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12. May Day

Of all the stories my mother told me about my father, the one which made the deepest impression on me, of course, was the story of May Day.

When the Russians finally decided to leave Twentyland, Colonel Ostrovsky came to see my father for the last time.

“I take it for granted, Comrade,” he said, “that your country will remain a loyal observer of the Warsaw Pact and fully co-operative with the fraternal economic and political initiatives of your allies. I just hope that now you’ve got the place, you can run it, because you won’t be getting any help – you understand that?”

He paused, sighed, and took off his hat.

“Good luck, Marki,” he said, “You’re going to need it. Lots of it. But you won’t fail through lack of cheek. Comrade, I salute you for the last time.”

He embraced my father and marched out of the Palace forever.

People assumed that once the Russians had gone there would be an adjustment: that Tretchin would be unceremoniously ejected and my father would take over as Prime Minister. Tretchin must have thought so, because he tried to leave the country and was intercepted at the airport. My father reassured him: there would be proper elections for a new Prime Minister in due course, in which he was welcome to stand if he wished: in the meantime my father would remain President.

What happened was that without any law being passed, or any appointments being made, the President somehow became the real leader of his country and the office of Prime Minister became a minor one. Perhaps it would be truer to say that people recognised openly now that my father had always been the leader, whatever the Russians thought about it.

Nevertheless, Ostrovsky’s references to my father needing luck were not idle. The people of Twentyland had soon got over their gratitude at being liberated, and they were not at all happy to find themselves in the Soviet orbit. In old Dubitania, there had been a somewhat unrealistic sense of being a leading Romance nation, one of the three pillars of European culture along with France and Italy. Dubitania looked first to the Mediterranean for its culture: and second, to Germany and Austria. The Twentylanders still regarded the Russians as very much their inferiors: to have Russian soldiers swaggering through the streets of Sescastri, helping themselves to any small items that took their fancy, seemed to them a deeply wounding humiliation, and to have their children taught Russian at school instead of French was quite unendurable. The departure of the Russians obviously did a great deal to dispel these tensions, but there was still some resentment against the Party and it was quite possible that this resentment would turn itself against my father. There was no doubt that certain clandestine groups had begun making plans for risings against his regime in favour of some variety of reactionary bourgeois social democracy, and even, farcically, in support of a restored monarchy. It must be remembered that at this stage, my father had not yet had the freedom to introduce his own distinctive policies, and that while he still commanded the support of the great majority of Twentylanders, he had not yet attained the unanimous popular backing which we now take for granted.

A key milestone would be the first grand May Day parade to be held in Sescastri following the departure of the Red Army. For several months beforehand, Commissar Ursin was forced to neglect his supervision of the police while he attempted to ensure that the armed forces of Twentyland would be able to put on a good show. This was no easy task; frankly, they were threadbare and suffered from low morale.

My father was uneasy about the whole thing, displaying an uncharacteristic quietness and passivity. It seemed as if for the time being he had lost his sense of direction. The one thing that rekindled his energy at that time was the intermittent efforts which were made by Ursin and others to get him to wear the uniform of a Field Marshal.

“I should rather wear a skirt.” he said, “And you know, if you don’t shut up about this, Juri, I really think I will.”

The process of planning seemed dogged by problems; my father said he thought we should set a precedent among the Communist nations of the world by delivering the May Day parade in July. But eventually everything was arranged. Early on the day of the parade, my father was sitting wearing his uncomfortable best suit in the upper room of the Café Napoleon, which had been reserved for his use, when Ursin strode in with a grim smile on his face.

“We’ve got an assassin, Marki.” he declared jubilantly, “Young fellow, standing in the crowd, carrying a big suitcase with a home-made bomb in it.”

“A suitcase?” asked my father, incredulously.

“Yes. An amateurish piece of work – he was lucky he didn’t blow himself up by accident. My men had him within three minutes of him showing up. I don’t think he had any detailed plan. He was just hoping that somehow he could get near you, and then I suppose he was either going to hurl it at you or blow himself up as well. Amateurs. If this is the best the opposition can do, you can sleep pretty easy.”

“You didn’t shoot him?”

“No, no. Took him clean as a whistle – hop! – the people standing next to him didn’t even know anything had happened. I thought you might want to talk to him. Shall I have him brought up?”

“No, no,” said my father, “I’ll come down.”

They had the boy handcuffed, standing in the open with a couple of Ursin’s men in black uniforms. Behind them, missile launchers and a couple of tanks were edging back and forth arthritically, making a thunderous noise and spewing out clouds of smoke. It was noticeable that the Twentyland markings were fresh and recent, in contrast to the obvious age of the vehicles, and the outline of the earlier Russian markings was still clearly visible.

The boy was tall and thin, rather unhealthy in appearance, about eighteen, pale, with a defiant look on his face. It seemed that the neatness of his extraction from the crowd had not precluded his being given a quick but thorough beating.

“It seemed a great relief to me, at first anyway, that he was fair-haired and looked upper-class somehow,” my father said, “If he had at all resembled Tibri, I’m not sure I could have spoken to him. Though perhaps that would have been better”

“Why did you want to kill me?” he asked the boy, “What have I done to you that would justify that?”

“You killed my father.” the boy replied defiantly.

“Your father?”

“Yes. You and your filthy Russians. He was betrayed, they set a trap and then you shot him down with machine guns. You didn’t even give him a chance.”

