Saturday Story - 'A Gigantic Leap' - 1 of 2

As we get pictures from the Rosetta mission, relaying details of the remarkable landing of its probe Philae on comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko, I thought it might be appropriate to feature this previously published sci-fi story.  Full details on the historic Rosetta mission can be gleaned from here 

 

Soyuz - Wikipedia commons

 

A GIGANTIC LEAP

 

Nik Morton

 

 

I remember the date well - June 30, 1971 – as that was when my world changed forever. 

            A little less than a month earlier, I, Kolya Volkov, had been one of the proudest children in the Soviet Union.  Anxious but proud. My father, Vladislav Volkov, was a cosmonaut.  Now, it is hard to comprehend the primitive nature of our nation’s space-craft in those days.  As my father joked once over dinner, ‘we went into space by the seat of our pants!’  He was a charming handsome man with gentle features, small eyes and dark hair.

            An indescribable mixture of emotions ran through me when my mother and I learned that the designated crew for Soyuz 11 had to step down as one of them had suspected tuberculosis.  My father, with Georgi Dobrovolski and Viktor Patsayev, were the stand-by crew.  Four days before the launch, they took over the mission.

            He was confident and never doubted his ability as the flight engineer. After all, this wasn’t his first journey into space as he’d been there before in Soyuz 7. 

            The preceding mission, in Soyuz 10, had been a failure as they had been unable to dock with Salyut 1, the world’s first space station.  Now that honour rested with Soyuz 11 and my father. 

            My mother and I were transfixed as we watched from the secure buildings of Baikonur Cosmodrome.  She nervously twisted her lace-bordered cotton handkerchief with one hand, a habit I had observed more than once. She had a box of these handkerchiefs and I recalled her saying in exasperation, ‘My grandmother gave them to me. She laughed at what she called our silly village superstitions.  Remember, Kolya, you never give handkerchiefs or knifes as a gift.’ 

            There were other odd things she inculcated into me, such as never celebrating a birthday early – as if you would; and never show your newborn baby to a stranger until it’s forty days old. (I abided by that with my little baby Nessa, foolish man that I am.)

            My mother gripped my arm tightly with her free hand as the blast off turned our vision red and yellow.  I felt my insides surging with joy and immense pride as the spectacular flame rose into the sky on that day on June 6.  D-Day, they call it in the West. Was that for ‘Doom’, ‘Destiny’ or something else?  I’m sure I knew but now I forget.

            The day following the launch, Soyuz 11 successfully docked with Salyut 1. How the cheers exploded around the mission planning centre.  I know now that you must grasp those moments of body-thrumming pleasure because they are rare. The effusive joy was short-lived as bad news came into the centre and within seconds everyone’s face looked downcast.

            Clambering inside the space station, the crew had encountered a smoke-filled atmosphere.  They reported that the air was clogged with the raw metallic stench of burnt electrics.  Undaunted and using oxygen cylinders while they worked, the crew replaced part of the ventilation system and then patiently waited in Soyuz 11 until the air had cleared.  Even then, I remember thinking that they were every bit as resourceful as the Apollo 13 crew a year earlier.

            Once back inside the space station, my father and his comrades occupied their time with minor experiments. They also tested the exercise treadmill, but desisted after a couple of attempts as its use seemed to seriously destabilise the station itself.

            The highlight for my mother and me - and the other families - was that we were able to speak to and view the crew through a television link.  The picture was poor and the sound scratchy at times, but we didn’t know any better. It was wonderful to us at the time. So much to say, yet I was tongue-tied when it was my turn to talk to my father.  I remember blushing and saying something inane.  I promised to keep up with my studies.

            On the eleventh day a fire broke out in the space station but quick action brought it under control. After that scare, groups of mission planners seemed to be constantly huddled together. Sometimes I think my mother had a sixth sense or was at least prescient. There were strange stories she would tell me of her childhood village in Byelorussia. Somehow, she snatched whispers out of the ether and she said that the controllers were actually considering the abandonment of Salyut 1. 

            Naturally, being a child, I didn’t appreciate that such a decision would have been a serious setback to our space conquest. And it would have been a terrible embarrassment. I think we have inherited the concept of ‘face’ from the East.  We Russians don’t like to be seen to fail or lose. To counter this, the crew argued that it was safe enough for them to stay and they did, establishing a space endurance record of twenty-two days, which wasn’t bettered until the Americans’ Skylab 2 mission two years later.

            After a normal re-entry, Soyuz 11 landed at Karaganda in Kazakhstan on June 30. We families watched from an accompanying coach.  With its enormous parachute trailing in the dust, the capsule looked like a bathyscaphe or some contraption out of Jules Verne. What kind of pummelling did my father and the crew get when it hit terra firma?  I was brimful with admiration for him and his brave comrades.

            All smiles, the recovery team rushed over from their support vehicle and moved their mobile ladders to the side of the globe-shaped module. Two of them clambered up the ladders and opened the capsule with practised ease; it was obvious that they’d done this many times before.  Small, vital cogs in our mighty machine. 

            Then the speaker system in our coach suddenly went into overload and just as abruptly stopped, to be replaced by silence. Ominous silence. The looks on the faces of the recovery team told us that something was amiss.

            Wiping her eyes with that old lace handkerchief, my mother whimpered, ‘Oh, Kolya, they’re pulling them out.’  I could have been mistaken but I thought I saw her fleetingly cross herself. I never again saw her make such a pious and dubious expression until she was on her death-bed.

            The recovery crew handled the cosmonauts like shop dummies, hauling them onto the hard unforgiving ground. Medics rushed forward and one man knelt over my father, performing resuscitation, alternately pumping his chest and then breathing into his airway.  My heart pounding, I stared, not aware that I was breathing.  My mother’s hand almost crushed mine as it flexed repeatedly. After about fifteen minutes, the team stopped and slumped back, exhausted.

