HARM

  “Oh, sir, no more of that, I beg. I do not intend to contradict. I admit I did it. I didn’t realize it. I have every respect…I’m confused. I’m starved of sleep. I don’t even know what country I’m in. I wrote my novel in good faith. You see, I admire the comic novels of P. G. Wodehouse, that most—”

  “You are in Uzbekistan, prisoner, for special interrogation. Now, question number two: Why was your novel translated into a foreign tongue and published in Tehran, an indication of its subversive pro-Islamic nature?”

  “Uzbekistan, sir? I don’t understand. I—”

  The hand gesture again. Again the searing pain, more intense this time, as the world filled with an agonizing blindness.

  “Answer the question. Why was your stinking, corrupt novel published in Tehran?”

  “Sir, I had no control over where my novel was published. It was also published in the United States of America, and—”

  Again the hand gesture. Again the shock. Again he heard his own screams.

  “Why in Tehran, prisoner?”

  “No more shocks, no more, I beg you. I am trying—trying to answer…Really…I can’t…I was told that my novel was published by a small dissenting company in Tehran, to prove that writings by a Muslim could be published in a Western country.”

  “You are saying you are or are not a Muslim?”

  “Well, sir, please, sir—” He heard his own voice blubbering like a schoolchild. “My name is Paul Fadhil Abbas Ali, but I am not a believer.”

  “You lie, you scumbag! Tell me what fine line divides a Muslim from a pro-Muslim? Are you not pro-Muslim?”

  “Well, yes. No. No, in many cases not, but of course—”

  Again the hand gesture. Again the blaze at the temples. Again the screams. The tongue burning in the mouth.

  Ramson was saying in a casual manner that the prisoner had planned to kill the British prime minister.

  “I could never bring myself to kill another person…”

  Abraham Ramson ignored the remark. Spreading open the prisoner’s novel on the table, he flattened its pages with a meaty hand.

  Ramson’s eyebrows came together as he spoke. “I shall read a passage on page fifty-three of your poisonous creation. ‘They were laughing together as they walked through the park, where no one could overhear their jokes. Harry said, “What we need to do is blow up the prime minister. That would solve our problems.” “I can see it now,” Celina said, laughing. “Bits of him spread all over Downing Street.” ’

  “Is that or is that not an incitement to murder?”

  The prisoner was aghast. “How can you take it seriously? They’re pretty drunk, these characters, Lina and the others. They’re fooling around. Many of my friends just found that passage funny.”

  “Funny?” The question exploded from his lips. “Bits of the prime minister spread all over Downing Street? Funny? A cause for amusement? You regard that as funny? To me it suggests a preparation for assassination, a suicide bombing, doesn’t it?”

  “No, really, it is funny, a British sort of a joke. A Monty Python sort of joke…”

  “You are a traitor, prisoner. A bastard and an asshole.”

  “Yes, sir, oh yes, I am a fool, but—but really no traitor—and I regret I wrote that passage since things have become so bad. I mean the recent—well, the recent terrorist attacks getting worse. But an innocent fool, sir, please believe—Ohhhhh!”

  Again, the gesture, the shock, the agony, the blindness.

  “No one is innocent in this world. You abused the privilege of living in a civilized country. Take this wretch away, guards,” said Abraham Ramson.

  As they dragged the prisoner off, he called back, “Please, sir, please repatriate me to England. I don’t deserve this punishment!”

  “Shut up, you prick,” said one of the guards. But in a good-humored way.

  AFTER CONDUCTING THIS BRIEF INTERROGATION, Inspector Abraham Ramson walked at his steady pace down the corridor to the washroom. He fitted tightly into his neat suit. His leather shoes shone. On the way to the washroom, passing a pile of rubbish, he was met by Algernon Gibbs, the controller of the establishment, a wispy little man with designer stubble and rimless eyeglasses. His dyed dark hair was parted exactly in the middle of his skull.

  “Er, everything going well, Inspector?” he asked, with a forced smile.

  Without pausing in his stride, Ramson said, “Prisoner B says he is a fool and I believe him. He is a fool.”

