The Warlord of the Air (20 page)

“You don’t look too happy, Count von Bek,” I said, getting up and moving towards the wash-basin.

“Why have any of us reason to be happy, Mr. Bastable?” He uttered a sharp, bitter laugh. “I am cooped up here at a time when I should be out in the world, doing my work. I’ve no relish for Shaw’s theatrical revolutionary posturings. A revolutionist should be silent, unseen, cautious...”

“You’re not exactly unknown to the world,” I pointed out, jumping a little as boiling hot water issued from the tap. “Your picture is frequently in the newspapers. Your books are widely distributed, I understand.”

“That is not what I meant.” He glared at me and then shut his eyes as if to blot my presence from his mind.

I was faintly amused by the rivalries I had witnessed among the anarchists—or socialists or communards or whatever they chose to call themselves. Each seemed to have an individual dream of how the world should be ordered and resented all other versions of that dream. If they could only agree on certain essentials, I thought, they would be rather more effective.

I glanced out of the window as I dried my face. Not that Shaw had entirely failed. In the rose garden I saw children of various ages and a variety of nationalities playing together, laughing joyfully as they ran about in the morning sunshine. And along the paths strolled men and women, chatting easily to each other and smiling frequently. Some were evidently married and not a few were members of the coloured races married to members of the white race. This did not shock me as it should have done. It all seemed natural to me. I remembered what Shaw had said the city was called—Democratic Dawn City—the City of Equality. But was such equality possible in the outside world? Was not Shaw’s dream city artificially conceived? I expressed this thought to von Bek, who had opened his eyes again, and added: “It
does
look tranquil—but isn’t this place built on piracy and murder, just as you said London was built on injustice?”

He shrugged. “I don’t much care to discuss Shaw’s ambitions.” Then he paused for a while. “But to be fair I think you could say that Dawn City is a beginning—it is conceived in terms of the future. London is an ending—the final conception of a dead ideology.”

“What do you mean?”

“Europe has used up its dream. It has no future. The future lies here, in China, which has a new dream, a new future. It lies in Africa, India—throughout the Middle East and the Far East— perhaps in South America, too. Europe is dying. I, for one, regret it. But before she dies, she offers certain notions of what is possible to the countries she has dishonoured...”

“You are saying we are decadent?”

“If you like. It is not what I said.”

I could not completely follow his argument so I let it drop. I found my clothes, newly cleaned and pressed, at the end of my bed, and put them on.

A little later there was a tap at the door and an old, old man walked in. His hair was pure white and he had a long, white goatee beard after the Chinese fashion. He was dressed in simple cotton clothes and leaned on a stick. He looked as if he had lived a hundred years and seen a great deal of the world. When he spoke it was in a cracked, high-pitched voice with a thick accent I identified as Russian.

“Good morning, young man. Good morning, von Bek.”

Von Bek straightened up on the bed, his gloom forgotten, his face brightening.

“Uncle Vladimir! How are you?”

“I’m well, but feeling my age a little these days.”

Von Bek introduced us as the old man sat down in one of the easy chairs. “Mr. Bastable, this is Vladimir Ilyitch Ulianov. He was a revolutionist before any of us were born!”

I did not correct him on that point but shook hands with the old Russian.

Von Bek laughed. “Mr. Bastable is a confirmed capitalist, uncle. He disapproves of us all—calls us anarchists and murderers!”

Ulianov chuckled without rancour. “It is always amusing to hear the mass-murderer accusing the man he seeks to destroy. I’ll not forget the thousand accusations made against me in Russia in the twenties, before I had to leave. Kerensky was President then.”

“He died last year, uncle. They have elected a new President now. Prince Shevadnasy is leader of the Duma.”

“And doubtless licks the spittle of the Romanovs as his predecessor did. Duma! A travesty of democracy. I was a fool even to let myself be elected to it. That is not the way to challenge injustice. The Tsar still rules Russia—even if it is nowadays through his so-called parliament.”

“True, Vladimir Ilyitch,” murmured von Bek, and I got the impression he was humouring the man a little. There was no doubting his admiration of this ancient revolutionist—but now he was tolerating him as one would a man who had done great things in his day but had now turned a trifle senile.