            Later, back at the base, my mother and I were allowed to see him.  His face was still drawn in the horrible rictus of asphyxiation.  Mother leaned over and kissed his forehead and tenderly held her handkerchief over my father’s lips and intoned some ancient words from the Steppes; probably some superstitious ritual.  I dutifully kissed his cheek and was surprised how cold he felt.  I was twelve.

            The rest is a hazy slide-show of memories. The state funeral. Thousands of people lining the streets. An American astronaut was one of the pall-bearers, but I forget his name. 

            My father and his fellow crewmen were buried in Red Square’s Kremlin Wall Necropolis.

            Over the years, I tried to visit this tomb at least once a year. But life got in the way.  Now, I have a busy international career as a microbiologist.

            So, to my eternal mortification, five years passed before my most recent visit.  I was taken aback by the state of the marble blocks.  They were stained brown, as if with rust, and lichen grew in the small cracks, radiating outwards.  I wasn’t too surprised; much had fallen into disrepair since the USSR collapsed.  But I felt shame, too.  I spent an hour or so finding a shop where I could buy bleach and rubber gloves. It was the least I could do for my father’s memory, I thought, as I dabbed bleach on the cloth and rubbed at the lichen. 

            It had no effect.  I knew that there were plenty of fake products on the market. Was this yet another one?  I fished in my pocket and pulled out a red paper serviette – as a young man I’d made a habit of pocketing my serviette when leaving a restaurant.  Waste not, want not, my mother taught me. An insubstantial handkerchief compared to my mother’s lace ones.  I dabbed the serviette and the colour drained from the tissue.  The bleach worked, then.  But it didn’t have any effect on the growth that discoloured my father’s tomb.

            An armed sentry marched over to me and asked politely, ‘What are you doing, comrade?’

            I smiled. ‘Not a lot,’ I answered truthfully enough. ‘This is my father’s tomb and I was trying to clean it. But with little success.’

            The soldier saluted me. ‘An honour to meet you, comrade.’ He eyed the three names on the tomb. Which one is your father?’

            I told him, gesturing with the bottle of bleach.  ‘Do you know how long it’s been like that?’

            He shouldered his weapon. ‘I was here on sentry duty last week and I can assure you the marble was as new then.’  His face showed concern. Maybe he was worried he would get the blame. ‘Comrade, let me contact City Maintenance for you.’

            ‘No,’ I said, astonished at my response.  ‘I’m sure they have enough to do these days.’  With the new freedoms came the freedom to drop litter and spread graffiti. It was easy to understand that many old Muscovites pined after the old days.  ‘But thank you for your concern.’

            The soldier saluted and marched off. 

            By then it was getting late so I walked back to my apartment.  Twenty years ago it had been shared with two other families. Even the family of a dead hero of the Soviet had to suffer privations for the cause.  Now, though, I had recovered it for myself and my daughter Nessa.  She was twenty-two and helped me with my work. My wife ran off with a ballet dancer when Nessa was eight.

            Sometimes I think Nessa is psychic.  She opened the door as I stopped to insert my key.  ‘You look troubled, father,’ she observed as I entered.  She closed the door and bolted it.

            No matter how much I tried, I saw my wife in Nessa’s high cheekbones and bright grey eyes.  She had the poise of her grandmother and the strange characteristic of occasionally rubbing her lower lip with the end of her thumb, just like my father.

            I shrugged off my jacket and loosened my tie and sank into a leather armchair.  ‘No, just perplexed a little, that is all.’ 

            Our apartment was snug and homely. Most of the furniture had belonged to my parents.  Dark wood. Creased and worn leather. Threadbare rugs.  It still smelled of them, too. Warm and welcoming; the people who shared with us long ago left no impression. Although I owned an apartment in London and another in New York, only this place was home. 

            Nessa was psychic: she placed a tumbler of vodka and ice in my hand and I sipped it gratefully. ‘Thank you, dear.’

            On the mantel-shelf resided a sealed clear square plastic container.  Inside it was my mother’s lace handkerchief. She’d never used it again after touching my father’s lips with it.  A piece of band-aid was stuck on the top and in her spidery handwriting was the faded date of his death.  The container was flanked on either side by photographs of my parents.   My father still looked a handsome thirty-six-year-old in his uniform and medals; my mother’s picture was more recent and the years had not been kind towards the end, draining the colour from her hair and face.

            I explained to Nessa about the state of my father’s tomb.

            ‘Is the fungi just isolated to his tomb?’

            I shook my head. ‘No, it radiates from all three of them.’  I pictured the Necropolis again. Black marble, austere stonework, but no evidence that any other tomb was in such a poor state.  ‘None of the others seem affected.’

            ‘Yet,’ she said, prophetically.

            The sky was grey and downcast, reflecting my mood, as I returned to the Necropolis the next day, this time with Nessa. The fungal outgrowth from the three tombs was worse. 

            ‘I don’t like this.’ Nessa shuddered.

            I’d looked after her long enough to trust her body’s reactions to places and people; if she shuddered, then there was a good reason for it. Kneeling down, I took out from my jacket pocket my pen-knife and scraped a sample of the growth into a paper tissue since I was out of serviettes.

            ‘Let’s get away,’ Nessa urged, tugging my arm. 

            At first I thought she was being melodramatic. But I trusted her feelings.

            ‘We need to talk to Federov,’ she said decisively. ‘He’s the expert on fungi.’

*

Anton Federov was an old student friend and we’d kept in touch over the years. Now he was a perplexed mycologist.  He squinted at the sample under his microscope and then straightened, a hand going to his back.  ‘None of us are getting any younger,’ he smiled, withdrawing his spectacles. ‘How old do you think this stuff is?’

