He brought forth a piece of paper. “This is from the British writer, Huxley. I think it’s pretty good.” He cleared his voice and began to read.
Mass communication ...is simply a force and like any other force, it can be used either well or ill. Used one way, the press, the radio and the cinema are indispensible to the survival of democracy. Used in another way, they are among the most powerful weapons in the dictator’s armory. In the field of mass communications as in almost every other field of enterprise, technological progress has hurt the Little Man and helped the Big Man. As lately as fifty years ago, every democratic country could boast of a great number of small journals and local newspapers. Thousands of country editors expressed thousands of independent opinions. Somewhere or other almost anybody could get almost anything printed. Today the press is still legally free; but most of the little papers have disappeared. The cost of wood pulp, of modem printing machinery and of syndicated news is too high for the Little Man. In the totalitarian East there is political censorship, and the media of mass communications are controlled by the State. In the democratic West there is economic censorship and the media of mass communication are controlled by members of the Power Elite. Censorship by rising costs and the concentration of communication-power in the hands of a few big concerns is less objectionable than State Ownership and government propaganda; but certainly it is not something of which a Jeffersonian democrat could approve.
Ilya Simonov looked blankly at Catherina and whispered, “Why, what he’s reading is as much an attack on the West as it is on us.”
She looked at him and whispered back, “Well, why not? This gathering is to discuss freedom of the press.”
He said blankly, “But as an agent of the West—”
She frowned at him. “Mr. Dickson isn’t an agent of the West. He’s an American journalist.”
“Surely you can’t believe he has no connections with the imperialist governments.”
“Certainly he hasn’t. What sort of meeting do you think this is? We’re not interested in Western propaganda. We’re a group of intellectuals searching for freedom of ideas.”
Ilya Simonov was taken back once again.
* * * *
Colonel Ilya Simonov dismissed his cab in front of the Ministry and walked toward the gate. Down the street the same plainclothesman who had been lounging there the last time he’d reported, once again took him in, then looked away. The two guards snapped to attention, and the security agent strode by them unnoticing.
At the lieutenant’s desk, before the offices of Kliment Blagonravov, he stopped and said, “Colonel Simonov. I have no appointment but I think the Minister will see me.”
“Yes, Comrade Colonel,” the lieutenant said. He spoke into an inter-office communicator, then looked up. “Minister Blagonravov will be able to see you in a few minutes, sir.”
Ilya Simonov stared nervously and unseeingly out a window while he waited. Gorki Park lay across the way. It, like Moscow in general, had changed a good deal in Simonov’s memory. Everything in Russia had changed a good deal, he realized. And was changing. And what was the end to be? Or was there ever an end? Of course not. There is no end, ever. Only new changes to come.
The lieutenant said, ‘The Minister is free now, Comrade Colonel.”
Ilya Simonov muttered something to him and pushed his way through the heavy door.
Blagonravov looked up from his desk and rumbled affectionately, “Ilya! It’s good to see you. Have a drink! You’ve lost weight, Ilya!”
His top field man sank into the same chair he’d occupied nine months before, and accepted the ice-cold vodka.
Blagonravov poured another drink for himself, then scowled at the other. “Where have you been? When you first went off to Prague, I got reports from you almost every day. These last few months I’ve hardly heard from you.” He rumbled his version of a chuckle. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d think there was a woman.”
Ilya Simonov looked at him wanly. “That too, Kliment.”
“You are jesting!”
“No. Not really. I had hoped to become engaged—soon.”
“A Party member? I never thought of you as the marrying type, Ilya.”
Simonov said slowly, “Yes, a Party member. Catherina Panova, my assistant in the automobile agency in Prague.”
Blagonravov scowled heavily at him, put forth his fat lips in a thoughtful pout He came to his feet, approached a file cabinet, fishing from his pocket a key ring. He unlocked the cabinet, brought forth a sheaf of papers with which he returned to his desk. He fumbled through them for a moment, found the paper he wanted and read it He scowled again and looked up at his agent.
“Your first report,” he said. “Catherina Panova. From what you say here, a dangerous reactionary. Certainly she has no place in Party ranks.”
Ilya Simonov said, “Is that the complete file of my assignment?”
“Yes. I’ve kept it here in my own office. I’ve wanted this to be ultra-undercover. No one except you and me. I had hopes of you working your way up into the enemy’s organization, and I wanted no possible chance of you being betrayed. You don’t seem to have been too successful.”
“I was as successful as it’s possible to be.”
The security minister leaned forward. “Ah ha! I knew I could trust you to bring back results, Ilya. This will take Frol Zverev’s pressure off me. Number One has been riding me hard.” Blagonravov poured them both another drink. “You were able to insert yourself into their higher circles?”
Simonov said, “Kliment, there are no higher circles.”
