Web of Everywhere (7 page)

It was incontestably worth trying, though Aleuker himself had little hope of it paying off.

‘Still expecting to win your bet with me, Chaim?’ a voice demanded from his side.

The speaker was Boris Pech, affable, smart in blue suède, manager of the Advancement Authority which was the most recent of the planetary administrative departments. It had grown from a tiny nucleus within the Economics Authority, charged with devising new means of exploiting what the old world had left lying about in such colossal quantities: spare parts for obsolete machinery, adult toys for which there was no longer any call, gambling machines and the like. Boris Pech had hit on countless brand-new tricks, and elected himself automatically as head of the Advancement Authority when it was created five years ago.

Its work was little publicized; the climate of opinion was still against innovation. But sooner or later people would find out that it was still possible, in spite of all, to make progress.

Chaim chuckled. ‘Only twenty minutes are left,’ he said. ‘And the clues we planted are pretty difficult … You were talking to Fred Satamori, weren’t you? He was looking gloomy when he arrived; is something the matter with him?’

A waiter passed carrying a tray of drinks and canapés. Boris helped himself before replying.

‘Not really, but in a way,’ he said eventually.

‘I see. You’ve caught the riddle-making habit, and now you’re talking in mysterious gobbledegook.’

‘On the contrary. I’m speaking the literal truth. Fred stopped off to see Mustapha Sharif on his way here, assuming he’d be among the guests and thinking they might come along together. You know he’s been collecting Mustapha’s work longer than almost anybody else.’

‘Ah.’ Chaim tapped the side of his glass thoughtfully with
one of his rings. ‘Was Mustapha angry at not having been invited, is that it?’

‘Not at all. Fred said he wouldn’t have come even if he had been invited. He doesn’t approve of our trying to perpetuate the – the managerial system we’ve evolved.’

‘He finally came out and said it in so many words? That’s interesting. And a little bit alarming.’

Boris blinked. ‘I’m not with you!’

Chaim stretched, half-raising himself from the chaise-longue as though to cure an embryo attack of cramp. He said, ‘Maybe I exaggerate, but I do believe Mustapha is a dangerous man. Has it never struck you that he’s quite literally the only one of – of us, for want of a better term, who has succeeded in integrating himself into a non-skelter community?’

‘That makes him dangerous? I’d have said the contrary! It’s high time we – ’

‘Naturally, naturally!’ Chaim interrupted. ‘But how has he done it? By ingratiating himself; by what can only be called overt dishonesty. Have you ever attended one of those sessions he holds on the big Moslem feast days, when the imams come and recite the Koran all night long? He’s not a believer. Hell, he edited most of what now passes for the authentic teaching of Prince Knud, and he doesn’t believe in the Way of Life any more than you do! I take it you are still a good dialectical materialist?’

Boris chuckled. ‘About as much as anybody, these days. I don’t imagine Papa Lenin – let alone Grandpa Marx – would find much to agree with me about if we had a chance to chat together. But it did happen, didn’t it, that the Soviet model came in handy when we had to try and reconstruct the world’s economy?’

‘Oh, we’ve stolen from it wholesale, under compulsion. If we hadn’t forcibly redistributed the available resources, far more than two-thirds of mankind would have died; if we hadn’t taken steps to interfere whenever some petty local power group decided to seek vengeance; if we hadn’t made it worth the while of those with the necessary talent to work with us instead of against us, by creating the counterpart of a privileged group of Party members … No, we’d never
have made the repairs we have managed, makeshift though they are.’

‘Mustapha won’t concede the necessity, will he?’

‘Indeed he won’t. And I’ve never been quite sure why. I can’t tell whether it’s because he genuinely hates, on the gut level, everything about the old days and the old ways, or whether it’s that he’s secretly ambitious.’

Boris’s mouth rounded into an O. He said after a pause, ‘I recall a quotation, I think, though I can’t remember the exact words. An English poet who said that people in his profession – ’

‘Ah, yes. “Unacknowledged lawgivers”, isn’t that it?’

‘Yes, precisely. Was it Shelley?’

‘I forget. But you’re right to mention it in this context. At his home in Luxor, Mustapha behaves like a caliph, doesn’t he? By acting out a role which the local people recognize, being unsophisticated enough to want a distinction between rich and poor, he has ingratiated himself, as I said. It is dishonest.’

