by Adam Roberts
They have just grabbed Paul Caunes, ram-stam. He still can’t believe that it has happened. It has been Sol’s impetus that has pushed them, or dragged them, into this circumstance: he is the force that has pumped up through the broad hollow stem to fountain in green and iridescent at the top.
‘So, Sol,’ says Paul, with a father’s easy intimacy with his son. ‘Wat will you do when this is all over?’
This touches a sensitive spot. ‘Don’t worry about me, Father,’ says Sol, not lookiŋ at him. ‘I’ll be fine.’
‘You see, I’m not sure you will,’ says Paul. ‘As your dad I am naturally concerned for you. If punishiŋ me has been your project for so long, I wonder wat you’ll do to give your life direction and meaniŋ after I’m — ’
‘I’m a member of the Upland government,’ interrupts Sol fiercely. ‘I’m happy to dedicate my life to the buildiŋ of my nation, Paul. Once I have undone the damage you did, Paul.’
Hope looks over at his father. There is the slightest of blushes rougeiŋ his old cheeks, and he is fixiŋ a steady, pained gaze on the wall. That Sol could so easily cause their father pain makes Hope, obscurely, angry. It takes him a moment to locate the reason why, but it comes to him at last. Sol wants revenge because he thinks that it will confirm his mastery of his own pain. He’s not so foolish as to believe that it will dissolve the pain away entirely of course, because of course it won’t, but he believes, consciously or subconsciously, that enacting his revenge will register a refusal to be passive in the face of sufferiŋ. He sees it as an assertion of agency in the face of hurt. But this is the difference between the 2 brothers. For Sol pain is only something to be mastered. Hope has a less illusioned relationship with pain. He sees that it can never be tamed, it will always command humanity, and the best thing to do is axept it, to revel in it even. It seems to Hope clumsy, even vulgar, to include their old father in these games; although, of course, for Sol, mastering the father is all part of mastering the world as a whole, bending suffering around his own lines of force until it is squeezed into rainbow delight.
The plane doks, nosiŋ into the porch of a great barrel-shaped hall of a house, 4 times the dimensions of a standard room, with ordinary-sized rooms attached at various places. Hope has been here before; the Central Hall of the Uplands, the nearest thing this dislocated, hurtliŋ, individuated nation has to an official buildiŋ, a centre of government, watever the downbelow equivalence would be. There are 5 planes already doked there.
Paul, still twitchiŋ, murmuriŋ something indistinctly, is pulled through the hatch and into this big space; and inside are 20 people or so. When they see Paul comiŋ through they let out a great cheer. It is a properly 3-dimensional crowd, distributed along the floor, up the walls, through the interveniŋ space, all faces wide with genuine delight and excitement. We have him! These are the real Upland zealots.
ten
In theory, as many Uplanders as feel themselves personally involved or aggrieved are entitled to turn up, address the accused, exhort their fellow citizens towards one variety of punishment or another. In practice, numbers are limited to as many planes as can fit in the multiple porches of this space; although by crammiŋ into shared planes the large hall could easily be filled to burstiŋ. In this case, the apprehension of Gradi’s former husband and betrayer, numbers are also compromised by the suddenness of the seizure. It is only now beiŋ announced on the news channels.
