How to Rule the World

by Tibor Fischer

Genres: Literary Fiction

Synopsis

The Vizz: an industry in crisis. Baxter Stone, a film maker and television veteran, a lifelong Londoner (who thinks he sees better than others) is having problems in the postbrain, crumbling capital. Swindled by an insurance company, he's in debt; a Lamborghini is blocking his drive and MI6 is blocking his mobile reception.
He hopes to turn it round and get the documentary series that will get him the Big Money. But what do you do if history is your sworn enemy and the whole world conspires against you? Is there any way, you could, for a moment, rule the world justly?
Darkly comic, How to Rule The World follows Baxter's battle for truth, justice and classy colour grading as it takes him from the pass of Thermopylae, to the peacocking serial killers of Medieval France, and the war in Syria. A trip from the Garden of Eden to Armageddon, plus reggae.

Release date: May 28, 2019

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 256

Sample

 

 

I don’t want to be in this room.

Travelling a lot narrows the mind. You want your usual hotel in Bangkok (or Beirut or Baghdad), because they have a proper pool, or because it’s close to the airport, or because they stock a good orange juice in the minibar, or because you know how to work the shower. No time is wasted finding out which floor serves breakfast, how exactly you get your coffee (do you hunt down a waiter or will they hunt you?) and which switch actually switches off the bedside lamp.

You want to be the ruler of the air-conditioning and to know the tasty items on the room-service menu. Thought-saving stuff to make the trip as smooth as possible, so that when the unsmooth stuff arrives, you have plenty of boot to deal with it. I should have known when I couldn’t get into my favourite hotel in Bangkok, this would be very unsmooth.

I don’t want to be in this room. I haven’t wanted to be here for the last two hours, but they’re making me wait. Standard stuff. Whatever’s going to happen could have happened two hours ago, but they’re demonstrating who-the-boss, as if they need to. I’m the distraught foreigner in the police station on an uncomfortable chair.

The Thais are a cheerful, hospitable bunch, until they aren’t. You can get robbed, cheated and put on an uncomfortable chair.

I’ve bribed policemen in four continents, and it’s about the etiquette. You can get it wrong: bribing too little; bribing too much (yes, you can); bribing too openly; bribing not bribingly enough; bribing too slowly; bribing too fast. Why can’t they just hand you a guide? Hula Hoops, cigarettes, a leather jacket (a good one) and, naturally, cash have all worked their magic.

The chief comes in. He has the face of a man who could order a massacre. A puppy-hammering face.

‘Call me Mike,’ he says. His name is not Mike. I can see his name displayed on the door, a centipede-long name. He has decided, not unreasonably, that as a benighted farang I can’t pronounce his name. It’s courteous. Or insulting. Take your pick.

‘He’s mad as fuck, your friend.’ Now Massacre Mike’s showing off his use of the vernacular.

‘He’s not exactly my friend.’

‘We all have the mad-as-fuck friend. Part of karma.’ Mike’s wondering whether he needs to explain karma to this white dumbo in front of him.

‘Do you like paperwork?’ he continues.

I assume no is the correct answer and say so.

‘I don’t like paperwork and I like the British Embassy’s summer parties. Can you get Mr Stern out of the country immediately?’

Mr Stern. When was the last time anyone called him ‘Mr Stern’? Wilhelm Stern, Villy the Violent Vegan. Widely known in the Vizz as ‘that nutter’, ‘nutter number one’ or most commonly as ‘Semtex’. Surely the most fired, the most arrested, the most deported, the most black-eyed cameraman in the world? Can I get Semtex out of Thailand immediately?

‘Yes.’

There’s a part of me that says I should ask for a few days’ grace to do our job. To fix things. That’s your job as a producer, as a director, as the prime pusher, to ask for the impossible. To push. To push all day. To push as far as you can. The impossible doesn’t turn up every day, but it’s your job to ask. And ask again. To ask so often that you can’t really remember what it is you’re asking. You don’t ask, you don’t get.

It’s too hot and I’m too tired to ask, because I’m faced with real impossibility. It’s not allowed. If I had tried to organise such complete failure I wouldn’t have succeeded. No human is capable of this level of intricacy.

I realise, to my horror, that I’m not losing my fight, my boot, my head-buttery, my what-are-you-looking-at? I have lost my fight. That I’d like someone to cover me with soil. Money and honey, fame, pleasure, these are the goals of youth; peace is what you go for in the end. To be Otanes.