Boris hesitated. He said, ‘Even so, it’s a white lie, surely. Life would be a lot easier for many of us, including yourself, if we did the same. It’s no coincidence that so many of us now live on small islands, where one can get to know the local troublemakers personally and perhaps calm them down.’

‘Bribe them to calm down?’

‘Occasionally one has to. There’s no alternative. It’s as rigid a predicament as the world was in thirty years ago.’

‘No, no and again no,’ Chaim said. ‘One thing we must
not
do is build the foundations of the future on deception. I know there are people who hate my guts just the other side of those hills.’ He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ‘I can practically feel their breath on the nape of my neck sometimes: Maoris who ran for shelter in the cozy dead end of their old traditional ways, white people of British stock who were brought up to believe that their mother country was the greatest on earth and don’t even yet accept that it doesn’t exist any longer … Nominally I’m a Jew; that gives them enough reason to hate me, even though I bought my land legally, because they’ve always been convinced that any Jew with a fortune came by it dishonestly.
But the one thing we dare not be from now on is hypocritical, Boris! We musn’t imitate the lies that brought the old world down, we mustn’t pretend that riches are a burden, we mustn’t deprecate intelligence, we mustn’t preach loving brotherhood with a Bible in one hand and an H-bomb in the other!’

Boris gave a sober nod. ‘We’ve taken steps in that direction. Making the skelter system free and open – ’

‘Hah!’ Chaim gulped his drink. ‘What does the village kid with ambitions see when he goes to a skelter outlet for the first time? Stucks, hundreds of them, and bracees, blocking his way! You know sometimes they attack people trying to get into a transit booth?’

‘Yes, I’ve heard about that. We shall simply have to put guards on – ’

‘That’s exactly what we must
not
do!’ Chaim flared. ‘Armed patrols at skelter terminals? I can’t think of a worse way of importing the foulness of the past into what we hope and pray will be a brighter future! As a matter of fact, that was the chief reason why I agreed to organize this party. I’m desperately hoping that somebody may turn up who thinks in terms of no-guards, no-guns, no-locks. Come to that, no privateers. If we could only find a few people, just a handful, who’ve lived all their lives with the skelter as a fact, who’ve adjusted to it instead of regarding it as a fearful mechanical monster … ’ Looking lugubrious, he shook his head.

‘What you just said reminded me,’ Boris murmured. ‘How is your private venture in rehabilitation coming along?’

‘What? Oh, the wild girl? Badly, damn it! In fact I’m minded to quit trying. I never realized before, not all the way down, how horrible the prejudices of the past must have been. Nor how crippling they could be to an innately intelligent child. I mean, she is effectively still a child. I’ve tried everything I can think of: persuasion, pleading, force of example, formal instruction, bribery … Doesn’t work. They used to talk about people being afraid of their own shadow. What was done to her made her afraid of her own substance!’

‘But she’ll be around this evening?’

‘I guess maybe. I told her to join us. Don’t waste time on her, though. It won’t be worth it.’

All of a sudden a melodious chime rang out from a bell mounted on the wall of the house, and everybody on the patio glanced reflexively in that direction. Instantly regaining his usual cordiality, Chaim jumped up, glancing at his watch.

‘I just lost my bet! It isn’t nearly eight o’clock yet, and somebody has found the way here! I wonder who it can be.’

INTERFACE H

Doubtless you know better O my beloved

Than to try and make me jealous of a rival.

The world holds so few intelligent lovely girls

I’d feel it selfish to keep one all to myself.

Do though choose for lovers men I can respect.

Otherwise I shall lose all respect for you.

– M
USTAPHA
S
HARIF

At first puzzled, then becoming annoyed, Hans advanced along the high-ceilinged room into which the skelter allegedly belonging to Chaim Aleuker had delivered him. Its privateer was off, which fitted with the notion of a party open to all comers. The room, however, didn’t. At the far end there were long tables over which were draped lumpy white cloths, concealing perhaps plates of food and glasses and bottles of liquor; on the walls were fine pictures, of the sort one might imagine Aleuker buying; but there was no sound, not even music, nothing otherwise to suggest a festive celebration.

