The Terminal Beach

by James Graham Ballard

  'It is cold,' he agreed at last. 'I will see if I can borrow a heater. This villa is closed for most of the year.'

  Constantin pestered him for news of the heater during the following week - partly because the success of his request would have symbolized Malek's first concession to him - but it failed to materialize. After one palpably lame excuse Malek merely ignored his further reminders. Outside, in the garden, the leaves whirled about the stones in a vortex of chilling air, and overhead the low clouds raced seaward. The two men in the lounge hunched over their chessboard by the radiator, hands buried in their pockets between moves. Perhaps it was this darkening weather which made Constantin impatient of Malek's slowness in seeing the point of his argument, and he made his first suggestions that Malek should transmit a formal request for a re-trial to his superiors at the Department of Justice. 'You speak to someone on the telephone every morning, Malek,' he pointed out when Malek demurred. 'There's no difficulty involved. If you're afraid of compromising yourself-though I would have thought that a small price to pay in view of what is at stake - the orderly can pass on a message.' 'It's not feasible, Mr Constantin.' Malek seemed at last to be tiring of the subject. 'I suggest that you - ' 'Malek!' Constantin stood up and paced around the lounge. 'Don't you realize that you must? You're literally my only means 'of contact, if you refuse I'm absolutely powerless, there's no hope of getting a reprieve I' 'The trial has already taken place, Mr Constantin,' Malek pointed out patiently.

  'It was a mis-trial! Don't you understand, Malek, I accepted that I was guilty when in fact I was completely innocent I'

  Malek looked up from the board, his eyebrows lifting. 'Completely innocent, Mr. Constantin?'

  Constantin snapped his fingers. 'Well, virtually innocent. At least in terms of the indictment and trial.' 'But that is merely a technical difference, Mr Constantin. The Department of Justice is concerned with absolutes.' 'Quite right, Malek. I agree entirely.' Constantin nodded approvingly at the supervisor and privately noted his quizzical expression, the first time Malek had displayed a taste for irony.

  He was to notice this fresh leitmotiv recurringly during the next days; whenever he raised the subject of his request for a re-trial Malek would counter with one of his deceptively naive queries, trying to establish some minor tangential point, almost as if he were leading Constantin on to a fuller admission. At first Constantin assumed that the supervisor was fishing for information about other members of the hierarchy which he wished to use for his own purposes, but the few titbits he offered were ignored by Malek, and it dawned upon him that Malek was genuinely interested in establishing the sincerity of Constanfin's conviction of his own innocence. He showed no signs, however, of being prepared to contact 7

  his superiors at the Department of Justice, and Constantin's impatience continued to mount. He now used their morning and afternoon chess sessions as an opportunity to hold forth at length on the subject of the shortcomings of the judicial system, using his own case as an illustration, and hammered away at the theme of his innocence, even hinting that Malek might find himself held responsible if by any mischance he was not granted a reprieve.

  'The position I find myself in is really most extraordinary,' he told Malek almost exactly two months after his arrival at the villa. 'Everyone else is satisfied with the court's verdict, and yet I alone know that I am innocent. I feel very like someone who is about to be buried alive.'

  Malek managed a thin smile across the chess pieces. 'Of course, Mr Constantin, it is possible to convince oneself of anything, given a sufficient incentive.'

  'But Malek, I assure you,' Constantin insisted, ignoring the board and concentrating his whole attention upon the supervisor, 'this is no death-cell repentance. Believe me, I know. I have examined the entire case from a thousand perspectives, questioned every possible motive. There is no doubt in my mind. I may once have been prepared to accept the possibility of my guilt, but I realize now that I was entirely mistaken - experience encourages us to take too great a responsibility for ourselves, when we fall short of our ideals we become critical of ourselves and ready to assume that we are at fault. How dangerous that can be, Malek, I now know. Only the truly innocent man can really understand the meaning of guilt.'

  Constantin stopped and sat back, a slight weariness overtaking him in the cold room. Malek was nodding slowly, a thin and not altogether unsympathetic smile on his lips as if he understood everything Constantin had said. Then he moved a piece, and with a murmured 'excuse me' left his seat and went out of the room.

