by Rhys Hughes
I shrugged. ‘I can only assume it has something to do with one of my neighbours. He is a well-known subversive.’ I was aware of the book Kropotkin Hardie had given me which I had thrust into a pocket. What should I do? Reveal it and claim it was forced on me unwillingly? Cuneiform de Sade opened his mouth to laugh; the room was suddenly heavy with the scent of lavender. ‘Ur! Ur! Ur!’ he chortled. He continued in this mode for some time. I was tempted to join in. Abruptly he stopped and slammed his fist on the desk. ‘Oh yes! And you shall net him for us!’
What followed can best be described as diabolical cruelty on his part and understandable cowardice on mine. Needless to say, after the feather had been put away, and my socks had been returned, I was no more than a pawn in the sweaty palms of a malevolent grandmaster, dancing on a checkerboard of nights and days (but the nights so bleached by burning buildings, and the days so blackened by the smoke of those buildings, that it might as well have been all of one colour).
Cuneiform de Sade cleared his desk with a sweep of his arm and placed maps on the surface. The plan was that I would try to gain the confidence of Kropotkin and persuade him to reveal the location of the printing press. If, however, this did not work, I was to lead him to a pre-determined place, where agents would leap out of the shadows and give him a fatal beating. ‘We must find that press, or else pulp the printer!’ Cuneiform de Sade explained. He added that the latest work from the press—the one Kropotkin had given me—was the most dangerous yet. The arguments were so persuasive that even he—the fiendish Chief of Secret Police—had been tempted to pack it in and join the Commune. ‘Appealing sophistries!’ he avowed.
The maps showed Chaud-Mellé in as much detail as could be expected from a city designed along the principles of chaos. One set proved more interesting to me than the others. They were plans of the underground network of tunnels carved out by Kingdom Noisette some years previously. I did my best to memorise the main routes. The underground railway, of course, had never been completed: inflammable gas had leaked into the system. The whole city now rested on veins and arteries of methane that presumably broiled from station to station.
‘If he will not reveal the location of the press,’ Cuneiform de Sade repeated, ‘you will lead him to the junction of Machen Street and the Rue Rogêt. There we shall pounce with cudgels and staves!’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘We shall swallow this foolish Anarchist! Then we shall swallow all his fellow conspirators! I shall swallow them whole and do honour to my regal ancestors!’ He sat back in his chair and made a ziggurat with his fingers. I could hardly resist a parting thrust as I was led out: ‘Two swallows do not make a Sumer.’
Back on the street, I sighed and held my head in my hands. What was I to do? If I did not comply with their demands, they would consider me a sympathiser and tear me to pieces. I had no love for Kropotkin, but he seemed more decent than de Sade. It was no longer possible to remain neutral. Yet I had a plan of my own and I rushed towards home to put it into operation. Eliza, Coppelia and I would escape from the city by means of the tunnels. I paused at a café, ordered an absinthe (actually bile from the mortuary vats) and a napkin, and drew on its crumpled surface a good likeness of what I remembered of the map. Then I folded the napkin in my pocket, paid for the drink and resumed my rushing.
When I reached the house, Eliza was up. She was coming down the stairs. I gripped her ankles and kissed her crinoline socks. Unable to contain myself, I blurted out all my hopes. I waved the napkin under her retroussé nose. ‘Lordy!’ she exclaimed. My hysterical monologue was interrupted by a laugh. I looked up to see Aretino Rossetti peering at us over the balcony on the next floor. ‘Hush darlin’,’ Eliza cautioned. She gently directed me into her room, which was next to Kropotkin’s. It was as sparsely furnished as mine. While she drew the blinds, I had a very quick rummage through her chest of drawers for black stockings. I was not to be disappointed—seamed ones at that.
She sat next to me on the bed. I told her that although the tunnels were full of inflammable gas, I had developed at the Staatliches Cathaus a new form of portable lighting called the electric torch. There was no doubt I could make another one out of available materials. The electric light would not ignite the gas. The longest tunnel stretched far beyond the city walls—further than Benito von Clausewitz’s guns. The three of us (I told her all about Coppelia) could be out of Chaud-Mellé by this time tomorrow and well on our way to the safety of the Forest Cantons. I had contacts in Unterwalden where the Habsburgs (and all Austrians) were uniformly despised, and where good modern architecture was much needed. If we could survive the gas, we had nothing to fear.
