The Wanting Seed (29 page)

‘Oh, nonsense,’ said Tristram. ‘As the sole survivor I was the head of that unfortunate murdered lot. It was up to me to make the decisions. I decided to send myself on a month’s leave. I was also ill, and no wonder.’

‘That’s irregular, you know.’

‘Let’s not hear anything from you or your bloody murdering organization about irregularity,’ said Tristram. ‘A lot of murdering swine, that’s what you are.’

‘I see,’ said the major. ‘And you dissociate yourself from us, do you? I should imagine,’ smoothly, ‘you’ve done more killing than, say, I have. You’ve actually taken part in an E.S.’

‘What’s an E.S.?’

‘Extermination Session. That’s what the new battles are called, you know. I should imagine you did your share of – well, shall we call it self-defence? Otherwise, I can’t see how you managed to survive.’

‘We were given certain orders.’

‘Of course you were. Orders to shoot. That’s only reasonable, isn’t it, when you’re being shot at?’

‘It was still murder,’ said Tristram violently. ‘Those poor, wretched, defenceless –’

‘Oh, come, they weren’t exactly defenceless, were they? Beware of cliches, Foxe. One cliche leads on to another, you know, and the final term of the series is
always absurd. They were well trained and well armed and they died gloriously, believing they were dying in a great cause. And, you know, they really were. And you survived, of course, for the most inglorious reason. You survived because you didn’t believe in what we’re fighting for, what we’ll always be fighting for. Of course, you got dragged in at the beginning when the system was most imperfect. Our conscription system’s very selective now. We don’t call up suspicious people like you any more.’

‘You just take advantage of the poor devils who don’t know any better – is that it?’

‘Of course. We’re better off without the morons and the enthusiasts. Which means also the corner-boys and the criminals. And, as far as the women are concerned, the cretinous over-producers. That’s genetically very sound, you know.’

‘Oh God, God,’ moaned Tristram, ‘it’s all sheer bloody madness.’

‘Hardly. Look, you acted under orders. We all act under orders. The orders of the War Department come ultimately from the G.P.L.A.’

‘Murderers, whoever they are.’

‘Oh, no. The Global Population Limitation Authority. They don’t, of course, actually give orders in the military sense. They merely report on population in relation to food supply – always with an eye to the future, of course. And their idea of a food supply is not the old primitive minimal notion – they’re concerned with a high standard involving margins. I’m not an economist, incidentally, so don’t ask me what margins are.’

‘I know all about that,’ said Tristram. ‘I’m a historian.’

‘Yes? Well, as I say, you should either have been kept on instructional duties – and somebody’s going to get a rocket sooner or later over transferring you to combatant duties – or, what was I saying? Yes, you shouldn’t have been called up at all.’

‘I can see why you say that,’ said Tristram. ‘I know too much now, don’t I? And I propose to write and talk and teach about your cynical murderous organization. This is no longer a police state. There are no spies, there’s no censorship. I’ll tell the bloody truth. I’ll get the Government to act.’

The major was unperturbed. He stroked his nose in slow rhythm. ‘Despite its name,’ he said, ‘the War Department is not really a branch of government at all. It’s a corporation. The term “War Department” is merely a link with the past. A corporation with a charter. The charter comes up for renewal every three years, I think it is. I don’t think there’s any likelihood of its not being renewed. You see, what other way is there of keeping the population down? The birth-rate rose phenomenally last year and it’s still rising. Not, of course, that there’s anything wrong in that. Contraception is cruel and unnatural: everybody has a right to be born. But, similarly, everybody’s got to die sooner or later. Our age-groups for call-up will get progressively older – as far, of course, as the healthy and mentally normal sections of the population are concerned; the trash can go shortly after puberty. Everybody must die, and history seems to show (you’re a historian, so you’ll agree with me here), history seems to show that the soldier’s death is the best death. Facing fearful odds, as the poet says. Ashes of his fathers, temples of his gods, and so on. I don’t think
you’d find anybody against the present system. The War Department is a bit like prostitution: it cleanses the community. If we didn’t exist, a great deal of nastiness would bubble up in the State. We’re the mother-of-pearl, you see. The ruffians, the perverts, the death-wishers: you don’t want those in the civil community. So long as there’s an army there’ll never be a police state, no more greyboys or rubber truncheons or thumbscrews or rifle squads at inconveniently early hours. The final problems of the body politic have been solved. Now we have a free state – order without organization, which means order without violence. A safe and spacious community. A clean house full of happy people. But every house, of course, has to have a drainage system. We’re that.’

