With his rifle over his shoulder, he began to plod towards the spot where his man had fallen.
— Is it morning yet? asks Karl, yawning.
— No. A long time until morning, Karl.
— The night seems to be lasting forever.
— Aren't you glad?
He feels a strong hand in his crotch. It squeezes him gently but firmly. Karl's lips part a little.
— Yes, says Karl, I'm glad.
You are a white man in a town where the people are predominantly black.
Because of indignities and insufficient representation of their cause, the black people, militant and angry, seize control of the town.
They are met with violence from some of the whites and they respond in turn, lynching two white officials against whom they have particular grievances.
But now the people have become a mob and are out for white blood. The mob is approaching your part of the town, smashing and burning and beating whites. Some of the whites have been beaten to death.
You cannot contact your black friends and ask for their help because you don't know exactly where they are.
Would you hide in the house and hope that the mob didn't bother you?
Would you try to take your chances on the street and hope to find a black friend who would vouch for you?
Would you go to the aid of other white people defending themselves against the mob? Would you then try to make everyone calm down?
Or would you simply help your fellow white people kill the black people attacking them?
Or would you join the black people attacking the whites and hope to win acceptance that way?
9
The Downline to Kiev: 1920:
Shuffling Along
Official verification came to hand yesterday of the report recently published of the ex-Tsar's violent end at Ekaterinburg at the hands of his Red Guards. The message has been transmitted as follows through the wireless stations of the Russian Government: Recently Ekaterinburg, the capital of the Red Ural, was seriously threatened by the approach of the Czecho-Slovak bands. At the same time a counter-revolutionary conspiracy was discovered, having for its object the wresting of the ex-Tsar from the hands of the Council's authority by armed force. In view of this fact the Council decided to shoot the ex-Tsar. This decision was carried out on July 16. The wife and son of Romanoff have been sent to a place of security. Documents concerning the conspiracy, which were discovered, have been forwarded to Moscow by a special messenger. It had been recently decided to bring the ex-Tsar before a tribunal to" be tried for his crimes against the people and only later occurrences led to delay in adopting this course. The Russian Executive Council accept the decision of the Rural Regional Council as being regular. The Central Executive Committee has now at its disposal extremely important material and documents concerning the Nicholas Romanoff affair—his own diary, which he kept almost to the last day, diaries of his wife and children, his correspondence, amongst which are letters by Gregory Rasputin to Romanoff and his family. All these materials will be examined and published in the near future.
Seated before the mirror, Karl examines his flesh. Neither the harsh neon light over the mirror, nor the mirror itself, are flattering. Karl pouts his lips and rolls his eyes.
— I don't think you're a Nigerian at all, now. Your accent changes all the time.
— We all change our accents to suit our circumstances. In the mirror their eyes meet. Karl feels cold.
We are all victims.
He is fourteen. His mother and his father were killed in an explosion in a cafe in Bobrinskaya.
Karl's friend puts friendly hands on Karl's shoulders.
— What would you like to do now?
He is fourteen. Sitting on a flat car, hanging on for dear life as the train roars across the plain. The plain is dead. It consists of nothing but the blackened stalks of what was once wheat. The wheat has been deliberately burned.
The sky is huge and empty.
Karl shivers.
— Any ideas?
The train moves to meet the sullen bank of grey cloud on the horizon. It is like the end of the world. The train carries death. It goes to find more death. That is its cargo, its destiny.
At several points on the train—on the locomotive bellowing ahead, on the rocking carriages, the bucking open trucks—black flags flap like the wings of settling crows. It is the Ukraine. And Karl shivers.
KARL WAS FOURTEEN. His mother and father had been thirty-five when they were killed by the bomb. They came from Kiev but had been driven out during one of the pogroms. They had thought it safer to stay with their relatives in Bobrinskaya. Someone had let a bomb off in a cafe and Karl had gone to Alexandria where he had met the army of Makhno, the Anarchist. He had joined that army. He had been in several battles since then and now he had a machine gun of his own to look after. He loved the machine gun. He had secured the stand to the flat car with big horseshoe nails. It was an English machine gun, a Lewis. His greatcoat was English, too. It was leather and had a special pocket in the front shaped like a revolver. During their last battle, near Golta, he had managed to acquire a revolver. They had been beaten at that battle. They were now making for Kiev because the railway line direct to Alexandria had been blown up to cut off their retreat. Makhno's black banners flew everywhere on the train. Some of the banners bore his slogan: Anarchy Breeds Order. But most were plain. Makhno was in a bad mood since Golta.
Over the rattle of the train and the roar of the locomotive came the sounds of laughter, of song, of an accordion's whine. Makhno's army lounged on every available surface. Young men, mainly, their clothes were evidence of a hundred successful raids. One wore a tall silk hat decorated with streaming red and black ribbons. His body was swathed in a sleeveless fur coat with the skirt hacked off to give his legs freedom. He wore green Cossack breeches tucked into red leather boots. Over his coat were crisscrossed four bandoliers of bullets. In his hands was a rifle which, intermittently, he would fire into the air, laughing all the time. At his belt was a curved saber and stuck in the belt were a Mauser automatic pistol and a Smith and Wesson.45 revolver. Bottles were passed from hand to hand as they thundered along. The young man in the top hat flung back his head and poured wine over his bearded face and down his throat, breaking into song as the accordion began to play the army's familiar melody, "Arise young men!" Karl himself joined in with the sad, bold last lines, "Who lies under the green sward?" sang the man in the top hat. "We heroes of Makhno," sang Karl, "saddle rugs for shrouds." There was a great cheer and peaked caps, sheepskin hats, derby hats, stocking caps and the caps of a dozen different regiments were waved or thrown through the steam from the engine. Karl was proud to be of this reckless company which cared nothing for death and very little for life. The cause for which they fought might be doomed but what did it matter? The human race was doomed. They at least would have made their gesture.
There was not a man on the train who was not festooned with weapons. Sabres and rifles and pistols were common to all. Some sported ornate antique weapons, broadswords, officers' dress swords, pistols inlaid with gold, silver and mother-o'-pearl. They wore boaters, solar toupees, extravagant German helmets, wide-brimmed felt hats, panamas and every variety of clothing. Near Karl and manning one of the other machine guns, a fat Georgian was stripped to the waist, wearing only a pair of gentleman's blue riding breeches and boots decorated with silver thread. Around his neck he had wound a long feather boa. He was hatless, but had on a pair of smoked glasses with gold rims. At his belt were two military holsters containing matched-revolvers. The Georgian claimed that they had belonged to the Emperor himself. Sharing a bottle with the Georgian was a sailor from Odessa, his vest open to the navel, displaying a torso completely covered in pink and blue tattoos showing dragons, swords and half-dressed ladies all mixed up together. The freshest of the tattoos ran across his breastbone, a Nihilist slogan—Death to Life. A boy, younger than Karl, wearing a torn and bloodstained surplice, clutching a cooked chicken in one hand, jumped down from the top of the box-car behind them and swayed towards the sailor, offering him half the chicken in exchange for the rest of the wine. In his other hand he held an enormous butcher's cleaver. The boy was already nine parts drunk.