Lingering in the shadows, the spirit of the old way, too, conserves its strength, looking to the future for the time when the new will rise and present itself as a target. This is the way of things, and has always been. As history forms, so too does anti-history, locked as they are in a mortal struggle for the hearts and minds of the people of our time. Look, please look into the eyes of the people who’ve been killed, their faces and their voices seared into your memory as each cries out, frozen in a moment of terror before their lives are taken from them in an instant, in the time it takes for the bullet to cross that thin barrier between the heart and the soul. Don’t make the mistake of thinking this is events confined to the city in which Valeri lives; though we fixate on this city, know these events are occurring, in one way or another, around the world. In time, we shall come to see the greater stage on which we all perform our roles. For now, we are lost in the minutiae even as we ascend to the greatest stage of all. In the days following the deaths of Garrett Walker’s daughters, his life becomes a swirling vortex of pain and anger. Though he wants only to have his vengeance on those who killed his daughters, practical matters intervene. Tending to his wife and her mother, he doesn’t know circumstances will soon thrust him into even greater hardships, death waiting not for him but for nearly everything he loves.
It’s all happened so fast. It seems only yesterday that we were in the midst of a rapid, breakneck growth, in a forest of concrete and glass reaching for the skies as quickly as the working man could be made to work. Quickly, quietly, the sudden resignation of an entire government sets off a chain of events that could but change the world forever. All at once, the workers walk out, joined soon after by their natural allies, the students and the parishioners, the millions of them taking to the streets. Leaderless and paralyzed, the government can’t react fast enough, those few days of chaos prompting an eventual response so heavy handed it promises to inflame passions further and weaken the government’s own hand. Though Colonel Cooke hasn’t said when the brigade will deploy to eastern Europe to poster against the Russians, Private Craig Thompson and the others know it must be near. Despite being confined to their barracks, the whole lot of them quickly form a plan by exchanging notes and whispering under the cover of darkness. “When the order comes down,” Craig says, “we’ll seize control of this barracks and we won’t give in until they promise not to send us abroad.” He’s speaking at night with a pair of other troopers, not the first time someone has suggested it but neither the last. The two troopers nod their agreement. Sitting on the edge of his bunk, it’s almost lights out, and the sergeant will be coming around soon to shut the lights off. It’s precisely because the sergeant is about to arrive that they know this is the time, those precious few minutes a night when they can be assured there’s no one watching. Amid the carnage of the streets, the men of the brigade will be shocked and confused when the order finally comes down not to deploy to a foreign country but to the working class neighbourhoods right here in England, the one place they thought they’d never have to go.
When an unknown person rises to the podium at the capitol and announces the imposition of a new martial law, it seems even he knows the folly of the path laid out for him, just as he knows full well there’s no choice but for him to take that next step. This is the sign of our times. When all have their role to play, all must play their role, all must recite their lines, compelled as they are by the invisible forces that govern their impulses. Still, in the background, the reactionary himself waits for the government to fall. As confident as the rebel is in the certainty of his ultimate victory, so too is the reactionary, their mutual assurance setting them on a collision course. Though it may seem we’re on the cusp of a radical new beginning, it’s not so. We’re only at the start of a long and difficult journey, one which has been in the making since any of us can remember. For us to survive through these harrowing days, we must turn to men like Valeri not for leadership but as avatars for the change we must all undergo. Still in control of the prison when the announcement of martial law is heard, the inmates know what this will mean for them. Some choose this moment to abandon their positions, leaving the makeshift garrison without enough men to hold every part of the grounds. Stanislaw Czerkawski mans the barriers at the front gate with four others, clutching pipes and bottles ready to throw should the police reappear. Food and water are in ample supply, but still the committee formed to govern the prison rations both on the fear they may be surrounded at any time. “If they attack us, we should fight,” Stanislaw says at the night’s meeting in the open space of their cell block, “and if we go down fighting then at least we’ll know that we chose our own fate for once.” Gone is the mild-mannered Polish migrant who’d swept the floors for years, replaced by the roused anger of a man insulted and demeaned one too many times. But neither he nor we are close to the end of our struggles; ready to die, the inmates will be forced to live under not a regime of brutal violence but one of uncertainty and dismay.
So long as Valeri stands, he stands among brothers and sisters. In his working class apartment block, they ready themselves for the coming storm. Pooling their limited resources, they cobble together the money to buy a semi-automatic rifle and some ammunition off the street. With the couple of handguns and the one bolt-action rifle they’ve had between them, it’s a small arsenal Valeri declares enough to defend their right to live in their own homes.
19. Seeds of Deception
As disorder spreads like wildfire, the paths of the wealthy man and of the working man diverge considerably. At the helm of the armed forces are a group of men loyal to the flag, or so they seem at a moment’s glance; in truth, they are of a stock unlike any other, their allegiance owed to ideals found in no constitution, represented in no colours worn on the sleeve but those they’ve made up for themselves. Like the revolutionary, these men choose not to take immediate action, knowing as they do to wait for the perfect moment to strike. With the election weeks away, already the popular front has called for it to be boycotted; after the massacre, recruitment into the Worker’s Party and the People’s Party has skyrocketed, with other, minor parties joining the front and pledging themselves to its cause. For Valeri, his work is not yet done. Still he keeps on drawing his pittance, here and there, using it to sustain himself in some minimal way while he stores his armaments with the other tenants in his apartment block and awaits the coming strike. Stanislaw’s asleep when the army arrives, but his fellow prisoners wake him hurriedly. He makes it to the front just in time to see the army troops take up position halfway up the road. When he sees they’ve brought artillery, he’s certain they’re going to attack, but they don’t, not yet. Instead, he watches through binoculars as the army troops position their artillery at the front of their roadblock, aiming right down the road at the prison’s front gates, then stop and wait. “Why don’t they just attack and get it over with?” he asks. “They want to make us sweat it out for a while,” says another. Stanislaw and the rest of the prisoners know they can only wait for the inevitable, and so they wait. In the meanwhile, though, an unexpected help arrives.