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Tilt House
Novel
After the epilogue.
Tell
them it's snowing North to Brownsville! The oranges will not
blossom this year, the country is beautiful as always as
it's strange to hear people speaking hot weather.
Morgenstern would perhaps give the word if he could, with
Majorie, to pass the system of barbed wires and to thwart
the watchtowers supervision, to cross police zoll without
being taken and to return to Tilt House.
It
was a very cold day, the snow grated under Angie's feet. A
strange loomy foggy morning where the only way to walk was
to follow the path leading to the second supervision tower,
there stood the Independence RoseTree, planted at the
territory entrance the day following the event: the
Independence. Three branches grew in two years and could be
there in ten thorn years, this rose tree would confuse with
the twisted barbed wire points. Angie protected the bush
with a cover made of straw. From the police station came the
conversations of wards. She understood badly what they were
saying. Men of 23º Legion spoke, almost all, English with a
strong Chinese accent. Paul, Angie's husband, called her.
She always recognized him, even in the night.
He smiled...
From
his car Nach dropped Butch and Farrow the mayor of Spencer
City at the camp entrance. Without result, they met the
representative of the US government. They asked the right
for the Tilt House residents, to cross the soil of the USA.
Once again the US government replied the independence was
perhaps a fact but the recognition of the State of Tilt
House was an other thing. They were not willing to recognize
this State neither even to authorize its residents to use a
corridor through the American ground because they wanted to
reach the sea.
Since
two parley years they were in a cul-de-sac. The
geographically Tilt House closed situation did not allow its
residents to go abroad. Some members of the community asked
for their extradition. No reason could be found that any of
the residents could recover his American nationality. On
five thousand three hundred residing, thirty only left the
territory. Thirty Mexican laborers requested by the Mexican
government fled during the events that preceded the
independence. No news: radio waves were scrambled. Butch and
Farrow, the only two authorized persons to leave the
territory, were closely supervised when meeting Nach the
observer from the Pentagon. An agent of the C.I.A. was
always present during these meetings.
Nobody
tried, during these two years, to escape. Nobody returned on
a stretcher. A blanket on the head, three of them tried to
take contact with a foreign country and to make know what
happened in the South of United States of America, on a
small six thousand acres territory surrounded by barbed wire
and watchtowers.
In
the beginning, after the residents accepted the idea no one
could circulate freely, the Federation confirmed a certain
number of oral rules. Each decision had to be taken at the
unanimity. The Federation could not exclude an individual
because it was impossible to realize, people were able not
to choose between to leave or to stay: they were there and
could not go elsewhere. Foreigners taken on site during the
independence had first the title of Guests, these guests
were afterward made members of the Federation.
... He smiles.
Through
the fog the voice of Paul called Nach. He replied to the
call and went in the direction where Paul and Farrow were
coming in.
"The interview was again
shorter than the last time. They did not even allow us to
sit. On the other hand, Nach during our return, made me
understand that a revolt had burst in an Indian
community."
Farrow intervened :
"I pass ahead,
representatives of communes should be arrived."
He distanced them in a fast
motion.
Angie took Paul by the
shoulder. They were the same since always.
"Frank and Majorie
Morgenstern are doing their last preparations to escape.
They shout at each other as much they can, a small thing in
their world, speaking about their future as of the day of
their weddings. They even anticipated a Thermos bottle with
cafe, for the road! I imagine what is waiting for them on
the other side!"
Angie shook her head. The old
couple departure pained her.
"They worked all their
life in their small shop in the New Jersey."
While chatting they arrived
ahead the closed factory. Franck and Majorie held timidly at
the hall entrance where the meeting was taking place.
They were dressed like tourists. Franck carrying his camera
with a shoulder strap, and Majorie a picnic basket. Macho was
near them. The old peon mocked them nicely to amuse them. Macho
remained after the independence, he had nobody in Mexico.
The adventure of Tilt House fascinated him. Majorie went to
Butch.
"You are going to help
us?"
She twisted her fingers
nervously when addressing to Paul.
"Everyone stands by you
Majorie."
Majorie turned to Franck.
"You see although they
are going to help us!"
Franck was stumbled.
"Since the beginning
they helped us! Thanks to their assistance for the past two
years we have been captive here."
He looked nervously at Paul.
"You will take care of
my car. We it have since 47."
The two loves of Franck were
his car and his shop. Majorie was not envied. So that Franck
dreamt of his car and his shop...
They entered the meeting
hall. The discussion was lively loud. Representatives of the
communities wanted unanimously something to be done. The
Federation of Tilt House could remain no longer in this
state of isolation. Tomorrow their guardians would enter the
territory and take the direction of the Federation. Herbie
Farrow had a badly way like a madman to preach the contrary.
