“We should not be seen,” says Roy, holding a hand before his face so that his trademark dark glasses will not be recognized and ducking down an alley. “There is no telling how far the conspiracy has spread.”
“But Roy—” I say.
There is something I urgently wish to tell him but I cannot find words to do so.
Some way down the alley Roy locates a side door. “It is irregular, but we will enter this way,” he says. Reluctantly I follow. He opens the door and says, “The place seems deserted now. Let us proceed.”
“But Roy,” I say, but Roy has already proceeded inside. I look to Jetta for advice but she merely looks at me unblinkingly. I hesitate for a moment. “What can I do?” I tell her. “There seems no option in this case.” Jetta looks studiedly neutral and retracts her head some way back into her shell, although perhaps she is only cold.
So I follow Roy through the door.
We find ourselves in the main workshop, a vast and magnificent edifice filled with splendid shiny machinery. Though the machines are quiet and inactive now, they still retain an epic grandeur. So hygienic and well-kept is it that if one had not seen the hale and hearty workers one might surmise the place was staffed by some benevolent pixies or elf-folk. Especially when one beholds, stretching in merry ribbons and gay streamers from one gleaming machine to the next, crisscrossing the room, spilling from apertures, spooled around bobbins, or wound about tubes and stacked neatly in countless wonderful piles reaching almost to the heavens, a certain ethereal, twinkling, hypnotic, miraculously translucent substance . . .
“What manner of place is this?” says Roy.
I repress the urge to yodel.
“I am back in the clingfilm factory!” I cry.
To be continued as soon as possible!
Chapter 48
“I am back in the clingfilm factory,” I repeat.
All around me the mighty machines are towering and gleaming like some funfair of joy. Everywhere there is clingfilm in profound abundance, everywhere the means for making more, wellsprings of happiness that can never dry up. This is God’s own playground.
“I am back in the clingfilm factory,” I say again.
The cathedral of untrammeled delight stretches around me in every direction. Everywhere the eye alights is some fresh sight to fill the heart with helium. Acre upon lovely acre of clingfilm piled upon clingfilm, trolleys and conveyor belts full of clingfilm, bolts and bundles and boxes of it, crates and carts and carousels packed tight with glinting batons of pellucid wonder, clingfilm sufficient to wrap a small nation of black-clad pop troubadours, if such a happy nation existed, and if they gave permission.
How many generations of mankind did it take to reach this summit? Was this dream always in our hearts from the time we crawled out of the first primeval swamp? Has it always been before us, a guiding light for the visionaries and idealists to grope toward? Who can tell. It has taken much sacrifice to reach this shining city, but none can behold it and not feel exalted.
“There is no time to be lost,” says Roy. “Let us locate someone in authority and get to the bottom of this mystery. Which way do you suggest we go?”
“I am back in the clingfilm factory,” I say one more time. “For legal reasons I prefer not to disclose, I am not supposed to come within five hundred yards of this building.”
“There can be no objection in the present circumstances,” says Roy.
“I am back in the clingfilm factory,” I agree.
Just then a door opens and a man in a white coat appears.
He stops dead when he sees me and his mouth hangs open in alarm.
“Oh God,” he says. “It is you.”
“I am back in the clingfilm factory,” I explain. “I am very sorry for the intrusion but this time I have an excellent reason no lawyer or doctor could possibly find fault with.”
“Please do not kiss my hands or feet,” says the man, who is the manager of the factory and whom I have met before. “And do not start singing hymns.”
“No, no,” I say, “I will not do so. I am over that now. I understand now that you are not the man who invented clingfilm but merely a very fortunate man who is privileged to serve as high priest of this temple.”
“Oh God,” he says. “It is starting again.”
“Forgive me,” I say. “I will not speak in this way for I know it alarms you. I understand that the demands of efficiency and modesty require that you affect an air of nonchalance and treat this as any other job. I will keep my admiration within bounds.”
