Blind Faith

by Ben Elton

  The lower section of the cathedral was unoccupied as it was at the mercy of the capricious Thames flood tides.

  A reinforced concrete floor had been installed at the base of the dome, some sixty feet above the waterline, and on this floor a labyrinth of cells and offices had been constructed. Even though the great half-ball of space had been partially filled, it still retained something of its former acoustic qualities and as Trafford entered he could hear the groans and screams of tortured souls echoing around the building.

  Having been marched about halfway round the vast circle, past cell after cell containing a broken, whimpering object of human misery, Trafford was thrust into what he immediately saw was a torture chamber. There were racks, chains, hooks and cages, a glowing brazier that housed branding irons, knives, clubs, spikes, pincers, skewers, pliers and any number of objects, the terrifying uses of which Trafford could only guess at.

  Six people were already present in the chamber: a guard, a large man who worked the bellows that heated the brazier, a man at either wheel of the rack, a hooded Inquisitor and, finally, a shaven-headed woman hanging unconscious from a rusty iron grid, naked but clothed in a crimson bodysuit of congealing blood. Trafford recognized her with a shudder. It was Chantorria.

  'Good afternoon, Trafford,' said the Inquisitor, removing his hood. 'My name is Brother Redemption and I am the Temple-appointed Inquisitor for your district. On my face you will see written Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee, and no face ever displayed a truer sentiment. Your wife has told us that you like abusing children.'

  Trafford tried to block out the horrifying scene that lay before him and to think. When they had arrested him they had not told him what crime of faith he was accused of, but since they had also arrested Chantorria and the Inquisitor had mentioned abusing children it seemed a fair guess that his arrest concerned the vaccination of Caitlin Happymeal.

  Despite the terror churning in his stomach, Trafford saw in this a glimmer of hope, because it meant that possibly they knew nothing as yet about his Humanist activities. Certainly they would execute him for having his child vaccinated but with Caitlin Happymeal gone Trafford did not fear death. Pain certainly, but not death. All Trafford cared about now was Sandra Dee, whom he loved, and his fervent belief in Humanism and the redeeming power of reason. For Trafford, his only duty left on Earth was to protect these things and so in that moment he conceived a plan. If they knew about the vaccination then their purpose would be to discover how it had been achieved, or at least by whom. Trafford therefore resolved to avoid giving them Cassius's name for as long as he could physically stand it, in the hope that Brother Redemption would assume that this was his only secret and would neglect to pursue other lines of investigation.

  'Whatever I did I did alone,' Trafford replied. 'Neither my wife nor anyone else had anything to do with it.'

  'And what did you do, Trafford?' the Inquisitor enquired.

  'I have nothing to say to you.'

  'Ah, so it's a secret, is it?' said Brother Redemption. 'Chantorria tells me that you are a keen keeper of secrets. Is that true?'

  'I can't tell you. It's a secret,' said Trafford and a second later he lay sprawled on the concrete floor, his jaw aching from the guard's punch.

  'Did you arrange to have your daughter vaccinated?' Brother Redemption asked.

  'What does it matter now?' Trafford gasped. 'She's dead anyway.'

  'The appropriate response to a question is an answer, Trafford.'

  Trafford received a vicious kick from behind. He did not look up from where he lay with his cheek pressed against the wet concrete. He watched sideways as Brother Redemption's boots crossed the floor and stopped at the foot of the grid from which Chantorria was hanging. Trafford heard the harsh clang of metal against metal and then, with a grim, soggy kind of thud, Chantorria's limp, beaten body fell into Trafford's line of vision, her bruised face scarcely three feet from his own. He had thought she was unconscious but now her eyes opened and they stared at each other across the concrete.

  'I'm sorry,' Trafford said.

  Chantorria struggled to reply.

  'I deserve this,' she whispered, her lips fat and crusted with blood. 'We both do. We defied God.'

  'If God approves of the way you've been treated then he should be defied,' Trafford answered. 'He's no better than the Devil.'

