The Society of Others

by William Nicholson

  “Couple of times.”

  “Do they search the truck every time?”

  “No,” he says. His eyes are scanning the road ahead, and the warehouse yards on either side.

  “So that was a scary moment for you?”

  He doesn’t answer. I’m only trying to show some fellow feeling. Maybe he’s ashamed.

  “I am grown up, you know. I’ve seen that stuff before.”

  “Good for you,” he says.

  So I stop trying and look out at the road. We’re passing through one of those nothing regions between the border and the first proper town, where commercial goods are marshalled as they come and go. Nobody lives in these yards, and nothing grows here, not even the false blooms of advertising hoardings. Long lightless sheds stand in dull deserts of concrete, where immense trucks slouch slowly by. Who designs these places? Do they go to sleep at night proud of their work? Maybe it’s all deliberate. Maybe they say to each other, let’s take these cocky travellers down a few notches as they come into our country, wipe that smug smile off their faces. Foreign travel’s not smart any more, or picturesque, or even different. This could be any border road. This is trade, this is how we all get rich. So as we enter each new country we pay our dues to the machinery of our wealth, and then we avert our eyes and look ahead, to the charming hotel in the recently pedestrianised historic centre of the capital city.

  From this, my free-wheeling thoughts turn to the performers who are now to be found in every tourist-frequented car-free plaza. The buskers playing violins, the fire jugglers, the living statues. I saw my first living statue on La Rambla in Barcelona. I don’t know what impressed me more: the sheer nerve of the core idea, or the performer’s ability to keep still. He was all in white with a white face and stood on a white pillar like a classical Greek statue. Later I realised these living statues were all over the place, and it was a fairly low-energy form of begging, but I still wonder who had the idea first. Like everything in the art game, doing it first is the key. Anyone can call a bottle-rack art, but Marcel Duchamp did it first, so he’s the one in the art-history books. If someone else has already done it, forget it. In art, you have to start by being new, then you have to do the same thing over and over again, and then you’re made. You’ve become part of art history. You don’t have to do anything else. In fact it only confuses people if you do something else. It spoils the story.

  What amazes me is that I can see through all these games and no one else can. Then it strikes me that this is just what Arnie Marker believes about Western philosophy. Or Armin Markus.

  “FUCK!”

  The brakes are squealing. I lurch forward. A road block has appeared out of nowhere. Men in black nylon bomber jackets are waving guns.

  “Hold on to your seat! I’m going to run the blockade!”

  “But why—?”

  “SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

  He sounds completely different: powerful and urgent and deadly serious. I shut the fuck up.

  We’re slowing down, cruising towards the road block, which is just a line of plastic cones and a couple of vehicles like people carriers. The guys with the guns look like gangsters to me. I understand Marker’s thinking. It won’t be hard to swing round the cones and get the hell away, only what about the guns? Are they part of his calculation? I mean, hard-core porn videos have their place in the scheme of things, but I’m not planning to die for them.

  The men with the guns and the not-cool dress sense are waving us to a stop. Marker barks at me.

  “Down!”

  I drop down to the floor of the cab. The engine gives a massive roar and we’re launched, we’re hurtling through the cones. I hear crackling sounds that might be gunfire. Marker’s swinging the truck like a lunatic and I’m rolling about in the well, smashing my head on the mini-fridge—

  “Got the envelope?” he shouts. “Got the envelope? Got the envelope?”

  “Yes! Yes!”

  “Eat it! Burn it! You hear me?”

  “I hear you!”

  Crackle-crackle-crackle-crackle! Krang-klungle-klang! The windscreen turns to snow. Marker punches a hole with one fist. Cold air comes blasting in. Frosted glass-flakes clatter round me.

  “When I say jump—open the door—jump! You hear me?”

  “I hear you!”

  “When I say jump—Jump! Run! Hide!”

  Bang! That’s my head damaging the fridge again. I try to locate the door handle. Jump, run, hide: sounds good to me. Another vicious swing and I’m spread all over the door. Marker must be slaloming the truck. Now I have the handle. I grip it tight. This is my way out of here.

