5. Adrift and Powerless
Soon Valeri and Murray march in the streets along with the thousands and thousands of their brothers and sisters, singing songs, holding signs, denouncing the attacks on them. “All power to the people!” shouts Valeri. “All power to the people!” shouts the crowd. It’s times like these Valeri feels his boldest, times when he feels utterly confident in the fate of the working man to seize his own destiny. The storm troopers are there, but they do not attack, under orders only to look on; they know what’s afoot. “This is only the beginning,” Murray leans in and says, his normal speaking voice barely audible against the din. “And what a beginning it is!” Valeri replies. The demonstration was called to protest rising prices of food, fuel, rents, but right now all that matters is the rage vented in the streets. (Valeri had invited Hannah, but she’d declined, opting instead to spend what precious time she has between shifts for some much-needed sleep). As the revolution forms, working men realize on their isolation; but the revolution itself may yet acquire a bloodlust that could drive it to do things it might’ve never thought possible. At the shop, Valeri’s nemesis Ruslan works, having refused to take part in this demonstration for fear of provoking the managers to get rid of him. But when Valeri comes in the next time, Ruslan says to him, “you should know I’ll report you if you don’t pull your weight today.” But Valeri’s in no mood to put up with his tricks. “Why don’t you get your nose out of the manager’s rear for once?” he asks, then says, “I do more work in a day than you do in a week. You only have it in because the managers use you to spy on all of us.” Later, Valeri’s alone with another worker named Albert Nelson. “You shouldn’t talk like that around him,” says Albert, “you know he’ll report you.”
“Let him,” says Valeri, “I can’t hold my tongue. Whether I’m punished for it or not, the truth is plain and obvious. What kind of cowards can see the way of things but choose to speak as if the opposite is true?”
The next time Valeri and Ruslan cross paths that day, Ruslan is chattering with Harpal after having done little work, and the three of them exchange a look. Harpal looks at Valeri with a slight grin. Already Valeri’s tired and sore all over from the day of work, and in his tired state he can’t keep up pretences. He says, “I see you’ve decided your dignity is worth whatever little extra they pay you.” Ruslan says, “at least I’m not the one about to lose his job.” Harpal says nothing. The better part of Valeri knows Ruslan is only toying with him. Still he can’t help but let the notion of impending unemployment nagging at the back of his mind. In the streets hidden under the venting of rage there’re whispers of what’s to come. “It’s not yet time,” says one man to another. “It’s exactly the time,” insists the other. “And if we fail we’ll lose everything,” says the first. “We have nothing to lose but our selves,” declares the second. The men talk of war, confident in the righteousness of their cause; this is the fertile ground in which the current rebellion could soon escalate into revolution. In Britain, the current order which has lasted for hundreds of years teeters on the brink of a spectacular collapse, needing only the gentlest of nudges to send it tumbling over.
In the night, the police move. In cities across Britain, they raid randomly-selected apartment blocks in working class districts, breaking down doors and barging into bedrooms, rousing families from their sleep. Stanislaw’s left out of these raids, but he turns up for work the next day to find some of his fellow workers absent. Immediately it occurs to Stanislaw that the ones who’ve disappeared were the ones who’d complained most vociferously about their stolen wages in the months before. “Did you enjoy yourself last night?” he asks the manager. “Why yes,” the manager says, “I did.” But the manager has a sneaky, almost impish grin as he speaks, and Stanislaw thinks not to press the matter. Later, he recalls the faces and the voices of the disappeared migrant workers and he feels pangs of regret at his failure to learn more about them than he did; but the police may yet come for him. As the consequences of this current round of police raids continues to bear itself across the country, it doesn’t yet occur to men like Stanislaw Czerkawski these are among the first, restrained gasps of a regime in its death throes.
Still Valeri can’t escape the hollow feeling whenever he marches with his brothers and sisters in union. It’s a feeling of intense loneliness; but there’s an essence lurking, far above the crowd Valeri marches in. This essence watches as men like Valeri walk along the path laid out for them, through this darkness nearing the light with every step. The immigration raids have no effect on Private Craig Thompson’s life, none that he’s immediately aware of, confined as his concerns are to the narrow cone immediately around him.. “Don’t tire yourself,” says Colonel Cooke, “I don’t want you to have much use of yourself in the day after tomorrow.” Craig says, “understood, sir,” but wonders why a colonel would come around to inspect the troops. It’s still the early morning, and the armoury’s silence is deafening. The colonel’s uniform is impeccable, and his gait is smooth and well-rehearsed. Even so early in the morning and Craig is already dirty from cleaning the battery’s guns. Still Craig must consider the raids, as they’ve become a fact of life for us all, the disappearings of among the poorest and most vulnerable in the night discussed by the men in the mess hall but never fully understood.
Random conversations intersperse the days. “I don’t know much about these parties,” says one man. “But if there’s help needed,” replies another, “can we count on you?” The first man says, “you can.” These workers are but a small part of the ferment. Valeri and Maria soon meet again, like the first time in the streets but unlike the first time in more amicable circumstances. Holed up in a one-room pad (not much smaller than the little apartment Valeri shares with his roommate), she sits on the edge of the bed while stands, afraid to sit down. “It usually dies down pretty quick,” she says. “I know,” he replies, before quickly adding, “thank you.” But she says nothing more, only nodding, herself apprehensive about letting him into the one space where she can feel something at least vaguely resembling the feeling of being safe. Not long into the current crisis and Garrett Walker sees his work interrupted by the raids, at the warehouse where he works no one taken in the night but several workers connected to someone taken. At his station on the dock, he says to another worker, “all this business about catching criminals has got to be a sham.” And the other worker, the son of a pair of migrants who came to England from India decades ago, only nods his agreement. “If I knew someone who’s caught up in this business, I’d shield them from the police,” says Garrett. Again his fellow worker only nods. They’re walked in on by a manager who shoots them a sharp glare but says nothing, a sharp glare enough to compel them back to work, harder than ever. On this day, Garrett works himself tired and sore, only to go home and find his young daughters tending to themselves, his wife still working herself tired and sore. But he finds a notice posted to the door of their flat announcing their impending eviction, the notice with no date. Outside, there’s screaming and shouting, noise flooding in through the broken windows in the little apartment Maria calls a home. In the night, news breaks, news that’ll embolden the working man even as it’s meant to scare him into giving up on his cause.