the bed of an eternal stream as the rings within rings gave themselves over to the electromagnetic waves.

  Even though he was still firmly in Celal’s grip, Sahir managed to kick the nearly full bottle of champagne with the toe of his shoe. The bottle sailed through the air, spraying arcs of champagne, and exploded when it hit the machine’s glass case. Champagne ran down the glass towards the vacuum tubes, and then trickled along the floor until it had almost reached the point where the tubes were plugged in. Jean tossed his wig on the ground before the advancing champagne, and it soaked up the trickle.

  In a vain attempt to break free, Sahir lunged forward.

  The steel frame of the power plant was now undulating to the same rhythm as the brass pipe.

  All at once the roar ceased, but the peace machine and the steel framework continued to tremble in silence. The floor and the ceiling slid towards one another.

  Celal let Sahir go, but both of them were riveted to the spot. Everything in the building was expanding and contracting in waves, but in a final contraction the machine and the building were disappearing. Everything solid was fading away. The floor was solid under their feet but appeared to be flowing. As the walls closed in on each other, they buckled outwards and then just as suddenly straightened out.

  Sahir closed his eyes.

  “They’re late,” he said.

  The truth of the matter was that the Commissioner had grown tired of Sahir’s paranoid obsession with the peace machine. He had neither assembled the arms company’s private army, nor pulled any strings with people in the Ministry to have the power plant shut down that night, as Sahir had asked him to do. No, he had been enjoying a quiet night at home. He had fallen asleep at his desk with a bottle of wine as he sat there preparing to write his first novel.

  15

  The Peace Machine

  IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT, the power plant suddenly lit up, waking up the nearby residents. The starless, moonless sky was set aglow with a phosphorescent light. People rushed to gather outside. No one was afraid of the strange glow. They weren’t afraid of anything. The whirring sound that filled the air took on a physical form.

  The ground was a taut drum.

  Brrrum,

  brrrum,

  brrrum.

  With each resonant beat the ground gently shook.

  The whirring gave way to a mechanical melody.

  Ra tata tat

  Ra tata tat

  Ra tata tat…

  As the ground trembled, the melody seemed to hang in the air like a cloud. With every shift in the melody, the sky danced, first broadening, stretching out into an arch, and then collapsing in on itself.

  The muddy waters of the Seine suddenly ran clear. As the people started making their way towards the banks of the river, the purple flowers of lilac trees drifted down over them. Small whirlpools churned in the river, matching t
he rhythm of the music. Like a huge censer, the power plant was giving off puffs of smoke which snaked into people’s noses, filling their lungs.

  One by one they slipped into the river’s waters, which started flowing towards the city. The water slowly began to spread out, carrying with it the now serene music, the reflections of the glowing sky, and the people floating on its surface.

  Everyone let themselves slip into the water: swindling butchers, clever washerwomen, accountants dreaming of being actors, old men who thought about their childhood cats now long dead, lovers, people looking for lovers to betray, moral and immoral counts, inventors, prostitutes, mussel gatherers, the blind, cowards afraid of becoming murderers, serial killers, the lazy, muscled men, outcasts, students, cook’s assistants, cooks, cannibals, flower sellers, government officials, Bolsheviks, princes and the kings they couldn’t kill, inventors, singers, soldiers of all ranks, gentlemen, wine makers, priests, clerics, bearded men enamoured of monkeys, the illiterate, people with torn trousers, the faithful, freed slaves, the lovelorn, troublesome youths, free-verse word slingers, people who fear rain, the paranoid, opium addicts, the mute and people who never spoke, vagrants and people who have lived well.

  All of the world’s rivers and seas, the oceans and flowing waters, became one.

  The first to notice was an Englishman dressed as an Afghan mullah trying to cross the Hindu Kush into Peshawar. And then a shepherd in the Andes, a hermit at Aynaroz monastery, a dervish in the mountains of Khorasan, a ranger in the Alps. And then, finally, everyone.

  An eagle circling over Mount Sipylus screeched and snapped its beak.

  When the vibrations of the peace machine struck the slopes of all the mountains that Pierre had and hadn’t climbed, they responded with a greeting in kind and turned into slow-motion waterfalls momentarily suspended in the air. Lifting everyone around them onto their backs, they then spread across the meadows of the earth. The people floating on the rippling waters of the world’s rivers, seas and oceans glided towards one another.