At the armoury, the Colonel arrives to inspect the troops, looking entirely out of place in his finely-pressed uniform. Standing at a podium before the assembled brigade, he says, “you men are the finest in this army. Though we are at peace now, the time may come when you are called to war. You may even be called to bring peace to the streets of your own country. Whatever the task required, know that in all things we shall all remain steadfastly committed to God, Country, and King.” Private Thompson stifles a chuckle. But others can’t help themselves. The Colonel looks equally mortified and betrayed. The whole brigade, after the inspection ends, is made to stand in formation for eight hours straight, then retires to immediate lights out. Still Craig Thompson whispers along with the rest of the troops, already thinking of the day when they’ll serve their own. But this seditious line of thinking must end, Craig’s nagging self-doubt seems to say, before it takes them all to a place where none of them can go. Murray’s companion hasn’t said anything, but looks Valeri in the eye with a steely gaze that seems to pierce through to his soul and bring out his innermost thoughts. “This one’s a good one,” says Arthur Bennington, his eyes never wavering from Valeri’s, “but he’s got much to learn.” It’s a small encounter in the grand scheme of things, and when the plant reopens a few days later Arthur Bennington’s nowhere to be found. No one’s heard of him, either. It’s as though he’s a ghost. But Valeri knows he exists. Imperceptibly, a friendship springs up between them, such a small thing in this day and age, but as the world burns in an icy heat Valeri must carefully consider who he takes among his friends. As men like him struggle to make ends meet, the wealthy continue to encroach on their neighbourhoods, the sleek, glass-and-steel towers seeming to draw nearer every day. It’s only a matter of time, Valeri thinks, until they’ll be forced to stand and fight for the right to stay in their own homes. Valeri, for one, can only look forward to it like the starving man salivating at the thought of a feast.
“Come on, put your back into it!” shouts the boss at Stanislaw and the rest of the workers. Halfway through the night perhaps ten migrant workers, Stanislaw among them, have been mustered to put up fortifications around a police station not far from Victory Monument. “We’re already four days behind! Work faster or you’re all fired!” shouts the boss. Though it’s dark, floodlights mounted on tripods make the street outside the station bright as day. Stanislaw erects fencing topped with barbed wire while others assemble walls from cement panels. But when he stops to mop his brow he thinks of his wife and children here in England and the rest of his family still living in a small town outside Krakow, Poland. “You there!” shouts the boss, “I’m not going to tell you again!” His rebellious instinct stifled for a moment, he turns back to the fence, fumbling with it while looking out of the corner of his eye at the boss, unsure how much longer he could stand the man. In the morning Hannah ventures into the street, finding the crowds dispersed and a sense of normalcy returned. For all the screaming and the shouting, still the way of things remains firmly lodged in place. Factories close, then reopen, the closed and the open occupying the same time and space. Hannah is an oddity, a woman who sees the best outcome among a sea of equally unpalatable possibilities. “We’ll be all right,” she says, “as long as we stay together.” She’s talking to Whitney, each smoking a cigarette while on break. They lean against a brick wall and look into the dimly-lit haze of the late-summer’s night. “We’ve spent our whole lives preparing for a future that can never be,” says Whitney, “and now we have a choice to make.” Hannah draws the last drag off her cigarette and then flicks it away. “I’m very tired,” she admits, to herself as much as to Whitney. Hannah thinks to tell Whitney of her budding affair with the stranger named Lawrence, but decides against it. With power failures common, bombs exploding and gunfire rattling in the streets, and the smashing of windows and the shouting of angry voices, practical concerns demand full attention. In the middle of the night, the women see in themselves what they want to see, if only for this rare moment of honesty. But events are mounting, quickly, quietly in the background yet soon to surge forth. In the meanwhile, always in the meanwhile we wait, Hannah and Whitney tending back to that rare slow night in the A&E, like everywhere else in the world today a place where crisis could erupt at any moment. But we’re not there yet.
After this latest demonstration the working man returns to work, in the morning the streets cleared of debris, the few patches of dried blood mopped up to make way for the trucks and buses that trundle along these roads every day and every night. At work, this day, the working man works a little slower than usual, not enough to be noticeable at a moment’s glance but still enough to be measurable by the programs used to maintain a steady watch over him. Nerves rattled, many of Valeri’s friends and colleagues talk. “Not so far as you think,” says Murray, talking to Valeri in the aftermath of this latest strike. “How can you say that?” Valeri asks. “Things can only get so much worse,” says Murray. Having returned to work, Valeri finds himself dispirited. The days seem slower and longer, more tiring. Even the noise and the bright lights of the floor seem to have dulled. It might seem Valeri’s too tired to give much of himself, and it’s true. Even as he’s too tired to move, he moves. He knows how to do nothing else. Still he wishes only to return to the street for one more chance at venting his anger. “Are you sure you can see through this?” asks Murray, looking Valeri in the eye.
“I may not know much,” Valeri says, “but I know silence will help no one but the rich.” And Valeri is not alone. In truth, the working man knows that he must work harder than he does, not for his own benefit nor for the benefit of his wealthy paymaster but for the benefit of us all. Every day he works advances him towards his fate. Every day he fails to work delays the advent of his fate. Acutely, this struggle against the self has become like a fight. In times like these, Valeri finds the fight to push forward and reach for the new day. From the floor, he sometimes looks up and catches the eye of the company’s owner, a bald, fat man wearing spectacles. His name’s Noel, but most refer to him as Mr. Kennedy. Although Valeri has been working diligently and quietly through the day, the momentary glimpse exchanged between them from this distance makes clear the burning animosity between them. Mr. Kennedy doesn’t know Valeri, probably doesn’t even know Valeri’s name, but that’s not important. As Valeri has come around to realizing his place in the working man’s rising consciousness, he sees in Mr. Kennedy something he’s never seen before even as he’s seen it all along. The boss is still here. The boss rarely comes around, but when he does his presence is felt by the pair of eyes looking down from that office high above the floor.