11. No More a Chance
In the night, one night, there’s a meeting in the basement of one of the churches in the working class districts. It’s a meeting between two working class parties, one called the Worker’s Party, the other called the People’s Party. Both are illegal, banned as extremist. Between them, they have perhaps ten thousand members nationwide. At this meeting, they sign a secret protocol pledging themselves to a union of parties in pursuit of a common goal. But this secret protocol and the act of signing it is a formality; the true agreement has been reached through months of careful negotiations and consensus building. They’ve been preaching their gospel of unilateral disengagement from the way of things for decades; it’s only been in the wake of the failed rising fifteen years ago working men have been given to this gospel. Since the death of his parents, Valeri has become exactly the sort of person this gospel is meant for.
As if to punctuate the arrival at this union, in the night a new round of riots begins, the darkness lit up by the fires of liberation burning at the behest of this new holy alliance. Still thinking of Sergei’s death, Valeri can’t sleep, instead lying in bed with the window wide open and his bedroom flooding with the distant emanations of the unruly masses seizing control, for the night at least, of the shantytowns in which they live. In the morning, Valeri rises to a world seeming identical in form to the world of the night before but radically different in essence. He says to Hannah, “you’re paying a small price compared to what she’s going through.” In the night, Stanislaw reads through the daily reports on escalating prices of homes, of food, of fuel and of clothes, and he, like the others, feels a mounting gloom. It’s been this way for so long as he can remember. But as he’s put to work in the days preparing fortifications for the police, he thinks of his family in the city and he wonders if they might yet see through the day. None of this means anything. It’s all a confused and confusing mess. Stanislaw means well, but when he turns in his gear after another long day of putting up barbed-wire fencing and armoured walls, he comes home too tired to think straight. And this time, this time is no different. He’s late to the party, so to speak, for this very reason, but when his wages can no longer suffice to pay for food, he still hasn’t come to think of doing away with this whole way of life.
Although Valeri is not yet a member of either party, he learns of this new union from Mark Murray, with the implied understand Murray’s learned of it from his friend Arthur Bennington whom Valeri hasn’t seen since their first meeting. Soon, the news finds its way onto the screens of millions, not from official sources but on the dark corners of illicit networks reaching around the world. What Valeri doesn’t know is this new union of parties has pledged itself to follow the path not laid out for it in full view. “I don’t think I could live alone again,” Hannah says in a moment of clarity. “This isn’t just about you,” says Valeri, “it’s about what’s best for all of us.” And Valeri says this as he looks wistfully into the night. “I miss moments like this more than anything,” he says. “Me too,” she says. Although the power’s gone out in the night, the fires of liberation burning in the streets cast a flickering, orange glow through the windows, shadows dancing against the far wall. At the armoury after a week’s exercises, Private Craig Thompson has not seen the Colonel since that inspection of the troops. The sergeant squelches any dissent, leaving still the only forum for discussion the bunks after lights-out. They don’t know of the secret protocol, only of the still burning fires of liberation across the country. “It can’t be we’re going to war,” says one private. “I heard they’ll send us to Northern Ireland,” says another. “Have you seen the riots there?” asks the first. “There’s riots everywhere now,” says the second. Thompson interrupts, saying, “they’ll send us somewhere. We’ll find out soon enough.” Lurking in the shadows there’s that very same essence which guides all revolutionary men, looking on these dispirited troopers, watching, waiting for the perfect moment to descend on them and make them whole with it. But they are young men, too young, given as young men are to flights of fancy, already Private Thompson filling his mind with fantasies of rebellion entirely of his own accord. He’s almost ready.
This is the true flag of the union of parties, not colours bled onto fabric but darkness emerging from the light. In an alley behind an apartment block nearly identical to the one Valeri lives in but some kilometres away, an older woman named Miriam Doyle stands in the shadows and says, “do you ever think we should just stop doing this?” Her companion, a younger woman named Monica Dawson says, “you make me feel like I’m not good enough.” Miriam says, “I don’t often get the chance to talk to someone like you,” then reaches into the gym bag she’s brought and draws out a gun. “Don’t leave this lying anywhere,” Miriam says, “keep it hidden until the time comes.” Monica quickly takes the gun and stashes it in her bag, then asks, “how will I know when the time’s come?” Miriam says, “you’ll know.” After the power comes back on, they’ve disappeared into the night. After standing outside their member of parliament’s office for hours and venting their rage, the unemployed workers they hear nothing but further platitudes from the member who won’t come out and confront the lot of them. Someone throws a bottle, then another, soon a full-fledged riot has broken out, with Garrett Walker retreating at the first sign of trouble. He’s too old to go down this road, but taking his place the younger men who hurl bottles so well. It’s a deeply confusing mess. Nevermore assured of himself, Garrett returns to his little flat and sinks into a deep depression, tempting him with the tantalizing possibility of a new tomorrow but always keeping it out of reach. He has two daughters and a wife, and he can provide for none of them. His is a deep-seated shame. But when his older daughter’s caught up in the police raids, he wonders where he’d gone wrong. Before this crisis is ended, his daughters will be killed, gunned down in the streets in an exchange of fire between the rebels and the troops. It’s all spinning out of control, careening towards an impossibly violent cataclysm which will burn everything we know. Men like Garrett can’t even fathom what’s to come, but when it comes an instinct will seize them and compel them to join in. That time is coming much sooner than any of them think.
As the world burns, so too do we burn, not in our essence but in the very components that when put together make up who we are. In the aftermath of this fire having claimed another victim out of the fabric of the unreal, it seems sometimes there’s a low cry, a silent song lamenting the plight of the children who once lived inside. In the streets Valeri sees poverty, hopeless causes, the wretched lying in pools of their own blood and tears. After he’s seen enough, he turns to Sydney and says, “whatever you’re going to ask, the answer is no.” Sydney says, “you must be mad, coming here like this.” But Valeri asks, “you’ve done a bad thing for a good reason before, haven’t you?” Sydney shrugs and says, “bad or good there’s nothing that can be done to bring Sergei back.” They speak not of the union of two parties but of something far more personal, something intimately known between them but left unsaid too long. “Could you be happy here with me?” he asks. But she can’t answer, not right away. “We could be arrested for this,” he says. “That wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen,” she says. “Don’t even joke,” he says. She only flashes the briefest smile before turning away. After seeing Father Bennett looking so downcast after the last week’s sermon, Darren Wright feels in him a gnawing guilt for having turned his back on the church that’d been good to him for so many years. Before the next Sunday’s sermon, he approaches Father Bennett’s open door, announcing his presence with a subdued knock on the doorframe. “It’s good to see you,” says Father Bennett, his voice sounding sincere. “It’s been a while since I’ve come to meet with you,” says Darren, sitting across from Father Bennett, the two looking each other over quickly. From within the confines of the Father’s office, they can hear the distant sounds of the streets burning, and Darren struggles to control his enthusiasm for the men fighting and dying even before their war has begun in earnest. Darren and the Father talk not about the faith, for either of them is, despite their struggles, committed as ever. Instead, they talk on the coming rebellion, on the discontent brewing in the streets, with Father Bennett voicing concerns that lead Darren to consider, for at least a little while, the Father might be more given to the rogue priest’s cause than he’d thought. He won’t know it until it’s too late, but he’s wrong.