The Tank

by Nicola Lombardi

  The door to the flat, now wide open, led to a narrow vestibule that contained only a chest and an old-fashioned three-legged hall stand, maybe a remnant of some old dismantled office. A calendar with an NMO symbol hung from a wall on the side. Giovanni wondered how he would feel while turning the twelfth page.

  There were three doors, one for each of the smaller keys. The one in front of him led to the kitchen, extremely clean and functional, with light colours and wooden surfaces, all bathed in a white light coming from a small window placed between two walls and a cupboard. The small flat screen of a television was almost perfectly fitting in the space between two shelves; only the lack of an handle prevented mistaking it for a microwave (which was on another shelf, opposite to it). In one corner, on the floor, there was a sturdy grey styrofoam bin used for food supplies and garbage disposal.

  He instinctively opened the fridge with simple curiosity: it was already filled with food and drinks, arranged with a precision worthy of an advertisement photo. He then tried to open the sink tap: a clear, cold stream of water (coming from the large aqueduct conveying to each of the Camp’s buildings) promptly came out. Excellent.

  The door on the right side of the vestibule led to the bedroom. His gaze, attracted by the light, flew to the window, completely filled by the sky’s glare; then it slowly hovered to the bulky three-door wardrobe, the bedside table, the queen-size bed covered by a brown sheet that reminded him of the military and hospitals. Everything was very spartan-looking, but comfortable. He didn’t fail to notice that his luggage, two suitcases and a bag, were already there, as they previously agreed. Efficiency on every level.

  Over the bed’s headboard a white-lettered motto on a black background had been framed:

  NEMO ME IMPUNE LACESSIT

  No one can harm me unpunished. On one side of the writing there was the ever-present red tetragram. Opposite to the wardrobe a small door with no lock led to an evenly small bathroom equipped with a shower (he was well informed about the water’s temperature: a capacious LPG tank was placed underground at a short distance from the Tank, fueling the small boiler that was fixed on the wall).

  The third room, on the left of the hall, was the Control Room, a windowless room floodlit by a long neon tube. It was a bit bigger than the bedroom and on the far side there was a console full of buttons, switches and warning lights, a 70x50 screen on top of it. The screen was on. Giovanni took a couple of steps in, choosing not to look right away at the greenish figures moving inside the big monitor.

  He was prepared for everything and his entrance in the Tank signed the end of his training; he could rightly say to know the place in its every aspect even without having stepped foot inside it before then. There was no handover, either. As a matter of fact he didn’t have the chance to speak to his predecessor, who was probably escorted out not fifteen minutes before his arrival.

  Since the NMO had seized power over the country everything worked by very rigorous schemes. Respect for the rules, self-discipline, knowing to be part of a whole and intransigence towards transgressors. These were the true four points of the tetragram. Giovanni felt them all well engraved in his head and heart. But no matter how hard he tried to strip himself of any useless emotion he still felt an overwhelming pride. For being chosen, for winning over any other aspirant, for being there.

  He stopped with his legs lightly spread, crossed his arms and finally checked what the big screen was offering him.

  An expanse of clumping human beings, bodies teeming supine, kneeling, prone or curled up like fat green-grey worms or frail, wretched foetuses.

  A silent churning of forms, shadows, disjointed limbs, everything in an almost fluorescent world corrupted by the greenish, mouldy luminescence emitted by rot. In reality this effect was due to the NV filter. The camera hung from the Tank’s ceiling like a chandelier, pointing downward, connected to the Control Room twenty-four hours a day, feeding it with images of all those bastards in the utter darkness, thrashing, crawling on one another, screaming their inaudible hate, their pain, sometimes raising their wide-open eyes similar to opalescent dots.

