Breakfast in the Ruins kg-2

by Michael John Moorcock

  PICTURE POST

  Palestine: Can deadlock be broken?

  Discussion between Edward Atiyah, Arab Office; Thomas Reid, M.P., R.H.S. Crossman, M.P, and Prof. Martin Buber, Prof. Sociology, Jerusalem University, July 12, 1947:

  —What does money mean to you, Karl?

  — Well, security, I suppose, first and foremost.

  — You mean it can buy you security. A house, food, the obvious comforts, power over others.

  — I'm not sure about power over others. What has that to do with security?

  — Oh it must have something to do with it.

  At nineteen, Karl is bent on vengeance and the regaining of his rights. He has a.303 Lee Enfield rifle, some hand grenades, a bayonet and a long dagger. He wears a khaki shirt and blue jeans. On his head is a burnoose. He stands on the bank overlooking the winding road to Tel-Aviv. He lifts his head proudly into the sun.

  — You can keep yourself to yourself, says Karl with a grin.—Can't you.

  — As long as others do. The dweller in the suburbs, Karl, must pursue a policy of armed neutrality.

  — I was brought up in the suburbs. I never saw it like that. I don't know what things are like in Nigeria, mind you...

  At nineteen, Karl has a girl whom he has left behind in Joppa. There are five friends with him on the road. He sees a dust-cloud approaching. It must be the jeep. With the veil of his burnoose, Karl covers his mouth against the dust.

  — Much the same, says Karl's friend.—Much the same.

  KARL WAS NINETEEN. His mother had been gassed, his father had been gassed. At least, that was as far as he knew. He had been lucky. In 1942 he and his uncle had managed to sneak into Palestine and had not been caught as illegal immigrants. But Karl had soon realized the injustice of British rule and now he belonged to the Irgun Tsva'i Leumi, pledged to drive the British out of Palestine if they had to kill every single British man, woman or child to do it. It was time the Jews turned. There would never be another pogrom against the Jews that was not answered in kind. It was the only way.

  He squinted against the glare of the sun, breaking with some difficulty through the gauze of his headdress. The air was dry dusty and stale. There was no doubt about the single jeep droning along the road from Abid to Tel-Aviv. It was British. He gestured down to his friend David. David, too, was masked. David, too, had a Lee Enfield rifle. He handed up the field-glasses to Karl. Karl took them, adjusted them, saw that there were two soldiers in the jeep -a sergeant and a corporal. They would do.

  Further along the road, in the shade of a clump of stunted palms, waited the rest of the section. Karl signaled to them. He swept the surrounding hills with his glasses to check that there was no one about. Even a goatherd could prove an embarrassment, particularly if he were an Arab. The parched hills were deserted.

  You could hear the jeep quite clearly now, its engine whining as it changed gear and took an incline.

  Karl unclipped a grenade from his belt.

  The others left the shade of the palms and got into the ditch behind the bank, lying flat, their rifles ready. Karl looked at David. The boy's dark eyes were troubled. Karl signaled for David to join him. He pulled the pin from the grenade. David imitated him, unclipping a grenade, pulling out the pin, holding down the safety.

  Karl felt his legs begin to tremble. He felt ill. The heat was getting to him. The jeep was almost level. He sprang up, steadied himself on the top of the bank, and threw the grenade in a gentle, graceful curve. It was a beautiful throw. It went straight into the back seat of the jeep. The soldiers looked astonished. They glanced back. They glanced at Karl. The jeep's pace didn't slacken. It blew up.

  There was really no need for the second grenade which David threw and which landed in the road behind the remains of the jeep.

  The two soldiers had been thrown out of the wreckage. They were both alive, though broken and bleeding. One of them was trying to draw his side-arm. Karl walked slowly towards him, his.303 cocked. With a casual movement of his foot he kicked the pistol from the sergeant's hand as the man tried to get the hammer back. The sergeant's face was covered in blood. Out of the mess stared two blue eyes. The ruined lips moved, but there were no words. Nearby, the corporal sat up.

  The rest of the group joined Karl.

  "I'm glad you weren't killed," Karl said in his guttural English.

  "Aaah!" said the corporal. "You dirty Arab bastards." He hugged his broken right arm.

  "We are Jews," said David, ripping his mask down.

  "I don't believe it," said the corporal.

  "We are going to hang you," said Karl, pointing at the palms, visible beyond the bank.

  David went to look at the jeep. The whole back section was buckled and one of the wheels was off. Some piece of machinery still gasped under the bonnet. David reached into the jeep and turned the engine off. There was a smell of leaking petrol. "It's not much use to us," said David.

  "What do you bloody mean?' said the corporal in horror. "What the fuck do you bloody mean? "

  "It's a message," said Karl, "from us to you."

  — I've made up my mind, says Karl's friend as he busily massages Karl's buttocks.—I'm going to take you with me when I go home. You'll like it. It isn't everyone I meet I'd do that for.

  Karl makes no reply. He is feeling rather detached. He doesn't remember when he felt so relaxed.

