The Gradual (19 page)

I felt unsafe. I had banked many thousands of gulden given to me by the régime, and I was not intending to hand the money back or earn it in the way they intended. At first I was constantly afraid of being watched, of being followed, but the confining weather gave a sense of security, perhaps false, but anyway calming. No agents from the secret police came to my apartment in the middle of the night. Nothing sinister arrived in the mail. My phone and internet services seemed undisturbed. No one moved into any of the other apartments in my building. Time went by. The fearful feelings gradually faded. I was eventually able to sleep through every night. I felt life was becoming steady, comprehensible once more, but the quietness did not delude me.

My resolve to leave Glaund hardened. I began to plan how to shed myself of some of my belongings, how to prepare for a major change of life.

Once I had decided to flee, the money from the Generalissima was something I could not afford to lose. It took a long time but in the end I succeeded in transferring a large portion of it to an anonymous account in Muriseay. My friend Denn Myrtie, who knew nothing of how I came by such a fortune, helped arrange this for me.

I carried on with my other plans. I disposed of many possessions but decided in the end to keep the apartment in my name. I made arrangements with my bank that no matter what the bills would always be paid. I had learned a lesson, and I set aside the remainder of the junta’s money for this long-term commitment.

I could barely see the offshore islands through the low gloom of the winter. I often sat at the window, staring across the sea, hoping for some sort of sign.

At last spring arrived. I was ready.

The warm weather came early to the island of Muriseay. I was there at last, my old life abandoned, my new one before me.

It was an escape, an ambition achieved, but I was not full of hope. I worried about everything and everyone I had left behind me. I missed my apartment and its view, even though I had exchanged the narrow vista of three islands for the full reality of the hundreds of thousands. Leaving behind the piano on which I had played and composed for so many years was painful, a real wrench. I was still missing Alynna, even though I knew I had lost her forever. Also, whatever my negative experiences and feelings about Glaund it was still my birthplace. It was politically stagnant, and I could see no end to that. The military coup had taken place around the time I was born, so I had never known any other kind of government or society in Glaund. Though it was repellent and repressive, the junta had at least brought a form of stability – the allegedly liberal republic that preceded it had been capitalistic, decadent and corrupt. That was what the history books said, reflecting the junta’s own version of history. The reality and truth of the past were almost impossible to discover – whatever they might be, it made no difference on an emotional level. Glaund would always be my home. And the junta could not last forever.

But now I was a quarter way around the world, in endless warm weather, feeling balmy sea breezes, drowning in the scents of luxuriant flowers, being shaded by huge and mysterious trees, and learning the ways of a benign government that had devised a modern way of operating the ancient feudal laws of the islands.

I did not live easily in these easy circumstances. The political relationship between the islands and Glaund was ambiguous, to say the least. It was undisclosed, undiscussed, at least in Glaund – I was still too new to Muriseay to be able to read between the lines of what was in the local newspapers. Officially the islands still did not exist as far as Glaund’s junta was concerned, even though I knew from my own experiences that certain cultural and a few sporting contacts were opening. The armed forces, whose ships constantly crossed the waters of the Midway Sea, were a real presence, and Muriseay itself was known as a place of R&R for the transiting troops.

For these reasons I did not feel secure at first. I had become a fugitive, and for a long time after arrival I half expected to be snatched by undercover officers from the north. Once I reached Muriseay I found a small and fairly decrepit pension in a backstreet of the city, and lived there as inconspicuously as possible. The first few days were the worst. I hardly left my room, but gradually I started to understand the easygoing nature of the place. Although I never entirely relaxed my guard, within a week I was beginning to think I might be safe from the Generalissima’s version of justice.

As the days turned to weeks I did start to relax. I was charmed by the place. Who would not be, after enduring the gloom of my home country for so many years?

Muriseay’s capital city was the largest conurbation in the Archipelago, home to more than two million people, and at times the centre of the town was a busy, crowded and noisy place. Muriseay was an island so large it exceeded the total land space of Glaund and Faiandland combined – which were themselves the major countries in the north – and one which although technological and industrial in outlook operated wide and deep environmental rules.

Much of the island was uninhabited because the huge central mountain range, and most of the extensive hill country surrounding it, had been designated as an area of ecological uniqueness. Temperate and subtropical forests covered most of the slopes. A vast coastal wetland lay on the eastern side. No roads or other tracks crossed the centre of the island, no building development was allowed anywhere in it or even near it, no mining or farming or logging or any kind of industrial activity went on. Even aircraft were banned from overflying the area. Only walkers could enter, and then were obliged to stay within designated zones. Muriseay was a wilderness, thought to be the last truly undamaged ecology of the world.

Most of the smaller towns and other settlements were built along the coastline, concentrated along the southern or western shores. As well as a network of railways, all the main ports were linked to each other by ferries. Muriseay was the acknowledged hub of the inter-island ferry system throughout the Archipelago – it was possible to book passage to a bewildering number of islands and island groups.

I was not yet ready to leave Muriseay so I tried to do some work while I acclimatized myself. It was difficult to stay focused on what increasingly I saw as austere musical theorizing, especially now that everywhere I went I could hear the gay popular romanticism of the island music. The people in the islands knew the classics too, the worldwide great masters, but the music they played and sang and listened to was quite the opposite of the work I had been writing for most of my life.

I realized it gave me a quiet insight into what And Ante had done with my music, transposing it into popular music, to rock, to a kind of jazz. I was beginning to understand, beginning to adapt and modify my views. I liked that feeling, even though this too tore me emotionally in half: the tension was deepening between my past and my likely future.

Meanwhile, I basked in the warm air, loved the feeling of daily sunshine, admired the casual good manners of the Muriseayan people, revered their happy homeland. The easy way of life on Muriseay soon won me over. I could happily have ended my journey there. I had the money to live wherever I wished, I could have found a suitable apartment on an attractive stretch of the coast, settled down to the rest of my life’s work.

