Theme: The new millennium truly arrived with the Manhattan terrorists
on 11 Sep 2001.
Klaus Bung:
Sleepers Wake
1: The Last Supper
31 December 1999. Michael is not in love with the millennium
and, indeed, had started a "Keep the Millennium out" campaign, not a
popular enterprise, but he had his supporters, and there they stood, a
thin red line of heroes with the motto "Ave, Anne, morituri te
salutant", preferring to die with honour rather than to live in shame.
Sad to say the millennium was unstoppable, and Michael could not
altogether escape shame.
He spent the last afternoon of the year in the delightful
company of the Countess of O (Viscondessa do P, Baronesa da Q), with a
long walk along the river Douro towards the Ribeira, the ancient
quarter of Porto. They sat on the deck of a boat restaurant sipping
little cups of strong coffee, watched a seagull eating a fish on a
jetty, saw the venerable names of Sandeman, Burmester, Cockburn (no, we
do not say "cock"), Offley, Dow, Croft and Ferreirinha across the river
and felt secure in this ancient untroubled world, watched the sun sink
for the last time into the Atlantic, observed the slowly changing
colours in the sky and their reflections on the water, the half-hourly
ferry going to the little fishing village south of the river.
They saw, as the Countess pointed out, how in Portugal all
strata of society manage to live cheek by jowl, the high-fashion shop,
the rare-books shop and the goldsmith mingling with the iron-monger,
the fish-monger and the green-grocer, the fishermen squatters living
inside and outside their cargo-containers on the river bank, unmolested
by the authorities and unconcerned with promenaders wending their way
across their territory, next to expensive villas and high-rise flats
with unaffordable rents -- the lawyer's stately home, floodlit, with
its private footpath to the Domus Justitiae half a mile away,
overlooking it all.
They were content in this orderly and yet homely world. The
streets were oddly silent, eerie almost: no cars, no boisterous
pedestrians: were people sleeping now in order to be awake at the great
moment? There was no sign that anything special was about to happen.
The millennium was approaching on tiptoe.
At 7.30 they felt cold and hungry, the Countess selected a
cosy family-owned and -run restaurant with four or five small dining
rooms. They could stay till 9.30, when staff and owners would go to
their own millennium celebrations.
They were the first couple to occupy their table in the
first-floor dining room. Next to their table for two, a long table for
thirteen had been laid. A middle aged woman with the face of a
schoolmarm and round spectacles on a pointed nose steppled in. She had
a large print of Leonardo's famous painting, to which the caption AMOR
DAVINCIT OMNIA had been added. She pinned it up above the table, giving
the setting a sacramental air. She, obviously the organiser or hostess,
rearranged the large table fastidiously, laid a little present,
carefully wrapped, on each plate, so homely, so worthy, prudent, so
well-thought-out. "How lovingly she is preparing for her guests!"
Michael thought, "a picture of the petty bourgeoisie of Portugal".
Michael, the bachelor, would never have managed that.
The other tables in their small dining room had by now been
occupied: a group of young Frenchmen and women, a large Portuguese
family with a sweet, innocent-looking 10-year-old boy, two Italian
intellectuals, and a dignified man with greying hair and a mastery of
English and French and his stunning young African girlfriend, who spoke
English.
Gradually the guests of the table next to theirs, the Leonardo
table, arrived, all eleven of them women, from 20 to 55, all dressed up
to the nines, all of them had done the best they could, yet their
skirts were somewhat too short, their blouses too tight, their hair
fiercely dyed, their make-up had been laid on with a trowel. They
embraced one another with loud shrieks of joy and filled the whole room
with their overwhelming uninhibited presence. "You know what they
are?", whispered the Countess, "Hollow women!"
"Hollow women?"
"Working girls!"
The Countess, not without embarrassment at having to spend New
Year's Eve in such company, notwithstanding Portugal's famed mutual
tolerance among races, classes, professions and views, explained that
the language of their neighbours, while not breaking the rules of
taboo, was getting close to the threshold of the vulgar, was not very
elegant, the very opposite of what is "done" in aristocratic circles.
