The Violent Century

by Lavie Tidhar

  – Russians, the Old Man says. Does he sound more tired than he used to? the Minister wonders, uneasily. He shrugs. Send Oblivion, he says. Speak to our cousins in the CIA and see if they have an interest.

  The Old Man’s eyes are clear and dry. They bore into the Minister’s eyes as if they can read the contents of his mind, the way one reads a cheap paperback book. The Minister, discomfited, turns his head away.

  – Yes, sir, the Old Man says – ironically or not, we can’t say.

  110. AFGHANISTAN 1984

  In Afghanistan the poppies blow, between the crosses, row on row, that mark our place; and in the sky, the larks, still bravely singing, fly, scarce heard amid the guns below.

  Oblivion remembers the poem, modifies it as the chopper takes him over the fields, across the border from Pakistan, into the desert, flying low. John McCrae’s ‘In Flanders Fields’, adapted for the new world, the new war, only it’s Afghanistan, not France, and the poppies are opium poppies. And it’s hot. Very hot, and dry, and he thinks, with sudden savagery, how much Fogg would have hated it here. He wonders fleetingly if there are larks in Afghanistan (there are).

  Welcome to the Andropov Years.

  In nineteen seventy-eight the communist party of Afghanistan assumed power in a coup d’état. In December of seventy-nine, the first Soviet troops were deployed into the country. In eighty-two Andropov – the main architect behind the Soviet invasion – had become leader of the Soviet Union following the death of Leonid Brezhnev.

  And by nineteen eighty-four, the war had become full blown …

  – Observer? Gus shouts. Gus is the CIA liaison officer to the Mujahedeen. What’s to observe in this shithole?

  Oblivion shrugs. I’ll give you something to observe, Gus says, and his smile is unpleasant. He points down as the chopper takes a low sweep over sandy terrain, passing over a …

  Over a …

  Oblivion stares. The chopper drops low, blowing sand in all directions, lands with a soft whoomp.

  They get out. Oblivion sees three human shapes in the sand. Unmoving. He comes closer, though something in him is reluctant to approach, there is a sickly smell in the air, he knows it well. Three human shapes, two men and a woman. He remembers Fogg’s stories of Transylvania. Drakul. But this is not Drakul’s work.

  They are frozen in horrified death. One man, tall and skeletal, with his hand reaching out as if asking for alms, or a benediction. His face is frozen in a rictus of agony, his teeth had been broken and blood had pooled down on the sand. He had bled to death.

  Impaled on a long, sharp stick.

  The woman beside him had been garrotted before she was impaled, Oblivion sees. Her hands are scorched, her nails blackened with fire. He begins to understand. Übermenschen, Gus says, softly. The third man is half transformed on the spike, as if he had been killed while transitioning into some kind of impossible animal. Local Übermenschen, Gus says. Afghanis. I’m afraid our host does not approve of your kind.

  – They were abominations, a voice says, calmly, reasonably. Good English. Cultured. A voice that has money behind it. He appears behind a bend in the narrow valley. Suddenly just there. Dressed in combat fatigues. A long thick beard. Piercing eyes. He exudes a powerful magnetism. As if he is more than a man himself. A Beyond-Man. But too young to have been remade by the change. They were abominations and had to be cleansed, he says. Who the hell are you? Oblivion says. Startled, to tell the truth. The smell of the dead beyond. Every year, he thinks, there are fewer of us left. And feels a sudden and painful sense of loss and doesn’t know where it came from.

  – Oblivion, Gus says, ceremoniously, meet our esteemed ally in this most holy war against the Soviet invaders in Afghanistan, supreme commander of the Mujahedeen, friend of the Company, Sheikh Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden.

  Oblivion stares.

  Who is he? He had asked Gus, earlier. The CIA case officer just shrugged. The rich, spoiled son of a rich and powerful family, he’d said. Playing soldiers in the desert. Shrugged again and said, He’s just another guy. And, philosophically: No one really gives a damn about Afghanistan.

  – You bring one of them, here? bin Laden says. Oblivion stares into his eyes. Oblivion is taller than the sheikh, as slim. Not taking his eyes off the man he walks to the impaled figures. Lays his hand, gently, on the first figure’s head. It begins to fade away, to disappear. He repeats the same action two more times. Stares at the other man all the while. Smiles, faintly. Bin Laden nods. Turns on his heels, quite abruptly, and begins to walk away. Gus looks at Oblivion, shrugs, and follows.

