Saastopia

This is one of the short stories from “The Blue Food Revolution”, about the magical-realist adventures of a couple before they finally get it together, which will be out later this year:

My grandfather crossed the wide, soothing river in the proud, decorated ferry and landed in a country which existed in a space and a time much distanced from our own. He was sorry to leave Magogia. He doubted that he would ever feel as free, and as safe, and as happy again, but it was time to move on.

 

As soon as he landed, it was obvious that the whole country was convulsed in election fever. Everywhere he looked he saw banners and marching bands and was hectored through expensive public address systems to vote for this party or that in the upcoming plebiscite.

 

“Vote Progressive for a better future – things can only get better.”

 

“Vote Traditional for a secure future – things get worse before they get better.”

 

“Vote Progressive – it’s attitudes not policies that count.”

 

“Vote Traditional – don’t be fooled by the dazzle.”

 

“Well, this should be interesting,” my grandfather exclaimed to himself. “It looks a really lively contest.”

 

However, the thing that puzzled him slightly initially, and more and more as he was driven into the centre of town, was that both candidates looked remarkably similar. The Progressive Party candidate wore his shirt open at the neck, and was always photographed from the left; the Traditional Party candidate wore full military uniform, laundry starched white, with copious gold braid, medals and stars and was always photographed from the right. The former was called Johnny Saas, the latter General Saas.

 

“Are they twins?” my grandfather asked the taxi driver.

 

“So they say,” was the gruff reply.

 

“A bad case of sibling rivalry,” commented my grandfather.

 

“A bad case of split personality, if you ask me,” the taxi driver countered.

 

“What do you mean?” inquired my grandfather.

 

“It might as well be the same man,” explained the taxi driver. “They always claim to be different people, they always argue for different things, but one or other of them is always elected, and nothing ever changes. They each blame all their woes on the historic policies of the other. For five years General Saas complains that he had had to dig the country out of the economic hole Johnny Saas put us in. Then Johnny Saas takes over, and he complains that he is saddled with the aftershock of General Saas’ policies, which is why we are in the mess we are in. There isn’t a hair’s breadth between them.”

 

“Well, the streets look very clean,” something which obviously impressed my grandfather.

 

“Swept with the bodies of the dead,” observed the taxi driver.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“General Saas puts all his political opponents to work sanitising the city. ‘If you want to be a new broom, you can have a new broom,’ he says.”

 

“What happens when Johnny Saas takes over?”

 

“Oh, when he takes over, he puts all his political opponents in prison. ‘If you want to make the country a prison, you can languish there yourselves,’ he says.”

 

“So there are a lot of political prisoners?”

 

“What goes out through the door comes back through the window,” said the taxi driver resignedly.

 

“So is the regime very repressive?”

 

“Not in the least. With all the politicians otherwise occupied, we are left alone to get on with our lives.”

 

My grandfather was not sure about this intelligence. He had just spent three years in the army – he didn’t want to spend the next five years in prison.

 

“Of course,” the taxi driver added, “it is neither of the Saas brothers who really run the country.”

 

“It’s the army, I suppose,” ventured my grandfather.

 

“No, it’s their wives. They are both thoroughly pussy-whipped.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yes, really. What do you expect? Whatever us men may wish to believe, it is always the women who are in charge. Johnny Saas has six wives, and General Saas has eleven. They don’t stand a chance, poor saps.”

 

“And what do the wives believe in?” asked my grandfather.

 

“Themselves,” the taxi driver responded emphatically. “Themselves. The only thing that any woman believes in. Galas, jewellery and shopping. It never stops.”

 

“So they make sure that you are entertained, then.”

 

“Oh we are entertained, all right. There are street parties every week, constant sales, and interminable speculation over which wife is the dominant one at any particular moment. Then, of course, there are all the new wives.”

 

“New wives?”

 

“Yes, both of them get married at least once a year.”

 

“So how is it that Johnny Saas only has six wives?”

 

The taxi driver shrugged. “He divorces most of them, and occasionally one of them dies.”

 

“Have you ever seen any of them?”

