by Adam Roberts
I stood up.
‘Do you wish to know how I was able to persuade Sieur Treherne to relinquish his legal right to insist upon a prosecution?’ Bonnard asked me.
‘It does not seem to me,’ I said, ‘like a characteristic action on his part.’
‘No. But I informed him that if you were to be charged for assault, then so would he.’
‘Assault?’
‘He leapt upon you when you were immobilised, and struck you several times. Of course, once again, the court would doubtless take into account any provocation - and his lawyers would be able to demonstrate that he had been provoked much more substantially than had you.’
‘I will only say . . .’ I began, but Bonnard stopped me by raising the little finger of his right hand. I stopped speaking at once. I need hardly say that I respected his chiller much more profoundly than I respected his finger, even as a symbol of his innate authority.
‘Nevertheless,’ Bonnard went on, ‘it would be a prosecution. He, as you, would be forced to remain in police cells until trial. When this fact was pointed out he, after some protest, agreed to drop the charge of assault.’
‘It seems I must thank you,’ I said.
‘I do not require thanks.’
‘Has Mark Pol been released from legal confinement?’ I asked. ‘I should like to meet him again, and apologise in person for my behaviour, which was disproportionate.’
‘He has been released.’
‘Was he met by Gymnaste? Did they leave note of any address at which they would be staying?’ I was, I realised, too eager. I controlled myself. ‘We have walked a long way together, and I do feel I should apologise in person.’
‘He has been released,’ Bonnard said. ‘There is a criminal charge outstanding, however, which prevents us from releasing you.’
‘What charge?’ I was suddenly afraid that I was to be charged with the assault upon Siuzan Delage, and that I would therefore be prevented from finding Mark Pol. A moment’s thought would have reassured me how unlikely this event was, but my ability to think clearly was impaired by my unusual circumstances, and by the chiller I could still see in the belt of the man sitting in front of me.
‘The charge is theft,’ said Bonnard.
‘I do not understand.’
‘You broke off one of Sieur Treherne’s eye-stalks,’ he said affably. ‘It was inside your fist when we carried you to your cell. Yours,’ he added, ‘is an unusually large fist.’
‘But I do not understand,’ I repeated. ‘Is this a joke? I have spent days in my cell. I do not have Mark Pol’s eye stalk. I never stole it. Search me - you will not find it about my person. This is absurd, to claim that I have stolen this thing.’
‘Naturally you do not have it about your person,’ said Bonnard, smiling. ‘We confiscated it from you whilst you were still unconscious - unpeeling your fingers from it much as a man unpeels the skin from a pomegranate.’ This analogy seemed to please him, for he chuckled to himself.
‘But what can you mean?’ I pressed. ‘Is this a joke? It can hardly be argued that I stole this eye stalk. Why would I want such a thing? I did not steal it, and do not have it.’
‘We placed the disputed item in police security, as material evidence in a theft prosecution.’
‘There is no sanity in this,’ I said.
‘On the contrary. It is the way of the law. I told Sieur Treherne that I would gladly prefer his complaint against you for theft. This pleased him, for he was eager to see you punished for your assault upon his person. He is, in my judgement, a man very precise in assessing exactly the extent to which his pride has been offended.’
‘What court will prefer this ridiculous charge?’ I asked. ‘I am happy to concede that my intention was to hurt Mark Pol Treherne, for reasons that—’ But again I stopped myself. ‘But I had no intention of stealing his eye stalk. If I broke it off, I did so in anger, not in attempted robbery. Why would I steal such a thing? What good would it do me? It is hardly compatible with my own vision software.’
‘As to whether the stolen item would benefit you or not,’ said Bonnard, ‘this is a matter the court will consider, of course.’
‘You smile,’ I pointed out.
‘Jon Cavala,’ he replied genially. ‘Can you expect me to deny my pleasure? Why should I, a man who has devoted his life to the upkeep of the law, not enjoy the discomfiture of one of the headless? You are individuals who have, to a man, broken the law. You can’t deny it!’
‘Is this consonant with the objective and unbiased performance of your duties?’ I tasked him.
‘I believe it is. Not a jot or tittle of the law shall pass away, you know. The Bibliqu’rân itself mixes legal prescription equally amongst its narrative and lyrical exhortation. I shall stick precisely to the meaning of the law.’
‘Is this why you are prepared,’ I said, becoming heated, ‘to allow the beheading of a woman, Siuzan Delage, whom you know to be innocent?’
‘In this matter of Siuzan Delage,’ he said, ‘a case unrelated to the matter in hand, I shall be guided by the law, as in every other case.’
‘How can you say this case is unrelated to the matter in hand? Why else did I attack Mark Pol except that he is so clearly the one responsible for the attack upon Siuzan Delage ...’ My fury tangled my words, and my speech software juttered and stalled. I composed myself. ‘Instead of preferring Mark Pol’s ridiculous prosecution of theft against me,’ I said, in steadier tones, ‘you would do better to investigate him for the assault upon Siuzan.’
