Potboiler (23 page)

88.

Pfefferkorn escaped.

89.

Stumbling from the freight elevator in the casino’s parking garage, his hair wild and his shirt torn, he saw the Town Car with the tinted windows. Two men were waiting by the rear of the car. One was blond and the other was bald. They were both dressed in black. Pfefferkorn sprinted toward them and got into the popped trunk.

The ride this time was more comfortable than it had been coming into East Zlabia. For one thing, the Lincoln’s trunk was roomier. Also, he wasn’t tied up or gagged. All the same, he had no idea who his rescuers were or where he was going. He decided to be positive and assume that the Americans had come to exfiltrate him. He bumped along. He felt the road deteriorating, as if they were headed into the countryside. He counted turns. He waited patiently. The ride went on and on. The stuffiness was like a scarf being drawn tight around his neck. He felt his brand-new suit becoming soaked with sweat. He felt the old familiar hysteria. He flailed and pounded the roof of the trunk.

The car slowed.

It stopped.

Doors opened.

The trunk swung open. Pfefferkorn blinked up at the two men in black. The blond man was holding a wad of cloth. There was also a third person. He must have been waiting in the backseat of the car when Pfefferkorn got in.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Pfefferkorn said.

“Hush,” Savory said.

The blond man pressed the cloth into Pfefferkorn’s face.

SIX

(Welcome [Back] to West Zlabia!)

90.

Pfefferkorn fought off his attackers in a series of fluid motions, landing blows to their solar plexuses that left them sinking to their knees, gasping for breath. He heard the satisfying crunch of bone as Lucian Savory’s bulbous forehead caved under a fearsome barrage of elbows and karate chops. He grabbed Savory around the neck and wrung him like a chicken on the eve of Yom Kippur. It felt wonderful. Savory turned five different shades of blue. It was beautiful. Pfefferkorn closed his eyes and reveled in the feel of the old man’s pulse fading beneath his fingers. He kept compressing Savory’s neck, smaller and smaller, until it seemed as though he had squeezed all the blood and bone and neck meat out of the way and was clutching empty skin. He opened his eyes. He was wringing his pillow wrathfully. All the stuffing had been forced out to the sides. He released it and fell back, panting.

His new cell was spartan and chilly. It was made of solid concrete, painted lint gray. He was lying on a mattress on the floor. The mattress was narrow and sharp with twigs. The blanket covering him was made of a coarse goathair. There was a formidable steel desk. There was a wooden desk chair. A drain was set into the floor near the toilet. There was no bidet. The ceiling was high. There were no windows. A fluorescent tube provided the light.

He kicked off the blanket. His custom-made suit was gone, replaced by thick woolen trousers and a scratchy T-shirt. Instead of his penny loafers he wore straw slippers. There was a leg cuff around his left ankle. It was connected to a heavy chain. The chain ran across the floor and attached at the other end to the foot of the desk.

“Sir, good morning.”

The man standing outside his cell was bald and sunken-cheeked. He wore an austere suit and steel-rimmed glasses, and his voice—clipped but clear, accented but precise—marked him as a man of worrisome efficiency. His eyes were black and cold, like twin camera lenses, or a chocolate-covered Eskimo. He bowed deeply.

“Sir, it is an honor to make your acquaintance,” Dragomir Zhulk, the dead prime minister of West Zlabia, said.

91.

“You are surprised. Sir, this is understandable. I, the individual, am dead, or so you have been led to believe. It would be surprising to most people, even a man of your powerful imaginative gifts. Sir, pertinent background information will ameliorate the expression of wonderment that I, the individual, observe in your face.”

Dragomir Zhulk’s version of events differed drastically from both Kliment Thithyich’s and the Americans’. According to Zhulk, the Party had been running the show all along. Everything that happened—from the publication of
Blood Eyes
to Pfefferkorn’s recent stint on death row—was designed either to advance Party aims or to underscore the inherent incompetence and inferiority of the capitalist system.

The Party, he said, had planted the assassination code in
Blood Eyes
, thus exploiting the capitalist system by tricking it into killing Kliment Thithyich, who after all was himself a tool of the capitalist system. That the assassination had failed proved nothing, because anything the capitalist system did must by definition fail, and so while the superficial objective—namely, Thithyich’s death—had not been achieved, the underlying ideological objective—namely, a demonstration of the inherent incompetence and inferiority of the capitalist system—had.