[[in a bold, guerrilla raid Upland forces have seized Paul Caunes, former husband of Gradisil Gyeroffy, from the American hotel Worldview. There are reports of at least one fatality in the raid. Caunes is wanted by many Uplanders on charges of treason, and attempts have been made through a variety of courts over the last decade to extradite him from his home in the United States. Colonel David Slater, who was present duriŋ the raid, said this to reporters earlier:]]
The 20-or-so who greeted Paul with such whoops of lynchaphilic happiness were the people contacted directly by Sol, or contacted directly by the people Sol contacted. They assembled as quikly as they could. The garishly triumphalist mood is fuelled less by bloodlust, and more, strange to say, by a kind of nostalgia, and almost tender fascination with the history of the young country. Few of the people in this hall are old enuff to have personal memories of the war. For them - as for her sons - Gradi is a legend, not a real person. The excitement is partly to share a house with somebody, Paul, who knew her so well, so intimately. It should not surprise you, this starstruk yearniŋ to lay hands on relics of the Great One. If, let us say, one of Gradi’s coats came up at auction (and all manner of detritus from her private life is sold off in a dozen auction venues every year); and if, let us say, you had the funds to buy so substantial a relic - perhaps you would press the garment between two sheets of crystal and display it, or perhaps you would donate it to one of the Upland historical museums established in the EU. But before you did that you would take the artefact out of its protective wrappiŋ and, in the privacy of your own home, you would try it on: slip your arms down the cloth tubes that her arms used to fill, strike a succession of poses in front of the mirror. Touchiŋ the talisman of Gradi becomes a way of approximatiŋ yourself to her. This is true of human bodies to precisely the same degree as it is true of other objects. The man who obtained Eva Péron’s embalmed body, who told the world he was keepiŋ it for his nation, wat else did he do, when he was first alone with his acquisition, but strip it, pore over it, frot himself against it? Only it was not the body that excited him, even though perhaps he thought it was; it was his own symbolic investment of psychological energy.
In the case of Paul Caunes, here he is, and he is still breathing, pantiŋ, lookiŋ around at this hostile crowd with fear on his face. He is lookiŋ, in fact, like a fish with a frown (to employ one of Klara Gyeroffy’s favourite idioms). Like a fish with a frown. But because he is an object with such an intimate association with Gradi herself, these people revere him as much as they hate him. This involuted knot of passions means that many of them would eat him, if they could; to internalise this symbolic connection with their beloved founder; to punish the man they hold responsible for her death. And this is something Paul knows.
[[‘I have been good friends with Paul Caunes for 10 years or more,’ says Colonel Slater on the news channels; ‘I am horrified and appalled by this development. For many years he felt himself to be exiled from the Uplands that he loved, because of the hatred of a handful of fanatical fundamentalists. He agreed to come up again, to attend the launch of a new restaurant inside the Worldview hotel, in part because he believed that this hotel is American territory, and that he would be safe. He has been betrayed by murderers and kidnappers.’]]
The trial is filmed by a dozen different Upland cameras, and it is as ragged-edged and as intermittent as any Upland trial has ever been. Sol is first accuser. ‘There’s little point in him tryiŋ to deny his treason. He handed Gradisil to the Americans, he was personally present when this happened. Immediately after he fled downbelow, and took up residence on enemy territory. He had pharmakos treatment for his sexual orientation and lived as a couple with Liu Chuanzhi, until this latter’s death 2 years ago.’
‘I don’t deny any of that,’ says Paul. For this he is cheered by the crowd; it is not clear exactly why. Perhaps they take this to be bravado.
‘Well,’ says Sol, lookiŋ less triumphant than perhaps he might. ‘I say the punishment for treason is death.’
‘I don’t want to die, though,’ says Paul. ‘I’ll tell you — and believe me, I’ve had a long time to think about this, liviŋ as I have been doiŋ in exile downbelow.’
‘Exile!’ scoffed somebody, from the far side of the hall.
‘Of course, exile! Why wouldn’t I say exile? I was an Uplander before I ever met Gradisil. She married me, in part, to gain axess to this land, in which I had a house - before any of you in this room were born! You think I was happy to leave here? No. Why else would I take the risk of returniŋ, comiŋ bak up, makiŋ myself vulnera
ble to beiŋ snatched by — ’ and he concludes this sentence not with words, but with a meaningful look in the direction of his 2 sons.
It is very quiet now.