Bonnard looked at me for a while, but the smile did not leave his lips. ‘The fact remains,’ he said, ‘that Sieur Treherne’s charge has been referred.’
‘It is an absurdity!’
‘Indeed. In fact, he himself came to regard it as such. I told him that he was free, and should leave the police premises. He insisted upon being given his broken eye stalk, and the money necessary to have an engineer repair it. I told him that it was not the duty of the police to give away money to any headless beggar who asked for it. This offended him.’
‘I am not surprised.’
‘He pressed the point. He said that at the very least we must give him back his eye stalk. He claimed that his mono-vision was disorienting, and distressing.’ The expression on Bonnard’s face suggested that he regarded Treherne’s distress as rather a delightful thing than otherwise. ‘I reiterated that he was now a free individual and must leave. He became aggressive, and demanded his eye stalk. Of course I did not accede to this request.’
‘By what law did you keep his eye stalk from him?’ I asked.
‘I am surprised to hear you take Sieur Treherne’s part in this matter,’ Bonnard said languidly.
‘I do not take his part. Only, it seems to me, you take a perverse delight in tormenting the headless. I wonder if it is something legally sanctioned, or whether you indulge your hobby regardless of your declared precision of legal observance?’
‘Your ignorance of the necessary processes of law is comical,’ said Bonnard. ‘How can a prosecution for theft proceed without the evidence? Naturally it cannot. The police must hold the evidence in trust until, after the trial, it is restored to its rightful owner.’
‘You explained this to Mark Pol?’
‘He was disinclined to wait until the trial was completed. He asked, several times and in a disrespectful tone of voice, but how long will this take?’
Since this question also touched closely on my own future, I reiterated it. ‘And how long will it be? Did you answer his question?’
‘I told him,’ said Bonnard, looking away and waving his hand evasively, ‘that, given the relatively low priority of this prosecution - the small monetary value of the stolen object, the low status of both victim and alleged thief - it would probably be a year or more before court-time could be found for it.’
A year or more. I scratched at the bruises on my trunk, which were intermittently making themselves known to my consciousness as locali
sed shines of pain. The whole affair seemed unreal to me. Once I was released on bail it would matter to me not in the slightest whether they delayed this joke trial a year or a decade; I had to enact justice upon Mark Pol, and declare myself to the police in good time to save Siuzan’s head. But a year! It occurred to me to wonder, indeed, why Bonnard was wasting his time (valuable time, I assumed) upon such games; except that evidently he derived a rather juvenile enjoyment from the banter.
‘A year,’ I repeated. ‘This seems understandable. I suppose I could short circuit this lengthy time by confessing to the crime, and accepting whatever punishment the law determined.’
‘That would indeed shorten the time-frame considerably,’ agreed Bonnard. ‘And it would mean that Sieur Treherne would receive back his eye stalk much sooner. But I am surprised to hear that you wish to help Sieur Treherne in this way.’
‘I wish,’ I said carefully, ‘to meet with him, as I mentioned before. I wish to apologise to him, face to face - or, perhaps I should say, trunk to trunk. My attack upon him was . . . improper. Since I had no intention of stealing his eye-stalk, I can have no reason to prevent him being reunited with it.’
‘But this is the opposite of a confession of theft!’ laughed Bonnard. ‘Since I had no intention of stealing his eye stalk . . .’
‘Chevaler Bonnard,’ I said frankly. ‘Please enlighten me as to the purpose of this business. It puzzles me that a senior policeman is spending his time on so trivial a matter.’
Bonnard nodded, as if I had spoken nothing but good sense. ‘Sieur Treherne,’ he said, with the tone of somebody finishing a long-delayed story, ‘became most agitated at my estimation. A year? he cried. A year? A joke! I demand my eye stalk now! Or if, as you say, it must be preserved in police store as evidence, then I demand I be given the money to purchase a replacement! I demand ! I demand ! It was truly comical to see how insistently he demanded. I told him that what he demanded was impossible. In that case, he said, I withdraw the charge against Cavala. There is no theft here, and no reason to keep my eye stalk from me.’
‘So there is no charge against me? He has withdrawn it?’ I asked. ‘And I am free to leave? I ask only for clarification.’
‘An understandable wish. Clarification will shortly be forthcoming. I told Sieur Treherne, in a tone of voice more angry than not, that he was becoming a severe nuisance. I told him: Be quiet. If you withdraw your charge I shall prosecute you for wasting police time. This is what I said to him. I do not think he believed me at first, but after some more bluster he calmed down. And in all honesty-a headless, making wild charges, withdrawing those charges, demanding and blustering: how could this be conceived except in terms of wasting police time? Finally he left the police station. He was in no good mood.’
