The Pursuit of William Abbey

by Claire North

  Hideo’s head rolled to the left, rolled to the right, and finally, still at a listless, drooping angle, his one remaining eye focused on me.

  “Scared,” he whispered. “Had too much time to think thinking hurt all the things all the things had to happen one day had to happen couldn’t run Margot where is Margot do they have her do they have her should have thought about her more selfish just thinking about me my pain pain so scared of pain so scared of being hurt know I’ll talk humiliating it’ll be humiliating how quickly they’ll hurt me how easily I’ll talk probably going to cry when they shoot me probably gonna piss myself Jesus what have they done what have they done what have they done to Hideo?”

  I couldn’t speak.

  Not that there was any point in speaking.

  In a relentless, gibbering, dribbling drawl, Hideo unpacked the truth of my heart.

  “Love her love her? What is love hard to say hard to measure these things so easy to see in others saw a woman once saw her love so scared of love of the power of it only fear only years of fear did such things betrayed everyone betrayed everything just a shadow followed by a shadow Langa where are you where are you I need you now do they have Margot no they can’t have Margot they’d have told me by now used it to laugh to gloat she got away she got away thank God she got away but how do I know know nothing that’s their power that’s their…”

  The phonograph scratched his monologue into the cylinder, pouring out the secrets of my heart. Sometimes the man in the red looked up and asked a specific question – who was Coman, what was the nature of Margot’s shadow, how did we communicate, what were her intentions?

  I didn’t answer, and didn’t need to. Every truth I know was immediately on Hideo’s lips.

  “Justice peace freedom she didn’t used to believe used to laugh laughable ideas so funny loves the money the victory the power but sometimes you have to believe learnt to believe they were in Marseille there was a man called…”

  “Please stop,” I whimpered, and Hideo did not.

  “… we write to each other there is a code it is…”

  “Please. Stop.”

  “Sex is power too we never let our shadows come near no need for truth truth will destroy everything did destroy everything the game the power we love the power love knowing that we can lie to each other love knowing…”

  I tried to get up, and immediately a guard stepped across the room, pushing me down. Hideo’s eye flickered to him and for a moment there was a cry of:

  “Devil devil devil devil devil get out get out get out get out oh Jesus this place this place is this place…!”

  I tried to stand again, and the guard kicked me across the back of my knees, pushed me to the floor, held my head down with the palm of one meaty hand, scowled, shoved me harder, then, satisfied I wasn’t moving, nearly ran for his position by the wall, as Hideo’s cry of “Fuck don’t let them see don’t let them see don’t let them see what I took!” echoed after him.

  “Hideo,” barked the man in the red waistcoat. “How many other truth-speakers does William know?”

  Hideo’s eye snapped back to me, a compass swinging north. “Polina Russians had her told me to be careful told me to run, Nashja beautiful likes to laugh terrible breath, Khanyiswa who lies, Saira please not Saira please don’t tell them about her who knew the truth of my heart and I know hers and her truth is beautiful her soul is beautiful we never kissed because it was not honest please not her not Saira oh Jesus they’re going to do this to me too they’re going to cut out my brain.”

  “What happened in Austria? How did you escape?”

  “Stop,” I whimpered. “I’ll tell you. You don’t have to do this.”

  “Margot Margot saved me,” Hideo declared, oblivious to everything but the truth and the shadow. “She killed a man Margot came and killed Margot rescued Margot where is Margot they can’t find out can’t do this cut out her brain cut out my brain please just make it stop.”

  After a while, the phonograph stopped. Hideo burbled on merrily, and I thought maybe that was it as the man in the waistcoat slipped the cylinder into a cardboard tube, passed it to his assistant. Then he loaded up another, cranked the phonograph handle, and set the knife to the wax.

  “Again,” he barked, as the machine began to record. “Tell us everything.”

  I’m not sure how long they kept me there.

  I tried to keep count of how many cylinders they cut, recording Hideo’s relentless, soulless babble. I gave up begging. Gave up offering to tell them anything at all. Stopped caring after a while about the litany of terrors that Hideo pronounced from the pit of my soul. He waltzed into my heart and pulled it out for anatomical display, every secret, every lie and every childish doubt I’d ever held, and I supposed there was a kind of justice in that, and thought that Ritte had been right, and it was catharsis of a sort, and Margot had been right too, and it was violation beyond all naming, and no more than I had done to others for decades.

  When they were done, they took me back to the house in Hammersmith. Mrs Parr watched me from the door as they led me away, and the man in the red waistcoat put Hideo back to sleep with a needle in the arm, his shadow still dancing, dancing, dancing through his flesh.

  In my prison, I slept like a stone, fully dressed, stretched out sideways along the edge of the bed.

  Somewhere, Albert and the colonel would be listening to the essence of my soul, scratched into wax. I wondered who else they’d share it with, how many others would sit around and have a good old laugh at the truth of my heart, before the sound quality degraded from too many plays.

  I wondered where Margot was, and if she was smart enough to escape, and was grateful at last that she had never let me near her when Langa was close, except that once, when I made a mistake. There was only so much of her in me to betray.

