Thomas M. Disch

by The Prisoner

  Seven of them.

  “Budgie, my dear,” said the fat man, also rising (the teak creaked relief), “shouldn’twe apologize first? We have, you know, rather invited ourselves.”

  “But, dear darling sweet, it would hardly have been asurprise ifhe’d invited us!” She smiled with a Gargantuan coquettishness, inviting him to share her amusement at dear darling sweet’s inanity.

  “You should, at the very least then,introduce us.” He shrugged bloated shoulders, as though to say:Our Budgie is incorrigible, but we must love her just the same .

  “I was justabout to, my pigeon, before you interrupted. Be assured, Number 6,” she said, her hand fluttering forward to roost on his, clenched about the doorknob, “that we would never have taken this liberty”—she tittered, as though, she had risked a slightly off-colored remark— “without Number 14’s assurance—”

  The doctor nodded to him with the very smallest smile. Not half an hour ago, he had left her in her ceremonial white smock at the hospital. Now she wore a summer dress of silky pastel flowers. A cluster of fresh-cut roses was pinned to the white wide-brimmed straw hat that framed the whiter hair.

  “—that you would bedelighted —”

  “Thrilled!” the pigeon added, his head bobbing up and down excitedly.

  “—by the news we’ve brought you.”

  “The offer, so to speak,” the pigeon explained. “The opportunity.”

  “I am, or rather I have been, the Mayoress of this Village, andthis is my husband.”

  The pigeon blushed to have his distinction so publicly proclaimed. “Number 34,” he murmured modestly.

  “Yes,” the ex-Mayoress continued, “he is Number 34 and now I have no other wishmyself than to become, once more, Number 33, a private citizen, a mere equine among equines. Your other guests constitute, with us, the Nomination Committee in its entirety. You are already acquainted with Number 14.”

  “Number 6 and I are almost old friends by now,” the doctor said.

  “Have you met her brother too? Number 7, one of our youngest citizens, but not by any means the least.”

  The young man who bounded forward to shake his hand looked to be in his mid-twenties. If her brother, then distinctly a kid brother. He shared the doctor’s idiosyncratic good looks: the fine hair was cut down to a nap of blond cornsilk; lively eyes of a stark, ingenuous blue; a wide, dimpled chin; a wide, dimpling smile; a nose just pleasantly out of plumb; clothes of calculating modesty.

  “I’ve looked forward so much to meeting you, sir,” he said, earnestly, gripping his hand with convulsive strength. “My sister’s always talking about you. Everybody talks about you. I think—”

  Then, stage-struck, words failed. He smiled dismally at imagined spotlights and dropped his hand. The blue eyes stared at the splendid, unobtrusive, hand-sewn cordovans from Maxwell’s, Dover Street.

  The fat man led Number 7 back to stand beside his sister, who took the dangling, defeated hand fondly between hers.

  “We’re all veryfond of Number 7,” the fat woman confided loudly, “but he does have an enormous sensibility sometimes. It only lasts a moment, and then he’ll be himself again, if we just ignore him. Now, let me see, who’s left? Do you know Number 83?”

  The man indicated stood apart from the other Committee members, slouched against the damask curtains of the false window, waiting to be photographed. His arm was in a bright Madras sling.

  “I ran into Number 6 at the railway station the day he arrived–but we were never formally introduced.”

  “Well, well,” the pigeon cooed, “numbers aren’t that important, are they? With some of my best friends I can’t remember their numbers from one minute to the next.”

  The fat woman shrieked agreement. The pigeon,rewarded, tried to repeat his success. “I’ll lay odds that old Granny here doesn’t even know her own number. “I’m sure that none ofus do, anyhow.”

  Granny (there could be no doubt which one of them was “Granny”) gave a dry chuckle. Sitting all folded up on one of the Chippendale chairs, she seemed more than ever to be a greeting card come, just barely and for only a little while, to life.

  “Pigeon-poo,” the ex-Mayoress chided, “what aterrible truth for you to say! Of course she knows her number. We all do. She’s … she’s …”

  “Number 18,” said Number 7.

