Blind Faith

by Ben Elton

Parisian Poledance thought for a moment. It seemed to Trafford that she was actually taking an interest in his argument.

  'You say that evolutionary theory is a faith because you believe it.' She wore a sly expression. 'Why do you believe it?'

  'Because it's beautiful, it's logical and it can be proved. It is the only, and I mean the only, satisfactory explanation for the emergence of complex life on Earth! Every shred of evidence thus far discovered on Earth fits it, while not one shred of evidence has been found to show that the universe was made in a week and man in a day. Man did not emerge in a day! Whatever it was that brought him about, be it God or some cosmic coincidence that can be called God, it did not happen in a day! It happened over millions and millions of years.'

  'So you say that the ideas of the monkey men can be proved?' the lawyer asked.

  'Yes, if not absolutely then certainly beyond reasonable doubt.'

  'Ah ha!' Poledance cried triumphantly. 'Then it cannot be a faith!'

  'What?'

  'A faith is something in which a man must believe. Something in which he must put his trust, his faith. If it can be proved then it's fact and a fact requires no faith to believe in it. Thus your ideas have no protection under the law.'

  'Because they're true?'

  'Because you claim that they can be proved by evidence. No faith can be proved by evidence, that's what makes it a faith. Either your monkey men ideas have no basis in science, in which case you can call them a faith, or else they are based on scientific proof, in which case they are not a faith and the law offers them no protection. Which is it to be? Can vaccination be proved to work or do you merely have faith in it? Is your evolution based on solid evidence or do you follow it through pious conviction?'

  'Vaccination can be proved and evolution is based on solid evidence.'

  'Then these things have nothing to do with faith and you will be convicted of heresy.'

  Trafford actually found himself gently smiling.

  'Well,' he conceded, 'I did not really expect to convince you.'

  Parisian Poledance looked relieved. She turned to the webcam on her computer. 'Let the record show that the defendant did not wish to offer up a defence or a plea in mitigation.'

  She rose to leave. She had done her duty and clearly had no desire to linger any longer. At the door she turned once more to face Trafford.

  'You do realize that they will almost certainly burn you, don't you?'

  'My daughter is dead,' Trafford replied.

  'Oh, get over yourself,' said Parisian Poledance.

  The cell door clanged behind her as she left.

  39

  When Trafford met Chantorria backstage at Wembley Stadium, it was the first time that he had seen her since she had lain bleeding on the cell floor in front of him. Since then they had cleaned her up considerably and applied body make-up to her cuts and bruises. She looked much better, although her near-shaven head gave her a somewhat wild appearance, particularly coupled with the strange, faraway look in her eye.

  'Hello,' said Trafford.

  'We are sinners. We deserve this,' was her only reply.

  They had been brought up the equipment ramp and were standing with their guards behind a massive bank of speakers. Out on the stage a song was just finishing. It was followed by a deafening roar and then the muffled voice of the singer could be heard addressing the crowd. Due to the directional nature of the sound system, Trafford could not make out what he was saying but it was no doubt an injunction to dream the dream and be whatever they wanted to be.

  Trafford looked at Chantorria. He wondered if she was recalling the last time they had been at the stadium, when they had been a part of the cheering multitude and not, as now, terrifyingly, an event on the bill. It was so little time ago and yet they had come such a long way since then. That had been the night when for the second time he had raised the idea of vaccinating Caitlin. It was fitting, he thought, that their journey should end here.

  Trafford was surprised to notice within himself a strange sense of calm. He supposed that when you knew that you were shortly to be burned at the stake, preparing to speak heresy to a crowd of a quarter of a million people held no fears.

  Up until this point the Faith Festival had been progressing along the usual lines. The regular announcement had been made that this was the biggest festival ever, easily surpassing in scale and significance the previous week's record-breaking gathering. The interchangeable sequence of stars had informed the crowd that all the problems of the world would disappear if only they wanted them to, that poverty, disease and injustice would very soon be a thing of the past if only they would all put their hands in the air and sing. Girls had been hoisted briefly on to sagging shoulders and banners had been waved. Hundreds of thousands of burgers and doughnuts had been consumed and now the evening was moving towards its usual climax, which would be a mass grieving for the dead kiddies.

