Facial Justice (22 page)

Chapter Thirty

A KNOCKING on the door awakened her, or had she dreamed it? Not on her door, for that was open, but on the street door. There it was again, a soft insistent tapping. When she listened the sound ceased, as sounds so often do. She went to the door and opened it a little, but could see nobody. Opening it wider she saw the outline of a figure, crouching on the doorstep with its back to her. "Come in, come in!" she said, mechanically; but no sooner were the words out than her whole being tingled with alarm, for the orders were to let no one in during the curfew. As her visitor crossed the threshold something about her seemed familiar and then Jael knew why: it was the old lady who used to go round the hospitals and had once stopped and talked to her. A nice old thing, the ward sister had called her, and Jael remembered her as a nice old thing. But what a terrible state she was in now! The fur cape that gave her narrow shoulders a false look of breadth was soaked and matted; her full silk lilac dress, which Jael remembered well, was nearly as black with wet as the black lace over it and clung to her frail figure pitifully; her indoor shoes were squelching and oozed bubbles of water at the instep with every step she took: every feeble step, for she could hardly totter, and Jael had to support her into the sitting room. Shivering uncontrollably she dropped into what had been Joab's chair. There was nothing to be said; the poor old woman's appearance was its own best comment; but there was something to be done, and at once. "You must change your clothes," said Jael, "I have some dry ones here." She remembered that she would not need the clothes again, and added, "You can keep them if you like." The old lady did not seem to understand, so Jael fetched a dress from the bedroom, and held it out before her. "I'm afraid it's not as nice as your dress," she said, as one woman to another. "Your dress was so lovely. It will be lovely again," she went on, "when it's dry." The old woman didn't answer, but made a feeble gesture, as though to push the clothes away from her. "You must take them," Jael insisted. "Please take them. It might be serious for you if you didn't." She spoke slowly and distinctly, as though to a child, and a little doubtfully, too; for in the New State no one, in her experience, had ever got wet through, and she didn't know what the consequences might be. "You are very kind," the old lady muttered weakly, in a voice that was like, and yet unlike, the voice that Jael remembered, "but you mustn't put yourself out for me." "I'm not putting myself out," said Jael. "I only wish I had something better to offer you." The old lady, like most old ladies, wore her own face, she had not been Betafied; but she had little or no command over her features, and Jael could not read her thoughts. "Have you no sackcloth?" she at last brought out. "Sackcloth?" said Jael. "Sackcloth?" she repeated. What a strange request! "Do you mean F. S. or M. S.?" (F. S. meant Full, M. S. Modified Sackcloth: they were always known by their initials.) "F. S., please." Jael had a suit of F. S., though she had not worn it since the time, many years ago, when everybody wore it. She fetched it, smelling of moth balls, from a cupboard, and held it diffidently for her guest's inspection. "Do you really want this?" The old lady fingered it with a trembling hand. "Yes, please," she said. "Then may I help you on with it? And I have some other clothes here." She indicated shoes, stockings and underclothes: a complete outfit that she had brought from her wardrobe. A look of fear came into her visitor's eyes. "You are very kind," she said again, in her low, weak, but curiously distinct voice. "But I think I would rather do it by myself." "Are you sure you won't let me help you?" "No thank you, I can manage perfectly well." She spoke with authority, as well as dignity, and Jael, who obeyed orders instinctively, at once betook herself to the next room. "I'll give her five minutes," she thought. What was five minutes in this timeless night? Something--for it brought her by so much nearer to her end; the end she had begun to long for; yet somehow she couldn't think about it, she could only think about the old lady and her present plight. To do something for somebody! It seemed years since she had done that. Make her warm, bring her back to health, restore her! For what? For a life that she would enjoy after Jael was gone--but that did not seem to matter much. Five minutes passed. No sound came from the next room. Give her a little longer, Jael thought. She is too old to be the object of anybody's vengeance. Even the Unholy Office will let her off. She can't have many years to live, but let her live them! In her time she did nothing but good, going around the hospitals, trying to find out if the patients were comfortable and happy. How the Sister and the nurses laughed at her! And yet they half respected her; when she came into the