Facial Justice (3 page)

Chapter Four

ALTHOUGH it was summer by the calendar, many thousands perished of exposure as well as of starvation, for the effect of the bombing had been to alter England's climate (and possibly the climate of other countries, too) to that of a perpetual March. An east wind blew, and gray clouds, which the sun never quite got through, though its position was visible behind them, scudded across the sky. The divisions of day and night followed the old seasons, otherwise there was little to distinguish them, since the temperature did not vary and there was no vegetation to speak of to mark the time of year. But gradually the creative forces of life asserted themselves, houses were built, trade established itself, the rhythm of work and leisure became more even. Among the casualties of the exodus was the child who led it, the mouthpiece of the Pretty Gentleman. While food and shelter were being improvised the weakest went--not to the wall, for there were no walls--but out of the struggle for survival. At any rate he disappeared. Some said he was still alive and a few claimed to have identified him. In the New State, Truth held no privileged position (privilege of any sort was frowned upon); as sources of information, hearsay and legend were much preferred and carried far more weight. The fluting, piping voice that had rallied the freedom lovers in the Underworld was silent, and a great, golden voice, a voice by far more sonorous and plausible than the dry voice of Truth, was heard instead. Heard everywhere, indoors and out; for no room, however private, no country spot, however remote, was soundproof to it. It could not be switched off. In the confusion that reigned for a short time the boy might easily have been absorbed into the children's quarter, for among the many institutions that the New State took on from the Old was the segregation of children. At first the Dictator's golden voice proclaimed that children should be brought up by their parents: every child should be a Family Child. But this didn't work. For one thing the children were too delicate to be brought up by medically inexperienced persons. In the New State they were exposed to lingering influences of radioactivity that the Underworld had escaped--just as their parents were: the percentage of sterility was much higher above ground than below. The survival of the race was the Dictator's prime concern. So once more the children had to be segregated and were seldom seen about the streets; someone coming new to the place might have thought it was an exclusively adult community. There was another argument for segregation. Most of the children were so inured to communal life and being in an age group that they did not take kindly to solitary confinement with their parents. Except through mass suggestion they could hardly think or act at all; personal approach, individual attention, left them resentful and bewildered; their parents seemed to them another species and a hostile one. So both sides gained, in peace of mind at any rate, by being kept apart. The Dictator, however, declared he wanted to keep the idea of family life alive, and among the many ballets prescribed for Patients and Delinquents of all ages was the Family Dance. The grownups did it and the children did it; in each age section the parents were chosen by lot, the others played the parts of children. Among the grownups it was a favorite ballet: love, care, tenderness, all the most ideal feelings of parenthood inspired it, and so responsive were the adult children that the performance often ended in tears of ecstasy. Among the children it was a favorite, too, but given much more sparingly, for the child-parents treated their child-families with the utmost severity and harshness: smacks, blows, scuffles were the order of the dance; and though it, too, often ended in tears, they were tears of pain and rage. If the Dictator's theory was that vicarious and counterfeit emotions were safer than real ones, then both ballets were successful, for the children's was always called off before they had time to hurt each other. He called his subjects Patients and Delinquents (the shortened form was P's and D's) to remind them of their common fallen state, confirmed by three World Wars; and he sometimes promised that, when they deserved it, he would address them by a different style, and a more complimentary one. Meanwhile, further to remind them of their shortcomings, he obliged each one of them to take the name of _a__ murderer or a murderess. The Department of Criminal Nomenclature had a good many on its books (Biblical murderers were most people's choice) but not enough to go round. To supplement the shortage each name was followed by a number, the first figure of which indicated the district that the person lived in: thus, Jael was Jael 97, and Judith, Judith 91. If, the Dictator said, patients and delinquents learned what it felt like, even nominally and vicariously, to have committed a murder, they would be less likely to commit one. The Inspectors, however, were exempt; no criminal association clung to them. They were named after the Seven Archangels. Officially they, too, had