            ‘Stuff?’ I said.  ‘You’re not usually so imprecise.’

            He shook his head and scratched his unruly greying hair. ‘It isn’t any kind of plant life I’ve come across, Kolya.’ 

            ‘As for its age,’ I added, ‘judging by the growth rate, I’d estimate it only started being visible about a week ago.’ I didn’t register the significance of the date then. ‘The sentry tends to confirm that, too.’

            Federov gestured at the microscope. ‘A week... It’s like bacteria, reproducing at a phenomenal rate. Cells splitting every few seconds. This isn’t my field, Kolya. You need to show these slides to a bacteriologist – Tomich will be intrigued, I imagine.’

            ‘But why is it only to be found at the tomb of the Soyuz 11 cosmonauts?’

            Federov pulled a face.   ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say the craft brought the spores from space...’

            ‘But there were quarantine regulations,’ I said.  ‘I remember waiting ten days to see my father after he came down in Soyuz 7.’ 

            ‘Really, that’s an arbitrary duration. Different viruses have different incubation periods. Exposure risks vary. As for something from space – nobody actually knows...’

            I glanced with concern at Federov and Nessa. ‘Could we have been so unprepared?’

            ‘Our so-called experts thought that no pathogens could live in the vacuum of space or survive the heat of re-entry. If you believe the Americans, they thought differently and were ultra careful.’

            ‘The Americans – I’ve worked with them, Anton – they go over the top. Always have. You know that.’

            Federov chuckled. ‘But rumours get out, don’t they? Their Operation Wildfire in Nevada was a failure, by all accounts.’

            ‘That was fiction.’  I caught The Andromeda Strain film on a hotel television once, years after its release date of 1971.  Life’s full of coincidences that mean nothing except to the conspiracy theorists.

            ‘Fact dressed up as fiction, I heard.’  Even in our new so-called free society, we’re not immune from the rumour-mongers. Some of them are quite plausible, too. That’s what comes of having a secretive society – the truth is as hidden as the falsehoods. Next, they’ll be telling us the Pope’s assassination attempt was engineered by a secret psychic group in Kazakhstan.  Just because the demented fool was hearing voices in his head. The Kennedy assassination conspiracies prove that – nineteen theories at the last count. America kids itself that it’s the land of the free. A great many of the people with power and knowledge may be free, but the majority are not.  They are not free to know; that privilege is denied them. I’ve been there, seen it at work.

To be concluded tomorrow…

Previously published in Midnight Street, 2009.

Copyright Nik Morton, 2014

 

Author’s dedication and declaration

‘A Gigantic Leap’ is dedicated to those brave souls who gave their lives in the tragic accident of June 30, 1971. The story is a work of fiction and, while it hinges on a real event, all the characters depicted are figments of my imagination and bear no resemblance to any person, living or dead.

FFB - Pieces of Justice

Continuing the theme of short stories, today's 'forgotten book' is Pieces of Justice, the first collection of Margaret Yorke’s short stories, twenty-three in all, ranging from 1977 to 1983. At time of this publication (1994) she had published 37 novels, five of them concerning Oxford don and amateur sleuth Patrick Grant. Her first book was published in 1957, her last in 2001.

The majority of the stories were published in the annual hardback series, Winter’s Crimes. A scattering of others appeared in magazines, among them Woman, Woman and Home, and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

It’s inevitable perhaps that, considering the period of the writing, some themes and murder methods are repeated; even some character names are used again, as well as cruise ship names. This can’t be a criticism because at the time of their writing there was no conception of these tales being collected. It’s interesting to note, though, how certain names stick in the writer’s forebrain and insist on coming out more than once. Most writers have to watch out for this. By their nature, the stories are ‘tell’ rather than ‘show’ – certainly, some could have been developed into full length novels, with sub-plots.

Characterisation has to be limited since the stories are short. Within the word constraints, Yorke achieves a great deal, offering us widowers, widows, unhappily married couples, and virtually all have a grudge smouldering from some past event, misdemeanour or mistreatment.  A few are sad individuals who live a lie and might as well be dead. Space does not permit referring to each story, but I would single out a sample handful.

‘The Liberator’ is told in the first person; the elderly narrator is able to use her lethal skills to right what she considers to be wrongs. In ‘The Reckoning’ Ellen determines to do away with her seventy-year-old husband… and succeeds, but Nemesis has something to say about her fate. Indeed, hand of fate and deus ex machina endings pop up more than once in these stories.

A few tales are quite dark, notably ‘Anniversary’, when Mrs Frobisher plots to kill her rich husband, but things don’t quite go according to plan. ‘The Mouse will Pay’ is about a particularly nasty poison pen letter-writer.

In my view, the best of the bunch is ‘Means to Murder’, a period piece that evokes a past time and an injustice, viewed by a child who grows to adulthood.

Overall, a fascinating collection, best to be dipped into rather than read in one go. Yorke dredges up the sinister from the everyday, the unease from the normal, and certainly lets the past cast its shadow on the present for her protagonists.

 
Margaret Yorke died in 2012, aged 88.

Loose change in the treasury of fiction

In his introduction to the volume collecting all his short stories, J.G. Ballard states, ‘Short stories are the loose change in the treasury of fiction, easily ignored beside the wealth of novels available, an over-valued currency that often turns out to be counterfeit. At its best, in Borges, Ray Bradbury and Edgar Allen Poe, the short story is coined from precious metal, a glint of gold that will glow for ever in the deep purse of your imagination.’

To continue yesterday’s theme about next week’s UK National Short Story Week, I thought I’d scan my book shelves for the collections by sci-fi and horror authors (a separate set of shelves).