  Around the contour of the mountain and they come onto a camp in the desert, pitched tents, goats grazing, a child runs up to bin Laden, who lifts him up, laughing – My son, he says. Come. He puts the child down and they follow him to a large tent. Armed men stand guard outside. Bin Laden goes in and Gus and Oblivion follow him inside.

  – Our British colleagues, Gus says, believe they can help with intelligence regarding Soviet actions.

  – We need more guns, bin Laden says. Talking to Gus. Ignoring Oblivion as if he’s not there. We need more surface-to-air missiles. The Soviets are beginning to use armoured helicopters. We need more guns and we need more ammo and we need you, Gus, to deliver them.

  – Now hold on just a goddamned minute! Gus says, reddening. For a moment he seems so interchangeable to Oblivion, just another young, brash American with a name that isn’t his, in a war in which he doesn’t really belong. He almost feels sorry for him.

  – Come back, Gus, when you have what I need, bin Laden says. Our war is a righteous war. We will fight it with or without your help. As for him – he does not look at Oblivion when he speaks – no.

  – No? Gus says.

  – We do not want his information.

  – But it could help—

  – No. And never bring one of his kind here again.

  Bin Laden says nothing more. Gus just stands there, breathing hard. Then he turns on his heels and stalks outside. Oblivion stays, staring at the man. Then he shrugs and follows the CIA man out of the tent.

  111. JERUSALEM 1964

  – But what’s a hero? the counsellor for the defence says. On the witness stand, Joseph Shuster blinks through thick glasses.

  – Indeed, Shuster says. What is a hero. His voice is sleepy, dreamy. It seems to me … he says, and stops. He removes his glasses and polishes them on the hem of his shirt. It seems to me …

  – Let’s backtrack, the counsellor suggests. Shuster seems grateful. You are, like Mr Lieber, a historian—

  – Not like Mr Lieber, Shuster says. Not like Mr Lieber at all.

  Some muted laughter from the audience. I am an artist, Shuster says, with more force. I have exhibited in Manhattan, Paris, London and elsewhere, and my work hangs in many modern art museums across the globe.

  – And the subject of your work? the counsellor says.

  – It is fair to say I specialise in … in a form of dynamic portraiture, Shuster says, shy again.

  – Of Übermenschen, the counsellor says.

  – Of the changed. Of Beyond-Men. And women. Of … for lack of a better word, Shuster says, I like to think my work focuses on heroes.

  – But what’s a hero? the counsellor says, again.

  – It seems to me, Shuster says, it seems to me … you must understand, I think, yes, you need to first understand what it means to be a Jew.

  – I think I have some experience in that, the counsellor for the defence says drily – which draws a few laughs from the audience. On the stand, Shuster coughs. His eyes, myopic behind the glasses, assume a dreamy look. Those of us who came out of that war, he says. And before that. From pogroms and persecution and to the New World. To a different kind of persecution, perhaps. But also hope. Our dreams of heroes come from that, I think. Our American heroes are the wish-fulfilment of immigrants, dazzled by the brashness and the colour of this new world, by its sheer size. We needed larger-than-life heroes, masked heroes
to show us that they were the fantasy within each and every one of us. The Vomacht wave did not make them, it released them. Our shared hallucination, our faith. Our faith in heroes. This is why you see our American heroes but never their British counterpart. Ours is the rise of Empire, theirs is the decline. Ours seek the limelight, while theirs skulk in shadows.

  He removes his glasses. Without them, his eyes are vulnerable. He turns them on the silent man in the glass box.

  – Should we prosecute Dr Vomacht? Shuster says, softly. Turns his eyes on the silent audience in the courtroom. There is fervour in his eyes. Perhaps it is all the answer he will give. The only answer we need.

  – We need heroes, Joe Shuster says.

  112. KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN 1984

  Years later, when they discussed it one afternoon, the Old Man had shaken his head. Of course, when he did give us good advice … I’m rather afraid we ignored it. Didn’t we, Oblivion?

  Oblivion had stirred, then. I’m sure I couldn’t say, sir, he said.