“Ah, if only I had had the opportunity,” Ulianov went on, “I would have shown Kerensky what democracy really meant. We should have chained the Tsar’s power—perhaps even kicked him out altogether. Yes—yes—it might have been possible, if all the people had risen up and opposed him. There must have been one moment in history when that could have happened, and I missed it. Perhaps I was sleeping, perhaps I was exiled in Germany at the time, perhaps I was,” he smiled fondly, “making love! Ha! But one day Russia
will
be free, eh, Rudolf? We shall make honest workers of the Romanovs and send Kerensky and his ‘parliament’ to Siberia, just as they sent me there, eh? The revolution must come soon.”

“Soon, uncle.”

“Let the people starve a little longer. Let them be made to work a little harder. Let them know disease and fear and death a little better—then they will rise up. A tide of humanity which will sweep over the corrupt princes and merchants and drown them in their own blood!”

“As you say, uncle.”

“Oh! If only I had had my chance. If I could have controlled the Duma—but that weasel Kerensky tricked me, discredited me, chased me from my own homeland, my Russia.”

“You will return some day.”

Ulianov winked cunningly at von Bek. “I have returned once or twice already. I have distributed a few pamphlets. I have visited my rich politician friend Bronstein and given him a fright in case the Okharna should discover me at his house and think him a revolutionist too. He
was
once, of course, but he chose to modify his views and keep his place in the Duma. Jews! They are all the same.”

Von Bek was disapproving of this sudden outburst. “There are Jews and Jews, uncle.”

“True. But Bronstein—ah, what is the use—he is ninety-seven years old. Soon he will be dead and I will be dead.”

“But your writings, Vladimir Ilyitch, will always live. They will inspire each new generation of revolutionists—all those who learn to hate injustice.”

Ulianov nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Let us hope so. But you will not remember...” And now he launched on a new series of repetitive anecdotes while von Bek disguised his impatience and listened politely, even when the old man querulously attacked him, for a moment, as not following the True Way of the Revolution.

In the meantime I uttered the magic word “Food” and the Chinese woman appeared in the milky-blue oval again. I asked for breakfast for three and it was duly delivered. Von Bek and I ate heartily, but Ulianov was loath to waste time eating. He continued to drone on as we enjoyed our breakfast. Ulianov reminded me somewhat of the old Holy Men, the lamas I had occasionally come across in my former life as an officer in the Indian Army. Often his conversation seemed as abstract as did theirs. And yet, as I had respected those lamas, I respected Ulianov—for his age, for his faith, for the way in which he would repeat the articles of his creed over and over again. He seemed a kindly, harmless old man—very different from my earlier image of a confirmed revolutionist.

The door opened as he launched into the phrase he had used earlier—“Let the people starve a little longer. Let them be made to work a little harder. Let them know disease and fear and death a little better—then they will rise up! A tide...” It was Shaw who stood in the doorway. He was dressed in a white linen suit and there was a panama hat on his head. He was smoking a cigar. “A tide of humanity which will sweep away injustice, eh, Vladimir Ilyitch?” He smiled. “But I disagree with you, as ever.”

The old Russian looked up and wagged his finger. “You should not argue with one as old as me, Shuo Ho Ti. That is not the Chinese way. You should respect my words.” He smiled back.

“What do you think, Mr. Bastable?” Shaw asked banteringly. “Does despair breed revolution?”

“I know nothing of revolutions,” I replied. “Though I might be induced to agree with you that a few reforms might be in order—in Russia, for instance.”

Ulianov laughed. “A few reforms! Ho! That is what Kerensky wanted. But the reforms went by the board when it proved expedient to forget about them. It is always the same with ‘reforms’. The
system
must die!”

“It is hope, Mr. Bastable, not despair, which breeds revolution,” said Shaw. “Give the people hope—show them what might be possible, what they can look forward to—then they might try to achieve something. Despair breeds only more despair—people lose heart and die in themselves. That is where Comrade Ulianov and those who follow him make a mistake. They think that people will rise up when their discomfort becomes unbearable. But that is not true. When their discomfort becomes totally unbearable— they
give up.
Offer them some extra comfort—and being human they will ask for more—and more—and more! Then comes revolution. Thus we of Dawn City work to distribute extra wealth among the coolies of China. We work to set an example in China which will encourage the oppressed peoples of the whole world.”

