The Tank

by Nicola Lombardi

  Thump thump thump...

  Porthole-Escape-Elevetaor-Apartment-Shutter...and a sabertooth tiger following him.

  He wanted to relax; but he realized that his head had a desperate need to expel all the rot filling it, even in the form of pernicious fantasies. Physical effort, the circularity of the track, the ancestral, powerful, thunderous calls from the clouds...all those stimuli fighting against his balance, against the emotional armor inside which he knew he had hidden in order to go on and not give up. He didn’t want to see red cats on the bad, hear noises inside the walls.

  Why on earth did he read that rubbish? He knew he was easily influenced and he also knew that everything that got into his brain would surface sooner or later. It was enough for him to be victim to the right amount of pressure, like in that moment, and everything started wavering.

  Like the Tank.

  Evelator-Apartment-Shutter-Porthole-Escape.

  Running counterclockwise he bent slightly to the left. Thump thump thump. And with the right amount of concentration it wasn’t difficult to imagine that the Tank was abandoning its vertical axis, falling extremely slowly under its own weight. The ground - underneath and all around the building - was a swamp of rotten corpses, corroded and melt flesh, sick food for grass and worms. Tu-thump tu-thump tu-thump. And those tons and tons of steel and concrete couldn’t stay up anymore, however desperately the foundations tried not to sink in and let the Tank keep on towering...

  Tu-thump...tu-thump...

  It was while a thunder faded out in the distance that Giovanni realized he was hearing something new. And it did so suddenly , driving away any other useless speculation.

  The noise of his steps had changed. Had...doubled?

  Tu-thump tu-thump tu-thump tu-thump...

  Without slowing down he focused on his hearing. Yes, there were no doubts. His quick and vigorous steps had started echoing along the Ring, a muffled reverb, yet a very audible one, that he hadn’t heard before.

  The laws of physics couldn’t have suddenly changed without a reason. Maybe he had never noticed it before, while in that particular moment - because of the thunders, the tiredness, the blood pumping in his ears - he could, and that was all.

  Yeah, it really seemed like...

  (Don’t even think about it, Giovanni)

  ...someone else was in the Ring. Someone running, just like him.

  He heard: Tu-thump tu-thump.

  It was really eerie. The more his head revolved around that crazy idea, the more the impression of it being plausible grew stronger. The sounds bounced, rotated, intertwined...

  As a result, it really looked like somebody was following him, or was running from him, constantly keeping on the opposite side, in the shadows of the Dark Side.

  He tried slowing down. That strange acoustic phenomenon adapted immediately, slowing down the ghost that Giovanni’s mind kept on summoning. He then stopped, and so did the echo.

  He remained still, panting, bending just enough to put his hands on his thighs. And listened. Beyond his own breathing, beyond the diminishing noise in the sky.

  Nothing. And even if at a few meters from his hundreds of agonizing bodies contorted, he couldn’t hear any extraneous signals. The ghost had stopped, too.

  What are you doing? You’re thinking about ghosts now?

  Never. But he looked behind his back, driven by the image of a shadow slipping along the curved wall, announcing a human form. How would he react, had he really seen it? He hadn’t got his Beretta with him. Why would he ever run along the Ring armed? No, he was becoming paranoid. He had to snap out of it.

  There was nobody else in there. And he let himself be fooled by sound-waves. He stood up again and heard some vertebrae click in response to the sudden movement. He brought a hand to his forehead. Hot and sweaty, of course. Was he catching the flu? Well, after supper he would probably take some medicine, go to bed, and good night. But now...

  He couldn’t hold it. He sprinted forward, this time clockwise, and completed a lap among the slaps of his soles and the coughs, grinning because he couldn’t resist that temptation growing in his head like a fungus in a corner of his mind. Did he hope to find some intruders, using the surprise effect?

  Now tired (how long did he run: half an hour?) and vaguely disgusted by his own fixations he went back to his apartment and decided he would find his calm and clarity of mind under a hot shower.

