Hammerhead

by Peter Nicholson

  Here I was, a member of murder incorporated, and how had that come about? Through my complicity with this group Charles had got going. Since Roy’s demise I knew it would be a matter of ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.’ What had Charles really got in mind for me? I didn’t feel I’d been fully taken into his confidence and that this recent exercise had been a blooding to see what I was capable of.

  Back in Munich I went to see Charles.

  We didn’t argue, but my air of offended pride got through.

  Charles then astounded me by listing Roy’s rundown of my supposed character defects. I couldn’t help but be impressed as Roy hadn’t known me for very long, and yet here was a pretty accurate description of my ‘difficulties’ as he had called them. And now Roy was gone and I couldn’t remonstrate with him. Or congratulate him on his perceptiveness, I suppose.

  I had to phone my nephew for his birthday. My sister insisted on all the bourgeois protocols, which I normally didn’t mind. However, in Celia’s case, her rigidity irked me. I worked up the proper sentiment and phoned later in the day to speak to her and then to Chris. I apologised for not having a present and said that maybe we could go on a holiday together at some time in the future. I tried to talk to him about school, but nine-year old boys don’t want to talk about that, so our conversation didn’t get far. I thought it would be good to get Chris away from his parents for a while as they were going through another of their bad times, and children hate lying in bed at night hearing their mother and father shout at one another. Chris seemed excited about the holiday and then I felt guilty because it was just an idea, and not one I’d thought through. Which was selfish of me. I said we might go to the outback. I thought we could drive there and camp in the bush.

  Chris sounded happy to hear from me. My sister was neutral, though still complaining about how I’d given up my job in the city. All I’d got from husband Brian were the usual grunts.

  Back in my room at Hohentor I sat at my desk and made notes to myself, thinking through all that had happened, and what I might do about it—go with the flow, or resist. Now, for the first time in my life, I’d changed and experienced highs and lows of a kind unimaginable in the comparatively-safe world of currency exchange.

  Political equality was certainly having a hard time of it. Here we were at the beginning of another millennium and everywhere you looked there were problems, from the base excesses of dictatorships to ingrained corruption. The West had taken its privileges for granted. It had forgotten to honour the sacrifices made in history that led to the prosperous decades. But this was only the tip of a much bigger problem. Intellectuals had failed to use their freedoms wisely. Nihilism seemed to underwrite much contemporary culture. A heavily-subsidised commentariat brayed out the usual fashionable correctnesses. Our cynical times had, in reaction, brought forth The Hammer. Something similar had happened to the Romanians who’d been pushed over the edge by that horrible couple, the Ceauescus. Charles had seen the need for change and managed to facilitate a cogent organisation already achieving important results.

  My life had been turned over at my own behest. I chose to join. I ordered my scruples so that the eye of the needle was open for me to get through. But getting through was the problem, through the moral blur of we apes stretched to human.

  Memories of tutorials at Oxford returned. I remembered my old philosophy tutor, Nicholas Vansittart. Each week he took us through the rigours of philosophical analysis studying, among others, Plato, Hegel, Hume, then Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, finishing with Heidegger, Wittgenstein and Russell. How profound was the brain with its protean capabilities and creativity. It was at Oxford I’d also developed my interest in music and literature.

  Now here I was, no longer a man of bad faith, but the shadows on the cave wall frightened me. If I looked suddenly, I could see a fearsome thing staring back—not the civil, but the drivel man. I could hardly like myself at such a moment. I questioned if I could account for my actions in the summing up. I supposed a summing up would come, whether self-imposed or from a stranger source. I didn’t believe in the muck version of life and I thought something greater than me, much better than me, was observing in some incalculable way my own wayward migration. Or had I fooled myself just to suit my inclination.

  Shevchenko was dead. I knew that much. I was alive. I was trying to fathom the distance between us.

  That’s what’s wrong with being vaguely intellectual and partial to Western humanism. No matter how hard you try, you can’t get away from the old contradictory doublings-up. For someone else, it would be nothing to murder millions, like Napoleon, who, observing some dead soldiers, commented, ‘Small change.’ I would consider myself to have failed every human test if I ever felt like that. I had certainly never thought like that. With his pitiless detachment, I was no Tom Ripley.

  Everyone who belonged to our group wanted change. We were the knights of a Holy Grail. Our order demanded a purification of the spirit.

  Yet was it all words? Could I have borne the torture of the political prisoner? Had I even a fraction of the charity and humility of the nun at work in prayer or hospital? I would do my best.

  Later, Charles told me he would send one of our members, Salto, to have a look at the post office box. As it was in Paris it would be a while before we found out what, if anything, was there.

  But the recent past still puzzled. The preparedness; the sudden spiral vertigo; the precipitate descent. Murder on the stairs.

  It passed like a phantasmagoria at the far distance from repose.

  Anton wanted me to meet his mother, who lived in Vienna, but was visiting. I couldn’t fathom why. It seemed rather foolhardy to me. But Anton insisted.