  This climax, however, was going to be different. Tonight there was to be a grand trial for heresy and Trafford and Chantorria were the co-defendants. They stood, naked and in chains, in the wings of the great concert platform as the last band of the evening bade their farewells to the crowd and left the stage with their dancers, roadies, hangers-on and the popular comedian who had introduced them. Then Bishop Confessor Solomon Kentucky strode past them without a glance, and was guided around the great speaker stacks by his security staff and out on to the stage in order to explain the significance of what was about to happen.

  'People of faith!' Trafford heard him shout. Such was the quality of Kentucky's diction that Trafford could make out his words despite the backstage distortion. 'Tonight, as always, we assemble to worship the Love and give thanks for the deliverance of our tiny innocents into Heaven. Let me hear you say Amen!'

  'Amen,' came the thunderous response.

  'Amen,' Trafford heard Chantorria whisper under her breath.

  'Now, on the subject of tiny innocents,' Solomon Kentucky continued, 'I have words to say to you. Tonight we expose a grievous crime against faith! A crime perpetrated by two wicked sinners. A crime so corrupt and duplicitous that it deceived even the all-seeing eye of the Temple. Let me hear you say Love!'

  'Love!' the crowd roared.

  'I said let me hear you say Love!' Solomon Kentucky shouted.

  'LOVE!' came the even louder response.

  'Ev Love,' Trafford whispered under his breath as a sound technician bustled up to him.

  'All right if I mike you up now?' the technician asked and without waiting for a reply proceeded to hang a radio pack over Trafford and Chantorria's shoulders.

  'All right if I tape it to the chains?' he asked, carrying on with his job, gaffer-taping little microphones to the chains that hung around their necks.

  A second technician bustled up to join the first.

  'When they come off,' he said, 'we need those mikes for the finale.'

  'I know,' the first technician replied irritably, 'I have read the running order.'

  On stage the Bishop Confessor continued his introduction.

  'You recall this child!' he said. And on the vast screens all round the stadium could be seen the picture of Caitlin Happymeal that had been central to the Miracles Do Happen campaign. Trafford and Chantorria saw it too on the backstage monitors and separately they wept.

  'You recall that this child survived measles,' Solomon Kentucky went on. 'This child survived mumps. This child survived the most virulent plagues that have so far been sent by the Love to blight our fair city on a lake. People, I say to you that it was a miracle! Let me hear you say Oh yeah!'

  'Oh yeah!' they shouted.

  'The Temple loved this child! We saw in this miracle baby a symbol of hope! A symbol of the Lord and the Love's faith in the future of all mankind! We celebrated her survival at our places of worship and on the net. We raised up the child's mother as a paragon of virtue before the eyes of all women! Let me hear you say Yes we did!'

  'Yes we did!' they shouted.r />
  'Let me hear you say YES WE DID!' Kentucky repeated.

  'YES WE DID,' the crowd echoed dutifully.

  'But then, people! . . . Then, O my people!'

  And now Kentucky's voice shook with passion and sorrow. Trafford watched him on the backstage monitors as he began to twitch and to fidget, like a man possessed.

  'Then, people, the miracle child died! She died, people! Ah, let me hear you say Woe is me!'

  'Woe is me,' the crowd shouted.

  'That's right, people, woe is you! Because get ready for this, my children! I said get ready for this. I say go figure! Because it turned out this miracle child wasn't a miracle child at all. Right after she survived the mumps, just as we were saluting an angel among us, a common cholera came and gathered this sorry child up. It took her straight to Heaven and, let me tell you, there's nothing miraculous about that. It happens every day. And let me tell you something else, people! When I heard that news my heart was heavy. My heart was confused. Why had the Lord and the Love saved this child only then to take her? Why had he taunted us so? Let me hear you say Why!'