‘I’ve thought about this a great deal, and I realise now that, although I thought I was betrayiŋ Gradi - more, that although I tried very hard to betray Gradi - the fact is I did not. I could not, I was just a tool. Gradi used me, expertly, to arrange exactly wat she wanted to arrange. None of you knew her, but I knew her very well. I knew her as well as any human beiŋ in history has known her, although that’s not very much. She cared for one thing only, and it wasn’t me, or our sons, or any other person, it was the Uplands, it was this nation. She cared only about bringiŋ this nation to birth. She engineered the war to that end, and she engineered her own betrayal by me, her capture by the Americans, her death - do you think,’ and he is growiŋ more agitated now, speakiŋ more fiercely and rapidly, ‘do any of you think that she had the slightest qualm about dyiŋ? Of course not. I knew her, and I tell you that death held no terrors for her. If she thought her imprisonment by the Americans would bind the nation she created together, then this is wat she would orchestrate. She thought that by dyiŋ a martyr she would provide a focus around which her new nation could aggregate. She was right in that, as she always was.’
He stops. For a moment nobody speaks. Then a confused series of shouts break out, from 3 or 4 different people: ‘Traitor!’ ‘Tryiŋ to wriggle out!’ ‘Blame Gradi for her own death?’
‘Stop,’ yelled Hope, in a sort of agonised blurt. ‘We don’t have to execute him! We could imprison him.’
Sol shouts, ‘Brother, brother, he killed our ma!’
‘I don’t want his blood on my hands!’ cries Hope, and there are tears pearliŋ out and away from his eyes. ‘It’s already wreked - I’ve already been ruined! I’ve spent 15 years pursuiŋ my dream for the Uplands! I just - I just got fundiŋ for.’ It’s hard for him to talk, his chest is heaviŋ. ‘And now that’s all been yanked away from me! And here I am, with my brother. And here - now you want to take him away, because - but he has confessed his crime. He knows it. Why couldn’t we just . . .’ And at this point the sentence is lost in Hope’s hubbub of cryiŋ.
This nudity of emotional pain shoks the hall. Nobody says anything. Then, from the bak, somebody cries out: ‘He’s right! The Uplands should be more than an eye for an eye!’ The room erupts in shoutiŋ.
‘No! That man is personally responsible for Gradi’s death . . .’
‘Why? Why did he . . . ?’
‘Lok him up!’
‘We could exile him — ’
‘Throw him out the door - exile him in vacuum.’
‘He must die!’
‘No!’
‘Justice!’
‘Wait,’ calls a tall young woman. ‘Everybody stop yelliŋ. This is Sol and Hope’s call. They’re the ones most closely harmed by - this man’s actions.’
The room is silent again. All gazes are directed at Sol and Hope, the latter twitchiŋ in space with the shuddery convulsions of his chest, and surrounded by a mucusy halo of shed tears.
‘We brought him here,’ announces Sol, in a firm voice. ‘He confesses the crime. We must ensure that justice is done.’
‘No,’ says Hope, in a smaller voice.
‘I’m not talkiŋ about revenge,’ says Sol. ‘I’m talkiŋ about the best thing for the Uplands. One thing Gradi saw clearly was that it takes blood to fertilise a new republic, as it always has. We are a young country. The branches of our nation-tree are still growiŋ. Wat we do now - wat we do today - will have the greatest resonance for the way our nation develops into the future.’
‘Then why not,’ says Hope, masteriŋ his sobs, ‘establish the principle of forgiveness? That’s a good principle for a growiŋ nation, isn’t it?’
‘Nations are not people, to turn the other cheek. If another country makes war upon you, you do not surrender, you do not forgive them, you don’t axept your defeat passively - you fight. Fight, fight, fight. This is wat we are doiŋ here today. We are assertiŋ the strength of our nation.’
‘Yes!’ yells somebody; and then somebody else cries, ‘That’s it!’
Paul is lookiŋ at his own feet, floatiŋ beneath him.
‘We choose, here, now, for our nation’s future. Which is it to be? Justice? Or forgiveness? Because we cannot have both.’
Through his bleary eyes, Hope watches his brother with some amazement. He has never seen him so fired up, moved with such oratorical eloquence. Gradi’s genes do come right, at the right moment.
‘Justice is the seedbed of freedom,’ says Sol. ‘From forgiveness wat grows, except weakness? And which direction do you want the Uplands to grow?’
There is another general acclamation. This, after all, is the reason everybody has assembled.
