‘What do you want?’ he asked.
‘Nothing,’ she said.
‘Who are you, then?’
‘I’m a scout,’ she answered, ‘from a battalion of old-age pensioners being sent to fight in the war. We’re glad to die for our country, you know.’ She gripped the lapel of his jacket, as if wanting to take that too, but he pushed his bicycle around her, thinking she was far gone in senility, and pedalled away.
After another three kilometres he saw a building by the roadside displaying the notice PARADISE BAR above the doors. A further advertisement regarding its functions was painted on a nearby billboard: ‘Last chance to eat before the front.’ The final word had at one time been ‘frontier’ but the ultimate three letters had recently been erased, probably in the last hour. It was a clean-looking, respectable, two-storied dwelling, with a lower floor made of overlapping planks of wood, and an upper portion of solid concrete.
Adam would not have entered this criminally top-heavy structure on a stormy day, but since the air was still enough he decided to go in and get something to eat. A score of tables on the terrace outside were occupied by crowds of old men, some sitting on the steps, others on the ground or stools, or leaning against the actual walls of the unsafe building. A few stayed at the edge of the throng in wheelchairs, and looked as if they had a very uncertain hold on life. But all had rifles, and ammunition belts around their jackets. Bugles and small flags were distributed among them, and many had folded overcoats by their feet, and shopping baskets with packets of food spilling out. Those dressed in city suits, with smart moustaches and clipped hair, watch-chains curving from their waistcoats, sipped small cups of black coffee and smoked cigarettes or thin cigars. Other men wore smocks and cloaks, had beards and cropped hair, took pipes from between their teeth so that they could drink out of huge glasses of beer. Some were merry and loud in their jokes, while others were reflective and dignified, making casual quiet remarks to each other. A few glanced at the sky as if it might rain, but others had no thought except to eat and drink their fill while they could. All seemed to have some set purpose in their eyes.
He stepped respectfully between them and went into the building itself. Part of the main room was cordoned off as a dining saloon, and that, too, was full of old men with their rifles and equipment. Waiters ran among them taking orders, and Adam noticed that they asked for money when they put the beer or food down, as if their customers might be dead before they could collect it in the normal course of time.
He leaned on the counter and asked the barman for a glass of milk and a sandwich. He thought this would be sufficient for his lunch, but went on to consume twice that amount before his hunger was satisfied. It was harder work cycling in Nihilon than on his practice runs before departure.
‘Going far?’ the red-faced, harassed, hysterical, youngish barman demanded curtly, snatching his plate away, though there was still a piece of his final sandwich left on it.
‘Nihilon City.’
‘By Zap?’
‘What’s Zap?’
‘A Zap sports car. You’re a foreigner by the sound of it.’
‘I am,’ he admitted, half sad and half proud.
‘Do you like nihilism?’
‘I don’t know, yet.’
‘Don’t let any of these Geriatrics hear you say that. They love nihilism. Ready to die for it. They’re going to, what’s more. Tear you limb from limb if they hear you so cool on it. I wouldn’t blame them either.’ He held out his hand: ‘You’d better pay for your lunch, and be off. Forty-two klipps, and I want it now.’
Adam took a travellers unit from his wallet, worth a hundred klipps at the present rate of exchange. ‘I’ll be glad to go.’
‘I can’t accept that,’ the barman said. ‘You should have changed it at the frontier. Or you can wait till you get to the next town, which should be the day after tomorrow if you haven’t got a Zap. Do you want to buy a Zap?’
‘I’d like to pay for my lunch and leave.’
‘Go on,’ he wheedled, ‘buy a Zap. Be a Nihilist.’
‘Who do I buy it from?’
‘One of the old folk. The Gerries. They’re off to the frontier — front, I mean. Most of ’em have Zaps, and I suppose they wouldn’t be averse to letting one go to a foreigner like yourself. Won’t cost much. I get a commission, you see, on all secondhand Zaps sold at the Paradise Bar. I’ve got a wife and four kids, so I need every klipp I can get.’
Adam pushed his travellers unit across the counter. ‘I’d like to pay and go now.’
‘I’ve told you, I can’t take it,’ snapped the barman.
‘I’ll leave without paying, then.’
The bartender laughed, hysterically. ‘Try it! Go on, try it!’
And old man, frail and thin, wearing a suit, a red cravat, and a white flower at his lapel, strolled from a nearby table, a rifle hanging at his shoulder by a sling.
‘Are you in trouble, young man?’ He appeared to be the most civilized person Adam had met since crossing the frontier, and possibly for a long time before that, with pale-blue eyes, ironic and sensitive lips and fine hands that had perhaps written books or painted pictures. His brow seemed marked with sound ideas, and crowned a face that must have made women happy to be near him and listen to any word he said. He looked about eighty years of age, and the softening effect of so much wisdom and experience seemed even to lurk in the faint waves of his thick grey hair.
‘No trouble,’ said Adam, taking him for a friendly spirit, though he was somewhat puzzled by the rifle. The old man relinquished it, the butt rattling as it hit the floor close to Adam’s feet, and leaned it against the counter. ‘I simply want to pay for my lunch with this travellers unit, and go.’
The old man ceased to smile. ‘To want something is not good nihilism. What you want, you never get. To do — that is the way to nihilism. I can tell you’re a stranger to our country. When you do something, you get something, but not until.’
‘I’m only a tourist.’
‘No man is a tourist,’ he said, his features taking on a harshness that Adam hadn’t read into them at first. The bartender leaned on the counter, entranced at every word from the old man, a fascination expressed mostly by an inane grin. ‘Life is the same wherever you are. It is hard in Nihilon, so why shouldn’t tourists have to fight in order to exist, the same as we do? Much of my life I’ve worked as a poet in order to contribute to Nihilon’s unique civilization. I’m an old poet now, but rhymes still rattle their way into my head.’
‘I’m a poet as well,’ Adam interrupted him, glad that he should have something in common with this fine old man. But the man stared at him coldly: ‘You may think you’re a poet,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t say you were, you liar!’
‘I’ve had several books published,’ Adam said, still trying to smile, though sorry he hadn’t one of the volumes with him so that he could present it to his friend.
‘You aren’t a poet,’ the old man cried. ‘If you say you are, you’re a fraud, an imposter, a saboteur, a renegade, a Cronacian spy!’
Adam stepped away, appalled at this unjust attack. The barman picked up a beer mug to smash his head in for offending the old man, but the old man told him sharply to put it down, then apologized to Adam: ‘He’s a fool, you see. Always attacking people, and I can’t stand it, being a poet. However, just listen to my latest composition.