Nanowrimo Winner

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.)

There’s something a bit melancholy about working on a Nanowrimo novel on the first of December, like sitting writing in the classroom when everyone else has run off to play. But Chapter 24 is the last, so not long now. Anyway, are you sitting comfortably? Ahem.

23. Stilin’s advice

There was more, lots more sheaves of paper, but I could not read it all. In the end I decided it was time to see Stilin again.

But first I had a long conversation with my mother. She apologised for having deceived me about my father and said she wanted me to see the best side of him. She was still sure that he was essentially a good, well-meaning man, devoted to the precepts of socialism and actively struggling for a better society; but a man who had been led astray by Ursin and others; including Stilin, who in her view was responsible for many of the worst things that had happened. She said she wished I could talk to Juri Hofstadt; in the past he had told her that my father’s interventions over the Battle of Sescastri appeared to have been dictated by Stilin. He said that my father would be speaking and then Stilin would cough and they would withdraw; when they came back, my father was always taking a harder line. She asked me again not to believe uncritically what Stilin said, and I reassured her that I was far from doing so.

I told her about my visit to Felicia, and she looked troubled. Our flat must look infinitely worse by comparison? Perhaps, she suggested, I felt badly about being trapped in such an inferior place. Did I want her to ask my father for a better flat to live in? She did not want to be indebted to him, but perhaps it was unfair to impose her scruples on me – there was no reason why I should not accept my father’s help. I reassured her, though to be completely honest, not without a little regret. Felicia’s place was very nice.

I made an appointment and set off for Tabula House. Once we were settled in Stilin’s little office again, I put the box containing his manuscript on his desk.

“Thank you,” I said, “I haven’t read it all, but I’ve read enough. I don’t believe it’s the truth, but I believe there’s some truth in it.”

Stilin shifted uncomfortably in his chair and glanced suddenly at the surface of his desk.

“You spoke to D’Issigny,” he said, “You tricked him into telling you about poor Obertin.”

Of course he knew. Probably D’Issigny, too scared to tell my father, had hedged his bets by telling Stilin. Or perhaps his flat was bugged, why not? Probably Stilin could listen to every conversation I ever had.

“Yes. That was all I got out of him, though – that and a copy of Mischkoff.”

“And you went to see Felicia. I can’t think she shed much light on things for you, though, did she?”

“I learned a few things. I didn’t know until then that she was the one at the Mayday parade, the little girl on my father’s shoulders. My mother had always let me believe it was me.”

Stilin shook his head sympathetically.

“Oh. Well, you know, Lucia, that may not be such a great thing as you suppose. They talk about the parade as if it were some splendid thing – that’s partly my own doing, of course, I wrote a lyrical account of it for the newspapers – but in truth it was really one of the low points of your father’s career.”

“How can that be?”

“You see,” said Stilin, settling back, “Your father was very unpopular at that stage. He had betrayed Sescastri and subjected it to a terrible slaughter. So many people had friends or relations who had died in a struggle for freedom which, they thought, would have been successful but for your father’s intervention. And all so that your father, as they saw it, could put the country under the domination of his friends the Russians. Many people also resented the way he seemed to have taken it on himself to rename the country after himself and his friends: why not call it ‘Larvartinia’ and have done with it, they said.”

“At any rate, your father believed, with some justification, that he was hated, and when the Russians announced that they were pulling out, he was panic-stricken. He literally begged poor Ostrovsky, on his knees, to get Stalin to agree that the Russian soldiers could stay. He was convinced that as soon as they left he would be murdered. But of course it was no good. Ostrovsky told him that they had other priorities. I wonder whether Ostrovsky secretly hoped that your father would be killed or overthrown – he certainly didn’t like him much.”

“The Mayday parade, without the Russians, filled him with special dread. He would have to appear in public and his life would be in danger. In fairness, there was some real danger; on the day there were six assassination attempts, though none of them were very well-planned. I believe D’Issigny told you about the Sons of Obertin. Poor Obertin would have been embarrassed by their clumsiness if he had been alive.”

“When the day came, there was more bad news. The Russians had provided us with a handful of tanks and other equipment, but on the day most of them broke down. It was clear that sabotage was involved, although you could say that that was merely the last straw, given the age and condition of the vehicles. Then the news came that one regiment was refusing to leave its barracks. Ursin said that the loyalty of the others could not be counted on in these circumstances, and he advised leaving them where they were until he could deal with them, to minimise the risk of a protest turning into outright mutiny. It was beginning to look as if the parade would consist of a detachment of CPV men.”

“When the time came to start, your father refused to go out on the balcony with the rest of the Council of Twenty: he was afraid he would be picked off by a sniper. Then he saw that besides the CPV men, there were still civilians in the parade: athletes, academics, and schoolchildren, He decided that the only way for him to be safe was to walk in the procession, among the schoolchildren: that way no-one could shoot him without hitting innocent kids. To make himself even safer he grabbed his own daughter and put her on his shoulders.”

“The people who had come out to see the parade were puzzled: up on the balcony I said some words about how Comrade Larvartin had our futures in his hands; I meant it as a glib rationalisation, but I’m afraid that to many of those present, who could see their children surrounded by secret policemen, it must have sounded like a threat; whatever you think of us, you’d better do what we say because we’ve got your children. At any rate, your father survived, and Ursin was able to purge the army officers who had caused the trouble and replace them with men of his own. After that, there was never quite the same problem again. But you see what I mean: Felicia should not be too pleased about being used as a shield.”

“My God, Stilin,” I said, “You are a horrible man.”

“Yes, I am,” he acknowledged, “Though I think you mean that was a horrible story. But now, Lucia, this is the point. I think you are in danger. This business has reminded your father of your existence, he has become interested in you again. Just as he used Felicia – I might say, as he has used me – he will use you if he gets the chance. You are not safe any longer. Now, I believe you wanted to go to Italy. I have managed to obtain for you a passport and all the necessary paperwork, including tickets. But you must leave immediately, because your father will soon find out what I have done, and then it will be too late.”

“Stilin, I am not afraid of my father,” I said, angrily, “He may have done dreadful things in his career, but I am not in danger. You are more dangerous to me than he would ever be. He may have put Felicia in danger once, but only in extreme circumstances, when he wasn’t thinking clearly.”

Stilin merely inclined his head, not exactly nodding. He sat very still, and spoke into his chest.

“Lucia,” he said, “Did you know that Felicia has a young son? Oh yes, you saw him, didn’t you? Young Grigori? I wonder: did you ask who his father is?”

“His father?”

Stilin raised his eyes and stared at me.

“What are you implying? My God, you’re vile. No, Stilin, no. I don’t believe that. No.”

“Your mother,” said Stilin, with a spark of what seemed like genuine anger, “says I am a liar, though as God is my witness if I were to tell you as many lies as she has, we should be sitting here until winter came. Take these papers, take them with you, and make up your own mind. I wash my hands of it.”

He took out his cigarettes and tried to light one, but his hands were shaking too much. I had thought nothing could upset him, but he was trembling: with anger? Fear?

“Stilin, really…”

“I’m sorry, that is my last word,” he said, primly, “I’ve done what I was asked to do: tell the truth. I have warned you of the danger you are in, since it was my duty. I’ve put my own life in the gravest danger in doing so, and I will go no further. The story is ended. You must leave my office now; if you are wise you will leave this country too; but that is your concern.”

I took the papers, the tickets – there was money too – and I left.

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