  I wondered where Saira was, and whether they had already telegrammed to India with her description and a warrant for her arrest, ready to lock her up and cut out her brain.

  The next day, they had more questions. I gave them everything, betraying everyone I had ever been traitor for before.

  Then I went back to bed, and waited.

  That night, I dreamt the dreams of the sleepers in the house, and they were peaceful, and without regret.

  Three days later, they took me to Albert.

  Chapter 54

  There are caves in the desert in northern India, where the widows go.

  Saira never strayed too far from them, waiting, perhaps, for the day when she could walk no further, and would take that last journey into the sand, and pray that there was no one left who she loved.

  I always looked for her, whenever I could, following the stories of the truth-speakers, listening to the hearts of men. I found her once, through the throng of the marketplace, infant hands clawing at our clothes below, monkey paws snatching at wares from above. A while we stood, as the hawkers pressed fancy articles of carved coral and bone, of yellow gold and hammered lead into our hands, offered up sticky sweets and dripping fruits, sacks of grain and paper fans. We bathed in the truth of each other’s natures, and she disapproved of everything I did and had become, but understood why it had happened, and I was grateful – so very, very grateful – that she had the kindness to know me, all of me, through to the very bottom of my heart, and forgive me.

  The relief of it, the sheer gasp of relief to stand in honesty before another person’s gaze and let them see to the bottom of me, to the very heart, and to find in their truth the revelation that I was, in fact, entirely ordinary in my inadequacies nearly floored me. I found myself gasping for breath, like one suffocating in the press of bodies and midday heat, and at once she was marching towards me, tutting, and people cleared from before her like the cursed one she was, and she snapped, “Not here! They’ll think you’re mad and rob you blind!”

  Instead, she led me to a wooden bench beneath a crooked palm tree, a nest of wasps busy above, a stray dog eyeing us nervously from below. We
sat in its shade, the sounds of the city broken down for a little while against the white walls of the enclosure, a fountain in the centre of the yard long since run dry, cracked bleached lichen clinging to old stone, And there, we rested a while in silence, as she picked through the essence of my heart, listening, learning, feeling, judging and saying not a word.

  The years had not been kind. Time had put dents in her faith. Not a sacred calling, not the noble mask of truth-speaker now; rather, an ageing woman shunned by people who should be grateful to her, her feet turned to stone, her stomach a sunken curve beneath spiky ribs. Where was the divinity in her cause, she wondered, when men would beat her from their villages for telling the truth they asked her to pronounce? Where was the justice when girls who were raped and beaten by their own kin were cast out into the dust, shunned for being victims of another man’s crime? Their only redemption was in the road, the dust, the truth. Not that it gave any particular kind of relief.

  “Let it burn,” I whispered, but she tutted and shook her head, and fire was never her way.

  Sometimes Saira stood on the lip of the road as the sun came up, and waited for her shadow. She would let the truth burst from her lips, shout it to the skies, and people would run from her, terrified of her knowledge, and she would let it happen as her fate came closer, and closer, and closer, shuffling hob-legged through the dust, a blip against the glory of the rising sun. She would face it down, look it in the eye, dare it to touch her, dare it to find someone, anyone she might possibly love. One time, it had come so close that she had felt the cold of it burn through her skin; but at the last minute, she always fled.

  Perhaps there was a piece of humanity left in her too, she mused. Perhaps one day she might love again. She doubted it. But hope was a persistent canker.

  Please don’t. Please don’t do that again. Please don’t face the shadow.

  This is the truth of my heart, and she knows it in an instant.

  She is, in a way, glad I came.

  She hasn’t seen many of her sisters for a while. The roads have grown thin. There are rumours that some were taken away by the British, but she doesn’t know where.

  It is good, is it not, to communicate like this.

  To be honest with each other.

  To see each other for who we really are, rather than the truth we believe ourselves to be.

  I wonder if she has found a cure, a way to lift the curse.

  She no longer finds the idea sacrilegious.

  She heard of a woman in Ceylon… but that was not to be. And another woman in Myanmar, but she couldn’t make the journey, and anyway, the reports were dubious at best.

  She thinks we will die this way, she and I.

  We sit together a while in silence, until the shadows come.

  Then we part, and run our separate ways.

  Chapter 55

  The operating room was scrubbed white tile, floor to ceiling. Shutters were thrown back from high, clean windows, letting in floods of sunlight, and mirrors were positioned around the edges of the room to redirect the beams to the centre, aided by smoky carbon lamps.

  The operating table was covered with a white sheet.

  I screamed and kicked and fought with all my might when I saw it, and managed to break one man’s nose and kick another in the groin before five men manhandled me down, strapping me tight with belts and leather. Shaving my head was a hard, bloody affair, as they were forced to remove and reattach straps to get at my scalp, and every opportunity they gave me to twist or wriggle I was thrashing like a drowning fish. They got it done in the end, and a boy in braces swept up the bloody clumps from the floor.

  I heard Albert arrive, rubber boots and commanding voice, sending away all but his assistants – the boy and the man in the red waistcoat. He wanted privacy for his work. One mistake could ruin everything, and he didn’t want to waste this opportunity, or make me suffer needlessly.