ward, in her funny old clothes, there was a kind of hush. She said something to me about having been punished: "Poor child, you've been punished enough. " I wonder how she knew. She doesn't recognize me, why should she? I don't suppose I shall see anyone who recognizes me before I am R. E. What would it be like to be R. E.? To be empty, but empty of what? Of life? She didn't think she minded. Of self? Perhaps they would drag the self out of her by some kind of spiritual suction. In her mind's eye she saw the open nozzle of a tube writhing toward her; it would fasten on some part of her where the self was nearest to the surface, a powerful vacuum would form inside it, and then her sentient self would be sucked in and pass like excrement along the tube.... Ugh! But yet, how many problems it would solve! A body going about, unconscious but not inanimate, just surviving, like the cineraria. A sort of sleepwalker. At the thought, the thought of a selfless state, she had a moment of ecstasy. To be free of herself at last, the self she had so passionately defended from attack! What use had it been to her? It had been the cause of all her troubles. Oh, to be free of it! And free of the collective self, which sometimes visited her--which visited her now, and cracked her ecstasy-investing her conception of R. E. with all its former honor, the horror in which everybody held it. R. E.! R. E.! The poor old creature in the chair, she might be called R. E., for she was drained of almost everything that makes a human being. She must have been pretty in her time, very pretty. I wonder if it meant anything to her, as it did to me. It must have; it means something to every woman. She doesn't wear a wedding ring, or any ring: perhaps she was crossed in love, as I was. Perhaps the Dictator had a grudge against her. I can't see much future for her, but I'd like her to live on. I think I'll ask her to take care of my cineraria for me: old ladies like having pets. I needn't tell her why: it would only upset her, and she's been through quite enough already. I'll put her wet clothes in the airing cupboard and show her where to find them. I shall just say I'm going out. I can't give her anything to eat, though, because there isn't anything. I suppose they have some tablets left at the Unholy Office, but no doubt they are keeping those for themselves. I wonder if the Underworld will really help us in this matter of food. I suppose they will; but what will the price be? Will they want a certain number of us (them, I mean) to work for them, as ants do? Work until they drop down dead, as used to happen in the Labor Camps? Or will they let us go on living up here, and pay a sort of tribute? It won't matter to me what they do, but it will to her; I should like to think that she will end her days in peace. If the Dictator could see what's happened as a result of all his pretty theories, I wonder what he'd say? Would he kill himself, which is what I am doing? If he didn't, he would find plenty of people who would gladly do it for him, I for one--not only for my own sake, but for the sake of the poor old thing in the next room, who never did anybody any harm, and now look at her! I haven't looked at her properly. It was rather touching the way she didn't want me to watch her undress--she's too old to mind, one would have thought-especially with another woman, a fellow sufferer from the Dictator's spite. I could have made it easier for her, but no doubt she has some quirk of modesty dating from days before we took most of our clothes off to dance. But what a fool I am! I have some food--some tablets which I saved up for an emergency. I quite forgot them yesterday, so much was happening. Now where did I put them? In some safe place, I know. Jael rummaged in a drawer and at the back, under some handkerchiefs where she had hidden them, she found three tablets, yellow, pink, and blue. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner they represented--a whole day's rations. At the sight of them she realized how hungry she was, and would have liked to eat the lot, if she was to be R. E.! The yellow one would keep her going till then, but at the thought of "then" her throat contracted and would hardly let the pilule pass. No, not in my fingers, Jael thought, that is too squalid, and she looks as if she likes things nicely served, so she went into the kitchen and got out her best dish. It was the size of an old-time butter dish and divided into three compartments, yellow, pink, and blue to match the pills. A pity one of them was empty, but that couldn't be helped. But for the food inside her she might not have been able to attend to the old lady; it was odd how much she wanted to do something for her. The clock caught Jael's eye. Gracious Dictator!