  16 - The Interview

  The following day began the wrong way.

  The weird ideas that had filled his head the previous evening, as always, were washed away by a good night’s sleep, a couple of aspirins, cold water on his face and an abundant breakfast. But the aura of positivity that seemed to irradiate from the morning and from which Giovanni tapped to face each step of the day was destroyed in front of the Postman.

  The icon message was blinking. He didn’t hear the beep. It had probably arrived when he was in the bathroom. He opened it without delay and stopped breathing for a few seconds.

  “You are awaited outside the Tank at 9:30 A.M.. Chief inspector Corsini wants to talk to you. Subject: the exhibit found in your bedroom.”

  A discouraged moan came out from his half-open mouth and a knot formed in his intestine. An inspector wanted to talk to him? Ok, fine.

  He looked around him as if he was looking for something. But he wasn’t, if not a lifeboat to which he could cling before his thoughts went astray.

  At 9:30.

  He grabbed the fax with the daily deliveries. There were three. At 9:00 A.M., at 3:00 P.M. and at 5:30 P.M.. Good. Only twenty minutes until the first one.

  He got ready, making an effort to remained anchored to what he was doing. This unexpected interview had disoriented him and, however precise could every input from his brain be, his mind insisted on making conjectures, depict scenarios, prepare answers to questions he still hadn’t been asked.

  He should have expected it, however. He couldn’t really think that the NMO would just drop the whole thing. He had no doubt that since he had delivered the diary - or maybe even since he had informed the Home Office he had found it - a bureaucratic process inevitably ending with a direct confrontation with him had started. And the moment had come.

  With the first delivery three rapists came, escorted by Scalp and a new guard with a slightly dismayed look. The first thing Giovanni usually did when a newcomer came was to give him a secret nickname, but that day nothing came to his mind. He went on with the Unloading mechanically, too worried for the interview to focus on anything else. He almost got the Code wrong; and he would have, hadn’t he checked the date on the fax.

  While Scalp (Lorenzo, if his memory served him correctly, was going back to the elevator, Giovanni wondered if he should try informally asking him a couple of questions. Did he, by any chance, know Inspector Corsini? Were there any news on the diary he had found? What did they want to know from him? But he would just waste time and words, he was perfectly aware of that. So he kept his mouth shut.

  He checked the time on his watch: 9:14.

  He went back to his apartment and looked out of the window, watching the van with the two EGs go back to the Center, heart and brain of everything that happened in the Camp. Giovanni thought that from that small built up area, way over there, Good and Evil came for him, good and bad new, instructions, commendations, convictions, threats, rancors, solidarity, envy...everything. Everything came and everything went. But maybe, thinking again, the heart of the Camp wasn’t there. The brain was, but the heart...he was the heart. Not him as Giovanni Corte, of course; but the Tank, which he represented. The whole Camp 9 existed in function of the Tank, that enormous justice-handing cylinder. It was a true honor to be somehow a physical symbol of it, its only referent and supervisor. His mantra was I am the NMO, but he should probably change it to I am the Tank, jokingly paraphrasing the Sun King.

  Once he had wondered why the New Moral Order would rather choose a civilian to be the Keeper and not use the military
ranks at his disposal. He had shared this with some of the guys who had taken part to the selections with him, and they had turned the question to the instructors; they were explained that sending a soldier - who was clearly trained for other activities - to the Tank would have been a waste, also tanking the semestral alternations in consideration. Moreover, involving civilian in the Order’s organic without forcing them to join the army was one of the policies the NMO had adopted. So, there he was: Giovanni Corte, Keeper of Tank 9, halfway through his path with all the high and the lows thereof.

  He stretched the corners of his mouths. Why would he think about that now? Well, it was one way of killing time without grooming on the confrontation awaiting him.

  Resting his head against the windowpane he tried to see the reflection of his own eyes, and succeeded despite the light.

  “Don’t be scared.” He told himself.