  “Number 42,” said Number 14.

  “Number60 ,” said the fat woman, resolving their discord with a sum. Isn’t that so, Granny dear?”

  “Yes, thank you,” said the old woman. “With a wee bit of milk, please, and one lump of sugar.”

  The pigeon sniggered. The fat woman sighed. She patted the aged hands with the expert condescension of a Practical Nurse. “In just a minute, Granny. We haven’tactually been invited to stay.”

  He remained grimly silent. It was clear now why he’d been released from the hospital while he was still reeling from the sodium pentathol.

  The pigeon pouted his lips and rolled his eyes in a dumb-show of social distress, as though his wife had just spilled the imaginary cup of tea on the Sirhaz carpet.

  “We call her Granny, you see,” the ex-Mayoress twittered on imperturbably, “because she’s been here in the Village longer than any of the rest of us can remember. And she’ssuch a darling that you can’t help feeling that sheis your grandmother. Especially since there is such,how would I put it—” The face frowned itself into a cluster of pink grapes.

  “A scarcity,” the doctor suggested, with a squeeze of her brother’s hand, “of more authentic family relationships?”

  “Ah, doctor, you are blunt, blunt, but your mind cuts like a knife! That’s just what was never so well expressed. Now, is that all of us?”

  “Me?” asked the seventh committee member, pressing his Homburg into his lap.

  “Oh yes, last but not—” She coughed. “Number 98. If you’ve been into the Stationer’s, Number 6, you might remember him.” (Or, her tone implied, you might not.)

  The Stationer’s clerk rose from his chair and approached his unwilling host. “We’ve had the pleasure, that is to say, I’ve had it, when this gentleman … The uh, sketchpad, if you …?”

  He lifted his hand meekly, not so much offering it to be shaken as to question its suitability for that purpose, or any other. His host did nothing to relieve him of the responsibility for this decision, and he retired, with his questionable hand, to the chair, where his Homburg was able to offer him some degree of reassurance.

  “There now!” the fat woman said contentedly. “We’re allfriends .”

  The Nomination Committee looked at him, each member smiling his or her characteristic smile, each refusing to acknowledge the obvious message of his determined silence and the door he held wide open.

  At last he conceded defeat: “In that case, would you do me the courtesy of explaining your friendly visit?”

  “Youtell him, Budgie,” Number 34 insisted.

  “It’s hardly forme to do that!You tell him, pigeon.”

  “But I can’t! Don’t you remember–I’m on theElection Committee. It wouldn’t do!”

  Finally it was Number 14 who, with no attempt to conceal her amused disdain for the idea, broke the news to him: “The Nomination Committee has decided to nominate you, Number 6, to succeed Number 33 as Mayor of the Village.”

  “The Nomination Committee would have saved themselves a lot of trouble if they’d asked me first. I refuse to be considered.”

  “Didn’t I tell you, Budgie,” the pigeon burst out angrily. “Didn’t Ipredict ?”

  “Your refusal doesn’t affect the nominating procedures, I’m afraid. In fact, the ballots are already printed, and the election is tomorrow.”

  “My thanks, then, for having informed me. Now, I suppose, you must be anxious to fly away and tell the other candidates the same good news.”

  “There are no other candidates, Number 6. You were our unanimous choice.”

  “Unanimous,” they murmured in choru
s. Even Granny’s lips seemed to approximate the right syllables.

  “So,” the fat woman said, “in effect, you are already our new Mayor. May I be the first to offer you my sincere congratulations?”

  “All right then, elect me Mayor. Proclaim me president, proconsul, anything you like. But don’t expect me to act my part in the farce.”

  “As for that,” the doctor said, “you needn’t worry. The Mayor has no duties whatever.”

  The ex-Mayoress puffed up indignantly, and the pigeon rallied to her defense: “I’m amazed at you, Number 14–tosay such a thing! Why, the Mayor of this Village hasunbelievable duties!”

  “Utterlyunbelievable,” she echoed. “Not tomention all the paper-work involved.”

