My Little Armalite (11 page)

— Christ yes, I'm starting to remember the theory. Phew!

—Phew indeed. So prepare to play and stop whingeing about
meaning
!

—OK. I will. I promise.

—Then let us see. How the fuck have you managed to get your peers remotely interested in this arsehole poet of yours?

—Well, he's been on the TV a lot in Germany recently. Gone on to politics in Saxony. Won a seat in Dresden. Anti-Iraq War, anti-globalisation, you know the sort of thing. Doing very well. And the German government's just collapsed, so I suppose that
may
have made a difference.

—And you are, as I understand it, the only UK bozo who has been insightful enough or desperate enough to have kept the faith with him all these years?

—It's only thanks to me that he's still on any bloody reading lists at all.

—Grand so. You are thus sole gatekeeper to a man on the box. A hearty dose of the ould pomo schtick and you are home and dry, surely?

—Yes, but I've forgotten how to
do
pomo, Eamon!

—Johnny, all you do is ensure that your discourse remains non-judgmental, anti-patriarchal and free of the implicitly crypto-fascistic desire for an absolutist closure modelled on the psycho-cultural blueprint of the essentially aggressive and always potentially rapist male orgasm.

—Coo.

—Coo indeed. You deny the
very notion of truth
. Which you have to admit comes in kinda handy if the truth is that you dedicated your life to studying a shithole run by the Red Army that no longer even exists and the man you strung your whole career on was a lying KGB-funded whore.

—Well, yes.

—The lesson continueth. Surely to God, now, post-Iraq, faced with the New World Order, we know only too clearly that history (
HisStory/HerStory/OurStory/TheirStory
) is just that, a story, someone's wholly fucking owned story, a myth propagated as propaganda by the current sole world hegemon and its consciously hired or unconsciously enlisted scribes and phallogical collaborators.

—God, that was good.
Phallogical
.

—You like it? Yes, I got a fair bit of topspin on that one, I fancy. Heh heh. So now, where was I? Ah yes. In 1961 the East Germans claimed that the wall which they had no intention of building was to protect society against capitalism, correct?

—Yes.

—And having indeed built this wall after all, they then shot anyone who was insane enough to try to escape to capitalism?

—Well, yes.

—Shite, these dictators make it tough, don't they? I mean, if Pyongyang and Tehran only realised
how
easily they could get us Western liberals onside, eh? But let's see. OK then. Now, in 1989, at the so-called ‘End of History' everyone was ready to call the East German position a lie. One story of history had apparently triumphed. But is this really so clear now? From where we have now come to, does it not seem possible that
it is precisely walls that we need (and perhaps always needed) to protect viable and historically grounded societies –

—Such as French society?

—Such as French society. Good example. Everyone loves the French. Well, everyone except a few fucking irradiated Polynesians, but hey. Walls, yes, walls to protect functioning societies, such as French society, against the, the, let's see now, against the …

—How about
against the global locusts of the free market
?

—
Global locusts
? Holy God, now I like that one. That's never yours, is it? No offence, but it's just too good to be John Goode.

—No, the second most powerful German politician said it a couple of years ago.

—Well, fair play to him, we'll buy that for a dollar, I think. Yes, we need something to function as a protective wall between us and the
global locusts
, and until (in Monbiot's apt phrase) we organise the
counter-globalisation
, the nation state may in fact, may it not, be our one bulwark against
Coca-Cola-acculturation
, our only salvation from the subordination of all nations (and national faiths, national cultures) to the dictates of the WASP Überpower?

—Wow, Eamon, that's great! I think I've got it! It's all coming back! Can I have a go?

—Take it away, Johnny, and be good!

—So, I mean, well, if we accept the above, as surely we must, is it
really
going too far to suggest, er, that East Germany was in some very real ways the more authentically
German
Germany, compared with the mere NATO colony and US missile base of the West?

—Go, Johnny, go go go. You are sucking diesel now, my man!

