John Berger - Lilac and Flag

Every day the law of the funnel spreads further and further, said Murat.

What’s the law of the funnel?

The funnel of wealth, Newborn, it’s broad for some and narrow for others.

A hopper came down to be filled. Sucus pushed it up against the drum.

Bull! shouted Murat and lowered his outstretched arms.

Nobody could any longer remember how the shouted word bull had come to mean slacken, in place, home! It was a kind of oath. The crane drivers could rarely hear it and they depended for their manoeuvres on manual signs and the evidence of their own eyes. The oath was simultaneously a curse and a mute plea.

The giant drum turned counterclockwise, its tongues lolled sideways, the feed came out.

Murat took off his helmet and lifted it into the air. The hopper with its grey rain rose higher than small birds fly.

You’ve never imagined the world different? asked Murat.

Yes, maybe they’ll blow it up.

And us with it.

So where’s your justice? demanded Sucus looking hard into Murat’s calm black eyes.

Take a baby’s hands, said Murat, wiping his forehead with the back of his glove, they’re so delicate, so well made. Their nails are like tiny rose petals, each finger able to move by itself. Perfectly made fists, the size of apricots! Why are baby’s hands like that?

I don’t know.

Made for what?

Wiping up crap.

No, for taking what belongs to us.

Nothing belongs to us.

One day it will.

Never.

Murat threw a tiny switch and another measure of cement fell into the mixing bin.

If we keep the idea of justice alive under our yellow helmets, Murat said, if we all keep it alive together, one day the world will belong to us.

You’re a dreamer like my dad was.

So why are baby’s hands so well made?

I don’t know.

Now Murat threw the switches for the gravel and sand.

What union was your father in?

He wasn’t.

You said he was a dreamer.

My father dreamt of the village he left, and you, you dream of the future. Meanwhile we’re here, you and I are here, mixing concrete here for the Mond Bank.

A shadow moved over the earth. They looked up. The next hopper was coming down from the sky. Sucus went to arrange the sand pile so the grabs could scoop up more. His feet in their canvas shoes were wet from the hosing. The hopper touched ground.

Bull! shouted Murat. Bull!

The cables slackened. The feed came out of the giant drum.

Murat took off his helmet and raised it above his head. A hundred metres above, Yannis nudged the cables so the hopper swung free of the nose of the drum and rose with its grey rain falling.

You should read history, said Murat.

The only book I read’s a dictionary.

In history things often happen when nothing seems to be happening.

Like some nights.

Yes, history has nights and days, said Murat.

And now it’s night?

Now it’s night, it’s been night for a long while.

Do you sleep? asked Sucus.

I’m impatient, and sometimes in the dark my impatience has a voice like an angel.

As he said this, Murat looked up at the clouds which in July often gathered in the late afternoon along the coastline like cattle coming in to drink.

What does she say, your angel?

She always says the same thing. If I am for myself, who are the others? she asks. If others are for themselves, who am I? If not now, when? If not here, where?

Where did she learn that?

They both looked up. Another hopper was coming down to be filled. When Yannis had hoisted it away, full, Sucus said:

Mine’s no angel. Do you know what she says to me?

No.

Give me the earrings, she says. It’s you who’s given them to me and now I’ll never take them off for anyone. Never.

Slowly the working day drew to its end. The last feed slid out of the giant drum and Sucus hosed its tongues so they should not be rough in the morning.

Yannis brought the crab home to his cabin and hoisted up the cables. One by one every engine on the site stopped. The very high clouds were turning green. Yannis slung his bag over his shoulder and came down to earth.

No doubt about it, my young friend, he said to Sucus in the hut where their lockers were, she was asking for a husband, your curly-haired one.

What sort of papers do you need to be a crane driver? Sucus asked.

Papers! It’s all here. Yannis thumped his chest.

No papers at all?

What you need is a head for geometry.

I know geometry, said Sucus.

You need eyes like a hawk.

I’ve got eyes like a falcon.

You need the concentration of an expresso, and a massive head for heights.

All right.

Go on, then. Shift up there and you’ll find out. Climb!

Cato? Sucus was suddenly hesitant.

Cato’s gone. You can fetch a postcard I forgot to bring down. I ought to post it. It’s in the rack for plans, on the left of the throne. Go and try.

It’s not locked?

We never lock up at home.

Sucus left the hut.

Don’t look up or down, Yannis shouted after him, just look ahead. Three hundred and eight rungs. Count them if you want.

Crane, from the Greek geranos , meaning the bird with high legs. The higher Sucus climbed the invisible tower, the more pity he felt in his chest for his father who was dead. Two hundred and ninety-seven. Ten more.

At last he stepped onto the perforated platform, leant on the rail and, for the first time, looked down. On the ground it was dusk. Only the heap of polyester insulation panels showed up because they were white and slightly iridescent like the moon.

On the flat roof of the police station on Cauchy Street a man was running with a stick held up in the air. Suddenly, the man lunged forwards and struck the roof at his feet with the stick, then he knelt down to look closer at where he had struck. It took Sucus some time before he understood: the man was catching butterflies in a net.

The sky was full of a radiance, which was the colour of the inside of a cantaloupe melon, and the jib of the crane stretched out like a metal reef into a lake of light. The neons in the city below were switched on and the windows in many buildings shone like ice.

Sucus entered the cabin, found the postcard exactly where Yannis said it would be, and sat on the driver’s throne. He read the address:

KYRIA XENIA IOANNIDE

ODOS ARTEMIDOS

KASTRO, SAMOS.

It was then he felt the crane swaying. Not in one direction but in two. Swaying on its feet like a man does after knocking back one glass of gnôle too many.

Now I’m alive, he told himself, now I can do anything!

THE CREATURE WHOM the man in a track suit was trying to catch on the roof of the police station was a moth known as the Fiancée. She had brown fore wings the colour of bark, and yellow hind wings the colour of beaten eggs before you make an omelette. Her body was furry and sable coloured. About four centimetres in length, her favourite food is willow leaves. The man held the toe of the net in one hand and the wooden leg of the handle in the other. The Fiancée was flying very low and he came down on her from above. When she was well netted, he slipped in a pill box and she flew up into it because she thought she was flying towards the light. In a moment he would clap the lid on and bring the pill box out of the net.

The hunter was called Hector. When he smiled, his cheeks moved more than the corners of his mouth did. They moved upwards towards the lobes of his big ears. He was a heavy man. He made his way, smiling, past the transmitting aerial on the police station roof, to the door that gave onto the staircase.

The police station on Cauchy Street was nothing like the police station in the next village, where there are curtains in the windows, wives upstairs, and sometimes even the smell of cooking. Cauchy Street smelt of sweat and of slightly burnt glue — as if all the electrical equipment in the building were overheating. As for the sounds, they were of two kinds, depending upon the floor you got out at when the lift doors opened. On the ninth floor every sound was muffled. No sound carried. Everything was out of hearing. On other floors, because there were no carpets or curtains and the men wore boots and the doors were heavy and there were never any sleeping children, every sound was loud and every noise reverberated. Even a glass being filled with tap water sounded menacing. I have been on every floor.