The Adventures of God in His Search for the Black Girl (5 page)

‘Forever boasting and setting yourself up and denigrating other composers.’

‘Nonsense. Listen to the Elgar tune again. This time I’ll pay him a tribute – in terms you’ll appreciate.’

Ed-ward El-gar, Bar-on-et; O. M., Sir Ed-ward

El-gar, Bar-on-et, O. M., Sir Ed-ward El-gar

‘I said you aren’t always horrid,’ Polyhymnia cried. ‘Now you’ve made it really nice. Indeed, you’ve made it a Sacred Song.’

‘What, should you suppose,’ one of the disciples idly enquired, ‘is the commonest crime?’

‘Theft,’ a fellow-disciple answered with certainty. ‘Unless you count traffic offences as crimes? Those apart, by far the largest category of convictions is for larceny.’

‘How do you know?’ the sage asked.

‘From a table of statistics.’

‘A table’, said the sage, ‘that seems to have left out the
commonest
crime of all.’

‘Which is?’ the disciples demanded.

‘Poverty,’ said the sage.

‘Now really. Even you, my dear sage, with your passion for paradox, can’t maintain that poverty is a crime in itself. I grant it may drive people to crime.’

‘Though many of the poor’, another disciple put in, ‘don’t let themselves be driven. To classify all the poor as criminals is to insult those who resist temptation.’

‘One would think, sage, you’d never heard the ballad “She was poor, but she was honest”.’

‘Tell me’, the sage said when the protests slackened, ‘what a crime is, and why you’re so sure poverty isn’t one.’

‘By all means,’ said the most talkative disciple. ‘A crime is an act against the law. But no law forbids people to be poor.’

‘What’, the sage asked, ‘happens to a person who is
suspected
of having done one of these acts against the law?’

‘He’s brought to trial, of course.’

‘And if it’s proved at the trial that he did indeed do the act?’

‘If it’s a grave crime, he goes to prison. If less grave, he’s fined.’

‘Suppose he goes to prison. What happens to him?’

‘His freedom is restricted.’

‘What does that mean for him?’

‘He can’t do as he likes. He can’t go away to a different place.’

‘And suppose he’s fined. What happens to him?’

‘He has to pay the court some money, of course.’

‘What does that mean for him?’

‘Well, that he has less money left for himself.’

‘If I go to a slum and meet the poor,’ said the sage, ‘I meet people who have very little money for themselves and who
therefore
can’t do as they would like and can’t go away to a different and less uncomfortable place. That is exactly the description you gave me of proven criminals. How can you now deny that poverty is the commonest of crimes?’

‘Very clever,’ said the talkative disciple sulkily, ‘though your argument is in fact a fallacy by undistributed middle. But in any case you weren’t arguing seriously. You know perfectly well that poverty
isn’t
a crime. No one says a poor person has done
wrong
.’

‘So, not being accused, he isn’t put on trial?’

‘Exactly. You’re beginning to admit the difference.’

‘And, not being put on trial, he is never given the
opportunity
to be proven innocent and thus to avoid the lack of money and the restrictions on his freedom?’

‘That’s true, but I don’t like your way of putting it.’

‘How would you put it?’

‘I’d rather not, till I see where you’re leading me this time.’

‘But this time’, the sage protested, ‘
you’re
leading
me
. I set out only to secure your agreement that poverty is the
commonest
of crimes. You began to lead me to a further thought when you mentioned that some crimes are grave, some less so. What is an instance of a very grave crime?’

‘Murder,’ all the disciples said.

‘What happens to a murderer?’

‘He is put in prison, usually for ten years or more.’

‘A person born in a slum’, the sage said, ‘may live there for 90 years, without being put on trial and thus without the
opportunity
to avoid the restrictions on his freedom. Poverty must be not only the commonest but the gravest of crimes, since it may be nine times more grave than murder.’