Their little table seemed like an appendix to the loud Leonardo party,
a little Kuwait beside a bubbling Iraq, ready to be swallowed up.
"Why do we not ask if we can join them?" Michael thought, "We
can cheer them on, instead off having them impede our whispered
communications, they will surely welcome us with open arms!", but he
knew better than to speak.
"They haven't drunk anything yet, imagine what they will be
like once they have had a few bottles of wine!" warned the Countess.
She was right. The din from the neighbouring table increased steadily.
Every remark was received with hoots of laughter and ripples of
giggles. The women opened their little parcels and noisily admired the
content of each: a comb, a bangle, a bottle of perfume, a toothbrush, a
garden gnome, a packet of handkerchiefs, a photoframe...
They were feeling warm. To shouts of "Tira, tira, strip,
strip", up they stood, and off came their coats in unison, and they
stretched their limbs and showed their vitality through their tight
skirts and blouses. Nothing further happened. Here was a group of
colleagues who like everyone else wanted to be conventional and
celebrate the unstoppable millennium and, as the posters all over town
had reminded us, the 2000th birthday of our Saviour. The thirteenth
chair at the centre of the tarts' table was kept free throughout the
evening, for we know neither the day nor the hour when the boss man
comes, gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners,
ready to receive all to his bosom.
The other guests had long ago noticed that there was something
special about this party, they craned their necks in order to catch a
glimpse of what was going on, were as curious as Michael and tried, at
the same time, to be discreet. It would not do to stare.
Michael's conversation with the Countess could not develop: He
was distracted, wanted to understand what was happening at the Last
Supper table and needed help in doing so. So they were talking more
about the whores than each other, and the "Psallite, jubilate, resonet
in laudibus, omnis mundus iucundetur!" which arose from there made it
difficult for the two to communicate across their little table.
The most interesting things are often impossible to ask about
or find out. Many people all over the world refused to work on New
Year's Eve because they did not want to miss the celebrations; those
who did work demanded extortionate payment. What would our neighbours
do after their dinner? Continue celebrating and abstain from work
(other people's pleasure is their work)? Go on night-duty? Would they
try to double and quadruple their charges, and would they find
customers at such rates? Is it even thinkable that a man wants so badly
to bore a whore at this millennial turning point that he does not
consider the cost?
The Countess smiled: "Nothing is so stupid that a man will not
do it."
Today women are the equals of men even in sexual matters.
Michael has an advertisement from a contact column in his pocket and
shows it to the Countess: "Very raunchy gang-bang girl, legs wide open,
wants to see the new millennium in with a real big bang. Wants to be
fucked senseless and endlessly by any cocks in double figures. Two for
starters, then working upwards. Blow your minds with this explosive
nympho and celebrate in style. Undraped photo. All letters answered.
Berkshire."
"Jesus Christ!" exclaims the Countess, "where on earth did you
find that?"
Michael shows her the reverse side of the clipping: " 'Desire.
Erotic Inspiration for Women and Men', Issue 29, 1999, London, p 109".
The Countess sighs and Michael feels her knee press against his.
When Michael and the Countess left two hours later, the Belles
de Nuit were still noisily celebrating. If anyone was carefree and
happy that evening, they were.
In Portugal it is customary to say Good-bye to other guests in
a restaurant, at least to those sitting at adjoining tables. Etiquette
has to be observed. Michael had made eye contact even earlier. Michael
and his companion bowed to them with "Boa noite, Senhoras! Bom Ano
Novo!" (Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies; good night, good
night!), which was accepted and reciprocated with loud applause, as if
it had come from the Prince of Denmark and his love.
