His mouth opens and he starts breathing through it noisily. She whispers fiercely, “Wake up!”
He does not. Releasing his nose she slaps him lightly on the cheek saying, “Wake up! Wake up!”
Even this has no effect. She slaps him much harder, says, “Waken you old fool!”
Not opening his eyes he mutters, “Um. Eh?”
“I have told you to waken.”
“Impossible,” he murmurs drowsily. “The sleeping pills I am given no longer work, it is true, but I reinforce them with alcohol. What time is it?”
“Three a.m.”
“Well, before midnight, on top of my pills, I consumed a bottle of 90 % proof absolute alcohol so you cannot possibly have wakened me at three a.m. Go away.”
She prods his head with the gun saying sternly, “Open your eyes. This hard thing pressing your ear is the barrel of a revolver.”
“Ouch,” Rudi grunts, then adds thoughtfully, “Yes, it feels like one, but dreams sometimes contain strong sensations. I once dreamed I was eating a buttered roll, the loveliest experience of my life, a memory of the birthday present my mother gave me when I was two or three. That was during the German occupation. Everyone except the Germans were hungry then, even though the Jews and Gypsies had gone. My mother…” (he sobs) “… my mother must have loved me a lot to have given me a whole buttered roll and not eaten half of it herself. Leave me alone.”
He turns away from the light, trying to bury his head in the pillow, but she slaps his cheek so hard that he cries, “Huh!”
“Was that not more real than the dream of your mother’s buttered roll?”
He says sulkily, “No. It was not.”
She slaps again much harder.
“Yes!” he says, sitting up a little. “Yes indeed, that would almost convince me that I’m awake if this house were not surrounded by guards and alarm systems and all kinds of clever devices installed by Americans, the best people in the world for such contraptions. My dear, I regret disappointing you but you must be a hallucination. Nobody real could penetrate the impregnable security fence protecting me from — ”
Loud knocking on the door is followed by a muffled voice saying, “Sir! Sir! Are you all right?”
Rudi sits up straight, showing he is unusually tall and unusually thin. He shouts, “Of course I’m all right! Can the President of Fredonia not enjoy a Shakespearean soliloquy and talk to himself without a God-damned bodyguard interfering? I have all the protection I need — in fact more than I want. Avaunt and quit my door. Vanish, abscond, absquatulate, begone. Shut up, pipe down, retreat and have a heart, as the Yanks say. Have peeety on your so-o-o-oul, as Dostoevsky would have said. Leave me in peace do you hear? Do you hear?”
The voice outside mutters, “Yes sir.”
“But I don’t want to hear you,” yells Rudi. “Eff off, as the English say!”
A little later he cries, “Have you gone?”, waits for half a minute, then chuckles and says, “Relax my dear. He’s gone.”
The visitor has been standing upright with legs apart, gun at arm’s length pointing at the door. She now pulls a chair to the bedside, sits down and tells him, “You’re a smart old bastard. You knew I’d have shot you if you’d called him in.”
Rudi sinks back on his pillows, sighs, says, “Why should you not shoot me? I’m useless. Useless to myself, useless to my nation, useless to the world.”
“But a tyrant to your people,” she coldly tells him.
“You do me too much honour, my dear. I drove that servile security guard away because I was enjoying our conversation about appearance and reality. Do you know that in Western Europe and the U.S.A. nowadays, postmodern philosophy teaches that all external realities are mere opinions, all different but all equally valid?”
“Decadent bourgeois obfuscation,” she says savagely. Delighted he cries out, “I love these old Marxist phrases! After the Russians drove out the Germans I became the most dedicated Communist medical student in Fredonia. My speeches denounced Capitalist Lackeys, Neo-Fascist Warmongers, Bourgeois Hyena Cannibals and even (God forgive me) Unproductive Social Elements Deserving Elimination. I hailed the coming day when the Revolution would be Complete and The State Would Wither Away. These stale phrases rang in my ears like trumpets in the ears of Crusaders galloping out to exterminate infidels. Please tell me your name.”
After a moment she says shortly, “You may call me Vera.” He begs softly, “Vera, join me in bed.”
Astonished she cries, “You dirty old sod.”
“Please don’t mistake me my dear. I’ve been completely impotent since the People’s Socialist Republic put electric currents through my testicles. The pressure of a friendly woman’s body can no longer excite me, but it would soothe me. Nobody has soothed me since my arrest by the old regime. Time for another drink. Have some too.”
She scornfully refuses. Rudi shrugs, grasps a bottle of vodka, fills a tumbler, sips, then says, “You must have a reason for breaking in. What is it, Vera?”
“I need to know why you betrayed us.”
“Betrayed who?”
“The people of Fredonia.”
He says mildly, “It is they who let me down — not the common people of course, who gained nothing from the collapse of the old regime but permission to say what they liked. But lawyers and businessmen, civil servants and local politicians, journalists and broadcasters seem happy with Grolsh in charge.”
“Grolsh? Who is Grolsh?”
The president stares at her, says, “The man who runs Fredonia.”
“Liar! The Mafia rules Fredonia.”
“It could not rule us without local help, Vera. Grolsh and the Sicilian Godfathers co-operate like lock and key. Like many sadists he is a good family man, and knows it is unwise to be a well-known public figure. He never let the old Party bosses promote him above the rank of privileged State Security thug, so when the Communist regime collapsed, only those he had personally tortured… people like me knew how vile he is and — and — and…” (he shudders) “…we hate recalling that.”
He tries to empty the glass down his throat, but his teeth chatter on the rim and half the drink spills on his pyjama jacket. Stretching a trembling hand to the nearest full bottle he begs in a whisper, “Please Vera. Please. Please.” She lays her gun on the table, lifts the bottle, sighs, takes the empty glass from his hand and pours in a small measure of vodka. Handing to him she says gloomily, “You should drink less.”