  Granny’s hands, which till now had been resting in her lap emblematic of the peace that passeth understanding, seemed to have sensed (independently of her face, which still wore the same serene smile) the discord growing about them, for they were wandering in agitation all about the crepe of her dress, plucking at folds and tugging at buttons.

  It was Number 98, the Stationer’s clerk, who first noticed these symptoms of distress. He rushed across the room and knelt beside the old woman, trying to soothe the troubled hands, whispering to them and petting them.

  He looked up imploringly at his host. “She really should have a cup of tea, sir. All this dissension, it’s bad for …” One of the hands escaped from him, grabbed for his ear. “… her heart!”

  “Very well,” he said. “We don’t want to make more work for Number 14. Darjeeling or Earl Gray?”

  “Earl Gray. But don’t you trouble yourself, sir–I can make it. It will only take me a … a …” He looked for the word on the carpet.

  “Anhour at the very most,” Number 14 said, helpfully. “And I’ll take lemon with mine, if you have one that’s fresh.”

  The pigeon and his wife plumped down with one accord on to the brave little sofa. “Budgie would prefer cream to milk,” he called out to Number 98, who had run into the kitchen.

  “And my little pigeon likeshis just as sweet as sweet can be, doesn’t he?”

  Her little pigeon gave his big Budgie a little peck.

  “Now, Number 6,” the doctor said, tapping a sharp almond nail on the arm of the Chippendale the clerk had vacated, “why don’t you sit down and make yourself at home?”

  “I hope you don’t mind my staying on this late,” said the doctor’s younger brother, helping himself to another Scotch. “But it was important I speak to youalone . What time is it, by the way?”

  “Mm! What? Oh, yes.” He opened his eyes, studied his unwound watch. “Nearly six.P.M.,that is.”

  Every surface of the room was covered with dirty cups and saucers, plates of biscuits, ashtrays, and glasses half full of watery liquor.

  “They all just insisted on staying. I was getting desperate,” Number 7 said.

  “They did, yes, and so was I. When you say that we’re alone, though, you forget—” He gestured to the corner where the numberless old woman, noticed, twinkled benignly and chinked cup against saucer, as though to say: What a verynice party!

  “Oh, but that’s just Grandmother Bug. No one worries abouther .”

  “Bug? Isn’t that unkind?”

  “It doesn’t botherher ! does it, Granny?” He flashed a triply-dimpled smile at the old woman, and she gave another chink of recognition: What a fine time we’reall having!

  “There’s a theory, I don’t say that I believe it, that she isn’t altogether, how do you say,alive . Just a kind of machine. A mechanical person, like inThe Tales of Hoffmann . To my mind, extreme senility amounts to the same thing–one is reduced to the condition of a machine. Of course, age only makes it more obvious.”

  “Makes what more obvious? Excuse me, I was dozing.”

  “I mean, with the sort of thing my sister does at the hospital you don’t need to makemachines to do that sort of thing.”

  “What sort of thing?”

  “Well, anything. In her case, bugging. Which is why it makes no difference if Granny stays on. This cottage must be bugged in any case. Do you have access to the floor above this?”

  “No.”

  “That’s the standard design. There should be four cameras here in the living room–I see one of them just above the mirror–and three in the kitchen, four again in the bedroom, and one in the W.C.”

  “Two.”

  “Ah, you have a shower. I only have a tub.”

  Once more the young man braked to a sudden silence. Stirring his drink morosely, he resumed at a safer speed. “You’ll probably think this is ridiculous, but I felt I had to tell you that I admire what you’ve been doing. Terribly much.” As though recoiling from his own confession, or perhaps simply unaccustomed to this much Scotch, he collapsed on to a Chippendale.

  “What have I been doing?”

  “Your escape! You don’t think anyone is taken in by the story that you spent this whole week in the hospital—? My sister told me all the details.She was terribly impressed too. We both think you’re wonderful. Do you … I mean, my sister, does she …?”

  She tried to brainwash me, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “Oh, no! I mean, of course she did, that’s herjob , but she didn’t do anything like what shemight have. You have a very strong ego structure.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It’s a fact. She says it’s almost impregnable. But what I meant to say, before, was—are you … fond of her?”