— Great! Um, OK. So, so… what, ultimately, was the
guarantee of the GDR's continuing ability to insulate its citizens from the terrible ravages of neo-conservative free-market ideology, if not the robust defensive military and cultural structures of the Warsaw Pact? So by observing events for the KGB, exactly
who
was Heiner Panke,
in the end
,
really
‘betraying'? Germany? Or America? How's that sort of
sneery
voice for meaning quotation marks, Eamon?

—It works for me.

—Thanks! And well, um, is
the good of America
really to be our litmus test of all personal and political action? If so, what
exactly
is the difference between this position and the
with me or against me
of George W. Bush?

—Jaysus, Johnny, you got it! Always suggest that anyone against you is really just a supporter of good ol' W, then you start the game serving for the match with the sun right in their eyes. What a gift the man is!

—Thanks, Eamon! I really think I've got it this time.

—I doubt it, Johnny. But I am always here for you. And just make sure you give it with style, Johnnyboy, inasmuch as your lamentable physical equipment allows for style at all. Remember the secret of modern academic life: it doesn't matter what you're on the box for, so long as you're on the box.

—Great! Thanks, Eamon.

—My pleasure. May I get back to my other and better life now? I very much want to arrange an actual assignation tonight. Man cannot live by cybersex alone. At least, this one can't.

—I haven't arranged anything with anyone all week. I haven't been single since before the Berlin Wall fell.

—Ah, happy days of certainty and missions! But we have eaten of the apple, John the Good, and there is no way back. It would be very fab indeed to know
nothing once again, wouldn't it just? To trust the smiling priest who just happens to like ruffling boyish hair. To march along with the bold comrades, convinced that the Warsaw Pact wants only peace and the IRA are a bunch of romantic rebels. Pity. Farewell, Johnnyboy.

I listened to the dead phone line for quite a long moment. Then I blinked myself back to earth. Yes, the past was a happier place, but it was gone.

Quickly, before I could begin to doubt my newly recharged postmodernism, I fired up the laptop. The Very Important Paper jumped out of its sleep again, wide awake. And yes, how plodding and serious it sounded, compared to the free-flowing playfulness of Father Eamon! That was what I needed. Right. Simple. Less boring stuff about
meanin
g, and more pomo
topsp
in …

God, I had been so right to wait. The gun was perfectly safe where it was for now. All was still possible: the VIP would be a triumph and then, well, who knew?

Just to make absolutely sure that nothing impossible had happened in our garden while I was out, I opened the French windows and peered from the kitchen into the darkness.

Newton was still right, as usual.

There was the filled pit, just as I had left it, sitting quietly out in the cold and the dark and the rain. Of course. It could stay there safe and sound until I came back from Oxford transfigured by the VIP. As I stood there gloating at my own rationality, I found that my long-planned bottle of Olde English ale had somehow poured itself into a glass in my hand. As I savoured the hoppy slugs of beer, I suckled luxuriously on the cigarette that had produced and lit itself. Who cared?
All was well. Imagine! I could be out there now, digging the gun up like an idiot, getting soaked by that pouring rain, about to ruin my week, and hence my career, by calling the police, ha ha!

That pouring rain.

Which had been pouring for a good half hour now.

Into the pit.

Into the soil.

No, surely?

Oh Christ.

After a few seconds of panicked stillness, I recovered the use of my limbs and mind. Hastily, I dialled a number from my phone's address book. It was a former acquaintance in the Department of Archaeology at Sheffield called Brian. I had helped him, shortly before I left, with a German excavation report, so I knew him well enough to call. Just about.

—Hello?

—Brian, hi, hello! It's John. John Goode.

—Sorry?

—John Goode, who just left the German department up there. I helped you with that German thing, remember? That excavation report from Bavaria?

—Oh yes, yes. John. Of course. Right. Well. Hello. I thought you were in London now.

—Yeah.

—So, London, eh?

—Yes, London.

