by John Barnes
When at last we were permitted to sit down, Thorwald came onto the stage almost at once, as if afraid of any loss of momentum, and seemed edgier than before. The reason became clear in a moment: "Our final piece is by a playwright of such remarkable ability, and represents so major a break-through for him and indeed for all of Caledon culture, that I can only say to you ... I wrote it."
The place roared with laughter and he looked relieved. I realized he had no idea how dependable that old joke was. Deu, he probably thought he had invented it.
"Let me point out that because this is the first presentation of this play anywhere, there are no accepted interpretations of any of the roles, so our actors have truly had to create from scratch." There was another scattered burst of clapping, probably from the more supportive friends of the actors. "What that means, of course, is that if they get it wrong, it's not my fault—I assure you it was written brilliantly." More laughter followed; I saw Thorwald check for a cue from backstage, and then he added, "All right, I suppose I really can't delay this any longer. If you have any questions I'll be out in the hallway, either biting my nails or throwing up."
A group of awkward people in mostly dark clothing, working in mostly dark that they didn't blend in with, lurched around getting two tables and four chairs onto the stage.
"Oh, uh, yap," Thorwald added, returning to the stage, "the play is called Creighton's Job." His exit was even more awkward this time.
The actors stumbled and thudded a lot getting into places in the dark, and there was a little tittering at that. When the lights came up, all the actors were scratching or shuffling to a new position, so of course things took a moment to start. I noticed they all wore prompter earpieces, so at least we would not be treated to the charming effect of watching them try to remember their lines.
As far as I could make out—there was too much laughter and applause too often, and apparently the play was set in the back country up beyond Gomorrah Gap, far to the icy south, so the accents were thick—the play was about Creighton, whose parents wanted him to get a good job and kept proving to him—using a blackboard at the dinner table, for example—that he wanted one. Then he would go interview, always with the same man (I was not sure whether this was part of the joke or a shortage of actors) and after a lot of complicated mathematics, and a lot of (apparently hilarious and possibly ribald) dialogue in Reason, Creighton's father would get the job.
After the second time this happened, the pattern began to vary and escalate—Creighton's mother got hired, the interviewer hired himself, the interviewer punished Creighton for applying by firing his father and marrying his mother. The little I could understand was very broad, low—and old—humor.
Just as the wedding ceremony was being performed, with Creighton's father officiating and Creighton running from function to function as simultaneous best man, maid of honor, choir, and flower girl, the lights went out completely.
The crowd had been roaring its approval almost continuously—Margaret had been so excited she was practically in my lap—but now they fell instantly silent, patiently wailing for what seemed to be a technical difficulty. I thought of seeing if I could get some stamping and booing and barking going, which was how an Occitan crowd might have responded, except that frankly the whole thing so far had been so amateurish and crude that the interruption seemed like more fun.
Then the speakers came on, and the lights came back up. "It has been determined by the Pastorate of Public Projects that this presentation in its whole and in its parts is fundamentally irrational. It has furthermore been determined that the permission for this gathering is to be revoked retroactively, and that police authorities who granted the permit, and who failed to suppress earlier rioting, will be brought to trial at the earliest possible date. Pursuant to this case and to others pending, all persons here are liable to subpoena for testimony against permit-granting authorities. A full copy of the declaration of irrationality is available for offprint on request. All persons are enjoined to leave this space within thirty minutes and to avoid any displays of irrationality in the near future under penalty of inquiry."
The room stayed unbearably quiet. No one looked up, I think, except me. I saw a tear run down Margaret's cheek, and her lower lip trembled.
Thorwald got up, looking as if he'd been kicked in the groin, and said, "All right. You heard them. Apparently we've managed to get the police into trouble—let's not make them come out here to evict us. I make an official public statement to any monitoring equipment now present: we will be appealing these actions on all possible grounds as soon as possible." A few people stood up to clap; the rest looked at the floor. "But for right now, we have to get out of here quickly." He looked around the room, obviously trying to think of how to say what he had to say next. "Any and all persons who wish to express a rational protest against the action of the PPP are invited to participate in the takedown and cleanup as a way of voicing their disapproval."
Aimeric whistled, and whispered in my ear. "Brilliant. They thought they'd stick the few promoters and employees with the whole job, and then fine them for not doing it fast enough. Now Thorwald has completely legitimated and rationalized people staying to help. No one can be punished for assisting without pay, now."
They did it all very quickly, and I noticed there was no bickering. "In Noupeitau you wouldn't have been able to hear the chairs crashing for the grumbling," I said to Bieris, as we both carried stacks of chairs to the back of the room. I noticed she was carrying more than I was, and congratulated myself on not saying anything stupid about the fact.
"Yap. If anyone had stayed to help at all."
"Well," Aimeric added, as he came up beside us with a box of audio gear, "it does enhance their defense if they're charged with irrationality."
"Crap," Bieris said. "They could get that by turning in their friends. These kids just have a ton of courage, Aimeric."
He didn't say anything, and I didn't either—it troubled me that except for Valerie, I hadn't been able to like any of the show. Still, I was glad I had come; it was nice to be on the right side of anything.