 

“Yes, I meet them all the time. The taxi business in the capital here is tightly regulated. I am forever picking one of them up. I don’t always recognise them at first. They climb into my cab, then they remove their veils. Carla, wife of the president. Or Odette, wife of the president. I even had Marion, wife of the president the other day. I had never heard of her, but I had to offer her a free ride just the same. I don’t want to lose my concession and end up sweeping the streets or languishing in prison. The brothers are very strict on that. Whoever insults any of their wives, curses them both. Upset their wives, and you soon find yourself hanging from a chain over roasting fires losing your fingernails. If you listen to only one piece of advice from me, listen to this one. Never, never, never cross any of the presidential wives. You may not live to regret it. That is my friendly caution to an innocent new arrival in our country. That’ll be fifty,” he added, drawing up the car in the taxi rank on the main square.

 

“Fifty?” my grandfather protested. “How can it be fifty?”

 

“Good advice doesn’t come cheap. Just think what it would cost you if you made a mistake.”

 

“Oh, OK,” my grandfather muttered, resigned to paying the full fare.

 

The taxi driver handed him a receipt, which read Saas Taxis.

 

“So the president’s family owns the taxis too,” commented my grandfather.

 

“I own the taxis,” objected the taxi driver.

 

“But it says Saas Taxis here.”

 

“That’s right.”

 

“So are you called Saas too?” The truth was dawning on my grandfather.

 

“Naturally, as the company is named after me.”

 

“I suppose it wouldn’t be too impertinent to ask if you might be a relation …..”

 

“Of whom?”

 

“Of President Saas.”

 

“Of which one?”

 

“I thought that they were brothers……”

 

“Yes, they are. Oh yes, I see what you mean. Yes, I am a cousin of theirs.”

 

“Ah, so you know them well.”

 

“They trust me, see,” the taxi driver explained. “To run their taxis, and to run their marketing and presidential campaigns.”

 

“You run all of their marketing?”

 

“Yes, market research, advertising, PR, direct marketing, online SEO, the lot.” He was clearly very proud of the width and depth of his services.”

 

“And their presidential campaigns?”

 

“Yes, of course.”

 

“But doesn’t that entail a conflict of interest?”

 

“Why is that then?” demanded the taxi driver.

 

“Well, if they are the only candidates running against each other, I am sure that you have a tight system of Chinese walls, but there must be a considerable danger of each one becoming aware of the other’s strategies and tactics.”

 

“Of course they are aware,” laughed the taxi driver derisively. “These things have to be co-ordinated or the media would end up writing anything it liked, pretending that it was publishing leaks. This way they have to toe the party lines. There are no leaks in our campaigns. Each one is carefully positioned and watertight. We run the tidiest electoral ship in the world. Most of the 150 or so other countries send out research missions here to see how we do things. You must have spotted the similarities between our system and yours. We are recognised globally as the democratic benchmark – streets clean, guaranteed elections, obedient civic-minded people, high levels of education, a carefully planned economy. Everybody tries to do it like we do it, but nobody can actually do it like we do it, if you see what I mean. Anyway, must dash. Can’t sit here all day gassing. I have work to do.”

 

Grandfather handed Mr. Saas an extra large tip as he got out of the taxi. He thought it might be a wise investment.

 

*  *  *

 

Predictably, statues to five generations of the ruling Saas family stood in the square, alongside one to the much-acclaimed (across the media) national poet, Bartholomew Saas. Grandpa was later told about a piece of graffiti on the statue which declared “Bartholomew Saas is an ass, or it could be an arse, depending on pronunciation”, but within five minutes the political street hygiene attendants had wiped it clean away. Presumably it was safer to criticise a poet than a politician.

 

Although maybe not.

 

My grandfather never made it to sightsee the statues on that occasion. As he was approaching them, two men came up to him, placing guns against both his temples. “Come with us! Do not struggle!”

 

Having lived for five years in Magogia where such behaviour was punished by instant execution, my grandfather was even more shaken than he would normally have been. He went with them. They took him to their car, a hijacked Saas taxi, as my grandfather immediately noticed, and shoved him in the back next to the still bleeding body of the very murdered Cousin Saas who had chauffeured him earlier. “Don’t mind Uncle Ernie,” they exhorted him gleefully.

