24. Going Home
Lucia had expected that it would be easy to travel to the Palace and hard to get inside once she got there; but it proved to be the other way round. The disorder in the streets of Sescastri meant that public transport was at a standstill, and taxis were rare. In the end she got a lift into the city and walked the rest of the way; she found she still knew the streets quite well. There were angry crowds round the Palace, and it took her some time to work her way round to the entrance, but as soon as the guards heard that she was expected, they let her through without even troubling to check her credentials.
Inside, the place seemed almost empty. A frowning, pig-faced guard in a peaked cap, who was the only person sitting at the reception desk, ignored her completely and in the end she simply walked off to the President’s office on her own inititative; although it had been many years, she still knew the layout.
The Agraci Palace was smaller and less impressive than it had been when she was young. It was much clearer now that a lot of the decorative work was second-rate and lamely imitative. The place was indeed, Lucia saw now, an artistic treasure of a kind; but its particular charm was the way it presented a naïve, unselfconsciously provincial take on high art. It was sort of baroque, but baroque by hearsay, baroque passed through a chain of Chinese whispers; and it was baroque enthusiastically updated to accord with the tastes of the 1970s. It reminded her of the LPs her father had kept in the flat where she and her mother lived, and played whenever he visited; records in which Mozart was rendered on a vibraphone and Handel was finally given the rhythm section he had always so sadly lacked. On a table to the side she noticed an ivory figure; Botticelli’s Venus clumsily realised in three dimensions; hair, fig leaf and other added embellishments in ormolu. The shell in which the goddess stood had been used as an ashtray – who knows, had probably been intended as one. She began mentally roughing out a magazine article which she knew would go down well with her editor if she could get a few good photographs to go with it: she would announce the rediscovery of a neglected style – Dubitanian Eclectico. Sophisticated Parisians would love it; Americans would try to buy it. The Twentylanders would not even notice that they were being patronised. She became aware of her own disloyalty and remembered the serious nature of her visit.
There was hardly anyone around. In the old days, the Palace had been a teeming anthill of officials and politicians, now she saw only a few people here and there, all of whom seemed to be hurrying away with boxes and bags. Could they actually be evacuating? Were things that bad already? No-one was waiting in the ante-room, and there was no-one at the secretary’s desk. After a moment’s hesitation, Lucia pushed the door open, and there he was at his desk, not fatter as she had imagined, but thinner, almost shrunken, white-haired, and wearing glasses. Shockingly, he did not recognise her at first.
“About time,” he said, “Where is Liavetna?”
“Daddy,” said Lucia, “It’s me.”
He stared at her for a few moments, and then gave a guarded smile.
“I’m glad you’ve finally come back,” he said, “Sit down.”
She sat down on the sofa; he remained behind his desk.
“I read your letter,” he said, “Such a long letter. And such a terrible thing for a father to have to read! Such lies! Lucia, I don’t understand why you didn’t ask me about any of this at the time. Was I so frightening?”
“The things Stilin told me,” she said, “Weren’t they at least partly true?”
“Of course they weren’t true,” he said. There was a faint sound of shouting from the street outside. He opened a desk drawer, took out the long letter, and put on his glasses.
“That bastard,” he said, “really, it’s too much, I mean, I lived in fear of him for years, but if I’d known what he was saying about me… See, this business of Sophia Faratrin: first the mother and then the daughter!”
“It wasn’t true?”
“Oh yes, I believe it’s true up to a point, something like that happened, but the small incorrect detail is that it happened to the Roman Emperor Tiberius, not to poor little Marki Larvartin. But I see why he told you this; he wanted it in the back of your mind when he told you that final, disgusting lie, so that you would be ready to believe it. And then it seems I procured under-age girls for Glauci Vespin! The way he twists it! I always insisted that the Council of Twenty must be morally above reproach; but people told me that Glauci was involved with young girls. Stilin would have had him shot, perhaps: that was his usual remedy. Me, I waited until we were visiting the school and then I whispered in his ear: so are these the kind you like, Glauci? It was enough.”
“Lavordin; the same, the same twisting of the truth. The singing. You see, Lucia, the real problem at Lavordin was that there was food there. At that time people were starving, so they would pretend to be ill in order to get into the hospital, where at least they could eat. The doctors would not help me identify the healthy ones; they did not want to throw anyone out, they meant well even if the hospital was collapsing under the sheer numbers of people who wanted to be admitted. So I told the patients that anyone who was too ill to sing loudly would be shot, to free up the beds. Then the ones that sang loudest and seemed fit got a boot up the arse and told that if they malingered again, they’d have me to answer to. No-one was really shot.”
“And you were never in league with cousin Ursin to betray your comrades, either?”
“Lucia, I did some bad things, but they were always done to save my own life. What could I do: between him and Stilin, I had to do what I was told. They were terrible men; every day I thought one or other of them would kill me. Look. Lucia, this was all a plot of Stilin’s to send you away. He never wanted there to be anyone else I might listen to. That’s why he got rid of Ursin, and your mother, and poor Porfri… He’s dead himself now, thank God – oh no, not me, I didn’t touch him. It was his lungs. He smoked too much, you know that.”
