My try-hard contribution to the thread: I spent part of some rainy afternoons this past week translating one of my favourite short stories from Dino Buzzati’s Il Colombre (from the French translation into English). As far as I can tell, it’s never been translated into English. Enjoy!
The Lesson of 1980 by Dino Buzzati
The Lesson of 1980
By Dino Buzzati
Originally published in 1966
Ultimately exhausted by unending quarrels, the eternal Father elected to give humans a worthwhile lesson.
At the stroke of midnight, Tuesday December 31st, 1979, the leader of the Soviet government, Pyotr Semyonovich Kurulin, dropped dead. He was precisely at that moment toasting the new year, during a reception given in honour of representatives of the Democratic Federation of East Africa – he was on his 12th drink of vodka – when the smile vanished from his lips and he collapsed on the ground like a bag of cement, amidst general consternation.
The world was rattled by opposing reactions. We had heretofore reached a period of acute and formidable crisis in the cold war, the likes of which the world had probably never seen. This time the grounds for tension between the Communist Bloc and the Western Bloc were the ownership claims for the Copernicus impact crater on the Moon. In this vast region, rich in rare metals, were positioned American and Soviet occupation forces; the first of which were concentrated in a confined central area, the others on the perimeter. Who had descended first? Who could boast of a right of precedence?
In fact, a few days before, that is, on Christmas eve – a move considered to be in poor taste by the free countries – Kurulin, on the subject of the Copernicus impact crater, had made very violent declarations, openly proclaiming Soviet supremacy in the domain of “decompression methods” (thermonuclear bombs, previously used as bugbears during international conflicts, were now a dusty artifact of yesteryear). “Those responsible for this most recent capitalist aggression,” he had said in a manner reminiscent of the late Khrushchev, “would like to make the big decisions without consulting the ones in charge? Today, in twenty-five seconds, we have the ability to pop like little balloons every inhabitant of their respective countries.” He was thus referring to secret devices capable of extinguishing the atmospheric pressure over vast territories, with all the lethal consequences that would entail.
Accustomed as they now were to the quite insensitive eloquence of their great adversary, the Westerners had naturally not taken Kurulin’s threat too literally. Yet they still hadn’t denied its gravity. In brief, a new Dien Bien Phu times a hundred was gearing up on the Moon.
The sudden disappearance of Kurulin was therefore an immense relief to America. As with his predecessors, he had centralized practically all powers and responsibilities. While there existed – at least, apparently – no interior opposition, his policy could be defined as entirely personal. With him gone, there would inevitably be in Moscow a period of indecision and hesitation. In any case the diplomatic and military pressures from the Soviets would sensibly be quelled.
Conversely, in the Russian camp, great turmoil was afoot. All the more since China’s dismissive isolation could portend no good notion. Just as well, the death of the dictator at the very moment he was to inaugurate the new ten-year mandate (a new twenty-year plan was to be launched shortly) made a poor impression on the populace; instinctively it was seen as a bad omen.
Yet a year scarcely dawned must decidedly reveal itself rich in unforeseens. One week later, at precisely midnight, Tuesday January 7th, something that closely resembled an infarction, struck down, at his work desk, while he was conferring with the secretary of the Navy, the president of the United States, Samuel E. Fredrikson, the gallant engineer and pioneer, symbol of the bold national spirit, who had been the first American to set foot on the Moon.
The fact that, at exactly a week’s interval, two of the greatest antagonists of the global conflict had disappeared from the scene, provoked an indescribable emotion. On top of that, both of them at the stroke of midnight? There were talks of assassination fomented by a secret sect, some made fantastical speculation regarding the intervention of supraterrestrial forces, others went so far as to suspect some kind of “judgement from God”. Political commentators no longer knew which saint to devote themselves to. Yes, of course, it could have purely been a fortuitous coincidence, but this hypothesis was difficult to swallow: since Kurulin and Fredrikson had hitherto possessed an iron constitution.
During that time, in Moscow, the interim authority was assured by the Soviet collective; in Washington, according to the constitution, the country’s highest office was automatically passed onto vice president Victor S. Klement, a wise administrator and attorney of well over sixty years of age, previously governor of Nebraska.
On the night of January 14th, 1980, Tuesday, as the clock above the lit fireplace struck twelve, Mr. Klement, who was reading a crime novel, sat in his armchair by the corner of the fire, dropped the book, carefully tilted his head forward and lay still. The care provided to him by his familiars, and then the hastened doctors, was futile. Klement, him as well, had gone off to the realm of the majority.
This time a wave of superstitious terror unfurled upon the world. No, one could no longer speak of mere happenstance. A superhuman power had been put into motion to strike with a set deadline, with mathematical precision, the great leaders of this world. And the most perceptive observers suspected having deduced the mechanism for the gruesome phenomenon: by decree from above, death claimed, every week, the one who, at that very moment, was, among mankind, the most powerful of all.
Three cases, even the strangest kind, certainly do not constitute the shape of a law. This interpretation nevertheless struck the minds, and an anguished question arose: whose turn would it be next Tuesday? After Kurulin, Fredrikson and Klement, which was the most powerful being in the universe destined to perish? Across the entire world a fever of wagers was set off for this race to the death.