  'Why!' the crowd roared.

  'Why!' Solomon Kentucky roared back.

  'Why!' was once more the thunderous response.

  'Why?' Chantorria whispered as she stood backstage in chains.

  'I'll tell you why!' the Bishop Confessor shouted. 'Punishment! That's why! Punishment for sin! Bring forth the sinners!'

  Music played and Trafford and Chantorria were pushed out into the dazzling glare of the spotlights, whipped from behind as they tripped and stumbled, dragging their chains over the coils of cables, guitar stands and leads, drum kits and endless plastic bottles that littered the stage. As they approached the Bishop Confessor, the music grew in huge crashing chords, a choir sang doom-laden snatches of opera and blood-red fireworks lit up the sky.

  'Behold the sinners, the parents of the child!' Solomon Kentucky shouted. 'Bring forward the woman!'

  Chantorria was then thrust centre stage, where she collapsed at Solomon Kentucky's feet.

  'Chantorria!' he cried. 'Tell the people why the Love took your baby from you!'

  'Because we defied God's will,' Chantorria wept. 'My husband had our child vaccinated and I stood by.'

  There was a moment's hush from the crowd. This was a serious crime indeed.

  'What did you say?' the Bishop Confessor roared.

  'I said my husband had our child vaccinated.'

  'Beat her!' Solomon Kentucky instructed and guards stepped forward with whips to lash Chantorria as she grovelled on her knees.

  The crowd, thus treated to the thrilling punishment of a chained and naked woman, screamed their hatred and called for heavier blows until finally the Bishop Confessor raised his hand for silence.

  'Chantorria,' he said solemnly, 'did your husband allow witches to push poisoned needles into your child in an effort to cheat the Lord? Did your husband say unto himself, other children may be gathered unto Heaven but not mine, for I will pervert the Love's purpose with witchcraft?'

  'Yes, yes, he did!' shrieked Chantorria, bleeding terribly from the blows she had sustained.

  'And were you punished for it!'

  'Yes! The Lord took my baby!'

  'Beat her!' Kentucky instructed once more and again the crowd screamed for blood as this time Chantorria was beaten into unconsciousness.

  'Bring forward the man witch!' the Bishop Confessor shouted and now it was Trafford's turn to be thrust to the centre of the stage.

  'Your baby died,' cried Solomon Kentucky.

  Trafford struggled to focus. He knew he would have only one chance to make his point. There could be no room now to cajole the crowd with subtlety as once he had planned: brevity and clarity were all that mattered.

  'Yes, Bishop Confessor! She died. But not of measles or mumps, which she had been vaccinated against. The vaccines worked! She died of cholera. There is a vaccine for cholera also, but unfortunately I could not get it for my daughter.'

  'Silence!' shouted Solomon Kentucky.

  'The vaccines worked! They gave my daughter a resistance to the diseases for which they were designed. Listen to me, people!'

  'Beat him!' cried Kentucky and the blows began.

  'Demand vaccinations for your children!' Trafford shouted as he tried to shield himself from the blows. 'People here today, demand vaccines for your children!'

  'The Lord and the Love will not be denied!' cried Kentucky.

  'Any God who kills a child to punish its parents is not worth worshipping!'

  At that point, through the crunching of blows Trafford realized that the tone of his voice had changed and he knew that his microphone had been turned off. He heard the Bishop Confessor screaming 'Witch and heretic!' at him and demanding that he be beaten harder. But for a moment, before he lost consciousness, he thought he felt a silence from the crowd – as if some of them might even have understood what he had to say.

  40

  When he came round he was back in his cell. It took a long time for him to work this out as his eyes were glued together with blood, his ribs felt broken and his muscles were too smashed up for him to move.

  And yet, as he lay there, immobile, his body racked with pain, facing the certainty of an agonizing death, he felt a sort of contentment.