  Frau Partl was formidable, gracious, arrogant and charming by turns, rather dubious about her son, and scathing about contemporary politics. She didn’t know what her son was up to, except that it would be no good. But I suspect she would have had a similar judgment on anything he was involved in. Anton didn’t mind. They had reached the understanding parents and children have to achieve if the familial tie is to keep its bond.

  Anton’s brother, Florian, was a doctor, and Anton, by comparison, was made to feel his peripatetic life was simple time-wasting. How much I wanted to tell Frau Partl that her son was doing something essential.

  Listening to Anton’s mother, I heard a little about my friend’s background. He had always been the black sheep of the family. His contrary disposition had been clear from birth. ‘So difficult to breast feed,’ Frau Partl grimaced—I caught Anton looking more than severe. But then he helped out some of his younger playmates at school when the bullies got to work. From his teenage years he had been interested in politics and subsequently caused problems at university by challenging professors on points of historical interpretation. That didn’t go down too well in the stifling academic groves. A born rebel, determined and temperamental, I could see how the Anton I was coming to know had evolved.

  Frau Partl took great care of her appearance. In fact she had come to Munich specifically to look at a new fashion label, and she had just bought some dresses in the city.

  Frau Partl had invited us to lunch but Anton was suddenly set against it. Another change of mood.

  Instead, Anton decided we would visit Ludwig’s Neuschwanstein Castle, as I had never seen it. Anton told me one of the best views was from an adjacent series of hills. The German economy had a great deal to thank Ludwig for. Ludwig must have realised subconsciously that the Wittelsbach number was up, but he still managed to pluck Wagner back from oblivion so we could marvel at the Ring and Tristan.

  We drove to Lake Starnberg and then went to Neuschwanstein. The grandeur of such architectural ambition was inspiring.

  It felt good to escape from the world below, where one felt clean, away from poor suffering humanity. Neuschwanstein, Neverland. The hurt human escaped who could, but splendid isolation was the price that often had to be paid.

  ‘Florian tells me
Ludwig had a remarkably strong constitution. To drown himself must have been difficult. If he wasn’t murdered. The Bavarians still love their king you know. They don’t have a foolish view of human endeavour that has to have everything wrapped in saintliness. That is not the human way, is it David. Or not very often.’

  Anton looked genuinely moved. I had really only seen him in his cynical mode, so I was quite surprised by this change in demeanour. Behind the man of action who wouldn’t think twice about sending someone to the next world, was a person of feeling, wistful, but clear-sighted. I saw that as Anton stared out of a window at the lake below.

  We spent the day wandering through the castle and around its environs. Fortunately it was cold and tourist numbers were down. It made the experience all the more enjoyable for me.

  Late in the afternoon we returned to Hohentor. I felt refreshed by my visit to Neuschwanstein. In fact I felt I was leaving behind a part of myself there. Perhaps we leave something of ourselves wherever we feel things deeply, whether good or bad. Maybe a piece of me was inextricably locked within the soulspirit of Shevchenko, or in that ornately-decorated bedroom where Ludwig’s fantastic Olympian strivings shattered.

  Anton was on his mobile while I drove. At first all seemed well. But then, from the clipped tone, I knew the news couldn’t be good. When he rang off he turned to me.

  ‘That bank deposit box. Salto’s body has been found in his Paris hotel room. We have walked straight into a trap.’

  Incredulity, not Olympian strivings, reared.

  Shevchenko had been ready for the worst all along, knew at once what was happening—he must have found out from some leak in The Hammer, surely. He was prepared with this pre-planned diversionary tactic. How could we have been so foolish.

  We sat in silence for the rest of our journey.

  I had every intention of going to Paris myself. Only a stern lecture from Charles about attending to matters here had stopped me. I’d felt rather foolish at the time, but now I saw what my fate would have been. I was grateful, but mortified.

  Later that evening Anton told me his brother wanted to see him about some family business. He’d be away for a few days. I was to keep to myself.

  And I wanted to.

  ‘I am furious, absolutely furious!’

  Dame Enid was more than upset. The next meeting of The Hammer had been convened. About a third of those who should have been here were absent for various reasons. Some might have found these pep talks tiresome, but I heard a vitality in them that energised me.

  ‘One of our best operatives is dead. Dear Salto. How I will miss him.’

  Dame Enid’s voice grew more strident.

  ‘We are all going to have to be more careful, what with our near-fiasco in Vienna, and now Salto’s death.’

  She shot me a difficult-to-interpret glance.

  ‘We want our next outing to be a complete success. There is no more room for errors on anyone’s part. That psychopath Brillo is next in our sights.’

  Dame Enid paused, gulped down some water, then continued.

  ‘This gentleman has been involved in the murder and torture of his own people, the use of nerve gas and corruption on an unprecedented scale. He has to go. This will be an international incident, but that can’t be helped. We will be using a surface-to-air missile when he and his cronies are flying in their private jet to the Black Sea for one of their shameful holidays. We are planning on them not arriving on time.’

  Enid managed an ironic twist to this last sentence, a tangent to her usual unaffected directness.

  She continued speaking and, far from putting off her distinguished audience, they were attracted to her esprit. When I looked at the people I’d grown to know a little in recent weeks, I was impressed by their devotion to the aims of our consort. I felt ashamed of my wavering—the murder of Shevchenko had rattled me. They had no time for doubts.

