Somewhere East of Life

by Brian W Aldiss

  But Serov and the ruffians with him were also in movement. Much action was crowded into a moment, as if time had become elastic and was now contracting. Sawdust rushed forward at the men, teeth bared. He was clubbed down by a rifle butt which smashed his skull. My mare, alarmed by the firing, broke away from Rejep, who had had hold of the reins. She galloped off across the open ground. Momentarily, I felt anger, as if we had been deserted by someone with human feelings.

  I fired. Serov fired first. My rifle perhaps saved my life. Serov’s bullet hit it, sending it spinning, shattered. The barrel struck me across the right temple. I even saw myself, detachedly, falling down unconscious, nerveless.

  Even before I recovered my senses, I was scratching at dirt, working at some unformed plan, dragging myself into a sitting position. Against my back was rough stone. Rushing noises filled my ears, while the pain in my head was so intense I feared to be sick. Opening my eyes was a major achievement.

  The Uzbeks had dumped me into a small byre. It was a low-built hut, part of the wood-tiled roof of which had collapsed. From the smell of the place, no cattle had been kept here for some while. Nettles and thistles grew in one corner, where an old wine keg had been thrown.

  With an effort of will, I got myself on to my feet, to stand panting with my hands against the stone wall for support.

  The door of the hut consisted of five vertical planks, crudely joined together and eroded by weather and worm. It had been pegged shut from the outside. Although I wrenched at the thing, it did not move. It now entered my mind to listen. I heard the sound of shouting and drunken laughter, sharp and brutal. And another sound, faint but continuous. Rain was falling. I stood under a hole in the roof where water poured down over a broken tile and cooled my throbbing head.

  I peered through the cracks in the door. Men were staggering about in the downpour, boots stomping and splashing in mud. Serov’s three companions had been joined by other Uzbeks. Some were men from our town, from Kegeti. They were all drinking. The rougher men I did not recognize were wearing uniforms; they must have formed a guerrilla force, hiding in the mountains.

  To these brutes, sloshing about with their bottles, I had betrayed my family. By writing my note to Serov, I had merely shown what I regarded as decent human feelings.

  As I applied my eye anxiously from one door crack to the next—how can I speak what I saw? In the rain… In the mud… I will say only this—that my dear wife, and not only my wife,—imagine, my son, my little pure daughters…they were being stripped and defiled by those swine Uzbeks. The monsters swaggered about, breeches down, at that filthy work. Only Serov was not drinking, although it was evident he too had taken part in the rapes.

  I fell to the floor of the byre, vomiting. No one heard me for the rain and the cruel laughter.

  When I forced myself to stand and look again, how I longed for any weapon to kill at least one of those beasts before they killed me! Serov was calling his animals to order and shouting for the executioner. I heard the word in disbelief: executioner!

  And who came forth? Who had been slouching beyond the limited range of my sight? That illiterate peasant, Pikuli. Pikuli, the wretch who swept the floor of my museum. I saw he too had joined in the orgy.

  Serov made the Uzbeks line up my pitiable ruined family against the front wall of the byre, where I could no longer see them. I could see Pikuli. I could see his great dumb face, streaming rain and sweat, as he turned his dull glance to Serov and nodded his head in comprehension as he received a word of command. He lifted a revolver and moved in to obey.

  I heard his first shot. I knew beyond doubt what he was doing. Frantic, I scrambled to escape from my prison. Heaving the old wine keg against a wall, I was able to climb up and seize a rafter. As I attempted to squeeze through a gap in the broken roof, a section of the wall beneath me collapsed inwards under my weight. Down I went, amid a shower of stones.

  They heard that. They came for me. The door was slammed open. In they rushed—men transformed into brutes! Half a dozen of them dragged me out into the muddied field where my wife’s clothes were strewn. All around me were hostile faces, some of them belonging to men I once called friends. Behind them was the neutral green of the valley. Almost at my feet…can I say the words?—There lay the bodies, naked and defiled, of my beloved Ranisa and my children, all shot, Ranisa with more than one bullet. The children’s heads had been almost blown from their shoulders. The swift-falling rain diluted their blood into a brown puddle collecting beneath them.

