The Squares of the City (14 page)

“Then I will do my best to make it clear,” she said offhandedly. “You know, you say, what subliminal perception is?”

I frowned. “Well, I know the principle—you project a message on a TV screen or a movie screen for a fraction of a second, and it’s alleged to impress the subconscious mind. They tried it out in movie houses with simple words like ‘ice cream,’ and some people said it worked and others said it didn’t. I thought it had gone out of fashion, because it proved unreliable or something.”

“Not exactly. Oh, it is true that it was not reliable. But indisputably it worked at least part of the time, and of course in most civilized countries it was immediately recognized as a powerful political weapon. If it could be made consistent in its effect, it could be used to indoctrinate the population. One of the first people to emphasize this was—Alejandro Mayor.”

Memories of hints contained in Mayor’s first book confirmed this. I nodded.

“It so happened,” said Señora Posador, looking at the glowing tip of her cigarette, “that twenty years ago Juan Sebastian Vados was campaigning for the presidency in our country. It was the first election after an unpopular dictatorship. The television service had just been brought to the country—at first it served only Cuatrovientos, Astoria Negra, and Puerto Joaquin—and its director supported Vados.

“Who first saw the possibilities? I cannot say. It was all kept very secret. In most countries use of subliminal perception is banned by law, because its effectiveness—oh, it has been made reliable by testing!—it is inhuman. But in Aguazul there was no law. The single obstacle was that most of our people were, still are, illiterate. Yet that in its way was an advantage; it was soon found that even for persons who could read, pictures worked better than words. A message in words you can argue with, but pictures have the impact of something seen
con los ojos de sí.
”

She was still staring at her cigarette, but plainly was not seeing it, because the ash was growing and trembling and she made no move to disturb it. Her voice became taut and a little harsh.

“Vados, with advice from Mayor who had become a friend of his, employed this knowledge. He broadcast very often in this technique a picture of his opponent copulating with a donkey, and—since television was rather new to us and very many people watched very much of the time—his opponent was called foul names as he went through the streets, his house was stoned daily, and—and in the end he killed himself.”

There was a pause.

At length Señora Posador recollected herself, shifted a little on her perch, and threw the ash from her cigarette aside.

“And so, my friend, it has continued. Those of us who know what we know—and object—never go to the movies; we never watch the television without a blinker. With practice has come skill, and what you have seen here is typical of the technique as it is employed today.

“It is now known for certain to many of our citizens that the squatters in the shantytowns practice bestial cruelty to their children, that they offend the morals of the young, that they elaborately blaspheme against the Christian religion. It is likewise known that you are a good man, a good Catholic, and a close friend of the president, whom you may never have seen in your life.”

“Once, in a car the other day,” I said. “That’s all.”

She shrugged. “I saw you smile at the picture of yourself as an avenging angel,” she went on. “Yet even that is carefully planned. Many persons watching the program may have been children who believe in such things. Others—many, many more in the small towns and villages and even in Cuatrovientos and Puerto Joaquin—are simple and uneducated, and likewise hold such things to be literally true. You are a free man, Señor Hakluyt, compared to anyone walking the streets of Vados. You come here; you can go away again; it will not matter that your thinking has been influenced in Aguazul. But it would be better to watch no more television.”

“Are you trying to tell me that
all
the TV programs are loaded with this kind of crap?” I demanded.

She slipped from her perch and bent to open a sliding door set under the bench where she was sitting. “Choose any of these,” she invited, indicating a row of tape spools filed on a shelf. “They are programs transmitted during the last few months. I will do the same again for you.”

“Don’t trouble,” I said distractedly.

She looked at me with something approaching pity. “As I imagined, Señor Hakluyt, you are a good man. It shocks you to discover what methods are employed in the most governed country in the world!”

I lit a cigarette, staring at her. “I was talking to Dr. Mayor last night,” I said after a pause. “He used that same phrase. What does it mean? What does it really mean?”

“To the ordinary citizen? Oh, not very much. Our government is subtle as governments go—always it is the velvet glove where possible. For most of our people, the twenty years of Vados’s rule may truly be described as happy. Never before was Aguazul so prosperous, so peaceful, so satisfied. But we who know—and there are not many of us, señor—what long invisible chains we carry, fear for the future. If Mayor were to die, for example, who can predict the consequences? For all his elaborate theories, he is still a brilliant
improvisateur;
his gift is to trim his sails to the wind of change a moment before it begins to blow. With him, Vados, who is growing old—who can tell whether he has planned well enough for another to take the controls when he has gone, and keep our country on a steady forward course? And there is a still further danger: the danger that this disguised control may have worked all too well, that if change becomes necessary, we may have been too skillfully guided for too long to respond, so that before we can again forge ahead we must fall back in chaos.”

She made a helpless gesture with one superbly manicured hand and cast down the butt of her cigarette.

“I try not to speak politics to you, Señor Hakluyt. I know you are a foreigner and a good man. But it is of concern to all the world what happens here in Aguazul; we have laid claim to a government of tomorrow to match our city of tomorrow, and if we have gone wrong, then the world must take notice and avoid the same mistakes. Your hour is up, señor. I will drive you wherever you wish to go.”

IX

I didn’t say a word as the big Pegasos carried me back to the traffic department, where I had to call and see Angers for my daily visit. My state of mind approached consternation.

I had come to Vados to do a standard kind of job, one carrying far more kudos than anything I had yet attempted, owing to the special status of the city, but to outward appearance otherwise routine.

And now I found myself faced with a task of moral judgment instead. Or as well.

What Señora Posador had shown me had shaken me badly. Aside from the questionable ethics of using subliminal perception for political purposes, there was the purely personal reaction against being lied about to the public. That the lies were intended to make me a popular figure merely aggravated the situation.