The youngest of the women raised up an anti-AIDS poster which
had been prominently displayed all over Porto and sadly had given the
Pope an attack of migraine which lasted for five months and prevented
him from coming to Fatima on 13 May 2000. The text was "Feliz Ano 2000"
(Merry Year 2000), with a small SIDA-message in the bottom right
corner. The "Feliz Ano 2000" was repeated all over the poster, always
slightly out of alignment to avoid the formation of columns, in many
cheerful colours. The innumerable zeros, however, were made of
condones. You cannot imagine a merrier year 2000.
They walked back to the car, a long walk, the streets were
still very quiet. If there are any millennium parties taking place,
they are certainly very discreet. They made love in the car, its
windows misted, the erect lighthouse of Foz faintly visible in the
distance, raced back to the Countess's apartment, switched on the
lights, opened the windows just in time to let the victorious
millennium in before it shattered them, while all the factory sirens
went off to a man, the dogs started barking, and some fireworks shot up
in the distance.
This is the way the millennium came
With seven bangs and a whimper.
2: Judgement Day
Michael thought then that this was the end of the story. Or
the deadpan beginning of the millennium. However, it was a false dawn.
Stories seldom end where they end.
In the morning of Monday, 10 September 2001, the Countess gave
a lecture on 'Baudrillard and the Reality Gulf' at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. She pulled out all the stops. Her interpretive
community was jubilant. She and Michael made it to Boston just before
the Registry Office closed. Pledges were given, rings and kisses
exchanged, for better or worse until death us do part. They had not
planned a honeymoon. Los Angeles was a spontaneous decision. An
instinct. Hers. The airline promotion posters said: WE FLY YOU STRAIGHT
TO YOUR DESK. That was intended to attract business travellers. 'We fly
you straight to your death', Michael had quipped. A modern man, he was
no respecter of taboos and superstitions.
On Tuesday morning, they boarded Flight 175. Their last
breakfast was served on plastic trays. They were joined by the
millennium, which was on its way to Manhattan and determined to get
there. It arrived twenty months late, a trifle in percentage terms. Two
horsemen were sitting on the wings of the plane. The third rode on its
neck. He held its reins with his left and a scythe in his right hand.
The fourth rode on its tail. The sun rising above the clouds shone
through the skeleton of the plane. A cloud of millennium bugs was
following from the horizon.
The millennium arrived with a bang. It was over in a flash.
The victims did not even have time to whimper. They knew neither the
day nor the hour.
===(end of story)===
About the Author
Klaus Bung was born in Germany but
has spent most of his life in England. He studied at Cambridge
(England) University. He is widely travelled (all over Europe; USA,
Canada, Philippines, Iraq, Kenya) and speaks many Western European
languages. He now devotes himself to writing fiction and poetry. Apart
from over eighty academic publications, he has published 'creative'
work in DIPIKA (London), SCAVENGER (Osage City, Kansas, USA), WRITERS'
FORUM (Bournemouth, UK), THE WORLD OF ENGLISH (Peking), PPHOO Magazine
(Calcutta), to name but a few. He has been a member of the Society of
Authors (London) since 1967.
Notes for translators
These notes are not meant for publication. They are intended to help
translators, especially those coming from very different cultures.
However, if a magazine editor wants to publish any of them in
conjunction with the story or use them for writing an introduction, she
is welcome to do so.
1 Sleepers wake: The title and the
last sentence of the story ('They knew neither the day nor the hour.')
allude to Jesus's parable of the wise and the foolish virgins, some of
whom are prepared at all times to meet the bridegroom, who will arrive
when he is least expected, and some are not (Matthew 25:1-13). The
parable ends with the admonition: 'Watch (be awake) therefore, for ye
know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.'
The German Lutheran pastor Philipp
Nicolai (1556-1608) wrote the words and the tune of a chorale
interpreting this parable: 'Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme', sung in
English churches as 'Sleepers wake, a voice is calling'. Johann
Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) wrote a cantata and a chorale prelude based
on this tune and text, and thus it became internationally known.