  Several bodies lay still, but the majority was shaking like a bait on the hook. A bearded man, right in center of the frame, managed to stand up, his hands tied behind his back, and raised his gaze towards the camera. The small, milky eyeballs made him - like all the others guests, when they kept their eyes open - vaguely resemble a demon. His mouth moved, speaking useless words; then, a movement from the prisoners he was standing on top of forced him to fall backwards like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

  Those were the most recent arrivals, the surface. At a first glance they were about forty. How many layers were behind them? Nobody could say for sure. Another thing that was impossible to tell was how many corpses there were inside the Tank at any given time. Not that it mattered, anyway. There were so many bodies inside that ascertaining how many were still breathing, especially in the lower layers, would be quite the feat. His curiosity wouldn’t be satisfied. How many angels can dance on the tip of a needle? Giovanni smiled remembering that stupid old question.

  For those how deserved the Tank death was the only absolute certainty. When it came, be it days or weeks, was irrelevant. Maybe not for them, the guests, but the fact that they were in there implied that they deserved it. The manual mentioned the subject with brevity; everything else was left to logic and guesswork. Suffocation was the most common cause of death, that much was quite obvious. It could also be injuries or fractures from the fall or self-inflicted wounds to shorten the agony; all this, of course, while waiting for the Cleansing to tend to the overpopulation.

  Giovanni stared at that tangle for a few more seconds, finding it similar to a cauldron where weird reptiles and anthropomorphic amphibians were boiling; when he came to, he started rubbing his hands.

  “Everything is all right, Giovanni.” He told himself loudly. “All perfect.”

  He wasn’t used to talking to himself and he wouldn’t start now. He didn’t have any need for neither encouragement nor reiterating his satisfaction. He approved of the NMO, of its methods, its decision and its politics. Those who were thrown in the Tank weren’t human anymore, they lost every right to be a part of the renewed social fabric. What followed was that any moralist fit - legacy of an induces, hypocritical and finally surpassed moral - was to be compared to a momentary itch, a speck in the eye.

  Yet even one second of weakness, an uncertain sigh, was enough to make Stevanich’s question come to his mind: Are you not afraid?

  “No”, he said, closing his eyes and breathing as deeply as he could. “I am no.”

  And he was sincere.

  4 - Inspection

  His first day in the Tank passed without any particular events, taking time to explore.

  Without any rush he places his clothes in the wardrobe, the towels and bathrobes in the bathroom, he filled the shelves with razors, shaving foam, bars of soap, drugs...he felt like a traveller, excited and full of expectations, in the suite of a new hotel. Moreover, while trying to fit a shoebox in one of the wardrobe’s lower shelves he found a pair of weights five kilograms each. Perfect: they would help him in his purpose to find time each day for staying fit and avoid softening.

  Back in the vestibule he noticed the Spy, over the entrance door; it was a red quartz lamp that lit together with a beep every time the elevator started. It was appropriate that the Keeper knew when someone - or something, in case of food or clean sheets - was coming up.

  In the kitchen, once checking the content of the fridge (cold cuts, cheese, tuna, canned meat, milk, fruit, trays covered by aluminum foil, fruit juice, but no wine) and in the cupboard (tea bags, coffee, crispy bread slices, breadsticks, spices and dressings) he turned his attention to the television.

  As he already knew, he could only watch three thematic channels via cable - news, cinema, documentaries - plus a radio channel for listening to music. The schedule went on seamlessly, one movie after the othe
r, one documentary after the other, with periodic replicas, and it was not possible to choose. No problem. The NMO was okay with it and so was he. He would watch whatever was on, or do something else.

  He went back to the Control Room.

  On the wall to the right, half-hidden behind the door, there was a four-store bookshelf, not a very large one either, to which he didn’t pay much attention earlier. It was filled with all the books the NMO made available to the Keeper, a hundred or so, a micro-library used to pass the time. And he would have a lot of time to read. He ran a finger and his gaze on the books, catching random names: Hemingway, D’Annunzio, Verne, Calvino, Brontë, London, Melville...quite the diverse collection. There was something for every taste. Good, he would take advantage of it to fill many gaps.