Eliza sighed. ‘It’s not the gas, guv’nor. It’s the ’arpies!’ I asked her to elaborate. Apparently there had been a fashion for keeping young harpies as pets; when they had grown big, and more unmanageable, many had been flushed into the sewers. They had dug their way into the railway network—within a generation, their wings had withered. They were blind albinos, fierce and eager to rend any who ventured into their domain. ‘Already thought o’ that,’ she said, plastering my deflated ego and pumping me back up with a comment that, despite being unworkable, it was a good plan. ‘Vicious blighters!’
So now I knew that methane had no adverse effect on harpies. It was small consolation for the loss of my freedom and the love of two fine auburn haired women. We tumbled together on her bed; it was hard and lumpy. They were so similar in their reactions and needs, Eliza and Coppelia, it was as if they were two aspects of the same being. I could not choose between them—partly because I desired them with equal intensity and partly because I was as greedy and selfish as any man in my position (which was cuissade moving to missionary). I brought her to climax with tongue and toe—a trick I had learned in Munich. ‘Jellied eels!’ she declared, writhing in delight.
That night, my dreams underwent a radical shift in character. They had previously consisted mainly of steel and glass edifices, geometric patterns and ergonomic chairs. Then had come a transitionary period: my dream that Eliza had flown from my window; the clocks and pendulums. Now I bathed in Mediterranean climes. I was a restaurant owner, somewhere in Sardinia. My customers were roughnecks. I could not account for such a ridiculous scenario. I was Gropius Klee, square of jaw and blond of fringe, who had never ventured below 45ºN. Furthermore, my knowledge of Italian was very poor: Chi tace confessa!
I had no option but to accede to Cuneiform de Sade’s wishes. (I did have an option, but this is mere pedantry). To prepare for winning over Kropotkin’s confidence, I decided to study his book. In the evenings, Eliza was engaged on Post Office business. It was not possible to meet Coppelia. So I had little to do but read. The book was indeed accessible; the author rarely resorted to jargon to describe bourgeois tyranny. By the end, I was in danger of subscribing to his views.
Kropotkin was producing new works at an alarming rate. These urged the populace to regard the Chaud-Mellé authorities with as much contempt as Benito von Clausewitz. ‘At least the Austrians are honest about their oppressive agenda,’ he told me. The Mediterranean dreams had started to impinge on my waking life. It was a form of escape, I suppose. Now my hopes of fleeing through the tunnels were dashed, my brain was trying to present alternative relief from the horrors of the bombardment. I sipped iced-tea in his room; the Secret Police no longer bothered him. He was mildly disappointed by this. ‘They have given up searching,’ I remarked. ‘Perhaps they believe they will never find the press?’
He grinned. ‘With good reason!’ Though I tried, by ever less subtle means, to trick him into revealing its location, he said not a word. Yet he treated me as a genuine convert to his cause. ‘The Commune will need architects like you,’ he enthused. ‘People who know how to justify the existence of cheap, ugly buildings by citing the ideals of progress!’ I told him there was more to it than that—the Staatliches Cathaus did not always recommend second-rate building materials. Besides, it was a free market. At this, his brow darkened. ‘Mind your la
nguage!’
Finally, I knew I would have to fall back on the second plan. If I did not act quickly, Cuneiform de Sade’s men would arrest me. I informed Kropotkin that I had met someone who wanted to join the Commune. They were extremely shy and did not wish to come to his house. ‘Perhaps we can go out to meet this person?’ I ventured. Kropotkin nodded assent. I led him to the junction of Machen Street and the Rue Rogêt and took to my heels as the agents pounced on him and wrestled him into the shadows. Even as I ran, I could hear the sounds of the beating.
I made my way back towards the Champs-Poe by a complicated route, in which I attempted to shake off the conscience that was yapping at my ankles. The sense of desolation was profoundly affecting; about a third of the city had been completely reduced to ashes. By the end of the week it would be closer to half. As I picked my way over the broken Uruguayan Embassy, the hallucinations dizzied my head again. I was boiling pasta in one huge pot; tomato and oregano sauce bubbled in a second. I blinked these absurdities from my lashes and continued my careful progress. I was almost back onto the street proper when I spied two figures walking towards me. It was Eliza and Coppelia, arm in arm. I hid myself in an outcrop of tumbled statues, mostly of Uruguayan heroes thumbing their noses at the Spanish Embassy opposite.
