Fall Revolution 4: The Sky Road

thick black hair
out from under her denim jacket’s collar. ‘What
– what are you doing here?’
    Myra straightened up, feeling irrationally pleased that she
was marginally taller than the younger woman.
    ‘I was about to ask you the same question,’ she
said.
    ‘I work here! I’m a post-grad student’
    She said it with such confusion of face, such a widening of
her big brown eyes, that Myra couldn’t help but smile.
    ‘And a political activist, too, I understand.’
    The girl nodded firmly. ‘Aye.’ The comment seemed
to have allowed her self-confidence to recover. She stepped over
to a chair and sat, stretching her legs out and propping her
boots on a book-caddy. Myra observed this elaborately casual
behaviour with detached amusement.
    ‘I was an activist myself, when I studied here,’
Myra said, half-sitting on the edge of the table.
    ‘I know,’ the girl said coldly. ‘I’ve
read your thesis. Detente and Crisis in the Soviet
Economy’
    Myra smiled. ‘It still stands up pretty well, I
think.’
    Teah. Can’t say the same about your politics,
though.’ She frowned, swinging her feet back to the floor
and leaning forward. ‘In a way it’s nothing…
personal, you understand? I mean, when I read what you wrote, I
like the person who wrote it. What Ican’t do is square that
with what you’ve become.’
    That was laying it on the line! Myra felt a jolt of pain and
guilt.
    ‘I don’t know if I can, either,’ she said.
‘I changed. Real politics is more complicated than -ah,
fuck it. Look – uh, what’s your name?’
    ‘Menial MacClafferty.’
    ‘OK- Menial. The fact is, the Russian Revolution got
defeated, and never got repeated – perhaps because the
defeat was so devastating that it made any subsequent attempt
impossible.’ She laughed harshly. ‘And like the man
said, it’s gonna be socialism or barbarism.
Socialism’s out the window, it was dead before I was born.
So barbarism it is. We’re fucked.’
    Menial was shaking her head. ‘No, nothing’s
inevitable. We make our own history – the future
isn’t written down. „The point is to change
it.“ Look at the Sheenisov, they’re building a real
workers’ democracy, they’ve proven it’s still
possible – and what do you do? You fight them! On the side
of the Yanks and the Kazakhstani capitalists.’
    ‘Like I said,’ Myra sighed. ‘Real politics
is complicated. Real lives, mine and those of the people
I’ve taken responsibility for. The future may not be
written but the past bloody well is, and it hasn’t left me
with many options.’
    ‘You mean, you haven’t left yourself- – ’
    ‘Tell you what,’ Myra said, suddenly annoyed. She
waved at the stack of cardboard and paper around her.
‘Here’s my life. There’s a lot more on the
computer.’ She jerked a thumb over her shoulder.
‘Password’s „Luxemburg and Parvus“ for
the easy stuff. You’re welcome to all of it. The hard
stuff, the real dirty secrets, I’ve put a hundred-year
embargo on, and even after that it’ll be the devil of a job
to hackpast it. If you’re still around in a couple of
centuries, give it a look.’
    ‘This is what you’re doing?’ Merrial asked.
‘Turning over your archives to the Institute?
Why?’
    Myra could feel her lips stretch into a horrible grin.
‘Because here it has a very slightly better chance of
surviving the next few weeks, let alone the next few centuries.
You want my advice, kiddo, you stop worrying about socialism and
start getting ready for barbarism, because that’s
what’s coming down the pike, one way or another.’
    Merrial stood up and glared down at Myra. ‘Maybe
you’ve given up, but I won’t!’
    ‘Well, good luck to you,’ said Myra. ‘I mean
that.’
    The young woman looked at her with an unreadable expression.
‘And to you, I suppose,’ she said ungraciously, and
turned on her heel and stalked out. Whether automatically or
deliberately, she switched off the light as she went. Myra
blinked, fiddled with her eyeband and got back to work.
     
    ‘Everything all right?’ Irina Guzulescu was limned
in the backlight of the library doorway.
    Myra straightened up and dusted off her hands.
    ‘Yeah, I’m doing fine, thanks.’ She laughed.
‘Sorry about the dark, I was using my eyeband to see with,
instead of putting the light on.’
    ‘Probably just as well,’ the small woman said. She
advanced cautiously into the