His chief glared at him. “Nonsense!” He tapped the file with a pudgy finger. “In your early reports you described several groups, small organizations, illegal meetings. There must be an upper organization, some movement supported from the West most likely.”
Ilya Simonov was shaking his head. “No. They’re all spontaneous.”
His chief growled, “I tell you there are literally thousands of these little groups. That hardly sounds like a spontaneous phenomenon.”
“Nevertheless, that is what my investigations have led me to believe.”
Blagonravov glowered at him, uncertainly. Finally, he said, “Well, confound it, you’ve spent the better part of a year among them. What’s it all about? What do they want?”
Ilya Simonov said flatly, “They want freedom, Kliment.”
“Freedom! What do you mean, freedom? The Soviet Complex is the most highly industrialized area of the world. Our people have the highest standard of living anywhere. Don’t they understand? We’ve met all the promises we ever made. We’ve reached far and beyond the point ever dreamed of by Utopians. The people, all of the people, have it made as the Americans say.”
“Except for freedom,” Simonov said doggedly. “These groups are springing up everywhere, spontaneously. Thus far, perhaps, our ministry has been able to suppress some of them. But the pace is accelerating. They aren’t inter-organized now. But how soon they’ll start to be, I don’t know. Sooner or later, someone is going to come up with a unifying idea. A new socio-political system to advocate a way of guaranteeing the basic liberties. Then, of course, the fat will be in the fire.”
“Ilya! You’ve been working too hard. I’ve pushed you too much, relied on you too much. You need a good lengthy vacation.”
Simonov shrugged. “Perhaps. But what I’ve just said is the truth.”
His chief snorted heavily. “You half sound as though you agree with them.”
“I do, Kliment.”
“I am in no mood for gags, as the Yankees say.”
Ilya Simonov looked at him wearily. He said slowly, “You sent me to investigate an epidemic, a spreading disease. Very well, I report that it’s highly contagious.”
Blagonravov poured himself more vodka angrily. “Explain yourself. What’s this all about?”
His former best field man said, “Kliment—”
“I want no familiarities from you, Colone
l!”
“Yes, sir.” Ilya Simonov went on doggedly. “Man never achieves complete freedom. It’s a goal never reached, but one continually striven for. The moment as small a group as two or three gather together, all of them must give up some of the individual’s freedom. When man associates with millions of his fellow men, he gives up a good many freedoms for the sake of the community. But always he works to retain as much liberty as possible, and to gain more. It’s the nature of our species, I suppose.”
“You sound as though you’ve become corrupted by Western ideas,” the security head muttered dangerously.
Simonov shook his head. “No. The same thing applies over there. Even in countries such as Sweden and Switzerland, where institutions are as free as anywhere in the world, the people are continually striving for more. Governments and socio-economic systems seem continually to whittle away at individual liberty. But always man fights back and tries to achieve new heights for himself.
“In the name of developing our country, the Party all but eliminated freedom in the Soviet Complex, but now the goals have been reached and the people will no longer put up with us, sir.”
“Us!” Kliment Blagonravov growled bitterly. “You are hardly to be considered in the Party’s ranks any longer, Simonov. Why in the world did you ever return here?” He sneered fatly. “Your best bet would have been to escape over the border into the West.”
Simonov looked at the file on the other’s desk. “I wanted to regain those reports I made in the early days of my assignment. I’ve listed in them some fifty names, names of men and women who are now my friends.”
The fat lips worked in and out. “It must be that woman. You’ve become soft in the head, Simonov.” Blagonravov tapped the file beneath his heavy fingers. “Never fear, before the week is out these fifty persons will be either in prison or in their graves.”
With a fluid motion, Ilya Simonov produced a small caliber gun, a special model designed for security agents. An unusual snout proclaimed its quiet virtues as guns go.
“No, Kliment,” Ilya Simonov said.
“Are you mad!”
“No, Kliment, but I must have those reports.” Ilya Simonov came to his feet and reached for them.
With a roar of rage, Kliment Blagonravov slammed open a drawer and dove a beefy paw into it. With shocking speed for so heavy a man, he scooped up a heavy military revolver.
And Colonel Ilya Simonov shot him neatly and accurately in the head. The silenced gun made no more sound than a pop.
Blagonravov, his dying eyes registering unbelieving shock, fell back into his heavy swivel chair.
* * * *
Simonov worked quickly. He gathered up his reports, checked quickly to see they were all there. Struck a match, lit one of the reports and dropped it into the large ash tray on the desk. One by one he lit them all and, when all were consumed, stirred the ashes until they were completely pulverized.
He poured himself another vodka, downed it, stiff wristed, then without turning to look at the dead man again, made his way to the door.
He slipped out and said to the lieutenant, “The Minister says that he is under no circumstances to be disturbed for the next hour.”
The lieutenant frowned at him. “But he has an appointment.”
Colonel Ilya Simonov shrugged. “Those were his instructions. Not to be bothered under any circumstances.”
