Breakfast in the Ruins kg-2

by Michael John Moorcock

  "You go, father," he said. "I have slept, too. And I have some more business to do before I sleep again. That young man who came today. Has he returned?"

  "The one who gave you the job?" His father screwed his eyes up and rubbed them. "Yes, he came back about four or five hours ago, asking if you had returned."

  "He had come to pay me my money," said Karl. "Did he say he would be back? "

  "I think he did. He seemed agitated. What is going on, Karl?"

  "Nothing, father," Karl remembered the gun in Kovrin's hand. "Nothing which concerns us. When Pesotsky comes back it will all be finished. They will go away."

  Karl's father knelt beside his mother, trying to wake her. But she would not wake up. Karl's father lay down beside his mother and was asleep. Karl smiled down at them. When they woke, they would be very pleased to see the twenty-five shillings he would, by that time, have earned. And yet something marred his feeling of contentment. He frowned, realizing that it was the gun he had seen. He hoped Pesotsky would return soon and that he and Kovrin would go away for good. He could not send Kovrin off somewhere, because then Pesotsky would not pay him the five shillings. He had to wait.

  He saw that a few of the others at the table were staring at him almost resentfully. Perhaps they were jealous of his good fortune. He stared back and they resumed their concentration on their work. He felt at that point what it must be like to be Mr. Armfelt. Mr. Armfelt was scarcely any richer than the people he employed, but he had power. Karl saw that power was almost as good as money. And a little money gave one a great deal of power. He stared in contempt around the room, at the mean-faced people, at his sprawled, snoring parents. He smiled.

  Kovrin came into the room. The hand which had held the gun was now buried in his greatcoat pocket. His face seemed paler than ever, his red cheekbones even more pronounced. "Is Pesotsky here? "

  "He is coming." Karl indicated his sleeping father. "My father said so."

  "When?"

  Karl became amused by Kovrin's anxiety. "Soon," he said.

  The people at the table were all looking up again. One young woman said: "We are trying to work here. Go somewhere else to talk."

  Karl laughed. The laughter was high-pitched and unpleasant. Even he was shocked by it. "We will not be here much longer," he said. "Get on with your work, then."

  The young woman grumbled but resumed her sewing.

  Kovrin looked at them all in disgust. "You fools," he said, "you will always be like this unless you do something about it. You are all victims."

  The young woman's father, who sat beside her, stitching the seam of a pair of trousers, raised his head and there was an unexpected gleam of irony in his eyes. "We are all victims," he said, "comrade." His hands continued to sew as he stared directly at Kovrin. "We are all victims."

  Kovrin glanced away. "That's what I said." He was disconcerted. He stepped to the door. "I'll wait on the landing," he told Karl.

  Karl joined him on the landing. High above, a little light filtered through a patched fanlight. Most of the glass had been replaced with slats of wood. From the room behind them the small sounds of sewing continued, like the noises made by rats as they searched the tenements for food.

  Karl smiled at Kovrin and said familiarly: "He's mad, that old man. I think he meant you were a victim. But you are rich, aren't you. Mr. Kovrin?"

  Kovrin ignored him.

  Karl went and sat on the top stair. He hardly felt the cold at all. Tomorrow he would have a new coat.

  He heard the street door open below. He looked up at Kovrin, who had also heard it. Karl nodded. It could only be Pesotsky. Kovrin pushed past Karl and swiftly descended the stairs. Karl followed.

  But when they reached the passage, the candle was still flickering and it was plain that no one was there. Kovrin frowned. His hand remained in the pocket of his coat. He peered into the back of the passage, behind the stairs. "Pesotsky?"

  There was no reply.

  And then the door was flung open suddenly and Pesotsky stood framed in it. He was hatless, panting, wild-eyed. "Christ! Is that Kovrin?" he gasped.

  Kovrin said quietly. "Kovrin here."

  "Now," said Karl. "My five shillings, Mr. Pesotsky."

  The young man ignored the outstretched hand as he spoke rapidly to Kovrin. "All the plan's gone wrong. You shouldn't have come here..."

  "I had to. Uncle Theodore said you knew where Cherpanski was hiding. Without Cherpanski, there is no point in -" Kovrin broke off as Pesotsky silenced him.

  "They have been following me for days, our friends. They don't know about Cherpanski, but they do know about Theodore's damned press. It's that they want to destroy. But I'm their only link. That's why I've been staying away. I heard you'd been at the press and had left for Whitechapel. I was followed, but I think I shook them off. We'd better leave at once."

