Travels in Nihilon Read Free

copyright, sir, you know.’
    â€˜Spectacular,’ said Benjamin nonchalantly, though it looked almost truly so against the pale blue of the Nihilon sky. The road-duster went on to say that the author of this design had made a fortune in royalties, since every postcard or lapel button, car window or steamer funnel that displayed it contributed to his unparalleled riches.
    â€˜Some people are born lucky,’ the old man muttered as he went away, shaking his head at the cruelty of such injustice.
    When Benjamin drove forward and stopped at the kiosk, a policeman strolled over to him, smiling pleasantly. Across the road, painted along one of the white buildings, and intended mainly for tourists leaving the country, was the cryptic but worrying legend:
    SELF-EXPRESSION PLUS SELF-INDULGENCE EQUALS
    NIHILISM .
    SIGNED : PRESIDENT NIL .
    â€˜No one is allowed into our wonderful country today,’ said the policeman.
    â€˜On whose authority?’ Benjamin demanded, turning his window lower.
    â€˜Mine, and the rest of us,’ the policeman grinned. ‘We just feel like being awkward. It’s part of our self-expression. Sometimes we let them in, sometimes we don’t. Today we don’t.’
    Four loudspeakers attached to the flagpole emitted a shattering roar of what Benjamin could hardly call music, as if it were played by a collection of brass bands, a few hundred fire engines, a thousand blacksmiths’ hammers, and the amplified reproduction of a force-twelve wind. The policeman looked towards the flagpole with rapture, hands pressed together. Seeing the alarmed and puzzled look on Benjamin’s face, he took out a tiny square notebook, for it was impossible to be heard, and passed a scribbled message through the car window, which said: ‘It’s our National Hymn to Nihilism. Don’t you think it’s beautiful?’
    Benjamin tried to smile, while gritting his false teeth to stop them rattling. ‘What’s it called?’ he wrote facetiously on his own square of paper, imagining that such monstrous noise could not possibly have a title.
    The policeman grimaced, as if maliciously imitating him: ‘I’m glad you asked that. It’s called “The Hammer and Chisel Forever!”’
    Benjamin sweated for almost half an hour, and though both hands were clamped on his ears, the vibration of the symphony for loudspeakers shattered every vein. The policeman stayed close, and occasionally broke out of his rapture to scribble further little notes: ‘It’s our Geriatrics Symphony Orchestra playing,’ ‘That’s my favourite part,’ ‘I hope they play it again tomorrow,’ or ‘I could listen to it forever, couldn’t you, dear traveller?’, at which Benjamin Smith could only nod and grin, and observe other Nihilonians gently gazing at the loudspeakers, as if by looking they’d be able to hear better.
    He opened his briefcase and found the official letter for the Nihilonian Ambassador which said that Mr Benjamin Smith, as a bona fide traveller to Nihilon, was to be admitted to the country and allowed to wander at will without let or hindrance. It was covered with stamps, seals, photographs, fingerprints, dates, and obscene marks of every colour and description. In tiny smudged print at the bottom was a statement saying that anyone disobeying these commands or rendering them null in any way would be shot by order of President Nil. This was a document that Benjamin had thought to use only in absolute necessity, but now that the music had stopped he pushed it towards the frontier guard, disturbing him in the act of filing his nails, for he considered it of vital importance that he should cross the frontier on the same date as Adam the poet, who had no doubt already done so near the coast, a hundred and sixty kilometres to the south.
    The policeman looked at the paper closely, to show this supercilious traveller that he could