‘Some people are born lucky,’ the old man muttered as he went away, shaking his head at the cruelty of such injustice.
When Benjamin drove forward and stopped at the kiosk, a policeman strolled over to him, smiling pleasantly. Across the road, painted along one of the white buildings, and intended mainly for tourists leaving the country, was the cryptic but worrying legend:
SELF-EXPRESSION PLUS SELF-INDULGENCE EQUALS
NIHILISM.
SIGNED: PRESIDENT NIL.
‘No one is allowed into our wonderful country today,’ said the policeman.
‘On whose authority?’ Benjamin demanded, turning his window lower.
‘Mine, and the rest of us,’ the policeman grinned. ‘We just feel like being awkward. It’s part of our self-expression. Sometimes we let them in, sometimes we don’t. Today we don’t.’
Four loudspeakers attached to the flagpole emitted a shattering roar of what Benjamin could hardly call music, as if it were played by a collection of brass bands, a few hundred fire engines, a thousand blacksmiths’ hammers, and the amplified reproduction of a force-twelve wind. The policeman looked towards the flagpole with rapture, hands pressed together. Seeing the alarmed and puzzled look on Benjamin’s face, he took out a tiny square notebook, for it was impossible to be heard, and passed a scribbled message through the car window, which said: ‘It’s our National Hymn to Nihilism. Don’t you think it’s beautiful?’
Benjamin tried to smile, while gritting his false teeth to stop them rattling. ‘What’s it called?’ he wrote facetiously on his own square of paper, imagining that such monstrous noise could not possibly have a title.
The policeman grimaced, as if maliciously imitating him: ‘I’m glad you asked that. It’s called “The Hammer and Chisel Forever!”’
Benjamin sweated for almost half an hour, and though both hands were clamped on his ears, the vibration of the symphony for loudspeakers shattered every vein. The policeman stayed close, and occasionally broke out of his rapture to scribble further little notes: ‘It’s our Geriatrics Symphony Orchestra playing,’ ‘That’s my favourite part,’ ‘I hope they play it again tomorrow,’ or ‘I could listen to it forever, couldn’t you, dear traveller?’, at which Benjamin Smith could only nod and grin, and observe other Nihilonians gently gazing at the loudspeakers, as if by looking they’d be able to hear better.
He opened his briefcase and found the official letter for the Nihilonian Ambassador which said that Mr Benjamin Smith, as a bona fide traveller to Nihilon, was to be admitted to the country and allowed to wander at will without let or hindrance. It was covered with stamps, seals, photographs, fingerprints, dates, and obscene marks of every colour and description. In tiny smudged print at the bottom was a statement saying that anyone disobeying these commands or rendering them null in any way would be shot by order of President Nil. This was a document that Benjamin had thought to use only in absolute necessity, but now that the music had stopped he pushed it towards the frontier guard, disturbing him in the act of filing his nails, for he considered it of vital importance that he should cross the frontier on the same date as Adam the poet, who had no doubt already done so near the coast, a hundred and sixty kilometres to the south.
The policeman looked at the paper closely, to show this supercilious traveller that he could read, and Benjamin got out of his car in case he should need help in its interpretation. Several minutes passed while the reading took place. Then the policemen’s face became blotched with rage, as he ripped the paper into small pieces, and threw them in the air so that they were scattered by the wind back towards Cronacia. ‘Why did you do that?’ Benjamin demanded.
The policeman drew himself to his full height, and stuck out his chest proudly. ‘Because I’m a Nihilist, you Red Fascist Pirate, that’s why.’
‘Oh, are you?’ Benjamin cried, and gave him a great blow in the stomach, then punched him so violently in the jaw that the policeman went sprawling across the pavement. Panting with rage, he stood ready to hit him again should he try to get up, or to fight anyone else who might attempt to arrest him. But the few onlookers smiled, fellow policemen and local cleaners, who obviously thought he had acted properly. The policeman, with a look of tearful despair as he lay on the ground, wearily waved him on.
This is obviously the thing to do, thought Benjamin, as he hurriedly started his car and moved forward. I’m learning once again how to behave in this cesspool of President Nil.
Chapter 3
Adam remembered that ice-maps of the Alpine regions had been prepared by the cartographic staff of the guidebook, but he had not been allowed by the General Editor to bring them with him. This was just as well, for they were no doubt totally inaccurate, and in any case he had no intention of cycling through mountain country if he could help it, much less on ice and snow. His only desire at the moment was to get clear of the too sensitive frontier and find the soldier who had unwittingly taken his one means of sustenance and locomotion.
A short distance from the border, when the sun was drawing sweat through his vest and into his jacket, and his feet were beginning to ache, and also his arms from the effort of carrying the rifle, he entered an area where the road and its confines were an overlapping spread of craters. Between the trees he saw a solitary soldier lying on the lip of one, a stream of ochred blood colouring the soil by his left boot. The face was turned sideways, and going close, Adam recognized it as that of the soldier who had taken his bicycle — which he now saw lying under a tree, unharmed, both panniers intact.
The soldier was still alive, and looked at him: ‘Help me,’ he said, trying to smile from behind his shield of pain. Adam opened the panniers to make doubly sure that everything was still there. Then he went back to the soldier, who by this time had crawled from the shell hole and lay on the flat earth under a tree. He was trying to speak, so Adam gave him a drink of water, hoping he might say something that would be useful for his guidebook. When he put his ear close, the soldier whispered into it: ‘Long live nihilism,’ then fell back dead.
On examining the rifle more closely Adam noticed that the butt was hollow, and, pressing part of it, the steel cap fell on to his hand. He took out a tightly folded map, and put it into his pocket without opening it, then threw the rifle into one of the shell holes.
Trudging along the road with his bicycle, he did not consider what had so far happened to be the best introduction to Nihilon. Of course, frontier skirmishes took place every day, for what border could be more nervous than that of a nihilistic country? And also, no doubt, soldiers died in them, but he felt it would have been better if he could have made his entrance without this onus on his soul. It’s all part of life, he mused, and there’s not much anybody can do about it, above all in a Nihilon.
Birds sang from the trees, which was an improvement, especially when he reached level ground and was able to ride his bicycle. The road went down into a wooded valley, and a fine cantilever bridge at the bottom crossed the spinning roar of the river. He leaned over the parapet to get some of the cool air sprayed from below, then took the fieldbook from his jacket pocket and noted that the road so far had been well paved, though he made no reference to the unfortunate incident at the frontier, sounds of which rolled like thunder behind him. It was once more necessary to push the laden bicycle, for the road went uphill.
He had not eaten since breakfast, and thought that any wayside shack selling bread and drink would be useful to him at this moment, in spite of the clear and beautiful landscape that was beginning to inspire his soul. An old woman blocked his way and asked for money, but when he said that he hadn’t any Nihilon cash, she retorted that a cigarette would do, since he was so destitute. He was happy to meet someone as human as a beggar, and in spite of her insults he gave her two. But when he wanted to go on she stood stolidly blowing smoke from her toothless mouth, and would not let him pass.