“QED,” Zhulk said.

Blood Night
was also the Party’s handiwork
.
It contained a dummy code designed to disrupt the capitalist system’s transmission sequence, thereby creating confusion. The Party had then carried out the assassination of a man dressed up to look like Zhulk.

“The reason for this is self-evident,” Zhulk said. “The Party wished to give the appearance that I, the individual, was dead. This has enabled me, the individual, to engage in covert activities free from capitalist scrutiny. The comrade who volunteered his life for this purpose has been accorded appropriate honor in death.”

As for the May Twenty-sixers, the movement was not a splinter group at all but a top-secret elite unit of the Party whose ostensible illegality was an ingenious ruse designed to exploit the inferior intellect of capitalist aggressors. “You object: ‘Kliment Thithyich has informed me that he is the leader of this movement.’ Sir, this is incorrect. The ruse he claims as his own is in fact a counter-ruse. The Party has allowed him to believe this, so that the Party may obtain information about his nefarious capitalist designs. Sir, do not be fooled. Many of his most trusted agents in truth work to advance the cause of the Party, including the man you know as Lucian Savory. Sir, everything has gone according to the plan. Soon national destiny shall be achieved in accordance with the principle stated in preamble to the manifesto of the movement of the glorious revolution of the Twenty-sixth of May, which I, the individual, humbly penned at a desk provided by the Party, namely, the reunification of greater Zlabia under true collectivist rule by any means necessary. Sir, it is for this purpose that your government has sent you. QED.”

“I don’t have it,” Pfefferkorn said, or cut in, or interjected, or managed to say.

“Sir?”

“I don’t have it. The Workbench. I don’t know where it is. It was in my suitcase but I lost it when I was kidnapped.”

“Sir, you have been misinformed.”

“I don’t have it. You may as well kill me and get it over with.”

“Sir, you are mistaken. There is no Workbench.”

“At least let Carlotta go. She’s of no further use to you.”

“Sir, you are not listening.” Zhulk began to pace agitatedly in front of the bars. “Your government has misled you. This is not surprising, for the capitalist system is inherently depraved. It is rapacious and bellicose, an abhorrent monster of gluttonous imperialism gorged on materialism and overconsumption. The terms of the deal, sir, do not include carpentry. The terms of the deal, sir, concern you.”

“Me?”

“Sir, yes.” Zhulk plunged his hand inside his coat and withdrew a small hardcover book. He held it up for Pfefferkorn to see, like a hopeful suitor bearing flowers.

The book was covered in a protective plastic wrapper. The jacket was blue with yellow lettering and a drawing of a tree. Pfefferkorn’s own copy, back on the mantel in his apartment, was in far worse shape, and he needed a moment to fully recognize the thing in Zhulk’s hands as a mint-condition first edition of his first and only novel,
Shade of the Colossus
.

The prime minister smiled shyly. He bowed.

“I, the individual,” he said, “am such a very big fan.”

92.

“As a child I dreamed of becoming a writer. My father did not approve. ‘These are not the ambitions of a man,’ he told me. He liked to beat me with a rake, or sometimes a trellis. When he was in a bad mood, he would pick up my infant sister and use her to beat me. He called this ‘saving time.’ Often I prayed for his death. Yet when it came I was heartbroken. Who can understand love?”

He sounded far away. Pfefferkorn noticed that he had dropped the “I, the individual.”

“Alas, I did not become a writer. I became a scientist. I subjugated myself for the sake of serving the Party. Literature was not needed, nuclear power was needed. Still, my greatest pleasure was reading. While a student in Moscow I happened to come upon your book. Sir, I was captivated. I was captured. I was ensnared and entranced. This story of a young man whose father ridicules his attempts to find meaning in art—this story was
my
story. Hungrily I awaited the sequel. I wrote letters. I was informed that no such book existed. Sir, I was bereft. Long after my return home, I grieved. I grieved more than I was to grieve the loss of my first wife, who I regret to say was unloyal to the Party and required removal. Sir, I made further inquiries. Concomitant with my increasing authority within the Party I ordered an overseas investigation. Sir, I was disappointed to learn of your struggles. Here we find the clearest condemnation of the capitalist system. A writer of your extraordinary gifts should be honored and extolled. Instead he languishes in obscurity. Sir, tell me: is this just? The answer must be no.