  In a way, he'd won. He had made a protest. He had spoken out, forming two or three whole sentences of truth in a world where truth was illegal. Not only that but he had done it in the middle of a Wembley Faith Festival! A quarter of a million people had heard him live and many millions more would have seen and heard it on an infotainment loop. The Temple had designed his confession as a major event and briefly he had hijacked it. Nobody had ever done that before. Nobody had ever spoken the truth at Wembley and he doubted that anyone ever would again. In a society where everybody was 'proud' to be an individual but was in fact one of so many sheep in a vast herd, he was unique. And who knew? Perhaps somebody had listened. Perhaps one or two in that multitude had heard his point and had begun to think. Even if he had planted a single seed of doubt in one person's head, he had made a difference. He had scored a victory against the Temple. Who else could say as much?

  But more than that. Much, much more than that. He had held on to all his precious secrets. They would kill him while actually knowing almost nothing about him. They knew that he had had his child vaccinated but that was a secret he was proud to advertise. They knew nothing about his secret world, his studies in science and history, fiction and the power of the imagination. He doubted whether their imaginations, brutish and stunted as they were, would even understand it if they did.

  He had told them nothing about the Humanists, not a word! The fools had not even known enough to guess that a man who had had his child vaccinated might pursue other subversive activities. The network was safe. Cassius was dead but the library would remain open, and other libraries would one day be formed. For the time being at least they were safe. Macallan and Taylor were safe. Connor Newbury was safe. Above all, Sandra Dee was safe!

  His silence, and Cassius's courage in taking his own life, had saved them all.

  And they knew nothing of his love. His most painful and precious secret. They did not know that he was in love with Sandra Dee and that he had given her the gift of books so she would for evermore be free to travel to better worlds than the one the Temple had made. Sandra Dee would be proud of him; right now, he imagined, she would be terrified, fearful that his capture would lead them to her. But as weeks went by and no arrest came she would understand that she was safe. She would return to the library. She would induct others to the cause. And who knew, perhaps one day the world would be free of blind faith.

  Doctors arrived and inspected his wounds.

  'Have to have you fit enough to mount the bonfire' was all they would say when he enquired about his condition.

  The following day he was brought a Zimmer frame and told that he must take some exercise.

  'Your execu
tion is in less than a week,' the doctor said. 'If you can't walk to it unaided then it's us who'll answer for it. In my view, if they want their prisoners fit enough to be properly executed then they shouldn't beat them so hard in the first place – but nobody listens to me.'

  Trafford was helped off his bed and out of his cell. He was made to limp along the great circular corridor and towards the centre of the dome, where he found himself suddenly beneath the great vaulted ceiling. The middle part of the floor that had been laid at the base of the dome had not been built upon, so it was open to the roof far above. This was clearly the exercise yard, for it was filled with other figures just like Trafford, bruised and broken, supported by frames and walking sticks, taking their exercise in preparation for their execution.

  'Walk,' the guard said.

  Trafford joined the shuffling crowd, his thoughts fixed mainly on Sandra Dee. Sometimes, of course, his mind turned to Caitlin Happymeal and from there to Phoenix Rising, his other lost child, but he did his best not to dwell on such sadness.

  'I forgive you,' he heard a voice say. It was a strange voice, inflicted with some form of impediment, and at first Trafford did not realize that it was directed at him. Then the same voice addressed him by name.

  'I forgive you, Trafford.'

  Looking round, Trafford saw a swollen face, purple with bruising, both eyes blackened and almost closed. Peering into it, he realized with a chill of horror that he knew this person. The last time he had seen him he had been wearing thick glasses and guarding the entrance to his precious library.

  'They . . . caught you?' Trafford asked.

  'Of course they did,' the Owl said in his strange new voice. 'I presume you talked. It doesn't matter. We'll all talk in the end. Me too, I'm sure. I tried to bite my tongue out when they came for me but I made a half-arsed job of it and they sewed it back. Fortunately I have very little for them. I never knew the names of most of the people Cassius brought to us. Except for the troublemakers, like you.'

  'I didn't betray you,' Trafford replied.

  'Whatever,' the Owl replied, 'to use a phrase which I personally abhor.'