Christopher Priest - The Separation

The plane came to a halt at last, its engines coughing to silence. We stood up, stretching our backs after the long confinement in the uncomfortable seats. I was behind everyone else as we shuffled up the narrow aisle between the seats. When the man in front of me went through the door and clambered down the short flight of steps outside, I was alone in the cabin. Instead of climbing down after the others, I took hold of the curtain and swept it aside. Beyond it was the forward part of the plane’s cabin, with six seats, three on each side of the aisle. There was no one there. At the front of the cabin, another curtain was drawn, presumably enclosing the cockpit. I could see movement beyond and in a moment someone on the other side opened the curtain and stepped out of the cockpit into the passenger cabin. A tall figure stood before me, dressed smartly in an RAF uniform, the peaked cap at a jaunty angle on his head.

It was my brother, Jack.

I stared at him in amazement, but his affable smile did not fade. He seemed unsurprised to see me.

Behind him another RAF officer appeared from the cockpit, pushed past Jack and, after a quick glance in my direction, went through the door and out of the aircraft. ‘You coming, JL?’ he called from the top of the steps outside.

‘I’ll be with you in a moment.’

I said to Jack, ‘I had no idea it was you flying the plane!’

‘Well . . . now you know’

My heart was drumming. I looked around: daylight was glancing in through the open hatch, and beyond the broad white spread of the wing I could see the backs of the other men I had been flying with, as they walked towards the low buildings a couple of hundred yards across the apron. The co-pilot was following them. Behind me was the confined compartment of the plane: the utilitarian metal floor littered with discarded papers, cigarette ends, pieces of bread-crust dropped from sandwiches. It was plausibly real and actual, but I was gripped by the conviction that I was trapped in another lucid imagining.

‘Jack, don’t keep doing this to me!’

My brother stood there without responding. It was hard for me to look him in the eye, because I was terrified that if I did so I might be held there by him.

‘Where are we?’ I said finally.

‘This is Zurich, of course. Where your meeting was planned, exactly as they told you.’

‘What the hell’s going on, JL? How are you involved in this? Do you know why I’m here?’

‘I’m just the pilot.’

‘This is a Red Cross flight!’ I said. ‘It’s a neutral aircraft on a diplomatic mission. You’re a serving officer in the RAF. You shouldn’t be involved.’

‘All aircraft need pilots. My Wellington’s being re-equipped with new engines, so rather than hang around the airfield with nothing else to do, I volunteered for the trip.’

‘But you’re RAF crew,’ I said again.

‘Not while I’m here. I’m a co-opted pilot, working for the Red Cross.’

Finally, I did look him in the eye.

I said quietly, ‘Why are you doing this to me, Jack?’

‘It’s nothing to do with me, Joe. You know that.’

So I turned away from him, in misery.

The aircraft droned on through the bright winter sky, the sea a grey-blue plain lying indistinctly far below us. I was relieved to be on my own at the rear of the cabin where there was no one to see me. I was shaking and trembling, on the point of weeping. I was convinced that the injuries I had suffered during the Blitz were driving me mad. The visions were crippling me mentally. I was no longer able to tell truth from fiction. That was the classic definition of insanity, wasn’t it? The delusions had begun that night in the ambulance, but had they ever ended? Was everything I thought of as real in fact another more subtle and extended delusion, a lucid imagining of forking alternatives, while in reality, real reality, I lay in the back of the noisy Red Cross ambulance, still being driven slowly across benighted England?

From the signs of the inactivity of everyone else in the cabin it seemed there was still a long way to go before we were due to land. Several of the passengers appeared to be asleep, their heads lolling uncomfortably, nodding with the constant movements of the plane. Others stared down through the tiny windows. One or two were reading. Ian Maclean, who for a long time had been standing in the aisle, was seated again. The thick curtains hung impassively across the front part of the cabin. It was no longer quite so cold and because several people had been smoking there was a familiar fug in the air. I lit a cigarette of my own to help me stay awake. I was beginning to feel sleepy but I shifted position in my seat and took in several deep breaths, unwilling to run the risk of falling into a second mental lapse.

When I next looked out through the porthole, I saw land far away to my left: there was a mountainous coast out there in the distance, wreathed in clouds and mist. It was so far away it was impossible to make out details or to try to work out which place it was, but I stared across at the view, glad to have something on which I could focus my eyes. Eventually the plane dipped its wing and turned in the direction of the land, but we continued to fly on without any perceptible loss of altitude. About half an hour later we were flying over a large city, the plane gradually-losing height and tipping and turning as it manoeuvred towards a landing.

For the second time that day, as it seemed, I braced myself for the landing as we swooped downwards. Soon the plane was skimming at treetop height. I could see a few buildings and hangars, with a glimpse of the city in the distance.

When the plane had landed safely it taxied for a long way, finally coming to a halt close to a modern brick building. The engines fell silent and the passengers began to shift in their seats.

‘Gentlemen!’ One of the passengers who had been seated at the front of the compartment, close to the curtained partition, was already on his feet, holding up the palm of his hand. Like most of us on board, he could stand upright in the cabin only with some difficulty because of the low ceiling. ‘It’s my pleasure to welcome you to Lisbon, a beautiful city that many of us in the Red Cross already know well. Most of you were told that we were travelling to Zurich for this meeting but, as you know, in wartime deceptions are sometimes necessary. However, we are in neutral territory and are therefore free of that sort of thing for the next few days.

‘So, for those of you who don’t know me,’ he went on, ‘my name is Declan Riley and I am from the Dublin office of the Red Cross. I know we are anxious to leave the aircraft after such a long flight but I must detain you for a little longer.’

Behind him the curtain billowed slightly, like one hanging in front of a window that is suddenly opened. We could feel the plane reacting to movement, as whoever had been in the forward part of the cabin stepped through the aircraft, presumably about to disembark at the front of the cabin.

‘I was going to say that I have three pressing matters to inform you of,’ Mr Riley continued. He indicated the movement of the curtain beside him. ‘I think the first of them has already made itself known, however. We have been honoured to share the flight with two or three people of great distinction and importance, who will be taking a leading part in the discussions over the next few days.

‘The second matter is that from this moment on, whenever we speak together we should do so in German.’ He paused for his words to take effect, then continued. ‘[Amongst other reasons you have been invited to take part in this important conference because of your ability with the German language. Even if in the next few days you meet someone from your own country, and he or she does not speak German, you must continue to speak in German and we will arrange for an interpreter to be present. We realize that this is an unnatural and possibly time-consuming process, but it was a precondition by one of the parties that everything should be conducted in German.