Will Self - The Butt

‘Given them a real belief system,’ Tom rasped, ‘what the hell d’you mean?’

But before Gloria could reply, the SUV thrummed over the ties of a wooden bridge and humped into a turning circuit. Prentice hit the brakes — and the flies were upon them, streaming in through the open windows.

In a plantation of widely spaced gum trees stood a long, low building that reminded Tom of the twins’ elementary school in Milford. It had the same steel-framed windows and modular construction: one classroom bolted on to the next. A short way off there was a structure in complete contrast, a Tyrolean chalet with elaborately fret-worked doors and shutters, and a wide shallow-pitched roof. The incongruity of this dinky wooden confection was completed by the trio of mismatched men who stood upon its raised veranda, a veranda that was sprinkled with snow-white dust.

Tom shaded his aching eyes. The skeletal figure of Hippolyte von Sasser’s brother was unmistakable — they might have been twins. If anything, Erich was even more predatory-looking than the Chief Prosecutor. His skinny legs were emphasized by tight lederhosen; the bib of these and a voluminous cotton shirt provided him with an avian breast. An alpine hat balancing on the sharp summit of his bald head completed the costume. This Von Sasser was a pipe-smoker as well, yet the tiny cumuli that rose from its tall porcelain bowl did little to discourage the flies that preyed on his raptor features.

Standing beside Von Sasser, his naked chest decorated with the medallions of several cameras, camcorders and voice recorders, was Jethro Swai-Phillips; while on the other side of the imposing anthropologist, his bleached teeth showing in a diplomatic rictus, stood the Honorary Consul.

For a long time the two groups stared at one another. Gloria sighed deeply. Prentice detached his hands from the steering wheel with an audible ‘tchupp’. Tom hugged Gloria’s ovoid parcel. If the three men on the veranda shifted at all, it only confirmed them in their stasis.

Then Swai-Phillips broke the spell. He lunged down the wooden stairs and came towards the SUV. From the way he moved, alone — his head tucked well forward, his arms pumping, his sandalled feet dancing in the dust — Tom saw a complete personality change in the once imposing lawyer. Swai-Phillips was doggy — there was no other word for it. He doggily opened the car door and snuffled Prentice out, then he bounded round and did the same to Gloria. He thrust his moustachioed muzzle into the car, while yapping: ‘He’s the man, see, Doc von S, yeah, he’s the man — c’mon Tommy, man. C’mon and meet him — he’s been waiting for you. . He wants to meet with you. . tell you stuff, right.’

Swai-Phillips was without his wrap-around shades. His bad eye was gooey, his good one roved crazily. Flies grazed on his furry top lip. ‘C’mon, Tommy, yeah. C’mon. .’ He grabbed Tom’s hand and bodily hauled him from the back seat. The parcel came too, in the crook of Tom’s arm. ‘It’s here — it’s now, it’s all times, man,’ he blethered, ‘ ’cause he’s the man, the big bloke. .’ His Afro agitated like a wind-blown bush.

Von Sasser stirred. Puffing his pipe, he squeaked down on high leather boots and came over to where Tom stood, his head reeling. The flies moiled in the deep sockets of Von Sasser’s eyes.

‘I believe you have something for me, yeah.’ Raucous vowels misbehaved on Teutonic bedrock. ‘Is that it’ — the anthropologist pointed with his pipe stem — ‘under your arm?’

Mute, Tom passed him the parcel, and as soon as Von Sasser took it he experienced a fresh surge of vigour; his vision pinged into acuity. Then, over Von Sasser’s high shoulder, Tom saw the corrugated-iron humpies of the Intwennyfortee mob. There were at least forty of them, each with its own fenced yard and aircon’ unit. They were strung out along an airstrip, at one end of which stood a light aircraft. A wind sock kicked at the sky. A diesel generator hammered in the near-distance. Of the natives themselves there was no sign. Tom stared into the ice-blue eyes. He felt no fear, for once again he was Astande, the Swift One, the Righter of Wrongs.

‘Why’, Tom demanded, ‘was it so important for me to bring this to you? Swai-Phillips or Adams could’ve, after all; they fucking flew here.’

Von Sasser threw back his head and laughed — ‘Aha-ha-ha’ — then stopped abruptly. He tore away the remaining shreds of newspaper to reveal a translucent pod fastened with two clips. Inside this hermetic egg were five wicked-looking scalpels, formed like embryonic harpoons. ‘It’s difficult to get hold of such beauties,’ he ruminated. ‘These are made by Furtwangler Gesellschaft of Leipzig, right. In answer to your very reasonable question, Mr Brodzinski, because of ritual considerations, they had to be brought here together with the individual they’re going to be used to operate on.’

Von Sasser darted Prentice a meaningful look. Then, with a ‘Hup!’, he passed the instrument case sideways to Swai-Phillips, who caught it on the fly and sprinted away towards the school building, still yapping: ‘The man, hoo-ee, yeah! He’s the man!’

It was an unsettling sight, but Tom focused on what the anthropologist had said. ‘Whose ritual considerations?’ he queried.

‘Why’ — Von Sasser smiled — a worrying expression — ‘mine, of course.’

Adams had hung back during this exchange. Now he approached them, saying, ‘I think all necessary, ah. . explanations will be forthcoming in good time, Tom. You must be tired after your long journey. I believe you are to be accommodated in the Technical College. Allow me to escort you there. Herr Doktor has invited you — me’ — he made an inclusive gesture — ‘all of us, to dinner at his house in an hour. I’m sure then he will do us the honour of expounding further.’

But the skeletal anthropologist made no response to this démarche. He swivelled on his heel, squeaked back up the stairs and disappeared into the gingerbread chalet.

The College was derelict but in an anomalous way. Bull dust lay inches deep in the wide corridors, and every classroom had had a rock chucked through its window. There was an air of chronic desuetude — the air musty, drifts of dead flies on all the surfaces. Yet wanton destruction was confined to isolated acts of vandalism: a photocopier broken down into its smallest component parts, steel lockers that had been opened like tin cans, a laptop computer that had been snapped into four equal portions, then neatly stacked on a desk.

Adams allocated one classroom to Tom, the next to Prentice and the one beyond that to Gloria, who hung back, flattening her robe against empty bulletin boards, as the two men ranged along the corridors. Prentice waited outside, smoking against a wall.

Tom pushed four desks together, then unrolled his swag on the capacious platform. He retrieved his shortie suit from the bottom of his battered flight bag. In the boys’ washroom he shaved himself as best he could. He had to bend down low to capture sections of his sunburned face in the single remaining shard of mirror.

Back in the classroom he dressed, then got his pocket knife and excised the bundle of currency from its hiding place in Songs of the Tayswengo . He had just put it in his jacket pocket when the clanging of an iron bar began reverberating against the sole intact windowpane.

The bar was still being struck when Tom stepped out from the main doors. He had one of the Galil rifles slung over each shoulder; he held the handle of the set of cooking pots in his hand, and as he marched towards Von Sasser’s chalet they rattled against his leg. As Tom mounted the stairs to the veranda, Swai-Phillips left off banging and recommenced babbling. ‘Yee-ha!’ he cried in cowpoke style. ‘Howdy, pardner, I see you with my lil’ ol’ eye.’ Seamlessly, he morphed into holy roller. ‘You’ve come to bow down before the man , come to reverence the man ! For he speaks of many things! He has a mul-ti-tude of revelations! And yea! Verily! He speaks the truth !’