 

“Don’t tell me that you are from the Saas family too,” moaned my grandfather, who still had his wits very much about him.

 

“Distant relations,” one of them replied. “We prefer to think of ourselves as poets – Poets for Justice!”

 

“Poets for Justice!” chanted the other one.

 

“As in poetic justice?”

 

The first one snorted with amusement. “Neat, isn’t it?”

 

My grandfather looked down at the body of the taxi driver and multi-media mogul nuzzled up against him and wasn’t sure that “neat” was the apposite word. “More wet and sticky,” I would say, observed my grandfather.

 

“What?” demanded the second guy menacingly.

 

“Your uncle here.”

 

“Oh, he was always wet and sticky,” snorted the first guy again. “Everything stuck to him, especially shit and money.”

 

“Well, I can see and smell the shit,” replied my grandfather, “but I cannot see the money.”

 

“That is because we have it,” laughed the second man, waving a wad of bank notes up at the windscreen.

 

“Where are we going?”

 

“You’ll see.”

 

“Why have I been kidnapped? I have been kidnapped, haven’t I?”

 

“Very observant,” snorted the first man. With that level of intuitive insight, you can probably also guess why you have been kidnapped – for the money, of course.”

 

“Of course. What money?”

 

“I am sure it will turn up,” commented the second man.

 

“I’m not so sure,” replied my grandfather. “I am not rich, and I haven’t even been home for five years.”

 

“Then you’ll be turning up instead,” threatened the second man. “Dead. Hands cut off. Feet cut off. Sex cut off. Head cut off. In that order. One at a time.”

 

That made my grandfather very scared. These people were not only bad enough to do it, but deranged enough to do it too. He fell silent.

 

The men drove him out to a very desolate farm with a dilapidated shack parked on it. The second man got out of the car and waved him towards the shack with his gun. My grandfather obeyed meekly. The inside of the shack was as unnerving as his companions’ minds. There were clear signs of their having carried out exactly what they had threatened him with. Gallons of blood had soaked into the floor and the walls where it had splashed during many operations grandfather guessed. The second man indicated the state of the room. “I am sure that you will be most convincing over the phone,” the second man said. “We usually start by cutting off one hand during the initial call. It focuses the attention.”

 

My grandfather took a seat over in the corner of the room and held his head in his hands. The first man took a mobile phone out of his pocket. “Half an hour,” he promised.

 

“What do you stand for?” my grandfather asked, remembering that hostages should try to develop a rapport with their kidnappers, and knowing that he only had half an hour to win them over.

 

“Free verse,” snorted the first man.

 

“Free verse?”

 

“Yeah, we don’t like all that rhyming shit. Too tyrannical. Fascist.”

 

“Anything else?”

 

“No, that’s it. We have no other political stanzas.”

 

Grandfather chuckled. “You’ve been thinking about this, haven’t you?” To himself he thought: “Of all the sadistic satirical jokers in the world, I go and get the punsters.”

 

“Yeah, we’ve scribbled a few lines along the way. Would you care to hear some, to while away the time and all that?”

 

“Why not? Would love to,” my grandfather declared snippily.

 

The second man drew a crumpled piece of mashed paper out of his pocket, ironed it with his fingers as best he could, and declaimed what was written on the page.

 

Strangely enough, it was very accomplished. “That was surprisingly good,” observed my grandfather.

 

“We have others,” the second man assured him.

 

My grandfather liked some more than others, but overall they were well worth listening to.

 

“You have been our most appreciative audience so far,” said the first man. “The rest have been too busy shitting themselves to concentrate. You have to concentrate on poetry.”

 

“Wrong,” thought my grandfather. “When you are a poetic kidnapper, you had better first concentrate on the kidnapping bit.” He had noticed that the first kidnapper had placed his gun on the only table in the room and was getting distracted by a fly that was revelling in the odours of his sweat. My grandfather tried not to look at the gun, nor to be obviously avoiding looking at it. He would have one chance. He couldn’t wait. As soon as the fly ceased to confuse the man, his gun would be back in his hand.

