That night, Isabella heads down through the stairwell to the laundry room in the basement, there telling her co-worker what’s happened. Nothing comes of it. Of course nothing comes of it. The next day she returns to work, able to compose herself by forcing a friendly look onto her face and by working her way through the day by reciting from memory a series of motions as is the way of people like her. But inside she’s changed. When she next comes across the wealthy man who’d taken her, she can’t look him in the eye, walking past in the hall quickly and quietly. At the end of the hall, she looks back and sees the wealthy man looking right at her, a wicked look on his face. All through this time she continues to wire her wages back to her family abroad, seeming to find the wherewithal to keep sending the same sums by cutting back on her own, sewing up torn clothes in strategic places so no one can see the stitches, still looking like the perfectly-kept young woman the hotel’s wealthy, foreign guests expect. But she’ll get even. Although she’ll never be the same, although she’ll always have the memories of being so violated, she’ll never lose the will not only to live but to survive through it. As she is of the working man’s stock, she doesn’t know how to do anything else but survive. Like all working men and women, Isabella Bennett is infinitely strong, in her resiliency lying the future.
At last, the troopers attack. In the early morning hour, papers are posted to the doors of each apartment in the block next to Valeri’s, papers announcing the impending eviction of every resident in the building. Mysteriously in the night, that night, a sign is posted along the building’s façade boldly proclaiming the impending construction of some new luxury villa with every section already sold. ‘Thank you,’ the sign seems to cynically say, ‘for making this new community a success.’ But as Valeri watches, the little old ladies living on fixed incomes and the single mothers dressing their children in second-hand clothes must come to grips with what’s been done. The actual evictions take some time; before even half the residents are gone crews have already started tearing out finishings and copper wiring from the walls. It’s a sad irony that these crews should be made up of the same kind of persons as those working men and women so unceremoniously put out of their homes and onto the street. But a grander game’s afoot. This eviction is an attack, part of a broader offensive mounted by the criminals in parliament, working men across Britain finding the same notices posted to their doors. The wealthy man senses the coming revolt; this campaign of evictions is but an attempt to forestall the inevitable. The wealthy man’s folly lies in hastening his own demise.
6. A Dangerous Element
Already the thin wisps of smoke have begun to emanate from the little cracks in the sidewalks, from the storm drains lining the gutters, feeding into a dark cloud that will soon engulf us all. The dark essence that’s watching from above, it slowly gathers strength as it’s been slowly gathering strength for so long as there’s been men like Valeri to bear witness to the pit of despair the working man finds himself in. Soon enough there’ll be a pivotal moment when this dark essence will descend on us, exactly the moment when the working man should rise, the two to meet high above the surface of the earth in a cataclysmic display that will realize our historical inevitability, at last. At the polytechnic, classes are underway, Sean Morrison and his classmates studying through crippling shortages and not-infrequent power failures. But meanwhile, they plan. After the immigration raids have disappeared scores of men from the streets, if only for a short period of time, the students declare their solidarity with the migrants and prepare their counterattack. It’s while they plan that their first, critical error is made. Sean and the others in the students’ union openly declare their intentions, going so far as to publish bold declarations on the screens of the world that the end of the current order is at hand. Meeting in a classroom at the polytechnic with some of his fellow students, he says, “theory urges us to take direct action. We strike to take direct action by seizing the streets and holding them.” Another student, Julia Hall, says, “every moment we can hold the streets is a moment we deny them to the wealthy who control them.” But not all are sympathetic to their cause; one of the students in their group’s a spy.
In the midst of this crisis, Valeri’s true work begins. As news breaks of a trade deal unlike any before signed between countries, it becomes widely known this’ll surely put even more working men out of work. Valeri pledges his life in service of the opposition. But he’s not alone. At the church, there’s an undercurrent running through the pews, a spirit parishioners like Darren Wright can sense but never see. It’s this spirit which compels Darren to pray for guidance in troubled times. He comes to church more often, one weeknight praying silently in the pews when there appears at his side a younger woman. She says, “I hope you’ve found more inspiration lately than I have.” She says her name’s Sheila Roberts, and for a moment Darren thinks she might be a vision in answer to his prayers. “I’m afraid I have to disappoint you,” he says. But she invites him to a meeting of concerned parishioners, the laymen organizing in the face of the church’s inaction. The church may be bride to Christ’s bridegroom, but Darren and Sheila find themselves among they who have come to believe the bride has strayed too far. As it is written in Proverbs 29:2, ‘When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.’ This is a truth all too evident to men like Darren and women like Sheila as their brothers and sisters among the parishioners have come to see wickedness in the halls of power.
Still the conversations meander through the days, idle chatter mixing freely with wistful ideation. “Give me a lift to the station?” one woman asks. “Climb on behind, but mind you hold on fast,” says another. A third interjects, “We’ll meet again someday. Don’t forget me.” It’s an unknown exchange in one apartment block somewhere in the maze of blocks that make up the working class districts, but an unknown exchange with profound meaning. Elsewhere, as their friendship deepens through a series of unlikely coincidences, Valeri and Maria find common ground where neither would’ve before expected it. Over the days that turn quickly into weeks, theirs is a shared cause, which they realize in a mutual struggle against a common enemy. There’s no moment when this takes place; he seeks her out, and at first she rebuffs him, but he persists. Finally, he offers to pay for her time, and she reluctantly, half-suspiciously agrees. Again they sit in her little one-room apartment, alone but for the rage of the streets filtering in through that same broken window, and she looks uncomfortably at the clock every so often. Still she sits on the edge of the bed while he sits on her one chair, the two exchanging small talk until, near the end of his time with her that afternoon he says, “you must join the fight for a new tomorrow.” But the words seem to fall on deaf ears. She’s not ready to commit herself irrevocably to the struggle. Although he can’t see it, nor is Valeri, although they’re drawing closer to commitment with each passing day. Hidden among the criminals, the prostitutes, and the mentally ill addicts there’s an element that lives off the enterprise of the working man’s most degraded and dejected form. It’s a hopeless feeling, to be made unwelcome in your own home, to be made to feel an outcast on the very streets that’d raised you, to be made to seek refuge from deprivation in a world where an abundance exists. After Garrett Walker and his family have found eviction notices posted to their front doors, everything changes. At the dinner table the next time all four gather, Garrett says, “we’ll live with my mother in Surrey for a while.” His wife objects, saying, “she lives in a one-bedroom flat. There’s not enough room for us all.” But Garret says, “it’ll only be for a little while. Once I’ve found work again, we’ll get our own place, somewhere.” The dining room is silent but for the ticking and rattling of the refrigerator on the fritz. Left unsaid is the understanding there’s little work to be found, none of it paying well enough. It makes Garrett feel helpless and emasculated, powerless to protect and provide for his family in the face of the overwhelming despair of unemployment. But he won’t feel this way for long, as there’re those lurking still in the shadows who would empower him.