Ulianov shook his head. “Bah! Bronstein had some such idea—but look what became of him!”

“Bronstein? Ah—your old enemy.”

“He was once my friend,” said Ulianov, suddenly sad. He got up with a sigh. “Still, we are all comrades here, even if we differ about methods.” He gave me a long, hard look. “Do not think we are divided because we argue, Mr. Bastable.”

I had thought exactly that.

“We are human beings, you see,” Ulianov continued. “We have fantastic dreams—but what the human mind can conceive, it can make reality. For good or ill. For good or ill.”

“Perhaps for good
and
ill,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Every coin has two sides. Every dream of perfection contains a nightmare of imperfection.”

Ulianov smiled slowly. “That is perhaps why we should not aim for absolutes, eh? Is it absolutes which destroy themselves as surely as they destroy us?”

“Absolutes—and abstractions,” I said. “There are little acts of justice as well as large ones, Vladimir Ilyitch Ulianov.”

“You think that we revolutionists forsake our humanity to follow fantasies of Utopia?”

“Perhaps not you...”

“You have voiced the eternal problem of the dedicated follower of any faith, Mr. Bastable. There is never a resolution.”

“Judging by my own experience,” I said, “there is never a resolution to any problem concerning human affairs. I suppose you can call
that
philosophy ‘British pragmatism’. Take it as it comes...”

“The British certainly took it,” said von Bek, and laughed. “There is a particular joy, I am sure you will agree, in looking for alternatives and seeing whether those alternatives will work and if they are better.”

“There must be a better alternative to this world,” said Ulianov feelingly. “There must be!”

S
haw had come to take us on a tour of his city. The four of us—Captain Korzeniowski, now fully recovered and with not even a scar to show for his head wound, Una Persson, Count von Bek and myself—followed Shaw from the apartment house and down a wide, sunlit street.

Dawn City continued to be an education for me, who had always seen revolutionists in terms of simple-minded nihilists, blowing up buildings, murdering people, with no idea of what they might want to build on the ruins of the world they were destroying. And here was their dream made reality.

But wasn’t it a slightly spurious reality? I wondered. Could it actually be extended throughout the world?

When I had first been hurled into the world of the 1970s I had thought I found Utopia. And now I was discovering that it was only a Utopia for some. Shaw wanted a Utopia which would exist for all.

I remembered the blood I had seen spread across the bridge of
The Rover.
Barry’s blood. It was hard to reconcile that image with the one before us now.

Shaw took us to see schools, communal restaurants, workshops, laboratories, theatres, studios, all full of happy, relaxed people of a hundred different nationalities, races and creeds. I was impressed.

“This is what the whole of the East—and Africa—might have been like by now if it had not been for the European’s greed,” Shaw told me. “By now we would be economically stronger than Europe. That would be a true balance of power. Then you would see what justice was all about!”

“But it is a European ideal that you follow,” I pointed out. “If we had not brought it...”

“We should have found it. People learn by example, Mr. Bastable. They do not have to have ideas forced upon them.”

We had entered a darkened hall. Before us was a large kinema screen. Shaw bade us be seated and then the screen flickered into life.

I watched in fascination as I saw pictures of Chinese men and women being decapitated in their scores.

“The village of Shihnan in Japanese Manchuria,” said Shaw in a hard flat voice. “The villagers failed to produce their annual quota of rice and are being punished. This happened last year.”

I saw Japanese soldiers laughing as their long swords rose and fell.

I was stunned. “But that is Japan...” was all I could say.

A new series of pictures. Coolies working on a railway line. Uniformed men were using whips to force them to work harder. The uniforms were Russian.

“Everyone knows the Russians are cruel in their treatment of subject peoples...”

Shaw made no comment.

A rabble of Asiatics—many of them women and children— armed with farm implements were rushing towards a stone wall. The people were all in rags and half-starved. Gunfire broke out from behind the wall and the people fell down, twisted, bleeding, shrieking in agony. I could hardly bear to look. The gunfire continued until all the people were dead.