 

My grandfather lunged. The revolver turned, uncomfortable to pick up. Despite his clumsiness, my grandfather managed to get his index finger around the trigger and to point it at the second man’s chest. He didn’t wait. He fired. In fact, he fired three times. Then he turned on the first man who was already backing away and shot him through the nape of the neck and then between the shoulder blades as he turned to run.

 

*  *  *

 

What to do?

 

Usually the instinct would be to escape the scene and the country as fast as possible. The sage advice would be to go directly to the police. However, in this case, the kidnappers were apparently members of the Saas clan. What sort of hearing would he get?

 

As he was hesitating, my grandfather heard several cars kangarooing across the dust of the farm. The police had arrived on the scene.

 

*  *  *

 

The police did not believe that my grandfather had been a kidnap victim. Rather they believed that he had murdered Mr. Saas the taxi driver and multimedia mogul, hijacked his car, and then kidnapped two minor members of the Saas family in order to demand a ransom from the president.

 

“You entered the country on a contract, didn’t you?” Colonel Malgard accused him across the table. “Straight in, straight out. A professional.”

 

“No,” protested my grandfather. “They kidnapped me.”

 

“Why would they kidnap you?”

 

“They were radical poets,” my grandfather explained, acutely aware that his excuse sounded ridiculous.

 

“Yes, they were poets,” confirmed the colonel. “Excellent ones. Two of the best in the country. Never off the television. So why would they kidnap you? What have you got which is so valuable?”

 

“Nothing,” replied my grandfather.

 

“Exactly,” concluded the colonel.

 

My grandfather had an idea. “So what about the room where you found me? People have obviously been tortured there over months if not years.”

 

The colonel looked perplexed. He had already admitted that my grandfather had only arrived in the country that day. “Oh, we’ll get it cleaned up,” he said.

 

“But it proves I didn’t do it,” protested my grandfather.

 

The colonel leaned over the table. “Mr. Parfitt, the two men you killed were two of the most respected people in the country, and close cousins of our president. Nothing will prove that you didn’t do it.”

 

“So you are framing me.”

 

The colonel shrugged diffidently. “Justice must be seen to be done.”

 

*  *  *

 

They tortured my grandfather for three weeks, to no effect. He had already confessed to his innocence, and they had already believed him. That was not the point.

 

My grandfather’s cell was almost as unbearable as the torture itself, and when he was let out of to mingle with other prisoners it was worse. You get some very sadistic types of people in prisons, even in countries like those where half the prisoners are political. When he was exercising, my grandfather almost begged to return to his cell. When he was in his cell, he almost begged to be tortured. When he was being tortured, he begged to be freed.

 

*  *  *

 

After three weeks, a mercifully short time, my grandfather was put on trial for his life.

 

He was allocated a very young lawyer with whom he was not allowed to confer. This must have been about her first case. The usher had to tell her where to sit. Opposite was the team of prosecution lawyers in full hierarchy – a venerable old man, a businesslike man of a certain age, and his young assistant, who was still much more experienced than my grandfather’s lawyer. They looked like a leap of leopards with their knives and forks out.

 

They waited an hour for the judge to arrive in what appeared to be an exceptionally bad mood, or perhaps he was always like that. He swept into the room as if all about him were intent on delaying him, and indeed had been personally responsible for his being late. He hardly gave the usher time to splutter “His honour, Mr. Justice Saas,” (figured), or the rest of the room the time to rise to its feet, so almost everyone half-stood with their bottoms hanging out and sat down again.

 

The judge addressed himself first to my grandfather’s lawyer. “Miss Saas,” he declared. “What a nice surprise. Have you graduated already? Magna cum laude, I hope. Good. It must be five years since I last saw you. Welcome.” He even softened visibly before turning to the prosecutors. “Mr. Saas, Mr. Saas and Mr. Saas,” he greeted them curtly. “I see you much more often,” a fact about which he was affecting not to be pleased. That gave my grandfather a chink of hope, but he knew that it was all a game.