Was it just that by some miracle he had arrived ahead of everybody else? Or was the whole affair a cruel hoax after all? One had heard that in the rarefied atmosphere of vast wealth and privilege people developed a distorted sense of humor …

Then a door opened suddenly and a pair of servants emerged: a footman and a maid in identical uniforms of green trimmed with white braid. Both of them were braced, of course; no one with free access to the skelter system had reason to accept menial employment. The girl had a very ugly face, and a scar ran down from her left temple to
vanish under the high collar of her jacket. Nonetheless her figure was excellent: full-bosomed, small-waisted, broad-hipped. Hans wondered briefly why she had been so stupid as to get braced when she could have had her pick of a thousand eager men.

They wished him a good evening – yes, of course, here it must indeed be early evening – and the footman requested a sight of the card which had brought him here. Having studied it, he asked Hans’s name, repeated it under his breath, then beckoned the newcomer toward the windows that had been curtained until a second ago when the maid drew the drapes aside.

Revealed was a magnificent patio framed by greenery, with the sea beyond, where men and women in incredibly elegant clothing were gazing toward him with an air of expectancy.

Hans’s mouth grew instantly dry. He had left home in such haste, he had not bothered to change out of his regular clothes: a short-sleeved shirt and crumpled pants of cotton drill, light enough to be tucked inside a climatized suit, the pockets of both bulging with uncounted oddments. Moreover he was unshaven and his hair was in a bird’s-nest tangle.

‘This way, sir,’ the footman urged. ‘My employer is eager to make your acquaintance.’

It was too late to back down. Besides, he had already recognized the famous Aleuker, and he was indeed beaming with what seemed to be unfeigned pleasure. The maid slid aside a section of the floor-to-ceiling window, and in the footman’s wake Hans passed through to confront his host.

Neither of them made any move to shake hands. The habit had been mislaid; there had been too many fatal contagious diseases. On the other hand, close friends kissed in public far more often than had been customary in the old Western culture: a gesture that converted mere liking into willingness to share risks. Very strange. Hans cursed his head for being crowded with irrelevant data. All these faces, some white, some brown, some yellow …

‘A great pleasure!’ Aleuker was saying warmly. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t quite catch your name when my man repeated it…?’

‘Hans Dykstra,’ he heard himself mutter. ‘I’m a recuperator, from – uh … ’

He hesitated. Mentioning his profession was all right; it was respectable and respected, provided the practitioner was good at it. What he didn’t know was whether it was correct form to refer to one’s place of residence in a circle as exclusive as this one. Respect for privacy these days notoriously escalated in proportion to the square of one’s wealth.

But Aleuker was looking expectant, so he completed the statement. ‘From Malta. Valletta, to be exact.’

‘Ah-hah? Haven’t been there for ages,’ Aleuker said, while Hans belatedly considered a corollary to his last assumption: suppose that obsession with the maintenance of privacy diminished as the means available to protect it increased? ‘Used to have a boy-friend there. Maybe you know Christos Micallef?’

Hans shook his head.

‘Lucky you. She’s a thorough-going bitch.’

?

But before he could speak again a bell chimed, and Aleuker was suddenly looking past him, into the house, instead of at him.

‘Hmm! Looks as though the rush is starting. I hope we didn’t underestimate the numbers – we had the whole project computed, but … Well, that’s my headache, not yours. Have a drink, make yourself at home, excuse me while I go welcome the number two.’

Small wonder, Hans realized as he turned and recognized the second arrival. It was the girl he had nearly met at Oaxaca. Aleuker was grinning from ear to ear. His jubilation faded a little, though, when her boy-friend followed her.

That should have been amusing. Hans, however, was in no mood to find anything funny. Frankly, he was scared at his own temerity. He was as out of place here as a diehard Christian at a Way of Life ritual. Maybe he ought to leave again at once?

No, the hell with that idea. He’d brazen it out for an hour at least, make himself scarce when his absence had lasted long enough for Dany to be contrite. His main purpose had been achieved: he was here, he’d spoken to Aleuker
personally, even though he fully expected he’d be forgotten again in five minutes, and it wouldn’t worry anybody if he hung around in some quiet corner for a while.