  "My five shillings, sir," said Karl. "You promised."

  Uncomprehending, Pesotsky stared at Karl for a long moment, then he said to Kovrin: "Cherpanski's in the country. He's staying with some English comrades. Yorkshire, I think. You can get the train. You'll be safe enough once you're out of London. It's the presses they're chiefly after. They don't care what we do here as long as none of our stuff gets back into Russia. Now, you'll want Kings Cross Station..."

  The door opened again and two men stood there, one behind the other. Both were fat. Both wore black overcoats with astrakhan collars and had bowler hats on their heads. They looked like successful businessmen. The leader smiled.

  "Here at last," he said in Russian. Karl saw that his companion carried a hat-box under his arm. It was incongruous; it was sinister. Karl began to retreat up the stairs.

  "Stop him!" called the newcomer. From the shadows of the next landing stepped two men. They held revolvers. Karl stopped halfway up the stairs. Here was an explanation for the sound of the door opening which had brought them down.

  "This is a good cover, Comrade Pesotsky," said the leader. "Is that your name, these days?"

  Pesotsky shrugged. He looked completely dejected. Karl wondered who the well-dressed Russians could be. They acted like policemen, but the British police didn't employ foreigners, he knew that much.

  Kovrin laughed. "It's little Captain Minsky, isn't it? Or have you changed your name, too? "

  Minsky pursed his lips and came a few paces into the passage. It was obvious that he was puzzled by Kovrin's recognition. He peered hard at Kovrin's face.

  "I don't know you."

  "No," said Kovrin quietly. "Why have they transferred you to the foreign branch? Were your barbarities too terrible even for St. Petersburg?"

  Minsky smiled, as if complimented. "There is so little work for me in Petersburg these days," he said. "That is always the snag for a policeman. If he is a success, he faces unemployment."

  "Vampire!" hissed Pesotsky. "Aren't you satisfied yet? Must you drink the last drop of blood?"

  "It is a feature of your kind, Pesotsky," said Minsky patiently, "that everything must be colored in the most melodramatic terms. It is your basic weakness, if I might offer advice. You are failed poets, the lot of you. That is the worst sort of person to choose a career in politics."

  Pesotsky said sulkily: "Well, you've failed this time, anyway. This isn't the printing press. It's a sweatshop."

  "I complimented you once on your excellent cover," said Minsky. "Do you want another compliment? "

  Pesotsky shrugged. "Good luck in your search, then."

  "We haven't time for a thorough search," Minsky told him. He signed to the man with the hatbox. "We, too, have our difficulties. Problems of diplomacy and so on." He took a watch from within his coat. "But we have a good five minutes, I think."

  Karl was almost enjoying himself. Captain Minsky really did believe that the printing press was hidden here.

  "Shall we begin upstairs?" Minsky said. "I understand that's where you were originally."

  "How could a press be upstairs," Pesotsky said. "These rotten boar
ds wouldn't stand the weight."

  "The last press was very neatly distributed through several rooms," Minsky told him. "Lead on, please."

  They ascended the stairs to the first landing. Karl guessed that the occupants of these rooms were probably awake and listening behind their doors. He once again experienced a thrill of superiority to them. One of the men who had been on the landing shook his head and pointed up the next flight of stairs.

  The seven of them went up slowly. Captain Minsky had his revolver in his gloved hand. His three men also carried their revolvers, trained on the wretched Pesotsky and the glowering Kovrin. Karl led the way. "This is where my father and mother work," he said. "It is not a printers."

  "They are disgusting," said Minsky to his lieutenant with the hatbox. "They are so swift to employ children for their degraded work. There's a light behind that door. Open it up, boy."

  Karl opened the door of the workroom, fighting to hide his grin. His mother and father were still asleep. The young woman who had complained before looked up and glared at him. Then all seven had pushed into the room.

  Minsky said: "Oh, you do look innocent. But I know what you're really up to here. Where's the press?"

  Now everyone put down their work and looked at him in astonishment as he kicked at the wall in which the fireplace was set. It rang hollow, but that was because it was so thin. There was an identical room on the other side. But it satisfied Minsky. "Put that in here," he told the man with the hatbox. "We must be leaving."

  "Have you found the press, then?" Karl grinned openly.

  Minsky struck him across the mouth with the barrel of his revolver. Karl moaned as blood filled his right cheek. He fell back over the sleeping bodies of his parents. They stirred.