  Gibbs gave an uncertain titter. He did not like the burly Ramson and regretted that higher authorities had sent him here to interfere with the working of the organization. He followed Ramson into the washroom.

  White tiles and mirrors on the walls. Stains on the floor. Controller Gibbs slyly regarded himself in the mirrors. He approved of what he saw, contrasting his own pale hands—“refined,” as he thought of them—with the big, brutish knuckles of his visitor.

  “Who’ve we got next?” Ramson asked, as he removed his jacket and hung it on a hook. “Someone worthy of a proper interrogation, I hope. Someone with a heap more nastiness in him, eh?” As he rolled up his sleeves, Gibbs brought out a packet of cigarettes and offered one to the American.

  “You’re not still smoking those filthy things?” Ramson said, by way of refusal.

  “The burden of office, you know. Sometimes the prisoners…”

  His voice was drowned as Ramson turned on the tap and water came gushing forth. Repeatedly jabbing the liquid soap button, he worked up a fine lather, energetically turning his hands about and about, soaping them up to his hairy wrists.

  “I’ll take a look at the records. I have concluded that you are wasting your time on this guy B, Algy.”

  “The records are of course available, Inspector.” Gibbs spoke stiffly, irritated by the familiarity of the abbreviation—even the use—of his first name.

  Ramson grabbed two paper towels and dried himself vigorously, ignoring the smaller man. “Help me on with my jacket, will you?”

  In the record room, he sat down in front of a computer and tapped in the coded password.

  “Would you care for a drink? A lager, or something stronger?” Gibbs inquired.

  “I don’t drink, Algy. I would have thought you knew that well enough.”

  “A glass of mineral water, then? Or something even stronger? A lemonade?” A thin smile.

  “Mineral water’s fine. Fizzy. With ice, if you have it. Plenty of ice.”

  Going to the door, Gibbs summoned an assistant, saying quietly, “A glass of mineral water for our guest. No ice.”

  Ramson pulled up Prisoner B’s file.

  The screen revealed an extensive record of Prisoner B’s antecedents.

  His grandfather had left the state of Hyderabad in India to serve as an indentured laborer in British-held Uganda. He worked in a copper mine. He had married, and his wife delivered three sons and a daughter. One of these sons became B’s father.

  This son was clever. He established a small grocery store in Kampala, the Ugandan capital. The store catered not just to the 18 percent of the population that was Muslim but to all Ugandans, irrespective of their faith. He was successful and moved to a larger store at a better site, on Gladstone Street. There he attracted wealthy white patronage.

  Still a young man, he part-funded the building of a local mosque, thus incurring the enmity of a British official with conflicting property interests. B’s father soon moved to Britain, where he was again successful, founding the store Beezue in Queensway. His racehorse Thark won the 1997 Derby. In his forties, he married an Englishwoman, Gloriana Harbottle, by whom he had a son (B) and a daughter.

  Gloriana had written children’s stories, which influenced B. His father maltreated him. Beating, shutting in cupboards were recorded.

  Abraham Ramson gave a grim chortle. “So they called him ‘Insane Hussein’ at school…It says here that while shut in one of these cupboards he renounced the Muslim faith.

  “Ever been shu
t in a cupboard for a week, Algy? It makes a difference, let me tell you.”

  Gibbs sighed. “No doubt. What else?”

  Ramson turned to the screen again.

  “In his teens, B left home and lived for some time with a woman hairdresser, Janet Stevens. He underwent psychoanalysis for his various insecurities. The course was funded by a league to help recent immigrants. His first story, ‘Eve in the Evening,’ was published in Granta and he was taken up by a literary crowd. He married Doris McGinty, an Irishwoman with literary ambitions. It is claimed that she helped him write his comic novel, Pied Piper of Hament. The novel betrays little of B’s origins.”

  Having read these notes and checked the dates, Ramson looked up from the screen.

  “Well, it’s a British story. You Brits were too lenient on these guys. You see, you let the shits in, then they betray us.”

  Gibbs, standing behind him smoking, agreed. “We’ve been too liberal by half.”