  He laughed, and Grandmother Bug laughed with him, a little uncertainly, for she’d been caught unawares. If they were telling jokes now, she would have to pay closer attention.

  One could not tell if the young man’s sigh was one of relief or disappointment.

  “Perhaps you think that she’s … cold? Women doctors generally give the wrong impression that way, you know. Even before she was brought here, it was always painful for me to see how people reacted to her. Actually, she’s a verywarm person.”

  “One of the warmest in the Village, I’ve no doubt.”

  “Oh, but you can’t blame her for being here, anymore than you can blame yourself. We’re allvictims , you know. She was blackmailed into coming. Three months after she arrived, they got to me. I waskidnaped! It was the most exciting thing that ever happened to me.”

  “What do you do for them?”

  “Me? I’ve never done anything for anyone, except keep them company. My sister says I’m a dilettante, but that makes it sound moreprofessional that it really is. I imagine they thought it would improve her morale if I were around. I imagine it has. We’ve been awfully close to each other since we were this big.” His fingers measured a smallishembryo. “Also, I write. Poetry.” He made it sound like one of the least fashionable diseases. “But then anyone who doesn’t have anything better to dowrites . Do you write? No, of course not, notyou . That’s just why I admire you so, because you do do things. And what I want to suggest is–well, you’ll probably think this is absurd—”

  “That’s beside the point.”

  “I’d like, if you’d let me, tohelp you.”

  “To help me do what?”

  “To escape, obviously. I mean, when one is in prison, isn’t that what a person like yourselfought to do?”

  “You consider yourself a likely ally?”

  “This time it was Number 7’s turn to laugh, and again Grandmother Bug was taken by surprise. These two certainly did have the strangest way of telling jokes.

  The laughter expired bubbling into the Scotch. “Don’t, please take offense, Number 6, but it wasn’t at all the sort of response I would have expected fromyou . I mean, it was almost, if you’ll excuse my saying so, naive. The whole point of the way this place is organized is so that you can never trust anyone. Any of us could be one ofthem . You could be, for all I know, and my sister could be too.”

  “Your sister is.”

  “Not at root. At root she’s on our side.”

  �
��Then isn’t it unwise of you to say so?”

  “Not if they already suspect it themselves. Besides, if she is one of them, then she’s all the more valuable to them if she were to seem, in a way, not to be. That’s whyyou would make such a splendid agent for their cause, because you appear to be such a thorough-going rebel. It’s like psychoanalysis that way–if a thing is true, then its opposite is also true–or if it isn’t, it’s at least much more probable.You’re making such faces, Number 6, but I’m only saying what everyone in the Village takes for granted, the By-Laws, as it were. I’m surprised you hadn’t figured all that out yourself. Or are you only annoyed at the rest of us for having figured it out too? It’s not that we’re all such sly foxes–but what else is there tothink about here? In any case, the upshot of it is that I’m just as likely a candidate to be of service to you as anyone. I might, of course, be Number 1 himself, incognito—” He chuckled self-deprecatingly.

  Grandmother Bug, recognizing her cue and having prepared herself, produced her very best laugh, a soprano cackling that modulated into helpless tears, a shaking head, and a dying fall of “Lord! O Lordie! Lord!”

  “Or I might be, as I’d like you to believe, perfectly sincere in making the offer. The only way you’ll ever know is to try me. You’re shuffling your feet. You want me to leave now, don’t you?”

  “Hospitality has limits, and with that glass you’ve pretty well exhausted them. Unless you want to switch to gin. Also, I don’t think Granny ought to be sent home without an escort.”

  “I’m going right this minute. There’s just one last thing, which may not seem that important to you, though it is to me. Do you have any idea why you should have been given that number? Why 6?”

  “I never thought to question it. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.”

  “You think it’s that simple?We’re all inclined to think there’s some significance, perhaps even a crucial one, in our numbers. For instance, Number 1 and Number 2 are just what one would expect of a 1 and a 2.”

  “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never seen or heard the first, and I know the second only through the media, so to speak.”