The title has a terrifying
ambiguity: Who are the sleepers who are brutally woken up by the
Manhattan incident: the world, the western world, America, the victims
in the planes or in the World Trade Center, who are about to be
catapulted into 'the other world', complacent people in general? Or the
terrorists who have been planted in our midst to lead seemingly
innocent and inactive lives (so-called 'sleepers') until the call goes
out to them to swing into action?
2 Part 1, The Last Supper, is set
in Porto (Oporto), Portugal. The second part, Judgement Day, in Boston,
Mass., and Washington, DC.
3 The Last Supper: Meal that Jesus
had with his disciples before his trial and execution, described in the
Gospels. Famous painting of that scene by Italian painter Leonardo Da
Vinci (1452-1519)
4 'the thin red line': an
expression of heroic resistance, or heroic battle, a few soldiers in
red uniforms, so few that they can form only a thin line, fighting
against the enemy. - A dictionary says: 'The old 93rd Highlanders were
so described at the battle of Balaclava by Dr. W. H. Russell, because
they did not take the trouble to form into square. "Balaclava" is one
of the honour names on their colours, and their regimental magazine is
named The Thin Red Line.'
5 Ave, Anne, morituri te salutant
: Welcome, oh year, we who are doomed to die greet you. The original
expression is: 'Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutant' = 'We salute you,
Caesar, we who are about to die'. This is how the gladiators would
greet the emperor before the public sword fighting spectacles in which
one of each pair had to die.
6 Cockburn (no, we do not say
"cock"): In a famous TV advertisement for Cockburn a foreigner is told
that the 'ck' in the name is not pronounced. We say 'co-burn'.
7 Sandeman, Burmester, Cockburn,
Offley, Dow, Croft, Ferreirinha: famous brands of port wine. They have
their warehouses on the left bank of the river Douro in Porto, Portugal.
8 Domus Justitiae : High Court
9 schoolmarm = 'school madam';
somebody with all the negative attributes of a female school teacher,
pedantic, boring, old-fashioned, prim, prudish, strictly adhering to
arbitrary rules
10 steppled: not a standard
English word. Here it means: came in with many small steps, walked with
mincing gait
11 AMOR VINCIT OMNIA : Love
conquers everything. Latin proverb. 'Omnia vincit amor, et nos cedamus
amori' (Love conquers everything, therefore we too should surrender to
love). Virgil (70-19 BC): Eclogues X, 69.
12 DAVINCIT: means nothing in
Latin. Pun on the name of Leonardo Davinci.
13 Hollow women: T S Eliot wrote a
poem called 'The Hollow Men'. The poem ends:
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
14 'Working girls': English
euphemism for 'prostitutes'.
15 Kuwait, Iraq: reference to Gulf
War of 1991
16 glutton, winebibber (drunkard):
Matthew 11:19: 'The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say,
Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and
sinners.'
17 Psallite..: From medieval
Christmas carols: Sing, chant, praise, may the heavens resound in
praises, may all the world be joyful.
18 Belles de Nuit = beauties of
the night; Title of a 1952 film directed by René Clair
19 SIDA = AIDS
20 On the Pope's attack of
migraine, See Osservatore Romano, 20 Dec. 1999, p 666, Col 2 (Spoof
note!) - In the event the Pope did visit Fatima on 13 May 2000.
21 Condones: this misspelling is
deliberate! Pun.
to condone = to forgive;
condom = French: préservatif
22 Foz: suburb of Porto
23 'went off to a man'; deliberate
linguistic contortion. 'went off to a man' = all of them, without a
single exception, went off. This is what a translation must say if it
cannot imitate the English joke. - Distortion: sirens are not men. In
Greek mythology they are bewitching females singing irrestitibly. (Then
they became alarm machines.) Therefore they cannot really go off 'to a
man'.
24 This is the way the millennium
came: see note on 'Hollow women', above.