“I’m sorry, but I assure you I know nothing about it,” said my father, “I’m afraid it’s true that our Russian allies did not always behave well. Lots of decent men got killed; I did what I could at the time and I bitterly regret that I couldn’t do more, but I don’t think your father’s death was anything to do with me.”

“You deny it,” said the boy, “Like the coward you are. But when they came for him they told him they had come with a present from Comrade Larvartin.”

“What was your father’s name?” demanded my father.

The boy threw back his head in a sad attempt at haughtiness.

“Julio Cesare Obertin.” he said.

My father covered his face with his hands and stood in silence for a long time.

“Marki?” asked Ursin at last.

My father removed his hands and looked at the boy.

“They lied to you,” he said, “They lied atrociously. Your father was my friend. I should rather have died myself than caused his death. I wanted… I would have… He…” he tailed off, shook his head hopelessly and was silent again for several minutes.

“Let him go,” he said to Ursin at last, “He is not to be punished, He has every reason to kill me. He has the right to kill me, in fact. He has the right to kill me three times over if he could.”

“Very well.” said Ursin briskly, and beyond one small twitch of an eyebrow, he betrayed no surprise, “Lads, you heard the Chief. This gentleman is not to be punished. Take him back to the centre and let him clean up a bit, put something on those cuts. Then I want to see him before he goes, to apologise personally – understand? Make sure he waits till I come – alright?”

My father looked unwell and unsteady. They brought a chair and he sat with his face in his hands.

“Time to get ready for the parade, Marki,” said Ursin at last, “This is important, remember? We’ve got to put on a good show for the people.” He looked at my father with real concern. “Marki?” he asked, “Are you OK?” There was no answer. “Look, Marki,” he said, putting one hand on my father’s shoulder, “That was all nonsense. You know as well as I do that Obertin had no son. That story about the Russians is just some malicious nonsense. Chances are, Obertin’s living it up in Rio at this very moment. You know that.”

My father sat up.

“More bombs, more guns, Juri,” he said, “Always more guns.” He stared at the missile launchers which were still revving and shifting on the road nearby. “Tell them to put the bloody things away.” he said, hoarsely.

“What?”

“The guns. Put the bloody guns away. And the soldiers. No, wait – they can stay if they like, but no marching, and no guns. Otherwise they can go back to barracks. We don’t want that today. No more of that.”

“But Marki, they’ve been rehearsing all week. What am I going to say? What do you expect me to tell the commanders of the Twentyland Armed Forces?”

“Tell them to fuck off.” said my father.

* * *

At the dais where my father was due to make his speech, there was consternation. There were rumours that the whole parade had been called off. Then my father appeared, calm and apparently unruffled, although there was no sign of the troops who should have been waiting to salute him. In fact, for the first time, he was smiling in his old, confident way.

My father’s speech began along predictable lines. He expressed gratitude for the fraternal support of the Red Army over many years, and said that Twentyland was now entering on a new era.

“It is customary on these occasions, comrades,” he said, “To make a display of our most formidable weapons. I intend to adhere to that tradition, and I mean to show you the most powerful item in my armoury. With this weapon, I intend to seize, not territory or power, but the future itself. The strange thing about this potent apparatus is that it spreads, not death and destruction, but hope and joy. Comrades, join with me.”

And with that, he reached down and picked up – his three-year-old daughter Lucia! Yes! He held her up for the crowd to see; there was a moment of surprised silence, and then a roar of relief and applause. He set her on his shoulders and descended from the dais. It became clear that he meant to lead the procession himself. From streets on every side came columns of schoolchildren. A group of Ursin’s black-clad henchmen moved among them, handing out flags and balloons with varying degrees of embarrassment, and the whole peculiar cavalcade set off.

At first the crowds of people standing by were puzzled, then gradually they became amused, and finally charmed. The spectacle of my father, like Bacchus and Silenus rolled into one, leading a wild, disorderly procession of laughing children down the grand avenue was irresistible. Parents and other children left the crowds on the pavement to join in, and the procession swelled in size; the difference between procession and audience began to blur. The Sescastri People’s Guard Marching Band appeared, playing a jaunty march; they looked sheepish, but they too began to smile as the spirit of the day caught them up. Gradually the procession split up and turned into a general rout all through the streets of Sescastri; a huge children’s street festival.

“The effect was astonishing,” my mother told me; “Really, it was as though the sun had come out for the first time after a long, long winter. You could see the strain and fear leaving people’s faces. After that day, your father had nothing to fear from anyone.”

That is why, unlike all its allies, Twentyland has May Day parades without guns, composed mainly of children; and not orderly bands of Young Pioneers or carefully drilled gymnasts, but chaotic, joyful, promenading parties, that roam all over the town, where the soldiers are dressed as clowns or pixies, and no weapon more deadly than a balloon on a stick is ever to be seen.

This parade was of course the occasion depicted in the famous poster “Encarpa Futura!” which you can still see displayed in waiting rooms and other public spaces; it shows the famous piggy-back ride with the slogan in large letters in the background. My mother has often told me of the deep impression made by the figure of my father waltzing tirelessly through the streets.

“He laughed so much,” she said, “It was infectious. You couldn’t help joining in. He laughed and laughed until the tears were streaming down his face.”

*”Grasp the future!”

34,131 words