The Violent Century

The right of Lavie Tidhar to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 444 76291 4

Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

338 Euston Road

London NW1 3BH

www.hodder.co.uk

To Elizabeth, my own perfect summer’s day.

A gunshot in the fog.

A body floating, cold and white, in the water of the Havel River, a scrap of fabric clutched in a lifeless hand.

A woman hanging by the throat from the ceiling by her own bedsheets, her long black hair wet. We assemble the images slowly:

Tank’s body strapped to a slab, electricity coursing through him.

Auschwitz.

The wolf man.

A plane crashing into a skyscraper. Red poppies in a field, as far as the eye can see.

A frozen golem, erupting from the ice.

Who do we focus on? Shadows flee from our gaze. To observe something is to change it. Still:

Oblivion, Fogg.

So much death.

A violent century. Where does it start? We sift through recollections, old footage, dusty manuscripts. Probabilities collapse. So much death, but wrapped around a love. We watch. So many shadows.

Where does it end?

The way it begins, perhaps:

1.
DR VOMACHT’S FARMHOUSE
then

The farmhouse stands on its own in a sea of green grass, white weathered stones like an ancient fort. Electricity had been installed some time back. Plumbing. A radio antenna on the roof. It is a shining bright day, the sunlight is blinding, a pure, yellow radiance emanating from deep blue skies.

Somewhere inside the farmhouse music plays, softly. A scratchy quality. A gramophone. A French chanson, each note hovering, for just a moment, in the air, before being replaced by the next.

Beyond the farmhouse lie mountains, outlined in chalky-blue in the distance. Insects hum in the grass. Summer. The smell of freshly harvested wheat from somewhere else, perhaps a nearby village, though we never see it. Smoke rises out of the farmhouse’s chimney, white smoke against blue skies.

Idyllic. The word we look for, each time.

A girl stands in the field of grass, between the farmhouse and the skies. Her long hair is blonde. Her skin is white like clouds, her eyes are blue like sky. She wears a thin white shift, almost translucent in the sunlight. She is in motion, hands at her sides, trailing luminescent lines as she turns.

Are you watching?

A butterfly hovers in mid-air, between the girl and the farmhouse. A Clouded Yellow. It hovers almost motionless, it seems. Compound eyes look over the meadow. Antennas flutter. The Clouded Yellow has a distinctive mark on its wings, a white eye and a scythe-like scattering of black dots on the wing edges.

Are you watching?

Inside the farmhouse the music comes to a halt. The gramophone spins silently. The air …

The girl seems frozen in motion, her hands rise, as though to ward off something invisible. The farmhouse seems to shimmer, inexplicably, as though the level of agitation in its component molecules has been increased, all at once. A distortion emanates from the farmhouse. Silent, swift, it travels from the source and spreads in an outwardly expanding circle. The butterfly hovers, somehow changed. Were we to look closely we would see that its distinctive eye had turned from white to azure, the colour of a summer’s skies. Time seems to slow, to freeze, then speed up again all at once. The girl completes her spin. Stops. Lowers her hands. The butterfly flies away. The girl looks at the farmhouse.

Beyond, the distortion spreads and disappears. The girl stares down at her bare feet.

Green grass. Yellow sun. Blue skies. White clouds.

A perfect summer’s day.

ONE:

THE HOLE IN THE WALL

LONDON
the present

2.
THE SOUTH BANK
the present

Night-time. A cold wind blows from the Thames. London, the giant Ferris wheel spinning slowly, wreathed in lights. The South Bank: couples walking hand in hand, a man by the entrance to Waterloo Station hands out free copies of the
Evening Standard
. A homeless man under the arches sells copies of the
Big Issue
– stares at the tall fellow walking past him.

Unhurried. Tall, thin. Pronounced cheekbones. Handsome. Black hair, done expensively at some Kensington place. The man is in formal evening wear: black trousers, black jacket, a crisp white shirt, a top hat. He wears white gloves over long, thin fingers. In his left hand he holds a cane, ebony topped with an ivory handle. He doesn’t whistle, but he seems to be enjoying the walk. Not too many people out. It’s a cold night. Smokers huddle outside the Italian restaurant under the arch. The man crosses the road. Waterloo Station rises before him. In the distance, Big Ben chimes an indeterminate number of times.

Fog. It makes the man smile, as at a private joke. The man doesn’t continue straight, to Waterloo. He turns left, onto Mepham Street, which opens on the backs of restaurants, on rubbish bins and delivery vans. A double-decker bus is parked kerbside, driver and inspector sharing a smoke by the open doors.

