The Business

People were crowded round the remaining small windows facing out to the screen.  I squeezed in beside Dwight, who put his arm round my waist.  He bent his head to mine and shouted, 'Is this fucking crazy, or what?'

To my left, the surface of the projection booth was lit by the stuttering muzzle flash of the cannon.  Across the gulf of darkness above the abandoned parking lot, the lines of tracer flicked, disappearing into the black and white skies of wartime Europe, where Mustangs and Messerschmitts dived and rolled and formations of Flying Fortresses laboured onwards through the clouds.  Smoke drifting from the cannon in the near still air picked out the projector's beam.  Then the gun fell silent.

There was a moment of quietness, then people cheered and clapped and whistled.  Dessous, radiant, stepped down from the cannon, rubbing his shoulders, his face slick with sweat.  He accepted congratulations and shook Eastil and a few of the technicians by the hand.  His wife, silvery sheath of dress topped by a quilted jacket, went up on tippy-toes to kiss him.

Eastil was next at the cannon, once it had been reloaded, the sack full of spent cartridge cases had been emptied and another reel of film spun up to speed in the other projector.

We appeared to be progressing historically: this was Korean War footage of MiGs and Sabres.  The cannon went crack-crack-crack, fast as a speeding heart.  I watched the screen.  There were a few small tattered holes starting to appear.

'You're our latest guest, Telman,' Dessous said, when Eastil had had his turn. 'Care for a shot?'

I looked at him.  I wasn't sure whether I was expected to say yes or not. 'That's very kind,' I said.  I watched another reel of film being loaded into the first projector. 'I imagine we're up to Vietnam by now.'

Dessous shook his big head. 'Not much dog-fighting there.  We've gone straight to Yom Kippur.'

I had a very brief lesson in how to shoot the gun.  This basically consisted of hold on, don't close your eyes, and press this trigger here hard.  The cannon had a fairly crude sight which looked like the wire frame taken off a dartboard and shrunk to about the width of a hand.  The gun smelled of oil and smoke; it gave off heat like a radiator.  I settled into the padded shoulder rests and for some reason couldn't help thinking of the stirrups in a gynaecologist's.  My mouth, I have to say, was quite dry.

The image across the drive-in lot flashed 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 +, with those reverse-sweeping clock roundels in between, counting down.  Then we were in full colour above the sands of the Sinai peninsula and the skies were full of MiGs.  I squinted through the sights and pulled on the trigger.  The cannon shuddered and kicked back at me, nearly tearing my fingers away from the trigger.  Tracer bullets lanced towards the screen and disappeared into the darkness beyond.

I tried aiming at the aircraft swirling in front of me, but it was hard.  As long as I kept the bullets going through the screen and not into the framework holding it up I thought I'd be doing fine.  The gun clattered to a stop.  At first I thought it must have jammed, then I realised that I'd used up all the shells.

I staggered as I stepped down, my ears ringing, my arms tingling, my shoulders aching and my whole body seeming to buzz.

Dessous grabbed me briefly by one elbow. 'Whoa, you all right there, Telman?'

'I'm fine.' I laughed. 'Some kick.'

'Yup.'

The screen was starting to look a little frayed in the centre when we had our finale.  Another three people had taken turns at the gun; both Dwight and Mrs Dessous had declined.  Dessous took his place again, the projector powered up, and before the gun started firing I could hear a mixture of cheers and boos from the people clustered round the windows.

The unmistakable image of Saddam Hussein's face appeared on the screen, monolithically lugubrious, fixed and still.  The gun launched 20mm cannon shells at it.

The rest of the short reel was Hussein in various settings, sitting talking to his military commanders, walking past crowds of cheering people, inspecting troops, and so on.  Then it went back to the still of his face, looming a hundred feet high above the deserted lot.  Dessous fired into the eyes until the silvery material of the screen there started to fall away and flap and tumble — dark, silver, dark, silver — towards the ground.  Holes appeared in the vast nose, the deep brush of moustache and across the broad expanse of forehead.  Finally, peppering the line between dress shirt and Adam's apple, Dessous must have hit some part of the framework around the screen's lower edge, because sparks burst out, and two of the tracer rounds suddenly ricocheted upwards into the night in a bright red V.  The cannon fell silent again as flames started to lick up around the giant face still displayed on the screen, while flaps and scraps of screen folded and fell or were caught in up draughts and floated skywards.

More cheering and whooping and laughter.  Dessous looked like a child locked in a candy store.  He nodded and wiped his brow and took a lot of pats on the back and handshakes and just appeared utterly pleased with himself.

Across the lot, flames licked up around the huge, frayed, unsteady image.

Back in the villa, long past midnight, we sat in Dessous' den, just the man himself and me.  The walls were covered in swords, hand-guns and rifles, all polished and gleaming and resting in little chrome cradles.  The place smelled of gun oil and cigar smoke.

Dessous drew on his cigar, levered himself back in his giant leather seat with a creak and thumped his shoes on to his broad desk. 'You ever think of yourself as a socialist, Telman?  You sure sound like one.'

'Briefly, at university.  Do I really?'  I tried the cup of coffee, which was all I'd felt like.  Still too hot.

'Yup.  You know how much you're worth?'

'Roughly.'

'Guess you can afford to be a socialist.'

'I guess I can.'

Dessous rolled the fat cigar round his mouth a couple of times, not taking his eyes off me. 'You believe in communities, don't you, Telman?'

'I suppose so.  We're all part of communities.  All part of society.  Yes.'

'Are we your community?'

'The Business?' I asked.  He nodded. 'Yes.'

'You're committed to us?'

'I think I've shown that over the years.'

'Just because of Mrs Telman?'

'Not just.  That's the sentimental reason, if you like.  I have others.'

'Such as?'

'I admire what the Business stands for, its —'

'What do you think it stands for?' he said quickly.

I took a deep breath. 'Reason,' I said. 'Rationality.  Progress.  Respect for science, belief in technology, belief in people, in their intelligence, in the end.  Rather than faith in a god, or a messiah, or a monarch.  Or a flag.'

'Hmm.  Right.  Okay.  Sorry, Telman, I interrupted you there.  You were saying.'

'I admire its success, its longevity.  I'm proud to be part of that.'

'Even though we're vicious capitalist oppressors?'

I laughed. 'Well, we're capitalists, sure, but I wouldn't put it any stronger than that.'

'There's a lot of the youngsters — Level Six through Four — who'd think what you were saying earlier about initiative and drive and success and so on was something close to heresy; something close to treason.'

'But we aren't a religion, or a state.  Yet.  So it can't be either, can it?'

Dessous studied the end of his cigar. 'How proud are you to be part of the Business, Telman?'