  Drawing the lapels of the dressing gown around his chest, Constantin studied the board with a desultory eye. He noticed that Malek's move appeared to be the first bad one he had made in all their games together, but he felt too tired to make the most of his opportunity. His brief speech to Malek, confirming all he believed, now left nothing more to be said. From now on whatever happened was up to Malek.

  'Mr Constantin.'

  He turned in his chair and, to his surprise, saw the supervisor standing in the doorway, wearing his long grey overcoat.

  'Malek-?' For a moment Constantin felt his heart gallop, and then controlled himself. 'Malek, you've agreed at last, you're going to take me to the Department?'

  Malek shook his head, his eyes staring sombrely at Con-stantin.

  'Not exactly. I thought we might look at the garden, Mr Constantin. A breath of fresh air, it will do you good.'

  'Of course, Malek, it's kind of you.' Constantin rose a little unsteadily to his feet, and tightened the cord of his dressing gown. 'Pardon my wild hopes.' He tried to smile at Malek, but the supervisor stood by the door, hands in his overcoat pockets, his eyes lowered fractionally from Constantin's face.

  They went out on to the veranda towards the french windows. Outside the cold morning air whirled in frantic circles around the small stone yard, the leaves spiralling upwards into the dark sky. To Constantin there seemed little point in going out into the garden, but Malek stood behind him, one hand on the latch.

  'Malek.' Something made him turn and face the supervisor.

  'You do understand what I mean, when I say I am absolutely innocent. I know that.'

  'Of course, Mr Constantin.' The supervisor's face was relaxed and almost genial. 'I understand. When you know you are innocent, then you are guilty.'

  His hand opened the veranda door on to the whirling leaves.

  The Illuminated Man

  By day fantastic birds flew through the petrified forest, and jewelled alligators glittered like heraldic salamanders on the banks of the crystalline rivers. By night the illuminated man raced among the trees, his arms like golden cartwheels, his head like a spectral crown. During the last year, since the news of what is now variously known as the Hubble Effect, the Rostov-Lysenko Syndrome and the LePage Amplification Synchronoclasmique first gained world-wide attention, there have been so many conflicting reports from the three focal areas in Florida, Byelorussia and Madagascar that I feel it necessary to preface my own account of the phenomenon with the assurance that it is entirely based upon first-hand experience. All the events I describe were witnessed by myself during the recent, almost tragic visit to the Florida Everglades arranged by the United States government for the scientific attaches in Washington. The only facts I was not able to verify are the details of Charles Foster Marquand's life which I obtained from Captain Shelley, the late chief of police at Maynard, and although he was a biased and untrustworthy witness I feel that in this single case he was almost certainly accurate. How much longer remains b]'ore all of us, wherever we are, become expert authorities upon the exact nature of the Hubble Effect is still open to conjecture. As I write, here within the safety and peace of the garden of the British Embassy at Puerto Rico, I see a report in today's New York Times that the whole of the Florida peninsula, with the exception of a single highway to Tampa, has been closed and that to date some three million of the state's inhabitants have been resettled in other parts of the United States. But apart from the e
stimated losses in real estate values and hotel revenues ('Oh, Miami,' I cannot help saying to myself, 'you city of a thousand cathedrals to the rainbow sun') the news of this extraordinary human migration seems to have prompted little comment. Such is mankind's innate optimism, our conviction that we can survive any deluge or cataclysm, that we unconsciously dismiss the momentous events in Florida with a shrug, confident that some means will be found to avert the crisis when it comes. And yet it now seems obvious that the real crisis is long past. Tucked away on a back page of the same New York Times is a short report of the sighting of another 'double galaxy' by observers at the Hubble Institute on Mount Palomar. The news is summarized in less than a dozen lines and without comment, although the implication is inescapable that yet another focal area has been set up somewhere on the earth's surface, perhaps in the temple-filled jungles of Cambodia or the haunted amber forests of the Chilean highland. But it is only a year since the Mount Palomar astronomers identified the first double galaxy in the constellation Andromeda, the great oblate diadem that is probably the most beautiful object in the universe, the island galaxy of M31.

