Shikasta (44 page)

They keep turning up here, white, black, brown, pink, and green, day and night, day in and day out, and it is perfectly clear that they want to hear George
talk. I
have seen something. George talks as Hasan talks. George has caught it from Hasan. That is what I have seen. And I sit and listen and so does anyone else who is around. So do Olga and Simon. And so does Benjamin. He doesn't say a word. He can jeer as much as he likes afterwards, and sometimes he has no idea at
all
about what
is
going on but he listens like the rest of us. So
as usual
I have to say this: my feelings are one thing. But what I am thinking is quite another. As for what I
understand
when George is talking, then … but obviously there is no point in saying anything about that.

From TAFTA, SUPREME LORD of SHIKASTA,
to SUPREME SUPERVISORY LORD
ZARLEM on SHAMMAT,
Greetings.

Submission, O Great One!

Your instructions have been carried out!

The Four National Areas have been tested.

Head of Government One:
Receiving our directive to tell the truth exactly, accurately, without concealment, to his subjects, he informed his council of ministers that this was his intention, because it had 'come into his mind'. He was at once incarcerated in a prison for the mentally deranged, and it has been given out to the subjects that he has resigned on grounds of ill health.

Head of Government Two:
This man, having just been ‘elected into power', took the first opportunity (a television appearance) of informing his subjects that conditions were much worse than he had imagined before actually taking office and becoming possessed of certain information that is available only to heads of government. He considered it his duty to inform them of this material, which ought not to be secret. In order to survive at all it would be necessary for them to face certain facts: these were the facts … When the television appearance was over, he was informed by the faction that had ‘put him into power' that he had lost their support. He has had to resign.

Head of Government Three:
This man, determined to tell the inhabitants of his geographical area (because of our promptings) certain facts that had been withheld from them, was assassinated by the military before he could do so: because of their total espionage cover, they knew of his determination at once.

Head
of Government Four:
In the midst of a worse than usual crisis, he made hitherto inaccessible facts public and found no one believed him: there was such a gap between what they had been told and what he was telling them now. Becoming emotionally unstable with the effect of impressing the truth on them and finding over and over again this had no effect, he had a heart attack and died.

These tests have proved that the planet is immune to truth.

There is therefore nothing left to bar our progress.

Excelsior! Glory to us! We have overcome!

Submission, O Great One!
The PAN-EUROPE FEDERATION of SOCIALIST DEMOCRATIC-COMMUNIST PEOPLE'S DICTATORSHIPS for the PRESERVATION of PEACE.

Integrated ALL-EUROPEAN SERVICES for the VIGILANT SUPERVISION of ENEMIES of the PEOPLE and the PREVENTION of CRIMES AGAINST the PEOPLE'S WILL. DEPARTMENT 15. (BRITAIN) TOP LEVEL. SECRET.

To our Great Leader, All Hail! Our grateful thanks to Him whose Life guards us all with its fearless farsightedness in the Service of an
unremitting advance into the future. Our homage to Him who stands like a bulwark between us and the forces of degeneracy. Words fail us when we think of His sacrifices in our Sacred Cause!

[This was a report on seventy-four leaders who emerged from the youth movements or who retained influence from the past, who were not, that is, appointed by the ruling bureaucracy. The report was based on material supplied by spies and agents. It was begun just before the taking over of Europe by the Chinese and completed and in some cases rewritten by a Chinese official. We choose this particular document to exemplify the superior abilities of the new overlords. The choice of these three representatives is of course ours: neither the British official nor the Chinese official thought he was of particular interest and both laid greater emphasis on others.
Archivists
.]

Benjamin Sherban. No. 24.
What can we say about this decadent Philistine whose filth pollutes the glorious struggle transforming the ownership of the means of production for the benefit of all the toilers of mankind. The lesson of such degenerates is that we have far to go to achieve total victory on the political and ideological fronts. We have to gird ourselves to wage a protracted and ever-hawk-eyed struggle against the reactionaries enslaved to the undertow of capitalist influences from the filthy past in order to mount the heights of true socialist achievement. This enemy of the people has impudently assumed so-called leadership of the Junior Youth of the Youth Movements of North Africa (Section III) and is openly challenging the will of the true fuglemen of the People. Under the false and patently transparent guise of speaking for the children (eight to twelve years) of those territories he imposed his vomit of subjective twaddle on their defenceless minds in contradiction to the true conclusions arrived at by the methods of comradely inner-Party discipline and the recommendation is that he should be arrested in the name of the People's Will when he attends the Pan-Youth Congress in the autumn. If this should prove impossible due to the contradictions of the existential situation then he should be ruthlessly exposed for what he is.

George
Snerban. No. 19.
This hyena is brother to the last entry. Due to unscrupulous and pitifully debased opportunistic methods never before surpassed in the history of the glorious class struggle he has imposed himself as a representative of several Factions in the name of so-called Fairness, little reckoning that his feeble wrigglings in the dust of historical subjectivism are seen through by the clear-eyed masses in their glorious climb up the mountains of Truth. He has visited various countries in our glorious Federation in the last two years and imposed his slime wherever his low ambitions have led him. What can we say about such unscrupulous and debased criminals who trail with them the germ-laden and polluted dust from the dead past? We must resolve to be ever-watchful! Ever-ready to expose errors! Ever-open to opportunities to speak out of a wholehearted and disciplined empiricism so that never again will such jackals sully the spirit of the glorious masses. This man must be arrested on his next impertinent appearance on our glorious European soil and put on trial if he refuses on his own accord to step down from history. If this should prove impossible for any reason then our propaganda is always ready to expose the contradictions and to impose the correct line, and must unmask him. 