‘Any problem on the way to the airport, you both go to j-ai-l.’ The way Massacre Mike sings ‘jail’ is unusually alarming. All the truly frightening people I’ve met have been like that: calm, unarmed, terrifying. Correction: the most frightening – those at the top of the terror tree – aren’t calm, they’re even jovial, they’re comedians. The top Chechen I met, who scared me so much I almost fainted, looked like the village idiot and chuckled non-stop. Because it’s funny. Because it is.

All the scarred types who glower and strain to be thuggish, they’re always small-time. Like the Krays, who glowered in their photos but snivelled like little girls in jail.

‘Thanks, Mike.’ I attempt to fake my share in this cordiality. Massacre Mike mentions his cousin has an excellent seafood restaurant round the corner. I consider mentioning my cousin is big in seafood too, but I don’t need to bond any more.

He adds: ‘I am coming to London in a month. I enjoy expensive restaurants.’

I give him my card. Over the years I’ve found giving someone my card is almost a guarantee that you will never hear from the recipient, especially if you do want to hear from the recipient; but if Mike wants, I will take him to a restaurant, because I am not doing anything to displease this man. It’s not an unreasonable deal.

We shake hands. Mike’s hand is massive. It’s a hand that’s done a lot of manual labour. Digging shallow graves, for instance. Or deep ones. My hand is a wilted dandelion slammed on by a car door.

And I can’t help feeling this isn’t just about Semtex. This is about the oodh. Aka the jinko. Aka the gaharu. The agarwood, if you prefer.

Normally I wouldn’t have brought Semtex on a job like this. Headies. It’s basically pointless. More than pointless, exceedingly imprudent, as Herbie would have said.

We’re nearly all self-shooting directors these days, but I like to have extra firepower. Especially in enemy territory. I like to have a cameraman who, if something unexpected kicks off, can handle it. And handle it well. I’ve felt that since that evening, long ago, when I spotted a senior government minister rutting in a car park in Richmond with a well-known popular entertainer. This was decades before everyone’s phone had a camera. I was with a competent cameraman, but by the time he had fussed over the set-up, the action was over. You want someone like Semtex, who can lens at the drop of a hat, blindfolded.

Semtex did that once. We were filming a parade by the French Foreign Legion (the only part of the French military that actually fights because it’s full of Germans). ‘This is insulting,’ he raged. ‘Why am I here? Why are you doing this to me? A bunch of twats trooping past? You don’t need a cameraman, you need a tripod. You’re taking the piss, aren’t you? I could do this blindfold.’ So he did. It wasn’t his best work, but still better than most.

What might be my last bit of luck got me this oodh commission from Johxn. Luck is finite, only a fool would think otherwise. No one gets it all. No one. Maybe some get a little more than others. That’s hard to call. But no one gets it all. The real problem is guessing how much luck is left.

You get a reputation. For some reason I’m the man who’s sent to riots, dangerous foreign shitholes. Organised crime in unorganised states. Any city with kids twirling automatic weapons. Revolutions.

My very first foreign job as an assistant cameraman: the January Events in Vilnius back in ’91 when Lithuania broke away from the Soviet Union. I’d been told to disappear with our footage, so it couldn’t be seized by anyone with a gun. I’d been drinking, heavily, in the bar of the Writers’ Union.

I hate history. Unless it’s being made, I suppose, but then it’s not really history. I hate history, but a staggering brunette, possibly the second most beautiful woman I’ve ever talked to, invited me back to her place to discuss Baltic history. We all know what that means.

Or maybe she did want to discuss border violations and treaties, stranger things have happened. But my bladder was bursting with Lithuanian beer. So I went for a piss first. I nosedived on the dark stairs down to the toilet and broke my arm. As I writhed in pain, someone said: ‘You’re lucky. Those stairs have killed more than the Soviets.’ The cameraman I was assisting was shot dead the next day while I was on a flight home.

So how do you total it up? Lucky? Unlucky? I told my Uncle Joe and he just laughed, as he laughed at all my scrapes, because his position was, not unreasonably, as long as you’re alive you have nothing to complain about.

I told everyone that I broke my arm falling down the stairs. It took me a while to figure out no one believed me. ‘We heard,’ is what everyone said to me.

There’s always tax. Even if it’s not marked on the bill. You pay. You always pay. I did Afghanistan. It was a miracle I survived that (that anyone did). And I was wounded. Badly. Not a bullet, not shrapnel. No, a dumb American journalist spilled boiling coffee onto my family jewels. I would have preferred a small-calibre bullet in the leg. At least you can brag about that later and show the scar when you’re drunk.