‘It’s all wrong,’ said Tristram. ‘All, all wrong.’

‘Yes? Well, when you can think out something better come and tell us all about it.’

With a tiny itch of hope, Tristram said, ‘Do you think people are fundamentally good?’

‘Well,’ said the major, ‘they now have a chance to be good.’

‘Exactly,’ said Tristram. ‘Which means that it won’t be long before the return of liberalism. I don’t think a Pelagian State would renew your charter.’

‘No?’ The major was not very interested.

‘You’re signing your own death warrant just by existing.’

‘That’s a bit too epigrammatical for me,’ said the major. ‘Look, I’ve enjoyed this talk, but I really am rather busy. You should by rights, you know, go through the proper channels as far as your demobilization is concerned. But I’ll sign your discharge, if you like, and
give you a chitty for the cashier’s department.’ He began to write. ‘A gratuity of twenty guineas for each month of service. A month’s
official
demobilization leave on full pay. Right. They’ll work out the details for you. They’ll pay you cash, seeing that you’re such a suspicious sort of man.’ He smiled. ‘And,’ he added, ‘don’t forget to hand that pistol in.’ Tristram found, shocked, that he had been pointing it at the major. ‘You’d better give it to me. We don’t like violence all that much, you know. Shooting is for the army, and you’re out of the army now,
Mister
Foxe.’ Tristram meekly placed the pistol on the major’s desk. He saw now that it would, after all, be wrong to shoot Derek. ‘Any more questions?’ said the major.

‘Just one. What happens to the dead?’

‘The dead? Oh, I see what you mean. When a soldier is discharged dead the soldier’s paybook is collected and a letter of condolence sent to his – or her, of course – next-of-kin. After that the War Department has no further responsibility. Civilian contractors take over. We’ve learned something, you know, from the past: waste not, want not. What the civilian contractors do is their own affair. But the money comes in handy. The money keeps this corporation going. We’re completely independent, you see, of the Treasury. I think that’s something to be proud of. Any more questions?’

Tristram was silent.

‘Good. Well, the best of luck, old man. Now I suppose you’ll have to start looking for a job. You shouldn’t have much difficulty with your qualifications.’

‘And experience,’ added Tristram.

‘As you say.’ Smiling cordially, he stood up to shake hands.

Three

T
RISTRAM
took the next tube-train to Brighton, saying to himself in time with the train’s beat: ‘Patience, patience, patience, patience.’ The word summed up so much: patience of different lengths and weights, different lengths of waiting. When Brighton towered all around him his brain shuddered with memories, with expectations. Patience. Keep away from the sea, just for a little while. Do things properly.

He found the Education Department where it had always been: in Adkins Street, just off Rostron Place. Frank Gosport was in the Appointments Section, as he’d been before. He even recognized Tristram. ‘You’re looking well,’ he said, ‘really well. Just like somebody who’s taken a long holiday. What can we do for you?’ He was a pleasant round man, beaming, with fluffy hair like duck-down.

‘A job,’ said Tristram. ‘A good job.’

‘Hm. History, wasn’t it? Civics and so on?’

‘You’ve got a good memory,’ said Tristram.

‘Not all that good,’ said Gosport. ‘I can’t recall your first name. Derek, isn’t it? No, stupid of me, it can’t be Derek. Derek Foxe is the Co-ordinating Secretary of the Ministry of Fertility. Of course, of course, he’s your brother. It’s all coming back to me. Your name begins with a T.’ He pressed buttons on the wall; on the wall opposite, in letters of mild flame, details of vacancies appeared, frame after frame of mildly flaming letters. ‘See anything you fancy?’

‘South London (Channel) Unitary School (Boys) Division Four,’ said Tristram. ‘Who’s Principal there now?’

‘Same as before. Joscelyne. He got married, you know, to a real old battle-axe. Clever man, that. He swung with the tide, you know.’

‘Like my brother Derek.’

‘I suppose so. Fancy anything there?’

‘Not really. Too many bad memories. I like the look of that lectureship at the Technical College. History of War. I think I could do that.’

‘It’s something new. Hardly any applicants. Shall I put you down for it?’

