Facial Justice (19 page)

Chapter Twenty-six

JAEL'S article duly appeared but the manifestations did not start at once: it was several days before the rumors and whispers and jokes, and the furtive conversations at street corners, suddenly broken off, began to affect the surface of life in Cambridge. At first they took the form of an outbreak of mistake-making which was especially active among typists and female secretaries, with one of whom every businessman and civil servant, however unimportant, was provided. These went out of their way to make mistakes in grammar and spelling, to put words in the wrong order, and make nonsense of the simplest statement. When reproved they either giggled or pertly remarked that they understood that it was not good form, or the Dictator's wish, that their work should be accurate. "As long as anyone makes mistakes, we ought all to make mistakes," they argued. "It wouldn't be fair to the others if we didn't. They can't help it if they're not as quick as we are, but we can help it if we're not as slow as they are." "That's all right, my girl," the employer would say, "but if you go on doing it, you'll be fired." To which they replied, "All right, Armstrong 93, but you'll find that we all do the same." And this was true: the citizens of the New State were so highly suggestible, and so well aware of what was passing in each other's minds, that they not only used the same arguments to justify their mistakes, but made the same mistakes. "I can't think what's come over you, Jael," said Joab. "You used to be a first-rate, no, I won't say a first-rate, but quite a good Beta-rate typist. And now you seem all over the place. What's this you've written? "The birthrate among chiropodists has declined from 111 per cent to 92 per cent.' It should be, of course, 'from 11 per cent to 9.2 per cent.' If what you wrote was correct, we should have to be building the chiropodists a new housing estate. As it is, we shall have to allocate 1.8 per cent of their present dwelling space to the French polishers, who for some reason, which is no concern of my Department, are more procreative." "I can't help it," Jael replied, who had taken some trouble to think up this particular blunder, "it just slipped out. But I don't regret it, nor must you, because it's just an example of the New Outlook, according to which any mistake is valuable, because it emphasizes our common humanity, by showing we are all liable to err." She spoke patiently as to a child. "You wouldn't like me to shame my fellows by not making mistakes, would you? Nor would the Dictator." "I can't answer for the Dictator," replied Joab, tartly, without that drop in the voice with which he usually uttered the great name, "but unless your work inproves I may have to speak to Dr. Wainewright about you. Besides, how do you know the Dictator does encourage, or even sanction, mistakes as such? He hasn't said so. It all comes from that article in the _Leveler__, which many people think ill-advised." "We are waiting for his pronouncement," Jael said demurely. "All we know is that a respect for mistake-making, and a belief in the essential desirability of mistakes, is inherent in his political theory." Joab smiled. "I shall believe it when I hear it from his own lips," he said. "In the meanwhile will you kindly make the necessary corrections? I don't want the new Housing Scheme ruined, especially not by mistakes made at this office. By the way, how are your headaches?" "My headaches?" "Dr. Wainewright told me you were suffering from headaches." "He was my only headache," Jael said. "Oh, really? I thought you were rather partial to him." When the time came for Joab to sign his letters, he found this piece of dialogue embedded in one of them. "Gracious Dictator, Jael, are you mad?" "You mustn't expect perfection." "Why ever not?" "Because it would be very antisocial." In a few days' time, however, he was obliged to accept her errors with a shrug, so much headway had the New Outlook made. Conditioned into being suggestible, the population had no tradition of behavior to oppose to it; they went down like ninepins, as before an epidemic. Besides, it was such fun, both to act upon and to talk about. The general drop in standards made everybody happy. People vied with each other as to who could produce the most ingenious blunders, and make others make them, for it was even more fun to watch than to do. The spirit of the practical joke took hold of them, and every day became an April Fools' Day. People were always sending their friends running on false errands, often to nonexistent destinations; loaded with letters, parcels, baskets, or sacks they trudged along, to be greeted at their journey's end with shrieks of laughter, and sent back to where they had come from. All this provoked intense hilarity, never had there been so much laughing in the New State, and the only time when the mirth seemed to abate was during the official "Five Minutes' Laughter" program--then