TIMEWALK     (part three of five)

 by Richard Banks        

I return home along the pedestrian highway. For the first time in a long time, I'm glad to be back in the here and now. There's no traffic snapping at my heels, and only minutes away is Greta's cooking and an Egor-free flat. It is not until I am on the landing and reaching for my key card that my good mood is all but erased by the thought that nothing may have changed. I open the door, half expecting Egor to be there. For a few moments logic has deserted me, in another, it is restored.  

         Greta stands at the oven, obscured by a cloud of steam, but unmistakeably Greta. Mia is setting the table and two unfamiliar figures, a man and a woman, sit either side of the window. The woman gets up and greets me as though we are good friends. She kisses me on the lips. I figure we are more than good friends. The man stays seated and acknowledges my presence with an open palm salute. There is no baby and no Eli. I ask where he is and almost instantly regrets doing so. No one knows him. They look puzzled and I make up some story about expecting a visitor. We drink our vodka and talk. Everyone is at ease with each other, we laugh, there is careless talk about politics. No one suspects any of the others of being a spy, the secrets of the room stay in the room. During dinner, I discover the woman's name is Cheshire. She sits next to me and runs her hand up and down my thigh. The man is Lew, an American, from the Southern Confederacy. He has only recently arrived, having replaced someone called Dee. He has an open, easy-going way, that everybody has taken to. He also has a guitar and offers to play us some few tunes after the President's broadcast. As this is on all TV channels and the loudspeakers there is no escaping it. We watch it on Sky State. There is a brief introduction and the scene switches to Unity Hall, where a guy called Palmer is about to address the People's Assembly.

         “What's happened to Hurst,” I ask, wishing I hadn't. I get more odd looks

         This is crazy. The only change should be Egor. So where are Hurst and Eli? Why them? Could it be they are links in the same chain? Powerful people were watching over Egor, Eli as good as said it. Had Hurst delegated the watching to Eli? Why else would a party member be slumming it in grade C accommodation? It makes sense. With Egor gone, never born, why would Eli be here. And what of Hurst, our President for nearly five years, who no one remembers any more. Has he also ceased to exist? How could my five minutes of play-acting make that happen? And then I know it did. Eli said that Josef Herschel had only one son. He was lying and with good reason. I take the photograph of Josef from my jacket and study his face, the prominent forehead, the olive drab eyes, the flared nostrils of his flat nose and know him for what he was, the father of Egor, and Joseph Hurst.

         Palmer comes to the end of his speech and after the obligatory standing ovation vacates the rostrum and returns to the VIP seating at the back of the stage. He resumes his place in the front row and accepts the congratulations of those either side of him. A familiar figure sitting directly behind him leans forward to add some words of his own. The weasel face is fuller now, better fed, his standard-issue denim replaced by a tailored suit. It's Eli, but not the one I knew. The transmission ends and normal programming resumes. It's a quiz show called Stick or Slide. Cheshire asks if anyone wants to watch, “this rubbish,” and when nobody does she switches it off.

         Lew and I have the job of washing the dishes. Apparently, there's a rota but where it is no one knows. Lew doubts whether it ever existed, but Tuesday, according to Cheshire, is definitely one of our days. We go down to the utility room and load up a machine. There's fifteen minutes until it starts, time to talk, to get up to speed. Lew also wants to talk. He suggests we have a cigarette on the roof. He says it will be quiet there and he's got some good wack that will keep us happy for the rest of the night. We go up in the lift and sure enough, we have the roof to ourselves.  We light up and Lew starts talking about jazz, how no one plays it any more, about the music library in Patriots' Square and how he is a member.

         I express surprise. “Isn't that for officials?”

         He gets up from the bench we've been sitting on and wanders off a few paces. When he faces me again he has a gun in his hand. He tells me to sit tight and keep smoking. His voice is unchanged; he could still be talking about music, the weather or any other everyday thing. He says that he usually shoots his targets without warning. But with me it's different. He wants me to know that it's nothing personal. I'm a regular guy and he likes me, but business is business and he isn't allowed to pick and choose.  If it was up to him this wouldn't be happening but evidently, I've pissed off someone important and that's never a good idea.

         “Do you want to finish the cigarette?” he asks.

         I nod. It's good stuff and the fact that I'm about to kick the bucket seems almost irrelevant.

         “So who is it that wants me dead? Eli Weisman? Is that who?”

         He shrugs his shoulders. “Who knows. I get my orders from a guy who gets his from someone else. Where it starts I don't know. Best not to know. All I can tell you is that this is about you knowing more than is good for you. At least, that's the rumour.” 

         “Did anyone mention Timewalk? How the President shouldn't be the President because I ...”

         “Stop it there!” His demeanour changes. “I don't want to know and you ain't going to tell me. Now stand up, this has gone on long enough.”

         I do what he says. He aims and the sharp ping of a laser gun sends him crashing to the ground.

         “Are you okay?” My deliverer steps out of the shadows and stoops down to inspect the hole in Lew's back. Cheshire returns the slimline she's holding to her jacket. For a second time, she asks if I'm okay.

         I'm not sure what I am. For a man who's had a near-death experience I'm feeling foolishly content with the world and my place in it. Then reality comes rushing back.