“Sir, I then resolved to correct this injustice.

“Patiently I worked, and the will of the Party dictated that I should rise to my present position, allowing me to fulfill this resolution of so many years. Sir, I must tell you that I have come to rescue you. Do not thank me. Sir, you will admit the essential baseness of the American capitalist system, a system so ignoble that it would fritter away its greatest living artistic treasure in exchange for partial access under favorable terms to our natural gas field. Be not surprised that your government has betrayed you. The capitalist system is incapable of recognizing true value.

“Sir, the Zlabian people are different.

“Sir, the Zlabian people are by nature symbolic. They are aesthetic. They are poetic. Hence reunification is not strictly a matter of correct economic and military policy. It cannot be achieved merely by collectivizing root vegetable production. It cannot be won with guns and bombs alone. True reunification requires that we overcome the conflict which has long rent us asunder
.
Sir, there are no accidents. Sir, you have been rescued so that you may realize your fullest potential and in doing so enable the Zlabian people to realize ours. Sir, it is with a most vital, historical task that I, the individual, now charge you. Sir, you must beat the rhythm to which our great army will march to victory. You must apply the healing balm that will then seal the wounds of ages. You must sing the songs that will reconcile divided families. It is you, sir, that will bring our glorious people together. Others have tried before and failed. But sir, others were not the author of a great novel. It is you, sir, who will fulfill our national destiny. It is you. Sir, you must take up your pen. You must finish
Vassily Nabochka
.”

93.

“I think you’ve got the wrong guy,” Pfefferkorn said.

“Sir, this is incorrect.”

“Trust me. I’m a lousy poet.”

“Sir, your novel contains any number of passages of such surpassing beauty as to cause aches in the joints and chest.”

“Take an aspirin,” Pfefferkorn said.

Zhulk smiled. “What wit,” he said. “Surely you will exceed all expectations.”

“Where’s Carlotta? What have you done with her?”

“Sir, the question is not convenient.”

“Is she here? Where am I?”

“Sir, this is a place of maximum quietude, encouraging to literary pursuits.”

“I won’t do it. I refuse.”

“Sir, your reaction is understandable. The task of completing the great poem would daunt even the most capable writer.”

“It has nothing to do with the poem. I don’t care about the poem.”

“Denial is understandable.”

“It’s not even that good. Do you know that? It’s long and boring. All that tundra?”

“Sir, this attitude is not convenient.”

“Convenient for whom?”

“Sir—”

“All right. All right. Answer me this: it’s your national goddamned poem, right? Then how can a non-Zlabian finish it?”

“Sir, this observation is understandable. I, the individual, was given pause by the same concern. However, the problem has been removed. A thorough investigation has been done into the matter by the Ministry of Genealogy, and conclusive proof adduced showing the presence of one C. Pfefferkorn, chair maker, in the royal census of 1331. Additionally, your physiognomy is suggestive of native origins.”

Pfefferkorn stared. “You’re out of your fucking mind.”

“Sir, this is incorrect.”

“I’m Jewish.”

“Sir, this is immaterial.”

“My whole family is. Ashkenazi Jews from Germany.”

“Sir, this is incorrect.”

“And Poland. I think. But—but—look, I know for a fact that there is no Zlabian in me.”

“Sir, this is incorrect.”

“I’m not going to argue with you about this.”

“It is the will of the Party that the work be completed in advance of the festival to commemorate the poem’s fifteen-hundredth anniversary.”

“Hang on a second,” Pfefferkorn said. “That’s next month
.
”

Zhulk bowed. “I, the individual, leave you to great thoughts.”

He walked away.

“Wait a minute,” Pfefferkorn yelled.

A door opened, closed.

Pfefferkorn lunged for the bars. The chain around his ankle bit, jerking his leg out from under him. He fell, hitting his head on the floor.

Silence.

He lay there for a while, contemplating this latest turn of events. Then he got up. He grasped the chain and leaned back with all his might. The desk did not budge. He walked out the length of the chain and paced out his maximum circumference. It encompassed the toilet and the mattress. Other than that, he was going nowhere.