Excerpts from Part One

Years ago, someone looking for work would show the master their calloused hands as proof that they were good for it. I could show my firm calves, their swollen veins and skin stretched to bursting. I work with my legs, not my hands: in this city, there are no factories left. I work the pedals for twelve hours a day, a red, blue or green cube with the logo of Platform, who I ride for, on my back.

What are you staring at, moron!

Here, you never give me right of way. I count with this and calm my speed. Having cut right in front of me, you travel twenty metres before joining a queue. I step on it, pass you within seconds, tap on your window with the knuckle of an index finger. Your fingers are dancing on the stitched leather overlay of the steering wheel; you are between fifty and sixty, with greying hair, a charismatic type; you’re on your way from the office to your suburban villa, to the sound of classical music or maybe classic rock; you don’t even glance at me, you look straight ahead; you step on the gas, let out the clutch. You and your queue move forward two metres. I’m beside you again, tapping on your window, gesticulating with my right hand: Give way from the right! I want to shout, but if I did you wouldn’t hear me through the airtight glass. Inside, the climate just as you like it (twenty-two degrees in winter and summer), the slight purr of the engine, the soothing hum of the fan. I knock harder; still you stare ahead, knowing that your window can withstand more than my fist. You never look at me, not even when I bring food to your door. You look at the paper bag with the Platform logo I’m handing it to you in. You look at the receipt and the portable payment terminal, checking the charge. Never at me. You let the clutch out slowly and step on the gas. Your engine is powerful; when you accelerate, a small amount of fluid drops from the exhaust. Rain will wash this into the river later.

The bicycle was an inseparable part of my childhood. What I liked best about childhood was its temporary nature. Every step I took, the more grown up I became – a thought that first occurred to me as the stabilizers were being removed from my kiddy bike. Soon I had outgrown this bike completely and was given a much bigger one for my birthday. It had high handlebars and a long saddle my friends could ride along on. My uncle and I cleaned and oiled it in his garage. You helped me attach an ice-lolly stick to the frame with wire so that it brushed against the spokes. I had insisted on this, and you, Uncle, had winked to show that you got my drift. Out on the street, it rattled like a motorbike, and I felt really big on it. I’ll be patient for a few years, then I’ll be able to ride a proper motorbike! But still that won’t be quite the thing: a motorbike has only two wheels. I won’t be a true adult until I have my full driving licence, four wheels and a steering wheel. I’ll stick it out somehow, I told myself. But at some point, it seems, something went wrong.

I’m a small businessman, with my bike as my capital. I’m engaged but not employed by Platform, to whom I issue invoices. I’m my own master and my own slave. This gives me freedom to work twelve hours a day, without anyone telling me when I should take a holiday. I can do that whenever I choose, provided I can afford to. I’m building my business on the solid foundations of well-toned thighs and muscular calves. Demand is high and I have no shortage of orders: you have to eat, but you don’t want to move, or don’t have the time to. I have no time for anything but movement; every minute I’m not moving means I’m losing the business I need to make the rent and my energy bills. I eat in the street, at a trot, so that you can sit and eat in your office, or your desk at home, in front of your screen, sparing yourself needless enjoyment of your food in a restaurant, where you would also have to make small talk with your colleagues or staff. Sometimes, however, you do enjoy your food. You scrape and lick the plastic and polystyrene containers clean; if you’re feeling extra-civilized, you tip it out into your own ceramic dishes. Your dustbins fill quickly, but mostly you sort your waste, or ensure that the containers I bring your food in are compostable. In terms of production and transport, compostable containers are heavy on energy and water, but considering that they contain delicious beef and such like… They give you a better feeling than plastic, so why not pay a little extra for them? What are supplements for, if not to make you – a hunter chased by food – feel better? Platform is here for you and for me. It is the go-between in our harmonious relationship. It makes you happy and saves you time. It rids you of the spare money you make with the time saved. It takes time from me and gives me a small proportion of that money. Everyone’s a winner. It saps my strength, but only a little, you stay the same (in the worst case), and Platform grows. Which is the main thing.

