He bear-hugged me several degrees tighter to silence me, and I am afraid I bit his ear. A strategic mistake. In one powerful yank my trousers were pulled from my waist—was he going to bugger me? What he did was even less pleasant. He laid me on the body of his mowing machine, pinned me down with one hand, and caned me with a bamboo cane in the other. The pain cracked across my unfleshy shanks, once, twice, again-again, again-again, again-again!
Christ, such pain!
I shouted, then cried, then whimpered for him to stop. Whack! Whack! Whack! Nurse Noakes finally ordered the giant to desist. My buttocks were two giant wasp stings! The woman’s voice hissed in my ear: “The world outside has no place for you. Aurora House is where you live now. Is reality sinking in? Or shall I ask Mr. Withers here to go over things one more time?”
“Tell her to go to hell,” warned my spirit, “or you’ll regret it later.”
“Tell her what she wants to hear,” shrieked my nervous system, “or you’ll regret it now.”
The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak.
I was sent to my room without breakfast. I plotted vengeance, litigation, and torture. I inspected my cell. Door, locked from outside, no keyhole. Window that opened only six inches. Heavy-duty sheets made of egg-carton fibers with plastic undersheet. Armchair, washable seat cover. Moppable carpet. “Easy-wipe” wallpaper. “En suite” bathroom: soap, shampoo, flannel, ratty towel, no window. Picture of cottage captioned: “A House is Made by Hands, but a Home is Made by Hearts.” Prospects for breakout: piss-poor.
Still, I believed my confinement would not last until noon. One of several exits must open up. The management would realize its mistake, apologize profusely, sack the Offending Noakes, and beg me to take compensation in cash. Or, Denholme would learn his gag had backfired and command my release. Or, the accountant would realize nobody was paying my bills and boot me out. Or, Mrs. Latham would report me missing, my disappearance would feature on Crimewatch UK, and the police would trace my whereabouts.
Around eleven the door was unlocked. I readied myself to reject apologies and go for the jugular. A once stately woman sailed in. Seventy years old, eighty, eighty-five, who knows when they’re that old? A rickety greyhound in a blazer followed his mistress. “Good morning,” began the woman. I stood, and did not offer my visitors a seat.
“I beg to differ.”
“My name is Gwendolin Bendincks.”
“Don’t blame me.”
Nonplussed, she took the armchair. “This”—she indicated the greyhound—”is Gordon Warlock-Williams. Why don’t you take a seat? We head the Residents’ Committee.”
“Very nice for you, but since I am not a—”
“I had intended to introduce myself at breakfast, but the morning’s unpleasantness occurred before we could take you under our wing.”
“All water under the bridge, now, Cavendish,” gruffed Gordon Warlock-Williams. “No one’ll mention it again, boyo, rest assured.” Welsh, yes, he would have to be Welsh.
Mrs. Bendincks leant forward. “But understand this, Mr. Cavendish: boat rockers are not welcome here.”
“Then expel me! I beg you!”
“Aurora House does not expel,” said the sanctimonious moo, “but you will be medicated, if your behavior warrants it, for your own protection.”
Ominous, no? I had seen One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest with an extraordinarily talentless but wealthy and widowed poetess whose collected works, Verses Wild & Wayward, I was annotating but who was less widowed than initially claimed, alas. “Look, I’m sure you’re a reasonable woman.” The oxymoron passed without comment. “So read my lips. I am not supposed to be here. I checked into Aurora House believing it to be a hotel.”
“Ah, but we do understand, Mr. Cavendish!” Gwendolin Bendincks nodded.
“No you don’t!”
“Everyone’s visited by the Glum Family at first, but you’ll soon cheer up when you see how your loved ones have acted in your best interests.”
“All my ‘loved ones’ are dead or bonkers or at the BBC, except my prankster brother!” You can see it, can’t you, dear Reader? I was a man in a horror B-movie asylum. The more I ranted and raged, the more I proved that I was exactly where I should be.
“This is the best hotel you’ll ever stay in, boyo!” His teeth were biscuit colored. Were he a horse, you couldn’t have given him away, “A five-star one, look you. Meals get provided, all your laundry is done. Activities laid on, from crochet to croquet. No confusing bills, no youngsters joyriding in your motor. Aurora House is a ball! Just obey the regulations and stop rubbing Nurse Noakes up the wrong way. She’s not a cruel woman.”