  He must have been kicked in the head at this point for he lost consciousness, and when he regained it he found himself chained to the same grid from which Chantorria had fallen. His face was pressed hard against the metal. His naked body was dripping with icy water and through the bars he could see the guard standing with an empty bucket in his hands.

  'The prisoner is awake, Inquisitor,' the man said.

  Trafford listened as footsteps walked round the grid behind him until once more Brother Redemption came into sight.

  'Your wife tells me that you posted a birthing video that was not your own. Is that so?'

  'Yes, I did do that.'

  'Might one ask why?'

  'Because I believe that a person has a right to privacy.'

  'Weren't you proud of your birthing video?'

  'Why should I be proud of a natural event for which I can take no credit?'

  'Because the Temple urges you to be proud of every single aspect of yourself, Trafford – your size, your colour, your opinions, your choice of body jewellery. Unless of course you have something to hide. Do you have something to hide?'

  'I have nothing of which I'm ashamed, if that's what you mean.'

  'I'm fascinated then. If you had nothing to be ashamed of, why on Earth would you desire privacy?'

  Trafford thought for a moment.

  'Because I consider it fundamental to my sense of self.'

  'Or perhaps it's because you're a pervert and a heretic.'

  Trafford did not reply.

  'Perhaps,' the Inquisitor continued, 'you desire privacy in order that you may pursue your reading? What is this, Trafford?'

  Trafford's heart sank as the Inquisitor produced a copy of The Origin of Species, which Trafford had last seen underneath his bed and wrapped in the cover of a celebrity magazine headlined When bum lifts go wrong. Celeb saggy arses at the beach.

  'It's a book about natural history . . . I like natural history.'

  'Trafford, reading the work of the Antichrist Darwin is a crime against faith.'

  'I know that. I am a faith criminal.'

  'Where did you get this rubbish, Trafford?'

  'I found it. I often find books. I keep my eyes open all the time. There's quite a few still around if you look. In the attics of derelict buildings mainly and rotting in landfills of course. All sorts of things come to the surface when the water table rises.'

  Trafford could see the Inquisitor's face through the bars and tried to read on it whether he was being believed. But the watery blue eyes into which he stared gave nothing away.

  'I read a page or two,' Brother Redemption said. 'It seemed like absolute shit to me.'

  'I expect that's because you're as stupid as you look, Brother.'

  'Five,' said Brother Redemption. Trafford heard a snap and a rush of air and instantly his back was split open with a pain such as he had never before experienced. Four more lashes followed and when the whipping was done he was weeping and screaming for mercy.

  'Earlier today,' the Inquisitor went on, 'your wife Chantorria went to her Confessor and told him that you had Caitlin Happymeal inoculated. Is that true?'

  'Yes, it is.'

  And despite the pain he was in, Trafford drew strength from the fact that the Inquisitor seemed to have moved on from his interest in books.

  'She said that you acted against her wishes,' Brother Redemption said. 'Is that also true?'

  'Yes, it is. She told me not to do it. She begged me.'

  'Then perhaps she will be spared. That will be a matter for Solomon Kentucky and the will of the people.'

  Trafford saw Brother Red
emption's attention turning back to the copy of The Origin of Species that he was holding. The Inquisitor's eyes glanced downwards and he began idly flicking through it. Trafford struggled to think of something to say to divert his attention.

  'If Chantorria confessed all this voluntarily,' Trafford asked, trying to keep his voice steady, 'why was it necessary for you to beat her?'

  To his relief the Inquisitor snapped the book shut with a grunt of contempt and hurled it into the brazier.

  'It was necessary to discover whether she was telling the truth or not,' he replied. 'She is clearly a witch and witches are cunning.'

  'She is not a witch.'

  'She allowed the good people of her community to believe that she was holy when in fact she was harbouring a heretic and a devil baby. Doesn't that seem like the work of a witch?'