‘Someone has to do oodh,’ Johxn had said to me. ‘I wanted Edison to do it, but he’s been arrested, and Jack’s busy too. Milly’s lost her passport. You just can’t get anyone good these days. Where’s all the talent gone? Can you think of anyone good? A real pukka fucker?’

Years ago I might have been offended by Johxn’s comments, but you do become numb. Sensation just dies off. I might have been offended that he was phoning me to ask for a recommendation rather than to offer me the work.

Years ago I might have been offended that he laughed when I suggested I could do it, but you have to fight through the laughter. It was the fourth time I volunteered myself that he agreed. It wasn’t any slick sales talk on my part; it was 12.30. Johxn needed lunch.

‘Oh, and whatever you do, don’t use Semtex,’ Johxn added. ‘The legals insist on that.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’

Oodh was something I hadn’t come across. But I got the commission to do a doc about oodh, aka agarwood, aka jinko, basically bits of smelly wood that can be worth more than gold or mountain-fresh cocaine, that are big in Asia and the Middle East as incense, smoky bling, medicine. They’re tree-scabs. Aquilaria trees have to be infected to produce oodh, and because it’s hard to get and ultra-expensive, of course traders are lying, stealing, cheating and killing over it.

Semtex and me had just done an interview in a shitty suburb of Bangkok with a snitch who had liberally ratted out many Thai dignitaries and military types. It had taken months, a research trip, money to arrange. I dislike interviewees who are blacked out, fuzzy or voice-changed because with that cover, you can say anything. You can have your next-door neighbour or mum claim to be Osama bin Laden.

When I see that, I’m very sceptical because I know what lying, cheating shits work in the Vizz. I know because I’ve worked with them. I believed our snitch, because he was petrified and knew his nuts were on the line. So why blab? This is what fascinates me. Almost everyone will do just about anything to get on screen, even if they’re blacked out and even if they risk getting killed. There’s a terrible need to be noticed.

The bean-spiller was almost our last interview; we only had one more to do in the afternoon. So we had time for lunch. If you insulted Semtex, or did something traditionally provocative like pour a beer all over him, he’d probably look hurt and put on an air of noble forbearance. But . . .



I bid farewell to Massacre Mike and have a big seafood blowout in his cousin’s restaurant round the corner, which I enjoy more than I thought I would, because this might be the last time I’m in Bangkok. I’m unlikely to get any more work, and I doubt if I’ll ever want to spend any of my own money on travel, partly because I have no money, and if I did have some I wouldn’t waste it on travel. It’s that last-supper kick.

In my twenties I spent most of my time on the road. I lived out of a rucksack, and enjoyed it. Up and down Britain. All over Europe. China. Japan. The States. What I want now is not travel but a large house, somewhere sunny, that I’ll only leave for twenty-minute walks, while I edit the Magnum. Friends can visit.

By the time I’ve finished dealing with the succulent octopus (which of course reminds me of Jim) and returned to the police station, Semtex has been produced from the cells. His almost complete lack of remorse is grating. He gives me a dirty look (80 per cent sulk, 10 per cent rage, 8 per cent bewilderment, 2 per cent contrition) as he’s released, as if it was me that got us into trouble.

The silence is stony as we collect our gear (what’s left of it at our hotel) and go to the airport. ‘This will be reflected in my invoice,’ is all Semtex says. I’m past any sort of concern. How do you tell the difference between fatigue, not caring and Zen? Or is Zen merely deluxe apathy? Apathy with great PR?

Honestly, if you actually provoke Semtex, you’re less likely to have trouble with him. I’ve pulled him off a number of waiters and taxi drivers who said something inflammatory like, ‘Good evening’ or, ‘May I help you?’ Edison owed Semtex two weeks’ money (and as far as I know still does), and we were all waiting for Semtex to flatten his nose, but nothing happened. No, it’s unfortunate serving staff who get the worst of Semtex, and there are many places that don’t understand vegetarians, let alone vegans. I remember Semtex biting one waiter in Seoul because he suggested a boiled egg.

And in addition to any misunderstandings because of his diet, there’s also Semtex’s habit of altering menus in places that serve meat. Very often he’ll just scribble an addendum in pen, but sometimes he will go the whole hog and take away a menu to forge it and return the fake copies for distribution.