“ ‘Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty.’ ” Warlock-Williams looked at me as if I had spoken in tongues. “Solzhenitsyn.”
“Betwys y Coed was always good enough for Marjorie and me. But look you here! I felt just the same in my first week. Barely spoke to a soul, eh, Mrs. Bendincks, a major sourpuss, eh?”
“A maximus sourpuss, Mr. Warlock-Williams!”
“But now I’m happy as a pig in clover! Eh?”
Mrs. Bendincks smiled, ’twas a ghastly sight. “We’re here to help you reorientate. Now, I understand you were in publishing. Sadly”—she tapped her head—”Mrs. Birkin is less able to record Residents’ Committee meeting minutes than she once was. A fine opportunity for you to jolly well get involved!”
“I still am in publishing! Do I look like I should be here?” The silence was intolerable. “Oh, get out!”
“Disappointed.” She gazed at the leaf-littered lawn, dotted with worm casts. “Aurora House is your world now, Mr. Cavendish.” My head was cork and the corkscrew was Gwendolin Bendincks. “Yes, you are in a Rest Home. The day has come. Your stay can be miserable or pleasant. But your stay is permanent. Think on, Mr. Cavendish.” She knocked on the door. Unseen forces let my tormentors exit but slammed it shut in my face.
I noticed that for the duration of the interview my flies had been wide open.
Behold your future, Cavendish the Younger. You will not apply for membership, but the tribe of the elderly will claim you. Your present will not keep pace with the world’s. This slippage will stretch your skin, sag your skeleton, erode your hair and memory, make your skin turn opaque so your twitching organs and blue-cheese veins will be semivisible. You will venture out only in daylight, avoiding weekends and school holidays. Language, too, will leave you behind, betraying your tribal affiliations whenever you speak. On escalators, on trunk roads, in supermarket aisles, the living will overtake you, incessantly. Elegant women will not see you. Store detectives will not see you. Salespeople will not see you, unless they sell stair lifts or fraudulent insurance policies. Only babies, cats, and drug addicts will acknowledge your existence. So do not fritter away your days. Sooner than you fear, you will stand before a mirror in a care home, look at your body, and think, E.T., locked in a ruddy cupboard for a fortnight.
A sexless automaton brought lunch on a tray. I’m not being insulting, but I truly couldn’t tell if she or he was a he or a she. It had a slight mustache but tiny breasts too. I thought about knocking it out cold and making a Steve McQueen dash for liberty, but I had no weapon except a bar of soap and nothing to tie it up with except my belt.
Lunch was a tepid lamb chop. The potatoes were starch grenades. The canned carrots were revolting because that is their nature. “Look,” I begged the automaton, “at least bring me some Dijon mustard.” It showed no evidence of understanding. “Coarse grain, or medium. I’m not fussy.” She turned to go. “Wait! You—speak-ee—English?” She was gone. My dinner outstared me.
My strategy had been wrong from square one. I had tried to shout my way out of this absurdity, but the institutionalized cannot do this. Slavers welcome the odd rebel to dress down before the others. In all the prison literature I’ve read, from The Gulag Archipelago to An Evil Cradling to Knuckle Sandwich, rights must be horse-traded and accrued with
cunning. Prisoner resistance merely justifies an ever-fiercer imprisonment in the minds of the imprisoners.
Now was the season for subterfuge. I should take copious notes for my eventual compensation settlement. I should be courteous to the Black Noakes. But as I pushed cold peas onto my plastic fork, a chain of firecrackers exploded in my skull and the old world came to an abrupt end.
On behalf of my ministry, thank you for agreeing to this final interview. Please remember, this isn’t an interrogation, or a trial. Your version of the truth is the only one that matters.
Truth is singular. Its “versions” are mistruths.
… Good. Ordinarily, I begin by asking prisoners to recall their earliest memories to provide a context for corpocratic historians of the future. Fabricants have no earliest memories, Archivist. One twenty-four-hour cycle in Papa Song’s is indistinguishable from any other.
Then why not describe this “cycle”?
