Travels in Nihilon by Alan Sillitoe Page A

Well, when members of our government want to gather in a light-hearted way, they have a meeting in one of these great planes. It circles for hours high over the country, a magnificent going-on, which often lasts till fuel runs out and the pilot is forced to land. No one can gatecrash at that height, and so, with all credentials thoroughly checked before take-off, the guests can relax and have the time of their lives, with no fear of assassination, and very little from a coup d’état, since everyone is drunk. Naturally, loyal citizens of Nihilon fervently hope that no such plane will ever crash. We put great faith in our technological achievements.’
    Richard, who had been writing in his notebook, at last looked up. ‘What about third-class, or whatever it’s called?’
    The professor seemed uninterested. ‘Third-class tourist-economy night-flight in ten miserable hours? Yes, people are towed in huge gliders by obsolescent bombers, or so I hear. They sit on the floor with luggage at their feet and packets of sandwiches in their hands. A continuous tape of crying babies is played from stereo-speakers to make them feel more uncomfortable, and smells of fatty stew emerge from the end of a pipe near the tail of the plane as it goes through air pockets above the mountain tops. Not very nice, I must say. During the flight passports are collected, and hardly distinguishable false ones are handed back before landing on an improvised field in some remote area fifty kilometres from the main airport, so that people have to make their way to Nihilon City by a very irregular bus service on bumpy tracks, or walk through unmapped forest, if and when they get by the police and customs tent at the side of the field. Even disorganization is well organized in Nihilon. I’m very proud of my country, in some ways. The aim of our government is absolute chaos meticulously regulated. There can’t be a more noble aim in the world than that. I defy you or anybody else to tell me that there can.’
    Notices along the plane said that in the interests of safety and hygiene, smoking was forbidden. Richard had been tempted to take out his pipe and slyly puff at it, but he was put off because there were no ashtrays. Now that the meal was over, however, he saw his neighbour, and other people, buying huge cut-glass souvenir ashtrays of Nihilon Airways at ten klipps each from the stewardesses, then taking out pipes and cigars, and lighting up. Richard also bought one, though not without five minutes of bargaining which finally brought the price down to seventeen klipps from the naked, though mercenary stewardess.
    â€˜We have strange customs,’ said the professor, blowing thick smoke across the gangway. ‘In Nihilon’s internal politics the domestic theme is always and continually freedom – the uttermost freedom of the people to do what they like. We sing songs of freedom, ballads of liberty, lullabies of free-for-all. I supppose you’re even going to stay at Freedom Hotel in Nihilon?’
    â€˜Hotel Stigma, Ekeret Place,’ said Richard. ‘May I borrow a match?’
    â€˜Set the plane on fire if you want to,’ laughed the professor, passing him one. ‘See if I care! But you see, when a few dissident intellectuals formed a political party called Real Freedom, they were derided not only by the people, but by the government as well (what’s left of it) since everyone believed that they had freedom already. Freedom to start a political group based on freedom was only a way of destroying freedom. So President Nil ordered the offenders to be sent to a school for writers and journalists. However, a group of workers and intellectuals started a political party with the idea that people in our country had too much freedom, and that they should lose some of it in the name of National Unity and Recovery. The government saw a real threat in this. Scores of these dissidents were rounded up