  Oh, that dreadful day, my friends!

  Pikuli stood before me. He thrust the muzzle of his revolver at the bruise on my temple. His hands were still bandaged from the burns he had suffered—bandages I had bound there myself the previous day.

  I managed to speak. “Why—how can you do this? I was your protector, my wife fed you. She pitied you.”

  His expression never changed. All he said was, “I have an important job now, you scum. No more pity for Pikuli. I’m the Executioner.”

  Into his words he packed all the resentment of someone who has been condescended to since birth. He had no sense of what was just, having lived injustice. Now the social order had collapsed, he had seized his chance, like a lot of other wicked men. Civilization is a habit which protects us all from wickedness. When it fails, women and the weak are the first to suffer. The well-intentioned go to the wall.

  Now that the reinforcements of legality and public opinion had crumbled, something terrible in humanity emerged: that lust for survival at whatever cost. It was in me as well as in Pikuli. But as he rammed the revolver muzzle against my forehead, my agonies were only for Ranisa, to think that she and our dear children could have suffered such a vile fate. Then this beast, this Uzbek executioner, squeezed the trigger.

  This was an illiterate who could neither spell nor count. He had already used all his six bullets on my family, and failed to reload. I remained standing after the hammer fell.

  In my right hand I was clutching one of the stones which had come loose when the byre wall collapsed under me. I swung it and struck Pikuli full in the face with it. Blood burst from his nose and mouth. He dropped the gun and fell away, roaring in pain and anger.

  And the drunken company burst into laughter to see him hurt. One ran to him and kicked his behind, to guarantee his discomfort. Executioner or not, Pikuli the illiterate remained the object of their barbarous contempt.

  Turning, I ran for the cover of the forest. Not a single bullet followed me. I can’t say why. They were too busy with Pikuli, maybe. Would they had finished me off there and then! I had no further reason to live, certainly. All that I lived for had died with the morning, in the rainstorm…

  When he had finished this terrifying recitation, Dr. Haydar covered his face. He sat immobile, clutching the contraband bag to his massive frame with one hand.

  The express rattled on its way.

  In the train compartment, silence prevailed. The two boys had fallen asleep with their arms round their mother’s neck, whereupon Elmira, under the contagion of sleep, had fallen into a doze against them. The two Russians had closed their eyes. The man was no longer smoking: otherwise, it was impossible to tell whether or not he was awake.

  Burnell alone remained alert, staring out at the desert with fixed glare. The snow had died away, leaving only the gray Asian night and the desolation.

  He thought to himself, “If the memory is false, the sorrow is real enough; I can’t criticize. Yet for all that… For all that, despite the vast hole in my life, I am sure of my own identity, with all its imperfections. This unfortunate man must have met up with Nastiklofs Devil—he does not know who he is.”

  Some while after the recitation had finished, he turned his head towards his neighbor and spoke in a low voice. “But your wife is alive and living in Ashkhabad, Dr. Haydar…”

  Haydar made no response beyond a slow nod of his great head. He remained monumentally still. Burnell continued wakeful, his eyes red, as light re-en
tered the outside world, and he caught his first sight of a line of Caspian Sea smudged by distance.

  The express, weary now, crawled at last like a wounded creature through the disorder of Krasnovodsk’s suburbs and the filth of its streets, into the terminus.

  On to Number-One Platform poured the passengers of the Ashkhabad train. Some left eagerly, pushing to get through the barriers into the town. Others proceeded at a slower pace, because of infirmity, because they were impeded by luggage, or simply because they knew no reason to hurry.

  Elmira was hustled away by her two sons, excited to be free. Burnell was some way behind her in the throng. As he struggled with his astrakhan coat, Haydar had indicated that he would remain to assist the Russians, who were almost the last to leave the train. So Burnell and the Syrian shook hands briefly, embraced, and parted. Haydar stood wordless, his Nieman Marcus bag under one arm.

  Shouldering his baggage, Burnell looked about him as he pushed his way along among the crowd. Announcements in Russian, bellowed over loudspeakers, competed with the cries of seagulls which swooped overhead.