each a number, the Number of the Elect; but it was only known among themselves. None of the laity would have dared to ask; to the laity they were Michael, Raphael, and the rest. It was a relaxed and invalidish Civilization. Everything about it suggested weakness and convalescence. A sort of toadstool architecture was invented, in which circles and curves predominated; corners were allowed, though sparingly, but right angles were forbidden, and no house might be higher than two stories. Traffic was horse-drawn and whips were taboo. Any form of hurry was discouraged. Churches, casinos, and cinemas were erected in every township. The cinemas showed films of the horrors of war and attendance was compulsory twice a week, unless a doctor's certificate of exemption could be produced. In the churches the Litany was intoned all day long; the Dictator promised that when the population merited it, other forms of religious service would be allowed. Attendance at the Casino was not compulsory but one earned good marks by attending, though very little money changed hands, since everyone had the same income and money was only transferable in return for an official receipt. Of course, a great many black-market transactions took place; culprits were always being dropped on by the Inspectors, and fined or made to wear their sackcloth plain, or worse still, to wear it on the one day a week when sackcloth was excused. On those days the offenders usually preferred to stay indoors; for if they ventured into the street anyone could challenge them to perform a ritual dance, and the Inspectors, who formed at least a tenth of the population, saw to it that they did. The townships were so small that the Inspectors knew everyone by sight, and had lists of each delinquent's fines and legal disabilities. So noncompliance was always a risk, though many took it. On the whole, the penalties were not very severe; they were equivalent to wearing an overcoat on a hot day or going without one on a cold day, at worst to wearing a hair shirt. There was a great deal of compulsion in the air, but it was chiefly intended to make recreation obligatory; people were not encouraged to work, though everyone had to work a little and no one was prevented from working if he had a mind to. How did the Dictator enforce his discipline? Partly through the radio, through which with startling suddenness he announced his decrees, and partly through the Inspectors. The Inspectors were a caste apart and were chosen by examination either for beauty or brawn or brains. Some had all three qualifications and were known as Three B's. These they wore as decorations and were entitled to three salaams or whatever mark of respect was the order of the day; the Dictator kept changing them, as he changed so many things. But among themselves the Inspectors were virtually equal. There were women Inspectors, too, but it was considered inexpedient for them to patrol the streets; they either married the male Inspectors and made homes for them (homes were gradually returning to favor) or they held administrative posts, behind doors and windows. In any case, they were not entitled to marks of public recognition. Some said the Dictator was a woman-hater; but others said you could not expect a man to kowtow to a woman, still less a woman to another woman. The third method by which the Dictator maintained discipline was also the most criticized. Every citizen, before clocking in for his or her daily employment, and there were special arrangements for the unemployed, had to drink a daily dose of bromide, the strength of which was carefully calculated to suit the patient's temperament (everyone, except the Inspectors, was regarded as a patient). Attempts to evade this were frequent and sometimes successful; but when detected they were severely punished, either by long spells of ritual exercises or by compulsory indulgence in some sport for which the culprit was known to have a distaste: two rounds of golf was one of the severest. Those whom bromide brought out in spots were permitted other sedatives; but you could safely say that nine-tenths of the population below the Alpha, the Inspector class, who were exempt, were kept permanently below par as far as impulses toward rebellion or any form of throwing their weight about unduly, went. Slogans such as "Betas like Bromide" were put about to gild the pill, and though many people grumbled few regarded it as a real hardship. Many positively enjoyed it and were, in fact, bromide addicts; while others found that when they succeeded in evading it their nerves began to trouble them with symptoms of anxiety and guilt. But perhaps the chief reason why the Dictator kept his hold was that many people still remembered the horrors of the Third World War and the lesser but still considerable horrors that preceded the exodus from the underworld. It almost seemed as though this time humanity had learned a lesson from experience. All the same, there were critics who complained that the regime was too namby-pamby; and one of these, shortly before my story begins, gave his complaint existentialist sanction by committing a murder--the first of the new