  What Would You Do? (14)

  You are very attracted to a girl of about seventeen who is the daughter of one of your parent's friends. The girl lives with her parents in the country. You take every opportunity to see her (you are not much older than her, yourself) but although you take her out to formal parties a couple of times and to the cinema once, you can't be sure how she feels towards you. The more you see of her the more you want to make love to her. But you realize she is quite young and you don't want to see yourself in the role of the seducer. You would feel perfectly happy about it if she made the first move. But she is shy. She plainly likes you. Probably she is waiting for you to make the first move. You are passing through the part of the world where she and her parents live and you decide to visit the house and ask if you can stay the night, as it's quite late. You rather hope that, at last, you will be able to find an opportunity to make love to the girl.

  You arrive at the house. The door is opened by the girl's mother, an attractive woman in her early forties. She is very welcoming. You tell her your story and she says that of course you can stay, for as long as you like. She regrets that you will not be able to see her husband because he is away for some days on a business trip. Her daughter is out—"with one of her boyfriends." You feel disappointed.

  You have dinner with the mother and you and she drink quite a lot of wine. The mother makes no doubt about the fact that she finds you attractive. After dinner sitting together on a couch, you find that you are holding hands with her.

  You have a mixture of feelings. She is attractive and you do feel that you want to make love, but you are rather afraid of her experience. Secondly, you feel that if you sleep with her, it will complicate the situation so much that you will never have an opportunity to make love to her daughter, whom you feel you could easily fall in love with. You also need the mother's good will.

  Would you get up from the couch and make an excuse in order to go to bed. Would you make love to the mother up to a point and then claim that you were too drunk to go further. Would you pretend to be ill? Would you give in completely to your desires of the moment and sleep with the mother, in spite of the inevitable situation which this would lead to? Would you hope that the daughter would be so intrigued by your having slept with her mother that she would make it clear that she, too, wanted to sleep with you (you have heard that such things happen)? Or would you feel that the whole problem was too much, leave the house and resolve never to see any member of the family ever again?

  15

  Big Bang in Budapest: 1956:

  Leaving Home

  In the Troodos hills
in the west of Cyprus, the job is being carried out by Number 45 Commando of the Royal Marines, together with two companies of the Gordon Highlanders. The Commando arrived in Cyprus last September; its headquarters are now in Platres, near Troodos. Its commanding officer, Lt. Col. N. H. Tailyour, DSO, recalled its record to date. "In early November we took the first haul of EOKA arms. We shot and captured the brother of the Bishop of Kyrenia (who was deported with the Archbishop) while he was trying to break through a cordon with some important documents... So far we have killed two men... We have been ambushed seven times, and lost one marine killed and seven wounded." A lot more has happened since then.

  PICTURE POST, April 7,1956.

  "My daughter was one of the ten people who went into the Radio building. They were asked to wait on the balcony while the business was discussed. The students below thought they had been pushed out. They tried to crush through the door and the police opened fire. I did not see my daughter fall down. They said she fell and the security police carried her away. She may not be dead. Perhaps it were better she were."

  PICTURE POST, Hungarian woman, November 5,1956.

  Picture Post brings you this week the most dramatic exclusive of the war in Egypt—the first documentary record of life behind the Egyptian lines after the invasion of Port Said. How this story was obtained by correspondent William Richardson and photographer Max Scheler is in itself one of the remarkable stories of the campaign. While the fires at Port Said still burned, Richardson was at the British front line at El Cap watching the Egyptians dig in 1,000 yards south. Three weeks later he stood at those same Egyptian positions watching the British across the lines and getting a briefing on the campaign from Brigadier Anin Helmini, one of Nasser's most brilliant young generals. Yet to negotiate that 1,000 yards between the British and Egyptian lines Richardson had to travel some 5,600 times that distance, flying from Port Said to Cyprus and from there to Athens and Rome. There the Egyptian Embassy granted him a visa after he told them he had been in Port Said and wanted to see both sides. In a month, he was accredited to three forces—British, Egyptian and United Nations, a total of 12 nationalities in uniform.

  PICTURE POST, December 17,1956.

  — Is your only pleasure making me feel pleasure? Karl asks.

  — Of course not.

  — Well, you don't seem to be getting any fun out of this. Not physical, anyway.

  — Cerebral pleasures can be just as nice. It depends what turns you on, surely?

  Karl turns over.—There's something pretty repressed about you, he says.—Something almost dead.

  — You know how to be offensive don't you? A short time ago you were just an ordinary London lad. Now you're behaving like the bitchiest little pansy I ever saw.

  — Maybe I like the role.

  Karl is twenty. He scents escape at last. He has survived through the War, through the Communist take-over. Now there is a way out. He prays that nothing will happen to frustrate his plans this time...

  — And maybe I don't. When I said you could have anything you wanted I didn't mean a bra and suspender belt. The black man turns away in disgust.

  — You said anything was worth trying, didn't you? I think I'd look rather nifty. A few hormone jabs, a pump or two of silicone in my chest. I'd be a luscious, tropical beauty. Wouldn't you love me more?

  Karl is twenty. His brain is sharp. He tears up his party membership card. Time for a change.

  — Stop that! — orders Karl's friend.—Or I won't bother. You can leave now.