A Land Rover in matte grey, with a sticker of a two-tailed lion, the national coat of arms, on the back door. Your reg. is MR RAMBO; under the back bumper, two huge pipes that emit dark smoke each time you step on the gas. I’m behind you in the queue, trying not to breathe in, and failing. Like a baroque cherub, I’m flying from cloud to cloud. We’re on the embankment. To get around you, I’d have to go on the pavement with its promenading tourists. Better to go slow than to slalom through them. The waterfront is magnificent. We’re approaching the medieval bridge that is the city’s most celebrated monument. People step into our path at the crossing. Some can’t wait for the little green man, who hardly ever comes and is gone too soon. You want to put your foot down, but something is holding you back. We have almost reached it; it is being overtaken by one car after another. At last it we see it, clip-clopping before us, a romantic horse-drawn carriage conveying a would-be prince and princess in the middle of the rush hour. Now your Land Rover is right behind it, and I am right behind you, in your cloud. The smell doesn’t reach you, thanks to your ventilation system. It does me. It merges with the smell of your ORV emissions. It’s the stink of stables and hot animal breath. And the excrement that falls freely into a special leather bag. Yuck! says a lady passing on the pavement. Nobody can be quite sure what smells so bad. The engine of your off-roader roars at last; the smoke swirls, the automatic transmission shifts to second, you indicate and overtake the apparition. I do as you do, though at lesser speed. I pass the carriage and draw level with the horses. They are trotting with their blinkered heads down, so as not to be spooked by their peripheral vision if a shiny hood should flash by too fast, too close. I, too, have learned to look a metre ahead, beyond the handlebars and under the bike but no further. I mustn’t stumble, or ride into the gutter. If the blow should come, then let it. So far, I’m not lying broken on the asphalt or cobbles. I am pedalling, dripping with sweat, letting out the occasional snort.

Out of my way!

You’re right behind me; I feel heat from your eager engine, your need to be leader of the pack. But you can’t overtake me here. Soon you’ll be leaning on your horn, at your wits’ end. Sometimes I pump the pedals for all I’m worth: I long for relief, to be where you can put your foot down, and I can reduce my speed and shake off the sense of threat. At other times, I turn and show you the finger: I’ve the same right to be here as you, you wanker. At others, I want to stop, block the road with my bicycle, smack you in the face. I rarely act on this; we just bark at each other across the fence, choking on the hatred that will be coursing through our bodies for an hour to come, perhaps all day. Okay, I always want to smack you in the face, but I never actually do it. Scientists have studied how a person’s brain reacts to the instruments they use. Participants in one experiment worked for an hour with a simple arm mechanism of the kind used in litter collection. When the hour was up, they were asked to estimate how far away certain objects were, and to judge whether they were within reach. After using the extensible arm mechanism, they were far less successful at estimating distance than they had been before. Now they felt their reach and their arm to be longer than the reality. The instrument had connected with the brain immediately; the brain had taken it as part of the body, resetting perception in deference to the tool. This ability is at the birth of civilization. You use a car every day – you have become a car. A car wants movement, to go, as fast as it can. Hence the honking at cyclists, pedestrians, slower cars. As a pedestrian, you would never breathe down someone’s neck and yell at them to get out of the way. You’re not the honker, wanting to get ahead; you’re not the inconsiderate one. It’s the instrument you have grown into, and which has grown into you. You’re like Paco de Lucía and his guitar. But you’re not Paco de Lucía, and you don’t play the guitar; you’re driving behind a cyclist, in a rush because your machine is, honking because that’s what your machine does, on a single note because you’ve chosen the wrong instrument. Soon you will step out of the car into the office, where you will create values, make worlds, work on better tomorrows, assert ideas, draw up urban plans, build, do politics. And as you are still a car, you will build a world of cars, plan towns for cars, do politics for cars.