dispensation. Everywhere the little townships were plunged into mourning; even the Inspectors were put into a form of sackcloth and for a week every cinema and television set showed nothing but close-ups of the body of the murdered man. It was realized that none of the existing penalties was adequate to meet the situation. Ex post facto legislation was quickly passed and it was arranged that the murderer should be Returned Empty to the Underworld, which would know how to deal with him, in exchange for one of its own malcontents whose offense had been political deviation. No one knew what "Returned Empty" meant, but the most terrifying suggestions were put about, and the letters "R. E." (everyone in the New State was initials-minded) came to symbolize the worst thing that could happen, far worse than death, which being common to all, was looked on with less horror. Some denied that the sentence was ever executed; even among the male population the distinctions of individuality were rather faint, and a number might slip in unobserved with other numbers. But by the majority the incident was held to prove that the Dictator still had diplomatic relations with the Underworld. He was in touch, too, it was thought, with the other States which had escaped from bondage when the English contingent did. For the movement had been simultaneous among the cavern dwellers of all nations; their Governments had been powerless to prevent it; half the remaining population of the world was liberated. In the absence of transport and communication these countries were only names to most sub-Alpha English people, but names they were, and most important names, for each had its own epithet attached to it. This epithet the population had to learn, and it might be changed at any time without other notice than the voice of the loudspeaker. It was invariably a complimentary epithet, for the Dictator had declared that the thought of another country must always be a pleasant thought. But the epithets themselves varied continually. Thus, Belgium might be beautiful one day, brave the next, bountiful the next, businesslike the next, and so on through all the alliterative adjectives that made Belgium sound attractive (the Dictator was addicted to alliteration), and Denmark might be delightful, delicious, distinguished, dutiful, or even duty-free. The population had to keep themselves informed of what was the current epithet; and anyone who, when challenged by an Inspector, could not give it, was liable to a fine. If in exasperation he or she said that Belgium was beastly or bloody, and Denmark dirty or detestable, the fine was trebled. France was friendly, Germany generous, Spain splendid, Italy inimitable, Uraguay unparalleled, but only from one day to another. Theoretically, international relations could not have been better, for the name of every foreign country evoked an earthly paradise; and theoretical they seemed destined to remain. Many such verbal booby traps had official sanction; it was said that they kept people mentally and harmlessly on the alert, and were valuable agents of civic instruction. But for the Underworld no epithet, complimentary or the reverse, was ever promulgated. It was itself, no adjective could add to or subtract from it: a symbol of absolute dread. The Dictator's dealings with it, whatever they had been, led to a new departure, the results of which will be told in the next chapter.

Chapter Five

AFTER her _volte face__, so to speak, at the Equalization (Faces) Center, Jael felt like someone who has broken off an engagement of marriage: at once guilty and relieved. Relief would have carried the day, for she was a girl of sanguine temperament, but for one thing: her brother, Joab. Joab 32, to give him his full title, was, like his sister, a Failed Alpha; but as he was a man this carried no social or moral stigma. Had his other intellectual attainments been as undesirable as his gift for statistics, he might have been a Full Alpha, an Inspector; but they were not. He took his position as a high-grade civil servant very seriously; his detractors (for he had them) said that the only time during the day when he was really happy was in the five minutes set apart for serious thought--the "S.T." as it was called, during which no one was allowed to laugh. It might occur at any time, according to the Dictator's whim, and every day produced a new crop of petty delinquents, who had to pay a forfeit: it had even interrupted the midnight call to duty, though it was then very difficult to enforce. Joab was Jael's senior by four years: he had been eight, she four, at the time of the Exodus fifteen years ago. They were orphans and had been brought up in the same Kiddykot in the Underworld, and were allowed the same privilege in the new--for the Dictator had taken over a great many of the old institutions--too many in the opinion of some, too few in the opinion of others. Zeal for the New Order was paramount in Joab; it was said that he was spiritually married to it and would never seek another spouse; but he was also much attached to his sister and had great influence with her. It was almost as much for her sake as for the State's that he wanted