  Trafford did not answer. His strength was bleeding out of him from the deep wounds on his back.

  'Who vaccinated your child, Trafford?' the Inquisitor asked in the most casual of voices, and with that question Trafford knew that the true ordeal was about to begin.

  'I shall never betray him,' Trafford replied. 'He tried to save my baby. I'll never tell you.'

  'You will, Trafford.'

  'Never.'

  'Ten,' said the Inquisitor.

  Ten more lashes followed, by the end of which Trafford was semi-conscious. Next they branded the word 'heretic' on his stomach and his buttocks and stretched him on the rack.

  All through this agony Trafford kept the face of Sandra Dee in the forefront of his mind. It was for her that he was holding out. Cassius was the diversion that would lead Brother Redemption away from the secret of the library. If they discovered that, Sandra Dee would be caught. Trafford even began to hope that he might die before he gave way and then the secret would be truly safe.

  As they stretched him they applied electricity to his genitals and began to remove his fingernails.

  It was then that Trafford's strength finally deserted him.

  'Enough,' he cried. 'The name you are looking for is—'

  'Cassius,' said the Inquisitor.

  Trafford was shocked. He struggled to find some clarity in the crimson confusion of his thoughts.

  'I don't understand,' he whispered finally.

  'What's not to understand?' Brother Redemption asked. 'It was your colleague Cassius who pushed the poisoned needle into Caitlin Happymeal. I've known from the start. All the pain you have been through has been for nothing. I was just curious to see how long you'd hold out. Call it professional interest.'

  'But . . .'

  'Trafford, of course we knew. You knew we knew, if only you'd bothered to think about it instead of trying to be a hero. When you first told Chantorria that you had been approached by a Vaccinator it was on the day of a Fizzy Coff, and you said it was a colleague who had come to you. You told her, she told us. From there it was the simplest process of elimination to alight on Cassius. Unfortunately, unlike you, he was a little too quick for us.'

  'He escaped?'

  'He's dead.'

  'You killed him?'

  'He killed himself. Straight after you were arrested. Went to the men's bath and rest room comfort area and took poison. He knew which way the wind was blowing.'

  Trafford said nothing but deep inside himself, despite the terrible pain, his soul was flying. Cassius was a hero! If he'd been caught and tortured the secrets of so many would have been revealed: Vaccinators, Humanists and Sandra Dee most certainly. But he had protected them all; he had silenced himself before he could be made to speak.

  'So, as I say,' Brother Redemption went on, 'your agony and the loss of those three fingernails were for nothing. I must say, you held out remarkably. In fact I had very nearly decided to stop. We don't want you dead, after all.'

  'Why would you care? You knew my secret anyway. Does it really matter if you kill me now rather than later?'

  'Of course it matters, you bloody fool,' said Brother Redemption. 'The Temple needs you. You and your wife have made fools of the elders. They trumpeted your brat as a miracle baby and then she died. Now we know why she died.'

  'From cholera.'

  'Sent by the Love because you defied him. Now it's your job to confess your sins to the nation that they might understand the full story of the cursed child Caitlin Happymeal.'

  38

  The great show trial was to be held a week later. It was to take place at Wembley on the very night that had originally been scheduled as the climax of the Miracles Do Happen campaign.

  Trafford was to get his moment in the spotlight after all.

  In order that the trial might be seen to be legal and to observe due process, the Temple allowed Trafford some medical treatment in his cell and also assigned him a lawyer. Her name was Parisian Poledance and she visited him on the evening before the great day.

  'I understand that, unlike your wife, you decline to repent or even to take responsibility for Caitlin's death?' Parisian Poledance stated in a clipped and officious tone. She wore the silver wig, black bra and thick, substantial knickers of her profession and seemed to Trafford to be every bit as cold and efficient as her uniform suggested.

  'Of course I don't take responsibility,' Trafford replied. 'She died of cholera. I didn't make the water in our tenement.'

