Brian Aldiss - Somewhere East of Life

‘Five hundred copies? You made five hundred copies of my precious memories?’ He was almost bereft of speech. While he knew nothing of his recent past, the whole world could be laughing over it.

‘You weren’t exactly in the Casanova league, old chum, let’s face it. We had a Pole in the clinic a couple of months ago … He was in the two-thousand-copy bracket, because—’

‘Never mind the Poles. You said you made two bullets. Was that also a lie?’

Presenting an expression of blameless honesty, Monty explained that Mircea Antonescu dealt in more than one market. He extracted all Burnell’s professional knowledge, editing it from the ten-year period. That knowledge was reproduced in an edition of maybe a hundred copies. A limited scholarly audience existed for such things, and paid well. Lazy students of architecture, teachers needing a short cut – such people formed a ready market. Pausing to gather courage, Monty added that Burnell’s store of learning made up one bullet; his love life made up the other. All skilfully edited, of course – by himself.

‘Oh God!’ Burnell sat down and hid his face in his hands. ‘You swear this is truth, you little chiseller?’

‘Would I lie? Read my lips.’ He started to go into details of what he referred to as ‘the choice bits’, but Burnell interrupted him.

‘So where have all these copies of my memory – my life – gone?’

Monty declared that that was up to the dealer to whom Antonescu sold. Antonescu was naturally secretive about such matters, but he had heard that the dealer traded the bullets on promptly to Eastern Europe and beyond, where they could not be traced. ‘Buchuresti is one market. Bootleg EMVs move from there further East. All the old nations and raggle-taggle once coerced into the Soviet Union are avid to feed on porn.’

‘Porn! You call my sacred memories porn, you little skunk?’

‘It’s a matter of terminology, Roy, old boy. They want to know how the West performs in bed. Insatiable. Untie me, please. A drink wouldn’t come amiss after all the excitement.’

Privately, Burnell agreed. He untied Monty and took some slap, inhaling the designer drug through a short plastic tube. Monty helped himself to a generous neat gin from the mini-bar.

‘So where is this dealer?’

‘Ahh … I’ve always liked gin. Reminds me of my childhood. I’d end up on the aforesaid rubbish-tip if I gave away his whereabouts. Honour among thieves, old pal. Generally enforced at gun-point. Besides, he’ll have shifted all the copies by now. Incidentally – this’ll amuse you – I heard over the grapevine that President Diyanizov has a fabulous collection of Western EMV “love” bullets. He may be plugging in to you this very moment.’

Monty’s laughter involved coughing circumspectly. Seeing Burnell’s expression, he added, ‘Diyanizov. The current boss of Turkmenistan. Far enough from here.’

‘Never heard of him. I suppose he’s a ghost, like Charles de Gaulle!’

Monty looked pained. ‘That was just a joke, dear boy. Tell you what I’ll do. Give me a couple of hours and I’ll contact this dealer and see if he’s kept a couple of your bullets for himself. Stephanie’s a pretty sight in the altogether when she’s worked up … He might have hung on to them for his own entertainment.’

‘Phone him from here.’

Another idea occurred to Monty. Antonescu had just put together an anthology bullet he called ‘European Peasants’. Monty knew from what he had seen that Burnell was a sport. He could have a copy for a thousand. It featured country men and women who had done disgusting acts with every animal on the farm.

‘Phone,’ ordered Burnell, pointing to the instrument.

Burnell stood listening as Monty dialled and made an oblique and muttered call. He replaced the receiver and smiled. Burnell was in luck. The dealer had the spare bullets, and would send a minion round with them on a BMW bike. Instructions were that Monty had to be by the memorial in the park behind the Gellert Hotel in half an hour, when the package would be dropped off.

The arrangement sounded genuine. Burnell paced the room while his Dapertutto was away. Like Hoffmann, whose shadow was stolen from him in Offenbach’s opera, he was living a half-life and would do so until his memory was restored.

At least the Gellert management had been helpful. When Burnell disappeared, the hotel had collected his belongings from his room and handed them over to the police. After he had settled his outstanding bill, the manager had retrieved his belongings. His electronic diary yielded useful information. The address of his apartment in Frankfurt-am-Main, near the offices of World Antiquities and Cultural Heritage, was no longer a mystery. He could resume his job immediately, provided Monty Broadwell-Smith returned as promised.

Monty did return, looking flushed and – as far as habit allowed – triumphant. He had two EMV bullets, lying snugly side by side in a plastic box of standard design.

‘Here you are, old boy. Your bullets, the last in Budapest. Ready to be inserted into the projector. There’s one on the ground floor, as you may have noticed.’

When Burnell stretched out his hand, Monty produced only one of his coughing laughs.

‘No, no, my friend. Hold the line a tick. I didn’t obtain these treasures for nothing. I had to stump up to the despatch rider. Honest Injun. The dealer is no pushover. He rushed me twelve hundred and fifty Deutschmarks the pair – five hundred for the academic bullet, seven hundred and fifty for the amorous one. Sorry, but you’ll have to reimburse me. These babies contain your last ten years, remember! I’m just a poor exile, as you are aware …’ Raising an impoverished eyebrow, he gave Burnell a look of innocent appeal.

Trembling, Burnell paid up. Monty Broadwell-Smith touched his forelock, drained his gin glass, and disappeared. Burnell went immediately down to the EMV cubicle on the ground floor, clutching the little plastic box. It was vacant. He could regain his past time – and possibly his past wife. He fed the bullets into the apparatus, sat back in the chair, pulled the projector over his head, and switched on. Nothing happened. He turned up the intensity. Still nothing happened. The bullets were blank and Monty had escaped.

Fragments of various post-Soviet wars were continuing. A truce was arranged in the Crimea between Russia and Ukraine. It was the sixth such truce. Heavy fighting was reported in the Caucasus region, where Alliance troops were involved. What had been a peace force was now engaged in counter-offensive operations. The UN met every day.

Radio reports from Tbilisi claimed that the Alliance was using chemical and bacteriological weapons in the Kutasi area. There, Azeri irregulars stiffened by units of the Turkish army were fighting Armenians. Questioned, American General ‘Gus’ Stalinbrass said, ‘What in hell else do we do? These assholes don’t give up that easy.’

On the previous night, four Georgian soldiers had found their way through a minefield to give themselves up to a British journalist, Dicky Bowden, 20. One of the soldiers was a boy of fourteen.

Bowden said, ‘Starved and disaffected troops such as these are all that stand between the Alliance and the Caspian Sea.’

He said he was confident that the war would be over in a week or two. Say a month. Maximum two months. Certainly by year’s end.

Burnell switched off the television news. He settled down to read his own book in order to regain some of the professional knowledge stolen from him. He had reinstated himself in his apartment in the Schäfer Building. It was evening in Greater FAM, as Frankfurt-am-Main was known among the travelling classes. Frankfurt, in becoming FAM, had taken its rightful place beside LA, HK, and KL, to be known by its initials like an American president of yester-year, when American presidents had power.