Hari Kunzru - My Revolutions

A man got to his feet and started stabbing a finger at the speakers. “Bullshit!” he snarled. “Total bullshit! Everything you said is stupid and naïve. You’re fools if you imagine revolution is going to happen in the way you just described — like some kind of light show. Blobs joining together to make bigger blobs? It’s just crap!”

He was a menacing presence, piratically bearded, listing to starboard, a lit cigarette stuck to his bottom lip. From behind me

someone called out to him not to be insulting. He turned round, spreading his arms. “Why not? If you talk shit you deserve to be insulted. It’s not about the self. The self is reactionary crap. It’s about mass mobilization.” Someone else yelled out in agreement and suddenly the thing was a free-for-all. A bespectacled guy in a sort of shapeless smock was shouted down when he accused everyone else of being repressed. The ascetic young woman told the pirate his mass line was boring. The pirate told her to grow up. Revolution wasn’t going to happen without someone seizing power. It was going to take struggle. It was going to be violent. The woman shook her head vehemently. She was opposed to all forms of violence. It made no sense to her to employ violence to end violence. The pirate, unusually for a pirate, quoted Mao: “We are advocates of the abolition of war, we do not want war. But war can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun, it is necessary to take up the gun.” There were cheers. He seemed exasperated. “Just use your heads!” he spat. “As soon as the workers’ state becomes even a distant possibility, they’ll try to crush it. What do you imagine? That they’ll let your amorphous liberated blobs incorporate factories and army barracks?”

The ascetic woman called him a casuist. “Get back in the kitchen!” shouted a male voice. “Leave the revolution to people who understand politics!” That caused a proper row. An avenger threw some sort of liquid over the misogynist, a skinny, shirtless boy who had to be restrained from throwing punches. The fight disturbed the transvestite usher, who disappeared downstairs. Meanwhile the verbal tanks rolled back and forth. Look at the Soviet Union. But that’s not Communism. Immediate union with the working class! War on the nuclear family! Gradually the light failed and people started to slip off, as the hard core wrapped themselves in coats and blankets against the chill.

Seize power, abolish power. Which did I want? I spoke only once, to make some kind of call for immediate action. I don’t remember what I said, just what I felt as I said it. There was an energy up on that roof, an urgency I didn’t understand at the time.

* * *

At God’s desk I fell asleep for an hour or two and dreamed Anna Addison was standing by a window, looking at me. I woke up in freezing darkness and stumbled around disoriented until I remembered where I was. I locked up the shop and drove home in a bizarrely altered state, dazzled by sleet and memory and oncoming headlights. I undressed in the bathroom and crept into bed beside Miranda, who grumbled and shifted over, her naked side hot as a ham against my hand.

The next morning I got up late. Miranda had already left for work. I made myself breakfast and ate it standing up, staring out of the kitchen window. I went for a long walk, which didn’t solve anything. I didn’t call the number on the answering machine.

The day after that, Sam came home from university. I picked her up from the station and was almost overcome by her breezy hug. My eyes watery, I told her I loved her and she patted me complacently on the knee, already deep into a story about someone called Susanna, who had an orange Beetle and wanted to take her horseback riding in Wales. The girl with the neat row of teddies waiting on her bed had acquired a nose stud and a noticeably different accent, a layer of London posh sprinkled over her ordinary voice. She was, she said, a bit disappointed with law. She was thinking of switching to psychology. It was all too much to absorb at once, this sudden fluidity, these changes. She seemed so happy. I was so happy for her.

I dropped her at home and while she unpacked I went out to buy something for lunch. When I got back, I heard voices in the kitchen.

“Hello, Dad. I’ve been hearing all about you .”

I froze in the doorway. It took me a moment to assemble the

scene. Miles at the kitchen table, his black coat draped over the chair-back, a mug of coffee in his hands. He smirked and raised an eyebrow. “Hi, Mike,” he said, emphasizing the name slightly, just enough so I’d pick up on it. “I came by on the off chance.”

“I see.”

Sam laughed. “Miles says he knew you in the old days. He says you weren’t always such a goody-goody.”

“Is that what he says?”

Her tone wouldn’t have been so light if he’d told her anything serious. I put the shopping down. They were, I saw, both smoking cigarettes. I lit one too. Miles sat back in his chair, enjoying himself. Sam adopted a conspiratorial tone. “Miles says you got arrested together. Protesting against the war, man !” She made a peace sign at me, giggling.

“What else does he say?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” drawled Miles. “I haven’t been telling her about the really naughty stuff.” Sam’s grin faltered a little when she saw the look on my face. Miles distracted her by telling a tall story about how he and I had supposedly spent an evening with the Rolling Stones. His anecdote had a rehearsed quality. It was, at least as far as my involvement in it was concerned, a complete fabrication. Miles evidently assumed Sam would be impressed by the mention of the Stones, but she listened with a polite, slightly puzzled expression. It was possible she didn’t know who they were.

How was I going to get him out of my house? I asked whether he’d like to go for a walk. “Pub?” he suggested, then theatrically corrected himself. “Oh, yes, I forgot. You don’t drink.”

“We could go to the pub if you like,” I told him. His smile broadened. He knew I was begging. “It’s a bit cold out,” he said, warming his hands on his coffee cup. “Much more cozy in here.”

Just then I heard the sound of the key in the front door. Miranda smelled the smoke before she even entered the room. “What on earth are you doing?” she asked me angrily, flinging open the back door and letting in a blast of icy air. Then she noticed Sam and Miles. “Hello, darling. And — hello.”

Miles got up from his seat. “Miles Bridgeman. Old friend of Mike’s.”

“Miranda Martin.”

They shook hands and she turned to me in genuine surprise. “You didn’t say you had anyone — I mean—”

Sam stood up and embraced her. “Hello, Mum.”

“Hello, darling. You stink of cigarettes.”

“That’s a nice welcome.”

“Well, you do. It’s disgusting. I’m sorry, Mr. Bridgeman. I don’t like smoking in the house.”

“I’m so sorry. Mike, you should have told me. Now I’ve gone and embarrassed myself. And please, Miranda, call me Miles.”

“Of course. I’m sorry — were we, I mean — I was — was Mike expecting you? I didn’t know. He never tells me anything.”

Miles adopted a raffish expression. “No, I think I came as a surprise. You know, we haven’t seen each other for years. I was visiting friends near here and thought I’d look him up. You have a beautiful house, by the way. I love what you’ve done to this kitchen. So real. What gorgeous flooring. Is it slate?”

“Yes. Welsh slate.”

“Beautiful colors.”

“Exactly.”

Soon Miles was asking her about the old glass medicine bottles and the bunches of herbs drying over the hearth, demonstrating a suspiciously perfect knowledge of the properties of lemon verbena. Miranda chattered to him, so taken with my charming friend that before I knew it she’d invited him to stay for dinner. I sat at the table while she cooked a risotto, and he bared his teeth without mirth, toasting me ironically with his glass of elderflower cordial. “Next time,” he said, “I’ll bring a bottle.”