I bring you food often. You live in a neighbourhood popular with young people and arty, bohemian types with deep pockets. On the top floor. A sticker on your door declares: ‘Eco-Academy cell’. I ring the bell. You open the door, not wide. From inside, I hear music and conversation; sometimes I smell weed; you’re trying to fix the planet and its future. You receive the bags of heavily packaged food (compostable packaging, naturally). You pay by card, thank me, but you don’t look at me; you never look at me. Or maybe you do; in fact, you always smile at me. Perhaps we even have a little polite conversation. You feign interest, look at me, smile at me, but you don’t actually see me; you’re smiling because your life is filled with happiness. I look at you and I like you. I like your flat. I like the fact that you often have visitors, that you’re popular. I’d like to try all the food you keep ordering from the trendiest establishments with the best ratings on Platform. It’s usually something exotic – Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, Southeast Asian, Japanese, some modern combination. Always something vegetarian, often something vegan. But meat too, you’re open-minded. Once I’m back at ground level, I rarely stop myself from reading up on the restaurants you’ve ordered from, on the Platform app, sitting on the steps, wasting precious time. The sites have professional photos, polished logos, amusing, playful captions and names. If I could afford to order food in, I’d order it from a place you get yours. You pay by card, but you always have a coin for me. You close the door. Eco-Academy cell.

I get home at night and carry my bike up to my flat with the last of my strength: there’s nowhere else in the building to put it. All is quiet; my flatmates are asleep, but we hardly see each other anyway, and we never speak. All we have in common is that we are too old for the student life, single, without a steady income. Though I’m dead beat, often I can’t sleep. My muscles are pumped from pedalling all day; my heart is still pounding to the beat of turning pedals; my nerves are frayed from the adrenaline ride of going fastest in the evening, when I can earn most. I turn on a lamp and open a window. The busy street isn’t contained at ground level; its hum is my room, won’t leave me in peace. Helpless, I rummage in the drawer of my desk, which contains everything imaginable: receipts, documents, lease agreement, strewn photos. I have few photos from my childhood. After my parents’ divorce, no one had time to photograph me. Mum probably found it more important to keep me well fed. As for you, Dad – well, your new young lover gave you plenty to worry about. Proof of my early years was provided by the annual visits of a photographer to our nursery school. I select a photo, close the drawer, collapse onto the mattress on the floor. I put the duvet under my head, turn the lamp my way, stretch my aching legs. In the photo I’m four, maybe five years old. Obviously, boys are born with an interest in technical things, girls with one in raising a family. The class stood in an orderly queue. When each child’s time came to be photographed, you placed a doll in the arms of the girl and a big plastic toy car on the lap of the boy. Doll, car, doll, car, doll… In my photo, I’m sitting with my attribute like a proud little god destined to control a mechanized vehicle. Driving: supreme activity of a healthy, successful man. Giving birth: supreme activity of a healthy, successful woman. Mechanization and reproduction, Yin and Yang. Supreme driving involves a machine designed to build or destroy – a digger or a tank. Supreme birth-giving delivers to the world a future driver of a machine made to build or destroy, or the future mother of another future driver of a machine made to build, kill and destroy. The traditional family. The basis of the state.

Hey, watch out!

You suffer mass disorientation in so-called commercial zones – like this one, the area known as Republic Square. Republic, res publica, public affair. But the space has been swallowed by a commercial centre entirely in private hands. No one agrees to meet at Republic Square anymore: See you by the shopping centre, we say. I pedal along a boutique-lined street on the site of the city’s fortification moat. It is closed to cars, partially at least. The five bags you hold in each hand contain tacky clothes that differ only by logo and the corresponding price. Paper bags, naturally, since ZARA, H&M, MANGO, ADIDAS, GAP, VICTORIA’S SECRET, KARL LAGERFELD and MASSIMO DUTTI think about the good of our green planet every hour of every day, as you do. As you look neither right nor left (the shops and mirrors mirroring other mirrors, in which you, too, are mirrored and multiplied, hold you transfixed), you wander into people’s way. Your ears are filled with the music that always gets your blood pumping; you shop as if you were dancing. You see nothing, you hear nothing; you wander towards my wheels, your tripping gaze avid for more familiar logos, more familiar brands. You know them from home, but shopping in your home city isn’t the same as shopping on holiday, in a strange city, abroad. I hold my course, my temples pounding with adrenaline; here I tend to go fastest. I brake and swerve right in front of you, waking something real within you, some connection with the world around you, some stunted, long-degenerate reflex; making you notice me, take fright and wait for the inevitable collision. Then I brake and pull on the handlebars, because I’m in control of my body and my bike, and I can anticipate your movements when startled, and the movements of other zombies around you; I scan the situation, analyse it, use my brain; though I’m riding a bike, I use my brain constantly; I pedal, turn the handlebars, squeeze the brake mechanism, change gear, work my legs and arms – all directed by my brain, which is working to scare you, snap you out of your holiday shopping lethargy, give you the sharp, clear sense of being alive. You bought a flight to a country where nothing can happen to you, where everything is secured, insured, made safe, cushioned, padded with foam. You want to travel, but not to take risks. I’m here to remind you that you can die anytime, anyplace. But I pull on the handlebars at the last moment; I rarely get this manoeuvre wrong, rarely kill anyone. To kill someone, an unarmoured cyclist is too light; I lack hard bumpers, metal reinforcement, an engine, all of which can press you to the ground and crush your bones. But I could easily kill or injure myself.

