Serenity House

by Christopher Hope

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Kingdom Come

  The incoming contingents still arrived by train. Nowadays a monorail. One marvelled at the many modifications and improvements to the system. One was free to arrive individually, by car, coach, or even on foot. Flagged into place by peach-shirted perimeter guards. Leaving one’s vehicle in the spacious parking areas, each designated by a large friendly animal or cunning dwarf. A useful aid to memory and one was grateful for that. He parked in the area guarded by a droopy-eared dog. Then, like everyone else, he took the train to the imposing entrance of the facility. One had seen attempts made at deception, but nothing compared with this. Friendly turnstiles, an air of excited bustle suggested a market, or fairground, together with the colour and exuberance such feast days inspired in simple people. Yet the same unobtrusive, steely discipline, required to keep large numbers of people moving, was very much in evidence, to anyone who knew the signs. NO EATING, SMOKING, DRINKING, PLEASE REMAIN SEATED AT ALL TIMES. Excellent. No sign of panic. Guards carefully placed, never letting the newcomers out of their sight as train after train drew up to the ramp and the arrivals stepped on to the platform to be artfully funnelled towards the camp itself. Control of numbers, obedience at all times (whether voluntary or enforced), that was ever the secret. Fences high but discreet. Once inside, no exit except through the turnstiles. The fences probably reinforced with concrete foundations to prevent burrowing. The appearance of normality, even optimism. The fake station was wonderfully achieved. One believed one was on a real train bound for a real destination. Platform tickets, ostensibly offering new arrivals the choice of a stay lasting, perhaps, three days. It seemed one remembered similar soothing deceptions in other facilities long ago. A complete station, with waiting rooms and timetables. A clock whose hands were frozen at six. Six in the evening or six in the morning? No one ever knew. But never anything on this scale. The turnstiles clicked behind one.

  An official guide appeared and announced an orientation tour. She wore a dark blue riding helmet, short blue skirt, white knee-length stockings and she carried a riding crop. Her name was Magda and she came from Munich. How very excellent. Dear old Munich! What happy memories of bicycling along the banks of the river Isar that bisects that elegant city. Magda waved her riding crop and offered a history of the facility and its achievements. It promised to be a fine warm day. Magda, no more than twenty, smiled beneath her riding helmet, showing teeth entirely beautiful.

  ‘We will have time off for snacking, yes! Ach, I can see some of you are senior citizens. If I go too fast just call me and Magda will hear you.’

  Guards everywhere. Different coloured uniforms, no doubt keyed to function. Perhaps also coded for rank. Smiling was evidently compulsory. Magda marched them first into the camp cinema to study the life of the founder. Once inside the auditorium the big doors closed behind them. HURRY UP, FOLKS. I WILL BE KIND TO YOU. THE DOORS WON’T. This from the elderly guard. Remote control was everywhere favoured. The engines that drove it all, he reckoned, were probably buried deep beneath their feet. He craned to see signs of chimneys but these appeared to have been carefully hidden.

  The founder of this world, one learnt from the film in the auditorium, or briefing room, was a product of the Depression. After active service in France during the Great War, he had returned home determined to build an empire that would straddle the globe. Where everyone would be happy, healthy and tremendously organised. Millions across the world were to revere this man and speak his name with awe. The film ended, the dangerous doors opened to the sunlight. Magda led them safely from the theatre before the doors could be unkind.

  ‘Just keep your eyes on my riding crop,’ she smiled, ‘and everything will be fine!’

  The elderly guard at the door smiled. Everyone smiled. CAN YOU ALL MOVE FORWARD? THIS HALL HOLDS 591 PEOPLE. PLEASE HELP US TO FILL IT! They were to be shown a film on human conception, probably as a means of educating inmates in eugenics and the need to preserve ethnic distinctions if one was not to end up, as they had done in Poland, with the human material hopelessly disordered, a racial haystack full of ethnic splinters. Or should that be needles? KEEP YOUR HEAD AND ARMS INSIDE THE CABIN AT ALL TIMES. STAY CLEAR OF THE DOORS. THE DOORS OPEN AND CLOSE AUTOMATICALLY.

  All day, and deep into the night, the trains arrived at the ramp and out poured the eager thousands. One was struck by the numbers of the ill. Wheelchairs, probably discarded, lined the fence when one arrived. There were numbers of blind and lame. It was unlikely they would be staying long but clearly the camp authorities were determined to ensure that they made the best use of the time remaining to them. Surprising numbers of foreigners. A good deal of Spanish spoken. Certainly many Mischling. Numbers of mulattos and what Fowler called ‘half-breeds, halfcastes, Eurasians, hybrids, mongrels, quadroons and octoroons’. One watched a fat man with an artificial leg photographing an even fatter black man. Photographs were clearly encouraged. This would never have been permitted in his day: the penalties for taking photographs had been very harsh. Presumably with the intention of educating inmates about the danger of vermin, life-size replicas of mice strolled the pathways and waved at the inmates. Infestations of vermin were always a danger. One remembered the lice. Here, health concerns were well to the fore. There were no Mussulmens to be seen. A great relief.