Here I find Brian Aldiss, J.G. Ballard, Anthony Boucher, Ray Bradbury, John W. Campbell, Angela Carter, Harlan Ellison, Jack Finney, Richard Matheson, Cordwainer Smith, Philip K. Dick, Christopher Priest, Clifford Simak, Theodore Sturgeon, James Tiptree Jr (Alice B. Sheldon), Gene Wolfe, Connie Willis and H.G. Wells.

 

 

Aldiss’ title story (see cover) plus two other linked tales were adapted for Spielberg’s film A.I.

 

Jack Finney’s classic novel Invasion of the Body Snatchers has been filmed more than once; yet it’s his beautiful short story ‘I love Galesburg in the Springtime’ that lingers in my memory.

 

 

Science fiction lends itself to the short story form because it’s often the fiction of ideas; though in truth that was in the early days; by the 1960s with the New Wave spearheaded by Moorcock and Ballard, light was shone on the inner space embedded within the human condition.

Some readers are quite insular in their taste, and eschew certain genre writing, which is a pity, because there is a richness of prose and idea within all genres; a good story, about people and emotion can be found in all genre writing; a good story is a good story.

‘I don’t read sci-fi’ is perhaps as common a statement as ‘I don’t read westerns’ or ‘I don’t read horror’. Perhaps these opinions stem from a bad experience with a poor writer within a particular genre. Yet you won’t hear anyone say ‘I don’t read novels’ (well, apart from those who prefer non-fiction!) because this statement is too broad. And that’s the point. Within any genre, there’s a very broad range of style, quality and imagination. Short story collections by an author can introduce you to his or her style, and I believe that any of the above mentioned authors have something like ‘precious metal’ to offer readers who are bold enough to mine these treasures.

 

National (UK) Short Story Week

Just a heads-up to advise that it’s National Short Story Week in the UK 17-23 November.

www.nationalshortstoryweek.org.uk/

Maybe National Novel Week will be longer than 7 days?

In my library I’ve got collections of short stories by many of the great writers – that is, those who indulged in the short format. Among them, Somerset Maugham, Katherine Mansfield, Gabriel García Márquez, Alistair Maclean, Jeffery Deaver, Graham Greene, Elizabeth Bowen, Ring Lardner, Roald Dahl, Saki, Noel Coward, John Cheever, Ernest Hemingway, Maupassant, Stephen King and Truman Capote. And I haven’t touched upon the sci-fi and fantasy collection!

 

One book of short stories is worth getting hold of, if possible: The Story and Its Writer, edited by Ann Charters. My copy’s published 1987. It’s an anthology of the greats from around the world. Each story begins with a lengthy introduction and there are commentaries on several authors plus articles on a brief history of the short story and the elements of fiction.

 

So-called experts have talked about the death of the short story for years (in a similar fashion to the demise of the western). They’re wrong, of course. Yes, we writers grieve that many of the traditional outlets for stories – notably for adventure tales – seem exceedingly limited. But the online magazines and the rise of the e-readers are causing a worthy resurgence.

So, either why not get writing – or reading?

Secret file – 02 - Professor Dmitri Bublyk

He was born on 17 October 1919. His father was taken away when he was fourteen, in 1933. He was inducted into the army and during the Second World War, a shell-casing exploded close to him and on recovering he discovered his psychic ability. He was in the Leningrad siege in January 1944. 

At the time of the Prague Papers mission (1975), he was resident in the Kirlian Institute, Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, and ran a special group of psychics.

Tall, powerfully built and big-boned, he was the antithesis of the common image of a scientist. He was a manipulative man, without compassion.

He possessed a sallow complexion, a sickly yellow; he blamed it on not getting the right food, even with all his privileges. He had hooded eyes, coloured pale, yellowish brown and flaring nostrils and a long nose. His hair was the shade and consistency of straw and always untidy.

 

***

In the Kirlian Institute of Alma-Ata, the capital of Kazakhstan, Professor Bublyk paced the control room. Through the glass wall he could observe an adjoining room occupied by six men and four women, all of them sitting at desks. He smiled on them, his best students: The Group. They were all wearing headsets connected to an array of large cumbersome computers and clinical monitors. The men wore drab uniform gray coveralls while the women were dressed in clay-brown skirts and shirts.

            Deep crease-lines in his forehead betrayed his worry about next year’s appropriations.

            It was annoying but every time they sent an inspection team, he had to recount the history of mind control. As if the idiots understood even a fraction of what he told them!

‘The history of mind control began with our experiments carried out by Pavlov in the Thirties to modify behavior,’ he would say. ‘While the salivating dog experiments were the most well-known, they were merely the precursor.’

Indeed. The precursor to more sinister work. Lenin made Pavlov a ‘guest’ at the Kremlin for about three months until the scientist had completed a special report, relating his research to human beings rather than dogs. Pavlov’s manuscript never left the Kremlin and it laid the groundwork for NKVD brainwashing techniques such as sleep deprivation, systematic beatings and verbal indoctrination. Brain damage, Pavlovian conditioning, hypnosis, sensory stimulation, ‘black psychiatry’ and ‘mind cleansing’ were all employed to subvert the will of perceived enemies of the state.

And as Bublyk was at pains to point out, ‘the ultimate brainwashing tool is the actual invasion of another person’s mind with yours.’ That was the motherland’s version of the Holy Grail.

            In the Fifties, when Bublyk first entered para-psychological research, funds were scarce, as most of the work was done without the Stalinists being aware of it. Thankfully for him, the Stalinist taboo was lifted in the early Sixties, and he finally saw funding at last become plentiful because both the KGB and the GRU leaders hoped to harness psychic energy as another weapon in their arsenal.

            Bublyk explained with justified pride, ‘It was Russian sleep research that detected the theta state of consciousness, which is found in dreaming sleep.’ This seemed to be somehow linked to psychic awareness. If this theta state could be augmented, they would have psychic spies – or even mind-assassins. To many of his listeners it seemed far-fetched, but the potential from success, no matter how remote, meant that rubles were diverted to this new branch of research.

