Peter Carey - Collected Stories

Wallis saw him smiling to himself and felt an almost uncontrollable desire to punch him in the face.

9.

Three months later the letter to his son lay forgotten in the top drawer of his desk, documentation of a temporary aberration, a momentary loss of faith.

In the spare white-walled house not an item was out of place, not a match, a piece of fluff, a suggestion of lint, an unwashed plate or a carelessly dropped magazine disturbed its pristine tidiness. The records were stacked neatly, the edge of each sleeve flush with the shelf, arranged in faultless alphabetical order.

The dirty clothes in the laundry basket were folded as fastidiously as the dresses in a bride’s suitcase.

Gerrard, sitting at the desk, continued work on the fourth draft of an ever lengthening article which he planned for world release. It had many titles. The current one was “A Machine Built for Freedom”. The title, of course, referred to the Kristu-Du. The treatise itself was gradually becoming less coherent and more obscure, as it attributed almost mystical power to the great domed building. What had begun as a simple analogy with a machine had long since ceased to be that. The building was a machine, an immense benevolent force capable of overthrowing tyrannies and welding tribes into nations.

Now he was speeding through a long and difficult section on the architecture of termites in relationship to their social structure. The handwriting became faster and faster as the pen jabbed at the paper and stretched small words into almost straight lines. There was little time, a week at most, and the more he wrote the more he thought of that he should include. For now, today, it seemed that his faith had been well placed: the scenario was going through its first movement. As the site had at last been tidied, as most of the workers had left, the rumours had begun about a gathering of the tribes, and now today it had been publicly proclaimed. Gerrard read the morning newspaper with the tense elation of a man who is three good shots away from winning a golf tournament. He knew he was not there yet. Not yet. Not yet.

But the gamble would pay off, it must pay off. It had not been an easy time and his faith in the scenario had been by no means constant, but a cautious inquiry here, a journey there, a piece of gossip from the minister, little odds and ends had confirmed the probability of the events the departed Wallis had predicted.

If three months ago he had been despised at the site, he had become openly hated. If he had once been distant, he had since become rude. If once he had been insensitive, he had become ruthless. He was anaesthetized, a man running over hot coals towards salvation. The second shooting barely touched him, the reported beatings had become technical difficulties to overcome. A list had been compiled by the staff and the workers containing serious allegations about him. Even as he wrote his treatise this list was being released to the world press. Had he known, he would have considered it part of the gamble. As he introduced Pericles into the termite society, he was afire with faith.

This time next week the Kristu-Du would have produced a new society. He prayed feverishly that it wouldn’t rain.

10.

It was happening.

It was said that Oongala skulked in his palace afraid. It was said openly in the streets.

Already the tribes had been gathered for four days. They camped around the Kristu-Du in their hundred thousands and inside it as well. Oongala’s army brought them water in trucks, and delivered food daily. Goats were slaughtered and fires lit.

The minister was no longer to be found in his office and Gerrard found only a chicken clicking down the tiled corridors of the state offices.

Tanks were in evidence in the town and helicopters hovered anxiously.

Gerrard remained in his house, waiting for the call that would tell him Oongala was on his way to the site. One visit to the site had convinced the architect that he had nothing to fear about the accuracy of Wallis’s scenario. The mood amongst the tribes was distinctly hostile. Soldiers of the army were spat on and dared not retaliate. Gerrard himself, an unknown white man, was bustled and shouted at. The hatred thrilled him. Each curse brought him closer to the realization of his dream. He saw Itos talking to Berehvas, Joflas to Lebuya, and in the midst of such violent concorde he felt an excitement of almost sexual dimensions.

Finally, on the fifth day, Oongala emerged from the palace, an uncertain parody of a triumphant smile on his huge cruel face. Gerrard, receiving his long-awaited phone call, followed the entourage in his Land Rover.

It was not a sensible thing to do, to associate himself publicly with the ruling party, but he followed it like a child following a circus parade.

The tribes waited sullenly, united beside and beneath the awesome dome.

In the four days Gerrard had been away from the site many words had been spoken. As tribe spoke with tribe, brother with brother, as they fired each other with their common anger, their breath rose high inside the great copper dome. So many people, each one breathing, speaking, some shouting, singing, and from each the breath rose and was held and contained by the copper cupola.

By the third day the roof of the dome was no longer visible to those who sat 1,000 feet below on the tiered steps. A fine mist, like a fog, hung there, a curious contradiction to the cold cloudless day outside.

By the fourth day the mist had turned to a definite cloud. And Gerrard, had he seen this, would have immediately understood the enormity of the mistake he had made. For the copper dome was acting as an enormous condenser and the breath of the people swirled in strange clouds inside the dome, regarded with fear and apprehension by the tribes.

Oongala entered the valley at precisely four o’clock on the fifth day, just as the weak sun disappeared behind the mountains and a sharp chill descended on the valley.

He drove through the crowd to the door, waving and smiling. Their mood was uncertain, and if there was a little cheering there was also much silence. Oongala entered the Kristu-Du in full military uniform, one large man going to meet death with more courage than many would have thought him capable of.

Gerrard Haflinger strode jauntily towards the building in a crisp white suit, not yet aware that he had built a machine that would keep these primitive people in Oongala’s murderous grip for another forty-three years.

For at this instant the great clouds inside the cupola could hold the water no more and rain fell inside the Kristu-Du, drenching the drought-stricken people in a heavy continuous drizzle.

Gerrard Haflinger had designed a prison, but he did not know this yet and for the eighty seconds that it took him to force his way through the hysterical crowd he still remained, more or less, sane.

Crabs is very neat in everything he does. His movements are almost fussy, but he has so much fight in his delicate frame that they’re not fussy at all. Lately he has been eating. When Frank eats one steak, Crabs eats two. When Frank has a pint of milk, Crabs drinks two. He spends a lot of time lying on his bed, groaning, because of the food. But he’s building up. At night he runs five miles to Clayton. He always means to run back, but he always ends up on the train, hot and sweating and sticking to the seat. His aim is to increase his weight and get a job driving for Allied Panel and Towing. Already he has his licence but he’s too small, not tough enough to beat off the competition at a crash scene.

Frank drives night shift. He tells Crabs to get into something else, not the tow truck game, but Crabs has his heart set on the tow trucks. In his mind he sees himself driving at 80 m.p.h. with the light flashing, arriving at the scene first, getting the job, being interviewed by the guy from 3UZ’s Night Watch.