  Kovrin had drawn his gun. He waved it to cover all four members of the Secret Police. "Drop your weapons," he shouted. "You—pick that hatbox up again."

  The man glanced uncertainly at Minsky. "It's already triggered. We have a few moments."

  Karl realized there was a bomb in the box. He tried to wake his father to tell him. Now the people who had been working were standing up. There was a noisy outcry. Children were weeping, women shrieking, men shouting.

  Kovrin shot Minsky.

  One of Minsky's men shot Kovrin. Kovrin fell back through the door and Karl heard him fall to the landing outside. Pesotsky flung himself at the, man who had shot Kovrin. Another gun went off and Pesotsky fell to the floor, his fists clenched, his stomach pulsing out blood.

  Karl's father woke up. His eyes widened at what they saw. He clutched Karl to him. Karl's mother woke up. She whimpered. Karl saw that Minsky was dead. The other three men hurried from the room and began to run downstairs.

  An explosion filled the room.

  Karl was protected by his parents' bodies, but he felt them shudder and move as the explosion hit them. He saw a little boy strike the far wall. He saw the window shatter. He saw the door collapse, driven out into the darkness of the stairwell. He saw fire send tendrils in all directions and then withdraw them. The workbench had come to rest against the opposite wall. It was black and broken. The wall was naked brick and the brick was also black. Something was roaring. His vision was wiped out and he saw only whiteness.

  He closed his eyes and opened them again. His eyes stung but he could see dimly, even though the gas jet had been blown out. Throughout the room there was a terrible silence for a second or two. Then they began to groan.

  Soon the room was filled with their groaning. Karl saw that the floor sloped where it had not sloped before. He saw that part of the outer wall had split. Through this great crack came moonlight. Black things shifted about on the floor.

  Now the entire street outside was alive with noise. Voices came from below and from above. He heard feet on the stairs. Someone shone a lamp onto the scene and then retreated with a gasp. Karl stood up. He was unhurt, although his skin was stinging and he had some bruises. He saw that his father had no right hand any more and that blood was oozing from the stump. He put his head to his father's chest. He was still breathing. His mother held her face. She told Karl that she was blind.

  Karl went out onto the landing and saw the crowd on both the upper and the lower stairs. The man with the lamp was Mr. Armfelt. He was in his nightshirt. He looked unwell and was staring at the figure who leaned on the wall on the opposite side of the door. It was Kovrin. He was soaked in blood, but he was breathing and the strange gun was still in his right hand. Karl hated Kovrin, whom he saw as the chief agent of this disaster. He went and looked up into the tall Russian's eyes. He took the pistol from Kovrin's limp hand. As if the pistol had been supporting him, Kovrin crashed to the floor as soon as it was removed from his grasp. Karl looked down at him. Kovrin was dead. None of the watchers spoke. They all looked on as if they were the audience at some particularly terrifying melodrama.

  Karl took the lamp from Mr. Armfelt and returned to the room.

  Many of the occupants were dead. Karl saw that the young woman was dead, her body all broken and tangled up with that of her father, the man who had said "We are all victims". Karl sniffed. Minsky's body had been blown under the shattered bench, but Pesotsky had been quite close to the recess where Karl and his parents had lain. Although wounded, he was alive. He was chuckling. With every spasm, more blood gushed from his mouth. He said thickly to Karl: "Thanks—thanks." He waited for the blood to subside. "They've blown up the wrong place, thanks to you. What luck!"

  Karl studied the gun he had taken from Kovrin. He assumed that it was basically the same as a revolver and contained at least another five bullets. He held it in both hands and, with both his index fingers on the trigger, squeezed. The gun went off with a bang and a flash and Karl's knuckles were driven back into his face, cutting his lip again. He lowered the gun and picked up the lamp which he had placed on the floor. He advanced on Pesotsky and held the lamp over the body. The bullet had driven through one of Pesotsky's eyes and Pesotsky was dead. Karl searched through Pesotsky's blood-soaked clothes and found two shillings and some coppers. He counted it. Three shillings and eight-pence in all. Pesotsky had lied to him. Pesotsky had not possessed five shillings. He spat on Pesotsky's face.

  At the sound of the shot, the people on the stairs had withdrawn a few paces. Only Mr. Armfelt remained where he was. He was talking rapidly to himself in a language Karl did not recognize. Karl tucked the gun into the waistband of his trousers and turned Kovrin's corpse over. In the pockets of the greatcoat he found about ten pounds in gold. In an inner pocket he found some documents, which he discarded, and about fifty pounds in paper money. Carrying the lamp high he shone it on the blind face of his mother and on the pain-racked face of his father. His father was awake and saying something about a doctor.