they all wore long faces and could not squeeze a smile out of themselves. Daily Life was becoming seriously disorganized, even the essential services were being interrupted, when Jael launched her second bombshell. "It has reached our ears," she wrote, in the course of a long article, "that certain people are devoid of birthmarks. Whether it can be considered an advantage to have a birthmark, or an advantage not to have one, I hesitate to say, but clear it is that whichever way you look at it, _it isn't fair__. People who haven't what they feel to be the privilege of a birthmark will want to have one, and those who regard them as a blemish will want to get rid of them. It is essential to the success of the New Outlook--and in saying this I feel sure I am only echoing the wishes of the Dictator--that the position vis-à-vis birthmarks should be regularized. Either we should all have one, or none of us should have one. No doubt in his good time the Dictator will give us a ruling. It is obvious that the accident of birth has nothing to do with the ethical problem involved, except to aggravate it, for who can help what he is born with, whether it be regarded as a blessing or a curse? The great thing is that we should be all alike. I myself, being without a birthmark, regard my condition as an intolerable hardship, and when I think of someone having, for instance, a heart-shaped birthmark just below his heart, as I am told some person has, Bad Egg floods my system and my blood pressure is dangerously increased. Why should not I have such a birthmark? Why should not any of us? The owner of this birthmark is, to my mind, the luckiest man alive. Indeed, I have sometimes wondered whether anyone so lucky _ought__ to be alive! Surely he is a menace to the State, being such a cesspool of Bad Egg. Who is he, that is what we all want to know! Let him come forward and declare himself! But I don't think he will, for he is someone, so I have been told, who shuns publicity and works in secret. He would not like his identity to be revealed, for if it was, who knows what might not happen! But if he won't declare himself, can we not drag his secret out of him? "I have an idea, and I am sure that it will win the approval of the Dictator. It is this. Let any P. and D. be free to challenge any P. and D. he meets to bare his breast and prove that he, at least, is not the owner of the birthmark. And let the one so challenged have the right to challenge the challenger! If neither party has anything to hide, if neither is guilty of harboring the birthmark, then with a brief exchange of courtesies the examination will quickly be concluded to the satisfaction of both sides. But should the challenge be resented, it will be for the challenger to extort, by force if need be, the essential proof, and if he cannot do this unaided, to call on the bystanders to help him. "We do not believe that such an occasion will arise. We believe that every patient and delinquent, not only in Cambridge but in all the land, will be only too glad to demonstrate his innocence, by offering his bare breast for scrutiny--knowing that, when he does so, one drop at least of the poison that infects the State will be dissolved. "And should the culprit be discovered, should the telltale heart at last be revealed to the pure daylight, what then? What punishment is great enough for the wretch who from his birth has enjoyed a privilege denied to all his fellows? It is not for us to say what the penalty should be, but in the name of the Dictator, let it be swift and short!" A day or two passed and nothing happened. The craze for mistake-making went on unchecked. On the whole it was good-tempered, for few escaped the attentions of the practical jokers, and those who had suffered made others suffer in their turn, so there was no feeling of unfairness. And then the pastime seemed to lose its hold; the fun went out of it and instead of laughter pealing through the streets, an ominous silence fell. Men eyed each other with suspicion and hostility. The man so scrutinized would give himself a quick look, wondering if something was amiss with his appearance, or, if he guessed what was in the other's mind, give him a look as straight and hostile as his own. And this went on for several days, the tension growing, until at last someone--nobody ever knew who--stopped a man and challenged him. A knot of onlookers collected, and formed a ring round the two challengers. The chill March wind made it essential to wear plenty of clothes. The first man took his coat off, then his pullover, then his shirt. The onlookers came closer, excited by the strip tease, and when at last he fumbled with his vest and lifted it above his head, they made a strange expectant sound, halfway between a growl and a groan. But the hairy chest was innocent of a birthmark. When the challenger was called on to disrobe, the same sound followed, and the same result: his naked chest, white as a baby's, showed no blemish. But