--oh, that awful phrase--a quarter of an hour has gone by--it's nearly three o'clock--it's nearly three o'clock, only four more hours to zero hour. I must go in and see her--I hope she won't keep me chatting all the time, though. I don't want to be bored my last four hours. Holding the dish in one hand, Jael knocked at the door, and getting no answer, knocked again. When still no answer came she went into the room. The old lady was asleep in Joab's chair. She had put on the stockings and struggled into the skirt, but then her strength had failed her and from the waist upward she was naked. Her back was bent and her head had fallen forward so that it nearly touched her knees. Of her face only her forehead caught the light, the rest was in shadow. Perhaps from some impulse of modesty she was holding her left arm across her breast; her right hand clutched to the wrist. Beside her on the floor her wet clothes were still oozing water. They were not thrown down, she had made a pitiful attempt to fold them. I mustn't wake her, Jael thought, but is she really asleep, or is she dead? She didn't want to touch her so she came nearer and looked closer: was her heart beating? Her thin arm lay across it, but underneath was something that Jael could only half see. Was it a bruise, perhaps? Or a wound? Some injury she had received from a fall or a blow? Poor darling, even that had not been spared her. Jael bent closer. It was pinkish brown, the color of dried blood, and tapered almost to a point, as blood might, running down. But no, it wasn't blood, because it was below the skin or in it, not above. And then she saw: it was a birthmark, a heart-shaped birthmark underneath the heart--the Dictator's heart. She shivered convulsively. Yes, there it was, the Sign that he had spoken of, the Sign that had cost so many lives. And now, thought Jael, it must cost one more. For a moment she had doubted, but now she didn't doubt. It was too unbelievable not to be believed; all the capacity for belief that Jael had left was reborn into that one conviction. The creeping thing, the snake! Every feeling of love and pity she had had for the fugitive was suddenly reversed, transformed into the hatred that had swayed her heart so long. Thankfulness was an emotion to which she had long been strange; she could not have remembered a time when she felt thankful. But now she felt thankful, overwhelmingly thankful, that she had been spared for this last office. Taking her own life, she was also taking another--that other--that had made her life--everybody's life--unbearable. She stole across to the window sill where lay the scalpel that had carved her face up, solitary now, bereft of its habitual companion. As she stood by the window, a sound reached her from the street, which was not the sound of rain, though that sound still persisted. It was another, fuller sound, a kind of roaring, that suggested a dark-red color shot with black. But she did not ask herself what it was, she hardly noticed it, for the same noise and the same color were in her mind, as her hand closed on the scalpel. Now that it was in her hand, she suddenly became conscious of her movements and of the need for secrecy and silence. She tiptoed back and stood behind the chair. The Dictator's head was lolling sideways, exposing a length of withered neck. It would be easier to do it if she could not see her face. Now! Now! But still she could not do it; she needed a moment--two, three moments--to realize exactly what the act meant, its full significance, to her and to history; it was the Dictator she must kill, not an old woman who had taken refuge with her from the storm. She could, she must kill the Dictator, the old woman she could not kill. How keep them apart in her mind--be murderous to the one, compassionate to the other? Need she decide at once? It would be the perfect crime, done under cover of curfew, when nobody could reach her, done too, as few murders had been, under sentence of death, for her own life was already forfeit. How quiet the room was, and how familiar, except for this red sound, red motes, like drops of blood, beating upon her ear. Keep her mind steady, that was the thing; remember that action was a thing-to-itself that happened after the cessation of thought. From where she stood, there was nothing pretty about the old lady; gray hair, thin and wispy where not matted; shoulders too scraggy to be shown; and this inviting length of corded neck-- The drumming, throbbing noise grew louder, died down, returned with increasing force: it was almost like a tune. Was it really going on in her head? Was it caused by the pressure of her thoughts, or of her blood, and would it stop as soon as she had done what she had to do? Thought would take her no further forward, it would only take her further back. She must act at once. But how could she act when somebody was knocking at the door? A wave of fury came over her. How dare Fate interrupt her like this? Knocking or no knocking, she would complete her task. Yet to be caught red-handed! She stopped and listened, and all at once, with the opening of the street door, the sound became much louder, it paralyzed her thoughts. She had just time to lay the scalpel down