Well-tortured lamb in a fuchsia jus. Slowly strangled swan with a vervania stuffing. Mashed porcine hopes on a bed of Moabite. Blinded, then boiled alive, locally sourced kitten. He’ll savour the ensuing outrage, or out-of-work actors struggling to explain what Moabite is.

He used to live in Brighton but he was barred from so many places for affray or menu-tampering that he had to move to Heathrow, which he claims is better for travel and he doesn’t mind the noise. On light shoots he can actually walk to the airport in twenty minutes.

It’s not just waiters that get a close-up of his knuckles; Semtex is no respecter of rank or power. ‘I don’t care if you are the Chief Constable of Manchester, I’m still going to thump you,’ he declared, right before doing that, on camera, in the middle of an interview. You can see why he doesn’t get hired much these days, and why he’s often unavailable for work for months at a time.

Airside, as we have two large hours to wait, Semtex defuses the lack of conversation by wandering off to the shops and the duty-free. I’ve already got my presents for the family; I picked up some dried durian, the king of fruits, at the hotel for the wife and some longan honey for my son. Luke loves honey on toast for breakfast.

Shop when you can. I wasn’t in the army long, but that’s what I learned. Do it when you can, because you might not always be able to do it. I’m not in the mood to buy a newspaper; I stare into space, wondering whether I can come up with some way of nicing up the situation.

A group of four men are shoving each other about, and as soon as I realise they’re British, I get as far away as possible. Inevitably, they follow me to the other side of the lounge. Every nation has its loudmouths, those whose ideacaves harbour no life, but nothing is as bad as the British stag party. Except the British stag party abroad. I move back to the other side of the lounge, but I can hear them. Once we brought timekeeping, engineering and gunboat justice to the world, now we transport arse-baring, plastic breasts and howls.

One, wearing a T-shirt that says, ‘Let’s not bother with words or feelings’, is holding onto his cock. Not a quick confirmation or reorganisation, not a showy scratch, he’s clinging onto his cock as if it’s a winning lottery ticket. He’s late twenties, he’s not drunk, he’s in the middle of a crowded airport, and he’s waddling around like a two-year-old. Why is he at my airport? Why is he on my planet?

To make sure I’m not being over-judgemental, I time him to verify that it’s not some underwear crisis. I count to twenty and he’s still squeezing away as if fighting a stubborn tube of toothpaste. I’m just old enough to remember when travel was sufficiently pricey to discourage the mindless from exotic locations.

Finally, the cock-clutcher lets go. He now picks at his arse while discussing the purchase of aftershave. Alarmingly, he grabs a bottle of my usual brand. Should he purchase it, I will never be able to wear it again. Fortunately, he returns it to the display. I like it, my wife likes it, but fortunately my wife has no idea why that’s the one I always buy.

The arse-scratcher looks familiar. I’d assumed because he’s the identikit stag oaf, but I do know him.

I recognise his ski-lodge eyebrows. He’s Luke’s teacher. Teachers are the first in a long procession you encounter in life, to feed you flannel. First teachers, then colleagues, doctors, ironmongers, sailing instructors, insurance salesmen, swimming coaches, bankers, boiler repairmen, mechanics, microsuctionists, postmen, tree-surgeons, dry-cleaners who fob you off, and then finally you end up back with the teachers as they hand you flannel about your son, and you wonder whether your parents fell for it.

At the parents’ evening, he had cheerfully assured us that everything was fine. It was the cheap but effective tactic of telling hearers what they want to hear.

What do you teach your child? I suppose all of us would like our children to be honest, friendly and helpful, even though those are the worst qualities to have. The Allower doesn’t favour decent people.

The best tactic is to lie, cheat and stamp on the faces of those around you. If you’re punctual, you’ll wait. If you’re loyal, you’ll be betrayed. If you’re generous, you’ll be swindled. If you help others, you’ll be slapped by their ingratitude. If you work hard, you’ll be tired. If you don’t steal, you’ll be poor. But you can’t want that for your child.

You want your son to be a loyal friend, a defender of the weak, a helper of old ladies, but that gets you bugger all. To be liked, to be popular, to be respected, these qualities don’t pay well. I suppose the solution is to behave with family and friends (although friends are tricky) and war with everyone else.

You want your son to be happy, but you don’t want him to be a blando, someone who progresses quietly without obstacles. That means a bit of grit. You want him to see darkness. Once is enough. In an ideally controlled and not-too-unpleasant way. A brief, judicious application of hardship. I doubt anyone who hasn’t tasted shit can be worth knowing.

My fight is really extinguished. I try to think of Bongo Herman, and how he m. . .