  A shelving on the right held some binders. He took a couple out to find out they were empty. It would be his job to fill them. There was no trace of all his predecessor’s work; the change of Keeper implied the transfer of all the binders, logs and dossiers of the previous year to the central office. He would’t have any real models to base on, but he didn’t need any; he remembered every single form he studied on the Manual. It was enough.

  He forced himself not to look to the agonizing guests on the big screen, so he approached the console looking at the big chest of drawers lower on the right. He pulled the wheeled office chair, sat down and the first of the three metal drawers. It was filled with stationery, from pencil leads to a hole puncher, from rubber bands to a stapler. He would bet that every single item was registered. The second drawer contained a thick, green-covered register, the famous DMR, the Daily Management Register. Every procedure had to be manually written on it on a daily basis, including notes and highlights: it was a professional diary for the Keeper. Good.

  The third drawer was locked, but a small key was hanging from the keyhole. Giovanni unlocked it and even before making the drawer slide open he could guess what was inside. There it was: a gun in a simple leather holster to secure it to his belt. He lifted it and unholstered it with a certain degree of deference, weighing it in his hand. An FS 93.9 Beretta with fifteen-rounds magazines, and it was his for a whole year. For a defensive purpose. For any circumstance. A magazine was already inserted and another one was sealed in its packaging inside the drawer. He put everything away and stood up, then sat on the stuffed office chair, relaxing his back against the seatback.

  Next to the console was a fax machine and beside it a fourteen-inch monitor with a keyboard and a wireless mouse; it wasn’t hard to recognise it for what was unofficially named the Postman. Its official name was Direct Communication Terminal, but all technical terminology was destined to be substituted with easier and equally efficient words. There was a channel between the Operative Center, near the entrance of Camp 9, and the Keeper’s flat, that was used when the fax machine would not do. (There was no internet connection: the NMO didn’t think of it as necessary, or appropriate, for the Tank.)

  On the screen a blue tetragram on a lighter blue background was slowly rotating and Giovanni thought he couldn’t actually expect to find a different screensaver. He slightly moved the mouse and a white screen with an intermittent cursor for writing appeared on the Postman. Curiosity took the best of him and, without considering how useless it would be, he pressed the question mark button, then ENTER. A small envelope-shaped icon immediately appeared and flew away. Why did he do that? He just sent a stupid message to who-knows-who. Not to the general, he hoped...

  A high-pitched. sudden beep immediately made his tongue go dry. A new envelope started beeping behind his question mark. Did they already answer him?

  With a heavy heart he moved the cursor on the icon, clicked, and read the three words that appeared in front of him: “Is there a problem, Keeper?”

  “Such efficiency.” But embarrassment immediately followed the amazement. He behaved like a kid. He had to do something.

  “No problem”, he wrote “I apologise, I just wanted to test the DCT. Thank you.”

  He hoped that showing competence by using a technical term would make up for his levity. But after a minute or so without further answers from the Center, he got up and went out from the Control, the doubt still in his mind.

  ***

  He set the table with plastic dishes and cutlery (he found plenty in a small cupboard beside the sink). He found some meat balls in a small styrofoam tray and put one in the microwave. He added some stick bread, mortadella, an apple and fresh water, then had lunch while light-heartedly watching a documentary about the daily life of an Eskimo.

  With a full stomach he then decided to make a turnip inspection of the Ring to avoid falling asleep.

  He looked at the Shutter beyond the dark-glass door, pressing his forehead and shielding himself with a hand from the glare of the neon lights, but he could only see his reflection, turbid and dull. He wanted to open the door, get to know the clever room he knew only by the diagram he studied, but without the code he had to input on the panel there was little he could do. He would receive it the following day. Okay, he could wait.

  He kept walking, choosing a counter-clock path, and the rhythmic creak of his soles on the linoleum floor made him imagine some mice running beyond the curve, impossible to reach. He wondered whether his predecessor had come up with a name for that blind spot in the ring, impossible to see no matter how much he accelerated. The Dark Side would be a good name, fitting. Like the moon’s.