Lucia opened her mouth as if to speak, but thought better of whatever she was going to say. Then she tried again.
“I haven’t come here to listen to more explanations. I don’t want the truth any more,” she said, “No more true stories. Was there ever an explanation that really made things better? I never seem to hear one. I’ve come to realise that all I want is better, more uplifting lies. I want the shiny surface. I’m just looking for a really good liar; I know that now. But there’s one thing I do want to tell you. All this stuff, do you know what you did to me? You destroyed my ability to trust anyone, to believe in anything simple or good. Do you understand? Once, in Italy, I was sitting in the student common room, and we were watching the television. There was footage of Nelson Mandela, that speech he made after being released. The others were all drinking it in, how saintly he was; and all I could think was: who the hell do you think you’re fooling, you wicked old man?”
“Ah, comrade Mandela,” he observed, “who could blame him?”
“But do you know what the worst thing is?” she demanded, “The worst of all? Never in my life will I be able to hear anyone say ‘I love you’ and just believe them. You took that from me forever: I will never have it.”
“But I love you, Lucia; I always did; you must know that. I wish we had talked about this, if only you had come to me. I wish we could have straightened things out. This last business – did you really believe that I was the father of Felicia’s child? That’s atrocious, I can’t believe that.”
“No, I never believed that; the way Stilin presented it, like a conjuror bringing out his rabbit; just another trick. He had miscalculated, in any case; I think he had assumed that Felicia was ashamed, that she would be secretive about Grigori’s father. But Felicia was not ashamed of anything and she had already told me, quite casually, that the father was Leo Asmodin. That was far more credible.”
“So if you didn’t believe him, why did you leave like that?”
She shook her head irritably.
“I was always going to leave,” she said, “Don’t you remember? That was why I came to see you in the first place; because I wanted to leave. Nothing Stilin could say was going to change that. Once I found out that my family was a lie, I wanted to get away; and that meant away from Dubitania. Stupid Stilin was so used to manipulating people he never noticed that I didn’t need manipulating. He was wasting his time – he should have just handed over the passport; I would have gone.”
“Well then,” he said, “at least you came back today. If I am so bad, why have you come?”
She frowned at him.
“I’ve come to rescue you. Dubitania is falling apart. The whole Eastern bloc is falling apart. It can’t last – you can’t get the Russians to come in this time. I’ve come to take you away. Come to Paris now before it’s too late.”
“Excuse me, this country is called Twentyland, if you would remember? I’m not in danger. Gorbachev, those other people, they let things go. I don’t let things go. I used to be afraid. You know, it’s true, I have had many enemies. I used to see them in my dreams, coming with guns and ropes. But I don’t fear that any more. You see Lucia, we have passed a watershed in history. With the gradual improvement of technology and organisation, a determined leader can now keep himself in power whatever people think of it. And I am that lucky person, the one who was on top when the wheel froze forever. The days of revolution are over; the people cannot kill the King any more. Of course, if the King is stupid enough to open the borders and send away his soldiers, he must face the consequences; I’m not doing that. ”
“Nice theory, Daddy, but I’m afraid the evidence says otherwise. You know there are crowds of people outside this very building shouting for your head? You know that the Peasant Union members who you called out to march in your favour have joined the protest? You know that the CPV have had to deploy their own men to protect this building because the municipal police refused to do it? And the only thing that’s holding the CPV together is the fear of what will happen to them when the regime is swept away?”
“It’s Inmacra. He was slack, he let things go. I had to get rid of him, get a new man. He’ll sort it out. But no politics here, please, can’t we talk like father and daughter? If I am so bad, why not just leave me to my inevitable fate? Don’t tell me you don’t care a little, Lucia.”
“I do care. I certainly care. You know what I’ve discovered about myself? I’m an intensely selfish person. Those friends you betrayed and killed, all those people who starved because of you; oh, I disapprove, but they don’t mean anything to me really. Not in the final analysis. I don’t get upset over them. What matters, what I do care about, is what you did to me. That’s all I can deal with. And… well, I suppose you know you came for me once when I was unpopular. At school. Whatever you are, whatever you’ve done, you did that. You came for me; I thought I should come for you.”
“I remember,” he said softly, and smiled. “So I did one good thing, perhaps that’s something at least. Maybe when I’m dead I’ll get one afternoon out of Hell now and then, you think so, Lucia?”
“I didn’t say it was a good thing. Just that it was one real thing you did for me.”
“So I never did anything else for you? What a bad father.”
“Don’t give me that!” she exclaimed, “What, you mean you clothed and fed me and brought me up, all that? Everything you gave me belonged to other people; all you did was say hello every so often when you came by to screw my mother.”
“OK, so none of that counts, it’s fair enough. And I never did anything good? That’s a shame. I wish I had just done one good thing that you could remember when I’m gone. I suppose I must be grateful you remember that maybe once I did some one small thing for you, even if it was not a good thing.”