  The general public was well-disposed. They could demonstrate, write letters to newspapers, were vocal when it came to political disagreements. They were hesitant though to put a knife into the back of someone who brutalised their citizens, didn’t know how to take back millions of euros illegally stashed in the Alps. That was the problem, for blood on the hands wasn’t to their liking. We had taken on the cause of historical duty, just as the senators in Rome knew a despot when they saw one, or the Prussian military determined that Adolf wouldn’t do. Those others—the complaining, compassionate crowds who surged down streets with placards waving—would perhaps never know we were trying to do something important for them.

  ‘And now,’ Dame Enid finished, ‘I feel we should stand for one minute’s silence in memory of dear Salto. Thank you Salto. You will live in our hearts forever.’

  At which point everyone rose, heads bent, in absolute silence. But I wondered, was anything forever?

  I had never experienced a moment quite like it. You could feel the collective streaming of a gigantic will. I don’t think it would be fanciful to say I also felt the beating wings of some eternal bird that might carry us all to a parallel world, leaving behind our coarse, rough exteriors, our miserable human failings. But here, amongst the living, I knew we could not lose the name of action.

  The minute passed into its eternity. Then the others solemnly left to fulfil their duties.

  Not yours truly though, because Dame Enid collared me as we dispersed saying she wanted to have a private conversation. I thought I was in for a bollocking, but nothing of the kind. She needed advice on some stocks and bonds back in Blighty. I said I’d have to do some research before I could give her any recommendations. Enid patted me on the shoulder as she departed, God knows where. The eternal traveller, she never seemed tired or put out by her wanderlust that found her on at least two continents every few weeks. Her great passion was art. She had a well-regarded collection of prints including Miró, Picasso and Freud. Rumour had it she had known one or two of her artists intimately. She called these friends collectables.

  Another ferocious storm broke outside. The Alps were playing up again, ruining the piste all over Europe. This weather was as wayward as my recent weeks. Just as I reached my room the phone rang. It was my sister. It sounded as if things weren’t good at home. I said I’d try to be back later in the year and take Chris off to the Flinders Ranges—two of my old university friends lived out that way and they’d said I could visit any time I wanted. Chris had already started to badger Celia about the holiday I’d mentioned.

  But Celia wasn’t interested in listening. She wanted to complain, so I held the phone away from my ear and just intruded a yes, no or uh-huh every few minutes. It was the last thing I felt like after the conference, but Celia needed someone to talk to and I was the chosen vessel upon whom she emptied her wrath.

  I tried pouring oil on bungled waters whilst knowing whatever I said was just an interim moment of repose for a marriage that had turned into one long slanging match. Poor Chris. I felt for him, and this time made a promise to myself that we’d get away soon.

  I rang off, rain tearing at the windows. I could see nothing but dark beyond their panes.

  Families. Why did things have to work out so badly so often. My family had worked out well enough. We loved one another, but did we really like one another. The trouble was, you didn’t get to pick the good bits of family life. The whole package landed on your doorstep with the thud of blood. And blood is messy.

  Such repose as I had managed to attain recently seemed small recompense for the events I’d participated in, or witnessed. I told myself I had to get some firmer backbone, or else I’d go under too. But would I have been any more careful than Salto? I thought it was all up to luck, divine luck or unfavourable luck some perversity had put out in the stars. And then I thought of Neuschwanstein, its image like a presentiment of all that was possible in this rusted, busted world. I believed in duty and honour, excellence, good. And I believed in evil too. I knew it had to be defeated, or if not defeated, at least opposed. That was one thing m
y old tutor Vansittart had insisted on. We might very well have emerged from the slime as blank slates, but it was our moral imperative to write something on the slate so that at our end we could be a little reconciled to this otherwise inexplicable world. There were passageways to grace. One could negotiate them, here where dirt claimed prior rights, not our nobility or passion. Bread and bombs ruled the bottom line, not Roy’s love of music, Anton’s zeal for mountaineering or Charles’ for justice. Or, indeed, Celia’s desire for a little happiness.

  As pilotless drones searched for enemies below, I fell back on my pillow, confusion turning around me. Then I sank into the space where the dream heals.

  One week later I was walking through Munich’s bustling centre when I saw something I had been half-expecting.

  There at the newsstand, on the front page of the New York Times, in bold lettering, I read, Black Sea End For Despot. I knew at once The Hammer had achieved a further success. Not only was one tyrant dead; a slew of his fellow travellers had gone to meet their maker. And Charles, whom I’d seen just the day before, hadn’t said a thing to me. What sangfroid!

  I imagined the plane torn open, the laughter of collaborators ripped into glowering skies, the sudden plummeting on their short journey to the beyond. If they were to come back as an embodiment of past sins, nothing would have been too bad for these depraved army types who had managed to ruin a country’s economy, tortured and murdered citizens, broken the hands of one of their greatest pianists who dared to play ‘decadent’ Western music. I felt a not-altogether admirable pleasure when this kind of justice was seen to be done. My reality didn’t allow for moral or emotional absolutes. At least I was being honest about it.