Twenty times he stammered:
"Gentlemen!"
Twenty time one cut it.
"Ouch !"
Everyone shut up to this
shout tearing Herbie Farrow. Herbie, the mayor become mayor
citizen of the thousand communes of Tilt House, he kept the
old habits of his passed notoriety. He always used a series of knacks to speak. His favorite knock consisting in exiting
hurriedly the hall as if a serious event came to happen and
to return almost weak. A brick that dragged always by there
and happily, served him to ask the right to speak. Then,
without making it deliberately, it crushed his fingers. He
failed hopefully, a very high hand in a pathetic gesture. It
shook the former as if it wanted to undo some pain.
"Hi! Son of bitch!
What are you telling us exactly ?"
Only Warms knew the mayor
sufficiently to know he was faking.
Herbie slackened with a
smile, and the hall leaves in a general laughter flash. Once
more Herbie would dearly defend his right to speak.
"Gentlemen !"
Hands raised as a leader, on
the point of his feet, Farrow was going to speak. A real
crisis to mad laugh shook the meeting. Nobody came to the
meetings when Farrow was not present.
"Let me speak... I
propose the meeting of all communes ahead the lake, three
men are dead, and you, Warms , you are well placed to know
that it is impossible to pass the frontier."
Warms was responsible for the
escapes, the glory for an ancient sheriff! He knew Farrow
was true.
"More that one thing
make us anxious, Butch and me. Most of the soldiers are
Chinese. Only the management is American. Nach, friend
of Butch, became increasingly anxious. It seemed that the
USA and Russia wanted to constitute an stand alone
state."
All faces became serious.
That meant brothel and capitalistic anarchy, The USA were
opened on totalitarianism. That heap of an agreement between
peoples, as them, had to be found in camps. For a majority
the question was posed and it was necessary to answer it.
Everyone agreed to helping Franck and Majorie to escape the
house which leaned funnily.
Before before.
PROFESSOR NACH
PENTAGON
WASHINGTON
Dear Nach,
You will know early enough
what Tilt House is in reality. You will make as all person
disembarking at Spencer City, you will seek and you will be
surprised.
Spencer City followed in the
course of these last ten years a political and economic
evolution like all the other American cities , and, as all
these cities, Spencer City installed in the crisis of
civilization, incomprehensible to most of these that undergo
it.
Material stimulations did not
fill the promises of happiness. The identity disappearance
in great cities, the technocratic organization are opposite
to the blooming of the thought and to the individual
conscience. These circumstances, the goal and hope absence
have made born a suicidal man race, sometimes isolated, or
constituting in groups, decided to entail the world in or
die.
Nach, you do not ignore the
causes and the consequences are strong numerous and
impossible to enumerate. Governments reacted with an excess
of authority, suppressing by subtle means the illusory sense
of liberty remaining inside the human kind, instead of
recognizing their errors.
I am very happy! In an
infinite beatitude, my dear Nach. The only unthinkable thing
for your chiefs just happened and I will be delighted to
show it to you.
While waiting your close
arrival I'm please to remember the dreams that we made at
the university.
Tilt House
15 June of your year !!
Paul Butch
"Computer : order by
the machine."
Paul
Butch smiled at this definition, how many others, harmless
and dissociated of their senses of life, had for
consequences the uneasiness and the anger. The too solicited
youth had been creating a universe aside. A quasi biological
refusal seized the less young populations, an instinctive
encounter in the lap of mother nature, the professor was the
witness. Professor Butch!
Professor
Butch closed the notebook in which he recorded his notes.
The letter to Nach would leave the very evening and would
allow, by the arrival from the former, a better
comprehension from the government. Would they understand the
hope and the act accomplished with faith that anyone else
would understand perhaps, even the toughest. Was it
reasonable to dream of?
Angie returned to the common
hall, she laid down her son, he could attend to the great.
"Butch, do tell me what
makes you so happy? Is it Nach arrival?"
His interrogation was
slightly worried.
"I have not the same
hope you have. I think the goals of these that govern are
too far from ours. Their life is based on the super chief
notion, that what they are, to the notion of super tribe.
And you want to make them admitting the super tribe no longer
exists? This is not possible Butch."
Angie shook her head.
"I will not listen you
Angie. I need to believe, not to know in advance what chance
I have to convince them."
She stood up and surveyed the
room.
"We will have to leave
soon."
Often he increasingly
spoke of this departure without Angie replies. He observed
one considered him as a chief, and he was the opposite in
the experience. He could not be simple member and the
conscience director.
Farrow looked like an harmed
animal in his den. His office was part of the house where he
felt at the best, his refuge.
Yan
To know how all of that
happened... You'll need to learn French and read the full
novel
>>> HERE
All texts are ©2002 |