  It could be said of all the passengers, who had now disembarked on the western fringes of Central Asia, that they confronted a new phase of their existence. For some, much that lay ahead held promise and adventure or, at worst, profit. For others, the new phase would be but a repetition of old ones.

  Above the iron arches of the station, fragments of blue sky showed. Pushing into the ticket hall, Burnell saw a kiosk which sold a postcard of the Main Square, Krasnovodsk. He bought one to send to his divorced wife. Then the tide of people carried him out into the muddy street.

  He looked hopefully for a taxi to take him to the airport.

  27

  Squire Ad Libs

  Twelve noon was sounding, chiefly in chirps from wrist-watches. In many cases those watches gave off a green blink, reassuring their owners that they were not HIV-positive; for others, the game was up.

  Of the two point two million (daytime) inhabitants of Soss City, thirty of them were gathered in the discreetly gloomy entrance hall of the Amanda Schäfer Bienenhaus. Eighteen of this small crowd were women, the rest men; no children. The men were mostly aged between forty-five and sixty-five, with one old fellow of eighty. The women formed a younger age group, being mainly in their twenties; they had recently discovered the poetry of Amanda Schäfer.

  Outside, a passing shower was sousing FAM. Inside, rain was being used as an excuse for a poor turn-out. Umbrellas predominated over the floral arrangements considered mandatory on such occasions. People looked about and smiled at each other, aware that a local TV station was covering the event, hoping to be seen looking at their best on the evening’s local news.

  When the director of the company owning the Bienenhaus mounted an improvised podium, he made reference to the weather. A trickle of polite laughter followed his remarks.

  The director said the board of management had decided to defy the autumn weather and celebrate the German poet after whom the apartment block was named, Amanda Schäfer, the favorite aunt of the founder. The morrow, Sunday, would mark the forty-fifth anniversary of the publication of Amanda Schäfer’s lovely novella, Rosenstrauch-maria. The board of control agreed to hold this pleasant little ceremony to remind those fortunate enough to live in Soss City of this auspicious date.

  “Some of you may think of us businessmen as hard-hearted and philistine, and not interested at all in things of the spirit, but…”

  After ten minutes in this vein, he said, “We are fortunate in that we have a distinguished architect and writer in our midst, Dr. Roy Burnell, who happily has recently returned from abroad. He has agreed to address us on this occasion. Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Roy Burnell.”

  Burnell stepped on to the platform and smiled into the television lights. He was looking disheveled, and tugged at the tie he had put on in his apartment only ten minutes earlier.

  “It is our good fortune,” he said, clearing his throat, “to have two lines from Amanda Schäfer’s poems inscribed in stone above our heads, of which we are reminded whenever we enter this building. They read, in English:

  “ ‘Leave the Valley of Darkness,

  Walk in my Sphere of Light…”

  “Beautiful and simple words, inviting us to change our ways. Indeed, we all should change our ways, to seek a better one. Because we live in a stable part of the world, with many material comforts, it is easy to forget that we also live in a spiritual world. We do need constantly to seek the light, and enlightenment. So these words carved in stone carry a religious meaning, and, beyond that, a psychological one. We must not stay still. Staying still implies being in the Valley of Darkness, the Valley of the Shadow of…”

  As he was speaking, Burnell observed a tall elderly gentleman entering the foyer, who mounted the shallow steps to stand unobtrusively to one side. Removing his spectacles, he wiped the rain from them with his handkerchief. Burnell continued to talk almost automatically, searching his memory for who this man could be. Something about him filled Burnell with dread. His face was familiar. Perhaps he belonged to the lost years, the stolen years.

  Climbing down from the podium to thin applause, Burnell found himself face to face with the latecomer.

  The latter extended a hand. “Apologies for lateness. If the WACH offices had been farther away, no doubt I’d have been earlier. I thought I’d come over and say hello. Tom Squire, British head of WACH.”