Eliza and Coppelia were both laughing, though I could not make out their words. They stopped for an instant, kissed each other farewell (on the lips!) and Eliza moved off. Dusk was drawing near; it was time for her to start work. As Coppelia passed, I jumped out. ‘We meet again!’ I cried. She did not flinch. I joined her and we sauntered off at a scenic tangent. I did not mention Eliza directly. I was subtle. I said: ‘I hear that the last balloon left Chaud-Mellé this morning. What will the Post Office do now, I wonder?’ She confirmed my observation. There were no more ladies’ undergarments to be had in the whole city. ‘We have given up our knickers for the cause,’ she added. This distracted me from the more taxing problems on my mind. Women no longer wore undergarments? Then the gates of Heaven were always open!
I made a mental note to myself always to linger at the bottom of stairwells in future—not that there were too many of them left. ‘Thus are we trapped for good in this stink,’ I murmured. She smiled and eyed me curiously. I wanted to take her around the waist, but a gulf had opened between us. I dared not inhale the scent of her hair. Once more the vision of the restaurant troubled my mind. It threatened to subsume my consciousness. I reached out for a cleaver; it was Coppelia’s hand, as cold as tempered steel. ‘Careful. My husband often lurks in the bars around here.’ She prised my fingers apart from hers. I told her I loved her. She was amused. ‘Nonsense, my sweet.’
We walked without direction, struggling to identify a single star in the bruised sky. In what capacity did she know Eliza? This question returned to burn my tongue like vinegar; every time I was about to try it out, a mirage of the restaurant knocked it loose. ‘I know this sounds silly,’ I mumbled, ‘but I keep thinking of Sardinia.’ She did not reply. Evidently she was not impressed. ‘And my heart feels like a cuckoo in a clock.’ I wanted to touch her hair; my fingers would not move. On her lips, Eliza’s scarlet lipstick mingled with her own blue shade to colour her kisses crimson—but those kisses were not for me. ‘Something is amiss,’ I persisted. ‘Something fundamental.’
She matched my gaze and tightened those lips. ‘You’re a lovely boy. A bit stupid perhaps, but lovely all the same. I’d really like to stay and talk, but I have to get home.’ She blew me a kiss—the best I could expect. I caught it in the palm of my hand, smeared it over my forehead, cheeks and mouth and then put it in a pocket for later use. She slipped into the night like a trickle of oil; I was alone with my conscience. My life had become a pimple on the nose of the ineffable; my emotions were about to burst. I promptly sat down in the dust and remained there for the best part of the night.
While I sat, my thoughts alternated between the escapism of my Mediterranean fantasy and the harsh reality of the spinning shells. In its own way, I knew, the siege was a beautiful thing. I had seen all manner of wonders in Dessau—chairs that folded into tables, doors that doubled as ladders, ironing boards that descended from the ceiling. But the destructive fury of total war made all our craft obsolete. Here was a more perfect blend than that of Industry and Reason—here was the illegitimate offspring of Industry and Unreason. Von Clausewitz’s guns were not just an extension of his loins (sowing seed that reaped) but also struts of Truth. The fist is a most effective syllogism; knuckles, chin, necessary conclusion. Or more aptly: the howitzers were fingers; our civic craters, sockets of the gouged.
Destiny? We had chosen this outcome as surely as my alter ego in Sardinia chose Parmesan over Cheddar. Thus it was, veering between the twin tastes of philosophy and pizza, and skipping through the twisted metal and blackened stone, I returned to the house. I hoped de Sade would expect no more of me. I was filthy, tired and hungry. I was fully prepared to abandon myself to a quietism of despair; indeed, I was keen to begin such abandonment at once. But first I required a pillow and my last chocolate biscuit—cunningly concealed in a bar of soap over my washstand. ‘I gran dolori sono muti,’ I counselled myself. But this was not honest German. It was the sunny tongue!
There was oil on the stairs. I followed it to Kropotkin Hardie’s room—the door was wide open. The anarchist himself was kneeling in front of the hearth, feeding papers into the grate. But there was no fire to receive them. The leaves were sucked up the chimney with great force. I rushed to his side. ‘But these pages are blank!’ I protested. He was in a terrible state; his blood was strangely dark. ‘Don’t blame you for running, laddie,’ he said. ‘Capitalist swine!’ he shook off my attempts to carry him to the bed. ‘Work to be done!’ He told me that a shell had struck the junction of Machen Street and the Rue Rogêt while the beating was taking place. The officers had been killed instantly; he had crawled back on his hands and knees.