  Then, instinctively, his gaze looked farther away and caught sight of the car coming from the Center. He didn’t know the model (he could rarely recognize them), but he could see it was long and black. And he understood with a wave of discomfort that it was time for him to go.

  ***

  The car stopped about ten meter away from the Tank in the same exact moment Giovanni got out of the lift.

  A BMW, he noticed. Seeing one was weird in a context of seemingly only vans and other military vehicles.

  Two men got out. One, the passenger, was probably Corsini: medium height, an elegant, dark suit, a silver tetragram pinned to the collar of his jacket; his hair was worn back and the reflexes hinted he used some kind of styling gel. The other one, who was also the driver - but couldn’t be just the driver, or he would have stayed in the car - was a bit slimmer, brown-haired, less meticulously combed; the sweat stains under the sleeves of his white shirt were clearly visible.

  Giovanni went to met them and quickly they introduced to each other. The first one introduced himself as chief inspector Nunzio Corsini, investigative department. Vigorous handshake, very martial. The second one mumbled a surname (Adelfi? Adelchi) Giovanni couldn’t grasp. His handshake wasn’t as strong, it was actually pretty soft; that particular, which could be seen as a symptom of shyness or discretion, was immediately belied by his eyes, which were were bright and clasped to Giovanni’s like hooks.

  “Good, mister Corte. I immediately was to tell you that I have no intention to waste your time.” Corsini’s voice was calm, but it gave away an unmistakable feeling of authority.

  “No problem, inspector. I’m at your disposal.”

  In the meanwhile, the man with the unintelligible surname had taken a step forward. He kept his hands on his low abdomen, one over the other - he could be mistaken for a football player waiting for a penalty kick - and his eyes wouldn’t get off Giovanni’s face. It was embarassing, other than annoying.

  “You have found a manuscript, some days ago.”

  “That is correct.”

  “Hidden under your bed.”

  “Between the frame and the mattress.

  “Right.”

  It was obvious that this premise was just a recap, like in TV shows. And it was as obvious that he question because of which the inspector had come wouldn’t be delayed for long.

  “And...an irregular communication had aroused your suspicions, so to speak.”

  Giovanni coughed and scratched his chin. Adelfi (of Adelchi) tilted his head a bit, staring at him as if he was a painting. Could he be a bodyguard? He didn’t have the right physique and he couldn’t understand where could be possibly concealing a weapon. It was way more possible - sure, actually - that Corsini was the armed one, probably a gun under his jacket.”

  “It is so, inspector, you can check the records...”

  Corsi nodded, to cut it short, and Giovanni regretted that last sentence. Of course he had checked.

  “When you informed the Center, you added a personal note.”

  Giovanni bit his lower lip, assuming the expression of someone trying to remember something.

  The inspector help him in this regard. “You wrote that, in your opinion, those sheets were a recollection of memories of the previous Keeper. Am I right?”

  “Yes, right. I wrote that.”

  “Did you read the diary in its entirety?”

  He hesitated for a second. Corsini’s partner squeezed his eyes as if he had sunlight in his eyes. But the sun was on the other side of the Tank, whose shadow embraced them in a pleasant cool.

  “No, inspector. The beginning, of course. And some parts at random, here and there. It was enough for me to understand...to suppose...it was some sort of diary.”

  “And so you thought it could belong to your predecessor.”

  “Yes, but it was only an hypothesis. And I’m sorry if...”

  Corsini waved a hand, shutting him up. “I told you I wouldn’t waste your time, Corte, and I don’t want to belie myself. I’ll of straight to the point. The manuscript has been thoroughly examined, and...” A short pause, long enough that Giovanni could feel the sweat on his arms. He could feel the imperative need for a shower. “...despite the reported dates, it was written just a few months ago. Between December and January, to be precise. Not earlier nor later.”

  Giovanni felt pins and needles on his feet. His heart contracted and his tongue got stuck to his palate. Corsini was staring at his and so was his silent partner, ever immobile.