“Please do not yodel,” says the man. “And do not recite your clingfilm mantras. They disturb me.”
“I will not do so.”
“Do not roll your eyes or nuzzle the machinery. And do not do . . . those other things you would do.”
“I am back in the clingfilm factory!”
“Oh God.”
“I do not like to interrupt,” says Roy, “but we have more pressing matters to deal with.”
“Speak softly, Roy,” I say in hushed and reverent tones, “we are in the presence of an awe-inspiring amount of clingfilm.”
“That’s it, I am calling the police,” says the manager.
“You should do so,” says Roy. “That is, if you are sure you can trust them with this.”
He holds forth the briefcase and opens it to reveal the half-used roll of clingfilm.
“The stolen prototype!” cries the manager. “You have found it!”
“We have gone to a lot of trouble for that briefcase and risked life and limb to bring it to you,” says Roy.
“Then you have saved the free world from destruction and this company from bankruptcy!” says the manager. “I must thank you. Both of you,” he adds, with a somewhat grudging bow to me.
“I am back in the clingfilm factory,” I say amiably. “With Roy . . .”
“I do not wish to pry, but would you explain what all this is about?” says Roy.
“By all means,” says the manager. “This is a secret prototype of an experimental super-clingfilm we have designed for the military. It is designed to be bulletproof for use in war zones. I am sure I do not have to explain the tactical advantages of troops being able to take their own packed lunches into battle with them and keep them fresh for many days.”
“I am no military historian,” says Roy, “but even I can think of many conflicts whose outcome may have been different had there been a supply of fresh salad at hand.”
“Unfortunately the prototype was stolen by a shadowy cabal of miscreants we believe intended to sell it to the highest bidder. We had despaired of ever getting it back. You will both be rewarded as you deserve!”
“It was not all our work,” says Roy modestly. “This plucky little terrapin, Jetta, deserves much of the credit.”
“Then she shall be rewarded too!”
“They will all be rewarded,” suddenly says a voice of silken menace from behind us, “but not as they expect. . .”
And we turn and see the three villains!
We gulp nervously. The lead villain still has his gun. One of the other two has picked up a plank with many dangerous splinters in it and the other is holding his hand in such a way as to suggest he is either prepared to use karate on us or administer a resounding slap on the cheek.
“Yes,” hisses the chief villain in tones of icy ill-will, “we have followed you! Now we will kill you and take back the briefcase, and afterwards ransack your houses and confiscate all your belongings!”
“You will not do so,” says Roy. He closes the briefcase and we run! The manager shrieks and goes to call the police but is shot in the foot and ends up hopping and saying “Ouch.”
The villains pursue us through the deserted factory, firing their gun. Bullets go whizzing past our heads. One hits a button that starts the machinery and as the glorious contraptions whirr into life I take a moment to marvel at the wondrous mechanical whirligigs endlessly producing softly glinting ribbons of clingfilm, cascadi
ng and shimmering like rivers in the Garden of Eden. Streamers of clingfilm crisscross the room from spindle to spindle. All about us clingfilm is disgorged, spooled, bobbined, measured and packed. In spite of our peril I watch mesmerized as virginal young cardboard tubes queue eagerly to be wound up with clingfilm, as they are duly consecrated and dropped into their boxes, as the individual boxes are packed into bulk delivery cartons, and as the cartons are slid onto a conveyor belt and each consignment is trundled through a machine where they themselves are wrapped with even more clingfilm before being dispatched to avid customers all over the world. I stifle a tear of awe as we flee.
We run up steps to a high metal walkway with the villains hot on our heels.
“You will not get away!” says the lead villain, firing bullets at us.
“On the contrary, we will,” says Roy defiantly, but it is more bravado than anything else, for now there is no place else to run! For at the other end of the walkway we see one of the other villains has efficiently run to cut us off and is brandishing his splintery plank menacingly.
“Ach,” says Roy, “now we are liable to be killed. Fate is a jesting harlot. I never thought to die in a clingfilm factory.”