Margaret needed a hand with some of the stuff from the refreshments, so I helped out there next. As we were carrying out an untapped beer keg, I said to her, "I still don't see how it can be irrational to give people what they want, especially not when they prove it by paying for it."
She sighed. "As a pure debating exercise, I can see how their argument would go. They don't believe in allowing cultural contradiction. So it's for our own good that they won't let us use all this freedom, prosperity, and happiness to attack the source of all the freedom, prosperity, and happiness. The argument is that since rational markets make people happy—"
"It's an outrage, just an outrage," a voice said behind us. We looked back to see Prescott Diligence and Taney Peterborough carrying a table between them. "The PPP has grossly overstepped itself this time," Prescott said. "It's obvious that they're trying to undermine the whole Reform Bill twenty years after the fact. We're having a meeting tomorrow to get the Liberal Association restarted, if you'd like to come, Margaret."
"Yap, I would." She clipped the words out impatiently— probably she hadn't forgotten his trying to punch her.
"The proper authorities just don't know what's going on, and this has to be brought to their attention at once," Taney added, and Prescott nodded emphatically.
We dropped the keg off in the temporary storeroom, then stood aside as everything else was carried in after us. "That does it," Thorwald said, as the last of it came in. "Make sure you've gotten all your possessions from the meeting room. Thank you for acting in rational defense of your rights."
Now that the job had been done, everyone seemed to be heading for home. I offered to share a trakcar back to the Center with Thorwald, but he had some other winding-down things to get done, so I went on alone. Once again, I left the windows unshuttered so that we could see what there was to see of the city—quite a lot since there was bright
moonlight Strangely, there seemed to be parties of people out moving through the dark streets everywhere; hooded and masked as they were, I couldn't see who they were or what they were about. Once the trakcar crawled right through a long line of them that ran across a street. They all had their backs to me, so I saw nothing of them. A block later, another line of them, facing me, parted to let me through.
I got out, sprinted into the Center, and headed immediately upstairs to change into nightclothes; I felt a passionate need to just be comfortable and decompressed. As I was changing, I switched on the kitchen remote and ordered two warm sweet rolls and a cup of hot chocolate. A moment later, as I was fastening the front of my robe, there was the soft ping that alerted me to mail that had arrived. It had to be from Marcabru or my father, and either way it was bound to be news of home—home where things weren't so hopelessly weird, where you could admire an artist for style and grace and talent and not for anything so bizarre as courage or principles, home where I would be returning soon—
I padded quickly down to the kitchen, where my food was now ready, set myself up comfortably at a table with the rolls, chocolate, and reader, and called up my new letter.
The return address said it was from Marcabru—it had been quite a while since I had heard from him. As it popped up on the screen, I began to read eagerly:
Dear Giraut,
I am well and truly angry with you, which I can only think is what you must have intended since the Giraut I used to think I knew surely could not give such egregious offense other than deliberately. Has it not occurred to you that your entire reputation and honor here at Court has depended upon my defense of you, my keeping your memory alive after your inexplicable act in jumping off to that frozen wasteland— and upon my public readings from your letters?
And yet for the past four letters, nothing you have written has at all justified my public praise of you, for all you seem able to do is to gossip about your half-witted Caledon acquaintances, and not only that, but with neither fire nor acid to apply to them. You seem to take no interest in, or at least you choose not to comment at all about, the many changes of fashion that I, as Prince Consort, have begun— does it never occur to you that the Prince Consort actually takes time to write to you personally about these matters?
And what has become of your real work— no recordings sent us—and of finamor and enseingnamen? You write of your precious Center like some old drudge who thinks that drudgery is all life ought to be. You have grown as bleak and cold as that iceball to which you so foolishly fled and your deadly seriousness on behalf of those poor barbarians only proves what a cold-blooded earnest bore, like them, you have become.
I trust you must appreciate my situation, Giraut. I have extended myself to the utmost, risking frequent derision as a sentimental ass, to maintain a reputation for which you apparently do not care in the slightest, since you do nothing to help me maintain it. There has been nothing that I could cite in any of your letters to endorse my high opinion of you; have you truly become so un-Occitan that you do not remember, or do not care, that reputation demands constant defense?
Well, I am no longer willing to fight for you or your reputation when people are so clearly right to describe you as boring and worse. As you well know, but act as if you had forgotten, by your actions you place me in the impossible position where enseingnamen forces me not to fight but to actually accept shame when the charge is obviously true.
And it is, Giraut, it is.
You may die for all I care,
Marcabru
I read it through, slowly, once more, gulping down the rolls and chocolate because I knew I would surely be hungry later. I could feel how right he was, and yet at the same time I could not feel that I had any power at all to do otherwise than what I was doing. I had done what he said, and it was cause for grave offense; even after an unlimited duel with him, there could be no friendship after this. My best friend had become my sworn enemy.
And yet...
I finished the stuff without tasting any of it, hurled the dishes into the regenner, and hastened upstairs to bed.
On my way up the stairs I met Thorwald coming down. "You look like you've had bad news," he said sympathetically.