  Although these sightings by now seem commonplace, and at least half a dozen 'double constellations' can be picked from the night sky on any evening of the week, four months ago when the party of scientific attaches landed at Miami Airport on a conducted tour of the stricken area there was still widespread ignorance of what the Hubble Effect (as the phenomenon had been christened in the Western Hemisphere and the English-speaking world) actually involved. Apart from a handful of forestry workers and biologists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, few qualified observers had witnessed the phenomenon and there were implausible stories in the newspapers of the forest 'crystallizing' and everything 'turning into coloured glass'. One unfortunate consequence of the Hubble Effect is that it is virtually impossible to photograph anything transformed by it. As any reader of scientific journals knows, glassware is extremely difficult to reproduce, and even blocks of the highest screen on the best quality art papers - let alone the 76

  coarse blocks used on newsprint - have failed to reproduce the brilliant multi-faceted lattices of the Hubble Effect, with their myriads of interior prisms, as anything more than a vague blur like half-melted snow. Perhaps in retaliation, the newspapers had begun to suggest that the secrecy which surrounded the affected area in the Everglades - then no more than three or four acres of forest to the north-east of Maynard - was being deliberately imposed by the administration, and a clamour was raised about the rights of inspection and the unseen horrors con-eealed from the public. It so happened that the focal area discovered by Professor Auguste LePage in Madagascar in the Matarre Valley, far into the hinterland of the island was about 5o miles from the nearest road-head and totally inaccessible, while the Soviet authorities had clamped a security cordon as tight as Los Alamos's around their own affected area in the Pripet Marshes of Byelorussia, where a legion of scientific workers Under the leadership of the metabiologist Lysenko (all, incidentally, chasing a complete red herring) was analysing every facet of the inexplicable phenomenon.

  Before any political capital could be made from this campaign, the Department of Agriculture in Washington announced that all facilities for inspection would be gladly provided, and the invitation to the scientific attaches proceeded as part of the programme of technical missions and tours.

  As we drove westwards from Miami Airport it was immediately obvious that in a sense the newspapers had been right, and that there was far more to the Hubble Effect than the official hand-outs had let us believe. The highway to Maynard had been closed to general traffic, and our bus twice overtook military convoys within twenty miles of Miami. In addition, as if to remind us of the celestial origin of the phenomenon, the news of yet another manifestation came through on the radio bulletins. 'There's an Associated Press report from New Delhi,' George Schneider, the West German attaché, came aft to tell us. 'This time there are millions of reliable witnesses.

  Apparently it should have been plainly visible in the Western Hemisphere last night. Did none of you see it?' Paul Mathieu, our French confr6re, pulled a droll face. 'Last night I was looking at the moon, my dear George, not the Echo satellite. It sounds ominous, but if Venus now has two lamps, so much the better.' Involuntarily we looked out through the windows, searching above the roadside pines for any glimpse of the Echo satellite. According to the reports its luminosity had increased by at least tenfold, transforming the thin pinpoint of light which had burrowed across the night sky for so many faithful years into a brilliant luminary outshone only by the moon. All over Asia, from the refugee camps on the shores of the Jordan to the crowded tenements of Shanghai, it was being observed at the very moment we were making our fifty-mile drive to Maynard. 'Perhaps the balloon is breaking up,' I suggested in a lame effort to revive our spirits. 'The fragments of aluminium paint will be highly reflective and form a local cloud like a gigantic mirror. It's' probably nothing to do with the Hubble Effect.'

