Michael Moorcock: Breakfast in the Ruins

-No...

— You want to go on? A pause.

-Yes...

You have been brought to a room by the Secret Police.

They say that you can save the lives of your whole family if you will only assist them in one way.

You agree to help.

There is a table covered by a cloth. They remove the cloth and reveal a profusion of objects. There is a children's comforter, a Smith and Wesson.45, an umbrella, a big volume of Don Quixote, illustrated by Dore, two blankets, a jar of honey, four bottles of drugs, a bicycle pump, some blank envelopes, a carton of Sullivans cigarettes, an enameled pin with the word 1900 on it (blue on gold), a wrist-watch, a Japanese fan.

They tell you that all you have to do is choose the correct object and you and your family will be released.

You have never seen any of the objects before. You tell them this. They nod. That is all right. They know. Now choose.

You stare at the objects, trying to divine their significance.

There is a big color TV in the suite.

The Nigerian walks up to it. His penis is still slightly stiff.—Do you want this on?

Karl is eight. It is 1883. Brunswick. He has a very respectable mother and father. They are kind but firm. It is very comfortable.

He shakes his head.

— Well, do you mind if I watch the news? Karl is eight. It is 1948. There is a man in pajamas in his mother's room. It is 1883...

KARL WAS EIGHT. His mother was thirty-five. His father was forty. They had a large, modem house in the best part of Brunswick. His father's business was in the centre of town. Trade was good in Germany and particularly good in Brunswick. The Glogauers were part of the best society in Brunswick. Frau Glogauer belonged to the coffee circle which once a week met, in rotation, at the house of one of the members. This week the ladies were meeting at Frau Glogauer's.

Karl, of course, was not allowed into the big drawing room where his mother entertained. His nurse watched over him while he played in the garden in the hot summer sunshine. Through the french windows, which were open, he could just see his mother and her friends. They balanced the delicate china cups so elegantly and they leaned their heads so close together when they talked. They were not bored. Karl was bored.

He swung back and forth on his swing. Up and down and back and forward and up and down and back. He was dressed in his best velvet suit and he was hot and uncomfortable. But he always dressed in this way when it was his mother's turn to entertain the Kaffee Klatsch, even though he wasn't invited to join them. Usually he was asked to come in just before the ladies left. They would ask him the same questions as, they asked every tune and they would compliment his mother on his looks and his size and his health and they would give him a little piece of gateau. He was looking forward to the gateaux.

"Karl, you must wear your hat," said Miss Henshaw. Miss Henshaw was English and her German was rather unfortunate in that she had learned it in a village. It was Low German and it made her sound like a yokel. Karl's parents and their friends spoke nothing but the more sophisticated High German. Low German sounded just like English, anyway. He didn't know why she'd bothered to learn it. "Your hat, Karl. The sun is too hot."

In her garishly striped blouse and her silly, stiff grey skirt and her own floppy white hat, Miss Henshaw looked awful. How dowdy and decrepit she was compared to Mother who, corseted and bustled and covered in pretty silk ribbons and buttons and lace and brocade, moved with the dignity of a six-masted clipper. Miss Henshaw was evidently only a servant, for all her pretense at authority.

She stretched out her freckled arm, offering him the little sun hat. He ignored her, making the swing go higher and higher.

"You will get sunstroke, Karl. Your mother will be very angry with me."

Karl shrugged and kicked his feet out straight, enjoying Miss Henshaw's helplessness.

"Karl! Karl!"

Miss Henshaw's voice was almost a screech.

Karl grinned. He saw that the ladies were looking out at him through the open window. He waved to his mother. The ladies smiled and returned to their gossip.

He knew it was gossip, about everyone in Brunswick, because once he had lain beside the window in the shrubs and listened before he had been caught by Miss Henshaw. He wished that he had understood more of the references, but at least he had got one useful tip—that Fritz Vieweg's father had been born "the wrong side of the blanket". He hadn't been sure of the meaning, but when he had confronted Fritz Vieweg with it, it had stopped Vieweg calling him a "Jew-pig" all right.

Gossip like that was worth a lot.

"Karl! Karl!"

"Oh, go away Fraulein Henshaw. I am not in need of my hat at present." He chuckled to himself. When he talked like his father, she always disapproved.