As for me I have thought of it several times, although I thought it would be from bliss rather than an assassin’s bullet.
Cackling, the villains close in on us, variously waving their gun, their plank, and their hand. We stand back to back and prepare to meet our fate with defiance.
“It is all up with us, old friend,” says Roy. “For my part I could ask for no finer companions in doom than yourself and Jetta.”
“Likewise, Roy,” I say. Jetta for her part merely looks stoical.
I reflect that there are indeed worse fates than to die here and in such company and in the cause of defending clingfilm. Wryly I muse that if heaven awaits it cannot be very different from this wonderful place. I take a last regretful look at the whirling bobbins and humming machines and busy conveyor belts spread out majestically below us . . .
But hold! The way is plain!
“There is one thing we might try,” I say excitedly. “Excuse me, Roy, I am afraid I must manhandle you now, but it is for your own good.”
“Do what seems needful,” says Roy. “I give you carte blanche in this extremity.”
I bow and push Roy off the walkway and jump down after him. We land on a conveyor belt spread with cartons and boxes—heading toward the inviting mouth of a splendid construction labeled WRAPPING MACHINE! Above us on the walkway the villains snarl and gnash their teeth as we are conveyed quickly into the heart of the mechanism. As we lie there side by side benevolent metal arms raise us gently and tender robot hands clutching clingfilm whirl around us again and again, cocooning us snugly in it. Soon, myself and Jetta and Roy Orbison are completely wrapped in clingfilm together. I am consumed without trace in a conflagration of rapture.
“We are completely wrapped in clingfilm,” I say, somewhat muffled.
Popped out of the other side of the wrapping machine, we slide down a chute and end up upright on an automated trolley, which whizzes us off across the factory and through a swing door.
Cursing, the villains descend from the gantry to give chase. But just then the front door bursts open and Yul Brynner and the Magnificent Seven rush in, firing their pistols in the air and waving lariats. Frightened, the villains run away.
But while I as the author know this, I in the story remain unaware of it for many weeks, for Roy and Jetta and I, completely wrapped in clingfilm together, are automatically trundled through a warehouse, tipped onto another conveyor belt, weighed, labeled, stamped, raised on an elevator, picked up by a crane, dropped down a chute, dumped onto a passing train and shipped to Vladivostok.
Chapter 49
The three villains flee through the streets.
“This is not over!” the leader snarls. “We will obtain reinforcements. Just let me get to a phone box and I will have a planeload of Mexican bandits here by tomorrow!”
Suddenly they pull up short, for they have come to a main street and the traffic light is against them. The two junior spies go to a designated crossing point and wait for the light to change, but the chief villain sneers at them.
“Pah! ” he says. “What a pair of Boy Scouts! There is no time for that. I intend to take my chances and cross against the light!”
“You should not do so,” the spy known as Otto cautions.
“Watch and you will see me do so!”
Quickly he looks both ways, sees his chance and dashes.
However, halfway across disaster strikes. For he trips over his shoelaces, which he never bothers to tie, and goes sprawling headlong in the middle of the road!
Cursing, he picks himself up. But to their horror the other two spies see a bus speeding toward him from behind.
“Look out, Heinrich!” cries Otto. “A bus is coming!”
But you will remember that Heinrich was not the chief spy’s real name! Wedded to deception, he had meanly refused to divulge his real name and Heinrich was a fiction. Therefore he does not react to it now but merely frowns in confusion. By the time he realizes that he is meant to be Heinrich the bus is already upon him. Belatedly he attempts to jump out of the way, but his reflexes are slow due to his lack of sleep and he is run over and squashed.
An ambulance comes and rushes him to the hospital. He is a broken and mangled man but there is still a slim chance of saving his life. However, as he is not wearing clean underwear the surgeons hesitate to operate on him and he dies.