Hope tries one last line. ‘I still have one question. I have one question for him.’ The babble and whoopiŋ does not still, so Hope repeats loudly ‘One question! One question!’ until he has the room’s attention.
‘One question,’ agrees Sol.
‘I want to know why, that’s all. Want to know why did you hand Gradisil over to the Americans?’
‘Yes,’ says Sol, for this is a question on which many commentators have speculated, and on which Paul himself, in his rare media appearances, has always refused to be drawn.
And this is the moment when everybody looks at Paul Caunes. He draws air into his tired old luŋs, and blows it out again. ‘It wasn’t me,’ he says, again. ‘I was just the device that Gradi used to get wat she wanted. Wat she wanted was you - all of you, all Uplanders - united. That’s wat she got.’
This is an unsatisfactory reply, and the derisive and hallooiŋ uproar that greets it does not abate for a long while.
There is no point, says Sol, actiŋ with his mother’s firmness and pitilessness, in postponiŋ the sentence. They grabbed him ram-stam, let them execute him ram-stam too, make their example now, in front of a dozen cameras. Paul is taken to the Central Hall’s main porch by his 2 sons, and he is pushed, not aggressively, into one of the sections: the one on the far left, as it happens. Sol is lookiŋ at his father with a fiercely passionate expression on his face that, in another context, would read as an especially devoted form of love. Hope, on the other hand, is cryiŋ: he can’t seem to stop. All these tears! Already his hungry conscience is gobbliŋ at the large thought that, had he asserted his case more aggressively, had he commanded the crowd with powerful oratory - instead of blubbiŋ like a child - then maybe his father would be spared. But it hardly matters now.
They have a hand on each elbow, Sol the right, Hope the left, and all this is beiŋ recorded for all posterity and the edification of subsequent generations of Uplanders. The old man’s perfect passivity has an unpleasantly saintlike aspect to it, and a few in the crowd cannot resist tryiŋ to lower his dignity a little by flikiŋ little dabs of - well, it is difficult to say wat, chewed paper perhaps - which travel with the impossibly straight trajectory of xero g to stik to the strand of hair liftiŋ and floatiŋ from the bak of his old head like stringy seaweed in a tidal flow. The 20 people in the crowd follow, most of them still filmiŋ. Their names are now as famous, amongst the Uplands, as the signatories of the Declaration of Independence, or those Englishmen who put their signatures to the warrant for the death of Charles I. And they’re eager for their names to be so known; it’s their chance for history to register them. None of them think that the future holds any criminal action against them, for rushing through the execution of this one man. Why would they? You need a speck of blood at the root of the new nation-tree. Who can deny it? An old man pushed into a very literal nothingness; that’s fatal very quikly, and then the body falls with acceleration into the hot embrace of the atmosphere and is purged, cathartically reduced, scrubbed to constituent atoms. Perhaps Paul, contemplatiŋ this fate, was even rather gratified by the prospect of this.
And here is the moment. He’s pushed, not violently, int
o one of the segments of this multiple porch. The old man is agitated now, because the imminency of real death, real chill and asphyxiation, is not something he can quite banish from his mind. ‘Hope,’ he says, pulliŋ a thum from his trouser poket and straight-line tossiŋ it, almost casually, to his son. ‘You asked why. You asked me why. That says why.’
‘Wat’s this?’ Hope asks, surprised.
‘I wrote a memoir. It was after Slater had his success with his; I thought to write one as well, so I did. But nobody has seen it. I couldn’t bring myself to publish it. It’s on that.’
Hope looks at the thum. ‘What you want me to do with it?’
‘I’m sorry,’ says Paul; and in later years Sol will choose to believe that he is sayiŋ I am sorry I betrayed Gradisil, sorry that I betrayed you my boy. But Hope will come to very different interpretation of his apology, will believe him to have been sayiŋ, I’m sorry I gave this account to you to read, my son, for I know how upsettiŋ you’ll find it. I had hoped to keep it from you, but in the end I was too weak to die without leaviŋ my version of events. They could either be right. They could, perhaps, even both be right.