‘Your clever performances grow tiresome,’ the chief disciple said. ‘Drop your trickery and admit that the poor have
committed 
no act harmful to society.’

‘Then why does society subject them to as much restriction and discomfort as if they had?’

‘Tacitly’, the disciple said with triumph, ‘you’ve admitted that poverty
isn’t
a crime.’

‘Poverty
is
a crime,’ the sage said, ‘but it isn’t the poor who are guilty of it.’

Do you ever take time out to reflect, before you fall asleep in the warmth and safety which we call ‘home’, that there are those for whom the coming of night spells not the end but the beginning of toil?

Year in year out, storm or calm, at just about the time you are kissing your loved ones goodnight, the little fleet assembles and, leaving home and loved ones far behind, heads out into deep waters to face the perils of the unknown, often in
conditions
of indescribable hardship.

Give a thought tonight to this seldom publicised but gallant little fleet as, with the simple courage and good cheer of those accustomed to face dangers without complaint and to toil
unremittingly
for small reward, it sets off to garner the rich harvest poured out by Nature’s bounty.

A motley crew, they might seem to a stranger. And indeed they come in all shapes and sizes, from the majestic armoured might of the killer shark, always alert to swoop on the unwary bather or skin-diver who ventures into the waters the sharks patrol, to the brave little shoals of mackerel gaily jostling each other as they nibble the flesh of any seamen whom favourable weather has washed overboard.

All food caught in this way is, of course, processed instantly, at point of catch. Each fish of the fleet is a fully-equipped factory in himself.

Doubts have been expressed about whether we may not be over-exploiting Nature. With modern intensive methods, say some conservationists, our seas are being over-humaned and there is a danger that the supply of men will be exhausted.

Science, however, has the answer. Human-farming, experts predict, is just round the corner. Humans will be specially bred for the purpose and, when they reach maturity, released on the sea in leaky boats at special release-points within easy hail of the manning fleet.

Will this remove the element of risk and hazard from
manning
? ‘No,’ says this gnarled old man-eater. ‘Manning will always be a fine sport as well as a major industry. I reckon it will always be the utmost test of a fish to pit himself against the strength and cunning of a desperate human.’

And so the gallant fleet heads for home, weary but replete. A few hours’ rest, then out again on the tireless business of
reaping
the human crop.

In certain picturesque manning villages, in a colourful ceremony of immemorial age, the mannerfolk assemble in simple piety to give thanks to Cod, who filled the surface of the sea with humans, thereby providing his fish with tasty dinners.

It is a simple service, with two readings from holy scripture, The Miraculous Draught of Humans and the Miracle of the Loaves and Men. Then, with simple dignity, the clergyfish blesses the manning fleet, and the fleet heads out to sea again.

Our thoughts go with you, gallant manner-folk! Happy manning!

‘No, my dear Judith, you’re mistaken. There’s often a crying noise when the wind hits the castle keep.’

‘But Bluebeard, there is no wind today. The flag on top of the castle keep is lying limp.’

‘Perhaps the wind blows in gusts, my Judith.’

‘But Bluebeard, the crying is continuous. Besides: there is also a continuous moaning.’

‘That’s just the water in the mill-race, my Judith.’

‘Bluebeard darling, when you took me over the castle grounds, you yourself shewed me that the mill-stream has dried up. Besides: Bluebeard, dear—?’

‘My Judith?’

‘Why would you take me only over the castle
grounds
? Why not the castle itself?’

‘This is a big and boring old castle, Judith.’

‘Nothing that belongs to my Bluebeard could bore me.’

‘Judith, it would be better to—’

‘Bluebeard: have you had other wives? Before you married me?’

‘Judith, it’s unwise to—’

‘Bluebeard: are they still in the castle? Is it they who cry and moan? Are they locked in? Bluebeard, what did you do to them?’

‘Alas, Judith, my Judith! It’s not what I did to them. It’s what I failed to do. And they’re not locked in. I can’t persuade them to leave.’