The stress on the minds had made it an unforgettable week. Who was the most interested in the Copernicus impact crater? More than one head of state was torn between pride and fear: on the one hand, the thought of being chosen for the Tuesday night sacrifice was flattering, as it was evident criteria of one’s own authority; on the other hand, the self-preservation instinct made its voice heard. On the morning of January 21st, Lu Chi-Min, the very secretive and mysterious leader of China, convinced more or less presumptuously that his turn had arrived, and to properly manifest his own free will vis-à-vis the Eternal’s volition, atheist as he was, took his own life.
At the same time, the very old de Gaulle, now mythical lord of France, convinced as well of being the appointee, uttered, with the little bit of voice he had left, a noble farewell speech to his country, reaching, with almost unanimous agreement, the summit of eloquence, despite the heavy burden of his ninety years of age. One saw just how near ambition was to prevailing over anything else. There were men happy to die so long as their death revealed their pre-eminence over the rest of mankind.
But, with bitter disillusionment, de Gaulle found himself past midnight in excellent health. However, the one who died brutally, to general astonishment, was Koccio, the dynamic president of the West African Federation, who until then had held the reputation of a genial comedian. And so, news spread that at the research centre he’d established in Busundu, they’d discovered a method of dehydrating people and things from a distance, which constituted a formidable weapon in times of war.
After which – the law “it is the most powerful who dies” having been confirmed – one noticed a general flight of authority from the highest positions, and which only yesterday, had been the most sought after. Nearly every presidential seat remained vacant. Power, previously coveted with avarice, burned the hands of those who held it. There was, among the bigwigs in politics, industry and finance, a desperate race for whomever could be the least important. All would shrink themselves, tuck in their wings, flaunt a dark pessimism over the fate of their own nation, of their own party, of their own corporations. The world overturned. An entertaining spectacle, if not for the nightmare of the upcoming Tuesday night.
And so, invariably at midnight, on the fifth Tuesday, the sixth and the seventh, Hosei, the vice president of China, Phat el-Nissam, éminence grise of Cairo, as well as the venerable Kaltenbrenner, still dubbed “the sultan of the Ruhr”, were eliminated from play.
Thereafter, victims were pruned among men of lesser stature. The defection of terrified incumbents had left unoccupied the eminent positions of command. Only the old de Gaulle, unflappable as always, had not relinquished the sceptre. But death, who knows why, would not grant him the satisfaction. Still, it should be acknowledged that he was the sole exception to the rule. Nonetheless, some figures of less import than he fell at the Tuesday night deadline. Perhaps the eternal Father, pretending to ignore him, wanted to give him a lesson in humility?
At the end of two months, there was not one dictator, not one government leader, not one leader of a large party, no president-chief executive of a vast industry. How lovely! All had resigned. All that remained at the head of nations and large firms were collegial bodies, where each member avoided directing any attention towards themselves. Concurrently, the world’s richest hastily rid themselves of their incredible accrual of billions through gigantic charitable donations, social works and sponsorships for the arts.
This made way for unprecedented paradoxes. During the electoral campaign in Argentina, president Hermosino, fearing a majority vote like the plague, slandered himself so vigorously he was charged with “indignation towards the head of state”. In L’Unità in Rome, the bereaved editorials proclaimed the complete dissolution of the Italian Communist Party, in truth still very active: it was Cannizzaro, the leader of the party, who, attached as he was to his responsibilities of which he did not want to renounce, thus searched, surreptitiously, to divert fate’s strike. And the world heavyweight champion, Vasco Bolota, got himself inoculated with malaria to be enfeebled, because a superior physique was a dangerous sign of power.
In the realm of litigations, whether they were international, national or private lawsuits, each gave reason to their opponent, seeking to be the weakest, the most submissive, the most oblivious. The Copernicus impact crater was evenly divided between the Soviets and Americans. The capitalists relinquished their companies to the workers and the workers begged them to please consider keeping them. In only a few days an agreement was reached for a global disarmament. Old explosives stockpiles were detonated near Saturn which had two of its rings broken in the process.
Six months had not yet elapsed that any hint of conflict, even local, had dissipated. Conflict, you say? There was no longer any controversy, any hate, disputes, arguments, nor animosity. Done was the race to power and the obsession for domination! Thus, justice and peace were universally implemented, which, thank heavens, we are still blessed with fifteen years later. For if any ambitious soul who’d forgotten about the lesson of 1980 attempts to stand taller than the others, the invisible scythe will strike, always on Tuesday, always at midnight.
The weekly “executions” ceased by mid-October. They were no longer necessary. Some forty infarctions judiciously distributed had sufficed to tidy things up on Earth. The final victims had been background characters, but the global market could offer nothing better in terms of powerful figures. Only de Gaulle continued to be obstinately spared.
The penultimate had been George A. Switt (pronounced Sweet), the famous anchor from American stereotelevision. Many had been shocked, but in reality Switt possessed a formidable prestige, such that he could have made it to the highest levels of authority in the Confederation had he merely desired it. Questioned on the matter, a well-known horse-racing magnate, the count Mike Bongiorno, who in his youth, around the 1950s, had known his hour of glory in Italy as a TV presenter, claimed that the news had not stunned him at all. He himself, in his heyday, said he, had noticed that he unwittingly possessed a practically unlimited power; and a foreign nation (he did not reveal the name) had offered him heaven and earth for him to spur into revolt, from a single word, the Italian people in order to install a new regime (he did not specify which). But as a matter of patriotism, and though he owned an American passport, he’d answered no.
(P.S.: Bring back IC EZ Reading Club – sorry I didn’t contribute at the time!!)