You’ve got yourself a Mustang GT. As you cruise the night-time city streets, your burbling engine enters my dreams. Botoxed beauties aren’t worth the bother: none will stay with you till the end. When you put your foot down, your eight cylinders scream for help, in perfect unison, in perfect harmony. Driving a Mustang GT is a lonely calling. You send your message in a bottle out into the night. You’re a castaway on your own private island, for which you’re paying in instalments.

Excerpts from Part Two

Choice members of the Eco-Academy cell are discussing where to continue their debate, in which pub. You take my hand and ask me to come along. I’d like to, but I have to get back in the saddle and pedal, play catchup all afternoon. Maybe I’ll drop by in the evening, I could do that. I’ll drop by your attic once I’ve delivered enough meals. But then something unplanned happens, a sudden flaring. A sense of unease spreads through the crowd. Someone on stage is stirring up the demonstrators. Waving banners won’t change anything! We need to block the arterial road! The call resonates in the Eco-Academy cell; some would join. You try to placate them. Protests must stay within the law. Once demonstrators cross the line of what’s legal and what isn’t, the media and politicians will use it against them and make them out to be criminals. You may be right, but my blood is up, as it is when I’m weaving through traffic to deliver meals in record time. I slip away to see what’s happening. There’s a big group in the road already; the cars are stopped. Some students are sitting on the road surface, holding hands. Horns honk. Curses ring out from both sides. A man gets out of his car, rolls up his sleeves, shoves a demonstrator or two; being heavily outnumbered, however, he chooses to get back in his armoured vehicle. I sit down among the activists, hold hands. Pressing together strengthens resolve; mutual protection makes us less afraid. Blue lights, sirens. The first response unit. Megaphoned threats. The police pull demonstrators out of the line, drag them from roadway to pavement; most accept this passively, but some of us slip away and go straight back to the roadway. Shouts, sirens, honking horns. The tension rises. The first batons are drawn, the first blows fall. After that it’s mayhem. It’s been a long time since police beat students here. There was no good reason to. Then I set eyes on you and feel the cold breath of fate. I’m sure we’ve never met before: if I’d failed to notice you, I would have sensed you. You’re sitting in the road cross-legged, straight-backed, as if the melee had nothing to do with you, as if you were all alone with your determination and your destiny. If all this were happening in a film, the noises of fighting around you would fade to shapelessness and the music would grow louder – no, not music, a single note played by a full string orchestra, urgent but somehow soothing. You’d be sitting motionless, at the centre of the composition, the fight swirling around you. The shot is exaggeratedly long. Suddenly, a policeman with a baton is standing over you. The blow is aimed at your shoulder but falls on your head. I jump him from behind and grab his arms. His colleagues pile on top of me, shower me with blows. You try to get between us, to stop them. Blood is streaming down your forehead. They drag us and others to a police van, drive us away for questioning. At the station, they bring you into the waiting room with your wound already dressed. At last we get to know each other.

Translated by Andrew Oakland