  The city is surrounded by Soviet troops. Planes with the symbol of the red star fly overhead when Oblivion arrives in the city. He arrives unremarkably, his papers identify him as an East German trade delegate, he checks into a rundown hotel, close to the Friday Mosque and the tomb of Ahmad Shah Durrani, in central Kandahar.

  Oblivion is tired, tense. The sound of bombardment beyond the city reaches him in the room. There is a feeling of grim excitement in the air, young men with guns in the streets, beyond his window. Oblivion is lonely.

  He wants to go home.

  It was no surprise bin Laden mistrusted the information we offered, the Old Man had told him, later. We didn’t trust it ourselves.

  Oblivion examines the Red Sickle. He’s changed, he thinks. Leaner, more tired. In Laos in sixty-seven he had told Oblivion he’d stopped drinking. If so, it didn’t last. He is drunk now, but without enjoyment. He looks to Oblivion as if he is self-medicating: as if he is trying to drown Afghanistan in vodka.

  – It’s this war, the Red Sickle says. Waves the bottle with one hand. They are sitting in a bar full of Russian troops. This war. He leans close to Oblivion’s face, his breath wafts like smoke from a factory. Heroin, he says. That’s what my boys are on. All the heroin in the world is in this place. The poppies. This is how they grow, these Afghans. Like poppies. You can’t kill them. You can’t find them. They blow on the wind and rise somewhere else. We should have learned from your history. The British. Three wars and you lost every one. You can’t win a war here. You couldn’t, we can’t, and whoever comes after us is going to lose, too. This land hates invaders.

  – Did you ever give us truthful information? Oblivion says. Curiosity, nothing more. The Red Sickle laughs, slaps the table. The soldiers around them do not look their way, not once. I will give you one now, he says. This bin Laden. This Saudi. Kill him now. Kill him when you have the chance, or he will turn on you, and he will be stronger. Tell it to your Yankee friends, Oblivion.

  – I saw him kill the changed, Oblivion says. The Red Sickle shrugs. We die like everyone else, he says. Only more slowly.

  His eyes are red and haunted. There is a terrible, infinite weariness in his eyes. I’m tired, Oblivion, he says.

  Oblivion can’t get the Red Sickle’s voice out of his head, that night. That awful tiredness that comes with too many unchanged years.

  Too many wars, the Red Sickle says. Do you remember the war? he says, and Oblivion doesn’t need to ask which one. There was only ever one war to matter, to Oblivion, to the Red Sickle, to all of them.

  Everything else is a shadow of that war.

  113. NEW YORK 2001

  Were we standing underneath, on the streets of New York City, looking up—

  It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s—

  It’s a plane. Hitting, as though in slow motion, the top of the north tower of the World Trade Center.

  That slow-moving destruction. That horror, that incomprehension we feel as we watch it, over and over, broadcast around the world, we watch and rewatch in slow motion, in high-definition, the moment the dream dies.

  All that time we had expected a saviour. A man. A hero. But what’s a hero? Someone leaping from the colour pages or from the silver screen, gun in hand, to rescue us. To make it stop. To disarm the hijackers, to land the plane safely. To avert this monstrosity.

  It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s—

  Nothing. No one.

  That day we look up to the sky and see the death of heroes.

  THIRTEEN:

  SECRETS AND LIES

  BERLIN

  1946

  114. DER ZIRKUS NIGHTCLUB, BERLIN 1946

  Big band music plays on stage. The air is thick with cigarette smoke and drunken conversation. The lights are dim. Ghoulish waiters in black tuxedoes move around like undertakers, pinched faces and undernourished arms, vampires amongst the living. There are soldiers at every table. Fogg is in a sergeant’s uniform, sitting at a table with Oblivion and Spit, a couple of the others. An insignia on Fogg’s shoulder: BSA. Beer steins dot the table. Saucer-sized ashtrays. Oblivion reaching the end of a story … and I said, with a face like that, darling, you’ve got nothing to laugh about!

  Drunken laughter. Fogg sips his beer. Spit turns, looks at the door, says, Hey, look what the cat dragged in.

  Fogg turns to look. The doors of the club open. Swaggering in: Tigerman, the Green Gunman, and Whirlwind. Stand in the doorway for a moment, for maximum effect. Tigerman throws back his mane of blond hair. Like he’s posing for the cameras.