  The strange thing is I’m not scared. I’m too confused to locate the danger, and my mind is on immediate business such as not getting my head banged any more than is necessary. I’m aware of bruises on my head and on my upper arms, but they’re going to have to wait their turn.

  “JUMP!”

  I open the door. Marker wrenches the truck into a tight right turn, and I’m flung out. I hit the dirt and roll. I hurt something. I stop rolling and lie there, feeling the ground, just to get clear about which way is up. I spring to my feet and run.

  So I’ve jumped. I’m running. Next I hide. For all I know I’m running towards the bad guys. However the survival instinct is doing its job. I can hear the sound of gunfire, and without in any way processing the chain of reason my legs are propelling me in the opposite direction.

  Now I’m among trees. While we were driving down the road I saw no trees. How is it that when you want somewhere to hide, there’s always trees? Not so many trees, maybe twenty or so. I drop to the ground beside one of them.

  I’ve run a long way. My heart is about to explode and my legs have gone numb and I hurt all over. I’ve crossed a field of winter cabbage sown in long sad rows. It’s hard work plunging across ploughed land but I might as well have flown for all I can remember. In the middle of the field, quite a long way from the road, is Marker’s truck. The gangsters are all round it. Not much noise any more. No engines, no guns.

  I heave and pant and groan, and slowly my brain remakes its links with my body. Question number one is, how badly am I damaged? You’d think this is an easy one but in fact a bruised muscle can feel much like a broken bone, especially if you’ve not broken bones on any regular basis. As far as I can tell all my parts still join up, and there’s no blood.

  I hear a distant scream.

  Sound travels well out here. It’s a cold day and there’s nothing in the way except low-growing cabbages. The men in bomber jackets are clustered round something I can’t see, and something I can’t see is screaming. It’s a sound like I’ve never heard, but its meaning is entirely and instantly clear: it’s the scream of a man in unbearable pain, who sees no hope of the pain ending. Not a plea for mercy or a cry of defiance, just elemental agony.

  Now I’m afraid.

  What am I supposed to do? There’s a whole gang of them and they’ve got guns, there’s no way they’re going to stop because I ask them. More likely they’ll do what they’re doing to Marker to me as well, and then I’ll be making that sound too. So I huddle by my tree and stare across the field and try to understand what’s going on.

  Now some more of the bad guys are pulling stuff out of the back of the truck. They’re tipping out the cartons and because I know what’s in them I can make out the top layers of Nike trainers and the porno videos beneath. Then one of the videos flutters open to reveal a flash of white inside, which is not how video cassettes are constructed. As I watch I see that the men are tossing the trainers back into the truck, and also the videos, but they’re making a pile on the ground out of the something else, the things they’re pulling out from the bottoms of the cartons that flutter white.

  The screaming has stopped. The guys round where the screaming was lose interest and join the guys at the back of the truck. I can see them picking out the videos and laughing at the titles. One of them gets out a petrol can and splashes petrol over the pile t
hey’re building.

  Now they’ve emptied the last carton and they’re getting back into their people carriers. The last one strikes a match and sets light to the petrol-soaked pile. Then they drive off.

  The fire smokes for a bit, then a flame jumps up, and then black smoke starts to stream up into the still air. The truck and the people carriers rumble away over the cabbage field back to the road. Nobody has come looking for me.

  When all the sound has ended but for the distant whine of cars passing on the road, I stand up. I review my situation. I’m alone in an unknown country where the inhabitants use extreme violence in broad daylight. I’m in pain and very frightened. I’m willing to do whatever is necessary to save myself, but I have no idea what that is. Meanwhile, I’d very much like a wash, a change of clothes and a meal. None of these amenities are present here by the cabbage field. And I no longer have my kit bag.