25 'the last trumpet':
Traditionally understood to be the divine signal for the end of the
world and God's last judgement, doomsday. Source: 'Behold, I shew you a
mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet: for the
trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we
shall be changed.' (Bible, New Testament, 1 Corinthians 15:51-52)
26 10 Sep 2001: The next day, 11
Sep 2001, was the date on which the World Trade Center in Manhattan,
New York, and the Pentagon in Washington were attacked by terrorist
planes.
27 'Baudrillard and the Reality
Gulf' : Jean Baudrillard (1929-....), French philosopher, wrote an
infamous article in which he claimed that the Gulf War of 1991 (Kuwait,
Iraq, USA) did not take place and that it did not matter whether it did
or not ('The reality gulf', in: The Guardian, London, 11 January 1991,
p 25). All the war preparations were nothing but a media circus. We
could not tell the library pictures on television from recordings of
real events. Nobody could be sure whether the actual war had started.
Therefore there was no war and there would be no war. There were only
television pictures, which bore no relation to reality. Modern wars are
fought on TV screens, not on the battle field: they are propaganda
wars. Baudrillard did not mean this as a joke, he was serious about it.
His arguments have been analysed by Christopher Norris in his book:
'Uncritical Theory'.
By the same token one might argue
today (6 Oct 2001, still prior to American military action) that
everything relating to the terrorist attacks in America, the blowing up
of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, the destruction, the scenes of
bereavement, the anti-terrorist measures, war preparations, shuttle
diplomacy, arrests of suspected terrorists, ..., all the news and
discussion broadcasts, are nothing but a soap opera, a MULTI-media
show, ingeniously, put on by the media in such a way that they all
report, without a single exception about the same 'fictious reality'
(the same script), even though from different angles. The novelty being
that ALL the media, TV, newspapers, radio, in every country of the
world, are participating in the conspiracy. No diverging (true)
information can be had from anywhere. Even the divergent political
opinions and debates are part of the same script.
I (Klaus Bung) do, of course,
strongly disagree with the validity of Baudrillard's ridiculous
conclusions, i.e. that there is no longer any distinction between
fiction and reality. For me this does not cogently follow from the true
observation that sometimes or often it is difficult to distinguish fact
from fiction, truth from deception, and that sometimes it is impossible.
28 Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) is in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Boston, Mass., is not
far from there.
29 'interpretive community': term
invented or popularised by literature guru Stanley Fish, who claims
that meaning is not inherent in a text, that there is no 'true
interpretation' of a text, but 'true' (about a text) is what is
accepted among a group of like-minded people (interpretive community),
and that all interpretations are equally valid, no matter how far apart
they are from each other or 'from the text'. Fish, like Baudrillard,
therefore denies the existence of 'truth' or the usefulness of the
concept of 'truth'.
30 Flight 175, intended to fly
from Boston, Mass., to Los Angeles, was diverted by the hijackers and
crashed into the World Trade Center in New York.
31 a trifle: less than 2 years in
1000 years, i.e. less than 0.2%
32 the horsemen: the four horsemen
of the apocalypse (New Testament, Book of Revelation (Offb.), ch. 6).
They bring war, famine and pestilence. Famous woodcut by German painter
Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528).
33 scythe: symbol of death. Death
cuts people down like a mover.
34 millennium bug: The term was
originally used to describe the computer failures which people feared
would occur on 1 January 2000, if computers could not cope with dates
greater than 1999. These nightmares never came true. - 'bug' means
orginally an insect, a beetle, a small organism. The word was then also
used for errors in computer programs which cause the programs to
malfunction. - The millennium bugs in the story are agents used in
biological warfare: bacteria, viruses, spores, ... anthrax... Around 7
Oct 2001 two incidents of anthrax in humans (so far one death) were
already being investigated by the FBI.
35 They knew neither the day nor
the hour. (Matth. 25:13)
I will be glad to provide any
further information required by translators (as far as I can) on
English language, idiom and literary allusions. You may email me at:
© 2001 Klaus Bung
from: Klaus Bung
68 Brantfell Road
Blackburn BB1-8DL
England/Angleterre