  Directly he heard the name, Burnell remembered. He had seen a photograph of Sir Thomas Squire only yesterday, when getting a wigging from his superior, Karl Leberecht. The portrait had shown a younger Squire, unsmiling, perhaps rather gloomy; and Leberecht had pointed to the photograph, saying that Squire would be in FAM the following day. Confronting Burnell now was a rather grand man in the steeper end of his seventies, still very upright, and with a commanding presence, though his skin was stretched thin, and mottled about temples and cheekbones. He appeared more approachable than his picture had indicated, his manner informal.

  “I’m over here to look at a few museums. The little Schach Gallery in Munich is threatened with closure and I don’t quite see eye to eye with our office here regarding that.”

  Burnell struggled to remember what else he knew or had known about this man. He could recall only that Squire liked to hold forth, laying down the law when possible.

  “I’m just back from Central Asia. In fact, I’m packing, preparing to go over to England for a few days.”

  “Is your father well?”

  “As far as I know. I must phone him.” He was looking about for a way of escape, feeling himself at a loss. “Perhaps I’d better speak to the TV interviewer.”

  “I don’t wish to keep you, Roy. But I did think I might say a word to you about e-mnemonicvision, since our paths have happened to cross.” He was not the sort of man on whom one would turn one’s heel. After scrutinizing Burnell to make sure that he was not about to do so, Squire said, “I know more about fashions than about antiquities. EMV is a fashion. It will pass, like the vogue for the removal of the colon or tonsils, or the craze for the Twist, the lust for unilateral disarmament or, indeed, any numbers of Great Leaps Forward. It will pass.

  “It will fade away because there is basic good sense in humankind which always reasserts itself. However, that may not happen before lives have been ruined. That was where I hoped you might permit me to offer advice.”

  Burnell was frowning. “It’s not really advice I want, thanks. Nor is it a craze, as you call it, to want my memory back. I am incomplete without it.”

  He made as if to get away, by moving over to the drinks table which the management had provided, where a small-scale struggle for supremacy was going on among the visitors.

  Unperturbed, Squire joined him, saying, “Yes, yours is a loss, Roy, of course. Such losses are serious, disrupting the personality. But world health figures show that what is even more damaging to sanity than loss of a period of memory is the injection o
f false memory, or someone else’s memory—permanently, I mean.”

  A woman in her forties, just ahead of them in the genteel scrimmage for wine, turned her head and said, “Oh, I must agree with you. I have overheard what you said. To enjoy transient memories of others, as we enjoy videos, that enlarges life, is it not? But to insert permanently, it causes dissociation of the personality, leading in many cases to psychiatric illness.”

  “Quite so,” said Squire, looking put out. Having secured her glass, the woman turned fully to them, saying in her near-perfect English, “Forgive me when I butt in on your conversation. I speak of my son. He inserted permanently a year of memory of a singer he admired. It was done professionally, but the result is his complete—what to say?—disorientation. He does not know who to be.”

  “That’s not my problem,” Burnell said, reaching forward and seizing up two glasses, one of which he passed to Squire.

  Squire took Burnell’s arm and led him to one side, away from the lady, who gave every indication of following. “How much memory was stolen from you?”

  “Tom, I have to ask. Why your interest? How do you come to know of my problems?”

  “Well, the family interest. And I was shown your records yesterday, in WACH. Frankly, your work has not been satisfactory lately, and they are even considering releasing you. I thought I should warn you. Your entry shows a brief stay in a mental institution, here, in Frankfurt.”

  “That’s purely my business. It is a breach of confidence to allow you access to my file. I’m not even in your department.”

  “That is so. But you know—or perhaps you cannot remember—I have always taken a personal interest in your career. I used that information to suggest to Karl that you should be allowed to return to England and rest. I produced certain figures to show how serious is the effect of memory-theft.”

  The intrusive woman moved in on them, easily circumnavigating their turned backs. Her face was plain and pleasant, her dyed blond hair swept back over a wide forehead. “You see, gentlemen, memory-theft is rape, breaking and entering, assault—I know now what. It must be eradicated, together with insertion of false memory. I see you are powerful men. You must campaign for an EU law against these innovations. They’re barbarous! I cannot express the misery of my son, and to see him deteriorate because of this cancer of the imagination… Although I write to the papers, nothing has been done.”