  This truth I knew, the moment I heard his voice. Langa was nearer now, Langa was coming, and with my shadow came also the truth of the heart of the man in red, whose name was Griswold and who was so grateful to be Albert’s protégé, so honoured to have this chance to learn, so excited that today he would finally get to assist in this, Albert’s most profoundly important and dangerous operation.

  As for the boy who swept up my hair and mopped blood from the floor, the truth of his heart was only that he cared for his two sisters and his brother, and Albert’s money had bought his loyalty absolutely, and he had not blinked when put in front of the mad Japanese man who knew the truth, and was therefore very brave.

  Albert pulled a stool up behind my head, and I flinched as his hands pressed against the bleeding surface of my skull.

  “It’s near now, is it?” he asked, and didn’t need to hear my answer to know the truth of it. “We need to test the procedure as it goes. I know there are people you love. I want to keep them safe. Do you understand that?”

  I did. He meant it. He was going to cut into my brain, turn me into another Hideo, screaming and gibbering for the rest of my days – and he was going to do it with compassion, and love, and an absolute conviction in the necessity of his work. He respected me. He liked me. He regarded me as a friend. My betrayal had broken his heart, and he had been the very last to believe it, even when the colonel presented the evidence. If he hadn’t heard Hideo blabbering my confession on the phonograph, he still might not believe it, but he was a man of truth.

  Truth above all things.

  And the truth was that I had betrayed them all, and that the best thing he could do, as a good man, was see that my suffering was minimal.

  So he said, “It will take several procedures. If you can report on your experiences throughout as much as you can, that will enable the most accurate and quickest operation. Our experiments demonstrate that the phenomenon cannot make its leap to a target individual – to someone you love – when certain areas of your brain are no longer intact. By careful lobotomy we can reduce your overall emotional faculty, your personality if you will, to a series of automotive functions. This permits the shadow to remain in your proximity, without risk to others. Do you understand? William? The more cooperative you are, the more functions we can preserve.”

  Functions such as pissing, speaking, drinking, breathing and the beating of my heart. These were of most relevance to Albert now.

  “How many times?” I asked, and felt the probing of his fingers around my skull pause.

  “How many times… what?”

  “Have you done this?”

  “Eleven.”

  “Eleven like me?”

  “None like you!” None he considered human; none he would have called friend. Even now, he wanted me to understand how much he valued that. “We found truth-speakers, yes. Primitive peoples in the deserts of Australia, or the jungles of central Africa. People who barely understood elementary concepts, and could not cooperate fully with our aims. We could not send a bare-chested barbarian into diplomatic circles or ask them to infiltrate foreign governments, so we had to come up with another solution. When a white man, an educated, civilised man, turned up, it was an extraordinary opportunity. But the science of this… has always been more than the colonel can really understand.”

  The sharp smell of disinfectant, and a sudden touch of something cold and liquid against my scalp, mopping away tenderly, preparing the skin for cutting.

  “The colonel is very happy to call it magic. Mysticism. This does not challenge his world view. The unexplainable is very easily explained – it is the unexplainable. That tautology is simple; it is his truth. It is the same rationale that every psychic and mystic has held down the centuries, but now we are in an age of science, and can begin to peel away this truth in search of a thing that is actually real. No longer do we accept the limits of our ignorance. Ignorance is to be pushed at, torn down, and behind it we find answers and more questions, more and more, as we expand the powers of our understanding into a waiting void. Such things frighten
the colonel, of course. The beauty of the unexplained is that it can be codified and categorised without ever needing to look truth in the eye. Why do men die? Because God made it so. Why is there wickedness? Because Satan walks the earth. To find an actual answer to these questions, and worse, for that answer to be that men die because we are nothing more than puny manifestations of dust, shambling across the globe, and that men are wicked because it pleases them – this is a truth he cannot accept. It destroys his world. It breaks his heart. He would far rather believe in magic than in truth, and there he and I have always been at some disagreement.”

  The motion of cotton on my skull stopped. There was a soft flutter of falling fabric as he set his swab aside. The knife would be next, and I tensed against it – but instead, there was the daub of a brush. He was marking out where he would cut, measuring precisely and carefully a line that began a few inches above my right eye and extended round to the tip of my ear.

  “I experimented on others of your kind. The first six died. The seventh died after a year, while we were still perfecting her care. Thankfully, from the eighth onwards, we have had far greater success. I hope you understand the implications, William. We can operate on your brain, and it alters the behaviour of the shadow. The creature cannot strike those you love. It is tamed by reason; by science. It is not some mystical, incomprehensible phenomenon. It obeys laws, it can be controlled by reason. Think what this means. For every unknown, there is an answer. For every prayer we have wasted on a Creator, there is a truth, waiting to be unlocked. If we can control the inexplicable, what other ‘truths’ that we have taken for granted for so long might crumble before us? Is it true that men are wicked? Is it true that they must die? How much bigger the world appears when you discover that all the truths you have ever known are nothing but stories you were told as children, collapsing beneath the force of that primary, observed truth of things as they actually are, not as they appear to be in the hearts of men.”