            The Sixties were a golden time for him and those years promised much, with experiments in submarines and in space, but deliverables were scarce. It was an inexact science, prey to mood, to environment and doubtless planetary influences for all Bublyk knew.

            Now, halfway through this new decade, all the pressures were building up and cracks were appearing in the structure of the State. Yuri Andropov, the head of the KGB, was asking awkward questions. He wanted results to combat the Americans. Even members of the Politburo were becoming dissatisfied, though not within the hearing of Brezhnev and his informers.

            The party tricks with cards were long gone. Psychical research had come a long way, Bublyk mused, eyeing in particular Karel Yakunin, their star psychic. Yakunin’s good looks and dark wavy hair transcended the drabness of his regulation clothing.

Bublyk smiled, recalling only last night when his mind roamed the dormitories and found Yakunin bedding little Raisa, the flaxen-haired Estonian psychic now sitting at the back of the room. Their coupling was against Bublyk’s regulations, as he believed sexual activity drained the psychic forces – a credo shared by oriental mystics. Yet he had not reported or disciplined them as he had to admit to quite enjoying being a voyeur.

            Now, The Group was capable of distance viewing, of projecting thoughts into minds in other lands or of detecting other people’s thoughts in enemy countries. It was arduous work. Some of them suffered rapid weight-loss and heart-strain due to the exertion. Last year, two adepts died. It was no accident that the theta state was so named after the eighth letter of the Greek alphabet, suggesting a sign of doom – thanatos, the ‘death’ sign on the ballots used in voting on a sentence of life or death in ancient Greece.

            And, Bublyk reflected, they still had a lot to learn. The prospects were good, but the funding committee wanted solid repeatable results, quantifiable answers. Damned bean counters! If only the measuring apparatus was up to the task!

            At that moment, a buzzer jerked Bublyk out of his reverie. The light was on over Yakunin’s name – he’d detected someone!

            Bublyk quickly scanned today’s roster and noted Yakunin was covering Czechoslovakia.

***

On November 26, The Prague Papers are released. This book is published by Crooked Cat. It is based on a manuscript handed to me by an MI6 agent, Alan Swann. It needed some knocking into shape, as it had been a collaborative effort by a select group of agents, all intent on telling the story of Tana Standish, psychic spy, whose career spanned 1965 to 1988. They asked that her story be told as fiction.

As a result, the forthcoming novel The Prague Papers is the first adventure to feature Tana Standish and is mainly set in Czechoslovakia in 1975.

Certain information was divulged in order for me to write the book; yet some has been concealed to date. This is the second secret file to be released ahead of the book. Others will follow.

Writing – novel competition - £1,000 prize

Literary agency Conville & Walsh are running a competition called Word of Mouth Prize.

 

In their own words, “At Conville & Walsh we are passionate about discovering new talent and launching debut authors, as well as nurturing the careers of the writers we represent. We’re very proud to be considered one of the most approachable and dynamic agencies in London, a reputation for which we’ve worked hard.

“As an agency we always want writers to feel as though they can get their work right under the noses of our agents, which is why we are very excited to announce the inaugural Conville & Walsh Word of Mouth Prize.

“The key to what the judges are seeking lies in the prize’s name: novels which linger long in the mind and which readers find themselves recommending to others. That’s an almost undefinable and seemingly magical quality which we nonetheless all recognise – a quality which gives rise to that immediate instinct to email or phone a friend, and say ‘You must, must read…’

“We’re looking for fiction that is brilliantly written but still accessible, has depth but isn’t dense and is innovative but identifiable-with. We’d love to find novels with that must-read quality, which would be perfect for book club discussions. These are the kind of books that people just can’t stop talking about, that can become a word of mouth phenomenon, and which Conville & Walsh are known for representing.

“Great examples of this kind of fiction represented by Conville & Walsh include: THE UNLIKELY PILGRIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY by Rachel Joyce, THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS by M L Stedman, THE SHOCK OF THE FALL by Nathan Filer and BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP by S J Watson.

"The prize is open to both unpublished and previously published authors, but the work submitted must be unpublished by a publishing house (i.e. self-published work, or work from which an extract has been published in a literary magazine is fine)."

DEADLINE: 31 January 2015.

Full details can be found at http://www.convilleandwalsh.com/index.php/literary/prize/

 

Book review - Johnny Nothing

A highly amusing and original moral tale about ten-year-old Johnny. ‘He’s not over-clever. He’s not under-stupid.’ He's called Johnny Nothing because he has nothing, whether that's decent clothes, toys, books, or love. Author Ian Probert can certainly give Roald Dahl a run for his money with this novel.

Johnny MacKenzie has two feckless parents who seem to have emerged from all of the worst nightmares of children’s fiction: his mother, Felicity, in truth, is a marvellous invention, unsavoury and selfish, among other things, while his father, Billy is a drinker and gambler and under the thumb, correction – ‘Billy lived in mortal fear of his wife.’ She is definitely the kind of person children of all ages will love to Boo and Hiss at: ‘SILENCE commanded his mother in capital letters.’

Uncle Jake Marley (deceased brother of Felicity) died a millionaire, and bequeathed £1m to Johnny, with the added proviso that if after a year Johnny increased that million rather than spend it he will be in line for a further £10m. Unfortunately, the cash card Johnny inherits is stolen by Johnny’s mother.

Marley’s solicitor is Ebenezer Dark, whose image graces the cover of the book. (Maybe Johnny should be on the cover as well as Ebenezer – or even Marley as well?) Might as well mention the illustrations, by the author’s daughter: they’re excellent, conveying that ‘otherness’ that surrounds the characters and the story itself.