If you wish. A server is woken at hour four-thirty by stimulin in the airflow, then yellow-up in our dormroom. After a minute in the hygiener and steamer, we put on fresh uniforms before filing into the restaurant. Our seer and aides gather us around Papa’s Plinth for Matins, we recite the Six Catechisms, then our beloved Logoman appears and delivers his Sermon. At hour five we man our tellers around the Hub, ready for the elevator to bring the new day’s first consumers. For the following nineteen hours we greet diners, input orders, tray food, vend drinks, upstock condiments, wipe tables, and bin garbage. Vespers follows cleaning, then we imbibe one Soapsac in the dormroom. That is the blueprint of every unvarying day.
You have no rests?
Only purebloods are entitled to “rests,” Archivist. For fabricants, “rests” would be an act of time theft. Until curfew at hour zero, every minute must be devoted to the service and enrichment of Papa Song.
Do servers—unascended servers, I mean—never wonder about life outside your dome, or did you believe your dinery was the whole cosmos?
Oh, our intelligence is not so crude that we cannot conceive of an outside. Remember, at Matins, Papa Song shows us pictures of Xultation and Hawaii, and AdV instreams images of a cosmology beyond our servery. Moreover, we know both diners and the food we serve comes from a place not in the dome. But it is true, we rarely wonder about life on the surface. Additionally, Soap contains amnesiads designed to deaden curiosity.
What about your sense of time? Of the future?
Papa Song announces the passing hours to the diners, so I noticed the time of day, dimly, yes. Also we were aware of passing years by annual stars added to our collars, and by the Star Sermon on New Year’s Matins. We had only one long-term future: Xultation.
Could you describe this annual “Star Sermon” ceremony?
After Matins on First Day, Seer Rhee would pin a star on every server’s collar. The elevator then took those lucky Twelvestarred sisters for conveyance to Papa Song’s Ark. For the xiters, it is a momentous occasion: for the remainder, one of acute envy. Later, we saw smiling Sonmis, Yoonas, Ma-Leu-Das, and Hwa-Soons on 3-D as they embarked for Hawaii, arrived at Xultation, and finally were transformed into consumers with Soulrings. Our x-sisters praised Papa Song’s kindnesses and xhorted us to repay our Investment diligently. We marveled at their boutiques, malls, dineries; jade seas, rose skies, wildflowers; lace, cottages, butterflies; though we could not name these marvels.
I’d like to ask about the infamous Yoona939.
I knew Yoona939 better than any fabricant: some purebloods know more of her neurochemical history than me, but perhaps these individuals will be named later. On my awakening at Papa Song’s, Seer Rhee assigned me to Yoona939’s teller. He believed it was aesthetically pleasing to alternate stemtypes around the Hub. Yoona939 was tenstarred that year. She seemed aloof and sullen, so I regretted not being partnered with another Sonmi. However, by my first tenthday I had come to learn her aloofness was in fact watchfulness. Her sullenness hid a subtle dignity. She decifered the orders of drunk customers, and warned me of Seer Rhee’s ill-tempered inspections. In no small part it is thanks to Yoona939 that I have survived as long as I have.
This “subtle dignity” you mention—was it a result of her ascension?
Postgrad Boom-Sook’s research notes were so sparse I cannot be certain when Yoona939’s ascension was triggered, xactly. However, I believe that ascension merely frees what Soap represses, including the xpression of an innate personality possessed by all fabricants.
Popular wisdom has it that fabricants don’t have personalities.
This fallacy is propagated for the comfort of purebloods.
“Comfort”? How do you mean?
To enslave an individual troubles your consciences, Archivist, but to enslave a clone is no more troubling than owning the latest six-wheeler ford, ethically. Because you cannot discern our differences, you believe we have none. But make no mistake: even same-stem fabricants cultured in the same wombtank are as singular as snowflakes.
Then I stand corrected. When did Yoona939’s deviances—perhaps I should say singularities—first become apparent to you?
Ah, questions of when are difficult to answer in a world without calendars or real windows, twelve floors underground. Perhaps around month six of my first year, I became aware of Yoona939’s irregular speech.
Irregular?