John Brent-Oxford. No. 65.
This pitiful relic of the past has at times served the People's interest but those who can follow only the old routines in a revolutionary period are utterly incapable of grasping the new and the ever-growing. Under the banner of all-sidedness and objectivity he has defended those misguided comrades who have erroneously set their faces against the Truth and has ever taken his stand with members of the old Labour Party whose crimes and criminal errors have long been exposed. In spite of every care and attention from the Re-educators, he obstinately refuses to allow his mind to open to the Truth, and as we need every place in our glorious prisons for the reception of the criminal element of our population it is recommended he be sent to No. 5 Penal Settlement. Our new Europe has no room for such refuse from the past!

[Notes on the above Report by Comrade Chen Liu, in charge of the People's Secret Services, Europe.
Archivists
.]

24. Benjamin Sherban.
Emotionally unstable. In my view he will respond to re-education. He should be
invited
to attend re-education. With the usual rewards. He should then be asked to return to his present position at the head of the children's movement, as our representative and with an important title.

19. George Sherban.
He is intelligent, well educated, with an appealing personality. He is skilful at handling people and groups.
He is in my view dangerous. There is no question of re-education. There is no question of arresting him on his next visit or using him in a Trial: the repercussions would be undesirable. He should be disposed of by any ‘accident' that seems appropriate. I have given the necessary instructions.

65. John Brent-Oxford.
This man is a nuisance. He has influence among the older generation who remember him as Member of Parliament and representative of Britain in the early Pan-Europe councils. He is of a good moral type. He cannot be convicted of corruption or delinquency of any sort. He has deteriorated badly in prison. He suffers from diabetes. The prison diet makes no allowance for this. In or out of prison he will not live long. I suggest he should be given a position of moderate authority in the administration attached to any one of the youth organizations. Their contempt and disregard for any old person will hasten his death. He should be treated with respect by us in order not to alienate those who remain of the old socialists who may yet be won over to work with us.

Private letter sent through the Diplomatic Bag,

AMBIEN II
of
SIRIUS,
to
 
KLORATHY, CANOPUS

In haste. Have just been looking through our reports from Shikasta. In case – which is unlikely I know – you have not got this information, Shammat called a meeting of all its agents in one place. This in itself seems to us symptomatic of something long suspected by us – and I know, by you, too. Conditions on Shikasta are affecting Shammatans even more than Shikastans, or affecting them
faster.
Their general mentation seems to be deteriorating rapidly. They suffer from hectivity, acceleration, arrhythmictivity. Their diagnosis of situations – as far as they are capable and within the limits of their species – is adequate. Adequate for certain specific situations and conditions. The conclusions they are drawing from analyses are increasingly wild. That Shammat should order this meeting, exposing its agents to such danger, shows that the mother-planet is affected; as much as that the local Shammat agents should obey an obviously reckless order.

This condition of Shammat and its agents, then, seems to
us likely to add to the spontaneous and random destructivity to be expected of Shikasta at this time.

As if we needed anything worse!

Our Intelligence indicates that you are weathering the Shikastan crisis pretty well – not that anything else was ever expected of you. If all continues to go well, when may we expect a visit? As always we look forward to seeing you.

RACHEL SHERBAN'S JOURNAL

I see that I am going to write again about what is going on. This time it is because everything is too much. So much is happening all the time and I can't grasp it. George says I have to try, and not switch myself off. He says I switch myself off.

This flat is always full of people now. They come to see George. It is a big flat, that isn't the point. Particularly now Benjamin is hardly ever here because of his Children's Camps. And Olga and Simon are nearly always away on a crisis. But Benjamin and I, both of us, had been thinking that George would probably get an office of his own or something of that kind because of so many people. But he didn't. Benjamin got quite sarcastic about this flat becoming a public seminar. Olga and Simon said nothing but waited. I watched
them
wait and watch. They wait in the same way I wait. The way to understand something is to watch what is happening. The results are the explanation. This means you have to be patient. What is happening is that when people come to the flat all agog to see George, he doesn't even take them into his own room. Which is quite large enough. No, he sits talking in the living room with the doors open and everyone coming through. That means he wants us to be there too. And so I am whenever possible. And Olga and Simon too. And Benjamin when he is here.

They are from every country there is. Mostly our age. But sometimes old as well. George met these people on his trip through the Youth Armies of Pan-Europe. Nearly all actually met him or heard something that struck home. They were
struck
and couldn't believe it and came to find out. I know this because
of myself. Over and over again I experience the same. No, it is not possible, I think, but then it is. Sometimes their getting here is impossible. But somehow they do it. If they don't wangle some official thing, and God knows that is hard enough these days, they come illegally or even in disguise. Several times I've been in the living room when someone comes. Then this person, he or she, takes off a uniform and some hair or beard or glasses, or becomes the opposite sex and suddenly you see it was a disguise. Well, everyone seems to be in disguise anyway. They don't go back to their organizations or places if George says they mustn't. Nearly always they are sent off to some other place. Always a very definite place, with an exact time they have to stay there before they leave again.

George has been on at me. He says I've got to start thinking more. He says what is the use of all my education, the kind of education I've had. You've got to be useful, he said. You surely are not saying I should be an administrator and run things, I said. Really appalled. George said, Why not? Look at Olga and Simon, they do it and do it well. I said, Running things, what's the point? He said, If you can't beat them join them! Oh, very funny. George says, Rachel, you are too soft, and you have to toughen yourself up. Toughen myself up for
what?

At which he manifested the humorous patience I know very well from Olga and Simon.

I see that I have been having this conversation, one way or another, with myself, or with Olga and/or Simon, or with George, all my life.