—I suppose you've had to cram the poor family into a two-room flat now, eh, John? Ha ha!

—No, we've got, it's a rather nice little house, you know, original sash windows and all that sort of thing.

—Oh. But
little
, eh?

—Well, obviously, Brian, London houses have always been rather smaller.

—Not sure I could get used to that, John. And I don't envy you taking on a mortgage this late. Mine's almost gone, of course. I suppose you had to get a bloody great big one?

—Mmm? A mortgage? Oh, a reasonable one, yes, but then, well, of course, London's London, Brian, and you naturally accept there's a premium for living in a good area. Well, pretty good.

—
Pretty
good? Crime bad there, is it, John?

—The Neighbourhood Watch are very active, actually.

—I suppose they have to be! Are the schools terrible?

—Oh, very multicultural, diverse, stimulating.

—I bet they bloody are, ha ha!

—Ha ha. So, hey, how are you, Brian?

—Me? Oh, great. But then I love it in Sheffield, John, as you know.

—Yes, I know. You always said so.

—Mmm, so, John, yeah, no, look, um, what's up? It's just, I'm cooking dinner right now, actually, and …

—The thing is, Brian, you see, I'm writing something about a book, it's an, a German thriller actually, and I was just wondering if I could check something technical about archaeology.

—Oh. Um, well, I suppose. If it doesn't take too long, because as I said, I'm …

—Great! Well, the book's a thriller, and it all hangs on this business about a man who accidentally digs up this suitcase.

—A suitcase?

—Yes. A suitcase full of … secret papers. And then he reburies it, you see. But then he changes his mind and digs it up again a week or so later, and he tells the police after all.

—He digs it up
again
?

—Yes. And he pretends to the police that he only just found it, you see.

—Sorry, John, will you run that by me again?

—It's quite simple, Brian. He digs the suitcase up at night. Then he buries it again. Then he digs it up
again
a week later and tells the police that he's only just found it. He tells them he called them straight away, like any decent honest citizen would.

—Well, why didn't he?

—Sorry?

—Why
didn't
this man just call the police?

—What? Why? Oh. Well, um, because, he, I suppose, I mean, as far as I can see from the book it was because he didn't want to get involved with the police.

—So, he's some kind of criminal?

—God no, he's just an ordinary man. It's just that he's too busy. With work.

—Doesn't sound like much of a hero to me.

—I found his motivation quite understandable, actually. Anyway, look, Brian, that all doesn't really matter. It's only a story. The point, the
purely technical
point, is, if someone really did that, would the police be able to
tell
that he'd actually
already
dug up the machine gun once.

—What machine gun?

—What?

—What machine gun?

—The secret papers, I mean. Sorry, God, oh yes, I forgot, there
is
a machine gun in the story, yes, it's, yeah, it was buried along with the secret papers, you see. But the machine gun's not important. Forget the machine gun, Brian.

—A machine gun would be pretty important to the police, surely?

—Well, yes, yes, I'm sure it would, in the real world, Brian, but this is a story and it's all about these secret papers, you see, not the machine gun at all. I don't know why I even mentioned the machine gun.

—Right. John, look here, I don't mean to be rude, but I'm just cooking dinner, as I said, and I was just
enjoying a quiet glass of wine, just while cooking, you know, and to be honest this is all sounding a bit complicated. Of course, one's always happy to help out a colleague, or an ex-colleague rather. Even one who was in a completely different department. A different faculty, actually. But perhaps you could call another time, at work, when I'm a little bit less …

—I need to know this tonight.

—Well, look, John, I'm very sorry, but …

—Brian, this is for
The Paper
!

—For
The Paper
?

—Yes. It's a review, for
The Paper
. This German thriller has just been translated, you see. And so they've asked me to review it. For
The Paper
. I'd mention your name, naturally.

—A review in
The Paper
? When did you start doing that?

—This is my first one. Which is why I want to get it right, you see. And as I said, I'd mention your name. Fulsomely.