Probert is a wordsmith, and loves playing with them, viz: ‘Uncle Marley didn’t mince his words (if he did, they’d probably come out in little gnarled up chunks and you could make wordburgers and chips or spaghetti with wordballs from them).’

Virtually every page gives us more of the same: ‘There was a stunned silence in the church. The only noise that could be heard was the sound of John McVicar dropping a small pin on the floor that he had just found in one of his jacket pockets.’

I’ve read somewhere that publishers and agents don’t like puns in books. Well, all I can say is, they’re sad people. Puns enliven a grey day, bring light into a monotonous life, and even the groans are uttered in pleasure – well, for most, anyway.

Besides indulging in puns, Probert has an eye for detail, popping the balloon of pomposity, and cocking a snook at political correctness.  ‘He had not used this type of mobile phone before but it was fairly easy for him to work out because he was under thirty.’

 
Johnny’s mother squanders his inheritance on expensive restaurant meals, gadgets, and foreign travel, and here’s a taster: ‘So they had turkey in Turkey. And then chicken in Kiev. And crackers in Caracas. And visited a deli in Delhi.’ Groan, but enjoy; there’s a lot more of that!
 
The book is ostensibly aimed at early teens but will be enjoyed by adults, since the story can be construed as a parable of our times, with a nod to Dickens; it shows that Johnny’s heart is in the right place. And the right place for the book is in the hands of any reader who appreciates humour of all complexions.

[A shorter version of this review will appear on Amazon and other sites.]

Saturday Story - 'One day we'll walk through'

Brandenburg Gate - Wikipedia commons

 

ONE DAY WE’LL WALK THROUGH

 

Nik Morton

 

 

I waited and waited.

And the memories flooded back, bringing the heartache as well as the joy, the short-lived joy...

*

 

"Berliner Weise mit Schuss?" the blond young man asked as I came over to his table with a damp cloth.

I smiled. "Just a moment, while I clean this away." I wiped pastry crumbs from the Formica surface.

Bringing the white beer injected with raspberry syrup, I noted his thin angular frame in ill-fitting worn overalls. His long dirty fingers prompted me to think of artistic hands.

"Thank you, fraulein," he said, and smiled sheepishly, sipping the drink. His eyes were a beautiful slate grey, but they tended to avoid mine.

The restaurant was not busy, even though it was lunch time. Most of the factory workers gathered in the bars or brought sandwiches. Few could afford Western prices for food, even sixteen years after the war.

"I've not seen you in here before," I observed pleasantly.

He said, defensively, "No, I - I only - I promised myself this drink, my father said he used to- "

"I'm sorry, I only meant I would have noticed you. I meant nothing - "

Mollified, he shrugged, narrow shoulders, seeming unsure of himself. 

"Was it worth the wait?"

"Wait?"

"The drink."

He sipped at the liquid, nodded. "Yes, it's very nice." He turned, to eye Heinz drying dishes behind the counter. "Did you make it?"

"No. I'm the cook around here, not the barman!"

“Oh."

He looked unkempt, as if the clothes of a manual worker were totally unsuited to him. Impulsively, I said, "Do you paint?"

He couldn't be more than twenty, I thought as he creased his brow in confusion. "No, I'm a machinist," he explained.

"My hobby's drawing, and I just wondered - "

"Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, I draw," he smiled, "whenever I can," and pulled out a few scraps of paper from his torn pocket. Carefully, he spread them on the Formica, and gazed up, clearly seeking reassurance.

If the sketches of the ruined Reichstag and the Schoneberg district's Rathaus had been inept, lacking depth or any artistic merit, I would still have praised him. He seemed so lonely, so timid and vulnerable, in need of warmth. I flushed at these thoughts and

said, truthfully, "They're wonderful. I can only draw people. I'm hopeless when it comes to buildings!"

I glanced at Heinz, who was preoccupied with watching the passers-by in the street. Nothing spoiling, so I sat on the empty wooden chair opposite the customer and

asked, "May I?" and held the crumpled sheets as he nodded. "You've drawn these straight lines free-hand - " and I looked up, to see his eyes shining, alight, smiling.

*

I waited, and waited.  The restaurant had changed beyond all recognition in the intervening twenty-eight years. I used to count the days, before that terrible night...

Shaking off the melancholy, I stepped inside, smiled at the head-waiter. With commendable alacrity, he rushed forward and pulled out a chair at the table by the window.

The scene outside had altered, too. Now, West Berlin was affluent. "A coffee and cognac, please, Hans," I ordered, and allowed more memories to sweep over me...

*

His name was Dieter. He crossed daily from East to West Berlin to work in the factory opposite the cafe. His parents were old before their time, incapable of crossing to the West; he was devoted to them, and wouldn't leave them though he had heard that many had passed through the reception centres last week.

Rumours were rife. The Soviets seemed in a belligerent mood: the tension was palpable. Some said it was like the Berlin Blockade all over again. He couldn't remember that, though.

To take his mind off the rumours, I would pack a sandwich lunch for us both and we would walk down Ku-damm with its wonderful shops and rich colours.

His eyes opened wide in amazement every time we walked down Kurfurstendamm: "We have nothing like this in our sector": the ghost of a war-torn Europe still stalked the streets there. Unlike the eastern sector, restoration had moved

fast. I proudly told him that my mother was one of the famous rubble ladies - a trummer frau - who dug the city out of its wreckage with her bare hands, brick by brick. There were enormous rubble mountains, now landscaped, to testify to their efforts.

My mother took to Dieter immediately, but typically expressed concern about his gaunt appearance. But no amount of potato dumplings and pork, cooked with fried fruit and rich gravy, put so much as an ounce on him. "He uses up too much nervous energy, dear," she observed kindly.

Another time, while drawing the ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, Dieter remarked, "I really feel we are all part of history, even now..."