Moreover as his mother’s stolen bra is later found in his pocket he is assumed to be a pervert and has to be buried in a special cemetery for cross-dressers, which causes much amusement in the criminal fraternity. His mother puts her head in the oven in shame, but there is no gas as she never pays the bill, and so the earwigs and cockroaches that infest it nibble her face off, because she never cleans it.
At the hospital his two cohorts hug each other and shed a tear or two for their fallen leader when they are informed of his demise, yet they cannot deny there is a certain justice in what has happened and that his criminal lifestyle brought about his downfall.
“I have learned my lesson,” says Otto. “From now on I will eschew crime and take the straight and narrow path.”
“I too.”
“I shall devote my days to promoting safety in crossing the road.”
“I for my part will realize my dream of opening a small florist. Those who have been victims of my crimes will receive a 7 percent discount or be given a free tulip upon proof of injury or mental stress.”
Hand in hand they leave the hospital, mellowed and chastened.
“You know,” says Otto thoughtfully, “there is one other good thing to come out of this.”
“State that thing.”
“We now have ammunition for a letter to Greta Sonderbar of ‘Spooky Occurrences’! For earlier today did we not see a man shot several times and the bullets bounce off him?”
“Also. . .” breathes Lothar excitedly. “If we admit to being reformed criminals and say that is the miracle that reformed us, she may even have us on the show!”
“Quick! To the stationer’s to steal some paper and a pen!”
“You mean—buy them!”
“Oh yes!” Laughing, they make off along the rocky road to redemption.
Little else remains to tell. The weeks pass pleasantly for Roy and Jetta and me, securely wrapped in clingfilm in the hold of the ship. There is a sufficiency of air trapped with us and we are able to lick the condensation formed by the moisture from our breaths.
All too soon we are unloaded at a warehouse in Vladivostok. When they behold us the workers utter obscure oaths originating from the Slavic steppes of their youth and call on Lenin’s ghost to protect them. They scratch their heads as they puzzle over what to do with us. Eventually they put more labels and stamps on us and ship us back to Germany via the Pacific Ocean.
En route
we are shipwrecked, however, and washed up on a deserted South Seas island. For some days we lie happily on the beach watching spectacular tropical sunsets and feeling the waves lapping gently against our clingfilm-wrapped feet.
Presently we are rescued and conveyed to Lima, still in our clingfilm wrapping. Due to a dock strike we are marooned there for some time, propped up in a corner of a shed with not much view and little to do besides playing I Spy in somewhat muffled voices. I find it congenial enough but Jetta grows impatient and attempts to chew her way out of the clingfilm, but eventually gives up and hibernates.
I will not weary you with details of our journeys across South America, on trains, on lorries, and lashed to the back of llamas. En route we are kidnapped by a tribe of jungle primitives who install us in a temple for a time and worship us as gods. Fortunately we escape the attentions of bandits.
At Buenos Aires we are loaded onto another ship. Due to a routing error we are sent back across the Pacific and visit Singapore and Hong Kong and half a dozen other places before eventually being dispatched to Europe via the Suez Canal.
In Egypt we are mistakenly placed on a canal barge and find ourselves for a time idling on a wharf along the Nile, our clingfilm coating thankfully protecting us from the harsh desert sun. We are within sight of a pyramid. Is it my imagination or does it seem familiar to me . . . ? Roy too seems a trifle preoccupied. Is there some significance here . . . who can tell?
We are carried in a camel train halfway across North Africa. At one point we are briefly drafted into the French Foreign Legion and used as a sandbag in an exciting battle with dervishes.
Eventually we are sent back in the right direction. We cross the Mediterranean without mishap and soon find ourselves being poled into Venice lying in a gondola. From there we are conveyed home by rail via Vienna, Köln and the Düsseldorf branch line before finally a homely delivery van drops us off back in the warehouse of the clingfilm factory. It chances to be a Friday, however, and we are not found by the manager until Monday morning.
All in all it is a very pleasant trip and I would not see the world any other way.
Ulrich Haarbürste's Novel of Roy Orbison in Clingfilm Page 19
