Conversation · Composure

"Old? An alcoholic?" With each word he squints a bit more. "Fascist?"

"No. I meant..." (Keep pointing to your face.) "Generally reddish and pink, like me."

"You're obsessed with your own features," he shakes his head, "because it's all you have left. The rich man took everything from you. Except your bottle."

"And he left you here -- gesturing at your swollen face. The rich man rules over you and over the world. And he laughs at your fidgeting." He stares into the dead embers.

"Yes."

"Not everyone is." He nods. "Most people are young and that. The rich man took everything from you, lumpenproletariat. Except your bottle..."

"And your race garbage. You can keep that too, keep the conversation going for the rich man, on Channel 4, eroding working class solidarity." He stares into the dead embers.

"By the way, I have internalized his weltanschauung."

"Oh, I'm sure you have all internalized your fair share of racism at the RCM. You don't have to tell me. It shows. Can't stop talking about some kind of head-measuring man..."

The lieutenant gives you a nod. Go on, he seems to say.

Keep talking about the head-measuring man. Politics yields information from this man, gets him spilling facts.

Cuno squints into the distance, confused. "Walterschlong?" he whispers to himself.

"There was something about the statue on the roundabout -- and syphilis?"

"Frissel the First, Filippe the Second, what's the difference? Syphilitic murderers the lot. I don't want to think about those things anymore. I'm tired of all of it!"

The flame of anger dulls in him. He tires of it, all of it...

"Syphilis is a disease Filippe III contracted in a whore house," he fires quickly. "The statue is an abomination."

"Good. Now that that's settled..."

"Mhm," he sputters attentively.

"Abomination?"

"The bacteria entered his brain and made him squander trillions on sparkling wine, cocainum, and monuments of himself. His son Filippe IV the Insane contracted syphilis in the womb..." he breathes in with a wheeze of hatred.

That is technically possible, although Filippe III was not actually syphilitic, he was just mad.

"And he still went on to govern Revachol for twenty five years! We lost 2 million lives toppling that mode of government -- and those grotesque statues too, hundreds of them..."

"But it's still there."

"What a keen remark!" He sputters. "Yes it is, isn't it?! It's still there. Do you know why?"

"Because cynical advertising yuppies erected a deconstructed version of it."

"That's right. Some advertising cockroaches erected a cynical, deconstruction of it. We tore it down with honest working class plastic explosives -- and there it is again..." He shakes his head in disgust.

"Art is a bourgeois establishment. It's an affront to humanity. Every gallery should be bulldozed and the artists should all be given 30 years of hard labour in Yekokataa."

Wait, the bullet hole in Filippe's heart! The statue had been shot -- that was him!

It had to be, he's already proven capable of taking a far more complicated shot from here.

Forget about that! Something much more noteworthy goes off in your brain! Could it not have been that...

"Actually, it was not de-constructed so much as captured in the moment of the explosion."

"What are you talking about?" The ancient communard cocks his head.

"Never mind."

"Delusional art bourgeois..." He waves you off.

"It's not a monument to Filippe III anymore -- it's a monument to the monument of Filippe III exploding."

"What is this madness?" A dim light comes on in his eyes...

The lieutenant, too, has cocked his head and is looking at you with a strange expression.

"It's not madness. It's a monument to what you did. To your program of de-statuing Revachol."

"So you're saying it's... a communist monument now?"

Not only.

"I don't know. Maybe it's too far fetched."

"Of course it is. Delusional bourgeois musings. Everything is some kind of subversion on the way to the bank." He waves you off. "All artists -- on a train to Yekokataa."

"Typical far left treachery, repressing your own people."

"It is commonplace to relocate the workforce according to the needs of the land. All nations do it. It's called settlement." He shakes his head and mumbles: "Browbeating from the bourgeois art-fascist..."

"I don't know about that. Could we not?"

"Don't be squeamish. It is commonplace to relocate the workforce as the need arises. All nations do it. It's called settlement." He shakes his head and mumbles: "Some kind of bourgeois art-fascist..."

"Of course. Straight to Yekokataa."

"You know, you don't sound like a liberast anymore. Maybe I was wrong..." He measures you with his black eyes. "Maybe I will be escorted to prison by another Mazovian communist -- as I should."

"As you ought to. Communism style."

"Straight to Yekokataa for this old revisionist." He gives you a little nod. "At last -- atonement for my sins: revisionism, reactionary ideation, desertion..."

He still refuses to believe you subscribe to Mazovian socio-economics, but entertaining the thought has given him some measure of solace.

Camaraderie even. For a second there he feels less alone -- but then the second passes.

"You're wrong. I'm no communard. I'm a cop."

"For a middle-class cop you're damn good at getting information out of an old revisionist deserter. Go ahead," he gives you an acknowledging little nod.

"Mhm," the lieutenant hums. "Straight to the open pit mine. Or cleaning up radiation in Severnaya Zemlja."

"Yes, well..." the ancient communard sizes you both up, not sure what to think of it.

The smallest doubt takes root in him -- perhaps this cop is... no, it can't be. This has helped your standing in his eyes.

"Yes."

"Maybe you're right..." His dark eyes fill with the sudden understanding. "That is how dialectics work. But understand this -- art is still a bourgeois institution."

He coughs, then adds, in a gravelly voice. "And they should all still be sent to Yekokataa."