  HE opened his mouth, trying to find the right thing in answer to that shocking information.

  “How...how is that possible?”

  “I hope you don’t doubt the exactness of our appraisal.”

  “Doubt? No, of course not, inspector...” He looked at Adelfi, or Adelchi, hoping to see some understanding or benevolence emerge from his face. But inscrutability had found its champion. “I’m just...baffled by what you just told me” he added, feeling like an insect under a magnifying glass.

  Corsini was unmoved. He waited a few seconds, then shot the bullet. “Mister Corte, the question I came to ask you is this: did you write that diary?”

  The shadow of the Tank seemed to clot over Giovanni, freezing the layer of sweat covering every inch of his skin. He tried to breath, to feed his suddenly arid lungs, but all the air in the world and gotten away, leaving him in a sphere of void.

  The three men remained there, still, while a delicate breeze made their clothes swish. Giovanni looked at one of them, then the other. The inspector and his partner, on the other hand - making him the only object of their undivided attention - didn’t move a muscle. The scene crystallized for about twenty seconds, an unbearable amount of time; then, finally, Giovanni realized he could still breathe, and talk.

  “No.”

  A direct answer. It was all that could get out of his mouth without his voice cracking in a ridiculous bleating. Swallowing his own heart back to its place was a priority.

  Corsini stared at him for a few seconds, then he turned towards his partner; the latter, for the first time since they had arrived, took his eyes off Giovanni.

  “He’s telling the truth, inspector.”

  Corsini’s facial muscles immediately relaxed and his expression, which had imperceptibly stiffened during the interview, went back to a mask of formal serenity.

  So, that Adelfi, or whatever the hell his name were, was a...what was the right term? Giovanni couldn’t remember, but immediately understood that his function was to study his every movement, tremor, variation in the tone of voice, any small signal that give him away as a liar. So...had he passed the trial?

  “Good, mister Corte,” Corsini told him. “I have done what I had to and got what I expected. I hope you won’t begrudge us, but I’m sure you understand that every suspect, even the smallest one, has to be dissipated.”

  He moved his hand forward and Giovanni shook it.

  “You...you just did your job, inspector.” He felt devoid, confused. Despite wanting to do so, the information he had received was way too much to be processed immediately. He felt a
horde of question rising from his stomach, even if he knew he wouldn’t receive an answer.

  The man who had analyzed him shook his hand too, but he was smiling this time. The exam was over, so he could be more human.

  “I’m sorry if I have caused you discomfort,” he added, “but that’s how it works.”

  “Of course”, Giovanni answered. “It is, indeed.” And he hoped that man wasn’t still vivisecting him; only in that moment he realized what danger he had faced and hoped that the signs of panic from the narrow escape didn’t betray him.

  ***

  Inside the elevator cabin, heading back to his realm of nightmares and hopes, Giovanni leant his back against a wall. The vibrations of the whole mechanism and the overall tremor shaking his body fused in a tumult of concentrical waves.

  While the inspector put him on trial, his partner had scanned him, without him knowing, ready to denounce him would he make a mistake. But he had been sincere. He had told the truth. The emotions he had felt were completely justified by the context and the difficult topic of the interview. Then, why was he feeling such...terror?

  Once back to the safety of his apartment he drank half a can of ice-cold orange juice, regretting not being able to drink something stronger. It would have helped him. Maybe.

  When he went to lie on the bed, he was still trembling.

  What would have happened - a part of his mind kept asking, a fraction particularly keen on self- had Corsini asked you another question? Not any question, but that one? Do you think his friend would have noticed? And in that case, would there have been consequences?

  Giovanni sat up, unable to breathe comfortably while supine. He knew he would calm down before long. But he had to wait. Wait for the heart and brain to find their balance and let him live hi say in a straight line. It would have been a problem had they asked Giovanni how long had he really know about the diary. He could almost hear it: “Mister Corte, have you found the diary only after the messages, or did you already find it and did not tell anyone?”