“But it was an appointment with Number One!”
That was bad. And unforeseen. Ilya Simonov said, “It’s probably been canceled. All I’m saying is that Minister Blagonravov instructs you not to bother him under any circumstances for the next hour.”
He left the other and strode down the corridor, keeping himself from too obvious a quickened pace.
At the entrance to the Ministry, he shot his glance up and down the street. He was in the clutch now, and knew it. He had few illusions.
Not a cab in sight. He began to cross the road toward the park. In a matter of moments there, he’d be lost in the trees and shrubbery. He had rather vague plans. Actually, he was playing things as they came. There was a close friend in whose apartment he could hide, a man who owed him his life. He could disguise himself. Possibly buy or borrow a car. If he could get back to Prague, he was safe. Perhaps he and Catherina could defect to the West.
Somebody was screaming something from a window in the Ministry.
Ilya Simonov quickened his pace. He was nearly across the street now. He thought, foolishly, Whoever that is shouting is so excited he sounds more like a woman than a man.
Another voice took up the shout. It was the plainclothes-man. Feet began pounding.
There were two more shouts. The guards. But he was across now. The shrubs were only a foot away.
The shattering blackness hit him in the back of the head. It was over immediately.
Afterward, the plainclothesman and the two guards stood over him. Men began pouring from the Ministry in their direction.
Colonel Ilya Simonov was a meaningless, bloody heap on the edge of the park’s grass.
The guard who had shot said, “He killed the Minister. He must have been crazy to think he could get away with it. What did he want?”
“Well, we’ll never know now,” the plainclothesman grunted.
<
* * * *
HIGH BARBARY
by Lawrence Durrell
But that’s not science fiction?
I have already elaborated on the several ways in which this question can irritate or annoy. Perversely, it was saddening that no one asked it of me about Mr. Reynolds’ story. It would seem we are so thoroughly alienated from the Russians that a simple political yarn, involving no space travel, wonderful invention, time machine, psi power, or oven far-future speculation, but just the simplest extrapolation from the present situation, should seem as imaginatively remote as an analogy set on Mars. (Which raises the question: Is it science fiction if the author has been to Mars? Whether the reader has or not?) This next selection, in any case, is certainly not science fiction—perhaps not even fiction. Mademoiselle called it a short story; I should incline more to “satirical essay.”)
Mr. Durrell is probably the leading exponent of the shifting viewpoint among contemporary mainstream writers. His famous Alexandria Quartet is essentially a view of love through four different persons’ eyes. But before he turned to his examination of love, the author had an unusual opportunity to study some of the less congenial emotions. Like Mr. Reynolds, he was a “traveling man,” but under rather different auspices: Press Officer for the British Foreign Service, and lecturer for the British Council, in Athens, Cairo, Rhodes, Belgrade, among other places.
* * * *
What I very much enjoy on the second Saturday of the month (said Antrobus) is the little walk across to the Strand for a haircut and a spiritual revamping chez the good Fenner. Everything about the operation is reassuring, soothing. As you know, Fenner himself is clearly a mixture of Old Father Time and Dr. Freud. The whole Office has, at one time or another, passed through his purposeful scissors. You know how fanatically faithful to tradition the F.O. is; well, Fenner is a tradition. Why, last week when Toby Featherblow’s wife, Constance, popped number four and the thing was found to be positively covered in hair, it was to Fenner that they rushed to have the features disinterred for the purposes of licensing and registration. Otherwise the registrar might have refused to accept what was, to all intents and purposes, an ape. Yes, you can count on old Fenner. He never flinches before reality.
As for the Emporium—with its potted palms, painted mirrors, its pictures of Eights Week in the nineties, its dominating portrait of Gladstone staring out through (or perhaps round?) a Fenner hairdo—what is one to say? It radiates calm and the soothing smell of bay rum or Fenner’s Scalp Syrup and Follicle Food combined. Nor does one overhear any low conversation there—just a few choice anecdotes about the Dutch Royal Family, carefully phrased. Fenner is strict; once I remember that two military
attaches were expelled from their stools for trying to exchange betting slips. Fenner’s scorn was so withering that one of them cried.
But all this one learns to value truly only when one has served abroad—for not the least of the hazards the poor dip has to face is that of foreign barbary. My dear chap, as you walk in, you can scan the row of seated clients and tell at a glance where some of them have been serving. The singular bottlebrush effect of a Siamese haircut, for example, will take ages to grow out and is quite unmistakable. Fenner will shake his head commiseratingly and say, “Bangkok, I take it, sir?” The poor chap will sit with trembling lip and nod sadly. “We will see what can be done to save you, sir,” says Fenner and releases a faintly flocculent blast from a pressurized syringe, which at once brings back the flush of health to the raped scalp. You have experienced it. You will know what I mean.
The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 7 - [Anthology] Page 24