Muriseay was not where I wanted to be, though. I knew I would have to move on, but even on the relatively short journey from Glaund, my escape, I had been reminded of the enigmatic rules that affected travel through the islands.

The worst part of the escape from Glaund was the fear of being caught, because in practical terms it was fairly straightforward. Denn Mytrie told me that his own route into and out of Glaund was by way of an island called Ristor, situated off the coast of Glaund but at the furthest western extremity. This was a part of Glaund I did not know, a largely unpopulated area of lowland farming. It was at the opposite end of the country from the border with Faiandland, so the presence of security measures was less obvious than elsewhere. Although Denn himself had only ever travelled with official approval, he said that he knew there was informal trade between the people of Ristor and the mainland. Privately operated boats frequently made the crossing, strictly illegally but never interfered with by the Glaund authorities. Many luxury goods passed through Ristor on their way to unnamed customers in Glaund City.

When the time came I packed my bags, I walked to my local train station, I changed trains in Glaund City and within five hours I was at the other end of the country in a tiny port called Plegg. Money was no longer a problem for me, and the following night I paid for a covert passage across to Ristor. I endured three hours in an open boat, but I was taken to a small harbour on the southern coast of Ristor. The next day, one of the larger inter-island ferries made a brief stopover. I joined this, and after she docked in the main town of Ristor Parallel I went ashore with the other passengers.

I was one of the last to disembark so I had to wait in the drizzling rain outside the Ristor Shelterate building. Already it felt like a familiar process. I noticed that here, not far from the mainland, the same sort of young people I had seen on my earlier trip were hanging around in a group outside the entrance. There were five of them. Unlike the others I had seen in warmer zones, these were dressed in thick puffer jackets or bulky rainproof coats. They all wore caps or hoods. Two of them had the same knives I had seen before. They barely looked at us as we dragged our luggage slowly towards the Shelterate building.

Then one of the young women left the group and came directly to me. She was wearing a quilted jacket darkened by the rain. Beads of damp from the mist that covered the dock area had settled on the filthy cap that she wore crammed down on the top of her head. A knife was attached to her wrist by a silver chain.

‘Are you coming to stay on Ristor?’ she said without preamble.

‘No – I’m in transit.’ Denn had suggested an informal itinerary across to Muriseay, but I had not yet had a chance to buy the actual tickets.

‘To Callock? Gannten?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘I can help you,’ she said. ‘Callock? Then Muriseay?’

‘Callock is next.’

‘Then other islands, and Muriseay? Would you buy one of these? One hundred thaler.’

With a swift movement she pulled something from an inside pocket. As she moved her hand the knife attached to her wrist swung upwards. She produced a wooden stave.

‘I don’t need one of those,’ I said. ‘I have one already.’

‘Let me see.’

‘Why?’

‘I can help you.’

I had brought the stave with me, but it was buried deep inside my holdall. I reached around inside for it, then handed it to her. She looked at it with interest.

‘You never use this,’ she said, holding it lightly in one hand and resting the fingers of her other hand on the wooden shaft. ‘If you have come from the mainland, where do you find it?’

‘I was here before – in the islands.’

‘It is registered – but it has expired. Or nearly. I can extend the expiry for you. Thirty thaler. Fifty simoleon.’

‘What do you mean, expiry?’

‘Three days unused. Maybe four.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘Fifty simoleon.’

I reached across and took the stave from her. She released it easily.

‘I’ll wait until it has fully expired,’ I said.

She lost interest in me then, turned away and wandered back to the others. I continued to move forward slowly towards the Shelterate building and soon I was allowed inside.

When my turn came to approach the desk I had my travel documents and stave at the ready. The official gave my documents the briefest of looks, but took my stave, turned to the scanning device which was mounted on the wall behind him and pushed it down into the aperture. As many times before the stave was drawn down mechanically a little further, an indicator light came on and went off, and the stave popped back up.

The official peered at it as he turned back towards me.

‘Is it due to expire yet?’ I said.

‘No.’ Then he said, ‘Have a good journey, Msr Suskind.’

‘It’s Sussken.’

He had already lost interest in me. I scooped up my papers, grabbing them with the hand that was holding the stave, and I moved on through. I had no wish to stay in Ristor Parallel. I knew that the ship I had been on briefly was sailing to Callock next.

I found the shipping office in a street close to the harbour and discovered that although that particular ship would not call at Muriseay, I could travel on her to Callock, then take a succession of other ships to where I wanted to be.

I returned to the port in time to board the ship, and was given a pleasant cabin on an upper deck.

Ristor was part of the Dream Archipelago even though its proximity to Glaund lent it the appearance and grim climate of the mainland. For that reason I was glad to be ashore for not much longer than an hour. As the ship sailed, turning to the south, I knew I was transferring from being a traveller leaving the warring north, to a wanderer among the islands.

The transit experience in Ristor was repeated with minor variations at every island where I had to change ships: Callock, Gannten, Derril, Unner, Olldus, Leyah, Cheoner – the names and places slipped past, becoming interchangeable with each other in memory. Two or three of the islands I hardly saw at all: we docked at night, and I was aboard the next ship before daybreak. But everywhere the ships made landfall there was the same official delay, the same baffling but annoying bureaucracy. My papers were generally passed over. My stave was used and examined everywhere and it remained unmarked.

Gradually the succession of ships bore me southwards into vivid sub-tropical seas. The temperature rose with the passing of every day, the sun glaring down from a sky that seemed to act like a concentrating dome of reflection. The waters were calm and metal-bright. Currents and tides stirred beneath the surface but each stretch of the journey was a stealthy, calming voyage through untroubled seas.