‘Ah, my poor Bluebeard, let me console you. You’ll be safe with me. It will all be all right with your Judith. I love you.’

‘Yes, my Judith. That’s what I’m afraid of.’

The Emperor of the East met the Emperor of the West at a large inflated plastic dolphin a quarter of a mile out to sea.

The Emperor of the West had been taking private swimming lessons to make sure he could get there and back without
exhaustion
.

That, however, was a minimal item in the preparations. Three years of subterfuge had been needed for each Emperor to escape the surveillance not so much of the other side’s as of his own secret service.

It was during a conference that the rendezvous was finally fixed. One Emperor said something which caused all his military, economic and political advisers to go simultaneously flurrying through the files of papers in front of them. While they were seeking the precise text of the subclause he had queried, the Emperor stooped as though to scratch his ankle and managed to push a pencilled note down the side of the other Emperor’s shoe.

The other Emperor communicated his acceptance of the appointment during the afternoon session. He politely extended his cigarette case to the first Emperor. It contained only one cigarette, along whose seam ‘Yes’ was faintly scribbled.

In accordance with the security procedure common to both sides, the first Emperor, having read the message, burned it.

On the day dedicated by the conference schedule to ‘informal leisure activities’, each Emperor contrived to send his
bodyguard
briefly off on a false trail. Then the Emperors swam, each from his own side of the bay, to the appointed dolphin.

Having met, they were careful not to speak before the Emperor of the East, who had in youth been an agile swimmer, dived, rather puffily, beneath the dolphin and divested its
underside
of half a dozen limpet microphones.

In still unspeaking accord, the two Emperors nosed the plastic beast round so that its bulk came between them and the shores
of the bay: this for fear of directional microphones operating from land.

Then the Emperors bumped and bobbed their way along to the dolphin’s tail, to which their two pairs of hands clung side by side, and at last gave one another Good Afternoon.

‘When Napoleon and the Tsar Alexander the First did this in the middle of the river Niemen’, said the Emperor of the East, still rather out of breath, ‘they had a pavilion constructed on a raft for them to meet in.’

‘At that date there was still such a thing as privacy,’ replied the Emperor of the West: ‘at least for the ruling classes.
Nowadays
building workers wouldn’t know how to build a pavilion without building in microphones.’

On a sudden thought he pulled the stopper out of the
inflation
valve in the dolphin’s tail. Inside, there was a
micro-tape
-recorder, which the Emperor tossed out to sea before
replacing
the stopper.

‘We’d better get straight to business,’ the Emperor of the East urged. ‘It won’t be long before my security people become worried about my safety and insist on rescuing me. And I
daresay
yours are the same.’

‘It wouldn’t surprise me if mine sent a gunboat,’ said the Emperor of the West.

‘If they do, mine will send a faster gunboat,’ said the Emperor of the East gloomily.

‘I’ll waste no more time,’ said the Emperor of the West, ‘pleasant though it is to chat with you in the warm sea. I can explain the situation on my side very quickly. My Empire is approaching the last extremes of poverty. Almost all our revenue is absorbed by the quite unproductive business of building
anti-weapons
to answer your weapons, and building weapons to out-strip your anti-weapons. Sometimes I think we’d be better off if we
let
you invade and conquer us. At least, most of us would then be peacefully dead, and those that remained would constitute fewer mouths to feed. As things are, the civilised values which we believe we are spending all this money to
preserve
are vanishing from our lives. I realise’, the Emperor added solemnly, ‘that in telling you this I may have put my half of the world at your mercy. But since you are matching up weapon for weapon, I would guess that you are in exactly the same case
and therefore in no position to take advantage of us.’

‘You can feel absolutely secure about having told me,’ the Emperor of the East replied, ‘because your guess is absolutely right. My Empire is based on a revolution in the name of the people, and the people are daily becoming more impoverished and more oppressed by our security forces: all because we have to be prepared to defend our revolutionary achievement against your Empire. Therefore, if you hadn’t spoken first, I would have said exactly the same thing to you.’