  'I'm sorry, James. I wish we could believe that.' Sidney Reston, of the State Department, who was acting as our courier, interrupted his conversation with the U.S. Army major in charge of the bus to sit down with us. 'But it looks as if they're very much connected. All the other satellites aloft are showing the same increased albedo, seems more and more like a case of "Hubble bubble, double trouble".' This absurd jingle echoed in my ears as we neared the eastern fringes of Big Cypress Swamp. Five miles from Maynard we left the highway and turned on to a rough track which ran through the date palms towards the Opotoka River. The surface of the road had been churned by scores of tracked vehicles, and a substantial military camp had been set up among the great oaks, the lines of tents hidden by the grey festoons of the Spanish moss. Large piles of collapsible metal fencing were being unloaded from the trucks, and I noticed a squad of men painting a number of huge black signs with a vivid luminous paint. 78

  'Are we going on manoeuvres, major?' the Swedish member of our party complained as the dust filled the cabin.

  'We wished to see the forest near Maynard. Why have we left the highway?'

  'The highway is closed,' the major replied evenly. 'You'll be taken on a tour of the site, I assure you gentlemen. The only safe approach is by river.'

  'Safe approach?' I repeated to Reston. 'I say, what is this, Sidney?'

  'Just the army, James,' he assured me. 'You know what they're like in emergencies. If a tree moves they declare war on it.' With a shake of his head he peered out at the activity around us. 'But I admit I can't see why they have to proclaim martial law.'

  Reaching the bank of the river, where half a dozen amphibious vehicles were moored by a floating quay, we debarked from the bus and were taken into a large quonset used for briefing visitors. Here we found some fifty or sixty other notables-senior members of government laboratories, public health officials and science journalists- who had been brought by bus from Miami earlier that morning. The atmosphere of lighthearted banter barely concealed a growing uneasiness, but the elaborate precautions of the military still seemed ludicrously exaggerated. After an interval for coffee we were officially welcomed and issued with our instructions for the day. These warned us in particular to remain strictly within the marked perimeters, not to attempt to obtain any of the 'contaminated material', and above all never to linger at my one spot but always to remain in rapid motion.

  Needless to say, the pantomime humour of all this was lost on none of us and we were in high spirits when we set off down the river in three of the landing craft, the green walls of the forest slipping past on either side. I noticed immediately the quieter mood, by contrast, of the passenger beside me. A slimly built man of about forty, he was wearing a white tropical suit which emphasized the thin rim of dark beard framing his face. His black hair was brushed low over a bony forehead, and with the jaundiced gaze in his small liquid eyes gave him the appearance of a moody D. H. Lawrence.

  I made one or two attempts to talk to him, but h
e smiled briefly and looked away across the water. I assumed that he was one of the research chemists or biologists.

  Two miles downstream we met a small convoy of motor launches harnessed together behind a landing craft. All of them were crammed with cargo, their decks and cabin roofs loaded with household possessions of every sort, baby carriages and mattresses, washing machines and bundles of linen, so that there were only a few precarious inches of freeboard amidships. Solemn-faced children sat with suitcases on their knees above the freight, and they and their parents gazed at us stonily as we passed.

  Now it is a curious thing, but one seldom sees on the faces of Americans the expression of wan resignation all too familiar to the traveller elsewhere in the world, that sense of cowed helplessness before natural or political disaster seen in the eyes of refugees from Gaporetto to Korea, and its unmistakable stamp upon the families moving past us abruptly put an end to our lighthearted mood. As the last of the craft pushed slowly through the disturbed water we all turned and watched it silently, aware that in a sense it carried ourselves.

  'What/s going on?' I said to the bearded man. 'They look as if they're evacuating the town I' J He laughed crisply, finding an unintended irony in my remark. 'Agreed - it's pretty pointless! But I guess they'll come back in due course.'

  Irritated by this elliptical comment delivered in a curt offhand voice - he had looked away again, engrossed upon some more interesting inner topic - I turned and joined my colleagues.

  'But why is the Russian approach so different?' George Schneider was asking. 'Is the Hubble Effect the same as this Lysenko Syndrome? Perhaps it is a different phenomenon?'

  One of the Department of Agriculture biologists, a greyhaired man carrying his jacket over one arm, shook his head.

  'No, they're almost certainly identical. Lysenko as usual is wasting the Soviets' time. He maintains that crop yields are increased because there's an increase in tissue weight. But 80