  In its way, one could not but respect the magnificent obsession to define the Indo-Germanic race. The need to measure size of brains and skulls. The preoccupation with the pathological features of skull formation. Even as one’s researchers went forward, the human material on which those researches were based was diminishing. What was this? A remarkable copy of the Crystal Palace and, in the washrooms, they were playing ‘Eine Kleine Nachtmusik’. Fascinating to observe how the original German concept of special treatment centres, though now much overlaid with modern advances and psychological insights, was still the solid basis of the entire enterprise. Inmates were now better clothed and fed. They were healthier. He saw not a gun, a stick, not even a whip, except for Magda’s dainty riding crop. Yet the result was a ten-fold increase in obedience and a whole-hearted willingness to follow where the camp authorities decreed. Exceptional cleanliness everywhere. Paths swept, grass clipped.

  There were shops, canteens, recreational areas, educational exhibits, lakes in which no birds swam and obedient trees. Even a fine camp orchestra. The musical side of things had been wonderfully handled. Optimistic melodies were piped from speakers hidden in bushes and trees. If only such ideas had been in place in the place where one had been! How much unnecesary suffering inmates and staff would have been spared. Here was a Japanese privet. Tall enough to conceal one from Magda’s sharp eye. Japonicum Lingustrum, ABUNDANT CREAMY WHITE FLOWERS IN SPRING, NATIVE TO JAPAN AND KOREA. Thank you, Magda from Munich, soon to go on to a new facility being built even now in far-away France. Good luck and God speed!

  To step now into the Magic Kingdom, that enchanted place where all the world lies bright beneath a broad blue heaven and a sun whose benevolent eye falls on man and mouse with equal warmth. And here, as in all good fairy tales, was an enchanted castle, blue and white turrets, fluttering pennants, a moat, a keep, a close, a portcullis, a gift shop and a secret lift. Yes, the observant might have noticed the secret lift. It lay behind the medieval dining hall, hidden by a thick disguise of padded leather. It was used to transport cast members, wearing animal disguises, from the shows they gave three times a day at the foot of the fairytale castle up to their changing rooms. Such castles deserved a good story. And the story was this.

  Once upon a time, in the Comfort Inn, on the Orange Blossom Trail, there lived an old man named Max and his granddaughter, the dark-haired Innocenta. They were happy. If he looked at her a little sharply in the mornings, it was because she felt a little off-colour, something she hoped he had not noticed. But, of course, he’d noticed. He knew the signs. This was an unexpected development. But not inexplicable, biology being what it was. A little Jack in the
cellar was beginning. Hans im Keller. What was to be done about that?

  But first to step into the lift and be carried high above the camp. What a view! Far below, the waters of the moat. Far below, the toot-toot of the cheery little train that bustled about the camp carring inmates to their appointed tasks. YOU ARE UNDER TV SURVEILLANCE THROUGHOUT YOUR RIDE. And here on the battlements one rested, and waited, for the appointment one knew he would keep.

  For one had not been idle since one’s arrival. How well one got to know the road between the Comfort Inn and Jack’s deserted caravan as to and fro one plied. Past the Amber Keg Sandwich Shop and the Good Shepherd Medical Clinic, past Magic Motors Used Cars, and the All Bug Control. Visiting the Medieval Lifeshow; admiring the imperious falcon and the ravenous hawk feeding off gobbets of raw meat. Watching the alligators consuming sections of chicken. Stopping for a cup of coffee and a blueberry confection in Wolf’s Bun Shop. How can you go to Florida and not live a little? A spot of window-shopping at Big Bob’s Used Carpets; some cash from the dispenser at Ye Olde Banke Shoppe and then on, for a brief pause at Fat Mansy’s Guns ’n’ Gold – ‘All weapons to be unloaded before entering.’ There to be introduced to a lovely little something, no less a beauty than the Tec-9, an assault pistol, 32-round magazine, less than three hundred dollars. This model specially coated to leave no prints. Self-defence? Yessir! And then on past Freddy’s Famous Steaks and Wendy’s Facial Surgery, past the Aardvark Video.

  How big were the billboards! ‘Orlando, a water-conscious community.’ And then, just beyond, an even bigger billboard, ‘People against pornography’, hang a left into the Tranquil Pines Mobile Home Park.