Both Emperors gave a rather plopping sigh of relief. Side by side in the water, they turned heads and smiled at each other directly: two fattish, brick-pink, middle-aged men in bathing trunks experiencing the relief of lovers who, having bravely
confessed
to love, find it reciprocated.

‘Well what in hell’, said the Emperor of the West, ‘shall we do? Couldn’t we reach an agreement to disarm simultaneously?’

‘Don’t be insulted,’ said the Eastern Emperor, ‘but people on my side feel certain that if we reached such an agreement you’d cheat us.’

‘I can’t very well be insulted, because my side believes exactly the same of you.’

‘Couldn’t you’, the Emperor of the East suggested, ‘convince your people? Couldn’t you argue them into sense? After all, you have the advantage of being a democratic ruler.’

‘The people never mistrust a politician so much’, the
Emperor
of the West replied, ‘as when he tries to convince them. If they thought me a man of principle, I’d never be elected again. They want to believe us wily, unscrupulous and
self-seeking
, because they think that’s the only kind of person who can stand up to you. Now
you
, I should have thought, truly could do something, because as an absolute ruler you needn’t bother about carrying the people with you. Couldn’t you just give orders to destroy your weapons and disband your forces? The instant you’d done it, my side would be only too happy to follow suit.’

‘How can you be sure? You might no longer be Emperor.’

‘It’s true I can’t bind my successors. That’s another of the disadvantages of democratic government.’

‘Perhaps your people have elected a peaceful man like yourself only because they know my Empire is strong,’ said the
Emperor of the East. ‘As soon as we became weak, they might throw you out and elect an Emperor who’d take advantage of our weakness. You can’t offer me any guarantee that they wouldn’t, so I couldn’t pass on any guarantee to my committee.’

‘Your committee?’

‘My dear Emperor of the West, you have to deal with an electorate of millions, at least some of whom would agree with you if you suggested destroying all your Empire’s weapons. I have to deal with a committee of six, not one of whom would agree with me. If I gave orders to destroy all our weapons, the six, who normally hate each other, would unite to countermand my orders and murder me. The man who replaced me would build up bigger armies and more powerful weapons than ever, because he would think he had proof that you were more dangerous than ever. Indeed, he’d suppose you had grown so aggressive and so powerful that you’d managed actually to suborn
me
. That’s the only way he could explain my having given such a lunatic order.’

‘I see your point, and I grant’, said the Emperor of the West, ‘that neither of us wields unconditional power. Yet between us we surely wield the largest single quantity of power in the world. Surely that’s powerful enough to do
something
?’

‘You’d think so,’ said the Emperor of the East. ‘But
what
?’

‘We’d better decide quickly or our respective security forces will be upon us,’ said the Emperor of the West. ‘It’s a bit
slipshod
of them not to be here already. No doubt the events of this afternoon, when they discover we’ve been absent and
unobserved
so long, will put them more on the alert, and that will make it harder than ever for us to meet confidentially. Both our Empires will be beggared before we can contrive such another chance as this.’

‘The security forces themselves’, the Emperor of the East grumbled, ‘are one of the most expensive and least productive drains on the revenue. Is that your experience too? In my Empire, about one in four of the citizens is drawing a high salary from the state merely for watching the other three.’

‘In mine, about half the security force is occupied solely in watching the other half of the security force. We have to pay even more for that, because it’s more highly-skilled work. Indeed’, the Western Emperor went on, ‘for all I know, the
entire security force may be self-parasitic. I ought to know what goes on, because I’m the only person with total access to top secrets. But to be the only person with total access is in fact totally futile, because only another person with total access could explain the total system to you.’

‘Could there be’, the Emperor of the East enquired, ‘hope in that?’