  Karl nodded. It was sensible that they should get a doctor as soon as possible. They could afford one now. He held out the money so that his father could see it all, the white banknotes and the bright gold. "I can look after you both, father. You will get better. It doesn't matter if you cannot work. We shall be respectable."

  He saw that his father could still not quite understand. With a shake of his head, Karl crouched down and put a kindly hand on his father's shoulder. He spoke clearly and gently, as one might address a very young child who had failed to gather it was about to receive a birthday present and was not showing proper enthusiasm.

  "We can go to America, father."

  He inspected the wrist from which most of the hand had been blown. With some of the rags, he bandaged it, stopping the worst of the bleeding.

  And then the sobs began to come up from his stomach.

  He did not know why he was crying, but he could not control himself. The sobs made him helpless. His body was shaken by them and the noise he made was not very loud but it was the worst noise any of the listeners had heard that night. Even Mr. Armfelt, absorbed in his hysterical calculations, was dimly aware of the noise and he became, if anything, even more depressed.

  — Wh
at do you think it can be? Something you ate? Do you want some aspirin?

  — Aspirin won't do anything for me. I don't know what causes a migraine. A combination of things, maybe.

  — Or merely a useful evasion, Karl. Like some forms of gout or consumption. One of those subtle diseases whose symptoms can only be transmitted by word of mouth.

  — Thanks for your sympathy. Can I sleep now.

  — What a time to get a headache. And you were just beginning to enjoy yourself, too.

  What Would You Do? (6)

  You live in a city.

  A disaster has resulted in the collapse of society as you know it.

  Public amenities, such as gas, electricity, telephones and postal services no longer exist. There is no piped water. Rats and other vermin proliferate in the piles of garbage which, uncollected, contaminate the city. Disease is rife. You have heard that things are equally bad in the country. There, strangers are attacked and killed if they try to settle. In some ways it is more dangerous in the country than it is in the city where gangs of predatory men and women roam the streets.

  You are used to city life. You have a house, a car and you have obtained several guns from a gun shop you broke into. You raid shops and garages for fuel and food. You have a water purifier and a camp stove. You have a wife and three young children.

  Do you think it would be better to go out into the country and take your chances in the wild, or would you try to work out a way of living and protecting yourself and your family in a city with which you are familiar?

  7

  Calcutta Flies: 1911:

  Doing Business

  Ten years ago, an observer going to India with a fresh mind for its problems saw two great engines at work. One was the British Government, ruling the country according to its own canons of what would be best for the people. Its system of education in Western science and thought was shaking the old beliefs and social traditions. By securing justice and enforcing peace, it had set men's minds free to speculate and criticize. For India's future it had no definite plan; its ambitions, to all outward seeming, were confined to a steady growth of administrative efficiency. The other engine was the awakening of a national consciousness. It was feeding on the Western ideas provided by the British Government and the noble army of Christian missionaries, adapting them to its own purposes, and building on them a rising demand that the people should be given a larger share in their own destiny. Our observer could not help being impressed by how far the two engines were from working in parallel. There was friction and a general feeling of unsettlement. In 1908 a cautious measure of political advance had been offered when Lord Minto was Viceroy and Lord Morley was his "opposite number" in Whitehall. It was tainted, however, with an air of unreality which disquieted the officials and irritated the Indian politician. The cry grew loud for more rapid progress, "colonial self-government" was the slogan, and the professional classes (chiefly the lawyers) with an English education were busy in a wide-spread movement for a change in the methods of government. As in all nationalist movements, there was an extreme wing, which leaned to direct action, rather than the slower constitutional modes of agitation. In Eastern hyperbole they wrote and harangued about British tyranny and the duty of patriots to rise and become martyrs for freedom. What they thus conceived in poetic frenzy was translated into sinister prose by others. Anarchists are never lacking in any crowded population, especially when hunger is the bedfellow of so many. In India the section of violence had got into touch with revolutionary camps in Europe and the United States, and sporadic outbursts from 1907 onwards, including attempts on the life of two Viceroys and a Lieutenant-Governor, indicated the existence of subterranean conspiracy. Public opinion condemned it, but did little to check vehemence of language which continued to inflame weak minds. The whole position was one of anxiety. Would it ever be possible to reconcile the two forces which were rapidly moving towards conflict?