"So have you," I pointed out. "Thorwald—is all this my fault? Did I stir you people up to it? Because if I did, maybe I should just take the blame and get myself deported."
"Are you that eager to leave?"
"No, not—well, yes, I really am homesick just now. But that isn't why I'm offering. I'm just concerned that it seems like I got here and all of a sudden all of you are in much worse trouble than you would have been without me and the Center and so forth."
"Depends on what you mean by trouble." He sighed.
"Did Saltini interrogate you yet?"
"Now you're thinking like a Caledon. No, not yet. I'm surprised because I was sure he would. How about you?"
I shook my head. "It just occurred to me that he probably would pretty soon, if he hadn't."
Thorwald nodded, then abruptly asked, "Can I ask you something personal?"
"I might not answer."
"That's all right. Did you just get a really rude letter from your friend Marcabru?"
I nodded.
"Because," he continued, "every time you get a letter from him it seems to make you sad and cross for a day afterwards, and right now you look like you're really in pain."
I was so shocked that anyone would be paying that much attention to me that I stammered out my first thought, which was that I hoped I had not taken out my bad feelings on Thorwald or his friends.
Thorwald shook his head. "Nop. You're pretty good about that. But it doesn't take that much effort to see you're unhappy, and—well, we all like you. So we try to stay out of your way when that happens, so you won't say anything you'll regret."
I nodded and went upstairs, unsure of my ability to speak. So, not only had I failed at Court; even these students at the Center had been simply extending charitable kindness to me, taking care of me because I could not look after myself. And with their tiny, fledgling artistic movement—well, if it was broken, they would have little need for me, and if it was not, they could make art for themselves—what they needed and liked, not some arbitrary attempt to meet my standards. I had nothing to teach them. It occurred to me that I had sat there sneering at them all night—and that while I had been doing that, and planning what cruel things I would say to amuse Marcabru, they had been the real artists in the room.
I couldn't wait to get home, despite knowing of the failure that surely waited for me there. At least I was in good physical condition for the dozens of duels I would have to fight.
I was feeling so sorry for myself that I must have cried myself to sleep, because my face was stained with tears when the morning prompter sounded its alarm and said, "Sir, today is the day of the presentation to the Council of Rationalizers, and my record shows you need to bathe, shave, and dress."
It was quite right. I jumped up, praising the aintellect loudly to reinforce it so that if anything like this ever happened again, it would do exactly the same thing. I stripped and stepped into the shower, shaved as quickly as I safely could, and flipped to dry the moment I was rinsed. I reached out of the stall, grabbed the remote, and ordered fruit, pastry, cheese, and coffee in the kitchen.
At least dressing was no problem—I had one formal Caledon outfit, which looked like all the formal outfits on Caledon—the coverall was black, the knee-high boots were black, the shirt was white, and the ridiculous little string tie was a pale silver color. I fastened on the white belt and was dressed; looking at myself in the mirror, and straightening my cuffs, I realized that I looked a bit peculiar to myself, since my hair was shoulder-length and I wore a beard and moustache.
Well, I would have to tolerate incongruity, anyway. And Bieris and I both would probably give far less offense than Aimeric, with his insistence on wearing Caledon clothing, undoubtedly would.
The food see
med tasteless, but I bolted it and gulped the coffee. This was no day to be late.
As I threw the dishes in the regenner, Thorwald came in and said, "I wanted to catch you before you left. Hey, you almost look like one of us in that—I hope the embarrassment doesn't kill you."
I managed a wan smile. "What's up?"
"I just wanted to point out that if by any chance you were thinking of volunteering to take the blame for all of us, all that will do is give them an excuse to shut down the Center and then to interrogate you to see how many more of us they can convict. Really, I just wanted you to know there's nothing you can do to help, other than just sit tight and give them nothing."
I nodded, having concluded that myself. He wished me luck, and I was on my way.
In the trakcar, it occurred to me that I hadn't heard or read any news yet, and that given the events of the night, and the fact that this would be a vitally important meeting, there might be some report on something I was involved in. I switched up the news access in the trakcar—and discovered it didn't work. At first I thought it was a malfunction, but the unit was working fine on all other accesses, and when I flipped back there was a brief message:
CHRISTIAN CAPITALIST REPORTS
LICENSED NEWS MONOPOLY
REGRETS THAT IT HAS BEEN
NECESSARY TO SCHEDULE
THIS INTERRUPTION
PRAISE GOD
GIVE THANKS
THINK RATIONALLY
BE FREE
Hadn't Aimeric said that when he was a child they used to include those last four commands at the end of all public announcements? Maybe they were still using the old standard form for anything as unusual as interrupting a whole channel for this much time.
I lowered the shutters to see what there was outside, having no desire to catch up on "Pastor Rational's Children's Hour," "Classic Sacred Rational Texts," or "Sunrise Sermon."
We were almost at the government complex when the trakcar stopped unexpectedly. In my whole childhood of riding the things, I could never recall such a thing happening, and moreover, this was happening right after the equally unprecedented failure of the news channel.