I wondered if our stroll down the Strasse des 17 Juni had affected him. The street was named in memory of the Germans shot down by Russian tanks in 1953) - when Dieter was only eight - when the East Berlin construction workers laid down their tools in

protest over greatly increased work "norms". Near here, at the Grosse Stern, too, he had been anxious to sketch the 64-metre column of dark red granite, sandstone and bronze, surmounted by a gilded figure of Victory: Siegessaule, as it is called, was raised in 1873 to commemorate the Franco-Prussian War.

The following day, we had embarked on the tiring climb of steps up the column, and the view had taken away what little breath he had left!

"Berlin's heart!" he said, eventually, trying to take it all in.

I pointed out the Philharmonic Orchestra's building, the Kustgewerbemuseum, the Natianalgalerie and the Staatsbibliothek, the latter with its "three million volumes, the largest library of its kind in the world," I concluded proudly.

Perhaps the altitude made us light-headed. We embraced, and kissed then frantically broke away in a mad dash to save his drawings which had blown free! Laughing, we chased the sheets of paper.

Breathless at the column's base, Dieter checked the rescued sheets, shrugged, "Only one missing, Olga," he said, taking my hand. "Brandenburg Gate."

"We'll go there again tomorrow, then."

He shook his head. "No, I can't. I've been given the day off, because my mother is very ill... I'll be with her, in the hospital."

I was sympathetic. "Another time, then. The gate's not going anywhere, is it?"

As we descended the stairs, I thought on what he had said when he confronted the Brandenburg Gate, the statue turned round to face east, underlining the tragic sundering of the city. His tone had been sombre, yet tinged with hope: "One day, we'll walk through there, a free people again." For one so young, he could be very serious.

That night, he telephoned, briefly. His mother had died, his father was adamant that he should find a better life, elsewhere. He spoke guardedly, but I understood. After the funeral, when he returned to work, he would seek asylum. My mother prepared the spare room and I counted the days, anxiously.

Then he telephoned again. "I'll be returning to work tomorrow," he said. That was all. I didn't sleep that night.

Next morning, August 13th, 1961 I hurried to work early.

The news trickled in gradually. East Germany had closed the Berlin border, unravelling barbed wire, delivering prefabricated concrete blocks. The train services

between the sectors were halted. The news revealed that 50,000 East Germans who worked in West Berlin had been turned back. The S-bahns and U-bahns were blocked.

My heart sank as I watched the television newsreel. There were no pictures, but the hazy unsubstantiated reports were enough: East German police used hoses, truncheons and tear-gas on crowds milling round the closed crossing points. Some bold ones had chanted, "Hang old Goat-beard", referring to Herr Walter Ulbricht. But they too were brutally repulsed.

Mayor Willy Brandt appealed far calm and broadcast to the East: "You cannot be held in slavery for ever."

Every spare moment, I stood at the Brandenburg Gate, watching, waiting.

Within two weeks, the Berlin Wall was erected. In the pouring rain, I whispered, "We're all part of history, even now." And I could feel warm droplets on my cheeks, but their source was not the sky but my heart.

I tried telephoning, but the plugs had been pulled.

The weeks stretched interminably. Then, as various networks sorted themselves out, and brave people escaped, through old ruins, gardens, backyards, tunnelling, before the barriers became too formidable, I received a scribbled note on the back of a sketch of the Brandenburg Gate from the eastern side:

"I'll come to you on the 10th. I love you.       D."

Mixed with the heady anticipation was fear, for as I had anxiously paced the Wall I often heard shouts and shots, and been blinded by soulless searchlights.

*

How many nights had I paced the Wall? I wondered, sipping coffee in the cafe window. Too many. Eventually, I stopped. But I had never forgotten. Dieter was one of many brave men who had dared to make their bid for freedom and failed.

But I held close to me the thought that they hadn't failed. Every sacrifice kept the hope burning, the light ever stronger. Thomas Jefferson's words echoed down the years: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." History was harsh, I thought...

I was sure I had heard the shots. The news report had been brief, the next morning. A young man had been shot trying to cross the Wall. No further information reached me.

Then, years later, as Glasnost took hold, some relaxation was permitted.  I owned a string of restaurants by this time. I had been married, for three years, then divorced. Depressed and lonely, I made enquiries concerning that fateful night. And learned the truth and received letters from the eastern sector.

*

Now, I finished the coffee and left my restaurant, clutching Dieter's old sketch with its faded message.

Crowds were milling, as they had done for day after unbelievable historic day.

I had watched with tears streaming as people clambered on top of the hated, reviled Wall and chipped at it, unmolested. I thought of all the dead: perhaps they were looking down now, and smiling, at last!

The opening of the Brandenburg Gate was a solemn moment. Herr Kohl walked through, and I strained to see.

There were so many people!

Eyes streaming, I rushed into the crowd.

Surging forward, the East Berliners were laughing, cheering, singing, holding some people aloft in their infectious joy. Their future was uncertain, probably full of privations, but at last they were free! Amazingly, some held up a wheelchair, and I recognised the occupant from his recent photographs: he laughed, tears streaming. "Dieter!" I called, waving his drawing.

Obligingly, they lowered him in his chair and uncannily an opening in the crowd permitted me to run to him.

Those letters had prepared me for his disability: the bullets had deprived him of the normal use of his legs.

I was about to step forward, to hug and kiss him when he held up a hand, peremptorily. "No, Olga, wait, please." And he struggled with both hands on the chair arms, and raised himself with great effort to his feet. Gripping a stick in each hand Dieter slowly, mechanically shuffled each foot forward, and walked into my arms.

For those precious few moments we could not hear the shouting and singing of the crowd.

After we had kissed, he said, softly, "Let's walk through Brandenburg Gate. I have a drawing to finish, no?"