‘He has left? Where has he gone?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Chevaler,’ I said. ‘Do I understand you correctly? It was you who insisted upon this ridiculous and footling charge remaining in place? Am I to understand that I am indeed to be prosecuted for stealing Mark Pol’s eye stalk?’
‘You are to understand this,’ said the policeman.
‘But—’ I said. ‘I do not see the sense in it.’
‘A philosophical statement questioning the validity of the law?’ said Bonnard. ‘Or an expression of personal ignorance?’
‘Very well’, I said. ‘At what is the bail set for my release on this miniature charge? One totale? Fifty divizos? I shall pay it and return a year from now for the trial.’
‘No bail is set.’
I began to understand. ‘No bail?’
‘No.’
‘What,’ I asked, ‘is the financial cost of the item I am alleged to have stolen?’
Bonnard shrugged. ‘I do not know.’
‘You will not deny it cannot be more than a totale.’
‘Most probably not.’
‘Then why has no bail been set?’
‘That is the prerogative of the law. There is no requirement to set any bail, even in the matter of a petty crime such as this. Bail is a matter of the convenience of the law, not a matter of right for the criminal.’
I was silent for a while. ‘Chevaler Bonnard,’ I said, eventually. ‘I believe you have some purpose in mind, and I request you, respectfully, to tell me what it is. This verbal fencing and dancing - to be frank - infuriates me.’
‘Jon Cavala,’ said Bonnard. ‘What is it to me that you are infuriated? Do not assume that I care. I do not like you, not in the least. I have no concern for your well-being, or anything of that nature. I do not like you. I know of you. Know that I am a personal and a long-standing friend of Georgis Benet.’
‘I see,’ I replied, too quickly.
Bernardise Benet, daughter of Georgis, was the woman for whose sake I had lost my head. The Benet estate was in Cainon, and they owned a town house in Doué, out of which Georgis supervised the trading of the goods he grew on his estate through the Doué port. I had first met Bernardise at a party in this house - a tall thin structure, six or seven storey high but barely fifteen metres across, located in a curving cul-desac not far from the seafront. Chère Benet, the mother, liked to supervise a sort of salon, in which poets and painters, musicians and sculptors and gamers congregated. My invitation came after the publication of my book The Slur. Those of you interested in my writing - and whom else would read a narrative such as this? - will know that this book, though not my first success of popular estimation, was the first to percolate into the more general consciousness of the literary culture of Pluse. Or at least (since I have sworn to be strictly and exactly accurate in this memoir, howsoever poorly such accuracy reflects upon my own status) I should say, into the consciousness of the literary culture of those countries bordering the Mild Sea. On the other continents I am still little known.
Yet I was celebrity enough to be invited to Chère Rehab Benet’s day gatherings and soirées. And it was here that I met and befriended Bernardise. And now, despite what I say in the previous paragraph about an absolute strictness of honesty in my writing, I must pull closed a form of curtain. Honesty does not mean an obsessively whole truth, including descriptions of every private act or bodily function. The beautiful Bernadise is still alive, and she merits her privacy as much as anybody.
This is as much as I will say: charges were laid against me of rape, and I acceded in these charges, even though it cost me my head. Some may say I did so because I am a rapist. Others may believe I did so to spare another party from a gruesome punishment whose crime was nothing more than an excess of love and attachment. I must say nothing on this matter now.
But a man as strict, religious-devotional and backward-looking as Georgis Benet would have been more disgusted with a daughter willingly engaging in sexual intercourse than with a daughter raped. Either way he, of course, could do nothing but despise me. And of course his friends followed his lead. He was a powerful man, a trader in hemps and flaxes who had made many millions of totales, and brought tax wealth to the land from many overseas locations.
Hence, when Bonnard announced his long standing friendship with the man, I said I see too hurriedly.
And yet, at the same time, my love for Bernardise had been pure enough, and whole enough, to have brought me trekking through four desert days and three nights simply on the chance, the small chance, that I might see her - from a distance, perhaps; stepping out of a family car and going into a shop, or walking with her friends in a Cainon park. The love of men and women draws people to extremity.
‘You wish to persecute me,’ I said to Bonnard.
‘Persecution,’ said Bonnard, ‘is not a very legal-sounding term.’
‘Then you want . . .?’
‘Your position,’ he interrupted, ‘is awkward. I am within legal rights to hold you in confinement for the whole year, for however long it takes for this matter to come to trial.’
Something occurred to me. ‘I do not believe a sitting judge would allow a case to languish for
a year, knowing - as he must know, for he must be informed - that the defendant is not on bail but is in confinement.’
‘That is perfectly true,’ agreed Bonnard. ‘In these circumstances trial may happen within the month. Or perhaps two. And so you must return to your cell for the foreseeable weeks.’
But this was no use to me. It would surely be too long - Siuzan would lose her head within such a timescale. I needed to be released before sentence was passed on Siuzan, to perform justice on Mark Pol and still have time to make my false confession. ‘And,’ I asked, trying to remain calm, ‘is there no other option?’