  He stretched his right arm out, running his fingers on the concave wall. When he was a kid, he liked doing it with a stick while walking near gratings and gates. If his mother was with him, she would slap him, because it was a very noisy game. Now there was only a rustle and a pinch on his fingertips. You wouldn’t say anything now, mom. He thought. If you could see me now, you would be proud of me. And you too, dad, right?

  He came to the security door, the so-called Escape, just it time avoid crying, focusing his thoughts back on the inspection.

  It was a common green-painted fire break door. He tried turning the handle out of habit, knowing perfectly it was closed. He took the keys from his pocket and inserted the key with the green-coloured plaque in the lock, turned it open, lowered the handle, pulled the door...and the vertigo made him shiver. He felt inexistent insects crawling down his legs.

  A cold stream of air immediately passed through the gap and a whitish ray of light did the same. An invasive breeze whistled in his ears, ruffling his hair. Separating him from the fall there was just a metal platform with a railing. In the distance he could see the wire fence that formed the Camp’s perimeter. The buildings behind the Tank weren’t visible. All he could see was a large patch of grey, barren land that gave away to the brown colours of a woodland area, from a height that Giovanni found unsettling. He cautiously lowered his gaze, to his right, to look at the ladder that disappeared towards the base of the building.

  He had seen enough. He closed the door and put the keys back with a layer of what on his forehead.

  Turning his back toward the Escape he saw in front of him the Porthole for Direct Inspection. It was mounted on the inside wall of the ring, the convex one. It was a round window, very similar to a ship’s, made with a clever game of reflections and mirrors that - despite being set on a vertical surface - let him see almost perpendicularly inside the Tank in the event that the emergency lights (there were several even inside his flat) turned on. In case of power outage, where using the big monitor in the Control, it would be possible to verify the guests’ condition by looking at the abyss through it.

  Giovanni approached it and, exactly as he did with the Shutter, the tried to see something. But finding himself looking at a dark puddle in which his face floated, curved and deformed, made him desist. Moreover, he was bugged by the stupid idea that inside, down there, someone was looking at him...

  The strange silence weighing on the Ring unsettled him. It was enough for a first day inspection.

  He headed towards his starting point, skirti
ng the wall on the right side. His pace was a bit quicker, but he didn’t notice.

  ***

  The rest of the afternoon slipped away on a western movie, a documentary about metalworking in Ancient Rome and some relaxation on the bed, reading poetry from D’Annunzio without any particular captivation.

  His dinner was particularly frugal: some toasted bread with cheese and orange juice. That first day seemed to have no end, despite doing next to nothing, but the overwhelming amount of new information tired him as if he had exercised for hours; that difference was that in this last case he would be very hungry, while now he just wanted to lie down and turn his brain off

  ***

  Sitting on the edge of his bed he stared at the tip of his toes as if seeing for the first time.

  If only he would raise his gaze he could see from the window the vastness of Camp 9, it’s quiet, restful stillness, now that the sunlight stopped leaking from the hills’ back crests leaving purple stains in the lower part of the sky. He could see how the annoyed treetops were shaking off invisible birds made of shadows and winds; he would recognise, half-swallowed by the evening, the buildings where the unknown lives of soldiers, sentries, maintenance staff, officers and all those who worked with commendable zeal in that branch of the judiciary mechanism went on. Wired fences and barbed wire - barely visible from afar - drew a huge, crooked figure that only from above could maybe make sense, imply a project.

  He didn’t raise his gaze. Too many thoughts were slowly churning in his head. With a bowed head, now that he had nothing left to do but lie down and try to sleep, he felt the huge responsibility he took on himself when he walked in that office a lot more vividly. He would have to face whatever came to him one day after another. He had a whole year in front of him, but it would eventually come to pass. He made a choice. And he had been chosen. Now, instead of racking his own brain, he thought it would be more useful to stare at his feet, studying his toes’ slow and meticulous undulating movement, waiting for his mind to stabilise.