  One had left a note upon the door of Jack’s old home there. Something of value would await Mr Jack Robinson should he present himself in the appointed place at the appointed time. And yes, pat, he here came, stepping quickly from the lift. For this is Florida, right? Where fairytales come true. This is Kingdom Come where all we pray for will be granted.

  ‘Hello, Jack,’ says an old man to the boy in a Mouse head, ‘remember me?’

  One had learnt something after all from the stories Jack told the departing elders in their final bedtime tales. The Mouse had barely time to lift its paws. In the old world Jack might rob the poor giant blind. Of his goose, that in a steady auriferous rain of riches, drops eggs, heavy and golden. Of his few wartime treasures. Of his peace of mind. But in the new world those frail, forgetful beings, the old, those dispossessed giants, may at last turn on their tormentors and blow them to Kingdom Come.

  And walk away. Slowly, it is true, but erect. While nothing of this drama high in the Castle ramparts above their heads is heard by the dancing dogs, ducks and chipmunks in the square below, who continue to sing that repetitively but somehow memorable melodic affirmation which recognises that we will endure the worst of everything, if given sufficient sweeteners. Enough sugar makes the most bitter medicine palatable. PLEASE COLLECT YOUR BELONGINGS AND THEN STEP CAREFULLY ON TO THE MOVING PLATFORM. Out now through the magic turnstiles where one is promptly stopped.

  For one agonising moment one wonders whether possibly the body upon the battlements has been found, blood upon the crisp white shirt front, bubbling between the black lips, polka-dotting the yellow bow-tie. But no, it was merely a bureaucratic enquiry. One was leaving the camp, was that right? Indeed one was leaving. And did one intend to return? Certainly one did. At the very first available opportunity. One had not enjoyed oneself so much in half a century. Very well, would one please proffer one’s wrist. No, not the left wrist, it must be the right wrist. And then, scarcely believable, the thing which showed that however modern this facility, some things do not change! One’s wrist is stamped with some invisible but indelible number. To show one has spent time in the camp. Cold and quick on the right wrist. There, with a backward glance at the new contingents arriving every few minutes on the special trains, one located one’s grey Buick from Alamo Car Rental, in the section represented, for the ease of illiterate newcomers (had one not seen hordes of those arriving in the old days?), by a large dog with droppy ears which reminded one very faintly of Denis the Rottweiler. One’s driver was waiting. And his glance could not but take in that she still looked off-colour. What was to be done about that?

  It was a difficult choice to make. Scientific instinct was strong enough still for him to think wistfully of the loss of human material which a termination would lead to – a rare opportunity to study the foetus of a girl who had mated with a monster. But there was no place for sentiment. One would have to take steps. Quite soon. And so one drove away smiling, as the happiest endings insist, into the sunset.

  About the Author

  Christopher Hope was born in Johannesburg. He has published four novels: A Separate Development (winner of the 1981 David Higham Prize for Fiction), Kruger’s Alp (winner of the 1985 Whitbread Prize for Fiction), The Hottentot Room (1986), and My Chocolate Redeemer (1989). His work of non-fiction, White Boy Running (1988), won the CNA Literary Award in South Africa. His most recent book, Moscow! Moscow! (1990), created a powerful impression of that fascinating city. Christopher Hope lives in London.

  ALSO BY CHRISTOPHER HOPE

  FICTION

  My Mother’s Lovers

  Kruger’s Alp

  The Hottentot Room

  My Chocolate Redeemer

  Serenity House

  Darkest England

  Me, the Moon and Elvis Presley

  Heaven Forbid

  SHORTER FICTION

  Black Swan

  Learning to Fly

  The Love Songs of Nathan J. Swirsky

  The Garden of Bad Dreams

  POETRY

  Cape Drives

  In the Country of the Black Pig

  English Men

  FOR CHILDREN

  The King, the Cat and the Fiddle (with Yehudi Menuhin)

  The Dragon Wore Pink

  NON-FICTION

  White Boy Running

  Moscow! Moscow!

  Signs of the Heart

  Brother Under the Skin

  First published in Great Britain in 1992 by Macmillan London Limited.

  This paperback edition published in Great Britain in 2009 by Atlantic

  Books, an imprint of Grove Atlantic Ltd.

  Copyright © Christopher Hope 1992

  The moral right of Christopher Hope to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Acts of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

  Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.

  Lines quoted from ‘The Exiles’ by W. H. Auden taken from W. H Auden: Collected Poems edited by Edward Mendelson and published by Faber and Faber Ltd.

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the

  British Library.

  ISBN: 978 1 84887 164 9

  ebook ISBN: 978 1 78239 965 0

  Printed Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

  Atlantic Books

  An imprint of Grove Atlantic Ltd

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