‘I think so.’

‘You could start at the beginning of the summer term. Do you know anything about war? My son’s just had his calling-up papers.’

‘Is he glad about it?’

‘He’s a young lout. The army ought to knock some sense into him. Good. You’d better go and look at the College sometime. It’s a very nice building, I believe. The Principal’s all right. Name of Mather. I think you’ll get on all right.’

‘Fine. Thanks.’

In Rostron Place Tristram found a house-and-flat agent’s office. He was offered a very respectable apartment in Winthrop Mansions – two bedrooms, livingdining-room, fair-sized kitchen, fitted with refrigerator, stereotelly, and wall-spindle for the
Daily Newsdisc
or any of its auditory rivals. Having seen it, he took it, signing the usual form of agreement and paying a month’s rent in advance. Then he did some shopping: kitchen utensils, provisions (a very fair variety in the
new free-enterprise shops) and some underclothes, pyjamas and a dressing-gown.

And now. And now. And now. His heart pounding and fluttering like a bird in a paper-bag, he walked, trying to walk slowly, down to the sea-front. Crowds of people in the spring sun, encircled by fresh marine air, gulls cackling like heckelphones, the stony majesty of the offices of the Government. The Ministry of Fertility – bas-relief of an egg cracking open to display new-born wings – with a plaque saying:
Incorporating Departments of Food, Agriculture, Fecundity Research, Religion, Ritual and Popular Culture. Motto:
ALL LIFE IS ONE. And, looking, smiling nervously, Tristram decided that he didn’t finally want to go in there after all, that there was nothing he could profitably say or do to his brother. He swung down in his swing for the last time, braking with his feet dug in the ground. For the victory was his, Tristram’s, as this afternoon would show. What was most dearly his, Tristram’s, he, Tristram, would, before ninety minutes or less were up, have regained. Finally. Utterly. That was the only kind of victory he needed.

High above Government Building the bronze robed figure with the baroque beard, baroque robe-folds, glared at the sun in this windless day, hair and clothes stirred by the baroque wind of the sculptor’s fancy. Who was it? Augustine? Pelagius? Christ? Satan? Tristram fancied he caught the shine of tiny horns in the stirred mass of stone hair. He would have to wait, they would all have to wait. But he was very nearly confident that the cycle would start again, that figure preach to the sun and sea-clouds about man’s ability to organize the good
life, his lack of need for grace, the godhead implicit in him. Pelagius, Morgan, Old Man of the Sea.

He waited.

Four

‘S
EA
,’ whispered Beatrice-Joanna, ‘teach us all sense.’ She stood by the promenade rails, the gurgling woolly rosy twins belabouring each other softly in their perambulator. There it stretched all before her, endowed with delirium, panther-skin, mantle pierced with thousands upon thousands of the sun’s idols, hydra absolute, drunk with its own blue flesh, biting its scintillating tail in a tumult like silence. ‘Sea, sea, sea.’

Beyond the sea Robert Starling, late Prime Minister of Great Britain and Chairman of the Council of Prime Ministers of the English-Speaking Union, in a Mediterranean villa, surrounded by his sweet boys, eating delicately, sipping fruit-juice, reading the classics with his feet up, delicately calculated the end of his exile. On other shores of the sea the thalassographers prepared their attempts on the unplumbed green riches with new engines, cunning meters. Untouched life lurked, miles down, leagues down.

‘Sea, sea.’ And she prayed for someone, and the prayer was at once answered, but the answer did not come from the sea. It came from the warmer land behind her. A gentle hand on her arm. She turned, startled. Then, after her moment of wordless shock, she still had no words, only tears. She clung to him, the huge air, the
life-giving sea, man’s future history in the depths, the present towered town, the bearded man at the pinnacle, all shut out from the warmth of his presence, the closeness of his embrace. He became sea, sun, tower. The twins gurgled. There were still no words.

The wind rises . . . we must try to live. The immense air opens and closes my book. The wave, pulverized, dares to gush and spatter from the rocks. Fly away, dazzled, blinded pages. Break, waves. Break with joyful waters. . . .

“Burgess is an engaging stylist with a fine sense of the eerie.”

—
Newsweek

“Here too is all the usual rich exuberance of Mr. Burgess’s vocabulary, his love of quotations and literary allusions. . . . A remarkable and brilliantly imagined novel vital and inventive.”