  This is a bad situation for which I did not ask. Surely of all the sentient beings in the universe I am one of the least demanding. I do not deserve this. Into my mind unbidden come Am’s last plaintive words to me, before my Nokia began its adventure holiday to the sea. She said, or rather whispered, like I was going to my doom, “Look after yourself.” Now here I am right in the heart of my doom and what the fuck am I supposed to do? I mean, how does a person look after himself? It doesn’t work that way. Other people look after people.

  I wish Am was here right now. Not so she’d look after me, but because she wants me to be happy. Really that’s the opposite of this screaming and burning, which is all about wanting people to be unhappy. Am would put her arms round me and look at me with those dopy eyes of hers and if I smiled she’d smile back like I’d given her a present.

  Oh Am.

  The fire burns on. Nor far from the fire there is something else among the trampled cabbages, a low dark mound. I know I must get away. I must walk in the opposite direction, so that I don’t get involved in this business that included screaming.

  I walk towards the fire. This is not a decision on my part. It seems that the way from the tree to the next segment of my life runs past the remains of the last segment of my life.

  The fire is too hot to approach closely. The heart of the fire is flame, but round the edges I can see half-charred blocks, or bricks. One is on its side. Not blocks, not bricks. Books. All the books are the same: black hardbacks, like bibles. Then I see one lying on the edge of the fire that’s been singed but not burned, and I run into the heat before I can think better of it and pull it out. The heat hits me like a wall and I spring back but I have the book.

  I move away into the cold morning and look at the ash-coated volume. It is of course in this language that I don’t understand. I can see what I take to be the title on the title page but the words look like nothing I’ve ever met. The author’s name, as I suppose, is printed beneath the title. It is LEON VICINO. So it’s not a bible. I turn the pages. The text is laid out in separate paragraphs of varying length, page after page. Whatever they say must matter to somebody a whole lot or they wouldn’t be burning them.

  Then it strikes me that these books are what Marker was smuggling into the country. The porno videos were just part of the cover. It gives me a strange wobbly feeling to know that the most criminal, the most dangerous, the most secret part of his cargo was not the fake Nike trainers or the pornographic videos, but plain old-style books. Words on pages. Just like this, that I’m writing now and you’re reading.

  Meanwhile quite close to where I’m standing, in fact just precisely in that section of the field at which I take special care not to look, there lies a dark mound. I’m reasoning with myself. Why go over and look more closely? It’ll only make me more sick and more afraid. There’s nothing I can now do. I owe it to myself to remain as fit, mentally and physically, as I can. Better to leave this place and not look back.

  And yet I must see. What has happened must be known. If I don’t look now, I’ll never stop looking for the rest of my life.

  I walk towards the dark mound. The body lies in a crouch, on its side, as if to protect as much of itself as possible from assault. I see the hunched back in the ski jacket. The worn jeans. The mud-stained leather boots. I walk round. His hands are clutched over his stomach, and are stained with blood. Something glints on the ground before me. I nudge aside the half-covering dirt with my boot, and I’m looking down at a pair of long-nosed pliers, the kind you use for pulling out staples. I look at the pliers stupidly, as if looking at them will make sense of their being here. I reach down and pick them up. I don’t know why I do this. Some instinct against waste that says this perfectly good tool has been lost and should be returned to its owner, or failing that, used. I put the pliers in my coat pocket.

  Then I look at his face.

  Not everything needs to be described. In that one look I understand the horror of what has been done, and I understand the scream. But why did they do it? That I will never understand. They asked him no questions. They wanted nothing from him they hadn’t got. Why inflict such suffering? Death is death. Isn’t the victory enough?

  One look is all I take, but it pierces every defensive barrier in my mind, and causes me to know for ever how passionately men can hate. This is lust for pain. This is hatred without limit.

  But it wasn’t done to me. I have survived.

  There was no way I could have saved him. There were too many of them. They were armed professionals. What was I supposed to do, go out in a blaze of glory? “For evil to triumph,” said someone I don’t recall, “it is only necessary for good men to do nothing.” But I never said I was a good man. I never said anything. I didn’t ask to come to the show, so don’t tell me I have to pay for my ticket. This someone should stand where I’m standing and see what I’m seeing. For evil to triumph it is only necessary for the bad guys to be the ones with the guns.