And, slowly, we walked through.

 - Olga Jager, November 1989

* * * * *

Previously published in Costa Blanca News, 2004.

Copyright Nik Morton, 2014

If you liked this short story, you might like my collection Spanish Eye, published by Crooked Cat Publishing, featuring Leon Cazador, private eye in 22 cases.

 

http://www.crookedcatbooks.com/

 

US: http://amazon.com/dp/B00GXK5C6S
Canada: http://amazon.ca/dp/B00GXK5C6S
UK: http://amazon.co.uk/dp/B00GXK5C6S
France: http://amazon.fr/dp/B00GXK5C6S
Germany: http://amazon.de/dp/B00GXK5C6S
Austria: http://amazon.at/dp/B00GXK5C6S
Italy: http://amazon.it/dp/B00GXK5C6S
Spain: http://amazon.es/dp/B00GXK5C6S
Japan: http://amazon.jp/dp/B00GXK5C6S

 

 

Secret file – 01 – Tana Standish, psychic spy

On November 26, The Prague Papers are released. This book is published by Crooked Cat. It is based on a manuscript handed to me by an MI6 agent, Alan Swann. It needed some knocking into shape, as it had been a collaborative effort by a select group of agents, all intent on telling the story of Tana Standish, psychic spy, whose career spanned 1965 to 1988. They asked that her story be told as fiction.

As a result, the forthcoming novel The Prague Papers is the first adventure to feature Tana Standish and is mainly set in Czechoslovakia in 1975.

 

 

Certain information was divulged in order for me to write the book; yet some has been concealed to date. Certainly, her past and attributes are dealt with in more depth in the book. Here is a brief outline of information that I have gleaned so far.

Tana was born on May 12, 1937 in Warsaw. At the time of the uprising of the ghetto in 1942, she was five years old. She had two brothers, Mordechai and Ishmael, both now deceased. She was adopted by a British couple in 1942, but her adoptive father Lieutenant Hugh was killed ironically in a car crash two years later. Her mother Vera never remarried.

At the time of this novel, she is thirty-eight.

She joined Edinburgh University in 1955 and read Psychology, gaining a BA (Hons) in 1958. Thereafter, she worked for the Parapsychological Research Unit, Northamptonshire – 1958 to early 1965; during this time, she travelled to the US and the USSR, among other countries, to give talks on memory.

Besides possessing psychic abilities, she has a photographic memory.

Her hair is auburn, sometimes black and sometimes brunette. She has intelligent wide eyes with faint lines at the corners.  Eye-colour varies with the light – sometimes topaz, sometimes green or grey. Her nose is aquiline, her forehead high with two pronounced lines when concentrating. She has known grief but can still laugh, her mouth being sensuous; her chin is round and firm, perhaps ‘determined’, and she has high cheekbones.  Her voice is resonant or sensuous, dependent on the situation. She has kept herself fit and possesses strong muscular shoulders and arms and is generally well-toned.

 

 

The episode in Czechoslovakia is her eleventh mission since joining a special adjunct of MI6. I don’t know why this particular mission manuscript was the first to be chosen for me work on. I can only hope that details of her earlier missions will be conveyed to me at some future date.

The Singapore Signal – 1965

The Naples Note- 1966

The Izmir Intelligence - 1967

The Odessa Objective – 1968

The Pilsen Portfolio– 1968

The Karachi Code - 1970

The Elba Errand – 1971

The Gibraltar Gathering - 1972

The Mombassa Message - 1973

The Hong Kong Cover – 1974

The Prague Papers – 1975

Since my first meeting with Mr Swann, I have been entrusted with a further three manuscripts, pertaining to Iran, Afghanistan, and Argentina. The Tehran Text will be released in 17 February by Crooked Cat.

 

 

Writing – You’re entitled

As we all know, book titles are not copyright.

As I point out in Write a Western in 30 Days, ‘… it pays to check that your title hasn’t just been released into the marketplace. If it was used several years ago, then that’s not a big problem, but if the title is recent, then it can cause confusion. It might also suggest that it’s not particularly original.’ – p68

Sometimes, the title is the hardest aspect of writing the book. Should it be about the theme, the main character, the period, a portion of a relevant quotation, or even something pertaining to a series, such as alliteration (Simon Brett) or colours (John D. MacDonald), for example?

It’s your book, your choice. Though a publisher might suggest you change it or even offer an alternative. Robert Hale did just that when I submitted my western Blind Justice; so I changed it to Blind Justice at Wedlock, which I believe worked quite well; that’s a sort of gothic tale within a western setting.

My espionage thriller The Prague Manuscript came out in 2008. Another book, by Dr James E. Paulding, with the same title came out in 2012. So now that my book is being republished by a different publisher, Crooked Cat, with considerable changes I might add, it is retitled The Prague Papers. As it is the first in a series, I wanted the titles of these adventures of a psychic spy to be linked in some manner. The best option seemed some alliteration. So we have Prague Papers, followed by Tehran Text and then Khyber Chronicles (!) – well, it sounds alliterative…

My book Catalyst would appear to be a poor choice for a title.

 

I’ve just downloaded a book entitled The Catalyst by Joy Lennick, a fellow expat author living here in Spain. Its storyline doesn’t resemble mine in any way.

Searching on Amazon will reveal very many titles with ‘Catalyst’ in the title, the majority ‘The Catalyst’… But I couldn’t avoid using the title for a few reasons:

·         This too is the first in a thriller series, all of them about Cat Vibrissae, chemist and model.

·         The next book is written, entitled Catacomb

·         The third book is planned, entitled Cataclysm

·         Other books are planned in the series, following the same title pattern

The common feature is that each one-word title begins with ‘Cat’, so I have had to bite the bullet and hope that it will stand out from the others of same or similar titles.