her to standardize her appearance; he thought she would be happier if she did. Neither fish nor flesh, looked on askance by their fellows, few of the Failed Alphas were really happy and Jael was a conformist at heart, as Joab knew. To make her position more tolerable he had given her a job as his secretary. To do this he had had to compromise with his conscience, for, in the allotting of jobs, Betas and even Gammas were given preference to Failed Alphas. But the regime was, let us face it, rather corrupt; civil servants had many privileges. Joab, though more strait-laced than most, was prepared to avail himself of them. Besides working in his office, Jael also kept house for him, so she saw a great deal of him. Jael told him about the planting of the tree, and how exciting it had been; she was going back to look at it, she said, in the luncheon interval. "Supposing all the flowers had been killed, too," she added, "as well as the trees! I wonder where they found it," she went on. "A flower is rare enough, but only think, a tree!" "Flowers were better protected," said her brother, "because of their nearness to the ground. It was the things that stuck up that were destroyed. The proportion of flowers to trees is--I could give you the exact figures--roughly three to one. We, don't need either, of course. The plastic substitutes are better in every way." "But think of something _growing__!" "You're just being romantic. Besides, remember what the flowers suffered!" It had been discovered that flowers could feel as much as human beings, or more; the few that remained were taken immense care of, and it was forbidden, under serious penalties, to pick them. Among the many sins and crimes that historians of the regime imputed to previous ages, cruelty to plants came high. "Imagine living in a time," said Joab, "when plants were so tormented! The most precious things we have, and yet they were treated far worse than human beings in concentration camps. "They were picked, which was in itself an appalling shock to their nervous systems (imagine how you would feel, Jael, if someone tore you in half), and left to die slowly in water, a lingering death from drowning and starvation, and then, often before they were dead, they were thrown on a rubbish heap to perish of thirst. It's almost inconceivable, the barbarity of those days." Jael agreed, for it was no use arguing with Joab. To change the subject--for she often told him things about herself that she suspected he might not approve of, for fear of losing touch with him, a danger that constantly threatened their relationship--she went on to relate her encounter with the Inspector. "You mean to say he really let you off the fine!" said Joab, frowning. "Yes," said Jael. "I think it's a pity Inspectors can't be reported," Joab broke out. Then, checking himself: "Well, perhaps not. The Dictator knows best. Darling Dictator." "Darling Dictator," repeated Jael. "Still, another time I think you should protest. And by the way, have you taken your bromide?" Jael admitted that she hadn't, and hastily turning the cock of the urn, poured herself a stiff dose of the sticky stuff. Sitting down in front of her typewriter, which in certain moods reminded her of Joab, she addressed herself to her correspondence. Gradually the familiar deadening of sensation stole through her, a gentle tide, calming her agitation, putting the things that worried her further off, blurring their outlines in a film of whitish mist, but bringing nothing that she wanted nearer, confusing positive and negative, desire and aversion, until she could think of things she liked and disliked without feeling there was much difference between them. "Are you sure you haven't taken too much?" asked Joab, eyeing the medicine glass. He spoke as if he was warning a confirmed toper against excess, but there was real concern in his voice and Jael was touched by it, though she suspected it was due to bureaucratic zeal that she should not exceed the prescribed dose. "Well, I felt a bit nervy," she said. "Why?" he demanded. Jael sighed. It was so difficult to explain anything to him. "Oh, it's all to do with my face, I suppose," she said. "Your face?" said Joab, staring at it. "Yes, wondering whether to have it Betafied." "You haven't had it Betafied!" Joab exclaimed. "No, hadn't you noticed?" "Not till this moment," Joab said. "I had taken it for granted that you would. Oh, Jael!" he added, in sorrow as well as in anger. "What an example to set!" "Don't you like my face as it is?" asked Jael wistfully. "I quite like it as a face," said Joab, as if that was very little to like it for. "But as a potential breeding ground of Envy (Joab went through the motions of spitting: he never used euphemisms or shirked the consequences of ritual words), I heartily dislike it. I heartily dislike it," he repeated, "and you know that, Jael. No wonder you feel nervy. By keeping your face you have transgressed the first law of our common life. What you take to be nerves is guilt. Don't you feel guilty?" "Not altogether," confessed Jael, still anxious to be to him a person in her own right, not a reach-me-down but made to her own measure. "It's my own face