  Glaring up from his chair, Ramson looked at a point over Gibbs’s shoulder to deliver his next comment. “You do a lot of things by halves, Algy. Interrogation methods are strictly amateur—nothing improved since World War Two—”

  “The gov’ment is extremely parsimonious with our finances—”

  “Not enough psychological leverage used. It leaves no mark on the suspect. You should read up about our various methods. Fake drowning. The waterboard. That’s excellent—fake drowning. Then again, you don’t have properly trained staff here, men who like the work and know how to apply it.”

  Ramson rose from his chair. He had left his mineral water untouched. “However, this guy, he’s nothing. All flimflam. Let him go. Kick him out. You’re wasting your time with him, Algy.”

  But Gibbs was pursuing his own line of thought. He dropped the stub of his cigarette and crushed it out on the floor with his boot. “I’d nuke the lot of them, given the chance.”

  As they made for the door together, Ramson said, with the usual note of contempt in his voice, “Yeah, I’d certainly nuke a good many of ’em. Trouble is, nuking is not very selective. It’s not WAA policy, okay? It’s all or nothing with nuking, Algy.”

  “So much the better.”

  IT WAS STILL DARK. His head still ached. He listened to his own sobbing, wondering where it came from.

  “Shut up, will you?” said one of the four guards, shaking Fremant’s shoulder. “What’s wrong with you? Yelling in your sleep, you woke me up.” His name was Tunderkin and he lay on his palliasse next to Fremant. His face was broad and honest, with a scar on the left cheek. He had long blond hair and big muscles. He was in his teens.

  Fremant sat up, dazed. “I was having a nightmare.”

  “Have a quiet nightmare next time.” Tunderkin settled himself down for more sleep. Fremant remained awake, feeling chilled to his very core.

  He sat up, clutching his knees. His past was lost to him, his future problematic.

  To assassinate the leader, Astaroth, would not be overwhelmingly difficult. However, when he plunged in the dagger, the other three guards would, without a doubt, set on him. The question he asked himself was: Could he persuade the other guards that killing the All-Powerful was a good thing? They might have no liking for Astaroth, but he provided their livelihood. Two of them, not young Tunderkin, but Imascalte and Cavertal, were married with children.

  He spoke to them in cautious terms. Tunderkin once ventured the remark that Astaroth had mistreated his woman, Aster. The other guards had merely frowned.

  The days went by and he did nothing. When Aster was near, she simply averted her gaze from him. As Fremant got to understand the workings of the Center better, he saw that there were plenty of potential contenders for the leadership, were Astaroth to die: two men in particular, Desnaith and Safelkty, competitors and rivals; Desnaith all outward charm, Safelkty heavy and moody, a promoter of science.

  The question arose in Fremant’s mind: Would the community be any happier under one of these men, supposing Astaroth were dead? And supposing they, too, were killed—there would be others, just as avid for power. Including Habander. And so the Clandestines’ assassination plan began to appear to him too simplistic.

  There was always an inherent threat in all power being in the hands of one man—any man.

  While Fremant did nothing but his duties, while he mulled over these problems, a note was handed to him. It read only, “Strike within ten days, or we strike you. C.”

  The Clandestines were growing impatient. He tried to tell himself that they were not contenders. He was safe while he remained in the Center.

  A STIR OF EXCITEMENT ran through the Center one day. First, Astaroth appeared in a night-black cloak, a band of followers behind him, similarly dressed. A military-type band practiced in the courtyard. Fish and a dozen local dacoims were brought in to be baked over glowing embers. A reception was in preparation. Guards were given extra duties.

  Late in the afternoon, a posse of men riding the local variety of horse appeared from the direction of the hills, to be greeted by fanfares. A crowd had gathered, with many women, hooded and veiled, among them. They ran to greet the riders, their pale hands upraised.

  The riders brought with them a wheeled cage. They stopped outside the Center, to be greeted formally by Astaroth, flanked by his guards, including Fremant.

  Astaroth spoke. The crowd fell silent. He praised the returning expedition. The leader of the expedition, a tall, dignified man by the name of Essanits, with white stubble patching his jawline, then bowed to Astaroth. With a nod of permission from the All-Powerful, he addressed the crowd.