Firstly, she spoke more: during offpeak moments at our teller; as we cleaned the consumers’ hygieners; even as we imbibed Soap in the dormroom. It amused us, even the stiff Ma-Leu-Das. Secondly, Yoona’s speech grew more complex as the year aged. Orientation teaches us the lexicon we need for our work, but Soap erases xtra words we acquire later. So to our ears, Yoona’s sentences were filled with noises devoid of meaning. She sounded, in a word, pureblood. Thirdly, Yoona took pleasure in humor: she hummed Papa’s Psalm in absurd variations; in our dormroom, when aides were absent, she mimicked pureblood habits like yawning, sneezing, or burping. Humor is the ovum of dissent, and the Juche should fear it.
In my xperience, fabricants have difficulties threading together an original sentence of five words. How could Yoona939—or you, for that matter—acquire verbal dexterity in such a hermetic world, even with a rising IQ?
An ascending fabricant absorbs language, thirstily, in spite of amnesiads. During my ascension, I was often shocked to hear new words fly from my own mouth, gleaned from consumers, Seer Rhee, AdV, and Papa Song himself. A dinery is not a hermetic world: every prison has jailers and walls. Jailers are ducts and walls conduct.
A more metaphysical question … were you happy, back in those days?
Before my ascension, you mean? If, by happiness, you mean the absence of adversity, I and all fabricants are the happiest stratum in corpocracy, as genomicists insist. However, if happiness means the conquest of adversity, or a sense of purpose, or the xercise of one’s will to power, then of all Nea So Copros’s slaves we surely are the most miserable. I endured drudgery but enjoy it no more than yourself.
Slaves, you say? Even infant consumers know, the very word slave is abolished throughout Nea So Copros!
Corpocracy is built on slavery, whether or not the word is sanctioned. Archivist, I do not wish to offend you, but is your youth dewdrugged or genuine? I am puzzled. Why has my case been assigned to an apparently inxperienced corpocrat?
No offense taken, Sonmi. I am an xpedience—and yes, an undewdrugged xpedience, I am still in my twenties. The xecs at the Ministry of Unanimity insisted that you, as a heretic, had nothing to offer corpocracy’s archives but sedition and blasphemy. Genomicists, for whom you are a holy grail, as you know, pulled levers on the Juche to have Rule 54.iii—the right to archivism—enforced against Unanimity’s wishes, but they hadn’t reckoned on senior archivists watching your trial and judging your case too hazardous to risk their reputations—and pensions—on. Now, I’m only eighth-stratum at my uninfluential ministry, but when I petitioned to orison your testimony, approval was granted before I had the chance to come to my senses. My friends to
ld me I was crazy.
So you are gambling your career on this interview?
… That is the truth of the matter, yes.
Your frankness is refreshing after so much duplicity.
A duplicitous archivist wouldn’t be much use to future historians, in my view. Could you tell me a little more about Seer Rhee? His journal weighed heavily against you at your trial. What manner of seer was he?
Poor Seer Rhee was corp man, to the bone, but long past the age when seers are promoted to power. Like many of this dying corpocracy’s purebloods, he clung to the belief that hard work and a blemishless record were enough to achieve status, so he curfewed many nights in the dinery office to impress the corp hierarchy. In sum: a whipman to his fabricants; a sycofant to his upstrata, and courteous to his cuckolds.
His cuckolds?
Yes. Seer Rhee should be understood in the context of his wife. Mrs. Rhee had sold her child quota early in their marriage, made shrewd investments, and used her husband as a dollar-udder. According to his aides’ gossip, she spent most of our seer’s salary on facescaping. Certainly, her seventy-plus years could pass for thirty. Mrs. Rhee visited the dinery from time to time to inspect the latest male aides, gossip added. Any who spurned her advances could xpect a posting to bleakest Manchuria. But why she never used her apparent corp influence to advance Seer Rhee’s career is a mystery I will not now live to see solved.
Yoona939’s notoriety must have threatened the seer’s “blemishless record” severely, wouldn’t you agree?
Certainly. A dinery server behaving like a pureblood attracts trouble; trouble attracts blame; blame demands a scapegoat. When Seer Rhee noticed Yoona’s deviations from Catechism, he bypassed destarring and requested a corp medic to xamine her for reorientation. This tactical mistake xplains the seer’s lackluster career. Yoona939 performed as genomed, and the visiting medic gave her a clean bill. Seer Rhee was thenceforth unable to discipline Yoona without implying criticism of a senior corp medic.
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