  'No, obviously not. God did. The question the law must ask is why did God make the infected water? Do you accept that the Lord and the Love visited cholera upon your tenement in retribution for your efforts to circumnavigate his will?'

  'No, I do not.'

  'Trafford, if you take responsibility for your actions, we may gain a lighter sentence.'

  'I do take responsibility for my actions. That's the point. It seems that I am the only person who does. Unlike the law, I don't blame God and I don't credit God. I saved my daughter from mumps and measles. Then she died of cholera. I do not believe that I or God had anything to do with it. It was the Temple who denied me access to a cholera vaccine.'

  Parisian Poledance tapped at her computer in an impatient manner. Clearly she did not appreciate having to waste her time with deluded people who refused to accept basic legal principles such as that God had everything to do with everything.

  'Right then,' she said tartly, 'let us get down to first cases. Do you admit that you had Caitlin vaccinated?'

  'Yes, I do.'

  'Is there anyone or anything on to which you can shift some of the blame?'

  'I don't understand.'

  Parisian Poledance made no effort to disguise her frustration at what she clearly thought was wilful obstruction on Trafford's part.

  'The law recognizes victim status as a plea in mitigation,' she snapped. 'If you can establish grounds for claiming that you yourself are a victim, the judges will be obliged to take that into account in their summing up. For instance, did your parents fail to big you up as a child, thus leaving you with crippling esteem issues?'

  'No.'

  'Are you an addictive personality? Are you struggling with inner demons or a reliance on prescription drugs? Have size issues and negative self-image led to your failing to fulfil your enormous potential as a proud, strong person?'

  'No.'

  'Have you been subjected to disrespect by those who refuse to recognize your legitimate pride in who and what you are?'

  'No! None of those things. I'm not looking for a plea in mitigation. I loved my daughter and I acted as I did in her best interests, that's all.'

  Parisian Poledance looked at her watch, clearly desperate to be done with this pointless and unrewarding brief.

  'Trafford, I have been appointed by the Temple as your legal counsel. It is my duty to inform you that "acting in your child's best interests" is not a defence for having her vaccinated.'

  'I don't need a lawyer to tell me the law is insane, Ms Poledance. I was not offering it as a defence, merely as an explanation.'

  'So you have no defence?'

  'I do have a defence.'

 
; 'I mean a legal one,' Parisian Poledance snapped, 'under the law of the land and of the Temple. Not some time wasting foolishness.'

  'I have a defence.'

  'You realize that you are to stand trial on two counts: that you are a Vaccinator and an Evolutionist, neither of which you deny?'

  'Yes and my defence will be the same on both counts.'

  Parisian Poledance gave him a weary look.

  'Have you studied eight years at the bar, Trafford?'

  'No. I haven't.'

  'I have. And since then I have had another ten years' experience in court. I confidently expect one day to be a Temple counsellor.'

  'Congratulations.'

  'And yet while I can see no defence for a confessed Vaccinator and Evolutionist under the law, you can?'

  'Yes.'

  'What is it?'

  'My faith.'

  'Your faith?'

  'The law of the Temple states that a person's faith is inalienable. To deny a person's faith is incitement to religious hatred. Well, I believe in vaccination. I believe in evolution! I believe in an understanding of the physical universe based on empirical evidence and deduction, not a supernatural controlling being. That is my faith! My God is called Natural Selection. Natural Selection made me! The law guarantees me my right to faith.'

  For a moment Parisian Poledance was silent. Briefly, she seemed lost for words.

  'On what basis do you call your belief in the delusions of the monkey men a faith?' she asked finally.

  'Because I believe in them absolutely with all my heart.'

  'Believing in something does not make it a faith,' Poledance answered pompously. 'I believe in sweet wine and ginger biscuits. I believe in rats and cockroaches, but none of those things are my faith.'

  'Biscuits are physical objects. Rats are natural creatures like ourselves. Evolution is a mental concept, something we understand in our minds, just like God.'