  “We are glad to return to Stygia City. We come bringing victory with us. Ours has been a bloody task. I speak for most of my men when I say we carried out our duties with heavy hearts—the task of killing off our enemies, the Dogovers, or Doglovers as we used to know them. We slaughtered them when and where we tracked them down. I have to tell you that not one Dogover now remains alive on the face of Stygia.”

  At this announcement, cheers rang out from the crowd.

  Essanits, with a hint of irony in his voice, continued: “So you can now sleep easy in your beds. For us, in some cases we now have to endure a time of regretting, of penitence, because mass slaughter, even of aliens, is never pleasant. It goes against the God-given human conscience, the commandment to preserve life. While we killed off all the dogs we could find, we have brought back some prisoners—five of the Dogover tribe for you to see. Bromheed, bring the prisoners out for inspection.”

  As ordered, the warrior called Bromheed opened up the door of the wheeled cage. Using a stick, he made the five prisoners emerge from the cage into the square. They stood in a forlorn group, none higher than a ten-year-old human child. They had milky-white faces and hair of the same color. Fremant studied them with interest. Poor little creatures, he thought. Their bodies were entirely cloaked in a sort of furry material, down to the ankles. Their feet were bare.

  They stood motionless before the crowd, their heads lowered.

  The onlookers muttered uneasily to one another. Then, recognizing the helplessness of those small folk they had decided were their enemies, they began to laugh—to laugh scornfully, Fremant thought as he listened, not only at the Dogovers but at their own fears.

  This cruel noise affected the prisoners. They turned to one another, forming a small ring, linking arms over each other’s shoulders, putting their heads together.

  Essanits swore a holy oath and ran to break up the ring. But too late. The prisoners collapsed, slowly, to sprawl in an entangled mass at Essanits’s feet.

  Essanits fell to his knees and pulled one of the childlike folk to him. Its head lolled foolishly on its shoulders. Like the others, it was dead.

  He laid the corpse gently down before turning to address Astaroth and the watching crowd. “Oh, sadness! We have witnessed this strange occurrence before. These little people, rather than bear disgrace, can will themselves to die. It is an uncanny, alien talent which we
humans do not possess.

  “I deeply regret my part in this…in all this…”

  Tears of compassion glittered in his eyes as he spoke.

  “Be a man, Essanits, damn you!” exclaimed the All-Powerful. “Whatever the cause, these weaklings committed suicide. Did not these feeble little creatures deserve to die? We would have killed them anyway.” He turned on his heel and strode back into the Center, closely followed by his guards. Meanwhile, the crowd had fallen silent. Conditions on Stygia were such that many had ended their own lives.

  The scene had made a deep impression on many, not least on Fremant. The people assembled in the square drifted away, in silence or muttering uneasily to one another.

  A scientific man, by name Tolsteem, one of Astaroth’s few researchers, stopped Essanits in the hall.

  “Excuse me, sir, I heard you refer to willed death as uncanny. That is not necessarily the case. In the human frame, the constant beating of the heart is part of our autonomic nervous system. I surmise that in the case of the Dogovers, so called, their hearts are controlled by parasympathetic nerves which can slow the heart so severely it can cause death. Inhibition of the heart is known in humans and—”

  “What does all this nonsense mean?” Essanits demanded. “They died, didn’t they?”

  “You miss my point, sir, if you will excuse me. If the heart is surrounded by parasympathetic vagus nerves, then it can be controlled on occasions—stopped, in fact. It’s not uncanny, but a simple biological fact. The little Dogovers are products of an evolution which differs from ours.”

  “You talk unholy rubbish,” said Essanits sternly. “Out of my way, if you please.”

  TO WILL YOURSELF TO DEATH… The prisoner lay sprawled on the floor of a room, the dimensions of which he did not know. To will yourself to death. He strained every nerve, yet could not die. His heart functioned as part of his autonomic nervous system.

  A sensation of burning numbness penetrated his entire body. He could think only of how good it would be to commit suicide simply by willpower, as the Dogovers did: their hearts must be, much like human breathing, part of a semiautonomic nervous system. Tolsteem had understood.