  – Yanks, Fogg says. The Brits are all in army uniforms. The Americans are in their costumes, bright primary colours gaudy in the dark interior of the club. The head waiter rushes to greet them. Leads them away, to a table by the stage. A bottle of champagne in a silver bucket full of ice is brought over to the table, along with three glasses. The head waiter hovers, waiting. Tigerman acknowledges him with a nod. The head waiter opens the champagne with a practised pop. Pours. Waits. The Americans drink. Tigerman nods. Dismissal, this time. The head waiter bows his head. Departs, noiselessly. Spit says, They don’t offer us any of the good stuff. Oblivion says, I prefer beer anyway.

  Fogg never got to the bottom of where Oblivion came from. His aristocratic air belying humbler origins. Sometimes his past slipped through. Or perhaps it’s a calculated act, just further obfuscation. Fogg never knows.

  He lights up a cigarette. American GIs get them as part of their rations. Along with nylon stockings and chocolate, they serve as the post-war currency in Berlin. Fogg pays informers with cigarettes, bribes officials with chocolate, courts elusive contacts with nylons. The Bureau in post-war Berlin, hunting Übermenschen.

  The Americans look over to their table. Tigerman frowns. The Green Gunman nods, neutrally. Oblivion raises his drink at Whirlwind, who looks at him with distaste and looks away.

  – What’s with you and miss hurly-whirly over there? Spit says. Oblivion says, We had a thing.

  Fogg looks at him sharply.

  – You did not! Spit says.

  – In Rome, in forty-four, Oblivion says. Smiles, a little ruefully. It didn’t last, he says. Spit, leaning over, interested: What happened? Oblivion shrugs. You know those Italian girls, he says, how grateful they were for liberation.

  Spit laughs. So what happened, she says, Whirlwind caught you with one?

  – Well, Oblivion says. Yes … only there were two of them.

  – You’re disgusting, Spit says.

  – That’s what she said, too, Oblivion says.

  Fogg drinks his beer. Only half-listening. Not saying much. Smokes his cigarette. Checks his watch. A commotion at the door. Turns to see a small slight figure trying to get in, the waiters closing in on it like crows. The man slips through them, heads directly to the British table.

  It’s Fogg’s informant.

  It’s good old Franz.

  A waiter follows, agitated. Fogg raises his hand. The waiter backs
off. Franz stands there, looking at the table, the drinks, the well-fed GIs around the room. Something naked and hungry in his face. Fogg says, Outside. Now. Stands up. Drains the rest of his beer. Franz already walking away. He’s not allowed inside. The big band finishes on stage. It darkens. Everyone quietens down as a lone woman comes on stage. Dressed in a masculine suit. Wears a black top hat. A strong face, sharp cheekbones. A solitary spot of light engulfs her. The rest of the stage is in darkness. At the doors Franz stops, face turned to the stage, captivated. The woman on stage approaches the microphone. She starts to sing. At the sound of her voice, Franz gives a little shudder. The room, the whole of Der Zirkus, is silent. The woman sings. An American song. ‘My Dreams are Getting Better All the Time’. Fogg pushes Franz through the doors, outside.

  115. OUTSIDE DER ZIRKUS, BERLIN 1946

  Into the hell that is Berlin. The exposed skeletons of buildings jut at odd angles. Rubble like temple offerings piled up everywhere. A beggar slinks in the shadows. Outside Der Zirkus there are always beggars, a woman in a shawl holds a baby under one arm, or it could be a bundle of cloth, you can’t tell. A blind man in dark glasses holds a tin cup and rattles it. Women wait outside, legs bare despite the cold, wear smiles like uniforms now, when they see Fogg. Try to get his attention. Can be had for a packet of cigarettes. Berlin. Fog in the air, he pulls it around him like a comforting cloak. As though hoping it will obscure the city, make it disappear, if only it could be unseen.

  Berlin.

  Franz’s glasses crooked, held by tape. Fogg walks away, and Franz follows. Down that dead street, the road uneven, an American jeep goes past, the GIs cheering at the sight of the waiting women. Around the corner, at last. The fog thickening. Hiding them both. They stop.