Travels in Nihilon by Alan Sillitoe Page B

and shot without trial, but quite a few got away to the mountains, where they may still be, for all any of us know. Such political ideas were getting dangerously close to those of the Rationalists during our civil war twenty-five years ago, and none of us are nihilistic enough to want that back.’
    A voice from a small air-vent, built into the back of the seat in front, called out: ‘Well said, professor. You speak like a true and grateful citizen of Nihilon.’
    â€˜Thank you, sir,’ said the professor. He grimaced at Richard, then pressed a handkerchief over the mouthpiece. ‘I was only praising the awful place,’ he whispered to Richard, ‘to see whether they were tuned in or not. The fact is I’m high on the executive staff of a revolutionary party myself, but don’t betray me, will you?’
    Richard suspected a trap. ‘I really don’t want to know about it.’
    â€˜It’s all right, my friend, they can’t hear us now. I’ve got to tell you certain things because, as a foreigner, you might be useful to us.’
    â€˜My sole purpose in going to Nihilon is to write a guidebook,’ Richard protested, ‘not to help in revolution.’ An air-hostess whose breasts were slightly too low asked with a smile if they needed anything to drink. ‘A glass of water,’ said Richard, taking no chances on anything stronger. The lunch wine had given him a headache, indigestion, eye-strain, hot flushes, heartburn, handshake and a sudden flood of inexplicable melancholia, and he hoped these discomforts would diminish if not wear off by the time they landed. In order to change the subject, he mentioned these ailments to the professor while he sipped the water brought to him by the girl whose breasts he wanted to touch and who, he seemed sure, had winked at him suggestively while placing the glass into his hand.
    The professor removed the handkerchief from the speaker-microphone in front, saying in a pompous voice: ‘There are many different vines in this country. Nihilon is famous for its superlative vintages, all of which are extremely delectable.’ He stuffed the handkerchief back again so that he could not be overheard: ‘But some of them have unenviable reputations, dear foreign friend. That particularly sweet and faintly fizzy wine you so unwisely imbibed during lunch sends one into the blackest of black sadnesses. At one time our political prisoners were induced to get drunk on it, so that they invariably confessed, except the schizophrenics, who were always as hard as nails, full of contradictions, and confessions you could never rely on. Anyway, Richard, I remember an incident a few months ago, when I was staying at a remote village in the mountains for some peace and quiet to get on with my work. There was an impressionable tourist who, after drinking one glass of the wine you had at lunch, fancied he’d changed into a vampire bat so that, unknown to any of us, who thought he’d merely gone outside to sample the pure night air, he launched himself in one glorious leap from a hundred-metre cliff at the end of the village. The night had been dark to all but him as he climbed that fatal parapet, but the police found him mangled on the rocks next morning. Unfortunately, in his back pocket were the details of our proposed coup d’état, but as our relations with Cronacia were rather tender at that time, as they are today, so I heard on the radio, the police assumed he was one of their agents, and didn’t connect us with it.’
    â€˜You certainly seem to have exciting lives,’ said Richard.
    â€˜That’s nihilism,’ the professor beamed, taking a large envelope from his briefcase: ‘Will you deliver this to a certain address when you get to Nihilon City? Our operations orders are inside. I can’t do it myself because I’m followed everywhere. Otherwise I would.’
    Richard held it: ‘Who