The fog intensifies. The man reaches out, as if stroking the fog. As though the fog were a cat, and the cat were an old friend. He smiles again, then lets it drop.

He stops.

Looks up at the sign.

The Hole in the Wall
.

You could walk past it a hundred times and miss it. A London pub, hidden under the railway arches.

Grimy windows hide what’s inside. If anything. The door is closed. Dim light seems to glow inside, however, indicating that the place might not be as deserted as it appears. Not welcoming, either, though.

Should the man be smiling again, right now? A look in his eyes, but whether it is anticipation or concern, maybe even apprehension, we can’t tell. It is gone swiftly. The man climbs the three short steps and pushes the door open and goes in.

3.
THE HOLE IN THE WALL
the present

Entering the pub is like travelling back in time to the nineteen fifties. Post-war decor. Peeling wallpaper. Hardwood floor scarred by hard heels and cigarettes.

A long, dirty-brown leather seat runs the length of the right wall, stuffing poking out from open cigarette burns. It is facing a row of low tables on which thick candles, veined with molten wax, flicker with smoke. At each table sits a man. The men are as hard as the floor, as spent as a burnt cigarette. They are a mixed bunch, white and black and brown, like a Gothic painter’s palette. Thinning hair. Bad skin. The eyes are uniformly vacant. They stare into space without seeing anything.

Beside each man, on the table, is a pint glass and an ashtray. The ashtrays are large and saucer-like, of a uniform industrial make, made of some cheap metal. In each ashtray burns a cigarette. The cigarettes vary only in their remaining lengths. The smoke rises into the air, collectively, a blue note in a grey post-war world. The smoke is like fog. It serves to obscure.

On the left of the room is a bar counter and behind the counter is a barman. He is a man in his fifties or thereabouts. Balding, with muscled arms, a broken nose mended awkwardly. We never learn his name. We never find out his story. What brought him here, to this place, this twilight. He is wiping a pint glass with a rag. There are rows of bottles behind him. There are draught beer taps on the counter. Facing the bar counter are a row of barstools, empty but for one. A solitary patron sitting there.

The tall man in the evening dress surveys the room. We get the strange impression he had not always dressed like this, that underneath the polish there is something rough, and hard. He doesn’t say a word. Nods to himself, as though confirming something. Some suspicion, some expectation now fulfilled. Doesn’t seem to mind the smoke. Walks to the bar. Leans his cane against the counter. Removes his gloves revealing long, slender fingers.

Sits down, two stools along from the single patron. Glances at him. The man sits hunched on his stool. Stares at an empty shot glass. Doesn’t look back.

The tall man shifts his gaze to the barman.

– Bring me a brandy, please, barkeep, he says. Smiles, almost wistfully. Something old, and foreign, he says.

The solitary patron glances at him then. Face without expression. Picks up the shot glass in front of him and examines it. Definitely empty. Puts it down again. The mute barman looks at him, questioning with his eyes, and the man nods. The barman brings out a green bottle with no label. Pours the solitary patron a shot. The solitary patron gestures at the tall man in the evening dress. The barman’s face reveals nothing, but he gets another glass and pours another drink and places it before the tall man. Then he picks up his rag and a pint glass and continues polishing.

The tall man in the evening dress smiles. Picks up the glass. Half turns it, watching the liquid in the dim light of the pub. Puts the glass to his lips and downs the drink and smiles again. We get the sense he does not smile often, or easily.

He turns in his seat, to face the solitary patron.

– So how have you been, Fogg? he says.

The solitary patron seems to start at the name. As though it had belonged to an old friend, presumed dead, or missing, or one you had simply lost contact with, had stopped exchanging even Christmas cards with this past decade or more. The expression looks odd, old on his youthful face.

– Oblivion, he says.

The name seems to fit the tall man in the evening dress. Fits him like the white gloves fit his slender fingers, fit like his Savile Row suit. Tailor-made, that name.

Oblivion.

He gives a half-shrug, a sort of
That’s me
gesture.

The other man, we know, is Fogg.

– How long has it been, Oblivion? he says. Forty? Fifty years?

– Try seventy, Oblivion says.

– As long as that.

– Not since after the war, Oblivion says, helpfully.

– The war, Fogg says. He has a youthful, pale face. Black, unruly hair. Does anyone still remember the war? he says. Is there anyone still alive?

Oblivion shrugs.

– A few, he says. Then: There have been other wars.

Adding, a little reluctantly it seems: There are always other wars.