after all. I suppose I have a right to it," she said with some spirit. "You have a right to nothing that is liable to cause Envy in the heart of a fellow delinquent," said Joab, pursing his lips for the ritual spit, and using the word _delinquent__, which was still one of the official terms for an inhabitant of the Upper World, though _patient__ was more commonly used. "Our constitution and way of life are based on it." Jael looked at him, as kindly as she could. Joab's looks were definitely Gamma, and though standardization of looks among men had never been considered necessary, before Joab achieved his present eminence, some ill-natured men friends had sent him more or less facetious petitions begging him to have his face altered as it offended their aesthetic sense. His marked indifference, indeed harshness, toward good-looking women may have dated from that time. Jael felt she must defend herself. "I know that Envy is the worst thing possible," she said, moistening her lips for the gesture she knew that Joab would expect of her. "But--" She stopped, for to make an adverse criticism of the regime or its dogmas was almost impossible to her. "Don't you think," she went on, "that there is another side to it--in my case, I mean? Don't you think that when people see me looking pretty--if I do--it makes them feel more cheerful? There's no harm in feeling cheerful, is there?" "None," said Joab, grudgingly. "For reasons I won't go into, your face might make certain men feel cheerful. But supposing they are married men--and most delinquents are married, as you know, the State rightly imposes fines on bachelors--I might have been forced into marrying myself if--" "But you _are__ married to yourself!" Jael exclaimed. Joab looked at her repressively and went on: "The cheerfulness you might inspire in married men can only cause Envy"--his face worked--"in their wives. And that we simply cannot allow. Cheerfulness as you call it--I should give it a different name--is all right in its place, but if it excites a single twinge of what you would term Bad E, then it must be stamped out. Better a population of long-faced delinquents"--he attempted a smile--"than of smirking floosies (the word had a strange effect coming from his lips) out to break up homes." "I'm not out to break up homes," said Jael. "Anyhow, there aren't many homes to break up." "The home is still on trial," said Joab. It was characteristic of him that he did not hesitate to impart information which was perfectly well known to his interlocutor. "It may be discontinued at any moment. Homes are a hotbed of--well, of everything we want to eradicate. You will say (Joab often put a vulnerable argument into an opponent's mouth) that all delinquents' homes are uniform, and that uniformity is the outward expression of Equal--" Their eyes met. "The shortened form, I think," said Joab quickly. He made a creditable bow and Jael dropped a curtsy. "They are as uniform as human hands can make them," he proceeded. "But each has something particular to itself--plastic, an ornament, even the arrangement of the furniture--which makes it individual and therefore a standard of comparison. You will hear people say, in the words of the old song, 'ours is a nice house, ours is,' meaning that it is nicer than other people's. Of course, all houses are alike, and they are the property of the State; but the idea of possession still sur-vives in them: I recognize it, like a bad smell." "But we have a home," objected Jael, "and I'm proud of it" "Proud of it?" echoed Joab. "What do you mean?" "It answers to something in me," said Jael, "something that I aspire to. I don't know how to put it." "By aspiration," demanded Joab, "do you mean a perpendic-ular or a horizontal movement of the mind?" Jael saw the catch in this. "Well, perhaps horizontal," she ventured. Joab sniffed. "So long as it isn't upward," he said. "Remember we can all touch the ceiling." "We can all touch the ceiling," Jael repeated. "And Betafy means beautify," continued Joab. "Betafy means beautify." "Well then, why didn't you keep your appointment at the Ministry of Facial Justice?" Jael moved uneasily in her chair and involuntarily her fingers went to her face. "I don't know.... I don't know... somehow I would rather look myself." Joab shrugged his shoulders. "Well, there's no accounting--" he began. He checked himself and added, rather sternly: "But, of course, there is no such thing as tastes. There is only taste." Then, seeing that Jael was on the point of tears, he got up and awkwardly kissed her. Jael said, chokingly, "They say that Betas don't feel kisses." "Why not?" "Because their faces don't feel in the same way--they aren't sensitive." "Oh, that's all nonsense," exclaimed Joab. "Of course they feel them." "How do you know?" The question slipped out before she was aware of it. But she needn't have been afraid that she had wounded him. "How do I know?" he repeated. "Because I've been told. How else can one know anything?" Jael said nothing, and was turning back to her papers, when suddenly he asked: "What are you going to do this afternoon?" It was unlike him to take an interest in her movements. "I thought of going