And yet …

For twenty years Vados had ruled his country without revolution, civil war, slump, panic, or any other disaster. He had created peace unprecedented in the century and a half of the country’s checkered history. While his neighbors were wasting time and energy in internecine disturbances, he had managed to build Ciudad de Vados, to raise living standards almost everywhere, to make inroads on the problems of disease, hunger, illiteracy, and poverty. His people respected him for that; probably in the minds of most Vadeanos this city alone excused whatever else he might have done.

What was I to do? Quit cold?

If I did that, it would permanently mar my reputation; I had worked for a long time to reach my present level in my specialized profession, and to reject this much-envied job would be construed as a confession of inadequacy, no matter how sound my reasons—because those reasons were not professional ones.

From the financial viewpoint, I couldn’t afford to quit, anyway.

Well, I could get around the last objection somehow. The competition in the field of traffic analysis is seldom so strong that an expert (and I class myself as an expert) can’t
make
himself employment.

But what weighed heaviest with me at the moment, when I’d reviewed the matter from beginning to end, was this: that if I threw in the job now, it was certain that Angers or someone in the traffic department with a direct emotional involvement in the situation would be ordered to solve the problem to the taste of the government—or rather, of their well-to-do supporters. And Angers for a certainty would botch it.

Ultimately, I told myself, my only responsibility was to my own conscience. Whatever the other circumstances that affected me only indirectly, my job was to do the very best I could and ensure that no one suffered by my actions—or, if not
no one,
then the least possible number of people.

Carrying the memory of Señora Posador’s bittersweet smile, I went into the traffic department.

Angers’ greeting was curt, and after it he wasted no more time in preamble. “Where have you been, Hakluyt?” he demanded.

I looked at him in amazement. “Visiting a friend,” I said shortly. “Why?”

“Since when has Maria Posador qualified as a friend of yours? I thought I told you she was bad company for you.”

“So you’ve been having me watched,” I said coldly. “I rather thought so. You think I’ve been spending my time in bars, maybe? Think I’m not capable of doing my job unless someone keeps an eye on me? If that’s your opinion, you can damn well hire someone else—and I’ll personally see to it no reputable traffic analyst will come within a mile of the job!”

The snap I put into the words took the bluster out of Angers and made him adopt a more confidential manner. He sat back in his chair, sighing. “Look, Hakluyt, I know you’re not well posted on the situation in Vados—because if you were, you’d avoid Señora Posador like the plague. I have to admit you’re right about your being watched. We arranged it for your own sake. We’re afraid someone may try and—uh—put you out of the way, because to Tezol and Francis and the rest of the rabble-rousers who make up the National Party you’re a major menace.”

“If I’d been told before I accepted this job that I was going to be made into a football between two petty local political parties, I swear I’d never have set a foot in Aguazul,” I declared. “I’m seriously considering taking this as a breach of contract.”

I was, too; if I’d had the copy of the contract with me, I’d have shredded it into confetti and thrown it all over the office. I was suddenly blazing angry.

“Please!” said Angers. “I assure you that so long as you stick to the job you’re engaged to do, you’re in no danger at all. Only, in spite of my warnings, you’re doing just what I told you not to do—you’re getting emotionally involved. Señora Posador is a very beautiful and clever woman, and I’ve no doubt she sells a fine bill of goods. But let me tell you something about her she probably hasn’t told you herself.

“Her husband was the man Vados defeated at the election which brought him to power, and when he heard the news, he shot himself.”

A small cold hand seemed to take me by the scruff of the neck. “Go on,” I said, fishing for a cigarette.

“Well—uh—I suppose it’s only to be expected, because she was rather young at the time, twenty years ago, and not long married. … But the fact is that her husband’s death preyed on her mind, and she’s supposed not to be very stable. She fled the country directly afterwards, with a few of her husband’s followers, and for a long time kept up a bombardment of slander about Vados’s regime from other countries. Of course, it eventually became obvious to everyone that there wasn’t a grain of truth in the accusations, and in the end—about five years ago, I suppose—Vados invited her to come back to Aguazul.

“Unfortunately, instead of taking this as a favor—and it was a pretty substantial act of clemency on Vados’s part, after all the things she’d spread about—she kept on trying to stir up trouble. If it weren’t for the fact that her husband had been a personal friend of Diaz even when they were political opponents, she’d probably not have been allowed to go on so long as she has. There is, of course, the argument that it’s better to have her here where one can keep an eye on her than let her go on with her underground subversion from across the border, but people are saying she’s overreached herself now, and it certainly wouldn’t be to your benefit to get involved with her if she does have to be taken down a peg.”

“That I didn’t know,” I said slowly. Angers sensed that I was in two minds, and pressed on.

“She’ll go to any lengths to discredit Vados, of course. She’s a very wealthy woman, and the rumor has it that she’s behind
Tiempo,
which is a rag if ever there was one, and if that’s so, then it’s only her private pull with Diaz that’s saved the paper from innumerable libel suits. The kind of dirt that
Tiempo
throws at the president and at government officials is hard to credit unless one sees it. However—” He produced his habitual cold smile. “I don’t think I need labor the point any longer. A word to the wise, and all that. Let’s get on to major business.

“Believe me,” he continued with sudden earnestness, “I don’t want to have to ask you to divert time from your work. It looks, though, as though it may be necessary. You heard—of course you did, from Caldwell—that Sigueiras has filed for an injunction to prevent us dispossessing him from his slum. Well, as usual when it’s a case of foreign-born versus native-born citizen, our secretary of justice, Gonzales, has insisted on an immediate preliminary hearing, and in fact the case is down on the calendar for today.