7. An Eye For an Eye
People die, sometimes, killed in industrial accidents, and nothing changes. A few fines are levied and at the last possible moment duly paid. The working man watches as his own are killed, to the wealthy man each death an expense to be paid, an item in a ledger to be accounted for. A young man, crippled in his pursuit of his pittance, taken away in the back of an ambulance, never to be seen at work again. An older man, killed in the sale of his labour for his own pittance, never to be seen or heard from again. As there’ll be wrangling, back and forth, letters sent and calls exchanged, but nothing ever changes. The working man loses a friend, a brother, all for want of money. In the meanwhile, events in the world at large have begun to overtake the deaths of men, a factory’s closure somewhere halfway across the country met, this time, not with muted ambivalence but with anger, defiant workers seizing control of their shut-down factory and refusing to leave until their demands for compensation are met. Fear of death keeps men like Stanislaw Czerkawski under the thumb of their paymasters, enslaved to their pittance. Now, Stanislaw cleans a floor at the shopping centre when his ruthless boss calls him back into the office and says, “you’re only a Polack, and I can find a hundred more like you in a day.” The sudden assault stuns Stanislaw. “Now keep in line,” says his boss, “or you’ll be out on the street picking through trash for food.” Though Stanislaw doesn’t know this, the boss is fully aware of the conversations had by the workers among themselves. Mocked and belittled by racists as simple, dirty Polacks, Stanislaw and his family have little choice but to struggle for whatever little wages they can.
It’s a tense moment, and the fears of a thousand generations have all led to it, the chance seeming self-evident to make a stand and prove, once and for all, on the strength of the working man’s will. The more radical among the occupiers talk of fighting; but theirs is a small voice, the few among the many, and as the police surround their factory and wait for nightfall before turning on powerful lights. Then, they wait, the darkness lingering outside as they cut the factory’s power, in the hot summer’s night the thick, humid air soon invading, straining will and faltering discipline, over the next few days the standoff lingering like the odour of dead flesh left to rot. At the armoury, rumours abound of the brigade’s surely impending deployment abroad. Gunnery exercises are rare, interspersed with endless cleaning and polishing of the guns. But still the Colonel comes to inspect the troops wearing his finely-pressed, perfectly-creased uniform. It gives Private Thompson the impression the prospect of war excites rather than troubles the Colonel. Later, in the barracks with the others Thompson says, “he thinks it the chance to make a name for himself.” Another trooper says, “he comes from a long line of officers. He traces his lineage back to the War of the Roses. He sees war as a gentleman’s endeavour.” The men agree this is abhorrent, but their chance to act on this agreement is not yet at hand.
The stench of decaying infuses every breath Valeri draws in, his nemesis Ruslan having been promoted to some modest level of power. Every day, the shop could shut down; amid the chaos outside Ruslan stops Valeri and says, “it’s high time a good-for-nothing like you was sent packing.” Valeri says, “I support them and I don’t hide my support,” before looking Ruslan right in the eye. But Ruslan only says, “and if your attitude could cost you your livelihood?” Valeri says, you have nothing to threaten me with. You can take away my job, but I’ve been through worse.” Then, Valeri turns and walks away. The move to Surrey takes Garrett Walker and his family some weeks, and they make it out of their old home on the very last day. It’s hard to understand what’s happened to them, except in the most basic, visceral way. The morning after they’ve moved in with his wife’s mother, Garrett wakes in the flat surrounded by boxes and crates, having only slept a little that night. “I’m not much of a man,” he says, “if I have no work and no home. Look at my family, kept up in this tiny flat. I should have the chance to do better.” But even his wife’s mother lives in fear of eviction, at any time the criminal bankers to decide her simple flat worthy of being torn down to make way for luxury towers for profit of another. It makes little sense to people like Garrett, how the wealthy can keep on hastily assembling their towers in the midst of England’s, Europe’s descent into madness and civil war. Too late will he realize the truth.
In truth, there have been many demonstrations since the failed rising fifteen years ago, many haphazard strikes scattered here and there. Even some of them have seen raids like the one that’s burned the union hall to the ground, though such raids have taken place far less often than the strikes that precipitate them. Men like Valeri are still young enough to muster passions not yet dulled and worn by the passage of so much time, and it’s for this reason the future of our rising lies in the hearts of men like him, if only they could see it. Still we’re in that uncertain early period, with the demonstrations of one kind or another so regular an occurrence that they’ve come to blend in with the cityscape, as though inserted by some skilled painter then subtly disguised by the blending of colours around the edges. At a meeting of concerned parishioners, Darren Wright and Sheila Roberts hear myriad views. It’s in a basement beneath a disused shop, dim, with leaky pipes and a smell Darren can’t quite place. “The church has no authority when it consents to war on the working class,” says the speaker, an older man. “Where Christ lives,” says the speaker, “so is there the working class liberation. Our church has no grand palaces, no ostentatious vestments on its priests, no obsession with ritual, no empty shrines. This church must remain as it is, and our church not only lives but thrives wherever the working man yearns in his heart for freedom.” All present, perhaps thirty, shout their agreement. Darren notices, as the meeting runs its course, there’re Catholics and Protestants alike at this underground church, the rogue priest assuring his new congregants, “all are welcome in a House of God.” The experience sends a shiver running the length of Darren’s spine, and he becomes convinced in an instant this is where he is meant to be. Darren returns to his church but does not tell the priest nor anyone else what he’s heard, keeping to himself the burgeoning spirit that will soon come to commit him irrevocably to the coming war. As it is written in Matthew 24:6, ‘And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.’ Not condoning of war, the rogue priest is declaring to his newfound flock they must be ready at all times for no man can know when all will be called to account.
At the polytechnic, word has spread of the coming protest, with Sean Morrison and his fellow students breathlessly declaring the impending occupation of the streets like a religious zealot confidently predicting the imminent apocalypse. “Our fight is to stop the government from increasing our fees,” says Sean, “but it’s more than that. What use is our degrees and diplomas if we become part of the apparatus used by the rich to expropriate wealthy from the poor?” Sean’s helming a gathering in the polytechnic’s main square, with some dozens of students and the odd member of faculty listening in at any given moment. “There have been many demonstrations over the years,” says Sean, “but ours will be something more!” Already the demonstrations in the streets of London, Manchester, Liverpool, and all the other cities in Britain have reached a fever pitch, the loose alliance of students from across the country standing as one. It’s exactly this moment the traitor in their midst should choose to turn his trust in.