They sat in silence for a few moments.
“What was it you whispered in the teacher’s ear?” she asked at last.
“I remember exactly. I said to her, you see that flag outside, comrade, with the twenty stars? Well if I ever, ever again hear that my daughter has been made unhappy in this place, your guts will be flying from that flagpole in less than thirty minutes. Please understand that I am a simple man, not a teacher, I do not understand metaphors or figures of speech.”
He smiled proudly; suddenly there was a loud bang from somewhere else in the building.
“But this is intolerable!” he exclaimed. He went to the door and threw it open. “Liavetna! Where the hell are you?” he shouted.
There was no-one, but another bang floated up the stairs, and then another.
“Come with me,” said Larvartin, setting off towards the noise. “What has happened here – where is everyone?”
“Don’t go down there. I think the protestors have broken in.” said Lucia.
“Nonsense! It’s just Inmacra’s mess.”
They walked down the stairs and through the corridor to the entrance hall. The Palace was deserted. The empty rooms they passed seemed to have been abandoned in haste: Larvartin stopped to look into one or two, but there was no-one there. As they arrived in the hall there was another tremendous bang: it was clear that the CPV, one way or another, had gone: the protestors, instead of standing behind barricades, were now at the door, and attempting to beat it down.
The pig-faced guard, at least, was still sitting behind the desk.
“What the hell is going on here?” demanded Larvartin, “Call security! Where are they?”
The guard did not reply: he merely stared back at Larvartin. For an uncomfortable few moments they stared at each other in silence.
“Is there a back way out?” asked Lucia.
“No,” said Larvartin, beginning to look fearful as well as angry, “But there is a helicopter on the roof.”
The lift, facing directly into the hall, was small and antiquated, one of the kind with a folding grille instead of a door. It took three attempts to get the grille to close properly, and then the lift seemed to move very slowly. The steady banging receded hearteningly as they rose; luckily the doors of the Palace were sturdy, built for defensive use. On the top floor Larvartin led the way to a short staircase up to a door which gave on to the roof: but the helicopter was not there.
Larvartin shaded his eyes and scanned the horizon.
“There!” he said, “You see him? The bastard can only have taken off a few minutes ago.”
“What now?”
“There is an emergency phone back down in the entrance hall. I think I’ll have to call somebody.”
“Do we have to go down there again?”
“Well, otherwise we could go to the cellars and lock ourselves in until it’s all over. But I don’t like that idea too much. There are still a lot of people down there, prisoners, and some of them are not nice.”
“Alright. Let’s try the hall.”
As the lift descended, the banging gradually became louder again. Lucia put a hand over her eyes.
The pig-faced guard was gone now; it seemed they were entirely alone in the Palace. Larvartin reached over the desk and pulled out a red phone. He put it to his ear, but it was clearly no good.
“Dead,” he said, “Lucia, I’m sorry about this. I think the best thing is to go back to the roof. They won’t be able to reach us there, and someone will send a helicopter or the CPV will come back if we wait it out.”
The lift grille stuck again and would not open properly. Lucia squeezed into the lift through the gap: Larvartin seized the handle and shoved it back and forward. After a moment it gave way, shut with a clang, and bounced open again a few centimetres; this time it was stuck fast and they could not move it. In the background there was a grinding sound as the lock on the great front door of the Palace finally gave way. A group of angry people burst through.
“There he is!” shouted someone, “By God, that’s him – look!”
One of them waved a noose.
“The rope is waiting for you, Larvartin!” he said.
They crowded into the hall; for the moment some strange inhibition seemed to keep them at arm’s length. Larvartin stepped away from the lift, but his escape was already blocked. He took a step towards the protestors and held up one arm: the rhetorical gesture somehow brought silence.
“Comrades!” he said, in an affected, oratorical voice: “Think carefully before you do this. I am an old man. Do you want to make yourselves murderers in order to shorten my life by a miserable few weeks?”
“It’s a deal,” said one of the protestors, a bald man in a thick quilted jacket. They all laughed.
“There’s another one. Who’s that?” asked another, pointing at Lucia, who was standing frozen in the lift.
“Her? I should be asking you,” said Larvartin, “Isn’t she one of yours? She came at me with a knife twenty minutes ago.”
“Is that true?” demanded the bald man.
“Comrade,” said Larvartin, dropping the oratorical tone and speaking in the demotic accent of Sescastri “I’m not going to use my last breath for telling lies.”
They dragged him away to find somewhere they could hang their rope.
And that is it: 63,304 in the end. Badly in need of editing and revision, but that can wait a bit. Sincere thanks to everyone who has read some or all of it; any feedback is very welcome. My apologies to the people who were directed here by Google even though they were clearly looking for something else entirely.
(Incidentally, anyone who read last year’s effort may be interested to know that the chapter where John Faletcher gives an irritable dismissal of the non-existent word ‘diminimus’ still attracts a small trickle of people trying to look it up. I’m sure he would be pleased, and I hope they’re edified.)