 

As far as he ever became aware, my grandfather was neither formally charged nor asked how he pleaded. The prosecution was led by the middle-aged man who launched into the story of how my grandfather had been hired by enemies of the state to kidnap and assassinate two of the country’s most famous poets so as to diminish the cultural and moral life of the state and reduce its morale, not to mention to slight the august dignity of the ruling family to which the two poets belonged. The young assistant, with the permission of the court, then proceeded to recite six or seven poems (my grandfather forgot to count them) to demonstrate what a considerable loss the alleged murder of the poets had been. The old man then tottered to his feet to deliver the Saas’ most famous poem, the one that lingered on the lips of all. He read it most movingly, and my grandfather could see that the greater proportion of the assembly was willingly anticipating every line. He sat down to shocked silence.

 

My grandfather’s lawyer then stood up and announced, shyly, that my grandfather admitted to having killed the two men, following which statement she handed over to the usher a piece of paper which she claimed to be a signed confession, which indeed it was except that it was not signed by my grandfather. However, nobody even inquired as to whether it was his signature or not.

 

The judge read out the confession which recounted the story of how my grandfather was a footloose vagrant who had just completed three years training in the notorious Magogian army and who, being battle-hardened and otherwise short of gainful employment, decided to set himself up as a ‘contractor’. It was in this regard that he was contacted by the notorious secret services of a notorious (named) neighbouring state to carry out the operation for which my grandfather was being sentenced today. It was a callous, venal, immoral and brutal act of a man who was simply an assassin for hire, commissioned by a cruel, repressive, unconscionable tyranny. The whole assembly nodded, treating this statement sadly as an accepted fact.

 

The judge asked my grandfather’s lawyer whether she had anything else to say.

 

“Yes,” she replied. “I agree with my father,” indicating the second prosecutor in the team, “that this man should be executed without further delay.”

 

“How refreshing,” the judge congratulated her, “to come across a young lawyer so full of civic responsibility that you are prepared to put aside partisan differences fearlessly to proclaim the real truth of the matter as you see it, as everyone sees it.” My grandfather sought desperately a straw of irony in the judge’s voice, but there was none to detect. “We will take a fifty minute break. I have urgent matters to attend to,” the judge decreed. He swept off the dais and headed for his private chambers, only stopping to escort a very attractive young court attendant through the door.

 

My grandfather’s lawyer then got up and went over to her father, grandfather and brother (who were the three prosecutors) and hugged them warmly before pitching into a light-hearted and animated conversation, followed by a light lunch.

 

The judge returned two hours later at his accustomed speed. He approached his table on the dais and gavelled the block of wood with considerable force, reminiscent of the method of execution in that country which is to drive a steel mallet through the criminal’s head until he ceases to breathe.

 

“I find the prisoner guilty,” he barked. The whole assembly clapped the news, my grandfather’s lawyer even hopped up and down with excitement. My grandfather was terrified. “I sentence him to immediate expulsion from the country,” he continued with a grave, even vindictive timbre to his voice.

 

The assembly gasped. Time stopped. My grandfather’s lawyer stood there gaping in mute disbelief.

 

“There will be no appeal against this sentence,” growled the judge, finalising proceedings. “Court dismissed.” He was gone.

 

For the first time my grandfather was the recipient of the intensive attention of the entire assembly which appeared to be rapidly transmuting into a lynch mob. The lawyers muttered angrily among themselves and hissed at my grandfather repeatedly. My grandfather’s lawyer was in tears. She turned on my grandfather shaking like a castanet, or maybe a rattlesnake’s tail. “You scum!” she shrieked at him. “You vermin! You whoremonger! May you rot in hell!” She then collapsed into her father’s arms for comfort and solace. Her father was urgent with anxiety for the spiritual well-being of his daughter, pausing only momentarily to glare at my grandfather as the attendant guard guided him impatiently back to his cell.

 

Within an hour my grandfather had left the country. He heard later that the official explanation of the deaths of the poets was that in one of those bleak moments of desperation experienced by all great poets, they had decided to play Russian roulette à deux. Sales of their books soared so completely that it took three years to clear the back-orders despite 24-hour production schedules in the printing works – not bad in a country of less than a million people.

 

*  *  *