  — Who's being narrow minded, then!

  KARL is TWENTY. Both his mother and his father had been killed in the pre-war pogroms. He had survived in Budapest by changing his name and keeping undercover until the war was over. When the new government was installed, he became a member of the Communist party, but he didn't tell his friends. That would have been pointless, since part of his work involved making discreet enquiries for the Russian controlled security department on the Westbahnhof.

  Now he was working out his best route to the Austrian border. He had joined with his fellow students in the least aggressive of the demonstrations against the Russians and had established himself as a patriot. When the Russians won—as they must win—he would be in Vienna on his way to America. Other Hungarians would vouch for him—a victim, like themselves, of Russian imperialism.

  Earlier that day he had contacted the hotel where the tourists were staying. They told him that there were some cars due to leave for Austria in the afternoon by the big suspension bridge near the hotel. He had described himself as a "known patriot" whom the secret police were even now hunting down. They had been sympathetic and assured him of their help.

  Lenin Street was comparatively quiet after the fighting which, yesterday, had blasted it, into ruins. He picked his way through the rubble, ducking behind a fallen tree as a Russian tank appeared, its treads squeaking protest as they struck obstacle after obstacle.

  Karl reached the riverside. A few people came running up the boulevard but there didn't seem to be anyone behind them. Karl decided it was safe to continue. He could see the bridge from here. Not far to go.

  There came the sudden slamming cacophony of automatic cannon a few blocks to the east; a howl from a hundred throats at least; the decisive rattle of machine guns; the sound of running feet. From out of a street opposite him Karl saw about fifty freedom fighters, most of them armed with rifles and a few with tommy-guns, dash like flushed rats onto the boulevard, glance around and then run towards the bridge. He cursed them. Why couldn't they have fled in the other direction?

  But he decided to follow them, at a distance.

  On the suspension bridge he saw some tanks. He hoped they had been immobilized. Bodies were being thrown over the side into the Danube. He hoped they were Russian bodies. He began to look for the cars. A new Citroen, green, one of the tourists had told him, and a Volkswagen. He peered through the gaps in the ranks of the running men. He began to run himself.

  And then the automatic cannon started once more. This time it was directly ahead and it was joined by the guns of the tanks. The freedom fighters fell down. Some got up and crawled into doorways, firing back. Karl fell flat, rolling to the railings and looking to see if there was a way down to the river. He might be able to swim the rest of the distance. He looked across the Danube. He could still make it. He would survive.

  Tanks came towards him, he made a vain attempt to get through the railings and then lay still, hoping they would think him dead.

  More rifle and tommy-gun fire. More Russian gunfire. A shout. A strangled scream.

  Karl opened his eyes. One of the tanks was on fire, its camouflaged sides scorched, its red star smeared with blood.

  The tank's driver had tried to get out of his turret and had been shot to pieces. The other tanks rumbled on. The fighting became more distant. Karl glanced at his watch. No more than five minutes before the cars left.

  He got cautiously to his feet.

  A Russian's head appeared in the turret behind the corpse of the driver. The man's flat features were tormented. He was doubtless badly wounded. He saw Karl. Karl put up his hands to show that he was unarmed. He smiled an ingratiating smile. The Russian aimed a pistol at him. Karl tried to think what to do.

  He felt the impact as the bullet struck his skull. He went back against the railings and collapsed without seeing the Danube again.

  — You seem to think I'm trying to corrupt your morals or something. You've got hold of the wrong end of the stick. I was simply talking about expanding your range of choices. I don't know what to make of you Karl.

  — Then we're even.

  -I might have to change my mind about you. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. If I'm to adopt you, it will be on very strict terms. I don't want you to embarrass me.

  — That goes for me, too.

  — Now don't be insolent, Karl.

  What Would You Do? (15)

  You live in a poor country, though you yourself are c
omparatively rich.

  There is a famine in the country and many of the people are starving. You want to help them. You can afford to give the local people in the village about fifty pounds. But the number of people in the village is at least two hundred. If each receives part of the money you have, it will buy them enough to live on for perhaps another four days.

  Would you give them the money on condition it was spent on the people most in need? Or on condition that it was spent on the children? Or would you select a handful of people you thought deserved the money most? Or would you hand it over to them and ask them to divide as they saw fit?

  16

  Camping In Kenya: 1959:

  Smoke

  Here is the grim record as far as it can be added up in figures: more than a thousand Africans hanged for serious crimes, 9,252 Mau Mau convicts jailed for serious offences, and 44,000 "detainees", guilty of lesser Mau Mau offences, in rehabilitation prison camps. In these camps, in carefully graded groups, Mau Mau adherents are reeducated as decent citizens... To make return possible mental attitudes have to be changed... Perhaps "soul-washing" is not too strong a word for an organized process aimed at teaching civilized behavior and the duties, as well as the rights, of citizenship...

  Soldiers and police have won the long battle of the bush against ill-armed men fighting for what they believe to be a good cause. All but the broken remnants, under their broken leader Dedan Kimathi, have been killed or rounded up. The battle to turn Mau Mau adherents into decent citizens goes well.