  I walk away, moving briskly, not running. When I reach the road I walk along it, on the verge, paying no attention to the occasional passing car. I’m so frightened I want no one to notice me, but I’m also in urgent need of ordinariness. I want to be among shops and houses and people going about their everyday lives. I want to find a phone. I want to go home.

  FIVE

  My head is throbbing. The town is quiet. There are people on the streets but they look down and don’t meet my eyes. Something is wrong with the shops. I stand looking in the window of a pharmacy wondering if I should attempt to buy some paracetamol when I realise what it is that’s wrong. There are no advertisements. The window display has no images of smiling models with white teeth, or happy babies in disposable nappies. I look up and down the street, and there’s not a single billboard anywhere. Nor are there any other splashes of colour. The buildings are made of grey cement, or grey-hued stone. The roofs are dark-grey slate or dark-grey tarred felt. The roads and pavements are tarmac. The people wear heavy coats of grey or black or brown. The cars parked along the kerbs are all old models, all grey, or navy blue, or black. It’s like I’ve stumbled into some black and white movie, only there’s no music. In those old movies, there’s always music.

  I feel faint. I go into a bar. The minute I step through the door I get this feeling I’ve been here before. It’s a bare room with the floor painted in grey and white squares and a tall fireplace and a beamed ceiling. There are three people at a table on the left: two men sitting down, and a woman in a red skirt standing with her back to me, holding up a glass of white wine. The barmaid is crossing the room towards them with a bowl of something in her hand. She wears a dirty brown apron and has red shoes. They all turn and stare at me as I enter, and then look away. The barmaid puts the bowl on the table before one of the men, and goes back behind the bar. It’s a bowl of soup. The woman in the red skirt drinks up her wine and leaves, letting the door shut with a bang behind her. The man at the table starts to slurp the soup. He’s eating too fast.

  I cross the room, treading on something that crunches underfoot. I go to the bar and ask for coffee, whi
ch I’m hoping is one of those words that sounds the same in most languages. Also I point at the man’s soup, and then at myself. The barmaid says nothing at all and still doesn’t look at me but she starts to get out cups and bowls so I take it she understands. I go to the only other table in the bare room and sit down and wonder why I’m feeling I’ve seen all this before, and what it was I trod on. Tiny fragments of white clay.

  The two men are staring at me. Or rather, they’re staring at the book I’ve put down on the table top. Until I put it down I’d forgotten that all this time I’ve been gripping it with one hand. The book bothers them. The soup drinker wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and gets up. So does his companion. I decide to put the book away. I push it into my coat pocket, where it doesn’t quite fit. The two men leave.

  My coffee comes, and my soup, and a bill. I give the barmaid a ten-euro note, which I have left over from my change in Germany. She stares at it like it’s burning her fingers, but she takes it. She goes back behind the bar and out through an inner doorway screened by dangling blue and green plastic ribbons. From an inner room I hear a telephone dialling, the old kind that sounds like winding a clock. Then her voice, a low mumble.

  The coffee tastes of mud. The soup is unidentifiable but filling. Even here, in the midst of fear and strangers, the meeting of basic needs delivers its reward. I start to feel better.

  The street door opens and a young woman enters, moving fast. Her black hair is cut short, she wears no make-up, her slight body is wrapped in a well-worn leather overcoat. She looks at me without smiling. She is beautiful. A pale face. Wide dark eyes beneath strong eyebrows, full lips. Am I expecting her?

  She looks quickly towards the empty bar, sits down before me at my table, and turns her eyes fully onto mine. I’m about to speak when she puts one finger to her lips. She takes out pen and paper and writes: MEET—CAR PARK. Her eyes on mine again: have I understood? I nod.

  She goes as quickly as she came. Only as the door closes behind her do I realise I don’t know where the car park is.