The Tank Trapeze - third of eleven tales in The Lives and Times of Jerry Cornelius.
August
20, 1968 - The Soviet Union swings into action. 200,000 troops and
5,000 tanks invade Czechoslovakia to crush the “Prague Spring," a brief
period of liberalization in the communist country.
01.00 hours:
Prague
Radio announced the move and said the praesidium of the Czechoslovak
Communist Party regarded it as a violation of international law, and
that Czechoslovak forces had been ordered not to resist.
* * *
"Perfection
had always been his goal, but a sense of justice had usually hampered
him. Jerry Cornelius wouldn't be seeing the burning city again."
So opens The Tank Trapeze. That above newsclip, beginning with time notation (0.1.00 hours), is the first of nineteen newsclips taken from the Guardian, August 22, 1968. And Jerry Cornelius episodes in Burma alternate with these short time-denoted Guardian snips reporting unfolding events in Prague, Czechoslovakia.
Jerry arrives in the city of Rangoon, Burma, having traveled via the SS Kao An
and is met by a monk with a black Bergman beard that made him look like
"an unfrocked BBC producer." Meanwhile, Jerry himself has blonde hair
and sports attire most dapper: an elaborately embroidered Russian blouse
(loose enough to conceal his shoulder holster and heat), white flannel
pants, soft Arabian boots and an old-fashioned astrakhan shako. The two
head off in an old Bentley.
"They drove between the green paddy
fields and in the distance saw the walls of Mandalay. Jerry rubbed his
face. "I hadn't expected it to be so hot." Their conversation is brief
and concludes with the monk asking, "Could you kill a child, Mr.
Cornelius?" To which Jerry replies, "I could try."
Thus we have, yet again, Jerry taking on the role of English assassin.
The tale's nimble toggling back and forth from Guardian
reports on that fateful day in Prague to Jerry's episodic adventures in
Burma strikes me as successive flashes of happenings wherein we as
readers are asked to fill in the blanks.
Of course, with Prague,
August 20, 1968, we can consult firsthand reports, documented film
footage, newspaper archives and the historical record. For Jerry
Cornelius in Burma, on the other hand, we have to rely more on our
imagination in concert with what we know of Jerry from other adventures,
both past and future.
Tank Trapeze also reminds me of how
one critic characterized a novel of Fyodor Dostoevsky as "a fairy tale
soaked in blood." And not only is this JC tale soaked in blood, both
Czech blood and Burmese blood, but at one point Jerry gets soaked by the
rain. "Jerry shook his umbrella and looked up at the sound of the
helicopter's engines. He was completely drenched; he felt cold and he
felt sorry for himself."
A Captain Maxwell asks Jerry:
"How do you do, Mr. Cornelius."
"It depends on what you mean."
Captain Maxwell pressed his lips in a red smile. "I find your manner instructive."
We're
well keeping our eye on Captain Maxwell. For as Arthur Schopenhauer was
fond of remarking, "Whoever expects to see devils go through the world
with horns and fools with jingling bells will always be their prey or
plaything." You'll have to read for yourself to judge if our good
Captain is more devil than fool but I'll share a hint: he might bring to
mind both Miss Brunner and Colonel Pyat.
Lastly, other than that
day in August 1968 being the date for both the Czech invasion and Jerry
in Burma, there is another direct connection: "Peering through the slit
in the blind he (Jerry) saw a squadron of L-29 Delfins fly shrieking
over the golden rooftops. Were they part of an occupation force?" The
L-29 Delfin was a jet used by the Warsaw Pact, the same Warsaw Pact
instrumental in invading Czechoslovakia. To add an additional of layer
of irony: the L-29 was both designed and manufactured in Czechoslovakia.
"The
temple was rather like an Anuradhapuran ziggurat, rising in twelve
ornate tiers of enamelled metal inlaid with silver, bronze, gold, onyx,
ebony and semiprecious stones. Its entrance was over-hung by three
arches, each like an inverted V, one upon the other. The building seemed
overburdened, like a tree weighted with too much ripe fruit."
Time
to investigate this JC tale on your own so you can begin filling in the
gaps and connecting the dots before moving on to the next ditty in the
collection: The Swastika Set-up. 
British author Michael Moorcock, born 1939
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