‘If you can see it, please expound it.’

‘Well: the financial appropriations for new weapons, for
example
. They go through your parliamentary process? The parliamentarians vote the money for the weapons?’

‘Yes.’

‘But the parliamentarians don’t oversee in detail how the money is spent?’

‘I daresay I’m infringing security in telling you, but no, of course they don’t,’ the Emperor of the West replied. ‘
Parliamentarians
have a very low-grade security clearance. The money for weapons is spent secretly, by experts.’

‘Indeed,’ said the Emperor of the East.

‘What about your committee?’ the Emperor of the West asked in a slow voice that indicated he was thinking as he spoke. ‘Do the experts keep your committee in the dark, too?’

‘The committee votes the money’, the Eastern Emperor
replied
, ‘and each member of the committee would dearly like to know the secrets of how it’s spent. But for each member there are five other members who mistrust him. So rather than let any one member acquire the power that would accompany total knowledge, they all insist on the traditional security procedure of the cell, whereby each person knows only the minimum he needs to know.’

‘So it would be possible’, the Western Emperor speculated, ‘for the money to be voted for defence but in fact to be spent on—’

‘—better things,’ said the Eastern Emperor trenchantly. ‘And no one would know how it was being spent, because the whole subject is top secret.’

‘A man could join the army and be seconded to work in a hospital or a school. That man would suppose secondment to be just his individual lot. He would believe that millions of other men truly were serving in the army, and no one would
know that in fact there
was
no army, because the numbers and dispositions of the armed services are naturally matters of top secrecy.’

‘What about the weapons that already exist?’ asked the Emperor of the East.

‘We’ll order those to be destroyed, on the grounds that they’re obsolete. We’ll say we’re going to replace them by weapons more up-to-date and more effective – weapons which are, of course, ultra-hyper-top-top secret.’

‘And for those supposedly more effective weapons we can get really huge amounts of money voted,’ said the Eastern
Emperor
, ‘which can be spent on
much
better things. Do you know that in my Empire, the very home of the art, we are
contemplating
closing the state ballet because we have no funds for anything except defence?’

‘I was going to ask you if your ballet could come to us on tour.’

‘It can come every year if you’ll put our plan to work.’

‘Agreed,’ cried the Emperor of the West. ‘My first step, like, I don’t doubt, your own, will be to tighten up the security system. Obviously we need very strict security if it’s not to leak out that we have no security.’

The Emperors clapped each other on the sunburnt shoulders, kicked off from the plastic dolphin, sending it spinning out to sea, and swam separately back to their own shores.

To the populations of both Empires it seemed that the Emperor-level conference had been a failure, since the first announcement each Emperor made, on returning to his own capital, was that security was to be tightened.

(The Western Emperor told his agents that his reason for absenting himself for a whole afternoon was as a test of them, and they had not even noticed. That, he argued, demonstrated the need to re-design the whole system.)

Further financial stringencies were expected and, indeed, announced. But though everyone in both Empires knew that more money than ever was being spent on weaponry, no
individual
seemed to be personally feeling the financial pinch. In neither Empire did anyone seem to meet anyone who had actually known anyone whose job was in a weapons factory – though of course that was only to be expected, given the secret
nature of such jobs. What people did notice was that the slums were being pulled down and handsome flats were going up. However, every individual realised that it must be just his
individual
good luck to live in a neighbourhood where, quite against the general trend, it was easy to find a decent home and where, should you fall ill, there was a modern and comfortably
equipped
hospital to care for you.

No announcement was made in either Empire about an
increase
in subsidies to theatres, opera-houses, museums and
symphony
orchestras. But people who went to museums noticed that the buildings had been recently renovated; and people who applied for tickets to performances noticed that tickets had become cheaper and performances better. If you chanced to be acquainted with a musician or an actor, you probably noticed that your friend was suddenly more affluently off and less worried, which probably accounted for the improvement in
performances
.