         “Yeah, yeah I'm okay.” I want to ask her what the hell is going on, but think better of it. Anything I say is likely to be a mistake. My angel delight, if that's what she is, is a dangerous girl. Thank the Lord we're on the same side, whatever that is. Say nothing, let her do the talking. She does.

         “So good old Lew was a government hitman. Who would have thought it? I wonder how long he's been onto us?”

          Her question is a rhetorical one, so she's not fussed when I don't answer, which is just as well as the answers, I have related to a reality that doesn't include Cheshire or Lew. I mean they were probably around shooting people or doing whatever else they do, but they weren't a part of my life and how I wish it was back, my discontented but blissfully humdrum life.

         I've been silent too long and Cheshire's giving me the sort of look that makes me think I should be saying or doing something, so to fill the gap I ask her what she thinks we should be doing. Maybe I'm the one who should be making the decisions, but somehow that doesn't seem likely. As I thought, she's not short of a plan.

         “We need to get out of here and warn the others, tell them what's happened.”

         As plans go this one suffers from the disadvantage that anyone breaking the curfew is likely to find themselves on the wrong side of the police or a criminal gang.

         “What if we're being watched?” I say. “Couldn't we send them a text?”

         Cheshire snorts in disbelief. “Are you crazy? M16 be reading every word. Get your gun. If we have to we'll go out blasting.”

         I return to the flat and open up my locker, where I'm surmising my gun is. I'm not mistaken, and without stopping to say goodbye, or anything else, to Greta and Mia, I rush out onto the landing where Cheshire has stopped the lift and is now pointing her gun at its only occupant. She orders him out of it in the name of the Revolutionary Brotherhood and we descend the thirty-two floors to ground level. Things are getting clearer now. The Brotherhood is the military wing of a proscribed organisation that wants to turn the clock back to the bad old days of universal suffrage and civil rights. At least that's how the Government sees it and up to now, I've kept well clear of an argument that involves both sides shooting on sight. We reach the ground floor and as the doors, open Cheshire braces herself for a volley of gunfire.  When nothing happens she charges across the lobby floor and peers through the glass door into the street.

         “What do you think?” she asks.

         What I think is part of a much longer conversation that we don't have time for now, so I say, “lets roll.” Not only does this sound like the kind of thing an urban freedom fighter should be saying but involves zero chance of us being shot; no one's outside because Lew was a lone assassin whose only mission was to kill me. In order to enhance my credibility, I dash out into the street waving my gun wildly through 180 degrees and signalling Cheshire to follow me. Having done so she veers off to the right with a turn of speed that has me struggling to keep up. At the first intersection, we take another right into a road that is suddenly plunged into darkness in anticipation of the curfew. We slow down and as our eyes become accustomed to the dark the faint hum of an electric motor warns us that someone else is about. The humming gets louder and the darkness is pierced by the flashing blue light of a retrieval van. It's coming our way, so we duck down behind a refuse shoot and wait for it to pass. It stops. A man gets out and with the aid of a torch examines a mound of debris piled up against a wall. He declares it to be clear.       

         “Where the hell are they?” he complains. “How can I make a living if there's no bums.” A voice from within the van says that if they can't find enough stiffs they will have to take out some still breathing. The other man concurs and suggests they try their luck by the river. He gets back in the van and they continue on.

         Cheshire takes a deep breath and announces, “we're going down.”

         I consider the likely connotations of this expression and decide that I have no idea what she is talking about. “Down?” I say.

         “Yes, get it up.”

         “Up?” I say.

         She waves her gun at a manhole cover in the middle of the street. “Get it up, we're going down the sewer.”

         This is probably Cheshire's best idea to date. Whatever is down there can't be worse than what's up above, so I rush out into the street and start clawing at the cover. Fortunately, there's a gap between it and the metal surround. I insert my fingers, pull hard and the cover flips up and over. Buoyed by the unexpected success of my efforts I signal Cheshire to join me, but she's already on her way. She scrambles down into the hole and descends the metal ladder within. I drag back the cover and follow on. Cheshire switches on her mobile and directs its light down to the sewer, where a steady flow of goodness knows what awaits us.

         We step down off the ladder and sink ankle-deep into a fetid cocktail of sludge and water. The sewer's too small in which to stand, so Cheshire drops down onto her knees and starts crawling towards what she says is the main sewer. Not only am I the newest revolutionary in town, but with Cheshire kicking muck and water into my face I'm also the dirtiest, and if there's anyone smellier I don't want to meet them. We get to the main sewer just in time to be almost immersed in a surge of liquid waste. Cheshire staggers to her feet and hits out at a large rat that's attached itself to her jacket. Having vanquished the rat with a right hook to its whiskers she declares that, “we're nearly there,” which means we're wading through more of the same for the next ten minutes.

           Just when I'm thinking she's lost her way Cheshire shines her mobile at a flight of steps below a vertical shaft. We climb up the ladder within and push up past the cover into cold air and the light of a first-quarter moon. We're in a road of detached villas which can only be part of a gated compound. Cheshire races down the road, before turning into the driveway of a house that's all but hidden behind a large fir tree. She rings the bell; two short rings followed by one long. We wait several minutes and are about to ring again when the door half opens and then stops. The shadow of a face peers out at us.

        Copyright Richard Banks