when the two men, who happened to be friends, shook hands and parted, another sound rose up from the spectators, relief mingled with disappointment; then smiles broke out on their faces; they slapped each other on the back and went their way. Now that the ice had been broken, and the age-old convention that a man's body should be treated with respect as something personal and sacred, to be struck, perhaps, in anger, but not exposed in public unless its owner wanted it to be, the challenges became more frequent. For the spectators, if there were any, they took on the quality of an entertainment. Often it was a slapstick comedy, which evoked shouts of laughter, sometimes good-natured, sometimes cruel; but in not a few cases, when either of the men was hot-tempered and resentful, or when both were, it degenerated into a gladiatorial show, and aroused extreme excitement and partisanship among the lookers-on. Fights became frequent; shirts were torn from backs; bloody noses were common; sometimes there were more serious injuries, and the contestants were carted off to the hospital. And the behavior of the spectators deteriorated likewise. From keeping the ring and egging on the combatants, they joined the fray and it became a free-for-all. So popular were the challengings that attendance at the recognized places of entertainment began to fall off, especially at the churches. Sometimes, particularly at night, the scenes were orgiastic; people hardly knew what was happening; they feared or hoped the worst, and started fights or amorous encounters among themselves, without reference to the challengers. The newspapers had always been allowed extreme latitude of expression, even when criticizing the regime; now they excelled themselves. The cartoonists above all were in clover; they had never very strictly observed the bounds of decency but now they threw discretion to the winds. Challengers and challenged were portrayed in every degree of dishevelment, and often in dubious or even obscene conjunctions, their bodies plastered with enormous and fantastic birthmarks, with captions and letterpress to correspond. "Where is your heart, old man? You're not looking in the right place, chum." The variations on this sort of joke were endless. For a time it seemed as though the humorous aspect of the thing might get the better of the serious; for the citizens of the New State loved a laugh--for which, for so many years, they had had very little opportunity and still less inclination. But they had also been for many years denied the outlet of violence, and the appeal of this was stronger. To their extreme suggestibility the presence or absence of a heart-shaped birthmark became an overwhelming symbol of inequality; and the owner of it, wherever he might be, the best-hated man in the New State. Almost every day rumors got abroad that he had been discovered; but they all proved to be unfounded. Many birthmarks, even some heart-shaped birthmarks, were forcibly brought to light (for their owners did not show them voluntarily), but they were never in the right place. "Is your heart in the right place?" the cartoonists playfully inquired; but in fact they never were. To begin with, the female population adopted an aloof attitude to all this: it was just ordinary men playing at being he-men; nothing else could be expected of them. If only they had had their faces Betafied, it was suggested, there would be none of all this nonsense. So when they saw a scuffle, they passed on with heads held high. But they could not long resist the infection of it; where men led, they had to follow. They could not forever be indifferent to what was happening to their husbands and boy friends. Some of them became fanatical partisans of this or that challenger (for there was no limit to the number of times one man might challenge another) and made a cult of him amounting to hero worship. Sometimes they even threw themselves into the rough-and-tumble, getting their faces scratched and hit, and their clothes torn off. On such occasions they were like Maenads, half beside themselves. The soberer sort did not venture out at night, except in little groups; and even then they often had to take to their heels. At last the inevitable happened and a man was killed. There he lay, stark naked, with his eyelids feebly fluttering; then the fluttering ceased. After a moment of shocked silence one of the participants stole forward and almost reverently closed his eyes. The day following was a day of mourning, and not a single outbreak took place. But the day after there were one or two sporadic outbreaks of a rather halfhearted character, and soon, to nearly everyone's relief, the movement was in full swing again. Nor, when the second man was killed, did an interval of mourning follow. Indeed, the very next day there was another death. This time it was Jael's friend Judith, who had taken no active part in the affray, but who received on her temple a brickbat meant for someone else.