for a drive," she said, uneasily. "Oh, Jael!" Drives were motor-coach trips, and were notoriously intended for the weaker members of the community. Private motoring was not allowed: it was considered dangerous, de-civilizing, individualistic, and ideologically unsound. Nearly all machinery was in the hands of the Inspectors; they did not need motors, for they had their own ways of getting about. But the Dictator, so he said, was indulgent and compassionate; he knew that the prewar generation had set great store by motoring and he did not want to forbid, as they all knew, any form of innocent corporate recreation. Accordingly, for those who wanted them there were motor trips into the countryside; but they were not popular with the authorities, suggesting that the prewar state of mind still persisted in some reactionary hearts. Intending trippers had not only to pay the fare but a small fine as well. In spite of this, the expeditions had been growing in popularity: queues lined up and the unlucky ones had to be turned away. Jael had never before thought of going on one of these expeditions; she knew that it would mean a bad mark with the authorities. But since her nervous crisis at the Ministry she had suddenly felt an overwhelming impulse to go. She was trying to explain this to Joab, determined that he should know what her feelings were, when suddenly the red light came on and the familiar opening phrase of "Every Valley" was played three times. "A triple warning!" exclaimed Joab, putting on his most official manner. "Please take it down, Jael." The pen was hardly in her hand when the Voice began. "Patients and delinquents," it said, "it has been brought to our notice (for important announcements the Voice spoke in the first person plural) that more and more of you are making use of the Motor Expeditions (Country) Service. This Service was inaugurated, as you will remember, simply as a concession to those members of our community who had been accustomed before the Third World War to travel in these dangerous, unsightly, and (when in private hands) flagrantly antisocial vehicles. But for the representations of our Psychiatric Service, who were of opinion that motor-minded delinquents would suffer severe mental disturbance if deprived of their favorite pastime, we should never have consented to the revival of this noxious and unpleasant form of locomotion. More than any other single cause (unless it be cruelty to flowers) it has been responsible for the hardening of the moral arteries (_sclerosis moralis__) which has been the curse of the twentieth century. Motorists (as they used to be called) were utterly irresponsible in their dealings with each other and with the pedestrian public; for their benefit homicide was legalized. The basic principles of
Equality were flouted, while the opposing principle of Envy was disastrously encouraged." At this point there was a pause.... Jael, while automatically going through the prescribed motions, watched through the window the passers-by who had been caught in the street by the announcement, also performing their ritual exercises. After two or three minutes the Voice went on: "It has been said that in the case of each possessor of a motor car, the ego was monstrously distended; psychic Y-ray photographs have shown as much as a thousand per cent enlargement. And not only that, but each car was to its possessor a badge of social superiority to all his neighbors who could not afford an equivalent vehicle, or perhaps a vehicle at all; while to the owners of more costly machines, these same motorists exhibited a demeanor of groveling servility. We will not distress your ears by using again the word we used just now. Suffice it to say that unless under the influence of alcohol (as they often were) these motorists (the Dictator's normally suave voice hissed the word) were totally without the sense of solidarity of the absolute fusion of interests between man and man, without which our race cannot hope to survive. "We do not mean to suggest that the Motor Expedition (Country) Service would lead to a recurrence of the lust for private property; but we wish to reaffirm our conviction that this antiquated method of progression does preserve the smell, we might almost say the stink (a derisive note crept into the Dictator's voice), of the bad old times. "Patients and delinquents! "We shall not abolish the Motor Expeditions (Country) Service, for we are well aware that the New Dispensation is more readily absorbed by some than by others. But we intend to modify it. In every future excursion one of the six vehicles that compose the Service's fleet will meet with an accident. The drivers themselves will not know which vehicle has been selected 'for this purpose. There will be discomfort; there may be casualties; we hope there will be no fatalities, but this even we cannot tell. "Patients and delinquents! We are confident that none of you will wish to take this risk, but it is for you to decide." Jael and Joab stood up with expressionless faces, and then sat down again. Joab said, "Well, Jael, do you still want to go for a country jaunt?" "I don't know," said Jael. "I shall have to think."