‘But what are you doing?’ My impatience was greater than any feelings of sympathy. He continued to feed in the blank sheets. They disappeared up the flue with extraordinary speed. ‘Don’t you understand?’ he grumbled. ‘It’s the house. The house is the printing press! The entire house!’ He giggled with childish delight. This explained the noises I often heard at night—whirring of machinery, as if the walls of rooms were rotating and the banisters tapping. It also explained why my bedsheets were always covered in black ink.
The system was a delight. After inserting the pages in the grate, the mechanism took over, printing text, binding the books and ejecting them from the highest chimney. The finished product flew in a calculated arc towards his distributor. (‘I won’t give his name, but he’s a famous impresario.’) Anyone seeing the tomes racing across the sky would take them for enemy shells. All along, the officers of the Secret Police had been standing within what they had sought! I felt an enormous affection for the clever revolutionary—and an extreme hatred for Cuneiform de Sade. However misguided, Kropotkin’s resourcefulness was vastly superior to the Police Chief’s Assyrian cynicism.
His wounds were severe. He was obliged to rest from his work and look at me with glazed eyes. ‘I’m not much longer for this city,’ he said. ‘But the fight will continue. Take this, laddie.’ He reached into his pocket and handed me an object wrapped in old newspaper. I thanked him and offered to treat his injuries with bandages from my own supply. He continued inserting papers into the grate. I jumped up the stairs to my room. It had been ransacked. In red paint, daubed above the bed, a dripping crucifix showed me this was the work of Aretino Rossetti. I checked my belongings—the only thing missing was the napkin with the map of the underground tunnels. I suddenly wanted nothing more than to nestle into Eliza’s arms. It was almost dawn. She would be back soon. I found the bandages and raced down.
I was halted on the stairs by Rossetti himself. He was dressed in the robes of a Cardinal—he had decided to show his true colours. There was a menacing light in his dark eyes. ‘Ha, ha! I shall
be beatified for this!’ He reached out and snatched the newspaper parcel from my grasp. ‘So this is the printing press, eh? A little smaller than I would have imagined. But I have what I came for—I have also your map. In a week I shall be in Rome, sipping sherbet with the Pope! Without the press the resistance shall crumble. We shall let von Clausewitz take Chaud-Mellé and then wrest it from his weary hands! After we have defeated Austria we will turn on Turkey, Serbia and Wales!’
I shook with loathing. ‘Il meglio è i’inimico del bene!’ He was as stupefied by my knowledge of his language as was I. I pointed out that the tunnels were dark—he would not be able to use a flame because of the methane. He held up a green glass jar within which glowed a circular object. ‘His Holiness has leant me a halo. I am well served.’ He turned and fled before me. I ran after him. The sky was lightening in the east. He was much fitter than I. Pausing to catch my breath, I glanced up. A tiny dot was spiralling towards the ground. At first I thought it was another shell, but it resolved itself into a figure carrying a purple umbrella. ‘Eliza Pippins!’ I roared.
Behind me, Kropotkin’s books were still firing out of the chimney. I waved to Eliza. She noticed me and waved back. This was her mistake. She drifted into the path of one of the flying volumes—it struck the umbrella from her hand. At once she began a steep descent—a sickening dégringoler—flapping helplessly to arrest her motion. I ran forward, holding my arms out, desperately hoping to catch her. Needless to say, I was unsuccessful. She hit the ground and broke into a million pieces. I hastened to her side—her many sides—but stopped in some confusion. There was no blood. Cogs and little wires lay scattered in profusion at my feet. Her head and torso were still joined together. I cradled them in my arms. ‘I’m so sorry!’ I blabbed.
She winked at me. A change had come over von Clausewitz’s guns. It was as if he had filed them down, to alter their pitch. I recognised the melody of the Austrian National Anthem. Eliza coughed and oil poured out of her nose. ‘The hills are alive with the sounds of gor’ blimey music,’ she gasped. I closed her eyes. My true love had been a puppet! I had no doubts as to who was behind this outrage. With decisive steps, I made my way towards the toyshop of Coppelia de Retz.
